Quasi Dictum

A place for educational perspectives and opinions. Legalese: The statments at this site are of the writers only. Quasi Dictum has no control over the information you access via links, does not endorse that information and cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information provided.

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Location: Vancouver, WA, United States

Teacher

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

In the summer of my discontent, a sane voice (finally), " This spring, Mary-Powel Thomas got a letter notifying her that the school her two sons attend in Brooklyn had failed to make "adequate yearly progress" for the third year in a row. As a result, under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, she could send them to another school, or they could get extra tutoring if she kept them at PS 38, which is only three blocks from their home.

Ms. Thomas, who is president of the local PTA, decided to do neither. "My kids have gotten a great education at that school," she says. "The word failure is thrown around really carelessly."

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Travis, Ben, et al. does this sound familiar "A third of Wake's 80 elementary schools will start using a new grading system in August that replaces traditional letter grades with a numerical Level 1 through 4 scale." However the lame argument about changing still exists, "But critics say the change is too confusing. Part of the confusion is that school officials say a Level 4 doesn't equate to an A, a Level 3 doesn't equate to a B, and so on." Why is that confusing? When you talk about proficiency it's not suppossed to equate to a letter grade. Read the article. Measure growth not height.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Don't forget to advertise this blog to any and all interested parties.

Nice to have Ben here in the "blogosphere", and I also agree with him. The new rules only lead to more subversion of those rules. Since the Fed's demand only the outcome, the means don't matter.

Saturday, July 05, 2003

Is this wrong? Miami-Dade County school officials are investigating an elementary principal who wanted to weed out problematic students who live outside the school's attendance area -- and who may be dragging down standardized test scores.

How ironic. Speaking of highly qualified, "If you've got a 4.0 grade point average in chemistry, that would be the last person I would hire. They probably wouldn't be able to communicate with a kid," she said.

I think non-specialized teachers do have a reason to be concerned right now. Districts and school will be in non-compliance with the feds new rules if teachers are not "highly qualified". In Washington and Oregon to meet the standard you need a bachelor's in a subject i.e. math, history, etc. I read in the Oregonian that about 60% of middle school teachers are not "highly qualified" and the school has to inform the parents of any and all students that those teachers have. With that can of worms open, parents can request to move their kids to a qualified teacher. A potentially ugly situation.