I have elementary school kids, and I feel like they are CONSTANTLY being 
tested...unit tests, curriculum tests, SOL prep tests...sheesh.  Isn't there 
another way to show progress?

Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt
www.luxuriouschoices.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cathie Seifert" <cseifert at lovetoread.org>
To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:41 PM
Subject: [SpecialTopics 837] Re: EducationGuardian.co.uk: 
Smallerclasssizes'not cost effective



>I was disappointed to hear about the problems in Virginia.  I have not

> taught there since 1989, but when I taught there we had POS instead of 

> SOL,

> and I found them to be worthwhile because they were designed to test only

> what we had to teach and I could keep track of who still needed to learn

> what and who had really mastered what.  Luckily for me and for the 

> students,

> this had nothing to do with No Child Left Behind or Merit Pay and was just

> very helpful to keeping me and the students on track.  The way I used the

> tests I would say was formative assessment; when students were tested at 

> the

> start and end of the school year, I would say they were used as summative

> assessments.

>

> Cathie

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov 

> [mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov]

> On Behalf Of Katherine

> Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 5:56 AM

> To: specialtopics at nifl.gov

> Subject: [SpecialTopics 767] Re: EducationGuardian.co.uk: Smaller

> classsizes'not cost effective

>

> No hold on : )

>

> "We need to change what teachers do day in day out in the classroom

> and we need to get better teachers into the profession."

>

> In the United States (in my state of Virginia and in other states) we have

> Standards of Learning tests.  These tests require teachers to feed 

> material

> to students at break-neck speed with little time for formative assessment

> other than constant testing.  Because of class sizes and the state

> requirements (which spill into national requirements via the "No Child 

> Left

> Behind" act), teachers have VERY little time to address questions from

> students who really have NOT understood the material.  Several times I 

> have

> heard the complaint, "I had a question but the teacher didn't have time to

> answer it."

>

> SOL scores in Virginia directly impact funding, and often negatively.

> Qualified and quality teachers are forced to teach to the test.  To boot,

> the states are cutting school funding, as is our county.  We have

> over-crowding in, I would guess-timate, just about ALL of our county 

> schools

>

> which to me clearly indicates unbalanced priorities.  We have students in

> TRAILERS attempting to learn in unstable environments because of

> over-crowding.  How does this cost us?

>

> Drop outs.  SOL failure.  Discipline problems.  Increased administrative

> time addressing issues that could be taken care of in the classroom IF it

> was manageable.  Failure to identify and properly address possible 

> learning

> disabilities.  And as we know, students who fail in K-12 have a harder 

> time

> contributing to the economy if and when they graduate.  This spills over

> into poverty and unemployment rates.  It's all connected, and most

> bureaucrats don't see it.  They think short-term, from budget year to 

> budget

>

> year with no thought of the future for the schools or the community.

>

> So.....add up all the numbers from the above, and I KNOW they won't match

> those in this article.

>

> How are our public schools supposed to survive in such an environment?

>

> Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt

> www.luxuriouschoices.net

> ----- Original Message ----- 

> From: "David J. Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net>

> To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>

> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 5:14 PM

> Subject: [SpecialTopics 756] EducationGuardian.co.uk: Smaller class

> sizes'not cost effective

>

>

>> Colleagues,

>>

>> Tom Sticht spotted this on the EducationGuardian.co.uk site and sent

>> it for our formative assessment discussion.

>>

>> -------

>> Note from Tom Sticht:

>>

>> This article about formative assessment appears in todays (2/25/08

>> Education Guardian online.

>> -------

>>

>> To see this story with its related links on the

>> EducationGuardian.co.uk site, go to http://education.guardian.co.uk

>>

>> Smaller class sizes 'not cost effective'

>> Anthea Lipsett

>> Monday February 25 2008

>> The Guardian

>>

>> Reducing school class sizes in an attempt to raise pupil achievement

>> is a waste of money for all but the youngest children, one of the

>> country's leading experts on assessment said today.

>>

>> Cutting class size by 30% gives children the equivalent of four extra

>> months of learning a year, but costs around &#163;20,000 for each

>> class every year, according to Prof Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of

>> the Institute of Education.

>>

>> He said the more effective method of "formative assessment" - where

>> teachers monitor their pupils' progress continuously and provide

>> appropriate feedback - could provide eight extra months of

>> educational development for only &#163;2,000 per classroom per year.

>>

>> "It can therefore be 20 times as cost-effective as reducing class

>> size in terms of pupil achievement," he told the annual Chartered

>> London Teachers Conference today.

>>

>> "Smaller classes do confer a benefit if pupils are unruly, because

>> fewer pupils in a class means less disruption. But as long as pupils

>> are well-behaved, then what you can do with a class of 20 is

>> generally possible with a class of 30.

>>

>> "Smaller classes can also be more cost-effective for five to seven-

>> year-olds, but research suggests the class size needs to be reduced

>> to 15 or less," he said.

>>

>> Wiliam added that investments in information communication technology

>> have also shown a poor return. But international studies have

>> confirmed that formative assessment can double the speed of pupil

>> learning.

>>

>> Some teachers use a "traffic light" system and ask pupils to hold up

>> different coloured cards to show whether they have understood what

>> they have been told. Red means "no", amber means "partly", and green

>> "yes". Pupils are also encouraged to evaluate their own work and

>> advise their classmates on how they can improve.

>>

>> The English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish education departments

>> have all provided varying degrees of backing for formative assessment.

>>

>> After three years of research in both the UK and the US, Wiliam

>> concluded that the approach would only take off properly if teachers

>> work together in school-based groups to refine their classroom methods.

>>

>> Wiliam and his co-researchers found that groups of eight to 10

>> teachers who meet once a month for at least two years can be most

>> effective. "It takes time to change teachers' ways of working,

>> particularly if they have been in the classroom for many years," said

>> Wiliam. "Simply telling teachers what to do doesn't work."

>>

>> "For example, most teachers have heard about research from the 1980s

>> which shows that if they wait three to five seconds after asking a

>> question their pupils' performance improves because they have been

>> given some time to think.

>>

>> "Even so, many teachers are still allowing less than a second for

>> pupils to respond. The conclusion we can draw from that is that

>> knowing what to do is the easy part of teaching. Actually doing it is

>> what's hard."

>>

>> Wiliam told EducationGuardian.co.uk that teacher quality was key to

>> any improvements.

>>

>> "To reduce class size from 30 to 20 would need 150,000 more teachers

>> and that would dilute the quality of teachers," he said.

>>

>> "We need to change what teachers do day in day out in the classroom

>> and we need to get better teachers into the profession."

>>

>> Martin Johnson, acting deputy general secretary of the Association of

>> Teachers and Lecturers, said the research should encourage the

>> government to "put its money where its mouth is".

>>

>> "Staff need to work together to learn how to teach more effectively,

>> but schools will need more resources to do this. [Wiliam] reminds us

>> that this would be very cost-effective.

>>

>> "Schools have benefited hugely over the last decade from having more

>> classroom based staff but much more training is needed to make their

>> deployment fully effective.

>>

>> "And while the government says it encourages assessment for learning,

>> its testing policies have stolen teachers' self-confidence so new

>> training must be provided and resourced.

>>

>> "School staff desperately need a contractual entitlement to training

>> which meets their individual needs."

>>

>> Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited

>>

>>

>>

>> David J. Rosen

>> Special Topics Discussion Moderator

>> djrosen at comcast.net

>>

>>

>>

>> -------------------------------

>> National Institute for Literacy

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>

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