Reply to BASIS students, what school were they in last year?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are you really arguing that 4th and 5th graders in DCPS are actually just fine and the DC CAS is at fault for making it appear as if their are abysmal rates of students performing on grade level?  You are perfectly happy with the level of teaching and learning in most upper elementary dcps classrooms?

[/quote]

different poster here.  From what I see and hear, the problem is "teaching to the test" - i.e. lessons are overly aligned with the DC-CAS.

A competent teacher who is forced to teach limited content will not be as effective as she could be otherwise. and a less competent teacher can look pretty good at the end of the year if successful in getting her kids to bubble in the correct answers.[/quote]

Of course that's a problem, but only if you put the test "cart" before the learning standards "horse". If you have clear learning standards, then test (meaningfully) whether students actually achieve them, then I have no issues with tests and also find the results (% proficient and all) useful. But if my child spends a chunk of the school year mastering long divisions and is then tested on probabilities, they're useless. And they're decidedly counter-productive if the teacher spends meaningful time on probabilities and then rushes through some long division sessions as a test-prep.
And, of course fundamentals of probabilities can be taught before mastering long divisions. If you don't believe me then try my first grader's attempt at it: How likely am I to see Cajun Talapia for lunch today? Quite likely - but by no means certain - because it appears once on every monthly menu. Although if I know that it's always on the menu on Friday and today is Friday, that definitely jacks up the odds and I better get my mom to prepare lunch for me.
While we still see way too much Cajun Talapia on the menu, we now at least see OSSE finally having established some clear learning standards that (let's hope) will the aligned with what kids are tested on (ANET is better aligned than the DC-BAS, which should be abolished).

But how did we get here from who attends Basis?[/quote]

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