[EDEQUITY Assesstment Dialogue]Bonuses for teachers and improved

From: Ellen Lee (elee@cams.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 13 2001 - 10:11:26 EST


scores for students
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Reports from California teachers indicate a major shift to basic skill
programs such as EXCEL in response to the pressure of the SAT 9, norm
referenced test. Schools are assigned Academic Performance Indicator
(API) scores based on these annual tests and teachers and schools have
been awarded up to $25000 financial bonus when schools (students) meet
"improvement targets". All teachers in the school receive the bonus (I
have a niece who teaches 1st grade - a grade that is not tested. About a
month ago, she received a $25000 bonus - for improvement in scores on the
2000 test.) Other rewards go to the school and all employees at the
school (secretary, custodian,... ) receive a share - I don't have
specific personal knowledge about this.

The pressure at school sites is intense.

The best way to know what is really going on-- go in and see for yourself.
I recently observed 12 classrooms working with the Everyday Math
curriculum; 6 of the lessons were focused totally on the MathBox part of
the lesson (reviewing skills with no context) and 2 of the lessons were
reviewing unit tests. The other 4 varied - place value game, using
compass to construct circles & gather data about circumference & radius,
finding all factors of a number, and polygon shape booklets.

On a personal note, when my granddaughter was in 4th grade she did 640
division examples - DIVIDE AND CHECK for every one of them - in the 3
weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break (yes, I have the evidence -
I saved her work & show it to teachers everytime I have an opportunity to
talk about assessment). To say that she no longer has any use for
"mathematics" is putting it mildly.

What is the work of students in the schools? Collect some data from your
children (or niece, nephew, grandchildren, or neighbor) - collect their
work over a period of time. Find out what they are really doing.

Ellen Lee

Christine Perez wrote:
I'm interested to hear if people in other states have witnessed the kinds
of changes McNeil described that have occurred in Texas. In particular,
have
you seen more direct "test prep" and "drill and kill" methods being used,
especially in lower-income schools and schools with high percentages of
students of color?
Christina Perez
FairTest (christina@fairtest.org)
http://www.fairtest.org
and
TERC (christina_perez@terc.edu)
http://www.terc.edu



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