Why So Quiet, Dr. Mayo?

I attended a forum on public education called "What's at Stake?" Here is a link to media coverage: http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-lehighvalley/Forum-for-education-discusses-what-is-at-stake/-/132502/11921286/-/fr6ygt/-/index.html The purpose of this forum was to inform parents about how budget cuts, unfunded mandates, and high stakes testing have impacted our children's education, and what we can do about it. Unfortunately, the topic of high stakes testing was never addressed, but the organizers are planning to hold another forum to discuss this important issue. The panel included superintendents from local school districts, including Allentown, and Susan Gobreski, the Executive Director of Education Voters PA.  She did a good job informing parents about flaws in the funding formula for education, and told us that $900 million was cut from this year's education budget, and there are plans for another $860 million to be cut. 

Other than his opening statement, ASD Superintendent Dr. Russ Mayo did not contribute much of anything else to the 2 hour conversation, even when the panel was discussing how urban districts have been disproportionately hit by budget cuts. Concerned parents from Allentown who attended are wondering... why so quiet, Dr. Mayo? Even when the moderator asked him for his thoughts, he declined to speak. I wanted to jump in myself to help him out, but audience questions were only limited to 5 minutes at the end, and no "debate" allowed. If this is how Dr. Mayo fights for our kids, then he should be fired immediately. Not a very rigorous or resilient performance by our CEO. Maybe he was distracted by the recent shake up in ASD administration. There seems to be a lot of instability in our district right now. But I was surprised that in Mayo's opening statement he said that "it's a people business" and it's "not just about measuring test scores." This is the opposite of what he told me at the parent meeting at Muhlenberg, when he said "don't treasure what you can't measure." Is he just telling parents what they want to hear? His words don't jibe with his actions. If he really cared, he would find a way to restore our arts programs, and ditch the corporate reform model.

Two parents from the ASD spoke at the forum. Betsy Ragan and Ed White did a great job, but should have been given more time. Betsy mentioned the cuts to art, music, PE and library at the elementary schools. Thank you Betsy!  And Ed discussed the importance of staying informed and voting for pro-public education candidates. Voting, writing letters to legislators, meeting with legislators, house parties, talking, blogging, all of these things will help, but I think much more drastic action is needed. Massive grassroots protests should be organized across the state. Parents should opt their children out of testing. It's way past time to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! But this is highly unlikely because in the ASD most parents are reluctant to get involved. And I believe the ASD needs a strong leader who is not afraid to fight for equal opportunities for our children- someone who is not afraid to stand for what's right by CHILDREN, instead of fighting for whatever measly crumbs crooked Corbett and his cronies throw out to districts that serve mostly poor children.

Why DIBELS Testing Hurts Children

DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is a mandatory series of timed tests administered to ASD students in grades K-2. These tests are supposed to assess early reading progress by measuring fluency, and letter and sound recognition. To test Kindergarten age children, a timer is set for 1 minute, and children are told to read a list of "nonsense words" like tuc and sep, by sounding out each letter. First of all, any kind of testing, other than for diagnostic purposes, is developmentally inappropriate for young children and results are inconsistent. There is no evidence that this test helps improve reading comprehension, or that measuring reading speed benefits young readers. According to educational research done by Ken Goodman:  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~kgoodman/theperfectliteracytest.htm


"Furthermore the testers must judge accuracy, mark a score sheet and watch a stop watch all at the same time. And, to be fair, testers must listen carefully to children who at this age often lack front teeth, have soft voices, and speak a range of dialects as well languages other than English. Consistency in scoring is highly unlikely among so many testers and each tester is likely to be inconsistent."


Read more at FairTest.org about the corruption surrounding DIBELS, and why it is absurd:
http://www.fairtest.org/dibels-pedagogy-absurd-hurts-children

DIBELS is about crony crooked corporate profit. It's not about helping children. Teachers should be pushing against this absurd test, not going along with it. Nonsense words confuse children, and could hurt their reading progress. And these are 5 year old babies! Many children this age have trouble pronouncing letter sounds. This is normal. They will have plenty of time to develop those skills. These children should be playing, developing social skills through drama, dress up, art, music and exercise. We should not be pressuring young children with a timed test.



I posted this at the Facebook page "Testing Hurts Kids", and it got a good response.


Yesterday, as a sub, I helped some really cute little Kindergarteners practice for DIBELS testing. I had to set a timer for 1 minute and kids had to read a list of nonsense words and I had to record how many correct letter sounds they got in a minute. Some kids had to pause to figure out if it was a d sound or a b sound (this confused some kids) so their score was low, and this test is about speed, not much else. 


It is crazy that teachers are required to put these little children through this. I joked and talked with the kids for a little while to make it fun. I told them I'll be coming in to teach them art next month, and they were real excited about that. One of the "words" was tuc. Several kids thought the t was an f, and said "fuck" loudly. Oopsie! This has got to be the most ridiculous test ever, and developmentally inappropriate, but teachers told me "it's the law of the land" and they have to do it. Also, there's a huge bulletin board about testing and measuring reading progress outside in the hallway, and I watched the reading consultant spend the afternoon working on this elaborate board, which used to display student work. These are 5 and 6 year olds!!!!!