"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

The Kindergarten standards sound like something freshmen education majors would write in a cram session. You know the kind of project that was due at the end of the semester and you wait until the night before to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.4
Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

It is vague and imprecise and does not meet the criteria set up by the Common Core group. Go read it.

I did read it. What is vague and imprecise about the standard? What criteria does it not meet? How would you rewrite it to improve it?

Also, is it developmentally inappropriate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Kindergarten standards sound like something freshmen education majors would write in a cram session. You know the kind of project that was due at the end of the semester and you wait until the night before to do it?

That seems like a vague and imprecise criticism to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It seems to me that you are making something simple into something very complicated.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.4
Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

is one of three standards related to craft and structure for reading literature. It is not a standard that sits there all by itself, being responsible for everything. There are also standards for foundational skills, for speaking and listening, for language, and so on.

And how will it be tested? Presumably by the teacher assessing whether or not the child is able to do this. How else? There is nothing in the Common Core standards that says that proficiency in the standards must be assessed via a written test.

What part of "standard" do you not understand?

I don't know. What part of "standard" do I not understand? Is there something inherent in standards that requires them to be assessed via a formal written test?

[Anonymous]

This is from the list of criteria on Common Core website:

Clear and Specific: The standards should provide sufficient guidance and clarity so that they are teachable, learnable, and measurable. The standards will also be clear and understandable to the general public.
Quality standards are precise and provide sufficient detail to convey the level of performance expected without being overly prescriptive. (the “what” not the “how”). The standards should maintain a relatively consistent level of grain size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is from the list of criteria on Common Core website:

Clear and Specific: The standards should provide sufficient guidance and clarity so that they are teachable, learnable, and measurable. The standards will also be clear and understandable to the general public.
Quality standards are precise and provide sufficient detail to convey the level of performance expected without being overly prescriptive. (the “what” not the “how”). The standards should maintain a relatively consistent level of grain size.

OK. Which of those criteria does that standard not meet?

[Anonymous]

OK. Which of those criteria does that standard not meet?

LOL! If you are serious, you cannot be helped.

[Anonymous]

That seems like a vague and imprecise criticism to me.

Precisely what the K standards are. Add inconsistent to the list of problems with them. Some are extremely tough for K kids and some are insulting to the kids' intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Standards are somewhat subjective. They are not like facts where you can say, "this is the truth".

It's not "dodging the truth" when there is no real truth out there. There's just more relevant and irrelevant or less relevant. And there can be no "truth" when you are applying the standards to human beings who can be very different from one another.

If we had standards for something besides humans, say standards for bathroom toilets, well then you could measure each toilet against the standard and say whether it passed the standard or not. But you could not say that the standard was "the truth". Maybe the standard is that you can flush two pounds of crap with 2 gallons of water without clogging. Whether this is possible or not is kind of important to knowing whether it's a workable standard. It's not a "truth" thing. And you can get people who debate the standard for all kinds of reasons. Maybe the toilet functions differently in Denver than it does in New Orleans because of altitude or water pressure or who knows what. But this all must be discussed. The people in Denver would not be dodging any kind of "truth" if they disagreed over the standard. Maybe their standard just needs to be different to be relevant for them.

Okay, I know you don't like these analogies and I'm sure you're going to look up how toilets work now.

And you are right about your sentence. I'm sorry I was hard on you about your and you're.

You still didn't make your "relevance" or "truth" case and you are still dodging and deflecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

One other thing about standards. In a professional setting they are usually formulated by the professionals themselves for their profession.

In the case of the toilets, it would be rare to have a committee of toilet manufacturers come up with the standards. It would be more of a plumbing association along with sewer experts who would be involved with standards. There could be some building people involved. But, exceptions may be made on the toilet standards based on the pipes in an older city or the capacity of the sewage plant or etc., etc. Even standards that do not deal with human beings (who are very, very complex) have to have some flexibility in order to encompass varying possible real world scenarios.

Again, teachers *DID* participate. As did experts on childhood development, subject matter experts, and others. The standards did not come out of a vacuum. They were compiled from several pre-existing state standards, and numerous teachers groups (i.e. English and Math teachers' organizations, as well as the two major teachers' unions) had representation and distributed them among their membership for review and comment, and a multitude of comments were used to inform and improve the standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

In the case of CC, the CC makers have distributed experimental "samples" to the schools. We are now conducting the "experiment". Let's see what happens. The results are coming in.

No, the "samples" have already been "approved" by the regulators. With no vetting or piloting. What a mess.

Again, a lot of what is in the standards already existed in states in the form of state standards for many years. There isn't that much that is actually new or different about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

One other thing about standards. In a professional setting they are usually formulated by the professionals themselves for their profession.

In the case of the toilets, it would be rare to have a committee of toilet manufacturers come up with the standards. It would be more of a plumbing association along with sewer experts who would be involved with standards. There could be some building people involved. But, exceptions may be made on the toilet standards based on the pipes in an older city or the capacity of the sewage plant or etc., etc. Even standards that do not deal with human beings (who are very, very complex) have to have some flexibility in order to encompass varying possible real world scenarios.

Again, teachers *DID* participate. As did experts on childhood development, subject matter experts, and others. The standards did not come out of a vacuum. They were compiled from several pre-existing state standards, and numerous teachers groups (i.e. English and Math teachers' organizations, as well as the two major teachers' unions) had representation and distributed them among their membership for review and comment, and a multitude of comments were used to inform and improve the standards.

And yet, teacher support for them is plummeting. And just wait until the test scores come out next fall! CCSS supporters will be on the run then.

[Anonymous]

Again, teachers *DID* participate. As did experts on childhood development, subject matter experts, and others. The standards did not come out of a vacuum. They were compiled from several pre-existing state standards, and numerous teachers groups (i.e. English and Math teachers' organizations, as well as the two major teachers' unions) had representation and distributed them among their membership for review and comment, and a multitude of comments were used to inform and improve the standards.

Please document. And, also, be sure to remember that the teachers' unions were PAID by the Gates Foundation.

[Anonymous]

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.4
Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.



It is vague and imprecise and does not meet the criteria set up by the Common Core group. Go read it.

I did read it. What is vague and imprecise about the standard? What criteria does it not meet? How would you rewrite it to improve it?

This has to be a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Again, teachers *DID* participate. As did experts on childhood development, subject matter experts, and others. The standards did not come out of a vacuum. They were compiled from several pre-existing state standards, and numerous teachers groups (i.e. English and Math teachers' organizations, as well as the two major teachers' unions) had representation and distributed them among their membership for review and comment, and a multitude of comments were used to inform and improve the standards.

Please document. And, also, be sure to remember that the teachers' unions were PAID by the Gates Foundation.

Accusation: "Teachers didn't participate!"

Response: "Yes, they did, in fact all of the major teachers unions participated."

Accusation: "Yeah, well all of the teachers that did were paid industry shills!" (acknowledging that teachers did in fact participate but then shifting on to another accusation)

And around and around it goes...