Missouri's Eyes Are Back On Joplin As They Start The School Year

One of the realities of a recession is that it forces companies to scrutinize every aspect of their business and identify waste and inefficiency. It forces the evaluation of existing norms. Hardship spurs creativity and innovation. The good news (or bad news depending on how you look at it) is that recession teaches companies how much they can pare back their workforce and capital expenditures yet still make a profit. For most companies, once those cost saving measures are instituted, they tend to stick around, even after the economy bounces back. After all, who chooses to add padding back to their budget?

The EF5 tornado that tore through city of Joplin Missouri forced them to re-evaluate their norms and look for innovation in education. It is a testament to their resilience that they have found the means to open the school year for their students just 87 days after several of their school buildings were damaged and their high school was destroyed by the storm. Utilizing an empty shopping mall, an unused school building and even a MODOT building, they have offered their students a sense of continuity in extremely tumultuous times.

See Video Here

Certainly it will be stressful, as the one teacher said. It will be a little disorienting for the students. A free laptop courtesy of the United Arab Emirates, one of the few examples of a foreign government coming to the aid of the United States, will go a long way towards easing some of that stress. (We should keep an eye on what, if any, quid pro quo is expected from that generosity.)

It will be interesting to watch Joplin this year to find out what parts of their existing education system were not missed, what parts suffered from either their absence or alteration and, which of these changes forced by circumstance, become permanent. We may gain a better understanding of how adaptive both students and teachers are; how much or how little state of the art facilities matter; or what role the home situation plays in student success. What is likely to come out of this forced “experiment” is a deeper appreciation of the role community plays in educating its children.

Joplin may prove to be one of the most significant towns in America as they demonstrate what the local community can do for themselves, even when the deck seems stacked against them.

Are "Fa Sho", "Crunk" and "Imma' " Accepted Vocabulary Words on the MAP Test? They are in the Ferguson Florissant School District.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know we have questions regarding standardized testing, particularly the MAP test. Many districts have completed one week of the federally mandated tests, while other districts will be starting this week.

The Joplin Globe reports MAP is just starting in Joplin and how intensive the process of the annual testing has become:

At many local school districts, preparation for the MAP goes on all year. The test helps drive curriculum, and students have been taking practice tests throughout the year.

The MAP assesses students at various grade levels in communications arts and mathematics, and gives parents and educators a means to compare students across districts. State and federal agencies in turn use it to grade schools, with implications for accreditation at the state level and for compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act at the federal level.

“It’s a high-stakes test,” Joplin Superintendent C.J. Huff said.


It is high-stakes in terms of the school's point of view since it can affect accreditation and compliance for NCLB; and how do the schools respond to this pressure? The Globe reports:

West Central Elementary School offered a weekly “boot camp” for its students over several weeks, said Denise Legore, the school’s principal. The students, dubbed “privates,” are led by community members and mentors with either the rank of “sergeant” or “lieutenant.” The children sang in marching cadences and this year wore dog tags. They negotiated an obstacle course where they have to answer a question in order to move on.

I thought this was a bit odd. Children singing in marching cadences to prepare for a test? It apparently doesn't happen just in Joplin. It's happening in the Ferguson-Florissant School District as well. I received this question from a mother of a third grader in that district about the "Map Walk" sheet sent home with her child (you can find the words to the "Map Walk" at the beginning of this article):

Someone please read this and tell me what the heck is going on at my child's school. What kind of grammar is this? And why are they teaching my child this? ....and what does "crunk" mean?


I was stunned at the sheet she referenced. There were misspellings, incorrect grammar, and rap slang being taught to students. I looked up the definition of "crunk"in an online rap dictionary:

adjective

crunk

1. To have a good time. Long as everybody get crunk in the drop -- Lil Bow Wow (Bounce with me [2000].
2. To get crazy drunk. Originally, this term comes from the words crazy and funk. As opposed to popular opinion, crunk has had no relation to being coked up and drunk until recently. Because if its similarity of terminal sound with the word drunk many rappers have used it in reference with being crazy and under the influence. This and the intrinsical association with hard partying has brought about its association with alcohol.
3. A style of music most commonly made by rap artists from the southern states, aka the Dirty South. Some crunk artists (or groups) are Lil' Jon, Pitbull, Lil' Scrappy, Trillville, and David Bannerand also [[[lil'joe the prince of Crunk]] n N b o Crunkmusic
4. At a high level, as in volume: "He got the speakers in the trunk with the bass on crunk." (Mos Def, from "Mr. Nigga" on Black on Both Sides).

I doubt many mothers of 3rd graders would be elated to see this come home in their child's backpack. This mom has contacted the superintendent and the State Board of Education to determine if this is accepted educational practice.

I wonder how "boot camp" for MAP preparation is received in Joplin. I hope the cadences used there (I'm still trying to come to terms with this technique) are grammatically correct and don't teach 3rd graders street jive (courtesy of the Urban Dictionary). Maybe that concerned mother should have her student do the "Map Walk" right out of the classroom when testing time comes around.

Autonomy vs Acquiescing: A Tale of Two Superintendents. One Requests Map Test Waivers, One Requests Common Curriculum

This is an article about the Springfield District requesting to opt out its students from the MAP testing, and instead, replace it with Performance Series Examinations. The superintendent (Dr. Norman Ridder) believes this alternate set of tests gives quicker response which allows more immediate feedback for classroom teachers.

We wrote yesterday about Federal Government control over states and districts in educational mandates and spending. Springfield's superintendent must go to the state who then must file a waiver and wait for a decision from the Department of Education. If the DOE turns down the waiver, then the district must administer the MAP. Even if Ridder and DESE believe an alternate test would work better for a district, they basically have no power over the decision of the Federal level. (Just asking: Where in the Constitution is the Federal Government given authority over the states in educational decisions?) How much more obvious does it need to be to taxpayers and legislators that local control does not exist in education?

What does DESE think about the waiver idea? According to the Commissioner:

Springfield’s system gets a favorable opinion from one of the state’s top education officials. Chris Nicastro, commissioner of education for DESE, called the MAP a “snapshot” test that doesn’t provide results in a timely manner. “If you find out something isn’t working, you want to know that right away so that you can make the change immediately,” Nicastro said during a Springfield appearance Tuesday. “You don’t wait until your end of year report to say that something didn’t work 10, 11 or 12 months ago. If you did, your business would be in trouble and your board of directors would probably be on your back. “In education, that’s kind of what we’ve got. So I think we need to talk more about an assessment system that really informs instruction and gives us the kind of real-time information we need to make adjustments.”

The Joplin School District does not want to follow Springfield's lead; Joplin Superintendent Huff believes the MAP is sufficient:

C.J. Huff, superintendent of the Joplin School District, said the district will likely keep using the MAP because it helps the district gauge how its students perform when compared to other districts.

Testing decisions should be under a superintendent's purview. One aspect of education traditionally left to districts under state law is curriculum decisions. What is surprising are Huff's following statements regarding curriculum based on Arne Duncan's statements about education:

“This law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed,” Duncan told Congress this week. “We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk.”

Huff said that preliminary buzz over what such a new law would look like would be to develop a nationwide set of curriculum standards upon which tests could be based. Currently, every state has its own set of standards. But Huff said a consortium of different states is forming to come up with a common core curriculum.

“We’re not getting an apples to apples comparison,” Huff said. “We all need to get on the same page and grow and learn from another.” (emphasis added)

Apparently Superintendent Huff wants to share a common core curriculum...not just common core standards or assessments, but a common core curriculum. Last time I researched this issue, a common curriculum was illegal and individual school districts were given the freedom to set their own curricula. How can a superintendent support a common curriculum when it is illegal?

One superintendent wants to practice district autonomy in MAP testing and another superintendent wants to jump on the bandwagon of a nationalized common curriculum. When did the control of the Federal government become so invasive that districts have to ask for permission to ask if it can use a particular test? Conversely, when did some superintendents believe (and accept) that the Federal Government has the legal authority to set curriculum frameworks which lead to a nationalized curriculum?

Tomorrow: do parents have the legal authority to opt their child out of MAP testing? Or do they need a waiver from the Federal Government as well?