Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What does the school district offer that I am gett...":
In response to whether education here is mediocre, let's look at elementary ELA education in our school district.
What fabulous books did your kid read in school and discuss with their teacher this year? Mostly all my kid sees in ELA are unrelated spelling words, vocabulary words and awful reading comprehension xeroxes with multiple choice questions. The class read one simple book together. One. All year. Reading happens at home, motivated by parents and lied about on weekly logs.
Did your kids reading level improve? Supposedly kids are monitored several times a year. Did you get your kids reading level scores from school this year? Has your child improved, stayed the same, regressed? Are they on grade level, above, or below? They used to send home reports with Lexiles in middle school but I never got anything and no one I know did either. I guess its a big secret.
Does your kid answer homework questions in a complete sentence? Does anyone care? Do your kids get any feedback from anyone in school on their written work? Do they really do much written work at all?
Forget about an essay, most kids can barely write a coherent paragraph beyond the simple RAFT format. They cringe whenever they see a group of empty lines to fill in. And rightfully so since our kids have learned to write by answering questions with one or two words to fill in the inch-long line in a Weekly Reader or smudged xerox. This writing instruction progressed into last minute test prep instruction on completing whatever the state assessment long answers require.
Kids do a lot of creative writing in elementary school, drawing maps of their hearts, writing about things familiar, in one big paragraph that extends for as long as they like. Fill up the page!! This of course does not prepare them at all for writing specific answers, essays, research papers or even book reports, all required in middle school.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the over-the-top ELA projects involving drawing and coloring and numerous craft items. These art components overshadow any ELA-related educational purpose the project might have had to begin with. Since when did ELA become an extension of art class?
I find ELA instruction here to be very unusual. Disappointingly lacking in instruction, absolutely necessary to supplement, and less than medicore.
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Who is responsible for overseeing ELA prep? Is the board aware of all you've mentioned here?
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on the subject of ELA and writing, does anyone know of a good ELA prep book? A tutor? A prep class? Writing instruction outside of school? It sounds like I'll have to take steps to prepare my child for the ELA myself. What else is new with our hard earned tax dollars?
My daughter is in 1st grade and her teacher has already taught them about essay formats via their creative writing assignments in class. She has them write their work up (most recently a summary of a trip to the local Science museum) and then she corrects the spelling/grammar errors for them on the page.
ReplyDeleteShe also shows them where to indent and begin a new paragraph.
She sends that copy home with the student for homework and the child is supposed to work with the parent to write a clean copy with the changes. The parents have been instructed to discuss the assignment, the writing and the reasons why format is important.
I've found the activity really sinks in with the kids even in first grade.
As for the hands on/creative approach to ELA preparation? Not all children learn by rote. The curriculum that teachers use needs to be good for all students. It has been shown (with good results if you look at the Plainview-POB scores) that whatever we are doing in the schools? IS working.
My child in elementary school is doing some pretty good writing exercises, it's too bad that my neighbor's child in middle school draws pictures and makes up games for her book reports. She says that RAFT really gets drummed in their little heads pretty early, but that the higher grades don't give more writing instruction beyond that. She doesn't give me much confidence in the middle school writing instruction. It is a little unnerving as I heard that SAT tests have a lot more essay work on them. I wonder how the schools will address that?
ReplyDeleteThe SAT results for JFK are above average for the nation.
ReplyDeleteThe instruction a child receives in this school district is very much specific to the particular school and/or classroom your child is in. The problem is that uniformity in the curriculum is not maintained district wide, at least not at Stratford.
ReplyDeleteAs for SAT results, I would argue it to be more representative of how many parents in the district put forth the money for SAT prep classes, materials and tutors as well as who chooses to live here to begin with more than anything else. That's not to say the school district is any better or worse than any other suburban school district in America. I just personally have different criteria for judgement.
My childen have not yet reached the secondary level. From what I've seen at Stratford and the K Center so far, it's ok but to be honest, I've seen better. The parents and children are very lovely. The special area teachers are a mixed bag. The same goes for the classroom teachers. I've heard it gets better as your children move up through the grade levels/schools. I hope that's the case. I can see where many of the frustrations on this blog are coming from.
To the person who posted April 26th at 9:38AM,
ReplyDeleteWhich building is your daughter in? When my chidren were in first grade at Stratford, they had nothing like what you are describing. It sounds wonderful.
As the saying goes, a school/district is as good as the teachers your individual child gets.
By the way, what is RAFT?