Gaston
Caperton, College Board President, Tests the Writing Waters
by
Joan Baum, Ph.D.
Talking
about writing, which he calls the “neglected R,” Gaston Caperton,
the former Governor of West Virginia and head of the College
Board, says it is his number-one priority. Of course, he knows
that communication skills are hardly ignored in the nation’s
schools, and he acknowledges the many (critics might say superfluity
or redundancy of) theories, approaches, programs, and experts
already out there addressing the need for proficiency in correctness
and thinking skills. But he also recognizes that something “has
not yet kicked in,” in moving expeditiously on this need. The
fact is that despite the existence of “best practices” nation-wide,
and an identification of effective methods and master teachers,
somehow the successes have not been adequately publicized or
integrated with other disciplines in wider movements toward
reform, particularly regarding assessment and standards. “Writing
must be kept on the front burner,” the Governor says, and “better
learning and teaching” supported—not just by funds for replication
but by dissemination of strategies that work. Did the Governor
want to identify any programs, teachers, grade-specific goals?
He’d prefer not to, he says modestly, he’s not an education
professional, but after a brief pause he cites homespun wisdom: “You
do everything you can to help [students] learn as fast as they
can.”
The
College Board, charged with the mission of “preparing and inspiring
kids to go to college,” is in an ideal position through its
administration of the SAT and AP and its National Commission
on Writing for America’s Families, Schools and Colleges, he
says, to implement the Leave No Child Behind movement. If the
exams can be introduced as motivation as early as grade 6,
say, then more children could participate in this kind of consciousness
raising, and testing could be more closely tied to curricula
and used as an incentive to learning. Certainly, the recent
news of the Gates Foundation’s award to the College Board to
create schools with emphases on AP courses—“the gold standard” in
the assessment movement, the Governor says—should aid these
efforts.
The
College Board, a century-old national, not-for-profit educational
organization, began as a response to the need to standardize
examinations for ivy league schools, each of which had its
own assessments, but it was only after World War II and the
influx of students going to college on the G.I. Bill, that
the SAT program was put into effect and then, in the 50s, the
AP program. With eight regional offices throughout the country,
a main branch in New York City and a technology center in Reston,
Virginia, the College Board is the nation’s most powerful arbiter
of education innovation, including superintending the standardized
exams and providing support for teachers. This past summer
alone, Governor Caperton points out, 30,000 to 40,000 teachers
participated in Board-sponsored teacher training sessions.
In
discussing the Board’s recent Writing Commission report, which
clearly indicates that America’s schoolchildren are falling
behind, the Governor is quick not to assign blame. “Students
have to spend more time at task,” he notes, “teachers must
be better trained, and financial and technological support
must be forthcoming.” The new writing-intensive SAT, to go
into effect in 2005, will be a great stride in the right direction.
Gone will be the familiar sections on verbal skills and analogies,
to be replaced by integrated reading and writing components. “Critical
reading is more than just reading, and verbal means more than
speaking,” the Governor emphasizes. But what about all that
criticism that the exams advantage the privileged who can afford
tutoring? The Governor pauses but does not duck the bullet.
If true, the gain is reportedly no more than 30 to 40 points,
he says, whereas the real challenge before the Board is to
eliminate the difference between inferior and superior schools
and bring equal opportunity to all.#
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