The Texas State Board of Education ended its meeting today with a
compromise. Basically, the motion said that the chairman of the SBOE
would appoint a balanced subcommittee (i.e., Gail Lowe,
Lawrence Allen, Tincy Miller, Don McLeroy, and Robert Scott) to work
with the Texas Education Agency staff. They will consider the
Standards Work document and input from all interested parties
including the teacher work groups. A facilitator will be chosen to
write the final English / Language Arts / Reading document which
will include the work of the college-ready vertical teams. The
final document will be reviewed by the Committee of the Full Board
and presented for First Reading on March 27 and for Second Reading
on May 22, 2008.
This sounds fair and equitable, doesn't it? However, let me tell
you what this really means. Back in 1997 when the present ELAR/TEKS
were adopted, it was the "Coalition" who pushed our schools into
whole language (i.e., balanced literacy), process over content,
performance-based projects, grade inflation, lack of attention to
detail, holistic writing, no emphasis on grammar, and invented
spelling. Today these Coalition people dusted off their same
strategies and used them once again to browbeat the SBOE into
submission.
Recently the SBOE conservatives realized that the Standards Work
document was a muddle and could not be reorganized nor rewritten to
produce a seamless delivery of curriculum to K-12 students.
Last week the Substitute Amendment (http://ednews.org:80/articles/22801/1/Substitute-Amendment-to-English...
) was revamped and rewritten based in large part on the Texas
Alternative Document which had been produced by Texas classroom
teachers in 1997. They wanted to stem the tide of mediocrity in the
schools and wrote a document which was clear, explicit, grade-level-
specific, and doable in a year's time.
Because of Gov. Bush's race for the Presidency at the time, Karl
Rove wanted no controversy in Texas; and the Coalition was allowed
to prevail, costing ten years of Texas children a quality
educational background in English / Language Arts / Reading. Hence,
we have Texas students doing progressively worse on the SAT Writing
section and on the ACT, and over 50% of Texas graduates have to take
remedial classes in college.
I listened online to the testimony given at the SBOE meeting today,
and I took careful notes. Nearly all of the 25+ testifiers were
members of the "Coalition." Their sole intent was to cast
aspersions on the Substitute Amendment and on me personally, stating
frequently that I was the lone author which is absolutely not true.
A list of contributors and a bibliography are attached to the
Substitute Amendment which clearly show that many educators and
experts from across Texas and the country had input into the document.
Yes, of course, I was the lead writer; but someone has to be. A
document does not just hop out of a computer all by itself! After
all, Thomas Jefferson was the writer of the Declaration of
Independence; yet no one credits him alone for that document. It
was written by a group of dedicated people just as the Substitute
Amendment was.
Interestingly enough, in the course of the testimonies given by the
Coalition members, they accidentally revealed that the Standards
Work document has serious flaws, particularly taken together as a
group. These flaws seem very significant to me:
· is full of gaps
· repeats itself without being carefully scoped and sequenced
· emphasizes process over content
· is poorly organized
· has unclear and inconsistent terminology
· does not have a tight progression of scaffolding across the grade
levels
· contains skills which are out of order
· is so heavy on reading comprehension skills that students will have
· almost no time to read for content knowledge
· is developmentally inappropriate in Grade 3
· lacks a glossary of terms
· assumes students have learned important skills without delineating
· when those skills should have been taught previously
· takes almost no notice of the college-readiness standards
· contains no list of literary suggestions
· misplaces the teaching of biographies
· lacks higher-level thinking skills requiring students to integrate/
evaluate/critique
· contains unmeasurable/untestable elements
· uses inappropriate cues which show lack of progression of skills
· does not help struggling readers
· needs to be refined with better coherence of skills
· does not have a distinct grammar strand
Ironically after this litany of complaints against the Standards
Work document which were given in passing by the Coalition
testifiers, they always ended on the same note. "It is more
important to spare the feelings of the teacher groups who spent two
years creating this inferior Standards Work document than to
consider the superior Substitute Document."
In essence, these Coalition members decided the process of writing
the standards became more important than what was in the actual
document itself. Unfortunately, Texas children could care less
about whether a few English teachers get their feelings hurt. The
important thing for these students is what is found in the standards
document which determines what type of education they are going to
receive.
During the course of the day, it was revealed that the teacher work
groups who worked on the draft with Standards Work did not meet
longitudinally K-12 but instead met in small grade-level groups.
That is why the final document is so disjointed and full of gaps.
The right hand did not know what the left hand was doing, yet the
student is supposed to navigate the chasms with ease. For instance,
Grade 2 students are expected to "identify and use progressive, past
progressive tense, and irregular verbs" even though they have not
had careful instruction on how to locate a verb.
The Standards Work document emphasizes process over content with the
New Jersey Writing Project dominating the classroom. The Substitute
Amendment emphasizes content and the students' acquiring a strong
knowledge base of foundational skills.
Nothing is going to change in our state's public schools until all
teachers know what it is that they are supposed to teach at each
grade level, and they should not have to run to a consultant or
curriculum director to find out. Students' skills are not going to
improve until they can mentally connect new concepts with previously
learned concepts. The Substitute Amendment does both; it gives
clear, systematic direction to teachers and students.
What will happen now to the ELAR standards? I honestly do not
know. I guess anything is possible. – Donna Garner
