Prime Time; 114; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Commemoration

[children singing] [singing ends] [moderator] Hello I'm Ed Sardella, host of Prime Time, a weekly series to create public awareness of the educational opportunities in the Denver Public Schools and to encourage the cooperative efforts of home, school, and community to achieve excellence in education. This week Prime Time will visit Garden Place, Hallett, and Manual, three of the schools where students and faculty are preparing activities to commemorate the birthday of Martin Luther

King, Jr. Prime Time emphasizes reading, and Dorothy Sandberg, reading specialist with the Denver Public Schools, will give suggestions on methods and materials parents can use at home to help their children develop reading skills. Then we'll join the children of the Archuleta and Arnold families as they demonstrate ways to carry out the January activity cards. And in our final segment, Dr. Joseph Brzeinski, the Superintendent of Schools, will discuss what do test scores really mean, in an interview with Jerry Cavanaugh, Denver Public Schools Supervisor of Evaluation and Testing. Honoring people who have made significant contributions to the history of our nation draws us closer together in mutual understanding, which strengthens and perpetuates the ideals of American democracy. January 15th is the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., clergyman, civil rights leader, and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his leadership to overcome oppression without resorting to violence. Prime Time visited Garden Place, Hallett, and

Manual, three of the Denver Public Schools that were preparing special events to honor Dr. King. "I have a dream that one day, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." "Dr. King is a man who made significant contributions to the human rights and civil rights phases that we were going through at a particular time. He needs to be remembered for many things, because he was a man of wisdom. He was a minister. He was a dreamer. He was a philosopher.

And, significantly, he was a person who believed in equality. He believed that every human being should have equal access to opportunities and, particularly, education. He felt that changes in societal attitudes could be made through a non-violent manner. And this is what we remember him for." "Martin was an intelligent boy, and an intelligent, winning man. He wanted the schools for everyone, all throughout our land. You could be an intelligent child, intelligent, winning man. We can be like Martin, yes, we can." "That's good!" "We are celebrating his birthday by paying tribute to him on January 15, and by so doing, we have asked students in

each of the schools: high schools, junior highs, as well as elementary, and also persons in the community to be artistic in expressing how they feel about Martin Luther King, and demonstrate their expressive arts, his philosophy, and his dreams, and what he felt about mankind. Some of the things that kids are doing or preparing now, are artwork, paintings, murals, creative writing, poetry, a variety of of activities. We also have some performing arts. There's singing, there's dancing, and they are making preparation to present these on January 15 at Manual High School." [child 1] "? ? a dream ? ?

[child reciting] [child 2] "? ?, the preacher he worked [child reciting] before." [children taking turns reciting] "M is for Martin, whose last name was King. He believed in freedom above everything." "A is for Atlanta, his city of birth. He grew up to be a man of great worth." "R is for reading, he read all he could. He saw that black people were not understood." "T for his ? ?, for men have been judged not by value but color of skin." [children reciting] "I is for interest in making things right. For his own people people to be equal with white." "The purpose of the activities for children and adults, who are participating to

get a feel of what Dr. King was really like." [choir singing] [singing continues] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing]

[singing] [singing and clapping] [nothing] [singing and clapping] [singing and clapping fades and changes] [nothing] [singing resumes] [singing] [singing] [singing]

[singing] [singing] [singing ends] "It's important for children to study the life of Dr. King because we do study lives of great personalities and Dr. King was an outstanding personality. So his life should be included." "When we allow freedom ring. When we let it from every village and every hamlet. From every state and every city, We will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands

and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!'" [loud cheering] [moderator resumes] Black Educators United is sponsoring a two-day Dr. Martin Luther King birthday commemoration, with citywide competitions in art, music and literature. Friday evening, January 15th, at Manual High School. The art forms will be judged and the awards presented. Saturday, January 16th, at 11 a.m., is a parade from the statue of Dr. King in City Park to Manual High School. The birthday celebration culminates with a candlelight ceremony at Manual at 5 p.m. Imaginative reading games and teaching methods are improving the reading and writing skills of students in the Denver schools. In our next segment, reading specialist, Dorothy Sandberg, suggests some home activities to make reading more enjoyable.

"I am James H. Daniels, Administrative Director in the Department of Elementary Education. With me for this segment of reading and Prime Time is Mrs. Dorothy Sandberg, a reading specialist in the Denver Public Schools. Many times, Dorothy, parents have said to us, 'Give us suggestions and recommendations for ways we can make reading fun at home.' Do you have some ways you can suggest to parents?" "I sure do. Parents can make reading games. Reading games can be a valuable aid to increase reading skills. And the whole family can take part in the games. They can make reading readiness games for the little ones, and they can make basic reading skill games for older children, and sometimes the older ones even enjoy making a content area game." "What would you suggest parents use to make these games?" "Well, they really don't need very many materials. They'll need some pictures and they can get their pictures from magazines and catalogs, and even old greeting cards are an excellent source. And then, parents shouldn't forget their own and their children's

talent in drawing pictures for these games. They'll need some material for game boards, like the side of a cardboard box, and then, you know, the usual materials, like paste and scissors and pencils and some paper for activity cards. And then they'll need some containers in which to store their games, like old shoe boxes or plastic food containers work well, plastic bags and the like. And, really, their games can be just as simple and plain or as fancy and elaborate as they choose to make them. Anything from a paper bag to a rather elaborate game board that they cover with a self-protective, clear, contact paper. The possibilities are really endless once you get started." "Very good. How do they get ideas for these games?" "Well, I brought some samples to show our viewers some easy things to get them started. And before I do that, I want to remind parents to save the reading papers that their children bring home from reading class because these

papers give the parents ideas as to what skills are being taught. And very often these papers can become game activities themselves. And then, ongoing communication between the parent and the teacher can be very helpful as to the child's progress and the skill sequence in which the child is operating in that particular reading program. So let's see what we have here. Kindergartners need to know the names of the letters of the alphabet. And here you have a simple matching puzzle, matching the capital letters to the small letters. You should make different cuts when you're cutting the pairs apart. Also a line at the bottom of the card helps the child see the letters in the correct position, and then be sure that you have the child name the letters. In this case capital A and small a.

Here you have a bag from your local grocery store. Keep your eyes open for these because these work very well. Here you have a letter of the day or a letter of the week and the child puts things in the sack that the sound stands for. So let's see what we have in here. What have we found today? Oh, we have a sock, and we have a bar of soap. And we even have a word, out of the newspaper. Speaking of bags, here's a bag activity. Children can draw or cut out pictures of things that start with the same sound as the letter that you have put on the sack. And then the child can paste pictures all over the sack and name the pictures, like car, corn, castle, cake.

Here's a fun one. The house of consonants. Here we have the house of consonants. For this game you will need pictures of things beginning with the letters shown. Children are to put the pictures in the right rooms by thinking of the beginning sounds. For variety, try a house of vowels. Here we have 'find the opposites,' the antonym game. Children match words that are opposite in meaning. For example, here we have 'no,' the opposite of 'yes.' You can use the same idea, only match words that have the same or nearly the same meaning, and call it the synonym game. Small and little are similar in meaning. This game is especially good for building vocabulary and for word meaning. This is a vocabulary building activity in which the child matches the word to the

picture. The subject matter may vary from game to game. On this game board no two pictures begin with the same sound, and so it makes it easier for the beginning reader to match the words to the pictures. And it also makes the game self-checking. Here we're matching the word fish to the picture of fish. And this one is a kind of a fun one. It's dealing with main idea. This game helps the child understand the main idea of a story. The story is written on the cone and the main idea is written on the scoop of ice cream. This one is dealing with putting words in alphabetical order. You see, you have three sets of words here. They are self-checking, the children can put the words over here on the answer cards and then check them. This one is one on abbreviations and, not only abbreviations, but this game also deals with

acronyms, and so it's a fun kind of game and a travel board type of thing. And these will be available." "Thank you." "Thank you." [moderator resumes] Parents are the major influence in a child's development as a reader. Each week Prime Time activity cards are sent home with the students with helpful suggestions on ways that parents can supplement the reading skills that are taught in school. The theme for the January activity cards is "what's news". Newspapers are fun, educational, and they stimulate interest in current events. The Prime Time staff join the Archuleta children from Valdez school and the Arnold children who attend McGlone in Montbello, as they implemented some of the newspaper reading activities. "Today we're going to do a Prime Time activity for this week in January. Reading the newspaper will help stimulate interest and put the spark of life into your reading. Carla, why don't we look in the index and find a topic. Why don't you try comics

and Marcus, why don't you do sports?" "Okay." "What page are the comics on?" "Five D." "Okay." "Sports are on four-D." "Okay." "Why don't you, each one of you, cut out an example and we'll paste it on the board there." "Okay." "All right, we have an example of sports, and we have an example of comics. Another newspaper activity we can do is to furnish a house using pictures from the newspaper. Marcus, why don't you draw a four-room house with a living room, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom; and Carla, you look in the newspaper for examples or pictures of the objects found in each room." "Okay." "Carla, okay, did you find any examples

from the paper?" "Yeah, I found it." "Was it in the house?" "I found the dining room and the kitchen." "Oh, good. Why don't you put one in each room? [child noise] We've got a house with a living room, bedroom, dining room, and, what, kitchen? Carla, do you know what the five W's are?" "Yeah." "What are they?" "Who, what, when, where" [cut off? video is unavailable] "Good. Why don't we find a picture and see if we can answer those questions?" "How about this one?" "Yeah, that looks like a good one. Okay, Carla, who is that?" "That's Director Harold Becker." "And where, Marcus?" "It looks like either a recruiting office or an army base?" "Yes, why, Carla?" "So, they can finish the movie test." "In this week's Prime Time activity ? ?, we're going to do the first exercise which was

off and running. You're going to look at the newspapers. I'm going to give you one minute to see how many plural words words you can find, okay?" "Okay." "Ready. Set. Go. [rustling noises] C'mon, you can do it. Hurry." "Ready. Set. Stop." "Okay, now how many did you guys get?" "One, two, three, four, five, six." "The second Prime Time activity we're gonna do is we're gonna write an ad, and we're going to the classified ad section in the newspapers to find other ideas about writing ads. Remember an ad can ? ? abbreviation in a few words, all right. So, what to you want to write an ad about?"

"How about a lost and found ad?" "What should we do?" "How about that dog we lost?" "Yeah". "A dog? That's a good idea" " Okay". What should I put? Lost. What else?" "Small black dog." "Okay." "With white on his chest." "Hmm?" "With white on his chest." "With white on his chest? Okay." "Very cute." "Very cute? Okay, very cute." "Floppy ears." "Floppy ears." "Floppy ears." "Answers to the name of 'Shadow.'" ? ? "Let's hear how it sounds, all right?" "Okay." "I got lost: small black dog, white on chest, very cute, floppy ears, answers to the name of Shadow." "That's right. That's good". "Okay,you guys, for our last Prime Time activity, we're gonna play charades, okay?" "Okay." [children guessing the pantomine]

[children guessing] "First word "small" "the" "Second word: three. The three little "pigs." "The three little bears?" "Yes." [music begins] "Quality and excellence in education in the Denver Public Schools is achieved and is maintained through a continuous evaluation process, through a testing program. Schools and parents and students know how well their educational needs are being met. Many of the tests administered by teachers are linked to mastery of content. Many of them are local in nature. They help teachers to assign grades, most importantly to monitor progress and achievement. The Denver Public Schools and practically all schools across the country also use national testing programs, programs that help in comparison with how well our schools are doing with other schools across the country. And yet there's been some

controversy about the use and interpretation of these national test scores. What do they really mean? Are they accurate? Are they fair? And here with me to discuss these questions is Mr. Jerry Cavanaugh, Supervisor of the Department of Development and Evaluation for the Denver Public Schools. Mr. Cavanaugh, what types of national standardized tests are used in the Denver Public Schools?" "Dr. Brzeinski, we use a variety of tests, but primarily we involve ourselves with a comprehensive test of basic skills. This is a series of tests published by C. B. McGraw-Hill. We use these in grades two, five, eight and 11 routinely, and test the youngsters in the areas of reading, mathematics and language. We tested these particular grades so that we can get some idea of the accomplishments of youngsters, the strength of the curriculum and the like, in the primary and the intermediate, the junior high and the high school." "What is the general trend of Denver Public Schools' test scores on these national tests over the

past few years?" "This is something that's been somewhat surprising to the public and not as much to you and to me, the fact that our scores have been showing an improvement over the past five, six, seven years. In other words, the youngsters are doing a better job on nationally-standardized tests as the years have gone on. And, naturally, they reflect a more comprehensive job of teaching, a better curriculum, well, many contributing factors." "As you and your department have reported these test scores, it appears as though the Denver Public School pupils are at or above the national norms in every instance. But how do we really compare with students in other urban schools around the country?" "Well, just recently, my department did run a series of studies about what is happening in other urban districts similar to Denver. We found that we are extremely pleased with the results. In other words, our scores, the scores of our kids are much higher than

in the majority of the other large cities that were involved in the standardization of these tests that we use." "Well, that's certainly reassuring. And yet there's been a great deal of criticism about these nationally standardized tests. There have been accusations that they're biased. What are the issues behind this controversy?" "Well, I think that the problem has existed for, oh, some 10 or 15 years, actually, that there's a consideration by some members of society and some groups in society, saying that the tests that we administer to our kids are biased against certain segments of society, whether it's a socio-economic bias or whether it's an ethnic bias. Now we have dealt primarily with your larger test publishers, those that have to put out a first- class product. They have to put out a product that reflects anything except bias. And in our own analysis of the tests, we do not see bias. We take our tests and give them to the various groups, ethnic groups as well as socio-economic groups and ask them, look at these tests, look at these questions.

Are these biased toward you, toward members of your group? And the tests that we are using, we have not found this, nor have the groups that we have talked with found this to be true of any of the tests we're using." "Well, I think you would agree that the important thing is not just the administration of the test, nor the score, but the use and the interpretation that is given to it." "Well, that's it, you know. We give tests and the results come back. If we don't use the results to improve the instructional program, we shouldn't have given 'em the test in the first place.". "Thank you very much."We appreciate your taking time to be with us." "Thanks very much. Dr. Brzezinski." [moderator resumes] "Next week, Prime Time will begin a two-part series on the Total Access Plan as developed by the Denver Public Schools. The first program will update parents on the plan currently being considered by Federal Judge Richard Matsch. The Total Access Plan provides the opportunity for parents to select the school that best suits their children's needs, regardless of location, and also designates certain schools to serve the specific interests of

students. The following week, the Prime Time program will be devoted to answering questions about the plan posed by parents and members of community groups and organizations. Join us next week on Prime Time for an overview of the Total Access Plan. I'm Ed Sardella." [music]