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Bigger classes did better
Orlando Sentinel ^ | June 19, 2002 | Jackie Hallifax | Associated Press

Posted on 06/19/2002 3:28:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

TALLAHASSEE -- Elementary schools with the biggest class sizes earned the best grades last year, Education Secretary Jim Horne said Tuesday.

On average, there were 24.1 children in the classrooms of the 580 elementary schools that earned an A for the past school year, contrasted with 19.9 students in the 41 schools that earned an F.

The 353 schools with B's had an average class size of 23.2 students. The 417 schools with C's had 22.6 students in their average classroom and the 116 schools with Ds had 21.9 students in their average classroom.

Horne presented the data to the Florida Board of Education.

"There are plenty of criteria that could be identified for high-performing schools -- it doesn't appear that smaller class size is one," Board Chairman Phil Handy said.

No mention was made of a proposed constitutional amendment to lower class sizes that may make the November ballot.

Linda Eads, a member of the board, said it was wrong to think smaller class sizes would improve schools. Without effective planning, proper curriculum and good teaching, the number of students won't make a difference, she said.

Last week, the leader of the class-size petition drive said enough signatures had been collected to make the ballot in November.

The Coalition to Reduce Class Size has collected more than 500,000 signatures, according to state Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami.

The state Division of Elections, however, has been notified by local elections supervisors of only 124,509 verified signatures. The deadline is Aug. 6.

The class-size measure would require no more than 18 students per class in kindergarten through third grade, 22 students in fourth grade through eighth grade and 25 students in high school. The mandate would be phased in between 2003 and 2010.

An average Florida classroom now holds 23 students through the fifth grade and about 26 students in middle school and high school.

Meek could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Gerry Richardson, who oversees evaluation and reporting for the state Department of Education, told the board that nearly half the state's 2,500 public schools -- 46 percent -- maintained their grade.

Thirty-eight percent of the schools improved their grade and 16 percent saw their grade drop.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: education; educationnews
A viewpoint on accountability - Orlando Sentinel MY WORD - Low scores? Throw out the test - By L. Calvin Dillon | My Word (June 18, 2002 ) [Full Text] If you really want to help the students and teachers at Mollie Ray Elementary and the other schools where test scores are low, don't throw more money at them. Throw out the test and the school grading system.

I know what you are thinking; "This must be one of those teachers from an F school, trying to rationalize and justify how he really did teach his kids, but they flunked anyway because of poverty or lack of parental involvement." Actually, I teach at the only high school in Orange County to get a B on Gov Jeb. Bush's grading system. My problem is not with what grade schools get; my problem is that we are giving grades at all.

We don't grade police departments on how many people "fail" and get arrested. We don't grade fire departments based on how many houses they "let" burn to the ground because they "didn't care about the ones they couldn't save." Why don't we treat schools with the same understanding and respect? The answer is simple; we don't respect what teachers do, and we are blindly putting our faith in the ability of a single measure to tell us what we are worth.

The reality is that some kids will never test well on a multiple-choice standardized test. I am not talking about kids raised in poverty, or minority children who traditionally perform poorly on standardized tests. I have been working with rising seniors who have failed the 10th-grade FCAT three times already.

These are not uneducated, illiterate students who have been "socially promoted on their merry way to a lifetime of poverty." These are children whose skills lie in other areas, such as music, the arts, or verbal communication. Some suffer from test anxiety. They get good grades in hard classes, they do quality work, and they can read just fine. They just can't pass this test because they don't fit the mold of the kind of child who scores well on it. You cannot measure every child's worth with a test like FCAT.

One of my rising seniors gets so worked up the night before the test that she vomits and gets no sleep. She has flunked it three times. If she does not pass the test before March, she will not graduate. This is a smart, motivated child who works hard and consistently makes the honor roll, but Bush's A+ Plan and FCAT will deny her a high school diploma because of one test score.

Another of my 10th-graders missed passing by one point. Are we really prepared to put enough faith in this test to say that, because a child misses one question on one test, he doesn't deserve his diploma?

Mollie Ray missed scoring a D by three points on the state's scale. Yet we are confident in devaluing the hard work those teachers and students did because of those three points. Lakeville and Palm Lake Elementary schools each scored an A, but the difference between the school scores was 90 points. How does this make sense?

In February, state lawmakers in Kansas answered questions from the Kansas statewide achievement test so they could get a feel for what the experience is like for the children. I challenge Bush and state legislators to do the same. If your test really is the accurate measure of a person's value and education you claim it to be, take it yourself and see what you are worth. [End]

L. Calvin Dillon lives in Oviedo.

1 posted on 06/19/2002 3:28:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: All
School officials quit amid probe of TAAS scheme ***Additionally, the report states, Bailey violated the state education agency's rules when she ordered a custodian to discard a stack of TAAS booklets he had found near a trash can. Investigators also said the answer sheets for 20 10th-graders were changed to portray them as 11th-graders. The school's state rating is based only on the scores of 10th-graders. "The accountability rating for Bush High School will be, therefore, inaccurate," investigators said.

They concluded that Bailey intentionally manipulated the grade levels of dozens of students to improve the school's chances for obtaining an exemplary rating. "One witness reported that when he told Bailey about his concerns that she was violating TEA and TAAS rules and regulations, Bailey is alleged to have said she didn't care," the report states. "She is alleged to have told witnesses that she would hang the reprimand from TEA alongside the certificate showing that Bush High School had achieved exemplary rating."***

2 posted on 06/19/2002 3:35:44 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
I'm not an expert on testing, other than having taken a lot of them over the course of my academic career (B.A. + two aborted graduate school programs) and so I guess I do fit the mold of people who can take standardized tests.

I'm just wondering what that mold is?

If I follow the teacher's rationale, it sounds as if they should only be tested on things at which they excel. It would be nice if society could function only with music, art, and "oral communication," i.e. expressing feelings or talking with friends, but it doesn't work that way. Additionally, the reason why the grades a lot of times are discounted is that, frankly, people do not in many cases "trust" the grading schemes of the teachers due to grade inflation and social promotion in a lot of school districts.

By the way, police departments do seem to get graded on arrests rates, keep extensive track of arrests, number of cases open vs closed, etc., and they do get reported at least quarterly on the local radio and newspaper in our community. It's pretty much the same with the fire department.
3 posted on 06/19/2002 3:51:48 AM PDT by perez24
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To: perez24
btt
4 posted on 06/19/2002 4:53:19 AM PDT by GailA
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To: perez24
If I follow the teacher's rationale, it sounds as if they should only be tested on things at which they excel. It would be nice if society could function only with music, art, and "oral communication," i.e. expressing feelings or talking with friends, but it doesn't work that way.

Yes. Teachers have dug a deep hole of "no trust in their product," so they set the stage for, in their view, excessive and punitive testing.

5 posted on 06/19/2002 5:17:17 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: summer
here's an article right up your alley.
6 posted on 06/19/2002 7:08:25 AM PDT by lepton
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Kids naturally want to learn, and government school teachers obstruct this process. The largest classes have the most diluted negative influence of the teachers, and therefore do best. Is this just about correct?
7 posted on 06/19/2002 7:09:16 AM PDT by coloradan
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Master teachers will tell you that the larger class offers them a larger middle to teach to. I've seen these teachers handle 30 to 40 kids like an artists mosaic, whereas a less experienced teacher can struggle with 18-20.
8 posted on 06/19/2002 7:41:56 AM PDT by Katya
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Do you suppose that this will take some of the wind out of the sails of those behind the amendment to mandate smaller class sizes? I fear that if this is on the ballot, the dumb voters will all support it because everyone "knows" that smaller class sizes means better education, right?

We really need to get the word out on these actual results to counter the "smaller is better" perception that is out there. Smaller class sizes mean more teachers, more classrooms, and great increases in spending to accomplish it. There are much more effective ways to improve education that don't cost a penny more, and those need to be implemented instead of this gift to the teachers' unions.

9 posted on 06/19/2002 8:19:03 AM PDT by Truth Addict
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Yes. Teachers have dug a deep hole of "no trust in their product," so they set the stage for, in their view, excessive and punitive testing.

IMHO it is excessive and punitive.

It's really quite amazing how much school time my kids lose in actually taking the various tests, not to mention in preparing to take them. Individual schools are left with little choice but to spend time on preparations, because they're placed in direct financial competition with schools that are practicing.

The underlying problem is threefold.

First, the people coming out of the "Schools of Education" often have no knowledge of anything outside their major. They may have taken a class on how to teach history, say, but they have no grasp of history. So they have nothing to impart to the kids beyond what the curriculum says.

Second, the curriculum is at the mercy of activists, of a generally liberal stripe. These people tend to infest the school district administrations, and also the teachers unions.

Third, the legislative response of "testing and accountability" is counterproductive. It not only reduces the amount of class time available for actual teaching, but it also loads down the already swamped teachers with a ridiculous amount of paperwork.

10 posted on 06/19/2002 8:31:51 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
This will make the teachers unions really really mad.
11 posted on 06/19/2002 8:34:23 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
The reality is that some kids will never test well on a multiple-choice standardized test. I am not talking about kids raised in poverty, or minority children who traditionally perform poorly on standardized tests. I have been working with rising seniors who have failed the 10th-grade FCAT three times already. These are not uneducated, illiterate students who have been "socially promoted on their merry way to a lifetime of poverty." These are children whose skills lie in other areas, such as music, the arts, or verbal communication.

Funny how some schools seem to end up with drastically disproportionate numbers of kids "whose skills lie in other areas."

12 posted on 06/19/2002 8:41:48 AM PDT by Sloth
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To: Katya
There is a limit though. In my elementary school, there were 30-35 kids in a class (religious private school), and, looking back, the teachers were simply overwhelmed a good portion of the time. The study was talking about 25 kid classes, but there should definitely be an upper boundry on class size.
13 posted on 06/19/2002 8:51:27 AM PDT by modern_orthodox
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To: *Education News
Bump list
14 posted on 06/19/2002 10:55:26 AM PDT by Free the USA
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To: lepton
Thanks for the ping, lepton. Very interesting.
15 posted on 06/19/2002 1:39:51 PM PDT by summer
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