WSJ Wednesdays - Are Bright Young Minds Being Left Behind?

I dug deep into my pile for this week's edition of WSJ Wednesday. In the November 12 - 13, 2011 edition, an article by Stephanie Banchero appeared in the U.S. News section. Banchero says, "A national focus on the lowest-achieving students has helped boost their performance, but has left the country's brightest minds behind..." Data that included results from national math and reading exams, indicated high achievers were are not only stagnating, but falling behind their international counterparts.

The National Association for Gifted Children, a non-profit advocacy group, is calling for policy changes that would hold schools accountable for the scores of top achievers. Director Jane Clarenbach even claims that top achievers in the nation are being ignored.

Banchero's article contained several statistics. There were a couple that caught my eye:

1) Even though the majority of the nation's gifted and talented children are taught in general education classrooms, only six states require those teachers receive training to work with top-performing students;
2) Schools spend more than $12 billion on special-education students and states require schools to provide intensive services for them.

One of the association's recommendations is to make it easier for gifted students to skip grades. According to the article, only eight states have policies that let top achievers skip grades. For the rest of the country this decision is left up to the local school districts.  

I have a diverse household, so this issue affects me either way. One of my daughters had been getting special-education services from our school district for the last three years. I had to fight tooth and nail to get them for her, but her special-ed teams in both schools (the district reorganized and she had to switch schools last year) are superb. My other daughter has been testing above average since pre-school. Every year I hear how bored she is the entire time. She begs me to stay home. Despite having a literacy group made up of other top performers, she still has time left over where she simply draws or reads. I've definitely toyed with the idea of requesting she move up a grade. Kids who are bored can get mischievous. I've also considered the idea of private schooling, but that would cost around $15,000 a year.

I can't imagine how only six states in the nation could require teachers to have training to work with top achievers. I realize teaching is a tough job, and training costs money, but at what point do we say those being left behind aren't the lower performers anymore? How many years must the scores of America's top students remain stagnate before action is taken?

What's your opinion? Should all states require teachers to be trained to work with top achievers? Are America's public schools still the answer for top performers? Is there too much attention placed on helping low performers achieve passing scores on standardized tests?

WSJ Wednesdays - Release of Teacher Ratings

The front page of the Saturday/Sunday, February 25 -26, 2012 edition of The Wall Street Journal had an article about the publishing of teacher evaluations in New York City. Titled, "Teacher Ratings Aired in New York," this article by Stephanie Banchero discussed how if school districts across the United States followed suit, this could add pressure on school administrators to "improve or to remove their weakest teachers."

Initially, one might think, so what. Not only do our tax dollars pay teachers' salaries, but they are responsible--along with parents/guardians--for preparing children for the future.  If your performance is less than adequate in a private sector non-union job, you risk getting fired. Why should a weak teacher be able to hide behind her union and keep her job?

According to the article, Michelle Rhee, Executive Director of StudentsFirst (a nonprofit group whose goal is to overhaul teacher evaluation and pay systems), says parents should have access to teacher ratings, claiming if we want parents involved in their kids' education they need all the information. The article states teachers unions across the nation have been opposed to the release of this data. If what Banchero's article says is true, one can understand the concern. The scores are said to have wide margins of error because "they are based on limited numbers of students and school years." In New York, the data cover grades 4 through 8 in reading and math, leaving 80% of teachers not covered by the analysis. Banchero's article also states that one of the obstacles to evaluating all teachers is only 30% of teachers in America's classrooms work in grades or subjects covered by state standardized tests. These tests are key in generating the data being made public.

This certainly sounds like a sticky wicket.

I have one child who graduated from the public school sytem and two that are currently in it. Overall, I've been impressed with the level of dedication displayed by the teachers and administrators here. It appears this data would isolate the underachievers who deserve to be removed. But do parents truly want this information? Is providing this information really going to make parents get more involved in their child's education? I'm not so sure of the answers on those questions.

What do you think? Should this data be released? Will it encourage more parents to get involved? What other solutions might there be to this issue?