This Shouldn't Be Ingored.
In one of the best Education Week commentary pieces I've seen in a while, Cal-Berkeley professor Heinrich Mintrop has stated what is an elephant in the room--in general, schools that score highly on test scores don't do anything differently than schools that perform poorly during testing season.
A telling excerpt:
"Both high- and low-performing schools get stuck in a mode of school improvement that searches for the most direct connections among content, teaching, and testing. Students’ motivation for learning, as well as instructional quality, fade from view beyond the “rigorous” alignment and a “razor sharp” focus on material that needs to be re-taught."
Education "reform" and improvement efforts represents anything but reform and improvement until we start rethinking the purpose of school. I agree with Professor Mintrop: the importance of student engagement, intrinsic motivation, and innovation instructional approaches are all overlooked aspects of teaching and learning.
posted by Questions for Schools @ 8:37 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Education research cannot possibly "get" the school culture that produces better schools. I can almost guarantee you that there is a world of difference in quality between the API 1 school I teach at and the API 10 school one of my relatives teach at.
Right off the bat, far more advanced programs like COSMOS and Robotics and other programs for students. Higher level electives are offered.
Of course, there is no tagging on her campus and no one dresses like a gangster and puts 18th street gang tags on the walls.
The fact of the matter is there is a world of difference between API schools of even 1 and 4. Once you are on the ground at these schools and not just looking at "data" you see the differences. Students are far more respectful as well and you don't encounter as much of an anti-academic attitude. Students tend to have the skills they need to succeed. Big, big, big differences.
I believe you are correlating "better" students with "better" schools. Teachers at all types of schools generally hold the same beliefs, use the same teaching practices (like traditional grading), so there are few variables to study at schools with high test scores to see how this might help reform in more difficult working environments.
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