Schools of Thought

From the Baltimore Sun:

The future of Studio Course in Baltimore middle schools was thrown into doubt yesterday after the release of a report showing the language arts curriculum is not preparing pupils for the state's standardized tests.

City schools Chief Executive Officer Bonnie S. Copeland, who commissioned a review of the curriculum after criticism resulting from a Sun article, issued a statement showing plans to tweak Studio but continue using it. School board Chairman Brian D. Morris, however, said that Studio "will be subject to intense scrutiny" by the school board and Copeland's administration after the Maryland School Assessments next month.

The report, written by veteran educator Theresa M. Flak, found that teachers and principals are unhappy with Studio and don't believe it has prepared their pupils for next month's state tests. Studio uses teen magazines and de-emphasizes grammar in an attempt to spark children's interest in reading and writing. It was implemented this school year, at a cost of at least $2 million, in response to dismal state test scores in the city's middle schools.

[...]

Studio aims to improve pupils' reading and writing abilities by getting them to read and write more. Pupils write daily in journals on topics of their choice. But the report found that some journal writing "amounts to copying charts from the chalkboard." In addition, it says, "some students have many blank pages in their writer's notebooks, and there appear to be no consequences."

The report quotes a principal as saying, "Anything goes! Everything is accepted by the teachers, and nothing is graded." It also found a logistical problem with pupils picking their own books: "If there is no consistent common text for every teacher to use then there is no consistent (or realistic) approach for a teacher to check a student's accuracy or understanding of the text."

To be implemented properly, Studio requires every classroom to have a library of 800 to 1,000 books. No classroom visited by panel members met that criterion. The report says teachers "have gone to extraordinary lengths" to find more books for their classrooms by "scouring thrift shops and bargain sales at bookstores," bringing in books and magazines from home, and soliciting donations from their churches and local businesses.

Teachers and principals told the panel they did not have enough magazines for a magazine unit, and they expressed concerns about the magazines they did have. Though CosmoGIRL! was pulled from city schools in December, they said remaining magazines such as Teen People and Teen Vogue do not reflect racial diversity and are "aimed at a teen market with substantial disposable income," not "disadvantaged urban youth."

Other magazines, such as PSM (about PlayStation 2) "are considered to be too commercial, graphic and violent in their content to be appropriate as instructional tools," the report says.

So, um, the biggest problem with this program was that it wasn't preparing kids for their standardized tests? That's why it should be ended? Not because, I don't know, it wasn't teaching the students much of anything and was horribly underresourced? Our priorities have gotten really strange these days...

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 09, 2006 at 12:27 PM. |