Anne Giddings on the campaign and schools

I had a chance to speak with Anne Giddings (Council, at-large) after Tuesday's Council meeting:



As well, I know some people have asked about the views held by Anne Giddings on schools. And since she posted this very thoughtful comment on this week-old thread on the schools' NCLB non-compliance, I decided to front page her comment:

This retired educator (Full disclosure: former high school math teacher, math department chairman, high school assistant principal, middle school principal, curriculum supervisor, assistant superintendent) cannot resist adding her two cents to this topic.

I strongly agree with retired teacher* that standardized tests can be helpful if they test what is being taught. Each district sets its own curriculum, and although most districts follow the outline the state provides for its tests, there is no guarantee that they match. And, though there is some cognizance of spelling and other writing “conventions” on the CMT, important since these conventions help the reader to understand the intent of the writer, students are still not always taught spelling rules. They should be, although this senior citizen was taught spelling rules and lots of phonics back in the dark ages, and I remember my 4th grade teacher telling my mother, “Anne spells phonetically, not necessarily correctly.” One has to give some attention to spelling, and check for typos; take some time to look at what has been written; that should be taught, also. (Similar to checking math work for possible errors, rather than just writing an answer and rushing on to the next problem…..)

There is a problem in using standardized tests to judge school systems, since particularly in districts such as Cheshire, many students enter school having had a variety of excellent learning opportunities at home: literacy rich homes with parents reading and using large vocabularies when talking to their children; private pre-kindergarten; travel; exposure to theater, art and musical performances; restriction on TV watching; etc. Historically, CT state testing, CMT and CAPT scores, tend to show a correlation with town demographics.

Also, one test a year will not show growth made by a child. A pre-test in the fall and a post-test in the spring would come closer to showing the effects of the schooling for that year, but would still not show the cause of the student achievement. Cheshire has generally good CMT/CAPT scores, and we would expect that to be the case.

I do know that NCLB has helped to nudge some school districts to pay more attention to the % of students scoring below goal, rather than just congratulating themselves on the % that score above goal. Attention should be paid to individuals who could achieve more, not matter where they score.

What does decent research show is the single most important factor in student learning? Not turf. Not smartboards. The factor is the teacher. We want playing fields to be safe for users and technology can make learning less tedious—help to motivate students. But technology is not the silver bullet. There is no easy answer.

Tim White

* "Retired Teacher" was the name of an earlier commenter on the thread to which Anne replied.