"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my first year student teaching. My daughter is four, so I hadn't been exposed to the common core before this year. My kindergarten class is drowning in common core waters. It takes a truly remarkable teacher to get kids up to these levels. Some of it is easy and seems like common sense. Others, not so much. I'm really worried about the future of education. I've strongly considered quitting, but I'm too far in now. Everyone at the school keeps telling me that to just do my five years and try to get a job working with policy.

Thanks from a note from the trenches. I imagine a lot of people will be abandoning teaching as the futility of these standards and testing takes hold.

Half of teachers leave after five years. I see no reason why this would not get worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my first year student teaching. My daughter is four, so I hadn't been exposed to the common core before this year. My kindergarten class is drowning in common core waters. It takes a truly remarkable teacher to get kids up to these levels. Some of it is easy and seems like common sense. Others, not so much. I'm really worried about the future of education. I've strongly considered quitting, but I'm too far in now. Everyone at the school keeps telling me that to just do my five years and try to get a job working with policy.

Thanks from a note from the trenches. I imagine a lot of people will be abandoning teaching as the futility of these standards and testing takes hold.

Half of teachers leave after five years. I see no reason why this would not get worse.

There have been standards and testing since 2002.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

All that supposed experience and yet you still haven't come up with any meaningful or robust specific, fact-based examples of how Common Core is "developmentally inappropriate..."

You seem to be suffering from some magical thinking that saying it over and over will somehow make it so.


LOL! You have resorted to personal attacks. Pretty clear you have lost the battle.



But PP's post was actually not a personal attack.

How can saying that someone seems to be suffering from" magical thinking" not be a bit personal? If it's not an attack, it's at least a pretty weird assumption. The posters on here are trying to argue and, of course, they will say something isn't so in the course of the argument and calling that "magical thinking" is just plain weird.

Merely repeating the same thing over and over again without providing any actual backup or facts as has been done with the "developmentally inappropriate" comment is not "arguing" in any sense relative to meaningful or rational debate. It's just "arguing" in the sense of shouting, thinking if you shout loudly enough and often enough that you will win the debate. There's nothing weird about that.

[Anonymous]

Merely repeating the same thing over and over again without providing any actual backup or facts as has been done with the "developmentally inappropriate" comment is not "arguing" in any sense relative to meaningful or rational debate. It's just "arguing" in the sense of shouting, thinking if you shout loudly enough and often enough that you will win the debate. There's nothing weird about that.

And, the Common Core promoters have given no evidence that there was research or expertise behind the development of the standards. That is clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Virginia is reducing the number of SOL tests and they are about to put in a project based assessment as an alternative to the tests.

The pendulum is swinging back. The feds are behind, but they will see the light on this soon.


Oh, how I hope so. My DD lives in terror of the SOLs. Learning is no longer fun and interesting at her school. Now it's just a huge packet of facts they must memorize for the SOLs. Crazy.


My kids have had fun and find learning interesting in school. My 6th grader, for example, made a solar oven this fall. My 4th grader was writing books on an iPad. They're both playing musical instruments. One is in a school play. The other is reading incredible books. Both schools get top SOL scores every year.

Maybe your school is doing it wrong.

You are not at a Title 1 school. You are in a school that gets top SOL scores every year. Your neighborhood is probably in the top 5% of incomes in America. There's a HUGE difference. Your children will always be entitled. And you are so entitled that you get to decide what the less entitled of America have to do. And you get to rub their noses in the great things your kids get to do at their schools. So happy for YOUR children.

Exactly PP. I teach in MD and the "incentives" for the PARCC testing will begin in another week or so. Raffles, pizza/ice cream parties, giveaways, etc will be the name of the game. Why? Attendance mostly. Our principal offers gift card giveaways for coming to school on time after each school break (winter break, spring break), long weekends (like MLK and Presidents Day, etc) and for testing like PARCC (she did it for MSA testing too). 95% of our students are on free lunch. Coming to school on time is a huge deal for them. We play catch up with the vast majority of our students every day. Our admin and support teams spend a lot of time and energy trying to 1) get kids to come to school on time each day 2) dealing with behavior issues and mental health issues 3) making sure kids' basic needs are met (the dentist spend almost an entire week at our school). Our school is doing what it needs to do to make sure kids are ready to learn. We provide breakfast and lunch (and dinner for kids in the after school program). We make sure kids have school supplies and coats/mittens/hats for the winter. We also have a food pantry and provide fresh fruit as a snack a few days a week. Basically, we do what parents with who have money do for their kids. A lot depends on our test scores so open your eyes before you make sweeping generalizations like, "Maybe your school is doing it wrong."

Wow. So what do the parent(s) do for their offspring if the school and taxpayers are the one a providing them 3 meals a day, clothing, healthcare onsite, teaching, and counseling?
This sounds like a MoCo La Casa ad that should be re-circulated around Central America.

[Anonymous]

Might want to read up - the standards were based on existing state standards and they are evidence based and research based and you have not provided anything other than your own uninformed opinion to refute it.

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Might want to read up - the standards were based on existing state standards and they are evidence based and research based and you have not provided anything other than your own uninformed opinion to refute it.

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/

Yes, I've read those claims about being research-based and evidence-based. I just don't see the evidence. And there's plenty of research out there to justify any policy. It's like saying something is right or wrong because it's in the Bible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Might want to read up - the standards were based on existing state standards and they are evidence based and research based and you have not provided anything other than your own uninformed opinion to refute it.

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/

Yes, I've read those claims about being research-based and evidence-based. I just don't see the evidence. And there's plenty of research out there to justify any policy. It's like saying something is right or wrong because it's in the Bible.

Of course you don't see it, because you don't want to see it and aren't looking for it - but, it's out there just the same, whether you believe it or not. But ultimately, nobody appointed you as arbiter of whether there is or isn't sufficent research, so who cares whether you personally are satisfied or not? Plenty of people with far greater credentials and standing than you have or ever will have already reviewed the research. You're just barking into the wind with no case and no evidence of your own, you have hardly made any compelling argument here whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Of course you don't see it, because you don't want to see it and aren't looking for it - but, it's out there just the same, whether you believe it or not. But ultimately, nobody appointed you as arbiter of whether there is or isn't sufficent research, so who cares whether you personally are satisfied or not? Plenty of people with far greater credentials and standing than you have or ever will have already reviewed the research. You're just barking into the wind with no case and no evidence of your own, you have hardly made any compelling argument here whatsoever.

Not the poster to whom you are responding, but I have read those links. Just because it says that they were based on evidence and research does not mean they were.

[Anonymous]

But ultimately, nobody appointed you as arbiter of whether there is or isn't sufficent research, so who cares whether you personally are satisfied or not?

This gains a lot of points in any debate. (cough, cough)

[Anonymous]

Plenty of people with far greater credentials and standing than you have or ever will have already reviewed the research. You're just barking into the wind with no case and no evidence of your own, you have hardly made any compelling argument here whatsoever.

Yes. Their credentials are that they work for Achieve or Pearson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Plenty of people with far greater credentials and standing than you have or ever will have already reviewed the research. You're just barking into the wind with no case and no evidence of your own, you have hardly made any compelling argument here whatsoever.

Yes. Their credentials are that they work for Achieve or Pearson.

*Yawn* Sorry, no. There were a whole host of people involved, to include state education officials, professors of education and childhood development, et cetera. Obviously you did NOT read up on the CC development process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Of course you don't see it, because you don't want to see it and aren't looking for it - but, it's out there just the same, whether you believe it or not. But ultimately, nobody appointed you as arbiter of whether there is or isn't sufficent research, so who cares whether you personally are satisfied or not? Plenty of people with far greater credentials and standing than you have or ever will have already reviewed the research. You're just barking into the wind with no case and no evidence of your own, you have hardly made any compelling argument here whatsoever.

Not the poster to whom you are responding, but I have read those links. Just because it says that they were based on evidence and research does not mean they were.

Then let the accusers present their proof that there is no evidence or research. That's how it works - burden of proof is always on the accuser.

Just because they say it wasn't based on evidence and research doesn't mean they are right...

[Anonymous]

*Yawn* Sorry, no. There were a whole host of people involved, to include state education officials, professors of education and childhood development, et cetera. Obviously you did NOT read up on the CC development process.

I don't think there is a lot of argument that nobody was involved in these standards. What I think is that certain people were not involved, namely front line teachers. The teachers, if there were any, were added to "review" the standards at the end. They were not part of the process from the beginning. Also, the standards were put into schools wholesale (for all grades) too soon. They were not given enough pilot time and that is where you get the feedback and where you can modify things (get the kinks out) before you go nationwide with them. This is what is causing so many problems now.

If this had all been done (people had taken time and been careful), we might not see all these states dropping out now. They aren't just doing this to have fun or something. Many had actually adopted the standards before they pulled out. It's because the standards had not been refined yet, and nobody likes to be the guinea pig (especially when high stakes tests are attached to the experiment).

[Anonymous]

Then let the accusers present their proof that there is no evidence or research. That's how it works - burden of proof is always on the accuser.

LOL! Common Core website does not present the evidence or research. How do you prove what isn't there?