In the beginning of class, I found going over data analysis to be very boring because I had already taken an Evaluation and Assessment course last semester which had a large emphasis on tables and spreadsheets. However, the discussions were very stimulating and interesting. I especially enjoyed the discussions we had about MeritPay and History.
I am against MeritPay and the way Standardized Testing currently functions in PA. I believe that instead of rewarding already good schools, the money should be evenly distributed and have each school set aside a certain allowance to provide incentives for students to do well on their assessments. Schools who achieve lower on standardized tests are obviously in need of more resources to improve their methods of teaching and provide a better environment for students to learn in. MeritPay is counter productive because giving teachers paid incentive is only placing more emphasis on their salary instead of on their students. What schools need are teachers who care about each and every student, ones who genuinely care about their students' success, not teachers who care about how much money they get. Student incentive brings focus to the student, and gives students motivation to well because, in the end, standardized testing is supposed to help the student understand what they have and what they need in order to meet our society's standards to be able to achieve personal success and a good job.
In terms of what kind of history should be taught at an elementary level, it is important to teach the truth, but there is a line which needs to be defined as to the extent of the truth. History is tricky, because even the accounts that are recorded are only a fraction of the truth and only one perspective on a very short time period. I believe elementary school social studies should focus primarily on social systems and how they function. That way, as they get older, they can look at History from an objective view point and understand why bad things happen and examine possible solutions or prevention for the future. However, it is also important for parents to properly explain things like death and religion to their children as early as possible, so the students are able to have their own perspectives instead of relying on what they learned in class. If a child is too young to understand death, they are too young to learn about Western European Colonization, instead of teaching them lies about colonial relations and falsely relating a National Holiday to an event that never happened. Teaching young students about how different government systems work, teaching them geography, and perhaps examining certain prominent people is a good way to teach young students history without including societal, religious, or political biases.
