To demonstrate that the essay component of the SAT encourages bad writing, an MIT professor coached a student in how to get a good score for a nonsense essay.

In the 1930’s, American businesses were locked in a fierce economic competition with Russian merchants for fear that their communist philosophies would dominate American markets. As a result, American competition drove the country into an economic depression and the only way to pull them out of it was through civil cooperation. American president Franklin Delenor Roosevelt advocated for civil unity despite the communist threat of success by quoting “the only thing we need to fear is itself,” which desdained competition as an alternative to cooperation for success. In the end, the American economy pulled out of the depression and succeeded communism.

Inside Higher Education has a link to the whole essay on the virtues of cooperation. The essay received a 5 out of 6, a grade reserved for an essay that shows “reasonably consistent mastery” that “effectively develops a point of view” and “demonstrates strong critical thinking, generally using appropriate examples.”

Les Perelman, director of MIT’s Writing Across the Curriculum program, coached a student to write an essay that cited historical facts regardless of accuracy, used examples and quotes regardless of whether they made sense and included words such as “plethora” and “myriad” which scorers are said to favor.

At the Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York City, Perelman argued that the SAT’s attempt to evalute writing is hurting students, who may spend months practicing for the SAT’s writing component.

The essay is harming students, Perelman said, because it rewards formulaic writing that views the world as black and white, isn’t based on any facts, and values a few fancy vocabulary words over sincerity.

Good writing should make sense.

Via This Week in Education.

Building a mini-locker for a seventh-grade Spanish class project got her 12-year-old son excited, writes mother Ann Bradley, an Education Week editor, on Motivation Matters. But she discovered most of his grade would be based on writing sentences in Spanish describing the locker contents.

My son, who desperately wants to do well in school but is still learning that effort equals outcome, was thrilled to get this creative assignment and determined to do his best. He spent hours turning a Nike box into a miniature locker. He spray-painted it blue, made a lock out of tin foil, and filled it with a tiny bulletin board (made by ripping a corner off the one in his room) complete with a tiny note written in Spanish stuck on with a pushpin. He even got our 5-year-old in on the act, who lent him a tiny SpongeBob backpack to hang in the locker.

. . . Being a Type A Mom, of course, I couldn’t help but point out to my son that all of his labors would only yield 10 points, and that he’d better get cracking on his sentences. It was awful to have to “shut down” his creative energies that way, although I do understand that this is a language class, not an art class.

Mom wants more creative assignments that will turn on her son. But where’s the Spanish learning in designing a locker? Maybe he should drop Spanish and take shop instead. Only I’ll bet that’s not an option.

My daughter did a lot of arts and crafts — mostly poster design — all through school in various subjects. Some of it was fun for her. She’s an artsy type. Very little taught her the subject she was supposed to be learning.

Ten years after the first Illinois charter school opened in Peoria, demand is soaring , reports the Chicago Tribune. Some 15,000 children applied for 5,000 slots for new charter students. One Chicago school was able to accept only 11 percent of applicants.

What to do? Limit the growth of charter schools, says a state representative. CharterBlog spotlighted this quote:

The rise in applications to charter schools “is a sad commentary on our existing public schools,” said State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), who has filed legislation to stop the proliferation of charter schools.

If parents are turning away from the traditional public schools in their neighborhoods, she said, teachers and administrators should figure out why and fix the problems.

“Instead of opening charter schools, we need to go in there and see what the hell is going on in our schools,” Davis said.

While parents are waiting for district-run public schools to improve, Davis has introduced a bill to stop successful charters from opening more than one campus.

Under state law, only 30 charters can be granted in Chicago, where demand is the highest.

At my Madison lunch yesterday, several people said the school district was lying about achievement data. After reading Parentalcation and Right Wing Nation, I suspect they were talking about Superintendent Art Rainwater’s claim to have eliminated the racial achievement gap. From the Fayetteville, NC Observer:

Superintendent Art Rainwater loves to discuss the Madison Metropolitan School District’s success in eliminating the racial achievement gap.

But he won’t consult with educators from other communities until they are ready to confront the issue head on.

“I’m willing to talk,” Rainwater tells people seeking his advice, “when you are willing to stand up and admit the problem, to say our minority children do not perform as well as our white students.”

Only then will Rainwater reveal the methods Madison used to level the academic playing field for minority students.

This is an odd statement. The racial achievement gap is accepted as an uncomfortable fact everywhere; it is much discussed. No superintendent in the U.S. — except for Rainwater — claims to have eliminated the gap.

Today, Rainwater said, no statistical achievement gap exists between the 25,000 white and minority students in Madison’s schools.

Impressive, but untrue, writes Right Wing Prof, who looked at Madison reading scores across all grades.

Only 54% of the black students are proficient or above. Only 55% of the Hispanic students are proficient and above. And only 91% of the white students are proficient or above.

D-Ed Reckoning explains how Madison is cooking the numbers to claim its balanced literacy program is succeeding. All student scores went up because the reading test was made easier, but black students gained less than whites and the huge rise in scores statewide was not confirmed by federal scores, which remained flat. (See Reading Wars II for more.) I found a graph comparing Madison to five similar districts in Wisconsin, all of which do much better than Madison on fourth-grade reading.

A new center will study whether pay-for-performance bonuses for teachers lead to improved performance by students.

Via Gadfly, a merit-pay experiment in Arkansas is proving popular with teachers and support staffers. However, Florida teachers are resisting a different merit-pay plan.