I think it is interesting that people want to change the way the SAT's are layed out, but i dont agree with the grading of the essays. I think that it is unfair to tell somebody that in order for them to get a good grade on an essay it needs to be "long winded and predicatable". Alot of the time when kids are in an english class the teacher will say "quality is better than quanity" and I fully belive that with writing it is better to be unique than to do someting that everydody else does.
Thinking back when I took the ACT junior year, on the eassay portion of the test when they said it had to be "enough supporting essays" i felt like my writng watered down my arguement. If I could have just written striaght to the point, but still written enough, my writing would have been much more sophisticated. Also, with standarized testing I think students feel pressure to write more than what their neighbor is writing, but the truth is, what one person writes in a paragraph, another can write even better in a sentence. So overall their focus on length is unfair, and they should be more focused on the content.

This article was interesting to read and shows how education is always changing. I never took the SAT, but I took the ACT, which had a writing portion. I also took the AP Literature test.For both of these tests, we were taught to write in a specific way giving concrete details with a thesis, topic, and concluding sentence. We had to use specific evidence to support our claims and use fluent language.

The article remarks that the people who earn a 6 out of 6 have earnest, long-winded and predictable essays. In my opinion, making the writer conform to certain ways of writing is restricting. Not everyone can write in this type of way but can still be considered excellent writers. In my view, standardized testing doesn’t really account for true talent in writing. There are so many types of genres to write in and only one type is used on these tests.

On the other hand, I can see why the tests would use this type of essay. Later in life, this is the writing most people are going to come in contact with, and it is important to be a decent writer. It is hard to suggest a medium for this problem but I do think something should be changed because it doesn’t separate the best writers from the others.

Shakespeare vs the SAT

Two years ago, I took both the SATs and ACTs, as well as took a prep course for the SAT. During the course, my friend and I goofed off the whole time, went to Starbucks during break, and laughed and laughed and laughed. We tried to make the teacher play a game once, "Stools", a game that our american lit/creative writing/AP lang teacher had our class play every Wednesday -- the guy whose had most influence on my writing to date.

The course didn't stress me out, and neither did the physical tests. I didn't take it seriously enough, though, as well as I handled most of my education up to now. I was a floater. I considered going to a concert the night before the ACT. I did not see the tests as something that could hinder myself, of course, only I can do that. I received my scores and immediately knew I could have done better. It doesn't effect my life whatsoever now. It never really did. It's just nice to know it's there.

And then it was senior year when I took AP Language & Composition. In the class we wrote all types of essays, my teacher chose themes for the different ones, we had "I believe", the fear paper, our soapbox speech (what we really had to say in that moment in our lives). Even more, we practiced rhetorical analysis weekly. It was hard to position myself into this course, especially being a lazy senior, added with being the floater that I was. And when I took the AP exam, I took it seriously, but I was safe. And this will get me to my point.

I was talking to friends in the course (although you're not supposed to - don't sue me College Board!) about the test, and one of them told me that he decided to write a satire for one of the prompts. It was brilliant, and I didn't even think of going there. I wanted to be safe. I could guarantee myself a passing grade, but not a perfect 9, but also not a 1. I was floating, still.

With this in mind, as I read the Atlantic article "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?", I immediately thought of what I felt when I took these tests junior and senior years of high school, but couldn't articulate about them. The essay portions were boring; you had to write an ordinary, lackluster essay to get an above-average score. In addition, Katzman, Lutz, and Olson screamed and begged, "do not write boring things!" with their really clever use of rhetoric. The article contained great satire (I mean, giving the Unabomber a 6 isn't ironic, right?) , and I could not stop nodding my head in agreement. I rarely took risks in high school that I should have, and try to do so as often as possible now.

So I am here to spread this: do not write boring things. It is the same with days in a life, do not do boring things. If not, are you really living?

Response to "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?"

What an interesting change to the SAT! Well, I actually never took the SAT because all the schools I applied to accepted the ACT since that is more common in the Midwest. However, I have heard stories of how difficult the SAT can be. From what I just read, it sounds like the College Board just made the SAT even MORE difficult and disappointing. Their ideas are great, but not fulfilling to the students taking the test.

I personally feel they have removed some key concepts from the test that sounded very important to me (like the analogies), although I do approve of the addition of an essay to the test. Writing is essential to college preparation and a measure of one's preparation. Students from my high school who graduated and went to college told the teachers after a year of college that the one thing teachers needed to focus on more was 'writing'. Because of that, In each class we diverted the course plan every once in a while to focus on a writing project or some type of assignment that emphasized the importance of writing in each subject, including Math or Physics. It was pretty helpful.

However, I'm calling it difficult because of the following essays they list on the page from professors who receive '3's, '2's and '1's. Wow, really? They could be just showing us a random selection, and that the majority of the essays they received from educators could be 5s and 6s, but wow! The essay that received a '1' made me laugh. It made no sense whatsoever, although it seemed very thought-provoking. However, if I was only given "1 to 2 minutes each" to look over an essay, I'd give it a '1' also. It was too complicated to understand for someone who is generally looking for a mainstream prompt.

It is disappointing because they are discouraging students from being creative on their SATs. Having no "flair" or rhetorical language in an essay calls for general, typical essays instead. If the prompt is only one to two sentences, how do you expect a nervous high school student to write a well-organized, competent essay if they cannot be creative in the process? It's simple -- I would die. So, while I approve of the addition of an essay question to the SAT because of the emphasis it places on writing, I'm not sure they have the grading concept completely right yet. They should be more focused on making sure the student can address the prompt and derive an idea from it, even if they use rhetorical language and creative strategies to do so. I'm glad I never had to take the SAT!

Higher Education as a National Resource

I found this article to be eye-opening and substantial for the average American college student to evaluate. It helped me understand better our financial standing as an educational enterprise in comparison with our less-than-perfect economy. I found Kerr's claims of recruiting educational leaders who think and work more creatively to be key to expanding both our university and universities as a whole. With our technological advances and nuance ideas, creativity is crucial to the standing of a college in comparison with others around the country. I agreed with the Carnegie Commission's disagreement with block funding for higher education. Federal funding needs to come to students on a personal level with loans and grants. This makes it possible for students to pick their attendance of a university based specifically on what they know they can handle financially. Something needs to be done to continue funding our higher education system. Currently the United States ranks 13th "in the percentage of the population that enters postsecondary education and the completes a bachelor's degree or enters a postgraduate program." We as college students need to fight for our right to attend grad school and make an effort to prove that the United States can in fact facilitate fulfilling undergraduate student's wishes to go on to postgraduate programs.

Government's Role in Higher Education

Towards the end of the article, John Aubrey Douglass says, "Arguably, the federal government has a greater role to play in supporting American higher education that ever before." This reminded me of an e-mail that I received about 10 days ago from the financial aid office. The email explained that the Stafford loans for next year will be disbursed from a government program, Direct Loans, through the Department of Education. The government loans offer guaranteed funding, lower interest rates, and faster disbursement. So even since 2005 the government has made and continues to make significant strides in attempting to assist students with the burdens that accompany higher education. Though they haven't done anything for the snowballing tuition rates, they are attempting to appease some strains.

Higher Education as a National Resource

There were a few main points in this article that I really agreed with. The first was that federal financial-aid should be given to the students directly, not to the institutions themselves. A big factor in choosing where to go to college is money. If universities are the sole recipient of federal grants, the university plays a substantial role in terms of finances and the choice students make on whether or not to attend that university. For example, if the University of Iowa gives a student money and University of Illinois doesn't, even if the student may not like Iowa as much as Illinois, they might go to Iowa because it ends up being less expensive. If the same amount of money that Iowa gave the student was given directly to the student, instead of to the university, that student could have put the money towards going to Illinois instead. Then the student has more control over where they go. If a student wants to go to a certain school, they should be able to put money towards that school instead of having it offered from another school that s/he might not like as much.

The other point I really agree with and support is in the conclusion, where it's written that "colleges and universities, the states, and the federal government all [need] to work together to continue America's great [...] higher education system" (37-38). They all need to contribute, the responsibility and obligation is on all of them. The federal government needs to put their money where their mouth is because they talk about how important higher education is in our society, but have not given the financial resources to actually do it. The state governments should provide more financial aid, and colleges and universities themselves should make attending their school more affordable. Especially with inflation and the recession, all parties need to work towards making a college education attainable for more people. The diversity of public and private institutions is one of America's strengths, now we just need to use them to their full potential to get back in the game.

What does "achievement" imply?

I feel that the actual concept of an achievement gap is not defined very well. This gap is based solely on the differentiation between test scores of white and black students. I do not believe that these statistics alone are strong enough support to generalize achievement levels relative to race. I question what exactly the term “achieving” entails as far as education, intelligence, and race are concerned. In response to Wisconsin being the only state in which the black-white achievement gap was larger than the national average in the tests for both math and reading, I believe that every sample has outliers. I am sure there was also a state in particular that had the smallest achievement gap in comparison to the national average. An average includes all data- highs, lows, and in-betweens. I think there should have been more explanation toward what exactly “doing what is necessary to close these gaps” entails. Regarding the public schools in Milwaukee missing federal achievement targets for five years straight, I feel that Milwaukee is one particular example that does have a high African American population, and it is common knowledge that the Milwaukee Public Schools system is not the best of the best as far as education is concerned. It should not come as a surprise that some of these “achievement targets” fall short, given the environment of Milwaukee. I believe that some of these statistics are not as strong as they could be due to other variables. Correlation does not mean causation. Just because the students are African American and residing in a particular state does not mean their average will be automatically lower than the white achievement scores. The article does not directly say this, but I feel it is basically insinuated, seeing as though no further evidence or support is provided. I don’t think that these studies are being very clear or precise. The sample sizes of student populations are not as comparable or consistent as they could be. I definitely agree with Mr. Smith’s skepticism and statement, “Certain things are consistent: inequitable distribution of teachers, inequitable funding of schools, institutional racism. That is consistent across the board, so if you expect to find a different gap in North or South, you’re not going to find that.”
Personally, I feel as though results from standardized tests are extremely difficult to form strong conclusions on, seeing as though it is challenging to judge exactly what a standard test actually measures. I have taken plenty of standardized tests, and I couldn’t count the number of students who filled in the little bubbles at random so they could be done and lay their head down on their desk until the next part of the test began. Standardized tests are not reputable samples from which to draw conclusions. Many students don’t care about them, because to the student, there is no incentive in which to actually try and do well. In my experience, standardized tests have always been viewed as missing out on class work time as well as a waste of time in general. I agree that certain tests are more rigorous than others, further altering results. The study does not acknowledge open enrollment numbers or other factors that could affect test results. I believe that there is the potential for open enrollment to have a relationship with the achievement gap. Overall, I find it insufficient to form conclusions based upon standardized test results and so called “achievement gaps,” especially with the immense number of variables that affects these claims.

An Interesting Article About Teaching

If any of you are interested in teaching, this is an interesting article about what makes a great teacher. From our in class-writing, it seems pretty clear what makes a bad teacher. However, this article seems to suggest that defining a good teacher is much more difficult.

Useful Links

If any of you are interested in learning more about the achievement gap, here is a link to the study that the New York Times refers to, and here is a link to a study about the 'excellence' gap. Both provide interactive, state-by-state comparisons.

Response to Articles About Racial Gap

After reading these articles, I was shocked at the statistics. I didn't realize Wisconsin really had the widest gap between black and white students in academics. Stereotypically, I would have assumed the South would have had the largest gaps. I was also surprised that the principals in Wisconsin were even shocked. I felt as if these three articles merely just stated the same thing, that Wisconsin and more specifically, Milwaukee, had the largest gap. I don't feel as if there was a real explanation or an effort to discover why Wisconsin more than any other state. The last article mentions open enrollment, but does that really explain why our gap is much wider than others? I don't know what else to say besides I agree with Shawn in that we need to focus on the education programs mainly in the Milwaukee area along with Madison where the African American populations are highest.

Gap Wisconsin

At the beginning of the semester, I went to the Morgridge Center for Public Service to find an opportunity to become involved in community work. Volunteer opportunities in Madison are plentiful, especially in reference to tutoring. A special program for tutoring, Schools of Hope, is one of the largest volunteer programs. The program sounded fine, as I quickly turned into the application, and waited.

A few days later, my phone rang and an interview was set up. The interview was intended so I could be become more accustom to the mission of the program. Schools of Hope is a volunteer opportunity for students to be tutors at schools with a large minority population in the student body. The goal of the program was to improve the racial gap in academia. I learned that Wisconsin had one of the worst academic racial gaps in the entire nation.

I was shocked. Wisconsin. Really?

Reading the articles confirmed this incomprehensible fact. Wisconsin has a lot of work to do to improve its academic institutions. Improvement of urban schools should be the first problem addressed. The majority of Wisconsin's African American residents live in the Milwaukee or Madison areas. Improving these two school districts would improve the gap numerically.

But that is just a number. A conscientious effort should be made to improving racial discrimination within the classroom. Although subtle, something is prohibiting some of Wisconsin's citizens from achieving an average education. The problem should be investigated further, and poses many questions. Questions that need to be answered.

Something interesting was the degree of shock that was implied when the largest gap did not come from the South. I feel that those problems are in the past, and now racial discrimination should be viewed as a national problem.

Response to A Conversation with Lisa Delpit

The most interesting part I took from this Q&A was that teachers can't just "give us the secrets". For example, it is not a teachers job to tell us the answers, but to lead and guide us to find the answers for ourselves. Lisa tells us that it is the teacher job to make the map and provide it. If the students cannot realize this for themselves, especially younger students, sometimes parents or other outside sources are brought in to evaluate. The teacher may be at fault, but is it right to let an outside source evaluate? Through Lisa's experiment with the class that was lectured to by one teacher and split into discussion groups by another, we see that we cannot rely on outside sources to evaluate a teacher's methods. The students all talked about how the lecture was interrupted by their teacher himself where the outside source saw it as being more involved with the students; but did the students really learn? The students felt gave the split up discussion class high marks, while the outside force saw it as lazy teaching. This shows that evaluations show more or less be left up to what the students themselves have learned and not how they were taught. Also, another main point I took from this article was that no matter what your social status is the way you're taught should not be effected. There should be a more personal, maybe even a cultural, reason to shift the lesson.

Response to "A Conversation w/ Lisa Delpit"

I think that this article covers a lot of topics that need to be addressed between teachers, students and parents. Specifically, I find that Delpit's ideas about culture within writing might be controversial to some, but can be very helpful to others. She emphasized that people write differently from each other in order to better communicate, but this is because of our different experiences and backgrounds. She then went on to explain that many teachers expect less from students because of their own personal situations, such as poverty, or because they aren't up to the same standards as the rest of their class, or other kinds of set backs. Throughout the article, Delpit makes the point that teachers should use techniques and methods that focus on what students need to learn and know within their writing. She also speaks about how teachers, students, and parents should communicate with one another in order to find out what those needs are. She explains that some students may need more help than others, a point with which I completely agree. Upon reading Delpit's conversation, I agreed with many of the remarks she made. I think they could really be useful with childrens' learning experiences of writing, especially students who come from such diverse standpoints and cultures.

Response to "A Conversation"

I thought Lisa Delpit’s idea of teaching from a standpoint of the “culture of power” was an idea that most don’t think about when thinking about the equality of education. I had never really given this topic much thought, coming from a small town that was not very diverse, but I think she raises a good point. Many teachers are very systematic and teach by the book, or so to speak, instead of creating their lessons according to the abilities of their learners. There is an assumed cultural understanding that young students are thought to have, and in many cases, do not. It should not be the case that minority students are more susceptible to fall behind academically because the majority of teachers, Caucasian females, only fully understand their own culture. Classrooms should be more universal and revolve around the students’ needs to give everyone a fair shot at academic success.