As a California school teacher during 1978-1981 and 1986-1994, I saw many changes in education; some benefited the students and others did not. I must admit that after I moved to Idaho, I didn’t look back much, but I did take with me most of the curriculum-development work I had done as part of the district.
I keep in touch with a few young friends who teach in California; they have many complaints about the dysfunctional system. I was puzzled about how so many good aspects that I experienced had deteriorated in the “steady slide downward” Darling-Hammond reports. Her analysis of California’s failures helps me place some of my experience--like puzzle pieces--into the big picture of California’s struggles.
First piece: I don’t remember if I voted for Prop 13 in 1979, but I remember its effect on my property taxes later. When we moved into a new city in 1987 (for better schools for my children and a view of the LA basin), my elderly neighbor who had lived in the same house for 20 years paid about $400 in property taxes. With the purchase of our house next door, we paid about $3500 annually. Indeed, state funding for schools was screwy and created a severe disparity in amounts for districts.
Second piece of the puzzle: I was department chair when we had to quickly hire new teachers and find new classrooms with the 20-1 ratio to implement in Cerritos. We moved a drama teacher and a Japanese teacher into the English department, hired one credentialed, experienced teacher, a newly credentialed teacher, and an intern who was doing his first semester as a student teacher.
Third piece: One of my more difficult teaching experiences resulted from funds being mismanaged at the state level. After helping to rewrite our district curriculum as part of the Governor Davis’ focus on revamping standards, I became part of state-wide committee to write an assessment that would reflect the standards being taught and was based on the newest learning research, including the Writing Project work and the California Literature Project. We redesigned the reading and writing assessments to be authentic, grounded in the way we teach, backed by research and the standards. The state implemented the test to the entire state—without a pilot test. Shortly after, there was a news story about a couple of test boxes being misplaced, and the legislators reacted angrily. Needless to say, not a single score was reported and the all the work disappeared.
I can see the area of my life where these pieces fit; however, I have many more pieces to study before I can make sense of the big picture of education.
I can imagine an assessment like the one you were part of designing would have more validity than the standardized tests today. It seems like the creators of these tests and some of the new reforms on the State and national level do not have respect for the students at all as people. Students have more to offer than the ability to regurgitate memorized facts onto a bubblesheet. In order to grow as critical thinkers, they need to be able to given the opprotunity. It seems like lawmakers have a lack of respect for those who cannot vote for them because of age. This should be the time when lawmakers need to model good behavior. That is asking waaaaaay to much, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteMeg,
ReplyDeleteSome puzzles can be fun to put together. This puzzle feels like the type that a distant relative gives you for Christmas when they don't know what to get you. To make matters worse, it is one of those puzzles that you can't tell what is the border or what is an inner piece and many people end up trying all the pieces every which way and it never really seems to work. Eventually, it might get figured out or it might get scrapped and put back into the box and placed on a shelf. Hmm, maybe California needs to try a new puzzle?!!