An Assessment of Magnet Schools
and Standardized Testing
© 2006 by Peter Jude Fagan
Many states and counties (parishes in Louisiana) have
standards for schools and rank the schools by how well their students
score on various assessment tests. Many states also assess the
principals, administrators and teachers of the schools according to
how well their students score on these standardized tests.
But the school boards, administrative personnel and
politicians who endorse assessment fail to realize that the
principals, administrators and teachers of those schools with high
numbers of economically disadvantaged students – those who usually
score lower on assessment tests – are teaching their students how to
pass tests instead of educating their students.
The test scores go up and the school appears to have
more students being educated. But the truth is that the children are
not being educated.
Instead, they are being taught how to pass assessment
tests and they attend pep rallies to encourage them to do their best
on these tests. Then those students who score high or above a certain
percentage are rewarded for doing their best. Meanwhile, those
students who score low or do not do their best are punished.
The politicians, school board members, and other school
board administrative personnel have all failed to realize that if
the students are not in their classrooms doing their class work and
their teacher is not in the classroom with them then they are not
getting a quality education. Attending a pep rally is not
educational! Learning how to pass a standardized test is not
educational!
As noted previously, taking an assessment test is not
giving an accurate picture of a student’s abilities. It is not even
going to help the student once he or she gets into adult life and into
the work force. The only people who gain from standardized assessment
tests are those who have a financial interest in them.
Thus, it appears that the standards set by politicians
and school boards based upon assessment tests are just a lot of hot
air propagated by these politicians, school board personnel and others
who have a financial interest in them and who only want to give the
appearance of endorsing quality education, when in fact our children
are getting an ersatz education.
It appears that standardized tests help only those who
are more interested in paperwork that claims that our children are
getting a quality education instead of actually giving our children a
quality education.
Raising the quality of education in our schools cannot
be done in a few short years of standardized testing, as many
politicians, school board members and other school board
administrative personnel seem to believe.
If these individuals are sincere in their efforts to
raise the quality of education and build quality schools then the
first thing that they MUST to do is to lower the teacher/student ratio
by hiring more teachers and teacher assistants. (No classroom should
have more than 15 students in it and every K-12 teacher should have an
assistant.)
Next they can address the underlying cause of an
inferior education. This can be done by raising the quality of life in
economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. That is, they can start by
addressing poverty, unemployment and employment pay differentiation,
homelessness and inadequate housing, inefficient health care, ethnic
and religious discrimination, latchkey children, dysfunctional
families, child abuse and sex, alcohol and drug abuse (SAD abuse).
These politicians, school board members and
school board administrative personnel fail to understand that poverty
is a leading cause of ignorance and inadequate education, which leads
to more poverty! It's a vicious circle. (Thus, getting rid of poverty
would take a big bite out of ignorance. It would also take a big bite
out of crime.)
Making speeches, giving standardized tests and building
magnet and specialty schools is not going to erase these underlying
causes. I doubt that it is even going to help students raise their
scores on assessment tests but I could be wrong.
Raising the quality of education in our schools is
going to take at least 50 years or more of raising the quality of life
in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, not giving standardized
tests. Those who endorse any other method of raising the quality of
education are just blowing a lot of hot air to make themselves look
and sound important.
Many politicians, school board personnel, and other
administrative personnel are endorsing the creation of magnet and
specialty schools for those students who score well on assessment
tests. The building of magnet and specialty schools is an attempt to
select the academically advanced student and place him or her in an
atmosphere where he or she can excel. This is good. Indeed, it is
great! But isn’t that what special education gifted and talented
classes are for?
Then there are those students who do excellent in one
subject but do poor or average in other subjects. Many of them are not
given the opportunity to go to a magnet or specialty school because of
their poor or average performance in other subjects.
There are also those students who would do better
receiving an education that prepares them for their future in the work
force instead of going to college. They do not get the advantage of
going to a magnet or specialty school because there are very few
special classes for specific job skills or artistic skills. Although
there are some states that have specialty schools for some job or
artistic skills but these are rare and often not open to all students.
Since it is usually the children of the affluent who
score higher on assessment tests, magnet and specialty schools are in
effect separating the children of the rich from the children of the
poor; they are separating the haves from the have-nots.
It appears that magnet and specialty schools are an
attempt to return to the days before Brown v. Board of Educatio
n. They are an attempt to return to “separate but equal” schools of
the past. Only this time it isn’t just the African American children
who are going to be discriminated against. It is the children of all
the poor, regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity, et cetera.
Those who believe otherwise are not looking down the
road at reality. An affluent parent with political connections who has
a child in a magnet or specialty school is not about to allow the
school his or her child attends receive inferior quality computers and
computer software, school text books, work books, desks, and other
school supplies when there are state-of-the-art supplies available.
An affluent parent will make sure that the magnet or
specialty school their child attends will receive the very best school
supplies. Meanwhile the regular schools will be left to receive the
second-rate school supplies, just like in the days before Brown v.
Board of Education.
This disproportionate distribution of supplies will
continue until all the regular schools end up with nothing but
mediocre and inadequate supplies, while the magnet and specialty
schools attended to by the children of the affluent will end up with
the new and superior supplies.
Magnet and specialty schools are returning our schools
to a separate but equal status, just as it was in the days before
Brown v. Board of Education. Again, those who do not believe
this are not looking at reality.
This disparity between the two types of schools does
not stop at the distribution of supplies. Indeed, it is very subtle.
At many magnet and specialty schools the students do not have to take
yearly standardized assessment tests. Whereas regular education school
students do have to take them.
The reasoning behind this is ostensibly because magnet
and specialty school students, by the nature of the education that
they are receiving, do not need them. Whereas regular education
schools, because of the “poor” performance of many of their students,
do need accountability. (Politicians, school board members and other
administrative personnel who demand such accountability refuse to
admit that a major source of this poor performance is the
disproportion in wealth between the two classes of students.)
Students spend many hours preparing for standardized
assessment tests and then many more hours taking these tests. But
while they are doing this, they are not doing their class work. They
are getting an education in how to pass tests – something that will
NOT help them in their adult life. Thus they are getting an inferior
education!
Teachers in regular schools must fill out numerous
reports and education plans so that politicians, school board members
and other administrative personnel can have paper work which “proves”
that the students of these schools are receiving a high quality
education.
But while the teachers are filling out these reports
and education plans, they are not teaching their students. Their
students are receiving an ersatz education. As I said previously:
If the students are not in their classrooms doing their class work
and their teacher is not in the classroom with them then they are not
getting a quality education.
Meanwhile, magnet and specialty school students spend
their time in their classrooms with their teachers doing their
lessons. They are getting a quality education.
The students of regular education schools are thus
receiving an inferior education, while on paper it appears that the
education they are receiving is just as good as that received by the
magnet and specialty school students.
Again, it appears as those politicians, school board
members and other adminsitrative personnel care more about their paper
work than they do about educating our children.
There is no such thing as separate but equal, whether
this is black and white students, rich and poor students advance and
regular students or any other differences. As long as we have two
types of schools for our students then we will have one class of
students getting a quality education and the other class of students
getting an ersatz education.
If I may paraphrase President Abraham Lincoln: This
nation cannot long endure with part of it rich and the majority of it
poor. This nation cannot long endure with the rich living off the fat
of the land, while the poor must labor night and day just to earn a
modest living. This nation cannot long endure with one class of
society forcing the other class of society to do all their dirty work,
while they themselves live in the lap of luxury.
There is no excuse for a select few to possess the vast
majority of the wealth, while others must go without food, clothing,
shelter and education. In a nation such as ours, where equal justice
for all is supposed to prevail for all, there is no excuse for there
not to be a more equitable economic system.
The place to start is in our schools. There is no
excuse for there to be magnet and specialty schools for the affluent,
while the poor receive an inferior quality education.
Either the rich and the affluent begin to pull their
fair share and to share their wealth or Truth will visit its justice
upon them.
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