Reply to New SOL Cut Offs

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]SOL test data site: https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/apex_captcha/home.do?apexTypeId=306

Algebra 1 SOL Score example for FCPS, from last year only:

20.11% passed advance, 68.64 passed proficient, and 11.26% failed. The average score was 456.

Algebra 1 SOL Score example for the state, from last year only:

12.11% passed advanced, 72.96 passed proficient, 14.93 failed. The average SOL score was a 443.

Whatever the bar is, the number of kids passing advanced is not massive. I would expect stronger scores in NOVA because there are more educated parents with advanced degrees that are very focused on education. [/quote]

I don't know how its done for Algebra 1, but at least for elementary, the cut scores for pass advanced is missing only 1-3 questions and to pass at all is missing half (around 20-25). The scoring is definitely not how you would normally expect, where each question is worth the same amount of points. [/quote]

I understand that the scoring is not similar to a regular test. One poster commented that the SOL scores were inflated with too many kids passing advanced. The reality is that not that many kids pass advanced. And a good percentage of kids are failing the SOL. The average SOL score, at least in Algebra 1, seems to be the new pass proficient bar.

Honestly, this feels to me like someone trying to manufacture a huge educational crisis in order to push for vouchers. I am not sure if private schools have to take the SOL, I don't think that they do, so we don't have a way to compare private and public outcomes in order to determine if the schools that would get vouchers would do a better job then the public schools. The expensive privates will opt out of accepting vouchers, they won't want whatever government strings are attached and they have plenty of people wanting to attend without needing vouchers. The schools accepting vouchers might not be producing better results than public schools. There are private school kids who opt into public schools for HS and the kids find that they are behind in math and science.

If we are serious about improving public education, then we need more reading and math specialists at all the ES to help kids develop strong foundational skills. We need smaller class sizes in the ES or an aide in all of the classes to be able to work with all the kids in our 30 person classes. We need classes that group kids by ability so that teachers don't have to prepare 5 lesson plans to reach the kids at 5 different levels in one class. Fund that and you will see SOL scores rise and kids doing better in school. [/quote]

IMO the specialists are hogwash unless there's a known learning disability. What they need to do is go back to how they taught these subjects decades ago. It shouldn't be difficult, language arts has been taught for literally hundreds of years without all the jazz, and only in relatively recent times have things deteriorated. The curriculum these days is a complete joke. [/quote]

Lucy Calkins, of Columbia University,  was one of the most respected “specialists”  within the last decade.  Her now-discredited reading curriculum was bought by so many school districts, who then inflicted it on a whole generation of American students, resulting in severe reading deficits.

Schools have never accepted responsibility for this massive blunder; they just quietly switched back to traditional phonics methods, which have been proven by the test of time.

But back to the new cut scores:  the same type of education policy makers who bought into Lucy Calkins are the ones now advocating LOWER standards and who are opposing the new cut scores.

They do not care what damage they do to your children or their education.  We need to implement the new cut scores, especially in the rapidly-deteriorating FCPS system.[/quote]

Project much? Voucher vultures DGAF about kids they're trying to defund.

New cut scores would be great in the long run, but not mid-cycle and not with the other changes that Youngkin has forced on schools -- all while he wanted to CUT the budget for k-12.

Virginia has been underfunding k-12 for decades. Maybe start there if you want to actually improve schools. 
[/quote]

Giving schools more money so they can hire executive body guards, school board admins, sue students and families that criticize the system, and shift around the students with the most need without helping them to make sure all their schools meet the criteria for accreditation probably isn't the answer.

Now that Youngkin is gone, who are you going to blame?[/quote]
you might have MISSED PP'S point. She said decades - that means republicans and democrats. All lawmakers are responsible for the abysmal funding for education in Virginia. [/quote]

Abysmal funding?  [b]FCPS now wants to hand out free lunch to EVERY student[/b]; they funded 4 full-time armed bodyguards for Reid, are spending millions per year on stupid performative metal detectors and even more on guard contracts, and they waste millions on frivolous lawsuits.

FCPS does have a funding problem; they have a wasteful spending problem.[/quote]

Is it an FCPS proposal or one from the state? I thought the latter. [/quote]

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