Dateline: Feb. 19, 2006
One Word Makes a Difference
At the recommendation of the State Superintendent of Education, the Mississippi Board of Education has eliminated the portion of student testing requiring 10th-graders to write a narrative essay in order to graduate.
The superintendent's rationale was that the assessments were too time-consuming and needed to be trimmed.
The director of student assessment said that "students have a lot of trouble understanding the format, although it is sometimes clear from reading their essays they know how to express themselves."
He noted, "Over the years, we've had cases where a student was able to communicate clearly but not in the proscribed way."
This is not simply a typo. It's the wrong word. In fact, it's a wrong word with the completely opposite meaning of what was intended!
Proscribed means "condemned or forbidden as harmful or unlawful." He meant prescribed—specified with authority.
The error could be either the educator's or the reporter's—both of whom should presumably be able to navigate the English language a bit more accurately. Not to mention that the proofreaders at either the Associated Press or the local paper which printed the story should have caught this.
Now the even messier educational issue: If the state board of education has been requiring a narrative essay for graduation, it would seem reasonable to assume that writing narrative essays has been taught in class at some point, so at a minimum, students shouldn't have trouble "understanding the format."
And if students aren't getting it, ditching the test is hardly the solution! I can hear the deliberations at a meeting of the State Board of Education: "Well, folks, too many third-graders have trouble understanding this multiplication thing, so let's just stop testing them in math."
I wonder if any of the educational powers-that-be considered that the problem might not be the test, but the quality of instruction in high school (and middle school) English classes.
Frankly, even without the issue of testing, learning how to write a decent, comprehensible essay in respectable English (with correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, and, yes, vocabulary choices) should be a part of any education. Not everyone will be a writer, but basic writing instruction should be part of everyone's education.
One more issue: Self-expression is only one part of the equation. For true communication to occur, what the speaker or writer expresses must be comprehensible (and comprehended) by the listener or reader. Otherwise, it's just a tree falling in an uninhabited forest.
Mary Jo Tate
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Feb. 20, 2006 - From a Mississippi Mom
Posted by DreweLlyn
How strange that I should find this post on your blog! DS17 and DD 14 both go to the local high school after years of homeschooling. (Why they are there is another subject, but let's say I have my regrets.) DD 14 brought her paper work in for next year's schedule, and we discovered that another required course had been added to the 10th grade curriculum - journalism. Now, I'm not down on a journalism class, but there are other required courses and desired courses and they just weren't all going to fit in with journalism being required. DH questioned the course as it isn't listed in the district handbook. This is what he was told....
"Our school's test scores have been poor in the writing part of the state test, so we are adding a new course to improve those scores."
This mom is wondering why they don't just work on that writing in English class?!?!?!? Perhaps there are students who need extra work in this area, but DD14, whose forte is language does not. If anything she will greatly help the test scores, yet she is being punished because of the others. (It gets better.) DD14 came home a few days later saying journalism might not be required. Why? Because the state may drop the part of the test the students were having so much trouble with! YIKES! If Mississippi's students are having difficulties expressing themselves in writing, should the state just drop that part of the test? And if the school is going to drop the extra class (which they felt the students needed) because they won't be tested on it, what does that tell us?!?!?! DD14 had a grand idea, why not required those students who ended their 9th grade year with a "c" or below to take the extra class. (Or better yet, why don't they use the required English classes to teach students how to express themselves??) It's not about teaching students; it's about the money each student brings in and attaining the high goal of "accreditation".
Can anyone say, "Dumbing down education"?
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