It’s a big event for our school and the staff did a great job organizing it. The assessments are no big deal for some students and very daunting for others. I’m always sympathetic to the 3rd graders who are the youngest ones and not sure what to expect. I’m glad it’s over for this year.

Last week, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) released the results from their second Civil Literacy test of college freshmen and seniors. The statistically valid questions cover America’s history, government, international relations and market economy. The test results inform ISI of how much our college students know and how much they learn by the time they graduate with a four-year degree. The results of the first assessments in 2005 were dismal and this year’s tests confirmed those results. Here are their latest findings:

1. College Seniors Failed a Basic Test on America’s History and Institutions.
2. Colleges Stall Student Learning about America.
3. America’s Most Prestigious Universities Performed the Worst.
4. Inadequate College Curriculum Contributes to Failure.
5. Greater Learning about America Goes Hand-in-Hand with More Active Citizenship.

(more…)

Check out this recently published research project entitled “The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic Performance” by Todd Stinebrickner, of The University of Western Ontario and Ralph Stinebrickner of Berea College. This seems to be a refinement of an earlier publication called “Time-Use and College Outcomes” published in 2004 so it’s been in the works for several years.

(more…)

Writing my own lesson plans is something I try to avoid and I’ve been pretty successful at that. I know several moms who write their own stuff and relish it. They do a great job! If I had to design a course for an upper-grade student it’s a helpful skill to have. Here’s an article that lays it out very simply, Homeschooling Teachers: Write Homeschool Lesson Plans like a Pro. It’s a familiar layout; k12.com uses this format for their curriculum.

• We should be glad that kids today for the most part do not have to sit for norm-referenced testing every year. Criterion-based assessments actually provide useful information to parents.
• I am not advocating that independent homeschoolers be held to state standards or NCLB. I am saying that for those of us who enroll our kids in a public homeschool program and have to take the Standards Based Assessments (SBA’s) required by NCLB can make good use of the information the assessments give.
• SBA’s essentially measure a student’s mastery of a subject or skill. Isn’t that what homeschoolers do? We don’t move on in a subject until our child has got it figured out. We don’t leave our own kids behind; hence the title of the post.
• It took an act of Congress to bring public schools to do what homeschoolers have done all along, mastery before promotion.

So, that’s it. That’s what I intended to communicate and still firmly believe.

However, in a classroom, teaching to the test may replace mastery of subject material with mastery of test taking. It’s taking time for schools to line up their teaching of subject material with what is required by No Child Left Behind.

• A student needed a required course to graduate, did not pass the course and, thus, did not graduate.
• She came back for a 5th year took the same course and failed again.
• For the spring semester she enrolled in the course again with the same teacher and she failed a 3rd time.
• The school’s administrators overuled the teacher, gave her a passing grade and she graduated. The teacher had meticulous records of the student’s failing efforts or, rather, non-efforts. The student had shown little interest and had even missed the final exam.
• The teacher has quit and moved.

(more…)

When we plan for the coming school year part of it includes being able to identify what standards we will cover and master. While that sounds very bureaucratic it’s really very easy.

(more…)