PARCC monitoring student's social media, wants schools to "punish" them
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Anonymous
Not to mention Morse v. Frederick (the "bong hits 4 Jesus" case): http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/get-involved/constitution-activities/first-amendment/free-speech-school-conduct/facts-case-summary.aspx |
Anonymous
Really hope you are not a lawyer. I expected a higher level of legal discourse on DCUM somehow. |
Anonymous
Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier and Morse v. Frederick are two Supreme Court cases about the limits of free speech in schools. I am not a lawyer. Could you please explain to me what is wrong about referencing these two cases? |
Anonymous
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Parcc may be meaningless to high school students right now, because they really have no skin in the game. But the Parcc consortium is gearing up to make Parcc results as meaningful as the ACTs and SATs. Parcc has a long-term plan to persuade college admissions staff to use Parcc scores as a measure of "college and career readiness."
Of course, they haven't yet established the cut scores or even the categories for proficiency. It appears that there will be between 3 and 5 levels. Parcc concedes that three levels is quite broad, but that the test does not support "finer" distinctions on the level of performance. What a waste of time and money! |
Anonymous
I'm the one who posted the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier cite, which is very meaningful to me since it happened while I was a high school newspaper editor. My own take is that the extreme right-wing people who lead the charge against Common Core/PARCC is an inherently strident bunch incapable of critical thought. It goes with their Tea Party sensibilities. Opposition to CC and PARCC is pretty much exclusively a Koch brothers product, after all. So, you often are greeted with dismissive yet incoherent comments when you post a proof point. They don't want to hear it. The OP of this thread -- who is probably a Bible-thumping right-winger who resents Common Core because it denies Creationism -- hoped to stir outrage. But in order to be outraged, you have to first accept a couple of flawed premises: 1) That PARCC tests are bad; 2) That students should be able to post whatever they want on social media without consequence; and 3) That Pearson has no right to monitor social media for commentary about itself or its products. In other words, the entire thread is a straw man. |
Anonymous
PSAT also voluntarily asks for cell phone numbers so that students can receive updates through texts. |
Anonymous
The same can be said of the HSAs, which were a joke in comparison to the PARCC. HSAs had an online version, too - a format mainly used during make ups. It took a few years before the powers that be normed the HSA scores, which fell into three categories: basic (translation - failure), proficient, and advanced. I had heard there were ways to disaggregate data by indicator in order to highlight trouble spots. However, as educators, we were never given that information, nor told how to access it ourselves. So it was anyone's guess as to what indicators we focused on during remediation. And if a student failed twice, s/he was allowed to graduate after completing and passing a project. pathetic I'm sure each system will have its own version of these projects once schools start reporting high failure rates with PARCC. When students failed the HSAs, we (teachers) worked on reading comprehension b/c many of our students were reading below grade level. And that's the main problem - We were NOT testing them on skills found on the tests; we were testing them on how well they read. Even if Johnny understands theme, he may not be able to detect theme in a passage written several levels above his. These problems will resurface with PARCC as well. More, however, will fail because the test is very challenging. So what's next then? Blame the teachers (again) and reconstitute every school with failing scores? Have private corporations take over schools? Push for more charter schools? Not one has worked. Kids who are never present won't pass. Kids with language barriers just entering the States will not pass. Students with emotional blocks will not pass. Those without technology at home will not pass, as it's hard enough to transition from mouse to track pad. And then there's the click, drag and drop process! For younger kids with fine motor issues or for those with slower processing, this method is often confusing and complicated. We are doomed, folks As one who's been in public ed for over 20 years, it has gotten worse - NOT better. In the past, principals had autonomy to run their schools, to work with THEIR communities (pre-consortia "mentality"), to push kids into trades. Now THAT was true differentiation, especially when students opted into trades where they were trained by some talented folks who prepared them for full time jobs as soon as they received their diplomas. We're all different. Just b/c you can't pass a standardized test at the advanced level doesn't mean you're stupid. I can't fix a car motor. I can't design a home. I can't fly a plane. But I can teach a child how to improve his/her reading comprehension if given the time, resources and a smaller setting. My own children are guinea pigs for these tests. So this hits even closer to home. |
Anonymous
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9:11 You are spot on. I am also a teacher and have seen this path several times before (I am 55 years old feeling very sad about what continues to happen). The poster at 8:41 who said the anti CC people are a bunch of extreme right wingers is way off base. None of the reasons he gives are reasons that many people are against the testing. They are against it for a plain and simple reason: it just doesn't help anyone at all. |
Anonymous
But the tests aren't because of the Common Core standards. If the Common Core standards went away tomorrow, there would still be the tests. That's because the tests are required by the No Child Left Behind Act. It does not make sense to oppose the Common Core standards because of the testing requirements in NCLB. |
Anonymous
Opposition to Common Core is a Tea Party, right-wing thing. Funded by the Koch Brothers. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/13/koch-brothers-anti-common-core-spending/14018753/ Any liberal who jumped on the badwagon is gullible as shit. Once you set standards, which are appropriate, you need tests to be sure the standards are learned. Hence, PARCC.. Yes, they help everyone -- they help schools know whether the kids are learning what they are supposed to be learning. Only bad teachers fear PARCC. Every other country in the world does capstone testing. What do you think A-levels/O-levels are in Great Britain? |
Anonymous
But the testing here is done starting in 3rd grade! What you are talking about are tests at the high school level and upon leaving for university. Totally different. |
Anonymous
Yes, but you don't need PARCC and the tests do not have to be national. The best tests I gave as a teacher were ones where my department in the various high schools got together and discussed the standards and what should be tested and how. This gave us a measure against other teachers in our area and it was a peer project. It was excellent. I felt that my students received so much because I was actually motivated to compete with teachers I could see and with students that we all knew. The PARCC, etc. are very anonymous for the teachers and the students. We have no idea how the questions are formulated and what the results really mean. But, they might mean that our school gets closed or we get fired. Heck yes we are afraid of this stuff. We're afraid that it is taking us all down the drain. We do care about our students. It's not some fake thing. |
Anonymous
PP who posted the Valerie Strauss article -- thanks, that brings a lot more clarity! And I agree with the other PP quoted above; Pearson can monitor Twitter all they like*. What's concerning to me here is that they were able to connect a HS student's Twitter account with the student's school and testing supervisor. Pearson can monitor Twitter, and Pearson is authorized by the NJDOE to collect student data for the purposes of administering the test. But I can't imagine that they are authorized to use student data act on their social media data. How did they know which school the student attended? I mean, I think it's *creepy* that they are monitoring kids' accounts, but I don't think it's *illegal* -- and if the kid is under 13, then the fault lies with Twitter not with Pearson, actually. |
Anonymous
BINGO. That's the creep factor here - that they matched up the kid's tweet with all the other data they'd collected from the schools, and used it to put a disciplinary process into motion. Yuck, yuck, yuck. No matter how you feel about testing/common core/etc, I hope we can all agree that private companies should not be gathering our children's data like this. The contracts should have strict limits on what data they can collect and how they can use it, and when it has to be destroyed. |
Anonymous
Wow, you are really off base. I am the furthest thing possible from a conservative Bible thumper or Koch brother's fan. That all has NOTHING to do with being creeped out by Pearson and suspicious of the for-profit companies making a killing on supposed education reform, including high-stakes testing, charters, and gutting unions, that many thoughtful observers have decried. I totally get how Common Core has been made into a Tea Party cause against federal power/centralization, but that's really got nothing to do with the other things. If the Koch Brothers want to bring down PARCC and Pearson as part of their campaign, so be it. |