Posted on 07/04/2011 2:10:43 PM PDT by SmithL
It's a trend that would seem to defy conventional wisdom: As public school spending has declined in California in recent years, student achievement test scores have gone up.
Statewide, school districts spent 6 percent less from 2008 to 2010, but the percentage of second- to seventh-grade students scoring proficient on the state's standardized English test rose from 48 percent to 55 percent.
In the Sacramento region, the same held true. School districts in the four-county region cut annual spending by about $120 million, or 4.4 percent, from 2008 to 2010, hampered by the lousy economy and state funding cuts. That translates to a 1 percent cut per student. But during that same period, their state achievement test scores improved – a lot.
The percentage of area second- through seventh-graders, for instance, scoring proficient or advanced in English jumped from 53 percent to 59 percent, while the portion scoring proficient or above in math went from 57 percent to 62 percent.
So, are educators finding ways to do more with less? Has student learning been largely unaffected by the spending cuts? The reviews are mixed.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Test scores are going up because the teachers are getting better at cheating.
Good one. You’re “obviously” one of those educated under the old system. :-)
“Public schools see paradox of lower funding, higher test scores”
Funny. Private schools don’t see it as a “paradox”. They see it as a normal work day. But neither ‘normal’ nor ‘work’ are part of the unionized education racket.
And when the money doesn't get spent on that, the schools return the unused funds to the district?
Silly question - Of course not. That's just not how government funding works. The money gets spent elsewhere to ensure that the school gets the same amount (or more) for next year.
The level of education can be both seen and heard on the airways and TV daily. Idiots like those on (I believe)ABC who downed the founding fathers for NOT giving women the vote. Never mind that they were busy giving the people power instead of a monarch with "divine right" of succession, and power to remove your head if you disagree with him/her.
Stuck on stupid liberals, fancifully drag the Founders, women, slavery, etc. into the 21st PC century and compare--not even apples to oranges--more like apples to horse hockey.
No, 18th century women didn't have the vote; their husbands controlled all their resources, they were not much better than slaves. The Founders gave the people of this country the power to fix that, and today women have the vote, control their own finances, but the slaves are not all free. Far too many of them are languishing in anger over imagined wrongs that never happened to them, instead of enjoying the freedoms they have and trying to have a thought of their own.
vaudine
Those administrator's Jaguars don't pay for themselves, you know. And to expect that a school superintendant is going to have a beachhouse without a view? Outrageous!
it depends - some years it all gets spent - other years not.
That’s when the board and administration decide where it goes - how it goes.
There is alot of restrictions on how different pools of money can be applied -where, so I’m not exactly sure about that.
One thing I do know is....the public NEVER comes to the meetings. Oh - they complain, and they claim they are coming. They call and threaten that hundreds of people are coming to set everyone right. But when the meeting comes to order? crickets.
Something doesn’t make sense. If I remember correctly, students in North Dakota have $8000 per year spent on them and do better academically than Washington DC students who have $16,000 per year spent on them.
Most people, especially teachers do not believe this, but it is true. Obviously, there is a lower limit, but in the better off OECD countries the are above optimum spending.
Of course what is on the test must be taught but teaching TO the test means teaching specifically what will be on the test and ignoring most of the rest of the course. The correct method is to teach the whole course and then select certain questions to be asked because it is not possible to cover every thing in the course on a test. Ideally the teacher should not know what questions will be on the test.
Do you mean it is, “Thank god for California” now rather than thank god for Mississippi?
believe it or not - many do not have jags - beachhouses - or even fancy vacations!
Some of them actually do try to get rid of bad teachers, despite all the odds against them.
Fantastic response.
Perhaps reduced budgets means you fire ineffective teachers. More students working with the better teachers that were retained.
Teaching to the test? Isn't that phrase right out of the teachers' union handbook?
If the test measure's a student's acquired knowledge in a given subject such as math, science, or English, wouldn't "teaching to the test" actually be teaching what the kids should be learning instead of the latest liberal "socializing" fad?
one problem I hear about is that the folks at the state capital writing up the tests are not teachers themselves.
the teachers have the impression the people handing down curriculum are not related to the people composing the tests.
So - it makes sense for teachers to continue to look back at previous tests and a guide.
Ideally??
A properly-designed testing system (one with adequate internal safeguards in place) would prevent teachers from having much more than a guess as to the specific areas of the coursework on which questions are going to be asked. (A sufficiently large question bank with random, computer-driven selection of the questions to be asked could easily be used to ensure the integrity of question selection process.)
Beyond that, if the teachers know what questions are going to be asked, the whole system is corrupt and worse than useless. Corrupt administrators gaming the system by providing advance test information to teachers should be prosecuted along with the teachers who use that information.
IMHO, if things improve when you do less, then you must be actually doing something deliterious to results.
“It’s something that we’re second to last in science, just behind Mississippi”
I can tell you that one. Years ago, when I pulled my child out to homeschool, I was AMAZED that the “Science” section of the education bookstores had almost nothing but “Environmental Studies”. Rainforest garbage.
When I asked where the physics and engineering books were for kids, they looked at me like I had two heads.
You don't need to be a teacher to devise a test that can determine if a subject has been learned.
the teachers have the impression the people handing down curriculum are not related to the people composing the tests.
They don't need to be related. If the curriculum says that A, B, and C are to be taught, a test writer can create test questions that can determine if the students have learned A, B, and C.
So - it makes sense for teachers to continue to look back at previous tests and a guide.
The questions should vary sufficiently from one year to the next so that teachers can only get a general idea as to the areas to be tested, not the specific questions to be asked.
When I was teaching electronics in the Navy, we had over 500 questions in each course section's test bank. The day before a test, a different instructor (not the one teaching the course at the time) would draw the 25 or so questions that would appear on that day's test. The in-class instructor couldn't teach to the test because he couldn't know what was going to be on the test. This was in the 1970s and had to be done manually. It's ludicrous to accept that similar procedures couldn't be put into place for this testing.
Teaching to the test is a perfectly legitimate method of covering the material.
Besides the tests are not meant to test the students, but to test the teaching methods and make sure that the teachers are covering the material. It’s the old saw, if Johnny hasn’t learned, teacher hasn’t taught. That’s why the educators hate the tests so much.
If the kids aren’t learning, it means that they need more in class time and more practice, both of which require work on the part of the teacher.
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