Posted on 02/13/2009 4:37:51 PM PST by Amelia
A Colorado school district does away with grade levels
To overcome low test scores and a high dropout rate, the district is implementing radical reforms.
Westminster, Colo. - School districts across the US are trying to improve student performance and low test scores. But few have taken as radical an approach as Adams 50.
For starters, when the elementary and middle-school students come back next fall, there won't be any grade levels – or traditional grades, for that matter. And those are only the most visible changes in a district that, striving to reverse dismal test scores and a soaring dropout rate, is opting for a wholesale reinvention of itself, rather than the incremental reforms usually favored by administrators.
The 10,000-student district in the metropolitan Denver area is at the forefront of a new "standards-based" educational approach that has achieved success in individual schools and in some small districts in Alaska, but has yet to be put to the test on such a large scale in an urban district.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Don't see what happens to students who master the skills early...
private school
I’m hoping they get bumped up early.
I like this idea a lot. I have a special needs kid and a gifted kid. One would go through the system quickly and not get bored, and the other could go at her own pace and master the skills.
My daughters’ private school does not do this, and I don’t know of any private schools in our area that do (except maybe some special needs schools).
> But the district, which has a 58 percent graduation rate, has been on an academic watch list for several years now, and has seen a drastically shifting student population in which percentages of minorities, non-English speakers, and low-income kids have shot up.
That’s the reason for the “radical change”. Ok, I’ll bite, what are some of the ‘changes”?
> The change that’s getting by far the most attention is the decision to do away with traditional grade levels – for kids younger than eighth grade, this first year, though the district plans to phase in the reform through high school a year at a time. Ultimately, there will be 10 multiage levels, rather than 12 grades, and students might be in different levels depending on the subject. They’ll move up only as they demonstrate mastery of the material.
I see. To make a short-term solution, one of them is to ‘COMPRESS’ the grade levels. (eyes looking up)
It helps the slower kids to not feel bad about being older than the other kids in their grade level. That probably works for a while but that 23 year old is still going to feel uncomfortable. This needs to be extended through the first two years of college, at least.
What was that goofy Adam Sandler movie, where they made him go back to grade school and sit in a class room?
Public Education is more and more an oxymoron in the first place and not suitable for discussion other than about its replacement.
It will be interesting to see in a few years how this works on a large scale. It reminds me of the one room school houses of days past. The one room school houses only had a few students though and it worked well for the time.
Denver. Most likely a considerable population of children who speak no english in the home.
This area has a large Mexican population.
And this is why I’m shelling 18K per year for private school.
So, their will be a lot of 21 year olds in each graduating class, or just a lot of ninth grade drop outs, same as before.
A local school district had very good success with their immigrants, by putting them all together in one school until they mastered English. They had 100% of the school passing the state graduation test this year.
And they generally had a homogenous English-speaking student body.
We are worse in the L.A. Unified School District. Drop out rates are close to 40%.
oh no I meant that if there is no way to measure progress and no prod, it would be better to put the kids in private school.
I heard a woman on Rush’s show, say that Detroit has a 21% graduation rate, actually I think she called it, a retention rate and a 49% adult literacy rate. It kind of explains their voting history, doesn’t it?
I was just laughing to myself as I clicked the post button, that 49% adult literacy in Detroit kind of makes you wonder how they manage to get around that airport. It’s a wonder that the signs aren’t in some kind of hieroglyphs.
My grandfather came to the New World from Italy and didn’t speak a word of English. He simply learned it the hard way and didn’t want to be coddled. My boss came from the Czech republic and barely spoke a word of it, but he went to the public library and learned a new sentence every night.
My best buddy came immigrated from Spain. Landed in Montreal where French is the first language THEN English. He had to learn BOTH languages at the same time and didn’t fail not even once in the grade levels.
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