As the country struggles to pay billions for three wars, states continue to shutdown basic services and programs. Chicago this week joined other jurisdictions in dropping writing as part of the standardized exam for students to save $2.4 million a year. It is not clear if children will be given lessons on the oral tradition of story telling and refreshers in cave drawing.
Schools Superintendent Christopher Koch explained, orally, that “writing is one of the most expensive things to assess.” Oregon and Missouri also recently cut writing from exams. This is part of a broader rollback on school programs and resources that could prove disastrous for this country.
With writing ability already falling in our country, such decisions accelerate our decline as a competitive educational system.
While other countries are investing heavily in producing highly educated and productive students, we are cutting whole grades to allow us to keep spending on more important things. The inevitable result is that our population will become less and less viable in the modern economy — a nation of consumers without a productivity to match our appetite.
Source: WLS
kd,
Remember these words….Education is wasted on the unwise….wisdom can never be learned…it has to be earned….kind of like respect…I suppose you are in the outfield now….and it looks like the bottom of the ninth…..
Inference is almost entirely a function of background knowledge.
For example, suppose you read “He just got a new puppy. His landlord is angry.”
How can you draw an inference unless you understand the logical connection between those sentences and know things about puppies (they aren’t housebroken), carpets (urine stains them) and landlords (they are protective of their property.)
And, as we’ve learned teaching background knowledge is not something that is easily accelerated for students who learn more slowly than their peers and/or come from a deficient home environment.
Mike A.,
I’d say that early education is where the foundation for teaching critical thinking and writing skills is laid. It’s a long process. I’d add that teaching young children how to read words and comprehend what they read is also a primary function of early education. Learning how to read and to infer from text is of the greatest import.
My view is that the primary function of early education is to develop critical thinking and the ability to express oneself logically and coherently. I do not know how proficiency in those areas can be judged other than by individuals who are able to think critically and express themselves logically and coherently.
AY,
You did? Who would have known if you hadn’t told us?
😉
Yes Elaine….lol…
But I encapsulated almost 1900 years in two paragraphs…
AY,
One can “color outside the lines with words” and still write coherently.
Elaine,
Think of and in terms of the teaching of most organized religions…give us your young and we will keep them for life….advance a few years….give us your young and we will teach them to become Pope…..
Kick a great baseball player off of the Washington Senators….and he will become Dictator….let the Dictator get a little ill…and open up the market because people are tired of being poor……it is a form of a free market because but the peddler have to pay a dollar a day to the government to run a business….for more on this it was on APM/NPR….
I don’t color between the lines very well do I…..
Blouise,
I think the overemphasis on testing in this country is what is destroying education. In my state, children are now being prepped in writing so they can pass a writing test. It’s a simplistic writing formula that they are being taught to follow. It doesn’t really teach students how to write. It doesn’t help children to discover their own unique voices. It makes them “color inside the lines” with their words.
I remember well two particular writing samples children had produced during a state-mandated test–one was deemed “advanced” and the other “proficient” by the powers that be. They were the “benchmark” examples provided to teachers to show them the difference between a superior paper and a satisfactory paper. In my opinion, the “proficient” writing sample was far superior to the “advanced” sample. Why? Because it was clearer and more concise…and much more readable. The “advanced” sample was overly long and boring. It seems that some people believe that a child’s writing sample that is long, neatly written, and has few spelling or punctuation errors is a superior paper. I don’t believe that is necessarily so.
Several years ago, I heard about an excellent high school writing program in one community that was eliminated. It didn’t focus on the “writing formula” that the kids would need to learn so they’d be more likely to pass the state-mandated test with flying colors. What a shame!
In my state, prospective educators are required to take a writing test. I had one principal who passed the test easily. He was a terrible writer. His memos to staff and notices to parents weren’t clear and were terribly written–and I let him know it. After my critique of his writing, he had me edit most of his notices before he sent them out. I’m happy to say that his writing did improve over time. For one thing–he stopped including parenthetical remarks in every other sentence.
Education is almost entirely funded at the state level or below.
The U.S. Military almost entirely at the Federal level.
How does the latter affect the former?
I’ll wait for Elaine’s comment on the testing aspect.
I advised both my daughters and all my grandchildren to master the art of communicating through the written word. My grandkids are still in college and thus still learning the art but both of my daughters have thanked me many times for insisting that they actively pay attention in English class and take elective writing classes throughout college.
Both attribute part of their success on the job to their ability to communicate clearly through the written word … from a resume to a memo to an email to a client presentation … this ability stands out as so many of their peers lack even a basic understanding of structure and vocabulary. It put them ahead of the game from the getgo.
Yep, I get to smile and say, “I told you so.”
Say what….Most people can’t write anyways….I am proof…
Sign language worked for humans for millenia and is easily taught and tested. Writing is so, so dated.
“With writing ability already falling in our country, such decisions accelerate our decline as a competitive educational system.”
This whole article seems based on the premise that a standardized test for writing is a useful and worthwhile thing.
Should we really bemoan that teachers won’t have another test to teach to?
Has anyone here taken one of these recently? (Like the one on the GRE?) Do you think the ability to make a rational argument can be accurately assessed by a computer? Or that you can write convincingly about a topic that you may have never considered before, or don’t find interesting? (If you found the topic compelling, can you think of someone else who wouldn’t?) What if you use clear, concise and accurate statements, compared to flowery imprecise metaphors, should you be graded down? What about writing in AP style, rather than MLA? What audience should you write to? (Does it matter?) Is length part of the grade?
Interestingly, most of these writing prompts ask you to read a short article, and ask you to write if you think the argument is well reasoned or not. Exactly what we have here: your post, and our comments. Care to grade us?
The elected and self-appointed stupid are doing more to make our children stuppedur! Duh. Treasonous bastids~!
I’ve been trying to keep whats going on here in New Jersey alive here on the blog Chicago is fighting elements of standardized testing ,while here this is just another example of what Christie has done:
Gov. Chris Christie’s budgets cuts to legal aid will hurt the poor
Published: Friday, July 08, 2011, 6:10 AM
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
Amanda Brown/The Star-Ledger
Melville D. Miller, president and general counsel of Legal Services of New Jersey, speaks during Assembly Budget Committee public hearing on the fiscal year 2011 budget in April.
A desperate call to Legal Services, which provides lawyers to those who can’t afford them, now may only get you some quick tips on how to represent yourself.
Good luck with that. Legal representation isn’t guaranteed in civil cases, the way it is in criminal ones. And thanks to Gov. Chris Christie’s recent budget slashes on services for the poor, no matter how compelling your case is, you may be forced to argue it alone.
If you’re being beaten by your spouse, it may be much more difficult to get a divorce or restraining order. If you’re seeking custody of your kids or visitation rights, your case might be too time-consuming for a pro bono lawyer to take on. You may have no way to force a delinquent boyfriend to pay child support, or fight your unjustified eviction.
View full sizeThe Star-Ledger
Already, Legal Services was only able to represent only one of every seven people who need help. Now, it will have no choice but to turn away more.
Christie not only vetoed the Democrats’ attempt to increase funding by $5 million, he cut another $5 million from his own budget proposal.
“It was a total surprise,” said Melville D. Miller, the nonprofit organization’s president. “There was just no precedent for it, no planning for it, no anticipation of it or budgeting for it. For us, it’s devastating. … A belief that private fundraising will in any significant way close that gap is really delusional.”
At the same time, Christie added $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state.
View full sizeThe Star-Ledger
A loss of $5 million means Legal Services must cut at least 50 staffers and serve at least 5,500 fewer clients. This, at a time when so many more people have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty.
Our democracy promises access to equal justice. But without the funding to back that up, it’s justice based on your bank account.
“all too”
A good lesson to the young — if it’s hard and expensive don’t do it. Better a dumbed down citizen that the alternative. And while a competitive decline is cause enough for concern the other ramification is even more troubling:
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
~Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816.
In the modern age, we know all to well how an under-educated population does with democracy.
We are already “a nation of consumers without a productivity to match our appetite” and we do most of it through government borrowing. Witness our $15T debt.
Hopefully the appetite for wars will dry up first.