"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A dissection of Common Core math test questions leaves educator ‘appalled’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/30/a-dissection-of-common-core-math-test-questions-leaves-educator-appalled/

Using the sample of released items in the New York Common Core tests, I recently spent some time looking over the eighth-grade math results and items to see what was to be learned – and I came away appalled at what I found.

Readers will recall that the whole point of the standards is that they be embedded in complex problems that require both content and practice standards. But what were the hardest questions on the 8th grade test? Picayune, isolated, and needlessly complex calculations of numbers using scientific notation. And in one case, an item is patently invalid in its convoluted use of the English language to set up the prompt, as we shall see.

As I have long written, there is a sorry record in mass testing of sacrificing validity for reliability. This test seems like a prime example. Score what is easy to score, regardless of the intent of the Common Core Standards. There are 28 eighth-grade math standards. Why do such arguably less important standards have at least five items related to them? (Who decided which standards were most important? Who decided to test the standards in complete isolation from one another simply because that is psychometrically cleaner?)

That piece of writing is about the tests in New York, which were New York's own tests. It's not relevant to the PARCC tests, the Smarter Balanced tests, or any of the individual state tests other than New York's.

[Anonymous]

Also, it's not possible to teach standards. Teaching is curriculum.

You are parsing words. You do know that the tests are created to measure the standards, don't you? NOt the curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Also, it's not possible to teach standards. Teaching is curriculum.

You are parsing words. You do know that the tests are created to measure the standards, don't you? NOt the curriculum.

The tests are supposed to measure whether the student meets the standards. The curriculum is supposed to teach the student the knowledge and skills required to meet the standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How often do you use the information on the written drivers' test vs your behind the wheel practice? Like which way to turn the wheels when parking on a hill. Do you remember that? Like prepping for a CC test.

Often, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If 70% of kids fail (which, btw, is a wild prediction not unlike saying all the computers would fail on Jan. 1, 2000), then clearly there's something systemic going on. Like I said, either the kids aren't being taught properly or there's a fatal flaw in the test. But you can't make that determination based on a hypothetical that 70% will fail; it actually has to happen.

As for as the learning disability goes -- I get that's a problem. However, I also think there are accommodations made for other standardized tests (i.e. SAT) that can probably be adapted in this case. But simply saying that "my kid is learning disabled, ergo no testing allowed!" is foolish.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/11/17/13sbac.h34.html
Cutoff Scores Set for Common-Core Tests
By Catherine Gewertz

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 ...

Other "wild predictions" are further down in the pay-for article (you can also read Ed Week free for a couple weeks if you register)

[Anonymous]

Also, the tests are not designed to characterize your child's strengths and weaknesses. They are designed to demonstrate whether or not the children in that grade in that school, as a group, are meeting the grade-level standards -- because that's the purpose of the tests, according to the federal law that requires them.

But the schools have now received waivers from the federal law's consequences. So what do these tests really mean to individual students and parents? What is the federal government going to do with the information gleaned? Just publish it and move on? How does that help either the schools, the students, the parents, or their teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Also, the tests are not designed to characterize your child's strengths and weaknesses. They are designed to demonstrate whether or not the children in that grade in that school, as a group, are meeting the grade-level standards -- because that's the purpose of the tests, according to the federal law that requires them.

But the schools have now received waivers from the federal law's consequences. So what do these tests really mean to individual students and parents? What is the federal government going to do with the information gleaned? Just publish it and move on? How does that help either the schools, the students, the parents, or their teachers?

These are all good questions. But they are questions related to No Child Left Behind, not to the Common Core standards.

[Anonymous]

We are in DCPS and we love our school. However, our beloved teacher confided in us that the common core standards are making him reconsider whether or not to continue teaching. He said its so hard for him to push kids to do things they are not ready for, and that he does not believe are in the best interests of the kids. He said if you can afford private school, he would encourage it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in DCPS and we love our school. However, our beloved teacher confided in us that the common core standards are making him reconsider whether or not to continue teaching. He said its so hard for him to push kids to do things they are not ready for, and that he does not believe are in the best interests of the kids. He said if you can afford private school, he would encourage it.

Have you looked at the Common Core standards? If not, consider doing so. I would be interested to know which things your child's teacher thinks the children are not ready for and are not in their best interests.

http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/

[Anonymous]

Have you looked at the Common Core standards? If not, consider doing so. I would be interested to know which things your child's teacher thinks the children are not ready for and are not in their best interests.

The whole trend with high stakes testing is driving people to private schools. The best teachers are the ones who will leave (because they can find employment elsewhere).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Have you looked at the Common Core standards? If not, consider doing so. I would be interested to know which things your child's teacher thinks the children are not ready for and are not in their best interests.

The whole trend with high stakes testing is driving people to private schools. The best teachers are the ones who will leave (because they can find employment elsewhere).

Private schools pay less than publics. I don't see this happening.

[Anonymous]

Have you looked at the Common Core standards? If not, consider doing so. I would be interested to know which things your child's teacher thinks the children are not ready for and are not in their best interests.

Kindergarten standards are not appropriate for many of the kids.

[Anonymous]

^^ There is no such thing as a "Common Core Test" - Common Core is just a standard. PARCC, Smarter Balanced and state exams try to assess whether students met the standard, but their development and implementation is completely separate from and independent of Common Core development and implementation.

[Anonymous]

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/02/parcc_jersey_city_teachers_parents_technology.html

PARCC prep 'sucking the life out of children,' Jersey City parents, teachers say




JERSEY CITY — Lisa Rodrick, an educator for 21 years who teaches reading to grades 3, 4 and 5, wears a button to work every day.

So do the other 80 teachers at Alexander D. Sullivan School Number 30 Elementary School, she said.

"Children should be chasing bubbles, not filling them in," Rodrick's button reads.

It's a silent protest against standardized testing, a kind of protest Rodrick believes is happening in other buildings, too.

"Before we decided to switch our weekly tests, I had an 85 percent passing rate. I now have an 85 percent failing rate [in my third grade class]," she said. "It's taken the joy out of reading, just for reading, to learn a lesson out of the story... Common Core and PARCC are sucking the life out of the children. It's asking them to do skills that they're not cognitively ready for."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Have you looked at the Common Core standards? If not, consider doing so. I would be interested to know which things your child's teacher thinks the children are not ready for and are not in their best interests.

Kindergarten standards are not appropriate for many of the kids.

Which kindergarten standards? Here they are:

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/L/K/
http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

Also, when you say that they are not appropriate -- do you mean that they are not developmentally appropriate, or that they are not appropriate for this particular group of kids? For the developmental appropriateness, keep in mind that there are a lot of people on the Maryland Public Schools forum who insist that their children mastered all of the kindergarten standards in preschool.