Well said!

Agreed!!

Obviously, you're unaware that students that are classified as Special Education include any child with an IEP - this can include kids that are performing above grade level, have specific emotional issues, or are dyslexic. None of these situations should prevent a child from performing at the same level as their peers, and to expect any less of them is to not do our job in providing them with the best education that we can. I would be interested in seeing more research put into the specifics of an article - incomplete reporting is a big reason this community finds it acceptable to brush aside special education students.

The government has got to get out of our education system, period.

I agree - this is a good apology for our education system as it plunges to the bottom. Math should be hard; so should Spanish, reading, physics, literature etc.. Stretching students to be the best they can be makes them great. All PSSA tests do is try to get students to perform at least a C level. Interestingly, schools that do not teach to the test have better performance results. "Broadening curriculum" without basic skills is a saying we can give students dummy courses so they will feel good until they get to the real world where they are judged on performance.Finding menial work should not be a goal for education. Needing to work hard to achieve should not be reason for giving up. Rather than try to find a job with third rate newspapers, maybe one should seek to win a Pulitzer for reporting on the reasons why macroeconomic theory failed our country-- but you would need math for this.
Let School Boards and local parents determine education policy? That is equivalent to patients in a doctors office determining how the doctor should operate. The best predictor of a student's performance is how rich their parents are. Poor parents? Forget school, you can get plenty of jobs. White kids do better than ethnic minorities. To say that it is because they are smarter means we have to agree that Asian students are smarter than whites (but only American whites). This requires math to refute-- forget it; get government out of the education system- dumb is good -period.

We need competition and true School Choice between public schools as well to improved education in America. One education size does not fit all.

AD -- Certainly there are students who have IEPs for disabilities that don’t prevent them doing well on standardized tests. But I’ve talked to people who work with special education students who have significant delays but are still required to take the regular PSSA. Some of these students make progress in their class work but still aren’t working at what is considered “grade level.” Then they take the test and feel like complete failures. So they feel like failures and the school gets labeled as failing because No Child Left Behind doesn’t allow for individuals having different strengths and weaknesses. For Limeport Resident -- so you've looked at the sample PSSAs I linked to and believe every child in America is capable of being deemed proficient by 2014? Even in the 11th grade tests? And if they aren't it's because their school has failed them?

"Under high stakes testing, teachers must stay on lessons tied to the test until every kid gets it – an approach that leaves good math students bored to death."

This is a good arguement for earlier tracking of kids, which unfortunately is politically incorrect to many. More tracking would be a good systematic improvement for our schools, which would not only improve scores on tests on minimum standards for all, but it would also improve learning of "stretch" goals for those who could reach for more..

Isn't it curricula, not curriculums?

Margie - if I am not mistaken, at least one of your children has an IEP, a GIEP if I again am accurate. This would place you in this bias working toward a solution for boredom and the reducing of curricula. I wonder if your opinion would change if you had a child that is benefiting from the effort? I don't see it and for you to be this critical before fully understanding others...shame on you as you hold up your nose.

Salisbury Resident: Both my children are much better math students than I was but neither is such a whiz that he’s far ahead of his classmates. My observation about good math students being bored during repeated test prep comes from talking to teachers in other districts and other parents. I’m all for pushing kids to excel – to be the best they can be in every subject. But not everyone is the same – thank God – and No Child Left Behind has no place for a kid who is shaky at geometry but a genius at biology or one who can’t tell a simile from a metaphor but is a terrific mechanic.

I think Salisbury's ad hominen response criticsm of Margie is uncalled for and diminishes (his/her) point in the middle that many parents of special education students think that NCLB / PSSA is helping them. Emmaus124's point that it creates some hardships for the students and parents because of the results that discourage them and provide more negative reinforcement is also well taken. Two different viewpoints from people that might be in a very similar situation.

But to criticize Margie's opinion ending with "shame on you" for wanting to eliminate boredom of the gifted is just wrong. That too is a problem that needs to be addressed, and it is with PA's system identifying the gifted as Special ed and providing IEP's. And as I said earlier here, using minimum proficiency PSSA testing to evaluate schools and teachers of the gifted is even sillier than using it to evaluate teachers and schools for those with limitations.

I am smiling at the hypocrisy. Just so you are aware, there are others that are thinking the same as I about this op ed. I happen to be one posting. There are many that enjoy it, benefit from it, and will further support its integration. Hence the reason why it is still in place. And yes, I still have the feeling that the nose is held high in favor of children who are much better than what the school has to offer (or willing to offer - maybe that is the argument here?) and presenting the fault of governmental control as the reason.

.

What everyone is overlooking is the fact that standardized tests such as the PSSAs do not accurately measure knowledge or actual learning, let alone 21st Century skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking. Furthermore, the tests are not scientifically valid to any significant degree in terms of predicting future success, academic or otherwise. Interestingly, when the students in local districts take the NAEP exams (a national exam similar to the PSSA, that supposedly tests, for example, reading skills), the number of students who score as "proficient" decreases by nearly 50 percentage points. Both tests are designed to measure the same things yet the state version results in 80% of 3rd graders scoring as proficient in some school districts and the national exam version results in 30% of 3rd graders scoring as proficient in those very same school districts..... If we are to believe that these standardized tests are a valid way of demonstrating students' level of learning, then which test is reflecting the accurate picture? That might be an interesting topic for Ms. Peterson to consider writing about! And lastly, just as a suggestion to some, it could be worth reading Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman's book "NurtureShock" to see the latest research on how counter-productive it can typcially be to provide kids with the "gifted" label when all they are is accelerated in a particular subject area prior to their classmates catching up to them in later grades.

Wow, so many interesting and skewed thoughts about an issue that continues to change with each political climate. The stew man might address these idiotic responses to the article when he is able to decipher the nonsense that some of you have about the PSSA's, No Child Left Behind, and individuals with IEP's / GIEP's.
Bottom line the tests are only one moment in a school year. Year to year tracking is what is necessary to demonstrate growth.

This article just popped up on my screen. I missed it in October.
I may be in the minority, but NCLB is good for American Education. It establishes a set of common minimum standards and requires schools to work toward them. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has been active in setting the standards, so teachers are involved. Common standards are NECESSARY to insure educational uniformity and a common platform for comparsion. We require driver ed students to be proficient to prevent highway carnage. Why not require profiency in all subjects?

Is NCLB perfect? Not even close. It can, and should, be improved. No one with a shred of common sense believes that 100% proficiency will be achieved in any district by 2014, but it does not set the bar artificially low. It requiress everyone to aim high, which is what we want.
Don't blame Bush either. Ted Kennedy was the major driving force behind NCLB, so both parties recognized the importance of standards.
I do find it funny that the same educators who have advocated and implemented inclusive education and homogeneous grouping are against holding the students to the same standard. That is hypocracy. One of the answers is simple, if a student doesn't meet the minimum standards (or IEP standard), they repeat the grade until they pass. No test has higher stakes than the SATs, but most agree that they are needed.

NCLB needs tweaking

NCLB doesn't establish common minimum standards, except in terms of AYP test scores. There is no educational uniformity or a common platform in which to compare. Each state creates its own set of standards for each subject and each creates its own version of state-based standardized testing. Hence the drive towards Common Core standards. Perhaps you've heard of them? Maybe you have NCLB confused with Common Core standards? And, have you ever actually looked at the standards? Talk about the bar being set LOW. Additionally, NCLB and PSSA test scores have nothing to do with whether a child repeats a grade.

As for this statement - "I do find it funny that the same educators who have advocated and implemented inclusive education and homogeneous grouping are against holding the students to the same standard" - I wish I understood what you were trying to convey, because while it is nice-sounding sentence, it doesn't actually make any sense. Additionally, it is NCLB that insists upon homogeneity and it is IDEA that insists upon "least restrictive environment" which leads to inclusion.

As a college professor, over the last 5 years, all I have seen are students who graduated from nice schools who don't really know how to read (i.e., comprehend) or do math and they certainly don't know what it means to think critically about a topic or subject. They do know how to memorize information and pass a test and then forget what they memorized.

Hypocrisy, not hypocracy. Too funny.

1. State standards are based on NCTM standards in most states. I agree that standards should be uniform across all states.
2. Show me where NCLB insists on homogeneous grouping? If it did, districts would be banned from teaching remedial math courses that are commonly used for low scoring students. Least restrictive environment rules came at the behest of educational "advocates", also know as college professors.
3. All students in a class should be assessed on the uniform standards for the material. If a student can not do the work, they should in a class consistent with their abilities, not used as an excuse for the class not meeting standards.
4. PSSA tests have constructive response questions that measure students critical thinking skills.
5. Don't blame NCLB for lack of thinking skills. It only says that students should be able to meet the standards. It does not dictate how the material is taught. It correctly leaves those decisions to individual schools / districts. Your statement implies that students do not can not think or memorize. If that is the case, then the schools are indeed failing. (Of course, the ivory tower believes that all critical thinking occurs in the colleges or occupy campsites.)
6. Where did I say that students repeat grades for PSSA scores? It looks like your comprehension isn't very good either. Retaining students is extremely rare and pushing them along for social reasons only increases the student's academic problems.

The bottom line is this: I interact with students who have come out of many of our local high schools on a day in, day out/year in, year out basis. Many of them do not read well and most of them avoid anything math-related like the plague. Don't even bother to ask them about history, geography, or science, They'll tell you they learned how to "do school" and that that was what they were encouraged to do. By "doing school" they mean they memorized info for school-based tests and state-based tests then immediately forgot the information. The only thing that was expected from them was to "get a good score"/"get a good grade" because "it will help you get into a good college" - it was made clear to them that actually learning something in a meaningful way was not the goal. Cheating in school was rampant and tolerated as long as it wasn't too blatant. Students report that they either chose to participate in the "doing school" process or that they chose to not bother. By the time I see them in college, they have been trained to ask on the first day of class "Will this be on the test?" (they believe they are only obligated to "learn" test-related info). They are terrified to ask questions in class and will explain that that, in general, has been frowned upon. They find reading to be boring and their overall goal is to use the internet to find information that can be cut-and-pasted into their assignments; beyond that, their primary efforts are directed towards facebook and texting.