Posted on 11/07/2006 12:15:26 AM PST by Antioch
Nine year-old Tyler Stoken, a student in the Aberdeen Public School District, didn't know how to answer an essay question on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning test. As punishment for leaving the question blank his principal suspended him for five days.
Tyler paraphrases the question saying, "You look out one day at school and see your principal flying by a window. In several paragraphs write what happens next." He's asked, "So why didn't you answer that question?" He says, "I couldn't think of what to write the essay without making fun of the principal."
He refused to answer the question even after his mother was called to the school. Tyler's mother Amy Wolfe says, "And he said he didn't know the answer. He just didn't know what to write. And they were telling me to make him answer the question."
He still didn't, so Tyler was given a 5-day suspension. In the letter that went home to mother, the principal writes, "The fact that Tyler chose to simply refuse to work on the WASL after many reasonable requests is none other than blatant defiance and insubordination." Shortly after receiving the suspension letter they received a phone call from Superintendent Marty Kay apologizing for the suspension.
"Because I think a mistake was made and over reacting to Tyler's refusal to complete the test," said Aberdeen school superintendent Marty Kay. ... The superintendent wants Tyler immediately re-instated at school. But Tyler’s mother says the damage has been done. Mom tells son, "Well, nobody will scream at you again. I promise you that." Tyler doesn't want to go to that school any more and you can't blame him. He was manipulated and then punished because he couldn't answer a test question.
WASL opponents also believe the principal and teachers broke the law by interfering with the WASL test. It had better have been a violation of the testing rules. If a teacher and principal browbeating a test taker into answering a question in any particular manner is not against the rules then the test is worse than useless.
Of course it's a nonsense question, and the kid didn't have to answer it, just like any other test question. If kids got suspended for failing to answer test questions, there'd be a lot more home schooling, of the involuntary kind. OTOH, there is a built-in punishment for not answering test questions; getting a bad grade. It should have been left at that. Typical zero-tolerance crap.
"The highest intelligence is being able to recognize a
nonsense question -- and not answer it."
Hear Hear!
"I'm sorry am I missing something? This kid sounds like brat who wouldn't do his work. While the school should have just failed him on the test (calling the mom was bizarre) I'm not really feeling sorry for this punk who wasn't smart enough to make up some stupid crap up to get though the test. And as a mother of a third grader and seventh grader I am sick of these parents who are not teaching there kids respect and yes even sometimes when you know its stupid."
Yes, you are missing something. It was a test, not a homework assignment.
When I went to public school the standardized test wasn't an enormous layer of bureaucracy for testing schools, but rather your grade in the class. if you got less than 50% overall, you had to repeat the grade. Perhaps 1-2 in 30 children didn't make the cut. ALL these children pulled up their socks in subsequent years, such was the stigma for the child and the parents. There were consequences, expected standards and truth. No one seems to ask why these testing schemes are SUDDENLY indispensable. The old-fashioned methods of primary school education were perfectly capable of producing literate and disciplined kids.
CAN I HAVE AN AMEN!!!!
And I know everyone will freak out on me but it's my GUESS the school freaked out and had such a stupid overreaction because any kid this defiant at age 9 has had lots and lots of discipline issues in the past!!!!
(how much would it suck for the other kids in his class when he's making a federal case out of a freaking creative writing question)
Standardized state-administered assessment test.
Can you say, "Funding?" I knew you could.
I was a gimme question. Gotta keep those scores up!
"The Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) is a standards-based assessment..."
I was wondering if each individual school, that has students participating in this test, is evaluated based on the cumulative scores of the entire student body. Do the schools with better scores get more funding perhaps? Are promotions based on the scores? Are the scores of each school published in the paper? The principal sounds just a little too frenzied in his/her response to this matter for it to be just about one question not being answered by one student.
They do something of this type of testing here, or at least they did prior to Katrina. The results are printed in the paper and compared to other schools and the results of previous years. I would imagine that it is a pretty big thing among the schools.
The test he was taking reflects on the school. The reason they wanted him to finish it is because they get funding based on how well the students do on the test....so who ever called the kid a brat and needed to do his homework, read the article.
"You look out one day at school and see your principal flying by a window. In several paragraphs write what happens next."
The Engineering Club declares their re-creation of a medieval trebuchet a success?
See that would get a A
Weighed in the balance it is found wanting by it's violation of the principle of subsidiarity as Leo XIII developed in Rerum Novarum. The principle holds that government should undertake only those initiatives which EXCEED the capacity of individuals or private groups acting independently. The principle is based upon the autonomy and dignity of the human individual. All other forms of society, from the family to the state and the international order, should be in the service of the human person. Human persons are by their nature social beings, and small and intermediate-sized communities or institutions, like the family, the church, and voluntary associations, must be the first line as mediating structures which empower individual action and link the individual to society as a whole. That means education and discipline begins with parents, then to teachers, then to principals and school boards and then, IF there is no other way, the state. The WASL by its very nature gets the whole thing bass-ackwards
...pity the kid who writes "One day the local religion of peace affiliate came to our school and give a presentation on the many uses of ammonium nitrate"
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