"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC is punitive. Rather than offer assistance to schools that are low-performing and identifying ways to improve equity, we punish teachers and students for factors beyond their control.

I told my children that if they ever entertained education as a major, I'd pull their college funds from them.

That's not a testing problem, it's a school district problem.

seriously?

So it's a system's fault?

especially when it's forced by federal and state mandates to test kids regardless of their reading levels?

You're blaming the systems?

sort of like blaming the victims, eh?

good job, genius

[Anonymous]

An earlier poster said that the standards were written by people who were "expert in standards" and they didn't need the help of teachers. Total lack of common sense. No common sense in Common Core or NCLB.

[Anonymous]

There's a great article in the Post today about China being worried about its dismal world standing in soccer. A quote from the article is:

To compete globally, China needs innovation and creativity, and yet the Communist Party insists on top-down obedience and conformity by edict.

Does this sound familiar? Teachers are expected to "obey" and "conform" to the script. It does not lead to innovation or creative thinking. This is the article:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-soccer-is-terrible-and-now-xi-jinping-has-officials-jumping-to-fix-it/2015/02/21/68f24c42-a6fc-11e4-a162-121d06ca77f1_story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An earlier poster said that the standards were written by people who were "expert in standards" and they didn't need the help of teachers. Total lack of common sense. No common sense in Common Core or NCLB.

That's not the case - Common Core was developed from pre-existing state standards, and both the development process for those prior state standards as well as the compilation and review process for Common Core both had involvement from teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An earlier poster said that the standards were written by people who were "expert in standards" and they didn't need the help of teachers. Total lack of common sense. No common sense in Common Core or NCLB.

That's not the case - Common Core was developed from pre-existing state standards, and both the development process for those prior state standards as well as the compilation and review process for Common Core both had involvement from teachers.

And the teachers who were "involved" say they were expected to be a rubber stamp. Do your homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC is punitive. Rather than offer assistance to schools that are low-performing and identifying ways to improve equity, we punish teachers and students for factors beyond their control.

I told my children that if they ever entertained education as a major, I'd pull their college funds from them.

That's not a testing problem, it's a school district problem.

seriously?

So it's a system's fault?

especially when it's forced by federal and state mandates to test kids regardless of their reading levels?

You're blaming the systems?

sort of like blaming the victims, eh?

good job, genius

There's nothing inherently wrong with testing kids regardless of their reading levels. What's wrong is punishing teachers because of their ESL, Special Needs and other students who may have good reasons for not being at the appropriate reading level - but again, that's not something that NCLB mandates or requires, that's stupidity happening at the local level. At some point you need to get it through your head that getting rid of testing won't remove that stupidity problem and it will still be a threat to teachers regardless of Common Core or NCLB. At some point you need to recognize and understand that change needs to happen at the local level rather than blaming everyone else (which won't solve your problem).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
An earlier poster said that the standards were written by people who were "expert in standards" and they didn't need the help of teachers. Total lack of common sense. No common sense in Common Core or NCLB.



That's not the case - Common Core was developed from pre-existing state standards, and both the development process for those prior state standards as well as the compilation and review process for Common Core both had involvement from teachers.


And the teachers who were "involved" say they were expected to be a rubber stamp. Do your homework.

That is not true.

[Anonymous]

That's not the case - Common Core was developed from pre-existing state standards, and both the development process for those prior state standards as well as the compilation and review process for Common Core both had involvement from teachers.

Common Core standards were written by a committee that was selected by no one knows who based on no one knows what criteria.

[Anonymous]

That is not true.

Name one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's not the case - Common Core was developed from pre-existing state standards, and both the development process for those prior state standards as well as the compilation and review process for Common Core both had involvement from teachers.

Common Core standards were written by a committee that was selected by no one knows who based on no one knows what criteria.

The standards weren't made up out of whole cloth. The whole point of the standards was to look at standards currently in use around the country, and standardize them so many states would have the same ones at the same time. They are not some weird, crazy, untested standards someone invented in a back room some where. They are perfectly normal education standards -- read fluently with expression; decode multi-syllable words; support main idea with details; add and subtract multi-digit numbers.

And they are FINE standards. There's really very little that is objectionable about them. There is a good argument to be made, however, that they are designed to prepare a student for college level work -- and that this standard is simply too high, for a certain percentage of our children. No one wants to say it, but the fact is that a certain percentage of our students are simply "low achievers". They are not mentally retarded, but they are slow learners; and they are not going to be able to master all the standards expected by say a 10th grade level. The COmmon Core standards are a bit too difficult for them in the early grades, and are a LOT too difficult for them, by middle school. These are children who honestly will not ever be "college ready" and I can see that while the earlier state standards were easy enough that more of these kids could scrape by, the new Common Core Standards are going to be hard for them to meet.

[Anonymous]

And they are FINE standards

Can you tell me why you are qualified to say that? I do not mean snark, I mean seriously.

[Anonymous]

The standards weren't made up out of whole cloth. The whole point of the standards was to look at standards currently in use around the country, and standardize them so many states would have the same ones at the same time. They are not some weird, crazy, untested standards someone invented in a back room some where. They are perfectly normal education standards -- read fluently with expression; decode multi-syllable words; support main idea with details; add and subtract multi-digit numbers.

Please tell us who the decision maker was who selected the committee?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The standards weren't made up out of whole cloth. The whole point of the standards was to look at standards currently in use around the country, and standardize them so many states would have the same ones at the same time. They are not some weird, crazy, untested standards someone invented in a back room some where. They are perfectly normal education standards -- read fluently with expression; decode multi-syllable words; support main idea with details; add and subtract multi-digit numbers.

Please tell us who the decision maker was who selected the committee?

Jayzus we've been through that one a dozen or more times already. The ed reps from various state Governors offices, via the National Governors Association, together with the state folks from CSSO selected the committees.

You just keep going in circles over and over again with this stuff, asking the same questions over and over again when they have already been answered so many times over, it just makes you look at best confused and/or immensely forgetful and at worst deliberately and willfully ignorant, which really doesn't help your cause in either event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PARCC is punitive. Rather than offer assistance to schools that are low-performing and identifying ways to improve equity, we punish teachers and students for factors beyond their control.

I told my children that if they ever entertained education as a major, I'd pull their college funds from them.

That's not a testing problem, it's a school district problem.

seriously?

So it's a system's fault?

especially when it's forced by federal and state mandates to test kids regardless of their reading levels?

You're blaming the systems?

sort of like blaming the victims, eh?

good job, genius

There's nothing inherently wrong with testing kids regardless of their reading levels. What's wrong is punishing teachers because of their ESL, Special Needs and other students who may have good reasons for not being at the appropriate reading level - but again, that's not something that NCLB mandates or requires, that's stupidity happening at the local level. At some point you need to get it through your head that getting rid of testing won't remove that stupidity problem and it will still be a threat to teachers regardless of Common Core or NCLB. At some point you need to recognize and understand that change needs to happen at the local level rather than blaming everyone else (which won't solve your problem).

At some point, you need to realize you're an idiot.

We teachers have NO say in anything. People can protest all they want. They can quit. Nothing will change. We have NO power. So yes, I blame the powers that be. What have any of these PARCC protests earned for us? for the kids?

nothing

Observe a teacher for one day in a challenging environment and see if you don't learn a thing or two. Not even our own administrators step in when we're short staffed. not one - too afraid

Good God, PP - Are you THAT simple?

[Anonymous]

Jayzus we've been through that one a dozen or more times already. The ed reps from various state Governors offices, via the National Governors Association, together with the state folks from CSSO selected the committees.

You just keep going in circles over and over again with this stuff, asking the same questions over and over again when they have already been answered so many times over, it just makes you look at best confused and/or immensely forgetful and at worst deliberately and willfully ignorant, which really doesn't help your cause in either event.

Sorry. I want names. There had to be someone who had the final say. Who?