Last year, when my child took the MSAs, I'm guessing that that took 7 fucking hours too. |
Um, let me guess - the same "teachers" who are also complaining about PARCC having been such a disaster... (Which is only being taken for the first time this year... meaning the people claiming to be teachers aren't really teachers, they are just pretending to be in order to influence opinion) Fraudulent astroturfing. |
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^ I think a lot of people are disappointed because there are no new ideas to improve education. Just more standardized testing. That's the only idea out there, but it's going to be better this time because it's on computers. Riiiiight. |
There are lots of great ideas to improve education, for example right off the bat, half of the textbooks and teaching materials out there suck - but the administrators don't know better. Tons of teachers are teaching in subject areas that aren't really their strength, because the primary emphasis is on teaching credentials, even to the expense of subject matter expertise. More emphasis is needed in core areas, like phonics to support reading, and mastery of math facts, PEMDAS, times tables and things like long division before letting students start using calculators. The smart teachers out there know this and as a result they aren't afraid of standardized testing. |
Most teachers are not afraid of standardized testing per se. They are afraid of poor standardized testing that does not measure what it purports to measure or that measures things that are cognitively inappropriate or just plain unimportant. They are also afraid for their SN students because the testing is not always valid for them. They are also afraid that those tests that are not valid are going to be used to fire them. Smart teachers are some of the ones who are most afraid of this. I'm not sure what dumb teachers are afraid of . . . Smart parents are worried about the focus of instruction and the hours spent on these tests. For good reason. |
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Firing teachers because SN students didn't do well is not a function of Common Core, it's a function of stupid administrators, and that's a threat that exists regardless of Common Core.
As for what specifically in CC is "cognitively inappropriate" or for that matter "just plain unimportant" the case for that has to date not been made by anyone on DCUM, throughout the dozens of threads and hundreds of posts where it's been brought up and posters like myself have asked for detailed specifics. |
Go read the threads. The specifics are there. Quit drinking your CC Koolaid. |
I'm a different poster. I've read all of the Common Core threads, to my sorrow. I haven't seen any specifics either. |
PARCC is indeed 10 hours long -- or more: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/09/common-core_assessment_group_revises_testing_time.html The PARCC testing consortium has announced that schools will need to schedule about 10 hours of testing time this spring for elementary school students, and nearly 11 hours or more for middle and high school students. Released Thursday, the new time projections are higher than the estimates that PARCC issued in March of 2013: eight to 10 hours of testing. But that's because the earlier figures reflected something different: the amount of time "typical" students would need to complete the English/language arts and mathematics tests. |
Schools have to schedule 10 hours for testing. That doesn't mean it will take every child 10 hours to do the test. Also, how much time did schools have to schedule for the previous tests? The tests themselves are new this year, but the testing requirement is not new. |
Nope. There was a litany of various general complaints having far more to do with general teaching issues, lousy course materials and school administrative dysfunctions but there were virtually none that actually and legitimately tied to a specific published CC standard. |
| And, let's just remind people once again for the 10,000th time since they still keep conflating testing with CC, meaning they obviously still don't understand this: Testing is *NOT* a Common Core mandate. It is a NCLB mandate. |
Too bad for you then, since it's the testing that is the death knell for Common Core. |
Actually too bad for the people who believe that fighting the Common Core standards will stop the testing, since it won't. |
I heard they (Senators)were working on eliminating the testing requirement. |