My attempts at influencing positive change in this regard has stopped short of shouting at people on the street, but often involves direct communication with legislators. Those who disagree with me often believe that despite the terribly low percentages of students earning proficient or above on the new assessments, lower than 40% on Geometry statewide, all these kids need to do is pull themselves up by their bootstraps, enroll in school provided remediation, work harder, and retake the test. While this might work in some cases, it doesn't in all, and really is completely beside the point.
First, the Horatio Alger bootstraps myth is based on the premise that a hearty American individualist, with little to no assistance from others, just a bit of hard work, can single handedly pull themselves up from rags to riches. It is a myth. No one achieves anything without assistance from someone, parent, sibling, neighbor, coach, teacher, friend. Even Donald Trump started with a "small loan."
Second, to make this bootstraps bullshit even more problematic, the scenario is always coupled with remediation. By definition, remediation involves receiving assistance, tutoring basically, in order to prepare for the test. This is not rugged individualism. It is test prep, plain and simple. If the purpose of the assessments is to promote career and college readiness, and remediation is teaching kids how to pass a test, then how are we increasing career and college readiness?
Which brings me to Number Three, we are not increasing career and college readiness with standardized assessments. You do that through programs, academic and otherwise, that encourage students to pursue their interests, enrich their experiences, develop their skills, and provide support where necessary.
So this is my message to legislators. Below you'll find the letter that I sent to the Ohio House and Senate Education Committees this weekend in the interest of facilitating positive change. Give it a look, and then go write them yourself. Tell them your story, and what you think about the assessment system as it relates to graduation, the 3rd grade guarantee, or otherwise.
Representative So and So and Members of the Education Committee,
I trust that your work on the campaign trail for yourselves or your colleagues has been fruitful. As you've been traveling through your districts, we in the business of educating Ohio's children have returned early to school in the interest of buying ourselves more time to find success in a system driven inordinately by standardized assessments. In my work as a History teacher at Elyria High School, this system comes with the highest of stakes, a student's graduation, and while official overall reports from the ODE on test performance are still a few weeks away, I would like to once again raise my concern regarding the likelihood of a sharp decline in graduation rates as a result of our new assessment system.
When I raise this concern, the typical oppositional response that I get usually has to do with the value of a high school diploma. In other words, if we don't arbitrarily increase the difficulty in graduating, then we are doing our children a disservice. What we must realize, however, is that 12 years of the Ohio Graduation Test has not increased the value of a diploma, nor has it increased the quality of education. The reality is that the achievement gap has not narrowed, and over the last half dozen years Ohio's national ranking in education has gone from 5 to 23.
When the scores arrive, and we see that 30 or 40 percent of Ohio's high school students are not on pace to graduate, it will not have anything to do with a sharp decline in the efforts or ability of students, nor the quality of their teachers and schools. This situation will have been created entirely by a system of assessment created by Ohio's legislators and mishandled by the ODE, a system that has undergone perpetual change since its rollout, and is failing Ohio's students. These kids, on the whole, will have done what we've asked, excelled based upon their gifts, and perhaps overcome through struggle according to their shortcomings. Despite this they will face the dim economic prospect of going forward without a high school diploma. Their likelihood of obtaining vocational training, an associates or other degree, or a living-wage job will diminish significantly. They will be far more likely to remain dependent upon their families, or to need public assistance.
The reality is that the state of Ohio goes far beyond the federal minimums for assessment. According to the ESSA, our high stakes companion to testing at the high school level is entirely unnecessary. I believe it is high time that we moved away from assessment as a graduation requirement, and time to channel our resources into programs that will facilitate student success, and career and college readiness. Perhaps the programs involve wraparound social services to support our most vulnerable, or an increase in vocational opportunities at the secondary level. We might recognize the link between the arts and academic performance, and decide on an increase in art and music education at the primary level. Whatever we move toward, it is important that we move away from this systemic focus on punitive assessment.
As it stands, I will prepare my students for academic and workplace life after high school, as well as prepare them for success on the American History assessment. These are two very different things. For your part, I hope you will consider a legitimate safe harbor to assure graduation for our current students regardless of test performance, until we can change the assessment system through ESSA. On behalf of the hard working students that I encounter on a daily basis at Elyria High School, myself, my colleagues, and my community, thank you for your time and consideration.
Matthew T. Jablonski
My first Automated Response was from Rep Brenner. Thanks Andy.
Thank you for your email. I appreciate your engagement in the process and value your opinion.
I want to make sure that your email is handled appropriately. Because we receive hundreds of emails daily, if your matter is time sensitive, please call my office at 614.644.6711 and speak with my Legislative Aide, Daniel Talik. Otherwise, we will respond to your email as soon as possible.
Again, thank you for taking the time to correspond with my office.
Best Regards,
Andrew O. Brenner
State Representative (R-67)
Ohio House of Representatives
No comments:
Post a Comment