Have you all read this editorial about Common Core testing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://blogs.newsobserver.com/wakeed/north-carolina-delays-release-of-2012-13-test-results-until-november




North Carolina delays release of 2012-13 test results until November
Submitted by KeungHui on 09/05/2013 - 14:12


Families in Wake County and the rest of the state will now have to wait until November to find out how low the test scores were for their children’s schools and school districts.

The State Board of Education agreed today to postpone release of the 2012-13 test results by a month to the November meeting. State Department of Public Instruction staff will present a range of options in October for different cut scores.

Passing rates were expected to be low because the state changed exams with the move to Common Core standards. But just how low they can get could shock people.

For instance, this handout shows that using one set of cut scores could result in most statewide passing rates in the 30s and 40s for exams. The results are also expected to show a much wider racial achievement gap than under the old exams.

Read more here: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/wakeed/north-carolina-delays-release-of-2012-13-test-results-until-november#storylink=cpy

Standars went up. It will take a few years for teachers to adjust their teaching. That doesn't mean higher standards are bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
When there are PTA meetings and Survey Monkey surveys about the amount of homework, then it's an issue. My other two are struggling with the amount of homework. The rule is 10 minutes per grade so fourth graders should have 40-50 minutes a night. The kids switch classes and have three different teachers giving them 50+ minutes of homework a night. That doesn't include STEM Fair projects or their TAG projects.

I agree it s an issue for YOU, and for YOUR SCHOOL. Common Core doesn't require a certain amount of homework per night, though. That is an issue for your teachers and principal to decide. STEM fair and TAG projects have nothing to do with Common Core, either.

By any chance do your children attend Glen Arden Woods TAG elementary? I have read on the PG Schools forum that that school seems to assign a TON of homework. Again, not anything to do with Common Core as this phenomenon predated Common Core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The common thread in Common Core is literacy. Kids are assessed on their answers - not just the product but how they arrived at that answer. They receive credit for their reasoning. So if their reason is correct but b/c of a computation error they have the wrong answer, they still receive partial credit.

Actually, that is what always bothered me about the Math MSA (state Maryland test) in the past. Kids could get significant credit even if their answers were wrong!

I can't find a link to the MSA example, but here is complaint about a similar thing happening a few years ago on the NYS math exams

http://gothamist.com/2010/06/06/wrong_answers_get_credit_on_state_m.php

What I actually LIKE about he new PARCC tests is that some questions will be two parters... and you need to get both parts correct in order to receive credit.

Of course, with a less lenient test, what is likely to happen AT FIRST is that more kids will fail the test. Why shouldn't they? For years they have had teachers who said that it didn't matter if they got the right answer as long as they could show they understood HOW to get the right answer. Now they will actually be required to get the right answer! It will be a tough adjustment but... that doesn't mean that Common Core is evil, or that the PARCC tests are horrible for requiring accuracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The common thread in Common Core is literacy. Kids are assessed on their answers - not just the product but how they arrived at that answer. They receive credit for their reasoning. So if their reason is correct but b/c of a computation error they have the wrong answer, they still receive partial credit.

Actually, that is what always bothered me about the Math MSA (state Maryland test) in the past. Kids could get significant credit even if their answers were wrong!

I can't find a link to the MSA example, but here is complaint about a similar thing happening a few years ago on the NYS math exams

http://gothamist.com/2010/06/06/wrong_answers_get_credit_on_state_m.php

What I actually LIKE about he new PARCC tests is that some questions will be two parters... and you need to get both parts correct in order to receive credit.

Of course, with a less lenient test, what is likely to happen AT FIRST is that more kids will fail the test. Why shouldn't they? For years they have had teachers who said that it didn't matter if they got the right answer as long as they could show they understood HOW to get the right answer. Now they will actually be required to get the right answer! It will be a tough adjustment but... that doesn't mean that Common Core is evil, or that the PARCC tests are horrible for requiring accuracy.

Kids are failing year after year now -- just look at Kentucky. That says there are problems with the standards, the teaching and the tests.


Common Core will be dead in 5 years. Just like every other education fad. All the defenders of it will look foolish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Kids are failing year after year now -- just look at Kentucky. That says there are problems with the standards, the teaching and the tests.

Um... NO!!

First of all Kentucky has long struggled with education. Their state standards were very low, and for over 20 years they have been struggling with how to raise standards for their students.

For Kentucky, the standards represented an opportunity to aim again for a long-time goal. Educators had hoped for years to compete with states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, the country’s education elite. Two decades earlier, the state had undertaken an ambitious education overhaul, the Kentucky Education Reform Act, which introduced new standards and assessments. But the reforms failed to catapult the state to the top. Kentucky students continued to be mediocre on national exams. A report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, gave Kentucky’s old math and English standards a D. Only 11 other states were rated as poorly or worse in both subjects.

They started moving to Common Core objectives as soon as they came out, 3 years ago, by gradually switching over, but they didn't start testing until Spring of 2012, the first year of full implementation. So they haven't had "years and years of testing" to show that the standards don't work. They have 2 years of testing. The kids bombed the first year, and improved somewhat the second year, actually.

The news was only slightly better for Kentucky this year. “Overall, the math and reading scores in grade 3 though 8 and high school did go up, but the concerns we have is that they did not go up fast enough,” Holliday said at a September press conference announcing the new results. Statewide only about 40 percent of students scored at least proficient in math and about 50 percent in reading.

In my opinion ths reflects the fact that the old standards were simply too low. It takes a lot of time to get your reading up to speed, if not much has been expected of you in the past. Especially in high school, kids are going to take a few years to get where they need to be. One reason Common Core was designed was to improve kids' readiness for college. To many kids WTH a high school diploma show up at college and need to take remedial classes, for example. That needs to change.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/what-kentucky-can-teach-the-rest-of-the-us-about-the-common-core/280453/

[Anonymous]

Can most 1st graders read the instructions for this test? My son is in first grade and reads at a 2nd grade level and I don't think he could understand the questions.

If I have to read it three times, it's too much for a first grader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The common thread in Common Core is literacy. Kids are assessed on their answers - not just the product but how they arrived at that answer. They receive credit for their reasoning. So if their reason is correct but b/c of a computation error they have the wrong answer, they still receive partial credit.

Furthermore, they must be able to READ the question correctly in order to answer it. #11 is a perfect example - Draw a picture to solve. There are 7 balloons in all. Two are red. How many are not red?

They are really doing three things - showing what it looks like in an illustration (another form), doing basic math, and making sense of wording that can be confusing.

For an ESOL student, however, this can be difficult. For most of the children whose parents are on this forum, these problems can be challenging but perfectly w/in reach.

Except for in every state that has tested children on Common Core, most children have failed. Even in states where they have been "teaching" Common Core for two years.

Common Core wants many students to learn in a way they are not wired to learn. Two YEARS in a classroom, and these children are not understanding the concepts. Common Core is flawed.

There is no evidendce for this. First of all most districts have not been teaching the Common Core for two years, they are just barely starting to phase it in. DC is one othe furthest and has only done it in Math and just this year in ELA. Plus this is going to take several years of training and resource shifts. We need to stick to this for at least 5 years to get a sense of what will work, the number one complaint I hear from teachers is not common core, but quit changing, let us implement a single curriculm so we can see results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can most 1st graders read the instructions for this test? My son is in first grade and reads at a 2nd grade level and I don't think he could understand the questions.

If I have to read it three times, it's too much for a first grader.

In most schools I have worked at, this type of math test would be read aloud to students.

(Which words did you have trouble reading?)