Reading, Writing, and Multiple Choice

[psychic_serpent <psychic_serpent@yahoo.com>]

bboy_mn wrote:
We live in the age of 'multiple choice'. When was the last time any 
kid actually had to write anything? One of the ways to improve your 
writing is to write. The more you do it, assume you are 
actually interested in getting better, the better you get. 
To what extent are kids required to write in the US educational
system today?

Richelle Votaw wrote:
More all the time. In Louisiana, in order to pass fourth grade (9
and 10 year olds) students must pass the LEAP test. No multiple
choice, all written response.  ...

bboy_mn:
GulPlum took the words right out of my mouth. Reading this restores 
my faith in the US educational system, and of all places Louisiana. 
Sorry about the Louisiana remark, but Louisiana doesn't carry the
stereotype of being the most sophisticated place in the US.  

Me:
Interestingly enough, improving education in Arkansas was one of the 
great successes of Bill Clintons' years as governor there (Arkansas 
typically ranked 49th or 50th out of the fifty states in literacy 
levels before he took office).  It is vitally important for our 
leaders to support good education.  A lot of folks here who live in 
the US have probably heard about the flap in Portland, OR, where the 
schools might close five weeks early this year because of lack of 
money.  What kind of priorities are we setting when we're willing to 
spend a hundred billion dollars invading another country and 
rebuilding it, but one of the largest cities on the west coast can't 
fund their school system?

I'm trying to get my son signed up for school again because of 
various factors, not the least of which is I'd like to complete my 
architecture degree in under ten years, but I've been home-schooling 
him since September because we just weren't very happy with our 
public school choices after his transfer to a particular school was 
turned down (some other options have come to our attention since 
then).  He used to attend special reading classes for advanced 
children (he was two grade levels ahead) in kindergarten through 
third grade, but evidently this service isn't available to fourth 
graders, and he remained in his usual classroom for reading last 
year.  He grew bored and restless and his reading comprehension 
scores dropped twenty points on his standardized tests (spelling and 
vocabulary were still above the ninetieth percentile, oddly 
enough).  One thing we are looking at carefully in considering what 
school he will go to in September is what kind of reading support is 
available to the students--both those who need remedial help and 
those who are advanced.  One of the schools we are considering is a 
charter school, so they aren't necessarily hogtied by district 
policies regarding this.  (The school district is Philadelphia.)

My husband and I also attended Philadelphia public schools while 
growing up.  I had the benefit of attending reading classes with 
students two years older than me from fourth through sixth grades.  
When, in seventh and eighth grade, I had to basically redo work I'd 
already done in fifth and sixth grade, I was bored silly.  It helped 
that I was able to sign up for advanced classes in English once I 
reached high school, but my two years in junior high school made me 
feel like I was just spinning my wheels. 

Now my daughter is in her last year of being able to attend advanced 
reading class.  Her situation is even more dire than my son's; 
thanks in part to her reading the Harry Potter books ten times each 
(I am not making this up) as well as reading everything else she can 
get her hands on, her reading level is around ninth grade, or six 
levels higher than her grade.  Next year, in fourth grade, she will 
presumably be reading on a tenth-grade level and yet she'll be stuck 
doing fourth grade work because there is no advanced reading 
available for the fourth graders.  I'm hoping to avoid the problems 
we encountered with my son, and she is a more motivated reader than 
he is, so we may not have problems, but I still expect the poor kid 
to be bored silly.  She's on grade level for everything else and 
already about a year younger than most of her classmates, so 
skipping her ahead a grade wouldn't be a solution.  I think we're 
just going to have to grin and bear it.

If only it was a priority to politicians to make certain that 
students who need remedial help aren't left behind and students that 
are advanced don't languish, bored, in settings that waste their 
potential, because of the theory that students of a like age should 
stay together.  Instead we just get saber-rattling and jingoism.  
They're probably afraid that a better-educated populace would know 
better than to re-elect them.  Never let it be said politicians 
don't have priorities: to keep their jobs.

--Barb
(feeling cynical today...)


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