PARCC monitoring student's social media, wants schools to "punish" them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If her opinion wouldn't be valid if she were on the committee, what makes her opinion valid outside of the committee?

Common sense.

What makes you think the people on the committee knew what they were doing?

How were they chosen?
Who chose them?

What makes you think the typical elementary school teacher would know what they are doing, had they been selected to the committee? How many of them actually have any perspective outside of their own classrooms, including longitudinal studies to assess the longterm impacts of different early childhood teaching approaches? How about even just stepping foot inside of a middle school to understand how elementary school teaching transitions to middle school student needs?

[Anonymous]

What makes you think the typical elementary school teacher would know what they are doing, had they been selected to the committee? How many of them actually have any perspective outside of their own classrooms, including longitudinal studies to assess the longterm impacts of different early childhood teaching approaches? How about even just stepping foot inside of a middle school to understand how elementary school teaching transitions to middle school student needs?

Are you kidding?

You do know that they are involved in continuing education and in-services where they see each other and talk to each other, right? You do know that they are shown the data constantly and I'm talking about data from other schools, the state, etc. They do meet with the middle school teachers as well. It is unbelievable that you think this does not happen. Well, maybe it was a problem in Kentucky and now it isn't ???

[Anonymous]

^ You do know that information is constantly available over this thing called the internet, right?

Maybe in Kentucky this was a problem before?

[Anonymous]

How about answering my question - where is your data to prove your accusation that Common Core is "damaging?"

YOU might need DATA, but teachers use common sense every day to make judgments about teaching and learning based on what is happening in real time. If they had to wait for the data, the kids would be up a creek without a paddle. If you do not trust the judgment of teachers, there is a big, huge problem that data is never going to solve.

Common sense requires a person to observe and make decisions that are logical (to the best of their ability) in a given situation. If it is a given that students learn to read sometime between ages 5 and 7 and that this is because of factors that have to do with brain development, it makes sense that trying to drill down on reading before a student is ready is not a good idea and that it may damage a student's sense of self and may prevent the student from having the time to develop in other ways that need to happen before reading can occur. It may be hard to get "data" on this because these kinds of things in life are not always measurable by using standardized tests. However, everything that is important cannot be tested and everything (most of everything in fact) that is tested is not always important. This is common sense . . . which we need more of in our lives. Apparently you don't trust teachers to have it. Sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If her opinion wouldn't be valid if she were on the committee, what makes her opinion valid outside of the committee?

Common sense.

What makes you think the people on the committee knew what they were doing?

How were they chosen?
Who chose them?

It's "common sense" to be hypocritical and to capriciously cherrypick what experience you are willing to accept, based solely on your own biases?

Sorry, no.

It's absolutely not common sense, it's a logical fallacy. Seems to me you have no clue what common sense is.

[Anonymous]

^ So then you are admitting you don't actually have any real data to support the accusation that Common Core is "damaging?"

[Anonymous]

I want data on your data. Can you prove that we have the ability to test anything and, if we can, what are the limits on what we can test?

We might be able to test (at best) half of what is important. The half that we do test is probably only half useful. The tests might provide some correlation, but they are really weak instruments in many ways (because a lot of important learning and description about a student goes untested). These "standardized" tests should only be used for measuring broadly. To tie them to standards and try to measure more specifically is a fiasco. It just has to stop.

Just my two cents. I think people in NY are figuring it out. Thank God.

[Anonymous]

How about answering my question - where is your data to prove your accusation that Common Core is "damaging?"



YOU might need DATA, but teachers use common sense every day to make judgments about teaching and learning based on what is happening in real time. If they had to wait for the data, the kids would be up a creek without a paddle. If you do not trust the judgment of teachers, there is a big, huge problem that data is never going to solve.

Common sense requires a person to observe and make decisions that are logical (to the best of their ability) in a given situation. If it is a given that students learn to read sometime between ages 5 and 7 and that this is because of factors that have to do with brain development, it makes sense that trying to drill down on reading before a student is ready is not a good idea and that it may damage a student's sense of self and may prevent the student from having the time to develop in other ways that need to happen before reading can occur. It may be hard to get "data" on this because these kinds of things in life are not always measurable by using standardized tests. However, everything that is important cannot be tested and everything (most of everything in fact) that is tested is not always important. This is common sense . . . which we need more of in our lives. Apparently you don't trust teachers to have it. Sadly.

[Anonymous]

^ So then you are admitting you don't actually have any real data to support the accusation that Common Core is "damaging?"

Of course we don't have data, your holy data highness. But that does not mean that we are not seeing things in our classrooms that are disturbing when we use these standards. We are on the front lines. If we don't voice what is happening, we could be accused of negligence or dereliction in our duties to our students. We have a duty to speak out when we see something that is not working or worse. Your response is that we don't really have to use the standards and we don't really have to worry about the tests. Well, then why the heck are we spending money on them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

^ So then you are admitting you don't actually have any real data to support the accusation that Common Core is "damaging?"

Of course we don't have data, your holy data highness. But that does not mean that we are not seeing things in our classrooms that are disturbing when we use these standards. We are on the front lines. If we don't voice what is happening, we could be accused of negligence or dereliction in our duties to our students. We have a duty to speak out when we see something that is not working or worse. Your response is that we don't really have to use the standards and we don't really have to worry about the tests. Well, then why the heck are we spending money on them?

I never said anything about not having to use standards. I said schools don't have to constrain themselves to standards. They are free to use whatever teaching methods, educational approaches, materials, et cetera - provided they at least teach the standards as a minimum.

And if you are talking about many of the things mentioned in that article, like sacrificing art and play, sorry, I can't accept any of that because again those are red herrings as the standards do not demand that those things be sacrificed.

Likewise, contrary to what's been claimed, Common Core does not actually require K students to be able to read. It says they should have some basic concepts of phonics and a few other things down but beyond that it doesn't actually shift any reading expectations forward from what the SOLs generally already had for years.

[Anonymous]

What makes you think the typical elementary school teacher would know what they are doing, had they been selected to the committee? How many of them actually have any perspective outside of their own classrooms, including longitudinal studies to assess the longterm impacts of different early childhood teaching approaches? How about even just stepping foot inside of a middle school to understand how elementary school teaching transitions to middle school student needs?

Is this why they were not selected for the committee?

[Anonymous]

There were several people with elementary school experience on the committees. You just hypocritically disqualified them based on your own arbitrary standards.

[Anonymous]

And if you are talking about many of the things mentioned in that article, like sacrificing art and play, sorry, I can't accept any of that because again those are red herrings as the standards do not demand that those things be sacrificed.

You're right. It's the tests that have caused those things to be sacrificed. It's the fact that someone on high is collecting data and using it to either punish or reward (close schools, give or take away money, etc.). The tests have to go, but Duncan loves them for some reason. He had the brilliant idea of "Race to the Top" and who knows what else he is thinking. Nobody believes it when people say, "Oh, that's over". Especially when you've got guys like Governor Cuomo in New York who are all in for using the tests for purposes they were not designed for. And Jeb Bush loves that stuff too. They are not red herrings. That stuff actually happened and the threat of it continuing to happen is all too real. You can't accept it, but you're not those people. You are not in charge of how this stuff gets used. The threats were not fake. They are not fake.

[Anonymous]

The people who served on the committees had at least as much if not more relevant experience and expertise as any "expert" that the anti-CC folks want to trot out.

[Anonymous]

There were several people with elementary school experience on the committees. You just hypocritically disqualified them based on your own arbitrary standards.

LOL!

"Several" out of 135= 3 to maybe 5.
NONE with early childhood teaching.