I found this little blurb in Parade magazine today. It happens to be something RJ and I have been contemplating for years (ok...about 2). I think it would change our education system in a serious way....and is that such a bad thing?
I worry SO much about the high and low kids in my class. Since No Child Left Behind, SO much emphasis has been placed on bringing the low kids up, which is great. I think NCLB has a great basis to make teachers accountable and to make something get done where excuses used to be made.
BUT....I worry a lot about the higher end kids, because usually they're well-behaved as well. So, when they're done with something, they are content to "just sit and read" but really....should they have to? In my dream classroom, all children would be doing something completely different at any given time, yet completely on task and learning at their own instructional level....not just something (like a worksheet about a concept they've already mastered) that needs to get done because the teacher said so. Anyway....Enough of my rant. Read on...what do you think?
The End of Grade Levels?
Starting this August, elementary and middle-school students in one school district in Westminster, Colo., won't be assigned to grade levels based on age. Instead, they'll fall into multi-age levels based on what they already know and will move up only as they master new material. I worry SO much about the high and low kids in my class. Since No Child Left Behind, SO much emphasis has been placed on bringing the low kids up, which is great. I think NCLB has a great basis to make teachers accountable and to make something get done where excuses used to be made.
BUT....I worry a lot about the higher end kids, because usually they're well-behaved as well. So, when they're done with something, they are content to "just sit and read" but really....should they have to? In my dream classroom, all children would be doing something completely different at any given time, yet completely on task and learning at their own instructional level....not just something (like a worksheet about a concept they've already mastered) that needs to get done because the teacher said so. Anyway....Enough of my rant. Read on...what do you think?
The End of Grade Levels?
The concept makes sense to many education experts because it matches how kids actually learn: One student needs three hours to figure out fractions while another takes a full day. The approach was successful in the Chugach public school district of Alaska during the 1990s. After five years, student-achievement scores there jumped from the bottom quartile to the top quartile, and the system is still working well today. Several other districts nationwide are considering the model, and some schools in Maine plan to implement the philosophy over the next few years. "Teachers who try it are excited. They see how powerful it is," says Richard DeLorenzo, who was superintendent of Chugach during its transformation and who co-founded the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition to perpetuate the model.
Still, many districts are hesitant. "It's very hard to get people to believe in something new," says Deborah Meier of New York University's Steinhardt School of Education. "They worry that it's a guinea-pig experiment or a fad that will go away in a few years."
— Susan Fine
