End the practices that rely on standardization and assessment, respect student autonomy, support the chronically under-resourced and reduce the amount of school-related stress and anxiety and then let's see how we're doing.
Do all that and you could even give the same lousy tests they're using now and I bet you'd see progress because students wouldn't see school as a grim march through proficiencies, but a place oriented around curiosity and learning.
Let's measure the "atmosphere" in schools. Are students hungry? Are they supported? Is their curiosity respected and fostered? Are they anxious and depressed? How much on-on-one time do they get with their teachers?
Evolving toward the curriculum in The Writer's Practice revealed to me how counterproductive, even destructive, the approach I'd been inculcated to in the system was (and is). There is a way out, I promise. indiebound.org/book/978014313…
Would love to set up an experiment for 8th grade classes, one that does whatever the system currently expects and another that uses The Writer's Practice, after which they take the current (lousy) standardized assessment. I'd put $20k of my own money behind The Writer's Practice.
If students can be helped to think and act as writers, when confronted with a standardized test, they will think two things. 1. This test is a dumb and shallow. 2. I can do this.
