Anonymous wrote:Devil's advocate for the test. FCPS needs someone or something external to show them the current situation is not working. I think at our school it has revealed that across the board the curriculum has gotten soft. Many kids are testing below where they should on iReady. As a parent, I think the curriculum at my kids' school is very, very weak. One of my kids picks things up super fast so he gets all of it. My other kid needs repetition, reinforcement and explicit teaching versus implicit and the school does none of those things with math or language arts. And it shows in iReady. The curriculum is weak compared to many publics across the country and iReady is given nationally so its metrics for success are national standards. FCPS is lagging way behind my friends' school districts in other areas and the iReady has shown it.

I agree completely. Even in the AAP forum, a lot of posters said that their AAP children were at or below grade level in iready. Of course, those parents still seemed to think that their kids needed to be in their own special gifted program and segregated from the gen ed kids.

It really seems like the majority of parents are pissed off about iready because they don't like seeing that their children are at or below grade level.

lol i rush too

Anonymous wrote:He rushed through it because he was allowed to work play games at the end. Or at least that is what my kid admitted to doing.

Mine too, first grade boy. Lower scores than the fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Devil's advocate for the test. FCPS needs someone or something external to show them the current situation is not working. I think at our school it has revealed that across the board the curriculum has gotten soft. Many kids are testing below where they should on iReady. As a parent, I think the curriculum at my kids' school is very, very weak. One of my kids picks things up super fast so he gets all of it. My other kid needs repetition, reinforcement and explicit teaching versus implicit and the school does none of those things with math or language arts. And it shows in iReady. The curriculum is weak compared to many publics across the country and iReady is given nationally so its metrics for success are national standards. FCPS is lagging way behind my friends' school districts in other areas and the iReady has shown it.

I agree on the need for a more objective assessment. However, I am not sure why you speak with such certainty about where FCPS is relative to the rest of the country. Surely you can't draw that broad a conclusion from your own two kids. If I did that based on my kid's results, I'd conclude FCPS is 3 grades ahead of every other place

And I am not sure why you speak of curriculum as being weak - the fact your kid isn't comprehending the material doesn't speak to the curriculum but rather the manner of instruction, which is teacher-specific. That's why I think the test will be helpful - identify weaknesses and whether they are with the county as a whole, specific schools, or specific teachers.

Fair enough. Maybe it is the teachers methods versus the curriculum. Either way, when it fails it fails. And one of my kids is testing ahead and going great but he teaches himself things. He doesn’t need teaching. Not true for the other. And a good teacher and school system isn’t a success if it only teaches the easy kids. Maybe the test will help. My comment about Fairfax versus other schools is based on same grade comparisons of classwork and schoolwork with friends and family in other states. Not every state but most people don’t think of Florida as being more
rigorous than Fairfax. At least compared with my Fairfax school, the others are getting more instruction, more directed guided reading sent home (we get none) and the expectations on the kids are higher. They expect more and teach more.

Anonymous wrote:Devil's advocate for the test. FCPS needs someone or something external to show them the current situation is not working. I think at our school it has revealed that across the board the curriculum has gotten soft. Many kids are testing below where they should on iReady. As a parent, I think the curriculum at my kids' school is very, very weak. One of my kids picks things up super fast so he gets all of it. My other kid needs repetition, reinforcement and explicit teaching versus implicit and the school does none of those things with math or language arts. And it shows in iReady. The curriculum is weak compared to many publics across the country and iReady is given nationally so its metrics for success are national standards. FCPS is lagging way behind my friends' school districts in other areas and the iReady has shown it.

I agree on the need for a more objective assessment. However, I am not sure why you speak with such certainty about where FCPS is relative to the rest of the country. Surely you can't draw that broad a conclusion from your own two kids. If I did that based on my kid's results, I'd conclude FCPS is 3 grades ahead of every other place

And I am not sure why you speak of curriculum as being weak - the fact your kid isn't comprehending the material doesn't speak to the curriculum but rather the manner of instruction, which is teacher-specific. That's why I think the test will be helpful - identify weaknesses and whether they are with the county as a whole, specific schools, or specific teachers.

Devil's advocate for the test. FCPS needs someone or something external to show them the current situation is not working. I think at our school it has revealed that across the board the curriculum has gotten soft. Many kids are testing below where they should on iReady. As a parent, I think the curriculum at my kids' school is very, very weak. One of my kids picks things up super fast so he gets all of it. My other kid needs repetition, reinforcement and explicit teaching versus implicit and the school does none of those things with math or language arts. And it shows in iReady. The curriculum is weak compared to many publics across the country and iReady is given nationally so its metrics for success are national standards. FCPS is lagging way behind my friends' school districts in other areas and the iReady has shown it.

Teacher popping in for some quick input.

As a diagnostic tool, and if used properly, I think the I-Ready is great. However, that means you have to use it PROPERLY. That includes teachers being able to assign homework on it, using the growth monitoring aspect of it, etc.

But most schools - mine included - only use it for testing three times a year. This is an unfair assessment because there's nothing really to base it on. For example, if a student who tested 9th grade is suddenly testing 7th...that's a huge loss. Why isn't that being reflected in classwork or homework - or even other assessments? Was the student having a bad day? Did the test itself glitch? There's too many variables.

But when used with its software and you can actually track growth and data...then yeah, I-Ready is actually great. It's just that most schools won't pay for the whole thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No. It's a bad test. It's way too long, it's the same test three times in the year, and it doesn't reveal useful information f'd the vast majority of kids on grade level. I could see an argument for using it for kids needing intervention but even then I think it's iffy. It's a huge, expensive, time-wasting resource suck.

Assuming you're a teacher, what are you seeing with this test? Do the results seem grossly inaccurate for your students, and if so, how? Are the scores generally too low or too high? Is your school using just the assessment part or also the intervention part? What grade level are you teaching? We have been given so little info about this test and what the results mean.

I'm still hoping one of the teachers posting on here will explain what they've been seeing regarding the scores on this test.

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone have kids score higher than they ought to score, or is all of the angst due to scores lower than parents expected?

My kid scored higher in Winter than in Fall, and he is scoring at the end of the next level - but that is consistent with what I see him demonstrate, and his teacher also says it is consistent with her observations. He is in 4th. Teacher is happy to save time from DRA even if the test isn't perfect. No one has talked about switching to iReady as curriculum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have not seen my kids test scores, but my child took 3 days (partial, but he missed specials and extra recess) to finish the Iready math and was getting problems like: If there are 54 balls and 6 baskets how many balls would fit into each basket. IN 1st grade! He didn't know what to do at that point I figured he was scoring fairly high and I basically told him that he should just answer it however and finish the test. So my angst is not score related- but TIME related

That's a shame. I'm a teacher and nobody I know would have a child miss recess or specials to complete iReady.

Agree 1000%. I'd be complaining to the teacher and principal if my kid had to miss recess and specials for this online nonsense. That's unacceptable.

Anonymous wrote:I have not seen my kids test scores, but my child took 3 days (partial, but he missed specials and extra recess) to finish the Iready math and was getting problems like: If there are 54 balls and 6 baskets how many balls would fit into each basket. IN 1st grade! He didn't know what to do at that point I figured he was scoring fairly high and I basically told him that he should just answer it however and finish the test. So my angst is not score related- but TIME related

That's a shame. I'm a teacher and nobody I know would have a child miss recess or specials to complete iReady.

^ There should be some sort of time limit, especially for the younger kids

I have not seen my kids test scores, but my child took 3 days (partial, but he missed specials and extra recess) to finish the Iready math and was getting problems like: If there are 54 balls and 6 baskets how many balls would fit into each basket. IN 1st grade! He didn't know what to do at that point I figured he was scoring fairly high and I basically told him that he should just answer it however and finish the test. So my angst is not score related- but TIME related

Did anyone have kids score higher than they ought to score, or is all of the angst due to scores lower than parents expected?

PP who flipped out about the Iready curriculum - I really thought they were trying to replace the whole curriculum with Iready- some districts in the country have! If it is just an intervention, I would be concerned that what the intervention kids need is actually more experience with concrete materials not a computer screen to make math more engaging and more easily understood, BUT as my kid is fine and no one in the county would listen to me anyway- I
ll be quiet and not run in a panic to Redfin. Thanks for the clarification- and yes sadly, I mean this seriously.