sankofa, keith, other teachers... give me a good reason
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:44 pm
this wouldn't work...
Some friends of mine and I were brainstorming over the weekend and came up with this Idea:
The complete elimination of age based grade levels in schools. Same state standards (or higher), same assessment (as far as the state is concerned), but coupled with other types of assessment too. But what if the standards are divided into chunks so that once a student demonstrates mastery they can go onto the next set of standards. The smarter students will fly through the standards at a faster rate than the slower students, which is turn would lend itself to teachers spending time with students that need help. If done correctly, the students could be finished with all the standards up through the 12th grade by the time they are sixteen. At this point students can begin undergraduate work, enroll in some corporately sponsored internships in which students develop actual work skills. I'd also like this school to have a mandatory set of courses for music, and a second language. Might be a pipe dream, but in exploring this model, it's a better solution to meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind in my opinion.
How it would work is all students would enter at the same base level. Once a student mastered, let's say 1st grade reading, they would then move on to 2nd grade reading (even if they were still working on 1st grade math skills) and so on... If it takes a student 3 years to master 1st grade reading, well, it takes a student 3 years to move on to 2nd grade reading. Each student works and develops their skills at their own pace (with guidance obviously). We could easily do this with all current skills areas - Reading, Writing, Math, Science, History/Social Studies, etc...
I realize this would necessitate a complete overhaul of the current system, but anybody who doesn't think we need one hasn't been paying attention. It may mean a return to neighborhood schools where there is one teacher for each skill and grade level (obviously teachers with multiple subject competence would be even more valuable) at least through what is now Junior High School level, then they could move to centralized high schools like we now have, but only if they had mastered grade 8 of at least 75% of the skill areas. You could then make remedial help available for those areas they are below grade level in, but you are assured they are at least competent in most areas.
I don't know, just a thought we started developing. I'm wondering how those of you who do this professionally think it would work.
Some friends of mine and I were brainstorming over the weekend and came up with this Idea:
The complete elimination of age based grade levels in schools. Same state standards (or higher), same assessment (as far as the state is concerned), but coupled with other types of assessment too. But what if the standards are divided into chunks so that once a student demonstrates mastery they can go onto the next set of standards. The smarter students will fly through the standards at a faster rate than the slower students, which is turn would lend itself to teachers spending time with students that need help. If done correctly, the students could be finished with all the standards up through the 12th grade by the time they are sixteen. At this point students can begin undergraduate work, enroll in some corporately sponsored internships in which students develop actual work skills. I'd also like this school to have a mandatory set of courses for music, and a second language. Might be a pipe dream, but in exploring this model, it's a better solution to meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind in my opinion.
How it would work is all students would enter at the same base level. Once a student mastered, let's say 1st grade reading, they would then move on to 2nd grade reading (even if they were still working on 1st grade math skills) and so on... If it takes a student 3 years to master 1st grade reading, well, it takes a student 3 years to move on to 2nd grade reading. Each student works and develops their skills at their own pace (with guidance obviously). We could easily do this with all current skills areas - Reading, Writing, Math, Science, History/Social Studies, etc...
I realize this would necessitate a complete overhaul of the current system, but anybody who doesn't think we need one hasn't been paying attention. It may mean a return to neighborhood schools where there is one teacher for each skill and grade level (obviously teachers with multiple subject competence would be even more valuable) at least through what is now Junior High School level, then they could move to centralized high schools like we now have, but only if they had mastered grade 8 of at least 75% of the skill areas. You could then make remedial help available for those areas they are below grade level in, but you are assured they are at least competent in most areas.
I don't know, just a thought we started developing. I'm wondering how those of you who do this professionally think it would work.