I have no idea if it does or it doesn’t, nor do I have any real knowledge about any one state requiring Master’s degrees. I was just suggesting one possible reason for the disparity. I think it’s mostly a tax-base funds-available thing.
Could very well be the case. I get the impression from the teachers I work with that parental involvement has a lot to do with student achievement.
I am just a comma-mover; I am not an educator, educational administrator, or analyst in any way. I just check the spelling and grammar.
In what ways are they different?
Thanks,
Rob
It’s really very simple. In the "old days"s there was no such thing as a grading curve. A student passed or failed a test. Today the entire class can fail a test and the highest grade gets an “A”. That creates a situation where students are passed through the system with failing grades.
If it’s Masters Degree in teaching techniques that may or may not be true. If it’s a Master’s degree in the field that is taught I would imagine it not to be true.
So a Master’s degree in math would be useful for teaching math because it demonstrates a solid knowledge of the subject.
My sister teaches developmentally disabled kids at a high school in Louisiana.
When NCLB was instituted and for a few years after that the requirement was that all students take the same test. This angered my sister because the tests were expensive and there was no way that any of her students would do better than abysmal on the test. The test would make her higher-functioning students feel bad since they were aware that kids in regular classes actually understood the questions.
They have since put in special tests for the special education classes. I’m not sure how well they work – some of her students can’t read at all and naturally none read at anywhere close to the level their age indicated they should be reading. Many aren’t advanced enough to work at a sheltered workshop when they leave school. By law, students can stay in the school until they are 21, and every year she has to work with some parents to determine what will happen to some students when they can no longer attend school.
I’m venturing into opinion territory, as I’m too lazy right now to search, but every state offers completely different curricula, textbooks and funding. I don’t know exactly what Massachusetts offers vs. Mississippi, but I can tell you that curriculum from one state to another varies wildly.
I’ll give you this much.
Here is the curricula for Massachusetts.
Here is the curricula for Mississippi.
Please let me know if I turned out to be dead wrong and the curricula are identical between those two states.
He’s asking why the curricula figure into Massachusetts schools being better, not just whether they’re different. I don’t think anyone would argue that the two states (or any two states) have the same curriculum.
I’m trying to avoid making any political statements here, but I’m thinking where more money per kid is spent, there is often better rigor in the curricula. One could look at the two links I provided above, look at the science curricula, and um, form an opinion for yourself which might be “better”. However, this is opinion, and we’re in Great Debates, so bottom line is, I’m not really qualified to answer that from a Great-Debates-standards point of view.
Certainly, districts with higher budgets can offer a broader variety of content with greater depth of rigor, such as advanced maths and sciences, labs, computer equipment and programming courses, art, PE, music, vocational courses, AP programs, IB programs, special needs programs… Some districts might be lucky to have the talent and resources to get in Algebra and Geometry, while other districts might be able to offer several different advanced Calculus classes and advanced science classes with labs (chemistry, physics). It’s still only my opinion that more money = better access to talented, well-trained, well-educated teachers, better, newer up-to-date textbooks, depth of rigor, variety and specialization of content, and variety of extracurricular opportunities. It looks to me – opinion and not Great Debates standard of answer, I know – that more money spent appears to result in higher standardized test scores. If the tests are based on the individual state standards, then the real analysis should be a comparison between the standards of each state and the rigor of their assessments. Rather than trying to compare apples and oranges, it’s probably slightly simpler to just adopt a common core set of standards and one common assessment across all states so that the disparities between state budgets don’t screw over the kids.
Hasn’t inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending increased since 1970?
Rob
Where? Each state spends a different amount.
Here’s an article that suggests higher spending per student = better schools.
Here’s one that breaks out what each state spends per student.
This map aggregates federal spending + state + local district.
This downloads a PDF from the NEA, which is a report entitled, “Rankings of the States 2010 and Estimates of School Statistics 2011”
I remember that. The Feds seemed to have forgotton that most students in special ed are there because they are below grade level and they wanted to test to see if they are at grade level rather than evaluating their growth according to the IEP. :smack:
Oh and a student in special ed can stay in school intil they turn 22.
probably. It doesn’t necessarily mean the money is used fo education or for the average student. There are requirements for special-education students that by default mean higher costs per pupil for those kids. You have to factor that in. We know pay for breakfast and lunch for many students, School clinics, extra counselors. It all adds up. It’s impossible to compare the budget of my generation to the current generation on an apples to apples basis.
I wanted to add that we didn’t have air conditioning, digital projectors in every room, or day care. We just got a dedicated auditorium at my high school in the mid 70’s. We used the gym before that. We also just tore down every single school in the city I use to live in. Every one of them. That was a chunk of change. They did that the same thing in the city I’m living in now. A lot of Federal money went into it so I suppose I should thank China or the yet-to-be-born for it.
IIRC, Florida waives Special Ed and IEP students from taking the assessment, if an accommodated test can’t be administered. Florida offers large-print, braille, and screen-reader administrations for VI (Visually Impaired) students and other accommodations such as extra time and, with the exception of the reading test, having the test items read to the student by a proctor.
Actually, no student has to take the FCAT; the state will accept ACT and SAT scores, as well as several other standardized tests, to satisfy the graduation requirement.
Can the average adult explain in one sentence why you can see the moon sometimes during the day but never the sun at night? It is (or at least was) a question on the kindergarten test in Ohio.
That is why “teaching to the test” happens.
NCLB requires only testing from grades 3-10. If Ohio is giving an assessment in kindergarten, it’s a state or district thing, not testing required by the feds.
And, if that material was covered in kindergarten, on a kindergarten level of understanding, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be on a test. Ohio has kindergarteners writing one-sentence essay answers now? You’d think that would at least be phrased as a multiple-choice item so any student has a 1 in 4 shot at guessing correctly. It’s one thing to ask for a one-sentence explanation and a whole other ballgame to choose between four plausible options.
If we’re gonna hijack, then one group you certainly shouldn’t thank is Republicans, who kept up massive spending levels but lowered taxes; otherwise you could thank the wealthy for it.
If we’re going back to the topic, though, I’d say that NCLB has one really powerful feature: it requires us to look at sub-populations in a way that we never had to do before. A school could have a 95% success rate on standardized testing and look great, but when you dug into it you learned that lower-income kids in that wealthy district were badly neglected in favor of being sure that all the wealthy kids passed the test. Separating out subgroups prevents such shenanigans.
The school I teach at has not met NCLB requirements in something like 6 years. We often come really close, though: nearly all our white boys and white girls pass, nearly all our non-free-lunch boys and girls pass, our fifth grade black boys and black girls pass, our fourth grade black boys and black girls pass, our third grade black boys and black girls pass reading, but our third grade black boys and black girls don’t pass math (for example). Next year that cohort, now in fourth grade*, doesn’t pass math again. If we have 17 requirements for passing NCLB, and we pass 16 of the requirements, we’ve failed as a school.
And I think that’s a good thing. It forces the school to pay attention to everyone.
But it’s also a bad thing. If there’s a group that doesn’t pass, that group can get so much attention that it can deny resources to other kids. Nontested subjects like social studies can get short shrift for everyone, because there’s a population that needs extra instruction in reading and math. Projects don’t happen, because there’s research showing that project-based learning is exceptionally good for kids who are already doing well, but is dicey for kids who are struggling. And so on.
Even if you’re not explicitly teaching to the test, the high stakes environment can warp pedagogy in a way deleterious to many students.
- Yes, I know social promotion is a problem, but that’s for another thread.
Being nitpicky here or whatever you call it when correcting something when you’re not really sure you’re right – I think (and I can ask my sister of necessary) that in Louisiana studentx can stay in high school until the end of the academic year in which they turn 21.
you’re going to have to give a cite for that. That is beyond the skills of a kindergartner. 3rd grade maybe.