Thursday, April 13, 2006

Grant Wiggins and Oprah

Not to be political, although education is seen as taking care of the "polis," but the idea that it takes a village to raise a child is even more important today. After watching Bill and Melinda Gates on Oprah yesterday it is obvious that all the stake holders in all aspects of a student's life must take ownership of the education of our students.

Large companies who flourish because of the products and services our "polis" provides must begin to return some of the resources back to the education of our youth. Local businesses that rely on the future purchases of our graduates need to become positive role models for our young. Parents need to urge politicians that anything less than an adequate public education will not be tolerated at the Election Day. It is time for America to Stand Up.

As inspiring and passionate as this may sound, currently the student and the teacher are ultimately the only people held accountable for the education of the individuals in society. Teachers passing rates and ability to measure up to the NCLB force accountability heavily on the classroom educator.

Teachers are not alone. Students are also held accountable. Students need to contend with high stakes testing. These high stakes tests are ripe with vernacular of the upper middle class. Students from lower socio-economic ranks are handicapped from the get go with having to learn a new language for a standardized test. They quickly become discouraged as more emphasis is placed on the tests, drop out rates increase, and a replica of a social strata not unlike the one existing in society today begins to blossom in the halls of public schools across the country.

These students become disenfranchised and never become productive members of society.

Although one cannot effectively make a case for the high stake testing phenomena as the sole cause of educational neglect our country is facing; the obvious embedded flaws in a multiple choice sifter of ability can no longer be overlooked.

We as educators must create an alternate way to provide the service of education to our consumers. Grant Wiggins (hyperlined interview from edutopia.org) in his book "Assessing Student Performance" claims as public school educators we have an obligation to provide alternate assessment tools.

We need to realize that students are our "primary consumers".(Wiggins 264)
If McDonald's opens a new franchise in a neighborhood that primarily keeps Kosher and does not change its menu; McDonald's will swiftly go out of business. The failure of the public school system is the result of an unchecked monopoly on the industry of education. We need to elicit feedback from our students, we need to create real authentic projects and assess them using student friendly language based rubrics. Organizing community events and publishing information for their community might be counted in lieu of a standardized test. Without drastic change in our focus drop out rates will not change.


The education system should be looking at standardized rubrics rather than standardized tests. Authentic projects that engage students and cater to the needs of the student/consumers of the school/service provider must become the form of assessment. 30% of our clients are leaving, our business is failing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just read Edutopia's latest magazine and Wiggins proposes tests are good, just not for the purpose we are currently using them.

Tests with immediate feedback are essential to student achievement.

Anonymous said...

Joel Klein looks at the same situation and decides to outsource progress reports 101. "Cambridge Education will begin training DOE staff this spring so that eventually this can become a peer-review process." Donors to the Fund for Public Schools... have committed $500,000 in philanthropic support for this program.

Anonymous said...

So the debate about assessment continues. I agree that the public education system is perhaps in the process of failing our students but I do not necessarily agree that it is due to standardized tests. Let's look at our very own NYS high school exams. Exams like the Regents were put into place to standardize curriculum so that students were being taught the same material. A system of checks and balances if you will and yet at first they were only considered to be for the higher achieving students. In recent years the Regents exams have undergone great change so that they not only address the standards that all students should be expected to reach but also expect students to have a basic understanding of content which is not based on rote memorization but rather critcal thinking. These tests keep not only students in check but teachers as well. But of course the question is should we base the sucess of our students on a standards/content based exam? Of course not but tests do have a value when used properly in a classroom. Tests are very useful as a tool for the teacher to get a grasp on how much a student really understands and can apply the material covered in class. They are especially useful if the teacher can determine the common errors students make and misconceptions students have about what has been covered. Tests can also point out to the teacher were her/his weaknesses might have been in covering a particular unit/topic/theme. As has been written by Grant Wiggins in the recent issue of Edutopia feedback is essential after giving a test and allows students to discover their own weaknesses. Should they be the basis of student sucess? No,but neither should they be considered an absolute evil. They should be used in conjuction with project based work, which when done properly, is so much more difficult for students to do well.

Anonymous said...

So the debate about assessment continues. I agree that the public education system is perhaps in the process of failing our students but do not necessarily agree that it is due to standardized tests. Let's look at our very own NYS high school exams. Exams like the Regents were put into place to standardize curriculum so that students were being taught the same material. A system of checks and balances if you will and yet at first they were only considered to be for the higher achieving students. In recent years the Regents exams have undergone great change so that they not only address the standards that all students should be expected to reach but also expect students to have a basic understanding of content which is not based on rote memorization but rather critcal thinking. These tests keep not only students in check but teachers as well. But of course the question is should we base the success of our students on a standards/content based exam? Of course not but tests do have a value when used properly in a classroom. Tests are very useful as a tool for the teacher to get a grasp on how much a student really understands and can apply the material covered in class. They are especially useful if the teacher can determine the common errors students make and misconceptions students have about what has been covered. Tests can also point out to the teacher were her/his weaknesses might have been in covering a particular unit/topic/theme. As has been written by Grant Wiggins in the recent issue of Edutopia feedback is essential after giving a test and allows students to discover their own weaknesses. Should they be the basis of student sucess? No,but neither should they be considered an absolute evil. They should be used in conjuction with project based work, which when done properly, is so much more difficult for students to do well.