I was emailed the following message: "Five percent of
kids who are learning English in uptown's District 6 passed the
third-through-eighth-grade math tests last spring, while just 2.3 percent
passed the English Language Arts test, according to DOE data."
The
information quoted and linked below has been circulated by very concerned parents
and educators; and I share it because it is my personal and professional belief
that what is being said on these memos and articles can be considered a crime against children. This is a crime
not only because of the atrocious behavior of the NYC Board of Education, but also
because the utilization of testing tools that are completely inappropriate with
children below the age of nine results in long lasting damaging consequences
for these children.
The
standardized testing of children below the age of nine years of age (most
educators and developmental psychologist agree that around nine years is the
age when formal and critical mental abilities, faculties, are reached by most
people) should be considered a crime.
Prior to that age students can be academically evaluated using qualitative methods
that can take into consideration their primary language and its dialectal
variations. And if these children are learners of a second language, particularly
when the second language is the national language, these evaluations must
include the functions and codes (TV, Commerce, etc.) that these children experience
outside of the school environment. To
expect these students to perform at the same level of students who are already
speakers of the national language it is not only a crime, it is completely
unprofessional. (And please do not bring the successful stories of middle class
kids or those who come from highly literate oriented homes. To standardized
test them, even if they do well is still a crime)
DOE Didn't Put Out Translated Common Core Materials Until Month of Test
By Nigel Chiwaya on October 2, 2013 7:29am | Updated on October 2, 2013 7:29am
NORTHERN MANHATTAN — The
Department of Education didn't give out teaching materials to help kids who are
learning Engl ish pass the
new, harder Common Core tests until the
month of the test last spring — a delay that northern Manhattan parents say
contributed to their students' poor performance on the exams.
Just five percent of
kids who are learning English in uptown's District 6 passed the
third-through-eighth-grade math tests last spring, while just 2.3 percent
passed the English Language Arts test, according to DOE data.
Those numbers trail the
district as a whole, which saw 17 percent of students pass the math test and 14.3 percent
pass the English test, and they're far below the city average of nearly 30
percent of students passing the math test and 26.4 percent passing the English
test.
Uptown parents said
students learning English were faced with an unnecessarily difficult struggle
this year as they took the tests without the aid of textbooks or handouts in
their native languages.
"Knowing that the
Common Core curriculum is not available in Spanish is really negatively
affecting our district," said Miriam Aristy-Farer,
president of the District 6 Community Education Council
and mother of a fourth-grader who took the exams last spring. "The numbers
don't lie."
The Department of
Education put out a list of suppl emental
materials to help students who are learning English pass the math
and ELA exams, but not until last April, the same month that students took the
tests, DOE documents show. The full set of materials won't be made available
until this fall, according to the documents.
In the meantime,
teachers at transitional bilingual and dual-language programs were instructed
not to translate the English curriculum into other languages, the DOE said in
documents.
District 6
Superintendent Elsa Nunez also blamed some of the students' struggle on a
non-uniform curriculum that left teachers uncertain of what would be on the
exam.
"Although the
Common Core was adopted in 2010, the curriculum was not aligned to it,"
Nunez said at the CEC's September meeting. "So last [school] year, the
teachers were scrambling trying to align the units based on what they thought
the exam was goi ng to cover."
A DOE spokesman did not
respond to questions about the delays in curriculum and supplemental materials.
However, the spokesman, Devon Puglia, said in an email that the Department of
Education is in contact with schools that have students who are learning
English as a second language.
"There are
materials available and there’s been communication with schools that support
second language learners," Puglia said.
Aristy-Farer said the
CEC would address the issue by forming an English Language Learners committee
and examining strategies used by schools that were most successful.
"We can't pay for
curriculum to be translated and provided," Aristy-Fa rer said. "But
what we can do is see who is doing it well and if it's something that we can
look at other schools to start implementing."
-----------------------------------------------
Leonie Haimson
Executive DirectorClass Size Matters
----------------------------------------------------------------------
My
own questions (to be developed further):
Once
general questions regarding materials, curriculum alignment, evaluation instruments
and related value systems are answered, decision making bodies can ask:
What
is the teacher-pupil ratio?
What
specific methods do particular teachers use – master - when it comes to teaching
and evaluating specific disciplines?
Are
surrounding institutions (higher education, hospitals, community centers) providing
support to immigrants families regarding the education of their children?
How
are parents being informed as to how they can provide support to their children?
No comments:
Post a Comment