Carnival of Education

This week’s Carnival at Teacher in a Strange Land features my collection of Teach for America stories, as well as this bizarre TFA-related anecdote from New York, where the standardized test includes essays written in response to a pre-recorded speech:

Today’s ’situation’ told students that they were in a leadership team who has been debating ‘whether leaders should have experience in their chosen fields.’ They were instructed to write ‘a position paper in which you argue that inexperienced people can provide leadership.’

They weren’t even given a choice about which position to take.

They then had to listen to a speech by-you guessed it-Wendy Kopp, about why she started Teach For America. In the speech, Kopp talks about how her lack of experience served to her advantage when creating Teach For America…

This is the New York State exam, blatantly plugging this!

First of all, they forced the children into the position of defending a ‘lack of experience.’ They didn’t say- agree or disagree. They instructed the students to agree with what they were going to hear.

Then, they told them to accept the concept of sending teachers with no experience into their schools. It’s good for you.

How dare they?

I actually like the idea of asking students to write about education reform. It would be great to get student perspectives on innovations like TFA or charter schools. But (a) it’s a standardized test, so anything interesting the kids write will be shipped off to the super-secret test scoring location and never seen again and (b) it’s only worth doing if you actually ask the kids for their opinion instead of assigning it.

Also worth checking out:

Anthony Cody at Edutopia and Susan Graham at Teacher Magazine blog about my favorite topic, the empowerment of teachers and of the teaching profession.

UPDATED TO ADD:
More on the TFA essay question here, including a somewhat depressing (to me, at least) example of a high scoring essay.

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