Data, Data, Everywhere and not a drop to drink
Schools have become better at collecting data about student performance. This year's
MEAP data included a comparison of student
performance from last year to this year. Gone are the days of schools blaming results on a "bad" group of students. So what can we blame less than stellar results on?
Well, the good part of all the data is we now have an easier task of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. Our regional education center has invested in data crunching software to help schools find the needle. Now, I can find the gain of any group of students on any State or local benchmark.
Let the search begin.
Why is there Air?
Okay, that's not the real question I have today. That is the question from an old Bill Cosby
monologue from a record of his. (Yes, vinyl!) The point is that I sometimes want to ask a question about something that many educators take for granted.
Why does the schedule give equal importance to all core subject areas?
At an elementary level schools do not do this. The way I have observed the elementary schedule is that five core subjects are taught. (Reading, writing, math, science, and social studies) Of the five subjects reading is usually given more time than any of the other four subjects. When students come to a middle school reading and writing are called language arts and given the same time as the other three subjects. Does reading become less important at the middle level?
At the middle level, we
conveniently split the day into equal sections and hire the same amount of math, science, social studies, and language arts teachers. Added to this fact is that many language arts teachers take class time for silent sustained reading (
SSR). The
SSR activity has research to back up the importance of the activity. So, should we have a section of the day devoted to
SSR that doesn't come from language arts?
If I had to guess, I would say that the middle level schedules that are so common in America today are not based on research in student
achievement. I would guess that the schedules came from
convenience.
I need to find out if other middle schools have found better solutions to the management of the day or if what we have now is the best solution.
Please share your thoughts.
