College and Career-Ready Standards for School Leaders

I so agree! Good points! Although schools must prepare students for taking assessments, assessment preparation and assessment results should not be mistaken for good teaching and/or actual student outcomes.

If I'm reading this article correctly, the author does call into question elements of the Common Core Assessment's questionable "side affects" while at the same time not condemning the the intent of assessment.

The author's question raises the valid point that there is a difference between instruction and assessment of that instruction. If instruction becomes test prep then test prep becomes the perceived importance of the content. And, in the case of literary reading, the "side effects" of this lack of distinction between what ought to be central and what has become central is perhaps seriously misdirecting student attentiveness. 

In my mind, this does not mean that assessment is unimportant and therefore ought to be abandoned. It means that we should be mindful that the purposes for literary reading are not the same as the purposes for attempting to measure the achievement of benefit derived from literary reading. And, if we are mindful of the distinction, then, as was the case for promoting "formative assessment structures," perhaps current literary assessment structures can evolve in such ways as to be less intrusive and thereby less likely to misdirect classroom practices that are more likely to divert students' attentiveness and engagement away from  the actual value of literary reading  and more likely to capture evidence that students' recognize the reasoning behind the advise provided to those who spend time exploring the wisdoms articulated across time and cultures by history's wisest spokespersons. Perhaps assessment structures can continue to evolve to a point where students will demonstrate understanding beyond merely being able to merely identify WHAT the themes are in a piece of great literature,, but also be able to demonstrate an understanding of WHY those themes are worth his or her engaged and serious contemplation.

I hope that my take is not Panglossian optimism about the potential for further improvement of the current state of literary reading assessment, but rather the optimism of people such as Martin Luther King who perceived a problem long inadequately unaddressed yet continued to believe, in spite of history's significant evidence to the contrary, that good things could still  be done to more successfully address issues of serious concern.

Or maybe Atticus Finch was just an old fool. 

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

Google Lit Trips is the legal fictitious business name of GLT Global ED, an educational nonprofit

Teaching and the evaluation of teaching need to be further separated nationally in the United States. In my elementary, middle, and high school experiences, there has been too much emphasis placed on the estimation on how much students our learning rather that of what we are learning. Specifically, I can recall teachers giving us there examples of what a proficient and advanced essay should entail and forcing us to regurgitate that form time and time again for the soul purpose of meeting state standards. This process does not promote learning, insight, or originality. It deprives students of the chance to actually learn how to formulate their own well written essay. The author of this article, Mary Rudd, exclaims teaching the “habits of mind” through reading and writing to promote efficient learning. Using reading and writing to instigate critical thinking is very poignant to the learning process. Mary Rudd and her long standing career in education validate her credibility of this article.

My district piloted the Smarter Balanced Test last Spring and the students found it quite difficult and cumbersome.  I am not confident that the Smarter Balance Test is an accurate determiner of how students are fairing with the Common Core.

This article talks about how pictures can help students get rid of some anxiety about math. That is because pictures will help with mathematical imagery, and that is what's missing for students.  They cannot grasp the concepts easily because they cannot picture how it relates to anything in life.  This concept relates to why we use manipulatives in class.  In my first grade class, we always encourage students to use all kinds of counters because those help students to be less stressful.  Manipulatives can help students transfer the possible stress that they have to do all the math inside their heads to the manipulatives so they can do it easily.  I will definitely use more pictures and manipulatives in my future classroom.