Students Speak Out: Minnesota
Fresh Start
Have you heard of "fresh Start"? A student wrote an article about it happening in her school. Check it out. What happened was the school's test scores were not up to par, so ALL of the teachers got fired and then had to reapply for their jobs.
According to this student, it is not working out very well at all. Has anything like this occurred in your school? Does it seem like something that might work? Do you think your school should consider doing something like this?
According to this student, it is not working out very well at all. Has anything like this occurred in your school? Does it seem like something that might work? Do you think your school should consider doing something like this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nora on -
My school was not fresh started but a school near me was. I don't know first hand what it is like but most of the reactions from the people directly affected by it have not been positive. The problem at that school probably was not the teachers, so pink-slipping all of them did not help to improve the school (especially because some of the good teachers that had been working there decided that if the school was going to fresh start they were too and found another school to work at.)
On the other hand, people on the outside had a more positive view of the school after the fresh start and seemed to think that it was moving in the right direction. It seems to me that, in a way, it was more for show than for actual improvement.
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on -
That's really interesting Nora. Especially the final thing you said: it's more for show. That seems to be a trope among school policies. Making a school do a "fresh start" assumes that there are great teachers just waiting to get a job. Logically do you think this makes sense? Do you think a training session would be more beneficial. To me, a fresh start seems to have the appearance of out-of-the-box thinking, but not actually logically sound. Do you think your school could use a fresh start?
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Permalink Reply by Nora on
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I think that training would be a better idea. The teachers that are there know the students and their academic strengths and weaknesses. I doubt that firing all the teachers is going to solve all of the schools problems. The idea is that then the principal re-hires the ones that he/she thinks are best, but as I mentioned before, not all of the teachers re-apply and even if they do, it would greatly disrupt the school atmosphere.
Not every teacher at my school is fantastic, but I do not think we should fresh start.
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on
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Do you think this disrupts student-teacher relationships? Could you expand on what you mean by "school atmosphere." I hadn't even thought of that.
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Permalink Reply by Nora on
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Students, teachers and student-teacher relationships is mainly what I meant by school atmosphere. Students and teachers may have a harder time building a relationship throughout the school year knowing that there is a chance that they will never see the person again. I also feel like knowing that all the teachers at the school have been fired, even if it is for something independent of their performance, would make it harder to look up the teachers. The students might start to focus more on the bad aspects and less on the good in the teachers. It would also be harder for the teachers to teach normally knowing that they may never come back to that school.
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on
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Awesome point. Why would students ever have confidence in their teachers after this, or the school system at all? I don't think I would. How do you think teachers would teach differently. One of the main complaints about no child left behind is that it was based solely on test scores, so instead of actually teaching material, teachers would just teach the test. Is this what you think would happen?
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Permalink Reply by Nora on
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I think that teachers would teach more cautiously because they would know that their performance was being monitored. Because of that, I do think that teachers would teach to the test a lot more.
I also have an issue with there being such a heavy reliance on test scores. People are always talking about how the United States needs to keep up with the international education competition and that is why they test us so much.. I agree that kids should get a good education but giving us so many standardized tests each year and teaching to the test is not going to help that. We would learn a lot more if we didn't waste so much time taking tests.
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on
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Agreed. And I think based on the lack-luster results seen from no child left behind, more and more people are agreeing with you. And this brings us back to our discussion topic: fresh starts. They happen because the school did not reach whatever level has been designated for them to reach, and so they are fresh started.
So we've broken down fresh start into what may possibly be the root problem with fresh start: the emphasis on testing. Do you agree?
Nora, how often do you take standardized tests?
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Permalink Reply by Nora on
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I agree that the emphasis on tests and test scores is a big part of school issues. It adds a lot of stress to teachers, students and schools in general. I don't have a problem with there being a standardized test each year but I think that there are currently too many.
This year I have not taken as many standardized tests as in the past. I've taken two MCA's, a district math test each quarter and piloted a spanish test I may be missing one or two. Last year, on the other hand, I took three MCA's, two NALT tests, the Explore test, which is essentially four tests, science, math, reading and writing and a district math test a couple times.
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on
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Omg, that's insane! So, counting the explore test as only one, last year you took 8-10 standardized tests! Wow, well I understand i guess why teachers teach to the test, they're impossible to escape!
Something occurred to me though. Everyone (me included) complains that teachers teach to the test and by doing that end up hurting the students overall education. BUT the test is supposed to display the knowledge a student should have. SO if a teacher taught to the test shouldn't that be giving the student and adequate education?
Is there something about teaching to the test that does not convey the actual knowledge the student needs? or are the test not in fact testing on what should actually be learned?
p.s. did that make any sense?
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Permalink Reply by Nora on
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Yeah, that did make sense. The thing about the test is that it is the same for all levels (not that I think that should be changed). But because the students are at all different levels, many get left behind. The students who are lacking usually get extra attention and help in hopes that they will pass the tests, but that means that the students who are ahead sit through the class watching the clock the whole time. Bored smart kids can be a big problem because if they are not being challenged in school, they are more likely to drop out.
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on
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ok, well it seems to me that testing has pretty severe negative consequence. However, the positive goal that it set out to achieve was to set a standard of teaching, which I think is important. There must be another way to evaluate teachers and schools, because testing surely is not working
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