Optimism is going to be my undoing...
KELO-TV reports that South Dakota's fourth- and eighth-graders are outsmarting the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, another big ugly standardized test. (The Madville Times still holds that standardized tests in general are incomplete measures of children's overall intellectual progress, but today we'll take good news where we can find it. Our fourth-graders squeaked past the national averages on math (SD average 241 compared to the national average of 239) and reading (SD 223, US 220). Our eighth-graders got even smarter (or the rest of the country got even dumber), with a math average of 288 (US 280) and reading average of 270 (US 261 -- see Associated Press, "SD Students Score Above National Average," KELOLand.com, 2007.09.25).
So surely we'll soon hear the governor and the secretary of education sending out congratulatory press releases and declaring that we have a moral obligation to pay the teachers of South Dakota above-average salaries for getting kids to post above-average scores. Oh, look, there's the press release! I'm looking through it... hmm, Secretary Melmer mentions alignment with state standards, need for state push for preschool, state program funded by federal grant, school lunch, pverty... what?! No mention of the good job those kids' teachers did?! Part of the document must have been cut off.
Oh, no, wait: Governor Rounds and Secretary Melmer are probably just being cautious, checking their budget figures, identifying which parts of the state payroll (which the Republicans have expanded significantly, and faster than any increases in spending on K-12 ed) can be reallocated to fund the well-deserved pay raises for our highly productive teachers. The state investment officer gets bonuses for good performance; surely our governor will apply the same logic to our teachers.
(And surely, I'm about to get comments on merit pay...)
KELO-TV reports that South Dakota's fourth- and eighth-graders are outsmarting the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, another big ugly standardized test. (The Madville Times still holds that standardized tests in general are incomplete measures of children's overall intellectual progress, but today we'll take good news where we can find it. Our fourth-graders squeaked past the national averages on math (SD average 241 compared to the national average of 239) and reading (SD 223, US 220). Our eighth-graders got even smarter (or the rest of the country got even dumber), with a math average of 288 (US 280) and reading average of 270 (US 261 -- see Associated Press, "SD Students Score Above National Average," KELOLand.com, 2007.09.25).
So surely we'll soon hear the governor and the secretary of education sending out congratulatory press releases and declaring that we have a moral obligation to pay the teachers of South Dakota above-average salaries for getting kids to post above-average scores. Oh, look, there's the press release! I'm looking through it... hmm, Secretary Melmer mentions alignment with state standards, need for state push for preschool, state program funded by federal grant, school lunch, pverty... what?! No mention of the good job those kids' teachers did?! Part of the document must have been cut off.
Oh, no, wait: Governor Rounds and Secretary Melmer are probably just being cautious, checking their budget figures, identifying which parts of the state payroll (which the Republicans have expanded significantly, and faster than any increases in spending on K-12 ed) can be reallocated to fund the well-deserved pay raises for our highly productive teachers. The state investment officer gets bonuses for good performance; surely our governor will apply the same logic to our teachers.
(And surely, I'm about to get comments on merit pay...)
Merit pay? Yes, I think there are teachers that deserve it, as I also believe that tenure should be done away with. Excellent teachers should be rewarded, mediocre teachers should be improved, and bad teachers should be fired.
ReplyDeleteWe had a child who was tested for the gifted program. When we met with the teacher to get the results, we were actually told our child was performing above her potential! Huh?
Standardized tests may be helpful, but I agree that they are not the only assesment a child needs. I kow that teachers are now spending time making sure their students learn what is on the test.
DJ