"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meanwhile, where in the Common Core standards does it say that fourth-graders can only be taught materials related to the fourth-grade standards?

In this document, straight from the CCSS:

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/application-to-students-with-disabilities.pdf

Instructional accommodations (Thompson, Morse, Sharpe & Hall, 2005)
changes in materials or procedures ?
which do not change the standards but allow student
s to learn within the framework
of the Common Core.

No, that doesn't say that fourth-graders may only be instructed at the fourth-grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's one of the problems and idiocies of Common Core "fixing" everything. No one has addressed what happens when kid does not meet standards--except that it reflects poorly on the teacher and school.

Nobody has said that the Common Core standards will fix everything.

They will actually fix almost nothing, and instead make things much, much worse. The top learners will learn and thrive -- as they have always done. Anyone who gets even a bit behind will get ground up and spit out.

How will they make things much, much worse?

[Anonymous]

How will they make things much, much worse?

No provisions for under achievers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

How will they make things much, much worse?

No provisions for under achievers.

Except punitive ones like stripping them of recess, electives and pounding them emotionally daily that they need to have "grit" to meet the "rigor" they'll need for adulthood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meanwhile, where in the Common Core standards does it say that fourth-graders can only be taught materials related to the fourth-grade standards?

In this document, straight from the CCSS:

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/application-to-students-with-disabilities.pdf

Instructional accommodations (Thompson, Morse, Sharpe & Hall, 2005)
changes in materials or procedures ?
which do not change the standards but allow student
s to learn within the framework
of the Common Core.

No, that doesn't say that fourth-graders may only be instructed at the fourth-grade level.

BS! That's EXACTLY what it says. Explain -- in detail - how it means otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

How will they make things much, much worse?

No provisions for under achievers.

What provisions should there be? For example, here is a second-grade math standard for understanding place value:

CCSS.Math.Content.2.NBT.A.1
Understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones; e.g., 706 equals 7 hundreds, 0 tens, and 6 ones.

That is, by the end of second grade, for a second-grader to be at the second-grade level, a second-grader should understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones.

There is a related first-grade math standard:

CCSS.Math.Content.1.NBT.B.2
Understand that the two digits of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones.

If, by the end of second grade, a second-grader understands that the two digits of a two-digit number represents amounts of tens and ones, that's a good start -- but all the same, the second-grader will be at the first-grade level, not the second-grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meanwhile, where in the Common Core standards does it say that fourth-graders can only be taught materials related to the fourth-grade standards?

In this document, straight from the CCSS:

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/application-to-students-with-disabilities.pdf

Instructional accommodations (Thompson, Morse, Sharpe & Hall, 2005)
changes in materials or procedures ?
which do not change the standards but allow student
s to learn within the framework
of the Common Core.

No, that doesn't say that fourth-graders may only be instructed at the fourth-grade level.

BS! That's EXACTLY what it says. Explain -- in detail - how it means otherwise.

Where EXACTLY does it say that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How will they make things much, much worse?

No provisions for under achievers.

Except punitive ones like stripping them of recess, electives and pounding them emotionally daily that they need to have "grit" to meet the "rigor" they'll need for adulthood.

Where do the Common Core standards call for stripping students of recess and electives and pounding them emotionally daily?

[Anonymous]

There are actually a lot of things that the government could do to reduce income inequality and to reduce the effects of income inequality. But there is no political support for the government to do these things.

If there are a lot of things that can be done and those things have been shown to be effective, there will be political support for them. These ideas have to be voiced and discussed. Please discuss one or two of these ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another great post by an actual teacher in the trenches. Thank you.

Common Core's demands that everyone be taught at grade level whether they are actually there are not are going to be a disaster for 70 percent of kids in this country. They will get behind in Kindergarten and never be allowed to catch up.

As the actual teacher in the trenches clearly explains, the Common Core standards do not demand this. The teacher's school administrators demand it.

No, there are one set of standards and everyone is to be taught these standards. And tested on them.

No flexibility or leeway at all. The 1.5 pages on kids with IEPs in the Common Core standards makes this clear. They use garbage talk like "unpacking the standards" as if that will work.

You can't be taught standards. You can be taught [whatever] so that you are able to meet these standards. And yes, everybody (in states that adopted the Common Core standards) is to be tested on them, as a result of the NCLB testing requirements. Do you think that it would make sense to say, "Well, you are in fourth grade, but you are only reading at the first-grade level, and so you will take the first-grade test."? (Especially since there isn't a first-grade test. The purpose of the tests is to determine whether the students in the school meet the standards. If you are in fourth grade, but reading at the first-grade level, then you don't meet the standards.

Meanwhile, where in the Common Core standards does it say that fourth-graders can only be taught materials related to the fourth-grade standards?

In any good school with strong leadership, there will be acceleration. Last year, my daughter's 4th grade English teacher said that with the high readers, she could stretch them as much as possible, which means reaching beyond the current standards.

"Unpacking the standards" is not a new idea. We've been unpacking since we started with standards when we had the Core Learning Goals. It simply means that we're breaking down the standards into learning objectives and scaffolding material (chunking) so that students build skills.

This is under the standards for Reading for Information (9-10 band):
RI 1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

As educators, we're responsible for teaching before/during/after reading strategies connected to informative texts. We must teach ways to make inferences. We must show them organizational patterns to support a claim so that their textual evidence is organized. We must teach them to cite properly using either MLA or APA, depending upon the content area.

The standards are fine, folks. Any literate graduate should have these mastered.

What's fucked (!) is how we're expecting ALL kids to master these standards at the same time. Benchmarks are a mess, as not all kids reach a specific level of abstract thinking at the same time. So while the standards are developmentally appropriate for SOME, they're not appropriate for all. And this is where kids will be left behind or labeled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There are actually a lot of things that the government could do to reduce income inequality and to reduce the effects of income inequality. But there is no political support for the government to do these things.

If there are a lot of things that can be done [b]and those things have been shown to be effective, there will be political support for them.[/b] These ideas have to be voiced and discussed. Please discuss one or two of these ideas.

What a sunny optimist you must be!

Start reading here: http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/8937834693

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another great post by an actual teacher in the trenches. Thank you.

Common Core's demands that everyone be taught at grade level whether they are actually there are not are going to be a disaster for 70 percent of kids in this country. They will get behind in Kindergarten and never be allowed to catch up.

As the actual teacher in the trenches clearly explains, the Common Core standards do not demand this. The teacher's school administrators demand it.

No, there are one set of standards and everyone is to be taught these standards. And tested on them.

No flexibility or leeway at all. The 1.5 pages on kids with IEPs in the Common Core standards makes this clear. They use garbage talk like "unpacking the standards" as if that will work.

Again, I think you have this completely backwards. Common core requires a minimum set of grade level elements to be taught but does not forbid remedial work to help students who are not at grade level, nor does it forbid accomodations and supports for SN students with IEPs. If schools aren't providing those supports, it's due to their own choices, and not because of some supposed rigidity or inflexibility of the standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another great post by an actual teacher in the trenches. Thank you.

Common Core's demands that everyone be taught at grade level whether they are actually there are not are going to be a disaster for 70 percent of kids in this country. They will get behind in Kindergarten and never be allowed to catch up.

As the actual teacher in the trenches clearly explains, the Common Core standards do not demand this. The teacher's school administrators demand it.

No, there are one set of standards and everyone is to be taught these standards. And tested on them.

No flexibility or leeway at all. The 1.5 pages on kids with IEPs in the Common Core standards makes this clear. They use garbage talk like "unpacking the standards" as if that will work.

Again, I think you have this completely backwards. Common core requires a minimum set of grade level elements to be taught but does not forbid remedial work to help students who are not at grade level, nor does it forbid accomodations and supports for SN students with IEPs. If schools aren't providing those supports, it's due to their own choices, and not because of some supposed rigidity or inflexibility of the standard.

again where is your PROOF?

The standards are totally inflexible. That is a known fact.

[Anonymous]

Do you think that it would make sense to say, "Well, you are in fourth grade, but you are only reading at the first-grade level, and so you will take the first-grade test."? (Especially since there isn't a first-grade test. The purpose of the tests is to determine whether the students in the school meet the standards. If you are in fourth grade, but reading at the first-grade level, then you don't meet the standards.

Okay. So you have a group of autistic 4th graders. They are all reading at the first-grade level and all have to take the 4th grade CC standardized test (because it is mandated) even though you know it is way above them and that they will fail. You put the test in front of them. The kids all feel totally humiliated and demoralized. Some cry. The teacher feels the whole 4 or 5 or 10 hours of testing has been worse than a total waste of time. It has undermined all the time she has spent trying to keep these kids emotionally well and teaching them at their level.

What has been gained here? The feds now know that there are kids in that school who are below grade level. So what? The locals already knew and that's why they should be in charge.

Do you think that it would make sense to say, "Well, you are in fourth grade, but you are only reading at the first-grade level, and so you will take the first-grade test."?

Well, is CC going to hold kids back from the next grade? If they don't, maybe they should take the first grade test. And if there isn't one, maybe they should not be taking the test at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another great post by an actual teacher in the trenches. Thank you.

Common Core's demands that everyone be taught at grade level whether they are actually there are not are going to be a disaster for 70 percent of kids in this country. They will get behind in Kindergarten and never be allowed to catch up.

As the actual teacher in the trenches clearly explains, the Common Core standards do not demand this. The teacher's school administrators demand it.

No, there are one set of standards and everyone is to be taught these standards. And tested on them.

No flexibility or leeway at all. The 1.5 pages on kids with IEPs in the Common Core standards makes this clear. They use garbage talk like "unpacking the standards" as if that will work.

Again, I think you have this completely backwards. Common core requires a minimum set of grade level elements to be taught but does not forbid remedial work to help students who are not at grade level, nor does it forbid accomodations and supports for SN students with IEPs. If schools aren't providing those supports, it's due to their own choices, and not because of some supposed rigidity or inflexibility of the standard.

again where is your PROOF?

The standards are totally inflexible. That is a known fact.

The proof is in the standards themselves, there is no language in the standard prohibiting anything additional from being done. If it's a "known fact" then you should be able to provide evidence of this by citing the specific part of the standard that supports your position.