OR, The "Cosmo Girl" Writing Curriculum.
The city that can't catch lightpole thieves is also having a real hard time teaching its public school students how to read and write. Time to lower the bar in Baltimore - with a whack-a-nut writing curriculum that includes a lesson defining nouns as "stuff," and teen magazine writing samples about making out and flirting. The Baltimore Sun has more:
After a dismal performance on state standardized tests this spring, the Baltimore school system decided to overhaul the way it teaches reading and writing in middle schools. Putting convention aside, officials spent at least $2 million on Studio Course, a curriculum that uses teen magazines, places grammar on the back burner and lets kids write about whatever they want.But if better test results are what they're after, they have no evidence that Studio will deliver.
The program has a track record in only one other city, Denver, where middle schools have seen reading and writing scores stagnate.
"I can't imagine Baltimore would be so ignorant to think it's research-based," said Kay Landon, a sixth-grade teacher in Denver. "They can look at our test scores. Our test scores have not gone up. The kids are getting shortchanged."
The implementation of the curriculum in Baltimore has been marked by some teachers starting the school year with no training, schools struggling to buy the necessary materials, and lesson plans being scrapped and rewritten, a review by The Sun has found....Studio is being used in all 21 of Baltimore's traditional middle schools, where more than 60 percent of pupils last school year failed the state reading test, plus two alternative schools and one kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.
Among the magazines the schools are using to engage children: CosmoGIRL!, which has a feature this month called "Five Hot New Kisses," with explicit tips on making out, and Teen People, whose November issue includes the articles "Hot Boy Next Door" and "Flirt Better!" One lesson defines a noun as "stuff" and a verb as "what stuff does."
Maryland state Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick is calling for an audit of the Studio curriculum in Baltimore to see if it is teaching children what they need to know for the state's standardized tests. She said Maryland's other 23 school systems are all teaching the requisite skills. Until an audit proves Studio is teaching the state standards, she said, "I don't feel any level of comfort that [the city school system] is going to accelerate the performance of students."
Phew. Hey, kids: a pop quiz! What's LCD stand for?
Related Rosenblog posts:
TECHNORATI TAGS: WRITING SKILLS, BALTIMORE, CURRICULUM, STUDIO COURSE, COSMO GIRL
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and summer school at Ericae.net.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 6, 2005 04:40 PM