While the NPR article "Supreme Court to Hear School Strip-Search Case, written by Nina Totenberg, has little to do with the curriculum and instruction of mathematics, it is still an interesting article nevertheless. The questions that comes to mind in regards to the article is the legality of performing a search on a student. Specifically, the case involves a student who had no previous discipline issues with the school. "The school says the fact that Redding was an honors student who had never been in trouble before is not evidence of good conduct, but only evidence that she had never been caught" (from the article). This mind set that the school seems to have, that if you have not had trouble its not because you keep a clean nose, but that you crafty enough to evade capture, is perhaps as alarming as the spontaneous strip search.
School administrators need to strive to keep an educational environment free of drugs and violence, but the situation described in the article seems to be an abuse of power. Strip searching a minor, even if there is some probable cause (the school says that another student claimed that the student in question was holding prescription strength ibuprofen, which hardly seems to warrant a search considering that is the equivalent of two Advils), is a major oversight on the part of the administration. Even if their actions are somehow ruled to be legal, it seems that a the strip search level their should be parental contact and police involvement. Beyond prescribing to the law, schools also need to be worried about liability, and conducting such a search opens the school up to a bevy of liability issues. Simply put, the administration at this school should have considered all the ramifications of their actions.
"Summer School: Unfulfilled Promise," highlights the rise of summer schools in American secondary education along with the lack of standards for these programs. Addressing the former point, the increase in popularity of summer school, the article points to the pressure on school districts to simultaneously increase their retention rates and reduce social promotion. In an effort to reduce both problems at once, summer school is an attractive option. Instead of socially promoting a student, or failing the student and having them drop out, the student can attend summer school and theoretically receive the education they missed during the formal school year. While summer school on paper appears to be an attractive remedy for social promotion, it is not without its flaws. Most glaringly, there is a lack of standards and accountability for summer schools.
The standards and accountability issue seems to be two fold: first, there is lack of formal structure across the board, so a summer school in Oregon can be run differently than one in Mississippi. Secondly, there is a lack of criteria to determine a students successful completion of summer school. This second issue was addressed in a 2002 article in the New York Times, entitled "Summer School Draws More Critics," and written by Abby Goodnough. The article highlights that one failure of New York summer schools is that students may pass the class even if the fail their exit exams, due to classwork and attendance grades. While this may happen as well in normal school, the idea behind summer school is to ensure that the students enrolled will be ready for the next year of class, and if these students are failing their exit exams and being passed anyways, this seems like social promotion again. Ultimately, summer school must substitute for an entire year of an academic class, and most importantly, it must fill in the academic gaps that the student has missed. If it is simply a hoop for the student to jump through before they are socially promoted, it is useless to the student and a waste of resources for the school district.
The case for alternative testing methods laid out in the video from Edutopia is not necessarily a novel one. It is pointed out numerous times in the video that once students reach the "real world," performance is no longer measured by a score on a multiple choice bubble test. This is obviously true: in the post graduate workforce critical thinking skills, the ability to work on a team, and being able to create a polished final product are the attributes that describe a good employee. All this begs the question of why we evaluate students by handing them a standardized test.
The answer to the question of why we give standardized tests is in the name. While projects and "holistic" based assessments may be beneficial to the students learning, there needs to be a method to differentiate the students, i.e., separate those who firmly grasp the material versus those who do not. In an individual classroom setting this may be easily done using these alternative testing methods, but in a larger setting, such as across a school district or a state, it would be difficult to impose the exacting standard equally on all students. Of course, standardized tests can be utilized not only to show how students measure up, but also to track teacher performance. This use (testing the teachers) is noted in a 2002 CNN article entitled " Cheat sheet for parents on testing," written by Audrey Schewe. The article also highlights the importance of standardized testing to asses school performance from state to state. Thus, both types of testing have a role. Perhaps there should be greater emphasize on alternative testing to teach the student to work in a team and give the student other useful skills, but there will always be a need for standardized testing to sort out students of different academic abilities.
This summer at Holly Springs, I feel that there will be a great opportunity to utilize alternative testing methods. Summer school is unique in that it provides a school that is somewhat free of the necessity of standardized testing. The major obstacle however will be funding. Unfortunately, many of the projects shown in the video clip require resources that are unrealistic at Holy Springs. Nevertheless, I would like to incorporate theses alternative testing methods in my summer school class because of the skill sets they build, specifically team work and presentation skills.
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