"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

for decades we've been cranking out millions of graduates who don't have those skills. That really has to change.

$64,000 question---will new standards and new tests change this?

Will the new standards keep students from graduating (who don't have the skills)?

Or will civil disobedience kick in with the "opt out" campaign?

[Anonymous]

"the students are at a level where you can use the curriculum" - again, you need to look at the big picture. When you have kids showing up in middle school who can barely read or add 2+2 that means there was a problem in elementary school. Your answer then is apparently "the middle school curriculum is wrong because it's not relevant to the level that the kids are at" essentially ignoring the real problem. Your solution is to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The middle school standards may not be "wrong", but they cannot be used with those students. And, it would be very unfair to test them on material that they can't get to during the year even though they are making progress based on where they started. This is not rearranging deck chairs. And we're not on the Titanic. The kids are improving, but can't make enough progress (several years worth) in one year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

for decades we've been cranking out millions of graduates who don't have those skills. That really has to change.

$64,000 question---will new standards and new tests change this?

Will the new standards keep students from graduating (who don't have the skills)?

Or will civil disobedience kick in with the "opt out" campaign?

Civil disobedience? As far as I know, there is no law that says that parents must allow their children to take the tests that are mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act, nor have any parents been fined or thrown in jail for not allowing their children to take the tests. And the No Child Left Behind Act dates back to 2001, so there would have been plenty of opportunity for this to happen.

[Anonymous]

I find it very difficult to believe that if a student is way below grade level, it is possible to game the test prep so that the student does well on the test anyway. Which is to say -- I don't doubt that people might try to game the test prep. I just don't think that the effort would be successful.

If there's any chance that it may work, it will be tried. There may be no chance at all if the student is way below grade level. And, there's no accounting for what people will try when backs are up against the wall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The middle school standards may not be "wrong", but they cannot be used with those students. And, it would be very unfair to test them on material that they can't get to during the year even though they are making progress based on where they started. This is not rearranging deck chairs. And we're not on the Titanic. The kids are improving, but can't make enough progress (several years worth) in one year.

Why? The purpose of the test is to determine what proportion of the students are at grade level. They are not at grade level. Do you think that there should be an option such that students who are below grade level can just get marked below grade level without having to take the test?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I find it very difficult to believe that if a student is way below grade level, it is possible to game the test prep so that the student does well on the test anyway. Which is to say -- I don't doubt that people might try to game the test prep. I just don't think that the effort would be successful.

If there's any chance that it may work, it will be tried. There may be no chance at all if the student is way below grade level. And, there's no accounting for what people will try when backs are up against the wall.

Agreed -- which is why there have been so many cheating scandals about the tests required by NCLB. However, do these cheating scandals have anything to do with the Common Core standards? No, they do not. People will try to game the system because of NCLB, not because of the Common Core standards.

[Anonymous]

Why? The purpose of the test is to determine what proportion of the students are at grade level. They are not at grade level. Do you think that there should be an option such that students who are below grade level can just get marked below grade level without having to take the test?

That's actually a good idea. Why put a kid through a demoralizing activity?

[Anonymous]

Also, if teachers are required to teach only the grade-level curriculum and nothing but the grade-level curriculum, regardless of where the actual students are, that's a real problem. But it's a problem with the school administrators. The Common Core standards do not require this.


So, are you going to give the fifth grade test to a child in the seventh grade--who is doing fifth grade work?

I took education courses to be certified years ago. One was a "testing" course which taught us how to write fair test questions, how to check reliability and validity, etc.

Anyway, one of the cardinal rules of testing was that you never test over something that you have not taught. It's not fair to the student nor to the whole educational process.

[Anonymous]

Agreed -- which is why there have been so many cheating scandals about the tests required by NCLB. However, do these cheating scandals have anything to do with the Common Core standards? No, they do not. People will try to game the system because of NCLB, not because of the Common Core standards.

+1 We need to get rid of the NCLB testing mandate. It has not helped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why? The purpose of the test is to determine what proportion of the students are at grade level. They are not at grade level. Do you think that there should be an option such that students who are below grade level can just get marked below grade level without having to take the test?

That's actually a good idea. Why put a kid through a demoralizing activity?

What, kids should never be tested, because it's "demoralizing?" That's idiotic.

The truly demoralizing thing to them is actually that they were underserved in prior grades, which is why they can't pass the test now. Getting rid of the test doesn't solve that problem!

[Anonymous]

Excerpt from:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/07/a-16-year-old-takes-the-new-parcc-exam-heres-her-disturbing-report/

I am in 10th grade and in all AP and honors classes. I’ve been taking the PARCC because I was informed that it will help me on future tests such as the SATS and there was a rumor going around that you needed to pass the PARCC in order to graduate. I was completely and utterly misinformed.

First of all, I am missing valuable weeks of preparing for my AP tests for a test that does not even remotely have purpose. I’ve been taking this exam on a Chrome book, which might I add are severely small and very difficult to type on. For the essays at the end of each test, I can not even use tab to indent my paragraphs yet an administrator in my school said that five-paragraph essays were expected.

There were some major difficulties logging in and when it came to the actual test. I discovered that the questions were very vague and unclear. For example, it wanted me to click a sentence that best summarized Paragraph 14. I looked at the excerpt given to me and there were only 13 paragraphs. I assumed it wanted me to go back to a previous piece I read to answer that question.

Next, I know for certain that there are at least three different versions of this English test. I got three reading excerpts (which were obnoxiously long and easily lost my attention) while some of my friends got only two reading excerpts and a three-minute video to answer questions on. Not to mention that the questions, if you can even understand them, have a few answers that may apply based on interpretation.

I have been misinformed, and my self-confidence has been lowered as a result of this test, as I can not even remotely answer some of the questions.

Also, my school has a block schedule so for the classes I actually can attend, there’s only half a class present so the teacher doesn’t start a new lesson. I can’t even fathom what the Algebra 2 test will be like.

For starters, I’m only a little over halfway through my Algebra 2 course, yet I am expected to take a PARCC on it? We took the Algebra 2 PARCC pretest in class. I am ranked at [the top of] my class and I couldn’t answer one question on this pretest.

These PARCC exams have done nothing but mess with my valuable class time and significantly lower my confidence in my competence as a student. A large majority of my classmates are not taking this exam seriously because it honestly feels like a joke.

Also to the students who opted out in my school, they were lectured by the teacher and told to remain in the classroom for the full 90 minutes.

They were only allowed a book or a pencil and paper or were told to “just rest your head” or “take a nap.” People don’t send their children to school to rest their heads or to take naps. They send them to learn.

–

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Also, if teachers are required to teach only the grade-level curriculum and nothing but the grade-level curriculum, regardless of where the actual students are, that's a real problem. But it's a problem with the school administrators. The Common Core standards do not require this.


So, are you going to give the fifth grade test to a child in the seventh grade--who is doing fifth grade work?

I took education courses to be certified years ago. One was a "testing" course which taught us how to write fair test questions, how to check reliability and validity, etc.

Anyway, one of the cardinal rules of testing was that you never test over something that you have not taught. It's not fair to the student nor to the whole educational process.

That doesn't mean you should teach to the test. The standard outlines the minimum content expectation, which teachers should meet and ideally exceed however they like. The tests should be based on the minimum content standard. If you think the test is covering material that wasn't covered then that's a curriculum problem - the content being taught doesn't meet the minimum standard. It's not a test problem.

[Anonymous]

Why? The purpose of the test is to determine what proportion of the students are at grade level. They are not at grade level. Do you think that there should be an option such that students who are below grade level can just get marked below grade level without having to take the test?



That's actually a good idea. Why put a kid through a demoralizing activity?


What, kids should never be tested, because it's "demoralizing?" That's idiotic.

I didn't say that kids should "never be tested". They should never be tested using a test that is a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"the students are at a level where you can use the curriculum" - again, you need to look at the big picture. When you have kids showing up in middle school who can barely read or add 2+2 that means there was a problem in elementary school. Your answer then is apparently "the middle school curriculum is wrong because it's not relevant to the level that the kids are at" essentially ignoring the real problem. Your solution is to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The middle school standards may not be "wrong", but they cannot be used with those students. And, it would be very unfair to test them on material that they can't get to during the year even though they are making progress based on where they started. This is not rearranging deck chairs. And we're not on the Titanic. The kids are improving, but can't make enough progress (several years worth) in one year.

Yes, but you have to start somewhere - and in order to start, you have to establish a baseline of where the kids are at. If 50% of the students entering middle school are below grade level in math (which is what you learn from testing), then you know you need to work backwards and start working on making sure they have a solid foundation to get to where they need to be in elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am in 10th grade and in all AP and honors classes. I’ve been taking the PARCC because I was informed that it will help me on future tests such as the SATS and there was a rumor going around that you needed to pass the PARCC in order to graduate. I was completely and utterly misinformed.

Good grief.

Should I have my sixth-grader send something to the Washington Post? "I am in sixth grade and get straight As. I've been taking the PARCC tests because it's a school requirement. Everything went fine on the testing days, but the tests were pretty boring, just like the MSAs I used to have to take."

Or maybe my third-grader: "I am in third grade. I took the PARCC tests. The tests are boring. It was funny when somebody fell asleep and Ms. X had to wake him up."