[AAACE-NLA] Maliteracy Practice in America

[AndresMuro@aol.com]

Bob wrote:

"To some extent I agree.  I got a great education in high school and college, but I know too many people who didn't at either level."

I agree with this. My point is that when we went to school, teachers had freedom to teach and evaluate the way they taught and some of us learned and some of us didn't. Nowadays, with increased standardization of assessment, teachers don't have any more freedom, and still some of us learn and some of us don't. Standardization has not increase positive outcomes.

At the same time, there are some consistency in the characteristics of those who do not succeed in traditional academic systems. Poverty, ethnicity, education of the parents, gender, culture, neonatal and early childhood care and education all appear to have an impact of educational achievement with or without standardized assessment. Hence, standardization of assessment will not change outcomes.

We know, for example, that a young pregnant teen from a poor black inner city family has lesser chances of doing well in school, and so does her unborn baby, unless there are some specific interventions. Standardizing assessment mechanisms will not increase the chances of success.

Teachers having freedom to teach and evaluate students the way they please, may, at least allow them to explore some of those interventions. Either way, education achievement will not improve significantly unless there is a realization that the exisitng educational system does not work for all.

Andres

In a message dated 10/21/2003 10:34:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time, RBickerton at doe.mass.edu writes:

>
> Andres,
>
> To some extent I agree.  I got a great education in high school and college,
> but I know too many people who didn't at either level.  I find it
> interesting and, to some extent troubling, that in the face of enormous
> deficits over the past two years, K-12 education was level funded, ABE lost
> about 3% and public higher ed lost about 30%.  I do believe that the
> pressure for standards based education is on it's way to higher ed as well.
> I don't believe they'll see much of their funding restored until it's
> underway.  
>
> for what it's worth,
> bob
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AndresMuro at aol.com [mailto:AndresMuro at aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 6:40 PM
> To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
> Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Maliteracy Practice in America
>
>
> Bob, et al:
>
> When I went to elementary school, high school, and college, each professor
> had a differnt way of assessing their students. At the end of a class, the
> professor would give us a grade. However, there were no standardized
> instruments. I don't know if it was better or worse, however, it gave
> teachers some freedom to be creative. Many of us turned out ok, I guess, w/o
> standardized tests. It was the word of the teacher.
>
> Andres
>
> In a message dated 10/20/2003 7:49:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> RBickerton at doe.mass.edu writes:
>
> > Tom, et al,
> >
> > How should student assessment in ABE (literacy, ASE, ESOL)
> > be conducted?
>
> go here: www.geocities.com/andresmuro/art.html
>
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go here: www.geocities.com/andresmuro/art.html