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9486 in the collection
Getting testy over WASL leaves students still at risk
Ohanian Comment: She says prima donna; I say people who can think for themselves.
She says disobedient; I say ethical, moral, and courageous.
She says high standards; I say corporate control of the future workforce.
She says a whole lot of refried garbage straight out of the Roundtable playbook. For starters, Gates and Broad are part of the problem, not part of the solution. This is just one more part of the truism that when money talks, the media listen.
"We've got work to do. The U.S. will need to hire 2.8 million new teachers due to upcoming retirements, high turnover and growing enrollment. Prima donnas need not apply."
Ms. Varner,
I would suggest you job shadow Mr. Chew for a few days, once he's back at work in his classroom, before you even hint that he is a prima donna! You should be ashamed of yourself for buying the political tripe of the Business Roundtable and other standardistos! The Carl Chews of the world know that there is no such thing as a standard child. You hint that you may understand this too, yet you hold out faith in a reform system that treats children as if they are so many assembly line items without hearts or souls. WASL is here to sort out the "rejects"-- those who don't "deserve" to go to college or gain a good job because they don't think in the way the test requires or assimilate themselves to jump just the right height for WASL hoops.
WASL as a graduation test is good? Tell that to the student who has been accepted to a 4 year college but missed passing the writing test by one point so won't receive a high school diploma. Tell that to the student who has been pulled from his technical courses, where he was headed to a career certificate, to take a WASL prep math class because he failed the test that is too flawed to be a requirement yet dictates coursework. Tell that to the student who has passed all classes, remained in school 13 years, yet has to toss the graduation announcements in the garbage and cancel grandma's flight from California. Frustration, bitterness, lack of trust for a system they believed in. 16,000 bitter 18-year-olds who stuck with it for an empty hand and a sick heart and family on graduation day. 16,000 times the next 3, 4, or 5 years = social and economic disaster! Where were you at 18, Ms. Varner? Mature, all knowing, accepting of the decisions of your superiors and ever-resilient? Would you have been proud to be a "super senior" and return to test prep for a "get out of high school" pass? I don't know you, so perhaps you would have been all of these things, but, if so, you weren't a typical 18-year-old.
I also suggest that without courageous acts by individuals, the changes you admit need making in the WASL system will never be made. For 14 years, school reform has mistreated special education students and second language learners. Where is the outrage? Have you ever written a column about these atrocities that deserve airing, or did Carl Chew's statements wake you up to them? What does it take? Sometimes it takes a refusal to ride the bus or drink the tea or give the test.
Please ask yourself why, with all the hoopla over standards and testing, students are worse off than they were before the current reform began. Could that reform based on standards and testing have been the wrong way to go? No improvements in the past 25 years? Why? Has WASL narrowed the achievement gap or widened it? Has WASL brought broadened opportunity to minority students or shuffled them into more remedial classes? Did we know before WASL that some students were being ignored and allowed to flounder? Of course! Now we know double and triple and we're telling the students they're failures over and over again in big red WASL letters, based on this test that doesn't begin to tell them-- or us-- why they failed.
In Birmingham Alabama, in 2000, 522 African American students were pushed out of classes just before test time and never allowed to return. Never happen in Seattle? Don't you believe it! Not as long as some are eager to believe in the tests instead of looking closer at their fallout. Did Seattle not reclassify 10th grade students as 9th graders to boost scores? How many of those students were African American? Latino? Pacific Islander? How many of those students came back for 10th grade?
Our state superintendent has openly encouraged a practice of educational triage, since she began directing education reform in our state. Incremental progress is not recognized as worthy, because it does not show up in test success percentages. $28 million was spent on summer school for level 2 category members of the Class of 2008; level 1 need not apply.
As long as WASL scores are the goal, children, particularly children who are challenged in any area of their lives, will suffer and will not meet their potential. Intelligent, caring teachers like Carl Chew know this. They care about each and every student they teach, and they are not influenced by WASL potential when offering appropriate learning opportunities to every child with whom they are entrusted.
"Engorged with self-importance"? Again, you should be ashamed. Mr. Chew is the most humble man I have ever had the privilege of meeting.
Apparently, Mr. Chew's positive impact and the positive feedback from parents, teachers, and students have brought out the worst in you and your counterpart Mr. Jamieson at the PI. You have both used repulsive words to describe a courageous act and a humble and caring teacher.
You are both wrong, and you should both be ashamed.
Juanita Doyon, Director
Parent Empowerment Network
Why are you fighting so hard?
"First they ignore you; then they laugh at you; then they fight you; then you win." ---Ghandi
by Lynne K. Varner
The Eckstein Middle School teacher who characterized his refusal to administer the WASL as an act of civil disobedience deserves to have his bloviated defense cast right up there with Hillary Rodham Clinton evading sniper fire in Bosnia.
Thumbs up to Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson for yanking him out of the classroom. Sixth-grade teacher Carl Chew makes compelling arguments against the state's Washington Assessment of Student Learning but a suspension offers a sharp reminder that he doesn't make the rules. Imagine if every teacher engorged with self-importance went rogue? Save Our Children would no longer be a mission overseas.
Like it or not, high standards are here to stay. Measuring academic progress is one way we know whether we're coming anywhere close to reaching those standards. One teacher's protest, even backed by the powerful teachers union, won't change this.
On the political hustings, the three presidential candidates are in agreement over world-class standards to navigate a global economy. Benchmarks like the WASL aren't perfect. More money and flexibility are needed. Finding room next to math and reading for other subjects, such as the arts, is necessary.
But while Chew draws kudos for his march on the WASL, public education remains stuck in a time warp. It was 25 years ago that "A Nation at Risk" shocked educators and lawmakers with a withering critique of public schools. The outcry over declining academic standards jump-started education reform.
Some 90 million children later, an update claims a stunning lack of progress. Among many basic deficits, one in four high-school seniors cannot glean basic information about subway fares by reading a Metrorail guide.
Seattle doesn't have light rail, but don't breathe a sigh of relief yet. "A Stagnant Nation: Why American Students are Still at Risk" argues that a lack of political will and attention paid to three priorities — school time, teaching and standards — have harmed students. Two out of five high-school seniors lack skills commonly taught in seventh- or eighth-grade math. Reading skills have declined for students of all backgrounds, including those with college-educated parents.
The report is part of a nonpartisan education campaign funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Its 30 pages should be seen not as an exact recipe but a wake-up call to keep pushing, even when some, like Chew, push back.
The anti-WASL crowd is unwittingly behind a Trojan horse for all sorts of anti-movements, with targets ranging from academic standards to high-stakes testing. They are behind the times. The WASL is a moving target evolving to accommodate the needs of students as we speak.
Buried in the latest anti-WASL Sturm und Drang are insightful points that deserve airing. Teachers are forced to spend too much time preparing students for a test too narrow to be useful. Concerns over the erosion of recess, free time and the freedom for those eclectic teachers who best captivate students are well-founded.
The response is common sense. If teachers are using curricula based on statewide standards, and the WASL tests are based on those standards, there should be no need for 11th-hour tutorials. But the reality is, much of what goes on in the classroom is not related to the standards. That's an instruction issue and teachers can't evade it by pointing the finger at the WASL.
Another needed fix is the WASL's pass-or-fail rigidity. For graduating seniors, amassed credits, grade-point averages and WASL scores are correctly fixed. But such inflexibility in the lower grades robs us of meaningful information from the WASL. We need to know whether a student's failure on the math section came at the hand of algebra or more basic calculations. Moreover, fixating just on passing WASL ignores the incremental improvements students make.
Another weakness is the test's inflexibility when it comes to special-education students and those who don't read English. Administering the test to students who don't have a remote chance of passing it serves no purpose other than to humiliate. Special accommodations are the right response, but ought to be just the beginning of developing workable assessments of students who won't benefit from the WASL.
We've got work to do. The U.S. will need to hire 2.8 million new teachers due to upcoming retirements, high turnover and growing enrollment. Prima donnas need not apply.
Lynne K. Varner's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is seattletimes.com">lvarner@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com
— Lynne K. Varner
Seattle Times
2008-04-23
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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