Reading

Today I'm going to use the blog for a bit of a rant. I read in the paper this morning that the chair of the school board is shocked that, board wide, the standardized math/literacy test results were down. He's shocked because the board has invested so much time and money, therefore the results can't be bad. What the heck is this guy thinking? Is he so clueless that he doesn't understand how pointless standardized tests are? Does he not realize that standardized tests are rarely designed to test knowledge and that their primary purpose is one of providing some sort of ranking?

I'm always amazed at some of the solutions proposed when it comes to literacy. At the school where I teach somebody had the brilliant idea of having kids read silently for fifteen minutes twice a week. The thinking was that this would help students become more literate. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with reading and I agree that reading can help a reader improve (In this case at the expense of math, science or whatever other subject is supposedly being studied). What it will not do is provide someone who can't read with any assistance whatsoever at becoming a better reader. To anyone who thinks that providing a student who can't read with thirty minutes per week of silent reading will be of any use, I offer this advice. Give your head a shake!

On that note, here's the picture for today.