Progress Monitoring … But Whose Progress Are We Monitoring?
What few people ever want to talk about is how 20 plus years of ed reform has taken the focus off the purpose of education. It’s easy to see why; when a person tries to convince parents and the public that public education, a/k/a the traditional school system of neighborhood schools managed by an elected school board, is the best option, that person doesn’t want to admit that those schools (under the pressure of test-and-punish laws that began in 2001 with No Child Left Behind) are focused on the needs of adults, not the children who show up to learn.
We do a lot of progress monitoring in schools, which does not mean that teachers are carefully gauging how well their students are doing, but does mean that we do a lot of ill-timed, poorly written, state-test-guessing-as-to-what-May’s-questions-will-look-like assessment of children.
It’s like school improvement plans. Have you ever looked at one? In Florida, the state-mandated exercise that takes place every year asks each school to document how they will raise test scores. They pretend it’s about making CONTINUE READING: Progress Monitoring … But Whose Progress Are We Monitoring? – Grumpy Old Teacher