Letter: Schools seem less organized today

I remember when I was a young girl in school having a math book, a science book, social studies etc., and being told to study a particular chapter in preparation for a weekly skills test. There were problems to work at the end of each chapter and reviews to complete. If I could master those problems, I could expect to pass the tests.

What an amazing concept! Even 30-plus years ago, without the use of computers and fancy electronic devices, a student could understand clearly his or her assignments, perform well on tests, possibly make honor roll, eventually graduate from a university and go on to contribute to society.

Today, I am a mother of two wonderful boys, ages 8 and 9. They attend a tremendous school in Ascension Parish (Galvez Primary), but I have no idea what chapter in math my sons are on. I have no idea what set of problems they should be able to work by the end of the week, what English concepts they are learning, what social studies topics they are covering and only a slight understanding of what they need to do to prepare for tests. All I have is a one-page weekly newsletter vaguely describing a few topics and skills.

My sons’ bring-home folders consist of a mumble jumble of preprinted papers stapled together with “important information” underlined and highlighted.

Some of the papers they bring home are not completed. Should they be completed? What have they been tested on? What should they study? I have no way of knowing. Do students have textbooks anymore? This mountain of paperwork is detrimental to the students with dyslexia and other learning disorders, not to mention the students with difficulty organizing papers.

My sons’ lessons seem to jump from one topic to the next without giving them a clear understanding of anything, in a seeming rush between school holidays, early dismissals and teacher workshop days.

Nicole Soirez

pharmacist

Gonzales

Comments

1) Comment by bourbon-soda - 23/02/2013

I use NAEP rather than LEAP because I don't trust LEAP. Meanwhile, what ever happened to the logical textbooks?

2) Comment by bourbon-soda - 23/02/2013

@Atilla - All education discussion devolves to Jindal/White/budget or teaching to the test. Are you implying that not teaching to the test would bring about worse results on the test? That would be an answer to my earlier question (Did not- teaching-to-the-test result in worse test results that today's?) If teachers were not teaching to NAEP at the time of NAEP's implementation, what were the results? Has the devolution to teaching-to-the-test make things better? If not, why would a return to not-teaching-to-the-test lower NAEP now? I know that a mid-career teacher halfway to retirement cannot lightly buck the system - that's one of the purposes of a back loaded retirement system - but couldn't a teacher who has persevered to retirement seniority tell the martinets and tyrants in the system to stuff it, just teach, and see the results? Just asking, which I know is easy.

3) Comment by Attila - 23/02/2013

If teachers did not "teach the test" what do you think the result would be. It is hard to imagine a level that is below failing, but that would be the result.

4) Comment by bourbon-soda - 23/02/2013

Trying to get back to the Sb of the letter, I am trying to find some explanation for the demise, decried by the letter writer, of the ordered and logically organized textbooks of the past to today's chaotic textbooks and paper-storm and on-line learning materials, without much success. What happened and why? Does anyone know? Does it have anything to do with attempts to accommodate different what the intro to one modern house-of-mirrors book called learning styles or Gardner's multiple intelligences? Some of them almost seem, to me, to be designed to frustrate and handicap the traditionally successful organized and analytically inclined student.

5) Comment by teacherguy - 22/02/2013

@SuzanneMS - I am COMPLETELY aware of the passive aggressive, "understandings" between principals and teachers of the past and have had my fair share of administrators who did not care about test results...however, my current principal has his knickers in a wad because our test scores will be used to determine his value as a principal...so I have been beaten into submission - literally - into removing everything from what/how I teach unless it directly relates to test scores. Considering I teach in one of the "top districts" in the state...if it is happening where I am, it is taking solid root everywhere else, too.

6) Comment by Traveler - 22/02/2013

SuzanneMS; I've followed your comments in this venue for some time, and it's clear to me that you have more than a "passing acquaintance" with public education. I assume that you work in the field in some capacity. So do I----and my experience is both deep and broad. I am only too familiar with the definition of "teaching to the test"----if you read my comments carefully, I think that you will see that I deplore the concept. My point (which Bourbon_soda gets, but you do not) is that some educators are endeavoring to find ways around the ridiculous teaching formats that they are being constrained to follow.

7) Comment by Traveler - 22/02/2013

Bourbon_soda: I like your phrase, "workarounds"----it's very apt in this situation! As you say, standardized tests have been around for a long, long time. However, they were once simply used as one of many diagnostic/prescriptive tools that teachers employed to measure the progress of an individual and/or an entire class. Today, scores on standardized tests can be a "death knell" for a teacher or a student. Even the manner in which standardized tests are administered is absurd. For example, we know that the attention span of an average fourth-grader for one task is about 20 minutes. Yet standardized testing requires that the fourth-grader sit still, and quiet, for much longer periods each day, for an entire week, to take the battery of tests. Going further, we know that some students display mastery better when they can demonstrate comprehension through oral explanations or demonstrations. Yet standardized testing (except in unusual circumstances) is in writing mode only. We know that some students do not perform well under pressure. Yet teachers are forced to place so much importance on the tests that some students are filled with dread and stress during testing week. What the public may not realize, also, is that the companies that produce, sell, and then score those standardized tests make a FORTUNE! In heaven's name, what are we doing to our children?!

8) Comment by SuzanneMS - 22/02/2013

You might want to tell that to teacherguy, Traveler, as he seems unaware of it. There seems to be a misunderstanding about what "teaching to the test" means." "Teaching to the test" means, and has always meant, concentrating on only that knowledge that will be tested on a given exam, rather than teaching the broader principles and concepts of the subject from which items for the test will be drawn. Because student scores on LEAP (which was instituted in 1986, so no, you don't have to be "very old" not to have taken it; you only needed to be in 9th grade in 1986) are used to evaluate both the school and the teacher, there is considerable pressure for the teachers to focus only on those specific concepts that will be tested, and to teach strategies for selecting the right answers rather than learning the information. It's the same thing that Kaplan and all of the other test-prep companies utilize. This, of course, means that the teacher cannot respond to the needs of the students and modify lesson plans and goals accordingly, either for better or worse; they have to continue to teach what will be on the test. If the teachers "simply teach" and their students do not do well on LEAP, they won't need to retire -- they'll be found "ineffective" and fired.

9) Comment by bourbon-soda - 22/02/2013

Most organizations have their "workarounds" to circumvent idiotic aspects of management. It would be interesting if some of the teachers provoked into retirement at the prospect of being insulted or offended would instead instigate civil disobedience by simply teaching instead of "teaching to the test." Anyone who was in public K-12 before there were standardized tests must be very old.

10) Comment by Traveler - 22/02/2013

SuzanneMS: actually, there are more "understandings" between trusted principals and faculties than one might think. It's one defense mechanism against the insanity that good administrators and teachers are facing these days. My account is not meant to be documented----just treated as an interesting anecdote, and believed by those who so choose. I have a stack of such stories----some funny, some dramatic, all entertaining, and all true. You may compare these "arrangements" to civil disobedience in a country that has an autocratic despot, if you like.

11) Comment by nicolesoirez - 22/02/2013

The biggest influences on student performance are first FAMILY, second TEACHERS, third, CURRICULUM. Ironically, what this state’s educational leaders have managed to do has: crippled parents, buried teachers and destroyed curriculum.

12) Comment by nicolesoirez - 22/02/2013

I was initially motivated to put my thoughts on paper when my 4th grader began bringing home F’s. I’ve since realized that I share the sentiments of many, many educators, parents and administrators. When educated people (teachers and parents) can’t use our state’s guidelines to effectively educate our children, we have a serious problem. No one can argue that our education system does not need to be reformed. But how we reform and what steps we take in the interim are paramount. This is where I feel Mr. White, the BESE and our parishes’ local school board and superintendents have failed us. And until they figure out a way to incorporate all the latest technology and research into our schools curriculum in a way that doesn’t crush children, cripple parents and bury teachers, then they should blow the dust off those outdated textbooks and get back to work.

13) Comment by bourbon-soda - 22/02/2013

No one is explaining why textbooks and other learning materials are now so chaotic. Is this a separate development from "teaching to the test" or are the 2 related?

14) Comment by SuzanneMS - 22/02/2013

They will continue to blame the teachers, just as they are doing now. The problem with comparing today to yesterday is that back in our day, there was no standardized test. Teachers may have used a test that was prepared by a textbook company or created their own, but they made the decision about which test to use. They knew what we needed to learn in their class, and they taught it to us. The test was designed to see how much we had learned. They were evaluated on their ability to teach, by a principal or senior teacher actually visiting the classroom, not on the ability of their students to pass a standardized test. Sorry, Traveler, but if it's off the record, it's impossible to verify. I've read far too many articles and reports, such teacherguy's below, that contradict this claim.

15) Comment by bourbon-soda - 22/02/2013

@Traveler - You are welcome. Your account reminds me of the lieutenant in Vietnam who decided his responsibility was to preserve the lives of his men in a stupid and futile war, whom he marched ostentatiously into the jungle to fire off some rounds and return after fake combat. The VC in the area left them alone, figuring that if they killed this platoon, they might be faced with someone who actually wanted to fight. There have always been sane people in insane places, and thank God for them.

16) Comment by Traveler - 22/02/2013

Bourbon_soda: I LOVE your first question----thank you! To answer you: "Off the record," I know a public school principal who tells his faculty (who adore him for his courage and respect for them) to turn in whatever paperwork to him is required under this silly new plan, but then to "close their doors and teach, as they know how to teach." By the way, his school's standardized test scores were "through the roof" the last time I checked. You're correct----when veteran educators are allowed to do what they've been trained to do in professional degree programs and have learned to do by experience, students excel much more than under the absurd "teach the test" mode. I'm wondering what excuses BESE and the current legislature will offer parents and the general public in future years, when the results of the debacle they have created become apparent? Perhaps, they'll all leave the state rather than try to justify their foolishness.

17) Comment by yardeggs - 22/02/2013

Your neighbors in EBR have the same problem. I have three children in an excellent elementary school here, but I am hard-pressed to figure out what they're doing. When they do bring home a workbook, they've skipped around so much it makes your head spin. One night, they have to do page 68 in math, and the next night it's page 3! I genuinely like my children's school, administration, and teachers. But I completely agree with Nicole; I can never figure out what lessons they are learning and what they may be tested on at any given time. So when one child is struggling in a subject, it's incredibly difficult to help them improve here at home. But what do I know? I'm not even an ineffective teacher...I'm just a parent.

18) Comment by bourbon-soda - 22/02/2013

1) Didn't students do just as well as today or better when there there was no "teaching to the test"? I ask this because maybe a strategy of just teaching, rather than "teaching to the test" would produce better outcomes on "the test." "Teaching to the test" at one time was limited to instruction on strategy for various types of questions, if that, and results were at least equal to today's. 2) I wish I had saved more of my textbooks. They are gold compared to the "materials" distributed today. The equivalent of more than three of today's semesters of college calculus was taught out of approximately 7.5 x 10 x 0.75 inch text without sidebars, modules, or digressions, for example. 3) Follow the money.

19) Comment by Traveler - 22/02/2013

Nicole, your concerns should certainly be heeded----but the fault does not lie with your child's teacher. Teacherguy is correct. Emphasis in public schools today is, unfortunately, on "passing THE test." For that shift, you may thank BESE and your state legislature. Control over what your children learn, and how they learn it, has been taken away from professional educators (and you). It's a well-orchestrated plan to deform public education. The ones who are benefiting are the politicians who are fattening their war chests with rewards from anti-public education forces and the profiteers who are fattening their wallets by charter-school operations. Please read the other letter-to-the-editor in today's online edition of The Advocate, from a teacher who is about to retire.

20) Comment by teacherguy - 21/02/2013

Excellent insight from a parent. Let me expand on some of the anonymity of teacher methods these days...I used to give students a study guide that if they memorized it, they could make an A on my unit test. However, I don't provide study guides anymore...why not? Because if a student makes an A on my unit test, but scores in the Basic, Approaching Basic, or Unsat categories on LEAP/iLEAP (study guide too extensive to memorize)...then my teacher quality is placed in serious question...so, your kid ain't gettin a study guide from me anymore...and I will spend my time teaching him how to master the test taking strategy of word relationships so he can pick out the best answer on a standardized test. Hey...I let down the kid if he fails the LEAP and has to give up his summer in remediation/repeat his grade...if he fails the LEAP they say I'm a failure....so I could care less about anything but forcing him to recall 300 vocabulary words (actually 280) and using a few buzz words in a basic format when writing constructed responses (supply/demand, natural resources, trade and transportation for economics and geography, representatives/republic, rights, responsibilities, bill of rights, for civics, and hope we discussed whatever the historical question covers). I promise, what I do in the classroom does not expand too much further than that...and I'm one of the best 25% in the state according to VAM....bring on the next group of kids...