American Kids Are Still Testing Below the Fifty Percentile

Here is a great article that highlights some of the issues plaguing education and why we continue to have sagging reading scores. The chart below is relatively misleading. Imagine if the 100% was visible in this chart as opposed to having it stop at 60%, and then imagine if it were turned to represent a horizontal depiction as opposed to vertical. The results are actually staggering!

Percentage of U.S. students proficient in reading

My Immediate Response:

It is still shocking that only 36% of our nation's 8th grade students are reading at grade level. That reality has not changed very much since 1974 when nationalized testing began. Here are a few thoughts on that issue:

School has become about far more than giving our kids the basics necessary to survive in a world dependent upon common symbolic representations of language. When Nationwide testing began in the early 70's it was discovered that in theory the majority of the USA was illiterate or maybe, the testing did not really measure the actual ability of the 3rd/5th grade test taker. Nothing has changed! At that time millions - now billions of dollars has been invested into research to understand that our 3rd/5th grade students have not really progressed over the past 40 years, because the research is ignored!

First and foremost, all teachers need to be diagnosticians with the time and support needed to help identify our struggling learners. Additionally, we need to eliminate or at the very least reduce the quantity of standardized testing and all the many tests that do not diagnose issues, but merely give a level of data that only shows a commonality among the students. Assessments must be meaningful, pertinent and purposeful.

It is an imperative that parents along with teachers and association/unions come together to fight the insanity that has become standardized education. I have said for as long as I have been in education "follow the money" therein lies your answers." Then, listen to the warnings out there about the overuse of mobile devices, internet and social media, unless it is purposeful and advancing a student's learning. Failure to do so is setting our kids up for failure. The overuse of testing is taking away from our student's ability to progress. Remember - "Tests do not teach," only one on one time focused on what needs to be learn teaches humans. Data can be used to identify growth, but only when a person is actually being measured specific to what has been taught and that is not necessarily appropriate by way of standardized testing.

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read

Broader Bolder Approach to Education Elaine Weiss joins Mary E. LaLuna_Education and Poverty

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A Must Read on Education Reform, "Rhetoric Trumps Reality"

Market-oriented education reforms’ rhetoric trumps reality

"Reforms fail when they ignore the poverty related causes of achievement gaps."

:High turnover rates harm students." As is evidenced under Michelle Rhee's leadership in DCPS. Tom Carroll, The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future indicates that like in any profession, experience matters. "As Tom Carroll, president of the commission, notes, this figure ignores “what may in fact be the largest costs of teacher turnover: lost teaching quality and effectiveness”

Commentary by, MELaLuna, the greatest problem that I have with Michelle Rhee, the reformers, congressional leaders, publishing companies all the way to Marzano, Hunter, and the other "leaders in education" is that if you look deep into their portfolios, financial supporters and CV/resumes, you will discover that they spent little time in the classroom and/or have not been in the classroom for so long that they have lost touch with what a classroom today looks like. Then follow the $$$.Many of them have never felt or seen poverty first hand. I equate it to someone I knew who was on her 3rd marriage in 15 years. She had known her new husband for less than a year before they married. They had only been married for less than 2 years. They had both been married 2 times before and all 4 marriages between them had failed. As I was sitting eating dinner with them one night they shared that they were going to write a book on marriage, what works. I had to keep myself from choking on my food as I wanted to laugh hysterically. I had been married for 17 years at that time, and had known the man I married 3 years before we married. I knew then that there was no way these 2 could possibly write the perfect "how to" book. They never wrote the book, and 8 years later their marriage ended tragically as she discovered he had been cheating with her contemporary for over a year. The moral of the story is...people who have little working knowledge of the profession have no business imposing their concept of reform on a system that has been evolving for over 200 years in the United States and for centuries before that. If you want to know what teaches human beings, spend some time with Moms and Dads who are their children's first teachers. Go back in history and explore how the greats before us and without formal education evolved to become president, scientists, discoverers and leaders. Then look at our classrooms and ask if we are possibly doing anything to develop the next generation.

In short, do a reality check, the reform is not all you think it is. The scandal that Michelle Rhee was involved with is not unusual and has happened in numerous school districts under fire, seeking to prove that their way works. I witnessed it happening at a school I worked and I had to report it. It is a huge part of the problem and maybe one of the reasons why so many schools seek inexperienced, alternatively trained teachers. Those of us who when through traditional programs were developed over time to keep to a certain standard and we have years to figure out what school looks like.