The College Board released the scores of the class of 2008, and the scores remained the same as the previous year, on average — a 502 in critical reading and a 515 in math.  Writing came in at 494.

While one can be happy that scores did not dip as with the ACT, the actual averages are disturbing.  The SAT divides questions into three levels of difficulty:  easy, medium and hard.  If one aces all the easy and gets a few medium questions, one will be above the average in all three categories.  Consequently, far too many of those taking the test are not able to answer the easy questions.  Conclusion:  critical thinking and written expression skills are sorely lacking across the country for college-bound students.

The first week of school has started for most students in town, and I am sure parents see the confident smiles and hear the bold statements — “school is great” and “I have everything under control.”  WRONG!

The first week of school can be very deceptive and create a false sense of confidence.  Everyone is just getting back from summer vacation.  Teachers and students spend time getting to know one another and to become familiar with classroom policies and rhythms.  Homework assignments tend to be a bit lighter than in a week or two.  In the meantime, students think school is not nearly as difficult as anticipated and so they slack a bit — at precisely the time they should be getting good habits into place.

What to do?  Parents, make sure you help your children avoid the softball mentality of the first week.  Help them with structured homework time and even give them some extra reading to do if they really have finished homework.  Suggest organization of binders, materials, even (gasp) rereading books and notes.  Because we all know the adage about the calm before the storm…

As this wonderful story in the New York Times details, Michael Phelps has had a struggle with ADD since kindergarten.  His story will sound quite representative to parents in the know — teachers identified distractive behavior, Michael felt stigmatized and had difficulty and did not know how to help himself, and ultimately medication and some tutoring offered little help.  But in the end, Michael still remained an average student with lots of negative views about academic performance.

Many people have turned Michael Phelps’ success story at the Olympics into a moral for kids with ADD — do not give up, you will find your gift.  The author of the Times story put it this way:

More to the point, I think, is the moral of her story, which offers hope for parents of any child with a challenge like A.D.H.D.: Too many adults looked at Ms. Phelps’s boy and saw what he couldn’t do. This week, the world will be tuned to the Beijing Olympics to see what he can do.

While I applaud Michael Phelps’ commitment to swimming and his remarkable athletic achievements, I cannot agree with this “moral” as acceptable.  It is analogous to telling an inner city black child struggling at an underperforming school to look at LeBron James and see hope.  Both suggestions, while perhaps well intended as motivators, avoid the issue:  what to do with an ADD child struggling in school.

I have worked with many ADD students over the years, and I can tell you that the ADD impacted each of them in different ways.  The common link is not the ADD, it is the wiring of the brain that cannot process information effectively enough to handle the “normal” method of receiving and returning information in the classroom.  Each success story with ADD students over the years involved going into the individual wiring, the individual learning style, and working within that structure to create a student who can perform in “normal” classroom environments.  Some need extra time; some need medication.  All need someone to help them learn how to learn.  The sad part of the Phelps story is that to this day he feels like a failure in the classroom, that but for swimming he would have a hard time going out into the workforce and earning a living.  What of all the other students with ADD who cannot be Michael Phelps?  Do we just dismiss them?  Wish them good luck?  Hope for the best?  Direct them to a swim coach?

We do too much stigmatizing to kids with learning disorders.  The brain takes so long to develop, maturing late into our twenties.  We expect so much of kids in one uniform system when we just cannot learn at the same rate in the same mold.  We need more patience and more individual work with these students.  Given the right path, they can find true academic success.  I have seen LD students go from 14 on the ACT to 28 in the course of 18 months.  I have helped LD students failing math in pre-algebra become A students in calculus.  Success is very possible.  It takes dedication and quality guidance — it surely does not need a dismissive attitude or denial or the distraction of swimming gold as a future.

I would like to see Michael Phelps find a great academic mentor and use his high profile to encourage students to continue working for success in school.  That would be a great gift that would benefit thousands of young minds.  That could be Michael Phelps’ next challenge.

The Post-Dispatch has an interesting feature story on the Ladue School District urging its teachers to obtain a masters degree.  It is not at all uncommon for school districts to pay teachers with advanced degrees more than those with a bachelor’s degree.  But as the article asks, is that fair?  Does it make sense?  Ladue chooses to measure performance and reward teachers with pay increases for delivering results.  Some of these teachers do not have masters degrees, so the issue becomes one of how effective the additional degree really is.  If the degree focuses on a specialty area, like secondary mathematics or special education, it makes a great deal of sense, because it builds an expertise, provides a forum for developing more advanced skills — skills that teacher can share with peers in the school. 

So, while the degree itself is not everything required, the right advanced degree certainly enhances the school district staff.  But as I mentioned in earlier posts, I think that performance driven incentives make the most sense and will help produce an avalanche of positive results — if the incentives are properly structured and the results adequately stated and measured.

This story in the Post-Dispatch discusses the growing use of teacher web pages in our schools.  Are they a good idea?  Do they help or hinder classroom performance?

The best advantage of an updated teacher web site is the ability to always have key information available — a syllabus, classroom policies and guidelines, homework assignments, handouts.  Indeed, using the Internet can actually save districts money by having kids go to the website to find handouts, and print them out for themselves or use them online.  Additionally, teachers can provide links to multimedia presentations, primary source documents and other great resources that would have cost so much money in the not so distant past.

Dangers?  Some kids can get too dependent on the website and not remember to write down assignments, bring materials to class, and complete work on a timely basis.  Also, teachers could become too tempted by the ease of technology and put too much emphasis on independent learning rather than classroom instruction and interaction.

As with other discussions we have had on technology in the classroom, it ultimately comes down to how a teacher uses the technology.  I think the websites help students overall and also help parents as well — parents can stay totally up to date on what their kids are learning, what the assignments are, and can find out if their kids have been slacking.  Finally, I think that a good and enjoyable website, particularly for younger kids, can help develop consistent homework patterns and encourage doing the work regularly because of the lure and ease of technology.

As this article reveals, states have encouraged schools to add end of year exams to their programs.  The states feel that these tests will provide a better read on whether schools around a state are actually meeting knowledge-based goals in the classroom.  It would be a great way to see if an “A” really means mastery of the subject.  But critics charge, just another standardized test…

I think the test, if written properly, is a wonderful idea.  Not enough students take AP exams, and if teachers added the result of this end of course exam into the grade for the student, students would have the proper incentive to do well, and teachers would do well to pay attention to the content of the test.

What is wrong with charting whether students really are mastering subjects in high school before they move on to college?  This information could actually supplement grades and decrease pressure on SAT and ACT scores.  Standardized testing is not all bad or evil; how we test is really the big question, and it is nice to see some states moving closer in the right direction.

Yes, according to this article in the Los Angeles Times, the College Board is currently field testing a PSAT that is tailored to 8th grade curriculum.  Currently, the ACT offers a test called EXPLORE for 8th graders that is a tailored version of the ACT.

Critics charge this is just about making more money for the College Board, competing with ACT for middle school kids, and adding one more test to already overtested youth.

Is this test a good idea?  I think it is a positive development.  We have learned that the more students become familiar with the test format of the SAT, the better they will perform because they understand the design and begin to think critically in these test situations.  I think introducing this test in elementary school would be an even better development, as it would make the higher-learning skills take a front and center position in kids’ minds, if not in their curriculum.  The SAT or other college admissions exams will not disappear anytime soon, so easing children into the exams seems better than throwing them into the cold deep end of the pool before they can swim.

I discussed summer homework in an earlier post.  The Washington Post has this article discussing the same topic and offering similar advice.  I think some students and parents will be surprised how much work the kids in D.C. get compared to what we see in St. Louis!

The Post-Dispatch has a good article detailing the local school districts’ results on this past year’s MAP testing, which charts progress in communication arts and mathematics. I know these tests well; they emphasize problem solving and applied reasoning, and I think they are good test instruments. What is most discouraging is not the slow progress, but the overall statistic that even in the best school districts, the students at proficient or better is barely 50%. Yes, that is right. Only half reached proficiency at grade level.

What is happening here? Part of it is a question of definition — what we mean by proficient. We could lower the number of questions required to be correct in order to make more kids proficient. But that is not the real problem, in my opinion. I think the answer is that teaching kids to problem solve can be very difficult, especially if they lack the foundational conceptual basics. I think the nexus of modeling from basic competency to sophistication in applied problem solving is what the test results expose as a weakness. We need to work on both fronts and encourage early mastery of basic skills in elementary school before too many kids lack the tools to do the applied reasoning.