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    #103954 06/01/11 06:30 PM
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    Sailing Offline OP
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    Not to get into the middle of a political discussion, but does anyone feel that the federal mandate (with funding tied to the mandate) to "close the achievement gap" has hurt the higher performing kids?

    It has been on my mind a lot lately as our district has sent out many county-wide emails talking about how proud the district is of closing the achievement gap by 21%.

    At the same time the emails are going out, the school REFUSES to test or let my child go past a (dictated by central office) reading or math level. They won't even test him. It is a county-wide rule that kids can't be tested/taught past a certain level.

    It kills me when I see the emails go out about the "excitement over closing the achievement gap" because in my mind I'm thinking "yea, I know how you closed it!" I can't help but think that the achievement gap isn't closing because the instruction is better on the lower side, but rather the learning is halted on the upper end.

    Am I wrong in this line of thinking? Please correct me if I am.

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    Val Offline
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    Originally Posted by Sailing
    Not to get into the middle of a political discussion, but does anyone feel that the federal mandate (with funding tied to the mandate) to "close the achievement gap" has hurt the higher performing kids?

    The achievement gap gets closed when higher-performing kids stagnate, so yes, you're right. The whole point is to stop the bright kids and teach the underachievers. If you let the bright kids move ahead, most of the underachievers wouldn't be able to catch up and the achievement gap would stay in place in schools just as it does in the real world. Can't have that! shocked

    The educators I've spoken to about this don't see themselves as not allowing bright kids to learn. They take the view that these kids are already "proficient," which to them means that no more attention is warranted. When I've asked, "Why not teach the bright kids too?" the reaction from the majority with whom I've spoken has been confusion: "Why would we do that? They're already proficient."

    I've tried to argue that it's important to strive for excellence, but I've never got much of a response.

    I think that this approach is part ideology, part a response to the demands of NCLB, and part a failure of imagination. Some of them really don't see that excellence can mean more than getting 100% on a grade-level test of basic material.




    Last edited by Val; 06/01/11 06:55 PM. Reason: Clarity
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    NAGC has a report "High Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB" http://www.nagc.org/uploadedFiles/News_Room/NAGC_Advocacy_in_the_News/Fordham.pdf on this issue. On the NAEP, from 2000 to 2007, students at the 10th percentile (near the bottom) made larger gains than students at the 90th percentile, but one ought to look at the trend lines of the 10th and 90th percentiles before the NCLB era before drawing even provisional conclusions.

    I have written about the achievement gap in other threads.



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    Originally Posted by Val
    Originally Posted by Sailing
    Not to get into the middle of a political discussion, but does anyone feel that the federal mandate (with funding tied to the mandate) to "close the achievement gap" has hurt the higher performing kids?

    The achievement gap gets closed when higher-performing kids stagnate, so yes, you're right. The whole point is to stop the bright kids and teach the underachievers. If you let the bright kids move ahead, most of the underachievers wouldn't be able to catch up and the achievement gap would stay in place in schools just as it does in the real world. Can't have that! shocked

    The educators I've spoken to about this don't see themselves as not allowing bright kids to learn. They take the view that these kids are already "proficient," which to them means that no more attention is warranted. When I've asked, "Why not teach the bright kids too?" the reaction from the majority with whom I've spoken has been confusion: "Why would we do that? They're already proficient."

    I've tried to argue that it's important to strive for excellence, but I've never got much of a response.

    I think that this approach is part ideology, part a response to the demands of NCLB, and part a failure of imagination. Some of them really don't see that excellence can mean more than getting 100% on a grade-level test of basic material.

    You also have to put into the equation that in many places, a teacher's pay and their school's funding (so essentially their jobs) are all tied to closing the achievement gap. I know as a teacher it is like having your hands tied because the amount of stuff I HAVE to do for the lower 25% of my student population takes up so much time that I physically don't have enough hours in a day to do much of anything for my higher end kids.

    When I do "rebel" and take time for them I get asked all sorts of questions about why I haven't been keeping up with X,Y, and Z, and don't I realize that if they don't show " a year's worth of growth" our school could get in trouble or our school grade could drop and we could lose what little money we get?

    Many of my colleagues have adopted the attitude of "why would we spend time of the upper end - they will already pass the test" for survival reasons, not because they necessarily believe it to be the right way to do things. I can't really blame them because if you are in a state like Fl then starting next year 50% of my evaluation will be tied to how my students do on the state exam. Now, if I taught all honors classes, like some people that would not be an issue for me - I'd say great, no problem, BUT when 50% of my teaching load is the lower end of the spectrum, who are low achievers, for a variety of reasons (including the fact that they really don't care and are just treading water until they are 16 and can quit, or are 18 and graduate some how) - I am not happy with this change in things. Of my students who will determine how well I get evaluated I would say that about 25% of them will not pass any standardized test given - no matter what I do with them, and no matter how easy the test is.

    I am philosophical about it though and since, I agree that there is an achievement gap, and we should try to do something about it, I do rebel when I can so that the gap isn't being closed at the expense of the higher kids. Would I do this as often as I do if I didn't have 2 daughters at the higher end????? I don't know, because I don't think I would be as acutely aware of it as I am now.

    So, as much as you would like to think that teachers are sacrificing our kids for the good of the other end, I seriously believe that many are doing it because they honestly believe that our kids and others like them will succeed, despite all of this nonsense.

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    Thanks everyone for posting. I really appreciate your thoughts.

    Kerry, thanks for posting from the teacher view. It is so great to hear your view from both perspectives!

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    Val Offline
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    Originally Posted by Kerry
    ...in many places, a teacher's pay and their school's funding (so essentially their jobs) are all tied to closing the achievement gap... I physically don't have enough hours in a day to do much of anything for my higher end kids.

    When I do "rebel" and take time for them I get asked all sorts of questions about why I haven't been keeping up with X,Y, and Z, and don't I realize that if they don't show " a year's worth of growth" our school could get in trouble or our school grade could drop and we could lose what little money we get?

    So, as much as you would like to think that teachers are sacrificing our kids for the good of the other end, I seriously believe that many are doing it because they honestly believe that our kids and others like them will succeed, despite all of this nonsense.

    I agree with everything you said, except for the part about the kids succeeding anyway. I disagree there and present as partial evidence 1. our poor performance on international tests, 2. our need to import grad students and skilled workers, 3. the existence of this board and the many stories we've read here. Proficient on a standardized test is a long way from excellent in any domain.

    It seems to me that the US is beginning to fall behind other countries, and if too many of those educated smart people from abroad decide to leave, we'll be in trouble.

    Our education system just doesn't create people who are thoughtful. But that's another story. I met my deadline and now I must eat!!

    Val

    Last edited by Val; 06/02/11 07:51 PM. Reason: Clarity
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    If we are intent on ensuring that all children make educational progress, and we are intent on being able to measure that progress through testing, it seems to me that, rather than having a single (low) passing score which all children must meet, which pretty much dooms the high-achieving kids to educational neglect, the rational way to approach this would be to track individual scores on meaningful measures yearly, and mandate that the schools ensure that all children who are performing at or above grade level at the beginning of the school year make at least one year's worth of progress from that point by the beginning of the next school year, and that children who are performing below grade level move closer to grade-level performance.

    This would mean that low-performing students would need to make more than a year's worth of progress in a year, which might mean that districts would actually have to (gasp!) start providing services and intensive instruction to the kids that they identify as having learning disabilities. It might also mean that teachers would not be able to just ignore kids who had already mastered all the grade level content, but I for one, am willing to take that risk. They would have to provide appropriate subject acceleration or risk not meting their targets.

    People value what gets measured and what gets praised or punished. If you don't measure and you don't reward appropriate education for gifted learners, you can't expect to see much of it happening in the schools.

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    Originally Posted by aculady
    This would mean that low-performing students would need to make more than a year's worth of progress in a year, which might mean that districts would actually have to (gasp!) start providing services and intensive instruction to the kids that they identify as having learning disabilities.

    Too often these discussions ignore the existence of low-IQ children. Treatable learning disabilities are hardly the sole cause of low performance, and I doubt they are the main ones. Many students are low-performing because they are low-IQ. Low-IQ children learn more slowly than children of average IQ. Expecting a group of low-performing students to learn faster than average students (not to mention high-performing ones) is unrealistic, although there will be individual cases of low-performing children (who may have had especially bad teachers or missed many school days in the prior year) who catch up.


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    Last edited by Mark Dlugosz; 06/03/11 04:40 PM. Reason: Edited - please be respectful on the forum.
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