The state of public education - CNN article about illiterate graduate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Aleysha says her teachers mostly just passed her from one grade to the next in elementary and middle school.”

I can guarantee you that admin told the teachers to keep passing her. It happens every year in my district against the teachers’ objections.

There needs to be a mandatory achievement test 2/3 through the school year.

The parents need to be given a packet from day 1 with several practice tests. Expectations need to be clear

Despite what some education admin seem to think, most people will respond to clear incentives and they do not want to see their kid struggling and repeating the same grade

There needs to be 1 or 2 "lab" periods every school day with 4 students:1 teacher so the kids can get a jump on their homework. In such a lab this girl would have been identified in 1st grade

The average kid gets $10k a year funding, $300,000 a year per classroom. The money is already there. Audit the system to see where the money is going

The school systems already do this. FCPS, for example, gives iReady in winter for kids who didn't do well in fall (and again in spring for everyone). And then they ignore it. Virginia requires mid-year testing for older kids as well. And then they ignore it and the scores aren't reported to parents until a ridiculous amount of time later so you can't even contact the same teacher with concerns.

Yep. Montgomery County is constantly testing kids. My kid's testing shows she "needs support" but the schools don't actually offer support based on this. The expectation is that parents provide literacy instruction to kids that aren't learning. That's a ridiculous expectation especially given the demographics of MCPS families.

This is surprising to me, because at the MCPS school where I work (and where we are required to test students way too much), kids who score very low meet with intervention teachers in small groups regularly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t we recently have a post about a specific method of reading (sorry, I can’t remember the name) that didn’t include sounding out letters (phonics)? The school administrators, who make curriculum decisions, should be held accountable.

"Blended Literacy." The curricula associated with it these days are Lucy Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s the exact same style of teaching was called "whole word." Even then it was already proven phonics was superior. People higher than school administrators should be held accountable. Professors at teachers colleges. State DOE folks. That sort of thing. The people who taught the teachers and administrators to ignore neuroscience in favor of their pet fads.

Virginia passed a law a couple of years ago requiring public schools to use a Phonics-centered "Science of Reading" curriculum. Mississippi actually led the nation in fixing the reading curriculum.

Mississippi has some of the worst numbers in the country when it comes to reading, math, general education. They are consistently down the bottom with New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma and others.

And the average reading level for American adults is 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Aleysha says her teachers mostly just passed her from one grade to the next in elementary and middle school.”

I can guarantee you that admin told the teachers to keep passing her. It happens every year in my district against the teachers’ objections.

There needs to be a mandatory achievement test 2/3 through the school year.

The parents need to be given a packet from day 1 with several practice tests. Expectations need to be clear

Despite what some education admin seem to think, most people will respond to clear incentives and they do not want to see their kid struggling and repeating the same grade

There needs to be 1 or 2 "lab" periods every school day with 4 students:1 teacher so the kids can get a jump on their homework. In such a lab this girl would have been identified in 1st grade

The average kid gets $10k a year funding, $300,000 a year per classroom. The money is already there. Audit the system to see where the money is going

The school systems already do this. FCPS, for example, gives iReady in winter for kids who didn't do well in fall (and again in spring for everyone). And then they ignore it. Virginia requires mid-year testing for older kids as well. And then they ignore it and the scores aren't reported to parents until a ridiculous amount of time later so you can't even contact the same teacher with concerns.

Yep. Montgomery County is constantly testing kids. My kid's testing shows she "needs support" but the schools don't actually offer support based on this. The expectation is that parents provide literacy instruction to kids that aren't learning. That's a ridiculous expectation especially given the demographics of MCPS families.

Must object to this characterization. You WILL get accommodation if you are a certain ethnicity. You will not, if not. We left years ago - but nothing changes in MCPS except the name of superintendent.

We called the real estate agent the hour after we left the final IEP when we realized the situation (of reverse discrimination). Never looked back. Dyslexic child received acceptances to 8/10 universities.

Thank you Frederick County!

[Anonymous]

Seems her biggest problem was undiagnosed dyslexia.
This would come from a neuropsych evaluation.

I've been thru the hoops of getting speech help for my child when she was in K. The sheer amount of waivers and permissions I had to sign from the NYC Dept. of Ed for a Wechsler test, speech evaluation, this evaluation, that evaluation... it was endless. Yes, the school system did amazingly well in terms of providing services but they can only do their job when a legal guardian is seeking services, giving the green light for evaluations and signing endless documents.
I've also met parents who refused to get their children any help because the parents were afraid of having it on the child's "records". This attitude is tragic for the child.

From what we see in the article, the mother was uninvolved, unaware and left her daughter to go it alone.
When did personal responsibility transfer to blaming "the system"?
There was no way a this girl, as a minor, could get any form of learning disability evaluation without a guardian's permission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

That’s appalling. What did they do about it?

Somebody else read the essay to the prof

I assume it is a young prof. I am not that surprised s/he cant read cursive. People aren't taught to write it. Why would you be able to read it?

People originally learned cursive first, then the academic geniuses thought print is easier, print was taught first, cursive second. Then everybody's handwriting went to ----. Print is not easier. Try to reverse a cursive b or d. Then the next generation of academic geniuses told us typing is the new thing, cursive is archaic. Then the touch screens came and now kids can't hold pencils properly. I have heard kindergarten teachers say they have kids holding crayons with the "caveman" hold. K teachers today are starting with kids who can do literally nothing. They are starting K behind!

I teach kindergarten and I have a few kids every year holding pencils or crayons with a fisted grip. That’s been true for ten years or so. It’s bizarre to see a 5 yr old hold a crayon like my 13 month old. Meanwhile, they all either have a phone or a tablet at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like someone must have been paying their friends for favors. I just can’t imagine anyone genuinely thinking it’s a good idea to teach kids to guess words rather than actually learn to read.

I think for some kids this is actually how they teach themselves to read. Both my kids were self taught readers who did so by whole word recognition, but they both have exceptional visual memory skills. Phonics would have infuriated them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like someone must have been paying their friends for favors. I just can’t imagine anyone genuinely thinking it’s a good idea to teach kids to guess words rather than actually learn to read.

I think for some kids this is actually how they teach themselves to read. Both my kids were self taught readers who did so by whole word recognition, but they both have exceptional visual memory skills. Phonics would have infuriated them.

They still need to know how to break up unknown words especially longer multi syllabic words. Plus they need to be able to spell those longer words.

[Anonymous]

Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

I tend to agree. It’s getting to the point where so many kids have IEPs and need special accommodations, they need to make (multiple) special ed schools in each district to accommodate. Integrating kids that are unable to keep up with an average learning pace and ability to preform grade/age level tasks into a class with 30 kids one teacher who is expected to keep on pace and teach specific grade level material, of course is not working. Separating this kids out into special schools will allow for consolidation of services, and will give teachers the ability to slow down pace and adjust material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

How would the uneducated parent know that they need to request an evaluation or that an evaluation is a thing that exists? Or that, while the schools in her much poorer country taught kids to read, American schools somehow wouldn't

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

How would the uneducated parent know that they need to request an evaluation or that an evaluation is a thing that exists? Or that, while the schools in her much poorer country taught kids to read, American schools somehow wouldn't

Well, in most cases a concerned parent would talk to a teacher. I think that is kind of obvious. The teacher isn't hard to locate.
Then above the teacher is a whole slew of admins at any school. They are kind of hard to miss. They usually have a big office with lots of devices, desks, shelves and some PA devices. They hang around that office a lot so there's always someone there. Talk to some of them and at some point a parent would be directed to the county/city department for such things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the article leave a bad taste in anyone else’s mouth? She’s suing now in college, when she could have said something sometime over the past decade? I understand the language barrier, but she says she could still barely hold a pencil in 11th grade? This sounds exaggerated and designed to cause an uproar for her financial benefit, fame, sympathy support, etc.

No. Absolutely not. She was a *child* until 5 minutes ago. She is a feminist latina icon as far as I'm concerned, and I am not the type of person to hang my hat on that.

I have story for you. My kid's suzuki music teacher told me her kid, now in college, is now writing hand written exams because the college could not come up with a better way to stop kids from cheating. She said some kids were struggling to physically write essays. Now here's the frosting, her daughter was homeschooled/private high school and learned cursive. Her professor could not read her cursive!

There are not enough eyeroll emojis in the world to adequately address this comment, but here’s a start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t we recently have a post about a specific method of reading (sorry, I can’t remember the name) that didn’t include sounding out letters (phonics)? The school administrators, who make curriculum decisions, should be held accountable.

"Blended Literacy." The curricula associated with it these days are Lucy Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s the exact same style of teaching was called "whole word." Even then it was already proven phonics was superior. People higher than school administrators should be held accountable. Professors at teachers colleges. State DOE folks. That sort of thing. The people who taught the teachers and administrators to ignore neuroscience in favor of their pet fads.

Virginia passed a law a couple of years ago requiring public schools to use a Phonics-centered "Science of Reading" curriculum. Mississippi actually led the nation in fixing the reading curriculum.

Mississippi has some of the worst numbers in the country when it comes to reading, math, general education. They are consistently down the bottom with New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma and others.

And the average reading level for American adults is 8th grade.

The point of all the hullabaloo over Mississippi is that this isn't true anymore. They really are doing *much* better, and, demographically adjusted, they're top tier. Alabama and Louisiana, which have implemented their own reforms, in part modeled on Mississippi's, are also moving up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools aren't magic. They can't teach a cognitively disabled highly student something she can't learn, with a parent who can't engage and communicate.

Agree. I have a lot of questions about this situation, the first one being whether the parent requested any kind of evaluation for her child. I'm also wondering if the parent ever tried to read with the kid, either in English or in Spanish.

How would the uneducated parent know that they need to request an evaluation or that an evaluation is a thing that exists? Or that, while the schools in her much poorer country taught kids to read, American schools somehow wouldn't

Well, in most cases a concerned parent would talk to a teacher. I think that is kind of obvious. The teacher isn't hard to locate.
Then above the teacher is a whole slew of admins at any school. They are kind of hard to miss. They usually have a big office with lots of devices, desks, shelves and some PA devices. They hang around that office a lot so there's always someone there. Talk to some of them and at some point a parent would be directed to the county/city department for such things.

Why would the parent be concerned if the school tells them everything is fine?