"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Really? That doesn't leave a lot of time for teacher feedback, testing, vetting, piloting, and publishing of data and documentation showing that the standards are good and developmentally appropriate. In fact, I don't even need to look at the standards to know that such a flawed process could only have produced flawed standards. Get rid of these untested, unproven South Carolina standards before they ruin our children!


^^^also, please provide the names and credentials of every South Carolinian who wrote the standards, plus every e-mail, memo, meeting minute, draft, presentation, and briefing involved in the development of the standards.

Why do you care? Do you live in South Carolina? These standards were written by a state as it is their prerogative to do so. It is up to the citizens of South Carolina to protest their new standards if they wish to do so.

Because this is your argument: The Common Core standards are terrible because they weren't piloted, vetted, or tested, so it's great news that South Carolina is replacing the terrible Common Core standards with standards that weren't piloted, vetted, or tested!

[Anonymous]

Nobody has said that the Common Core State Standards, themselves, were piloted or tested.

Oh, I thought our Common Core supporter had said that there was data and documentation on them. She keeps posting the phone number to call for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Nobody has said that the Common Core State Standards, themselves, were piloted or tested.

Oh, I thought our Common Core supporter had said that there was data and documentation on them. She keeps posting the phone number to call for it.

Data and documentation =/= piloting and testing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They aren't arbitrarily cut. It's very calculated --- and Diane Ravitch just explained it.

And here is the LINK to the fact that the cut scores have been set:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/11/17/13sbac.h34.html

In a move likely to cause political and academic stress in many states, a consortium that is designing assessments for the Common Core State Standards released data Monday projecting that more than half of students will fall short of the marks that connote grade-level skills on its tests of English/language arts and mathematics.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test has four achievement categories. Students must score at Level 3 or higher to be considered proficient in the skills and knowledge for their grades. According to cut scores approved Friday night by the 22-state consortium, 41 percent of 11th graders ...

So if that cut scores were instead calculated so that almost everybody passes, then everything would be fine with the Smarter Balanced tests?

[Anonymous]

So, Common Core was not piloted or tested.
It included almost no classroom teachers in the development. Several of the ones who were included have been critical of the development process.

But, they are good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, Common Core was not piloted or tested.
It included almost no classroom teachers in the development. Several of the ones who were included have been critical of the development process.

But, they are good.

The South Carolina standards were not piloted or tested. And I'd like data and documentation on the classroom teachers involved in their development, please.

[Anonymous]

Because this is your argument: The Common Core standards are terrible because they weren't piloted, vetted, or tested, so it's great news that South Carolina is replacing the terrible Common Core standards with standards that weren't piloted, vetted, or tested!

How do you know that South Carolina is not piloting them this year? Just because they got rid of CC does not mean that they are not piloting their new standards. They can probably actually change their new standards much more easily if they need to do that. Low key and workable sounds really, really good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Because this is your argument: The Common Core standards are terrible because they weren't piloted, vetted, or tested, so it's great news that South Carolina is replacing the terrible Common Core standards with standards that weren't piloted, vetted, or tested!

How do you know that South Carolina is not piloting them this year? Just because they got rid of CC does not mean that they are not piloting their new standards. They can probably actually change their new standards much more easily if they need to do that. Low key and workable sounds really, really good.

It doesn't sound to me like they're piloting the new standards. It also sounds like people already hate the new standards.

Columbia, SC (WLTX) The South Carolina Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon to replace the Common Core Standards now being used in math and English, killing Common Core in the state. The board adopted new standards, written by teams of South Carolinians, which teachers will start using this fall.

Common Core has been controversial here and across the country.

Critics say the Common Core Standards were a federal takeover of state schools, even though it was state governors who decided to put the standards together.

The idea for them was that, with each state having its own standards, it was impossible to tell whether South Carolina students were learning the same things and being held to the same standards as those in Georgia or California.

With a set of common standards, students in every state would know they'd be ready for college or jobs.

The "federal takeover" argument popped up when the federal Department of Education used federal grant money to encourage states to adopt Common Core.

Critics also found confusing and difficult math problems from across the country and posted them online as examples of why Common Core was bad. But Nickie Brockman, a retired English teacher who helped write the new English standards for South Carolina, says the Common Core Standards never dictated specific problems, exactly what was being taught, how, or which textbooks were used in class.

"Standards are goals for where we want children to be," she says. "Now how we get there, the teachers, the administrators, the school districts, they make that decision. They make the decision about the curriculum materials that they use. Standards are just the end of the road, not necessarily the route."

There are differences, though, between Common Core and the new standards that will be used starting this fall. For example, under the new standards students will go back to learning cursive in grades 2 and 3. And they will be expected to know their multiplication tables in grade 4.

In English, "There's an opportunity for the classics. That was a huge complaint, but the genre that teachers teach is left up to the teacher," Brockman says.

Even though critics of the Common Core Standards wanted them gone, many of them don't like the new standards either, saying they're too difficult and therefore set children up for failure.

The state Board of Education says the new standards are more rigorous than Common Core.

But Dr. Cindy Doolittle, a math teacher in Spartanburg District 6 who was on the math standards writing committee, says, "We can't say, 'This is the way that I was taught.' Our society, everything is different now."

And Brockman says every time the state has changed standards there have been complaints that the new ones are too hard. "Every time we have new standards, it needs to be a little harder because the world is different," she says.

Here's an example of the changes

1st-grade reading standard

Common Core: requires students to "ask and answer questions about key details in a text."

New SC standards: requires students to "ask and answer who, what, when, where, why and how questions to demonstrate understanding of a text" and to "use key details to make inferences and draw conclusions in texts heard and read."

6th-grade math standard

Common Core: "understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities."

New SC standards: "interpret the concept of a ratio as the relationship between two quantities, including part-to-part and part-to-whole. Investigate relationships between ratios and rates."


http://www.wltx.com/story/news/2015/03/11/common-core-standards-dead-in-south-carolina/70177726/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But you do have Kentucky and New York -- and their kids are doing dismally with the standards. In Kentucky after 4 FRIGGING YEARS! That's their entire high school experience shot to hell.

No, they're doing dismally on the tests, according to cut scores which Diane Ravitch says are deliberately set so that most students fail.

By the way, how well were they doing before adoption of the Common Core standards? Was everything was fine and dandy in Kentucky and New York schools, until the Common Core standards came along to ruin everything?

Actually, in every state where they have tested kids who have been "learning" under Common Core, they testing results have been abysmal -- and they've been different tests. Different kids. Different states. But was is the same? The standards.

Guess we have our data right there, don't we, that children are not learning under CCSS.

[Anonymous]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/ya-got-trouble-at-pearson_b_6830428.html

Jane Arnold, a reading specialist with the State University of New York, reported that she "was one of the people asked to 'help' set the cut-off scores for the 5-9 multi-subject tests. We did the math and the ELA. First, these were to set the cut-offs for the 36 people who took the tests in September and who are still waiting for their results. Second, we were asked to take the tests ourselves, and many people said they couldn't imaging having to do this on a computer."

According to Arnold, "one of the questions was worded in such as way that there was no correct answer. Several of the evaluators felt "We're here so Pearson can say they consulted teachers." Arnold asked a colleagues who teaches statistics and probability "how valid a cut off is when the scores are based only on the 36 people who took the test, it covers a range of grades 5-9, and the cut-off scores are set by 8 people, not all of whom teach the subjects they are judging." The colleague's conclusion, "Not very valid."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, in every state where they have tested kids who have been "learning" under Common Core, they testing results have been abysmal -- and they've been different tests. Different kids. Different states. But was is the same? The standards.

Guess we have our data right there, don't we, that children are not learning under CCSS.

You cannot logically argue that the cut scores are set to produce high failure rates AND that the failure rates on the tests prove that our children are not learning.

[Anonymous]

Whoever suggested "cut scores are set to produce high failure rates" evidently has no clue about how cut score processes work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But you do have Kentucky and New York -- and their kids are doing dismally with the standards. In Kentucky after 4 FRIGGING YEARS! That's their entire high school experience shot to hell.

No, they're doing dismally on the tests, according to cut scores which Diane Ravitch says are deliberately set so that most students fail.

By the way, how well were they doing before adoption of the Common Core standards? Was everything was fine and dandy in Kentucky and New York schools, until the Common Core standards came along to ruin everything?

Where is her evidence that they were "deliberately set so that most student fail?" For her to be saying that, she would have to have some form of documentation from the people who set the cut scores to back it up, internal emails, memos... So where is it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Where is the documentation that the claims about this grand CC conspiracy are real?

[Anonymous]

Testing companies like Pearson aren't stupid - they run the results through sophisticated software for psychometric analysis and can determine from the responses if there are questions that are ambiguous where there is no right answer, or where there is more than one right answer. Similarly they can determine a lot of other things, such as logical distractors, whether cheating has occurred and so on.

Most of the comments being posted seem to have a profound naivete about testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But you do have Kentucky and New York -- and their kids are doing dismally with the standards. In Kentucky after 4 FRIGGING YEARS! That's their entire high school experience shot to hell.

No, they're doing dismally on the tests, according to cut scores which Diane Ravitch says are deliberately set so that most students fail.

By the way, how well were they doing before adoption of the Common Core standards? Was everything was fine and dandy in Kentucky and New York schools, until the Common Core standards came along to ruin everything?

Where is her evidence that they were "deliberately set so that most student fail?" For her to be saying that, she would have to have some form of documentation from the people who set the cut scores to back it up, internal emails, memos... So where is it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Where is the documentation that the claims about this grand CC conspiracy are real?

Proof is in the Education Week story. It's been linked to several times.