I bet you didn't read it, either.
It took nearly a week for the local rag to publish CCSD's approved calendar for next year.
For the first time, the Charleston County School District will be in session on Good Friday of next year. That's for our post-Christian society.
Naturally, there's a conscience clause--teachers may take a personal day. Wow. We can be glad that Easter's on a Sunday.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
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Can't possibly schedule a holiday on March 26. That's the last day for makeups for the PASS Writing Test. Test are all important because how else will we know if the teachers are raising student achievement levels or not? I would be surprised if any school district in SC scheduled spring break the week before Easter because of the PASS testing schedule. We live for the tests.
Well, presumably South Carolina set the date itself. Was that under Zais's watch?
Why not move the tests to early January? They could have it all done by the MLK holiday. Then get down to some serious teaching for the remainder of the year. That way the fall semester could effectively be over before the Christmas holidays. These standardized test are non-teaching events anyway. I would like to here the arguments against doing this if this isn't really all about teaching to the test and turning them into evaluation tools that have nothing to do with effective teaching.
Huh? CCSD schools are in session on Good Friday (and the start of Passover) THIS year - April 6. I have kids in a regular CCSD school and charter CCSD school - they'll both be attending on Good Friday. Why not?
The schedule that was debated recently was for next year, 2012-2013. The issue wasn't just about accommodating religious holidays. It was more about using common sense and incorporating various holidays when possible.
Charter schools tend to follow the regular district schedules anyway, but don't expect the superintendent to ever ask charter schools if they have any calendar preferences.
I might be remembering incorrectly, but I don't think my kids ever got Good Friday off unless spring break was the week before Easter. When it's the week after Easter (like this year), they don't get Good Friday off. Why on earth would this be a big deal to anybody? I'm trying to remember whether we got Good Friday off when I was a kid. I can't imagine my parents caring one way or the other.
The central issue may not be about getting the day off for Good Friday or Passover. It just might have seemed logical to schedule spring break a week earlier which would have covered both religious holidays, requiring no special days off. It also would have allowed for the traditional break to be closer to the center of the semester. As some high school teachers have put it, students need a break earlier in final stretch.
The real culprit may be SC Department of Education officials who scheduled the PASS tests and the make-up days when they did, probably more than a year ago. It seems the whole calendar is being driven by the tests and make-up days.
In 2013 the last two days to make up the PASS tests are on March 25 and 26 which are in the week before Easter. The 26th is the first day of Passover. I don't think anyone in Columbia gave this even a minute's worth of consideration when the dates were set. I would be surprised if very many districts in the state have scheduled spring break for that week, if only because the PASS makeup days that fall on those days.
Don't forget that a test not made up counts as a zero for the school’s and the district’s composite scores. School bureaucrats often base their own report cards and bonuses on an incremental rise in comprehensive test scores over a prior year. Students scoring zero due to absences don’t pay, even if the absence is due to a scheduled holiday.
The school calendar issue has nothing to do with logical considerations about an average student’s attention span, respect for families, social customs or individual student learning opportunities. We're missing the point when the mass tests have been given this much importance. This is what makes the decision to hold the PASS make-up days as sacrosanct so ridiculous. The test in question is the PASS Writing Test. It only involves 2 grades in what effectively is a 13 grade (K thru 12) system.
How many students will actually be taking a makeup test? Why not extend the makeup dates? The tail is wagging the dog.
The current year's calendar also calls for school to be in session the full week before Easter, and as far as I can tell the PASS tests aren't the reason. If I'm reading the 2011-2012 calendar correctly, the writing test makeups end March 30 this year, and spring break doesn't start until April 9.
I think the question has always been about just who has input in the process. In spite of what the administration is saying, there is very little evidence that teachers, parents or anyone other than the top of the administrative food chain have anything to say about setting the calendar.
I'm still trying to understand how 18 "early release" days (a/k/a half days) count as full days. If that doesn't defy reasoning, why choose the middle of the week to drop those half days into the schedule as they are doing in Dorchester County? As some teachers have said, this disrupts the rhythm of half the total number of work weeks.
I think the conversation needs to focus on just how much "seat time" is really just watching the clock. There is very little effort being applied to using any of our educational resources wisely. Time is just one of the many resources being squandered.
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