[Local-Maine-Schools] Measuring Progress

[Paul Murphy]

OK...well I am back from the nearly dead...almost anyway.

Gail I don't disagree with your take on the focus on assessment etc... I
don't even think Commissioner Gadroon would disagree (at least in her public
statements). I do think, however, that it's fair enough for folks to want
some sort of objective measures as to how education is working in the state-
whatever those may be. You seem to be advocating a global approach to the
argument against LSRS and while I think it would be great to fight that big
fight, I don't think we have that luxury. It seems certain to me that there
will be some change coming out of the legislature. I think we need to focus
on salvaging what's essential to maintaining our way. In a nutshell that's
local control of policy and budgets. I think broadening the fight may be the
right thing to do but it's a losing strategy. In this case I'd rather win
what we can than be right and go down in flames.

I agree with Brian that we need to be a constructive part of the
conversation. We also need to understand what we are willing to "give up". I
mean, do we really care where we buy our paper or computers? Do we really
care if transportation is contracted collectively? If we can keep our Union
in tact, keep control of how much we spend on education and of how we
approach education I will consider it a victory. To think we can win by
broadening the argument to Federal policy and issues that might well be
holistically related to the consolidation issue is, I think, a mistake.
Let's put out the fire then chip away at the more global issues.

Paul
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gail Marshall" <gmarshall at wildmoo.net>
To: "Local Maine Schools List" <local-maine-schools at lists.svaha.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 10:13 AM
Subject: [Local-Maine-Schools] Measuring Progress


> One other point (well, one of the many other points) I wish to make
> is that when educational improvement is discussed within this current
> debate, it is done almost exclusively within the context of test
> scores. I think that narrow focus has pauperized our discussions
> about what it really means to succeed as a student, a citizen and as
> a school. I believe it guarantees that many fine young people will
> find it harder and harder to find a place within our educational
> system.  That is one of the most corrosive and harmful effects of No
> Child Left Behind and Maine Learning Results.  It is a focus that the
> Commissioner uses almost exclusively in explaining her educationally-
> based reasons for her actions, and it is behind the rationale of
> almost every study that knocks or praises what we do. At Union 98 we
> frequently discuss concerns about this slide, but I see us loosing
> considerable ground in that debate in the past few years. It is so
> much easier to point to a bar graph or a chart to measure success
> than to take the full measure of a student or a curriculum. And it is
> all too easy to blame the students and teachers when the numbers
> don't add up.
> On Monday when Ms. Gendron was dissing current test scores did you
> wonder how many Legislators were asking themselves questions like:
> who made the tests, are they appropriate, who decides what is
> adequate work and what isn't, does that rubric change at all from
> year to year, how does the SAT fit into that, how are all these tests
> useful to teachers in helping the students? Were they remembering the
> MEA debacle a few years ago when the tests were all rewritten, had
> outlandish expectations, weren't piloted (this is a recording), and
> had test booklets too big for the average 4th grade desktop-to name
> only one small but telling problem with forethought from DOE?
> This may sound tangential, but from our web page I just finished
> reading my umteenth report about Maine's educational system based
> purely on test scores. And how those test scores don't justify the
> money we spend on education. It is an important part of the debate,
> but like most other facts being cited in this rush to "reform", it
> has been distorted almost beyond recognition. It plays into the sense
> that all DOE and the Legislature need to do to change educational
> policy is to read a few studies and test score reports and hack away.
> (Until they hire another expert to tell them to hack in a different
> direction.)  And that's one of the reasons why we never seem to get
> legislation or policy that values  and reflects input from those "in
> the trenches".
>
> Gail Marshall
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