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Maria Mahon

Harlem Success Academy Prepares for Tests at Queens Farm Museum - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...20farms.html

standardized test Field trip

shared by Maria Mahon on 23 Oct 09 - Cached
  • New York State’s English and math exams include several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park
  • Educators have long known that prior knowledge of a subject can significantly improve a child’s performance on tests.
    • Maria Mahon
      Maria Mahon on 23 Oct 09
       
      I think this factor of prior knowledge of a subject matter is one of the most difficult things to contend with in the debate about standardized tests. If students walk in to a learning experience with this lack of prior knowledge it becomes very difficult for them to ever catch up to the test's expectations.
  • The New York State Education Department runs statistical analyses of its tests to look for gender, racial or socioeconomic bias, but it does not compare the performance of rural and urban students, partly because it is hard to isolate whether a disparity is the result of a lack of familiarity with an environment or is caused by other factors like socioeconomic status or quality of classroom instruction.
    • Maria Mahon
      Maria Mahon on 23 Oct 09
       
      Some of the examples provided in this article provide clear examples in my opinion of why the department should compare the performance of rural and urban students.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Only the prekindergarten and kindergarten classes at Harlem Success schools — about 450 students — attend the farm trips, though the state exams do not begin until third grade. Students in other grades go on nature-related field trips, like camping, that help acquaint them with unfamiliar settings, Ms. Moskowitz said.
  • Maria Mahon on 23 Oct 09
     
    The Harlem Success Academny takes its students on field trips that aim to help students do better on standardized tests by taking them on fields trips to introduce them to subject matter that will be on the test, such as a farm.
jbdrury

Suit looming against California over school funding - San Jose Mercury News - 1 views

www.mercurynews.com/...ci_13517231

california school funding education california education education suit law suit state funding of schools

shared by jbdrury on 14 Nov 09 - Cached
  • California spends $35.7 billion, or about 30 percent of its budget, on its 10,000 public K-12 schools
  • California has trailed national per-pupil spending since 1979, and now the gap is $1,700 per student
  • Since 1979, cases have been brought in about 30 other states. But while 14 resulted in court-ordered funding increases, cases decided in the past four years have tended to favor the states
  • ...4 more annotations...
    • jbdrury
      jbdrury on 14 Nov 09
       
      I may be wrong, and I don't know how feasible it is, but it would seem to me a better solution would be to redistribute property tax revenue, as opposed to putting burdens on the state government to come up with additional funding for the educational system.
  • But Michael Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity, which successfully sued to win more money for New York City schools, said that achievement has improved dramatically, especially among minority and low-income students, after lawsuits in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Vermont.
    • jbdrury
      jbdrury on 14 Nov 09
       
      This is an important point; the very size of California's population and economy has always made it a key influence on national trends.
  • Without reform, Hanushek said, because the state is so big — it educates one of every eight children in the nation — and because its schools perform so poorly, "California is dragging down the nation
  • jbdrury on 14 Nov 09
     
    As those of you in my EDU 522 class know, we have spent quite a while on the issue of unequal school funding. The Kozol video we watched in class raised the question of how each state pays for its public schooling, and as a result I have been trying to determine which states still use local property taxes (thus perpetuating the inequality of schools within the state) and which have instituted reforms to equalize funding. The problem is, none of this information is compiled in a concise manner. This is a recent article discussing this issue; I am still trying to find others.
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