Anonymous wrote:

Ocean Township students will be tested in March over five days with testing periods lasting between 90-minutes and two hours each day, district Superintendent James Stefankiewicz said. Students will undergo another week of PARCC testing at the end of the school year.

It's interesting that district superintendent James Stefankiewicz and PARCC disagree on the number and length of the testing periods for PARCC.

http://parcconline.org/update-session-times

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Teachers started off loving it. By the time kids have spent 10 hours on questions most can't answer, the bottom will drop out of Common Core support.

Reread the above, please.

And no, not 10 hours.

This is for the PARCC: http://parcconline.org/update-session-times
This is for the Smarter Balanced: http://www.smarterbalanced.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Preliminary-Summative-Blueprints-Supporting-Document.pdf

Oh, only 7 FUCKING HOURS! well that' s better.

http://www.app.com/story/news/education/homeandschool/2015/02/11/parcc-refusal-bill/23251265/

Dana Dentino is refusing to let her third-grade son take New Jersey's newest standardized test this year, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC test.

The 44-year-old Ocean Township (Monmouth County) mother is joining thousands of parents statewide who are refusing the lengthy tests, which will be held over multiple days and test the math and language arts abilities of students in third through 11th grades this year.

State legislators on the Assembly's Education Committee will discuss a bill Thursday aimed at protecting the interests of parents like Dentino, who are refusing the tests and want schools to cooperate.

The bill would require schools to provide students who do not take the test with "educationally appropriate alternative activities" during the assessment time. It would also require schools to notify parents of detailed standardized testing schedules, say whether the test scores will be used to determine academic placement, and establish procedures that enable parents to refuse the assessments for their children.

Ocean Township students will be tested in March over five days with testing periods lasting between 90-minutes and two hours each day, district Superintendent James Stefankiewicz said. Students will undergo another week of PARCC testing at the end of the school year.

Anonymous wrote:

Teachers started off loving it. By the time kids have spent 10 hours on questions most can't answer, the bottom will drop out of Common Core support.

Reread the above, please.

And no, not 10 hours.

This is for the PARCC: http://parcconline.org/update-session-times
This is for the Smarter Balanced: http://www.smarterbalanced.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Preliminary-Summative-Blueprints-Supporting-Document.pdf

Teachers started off loving it. By the time kids have spent 10 hours on questions most can't answer, the bottom will drop out of Common Core support.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/04/poll-shows-teachers-parents-give-common-core-low-marks/

Fox News?

This is what Gallup (the company that actually did the poll) says:

In a new Gallup survey of teachers, U.S. public school teachers are closely split in their overall reaction to the Common Core State Standards: 41% view the program positively and 44% negatively. Even in terms of strong reactions, teachers' attitudes are divided, with 15% saying their perceptions of the initiative are "very positive" and 16% saying "very negative."

Underscoring this parity in views, more than half of teachers say their peers' perceptions vary. When asked how most teachers they know personally feel about the Common Core, 56% say the reaction is "mixed." Another 7% say it is positive, while 32% say it is negative.

These findings are based on an online Gallup Panel survey with 854 public school teachers in grades K-12 across the country. Teachers in the Gallup Panel were selected at random from Gallup Daily tracking. Those teachers available to take surveys by Web (95% of teacher panelists) were invited to take the Common Core survey online between Aug. 11 and Sept. 7.

Teachers Most Familiar With Common Core Like It Best

Teachers' attitudes toward the Common Core are not much different in the 43 states (plus the District of Columbia) where the standards have been adopted than they are nationally. Forty-four percent of those working in these states view the program positively, and 40% view it negatively -- still roughly evenly divided.

However, within these Common Core states, the majority of teachers who say they work in schools where the Common Core standards were fully implemented in the 2013-2014 school year feel good about it: 61% view it positively versus 35% negatively. Among teachers in Common Core states whose schools had not yet fully implemented the standards last year, views are 37% positive versus 43% negative.

While these differences in teachers' attitudes may partially reflect the underlying political climate in each state or school district that led to the adoption or rejection of the Common Core there to begin with, it is also possible that teachers feel more positively about the Common Core once they fully use it.

Gallup's polling of public school parents reveals strong partisan differences in parental attitudes toward the Common Core, with Democrats significantly more supportive of it than Republicans. Teachers display the same pattern. A little over half of those who identify as or lean Democratic have a positive impression of the Common Core, while six in 10 Republican teachers have a negative impression.

This pattern helps explain some of the differences between teachers in Common Core states versus those in non-Common Core states, as teachers in the latter lean more toward the GOP.

Elementary School Teachers Most Positive About Common Core

The poll also shows some variation in teachers' reactions to the Common Core according to the school level at which they teach. Elementary school teachers are, on average, the most positive about the Common Core, with a net +2 viewing it positively (43% positively minus 41% negatively). Among middle school teachers, attitudes tilt negative with a net -4, and among high school teachers they tilt even more negative with a net -11.

Teachers' Views on the Pros and Cons of the Common Core

Teachers were given an opportunity on the poll to state what they consider to be the most positive aspect of the Common Core, as well as the most negative aspect.

These open-ended responses paint an unambiguous picture of what teachers consider to be the most positive aspect, as 56% of all public school teachers say that sharing the same standards across states is the main advantage. This is followed by 12% saying the Common Core fosters critical thinking, and 10% saying it sets higher standards or is more rigorous.

Teachers' views about the most negative aspects of the Common Core are more varied. The largest percentage of responses, 15%, is focused on the view that the Common Core is not practical, while 14% say it is being implemented poorly. The latter category includes many teachers who believe the Common Core should have been phased in with the younger grades to allow students to grow into the curriculum, rather than put into effect for everyone in kindergarten through high school at the same time.

Twelve percent cite the standardized testing that goes along with the Common Core as the worst aspect, and another 12% take issue with the curriculum standards themselves, saying they are inadequate, inaccurate, or biased.

Rounding out the top five complaints, 11% say the system is unfair to students in its "one size fits all" approach.

Bottom Line

Teachers in the 43 states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards are going through major shifts in how they teach reading, writing, grammar and math -- as well as other subjects in which these skills come into play. Although some states have already worked these changes into their curricula, others started phasing them in last year, and others are just starting now. As the process unfolds, policymakers should pay close attention to how teachers themselves view the program, and whether it is working for both students and educators.

This initial survey on the Common Core reveals teachers' attitudes are sharply split, giving no clear advantage to the standards' proponents or opponents. However, regardless of the politics of the issue, the findings suggest some teachers may be experiencing a stressful work environment as they start the 2014-2015 school year -- especially if staff members within their own schools are at odds over the Common Core.

On a positive note, the teachers who have the most experience teaching with the new standards are much more positive about it than others. Also, a solid majority of teachers applaud the fundamental goal of unifying standards across states. However, many express concerns that the program is unwieldy, not being implemented well, or simply bad policy. Further, although the initiative began as a bipartisan effort among the states, it has clearly become politicized among teachers, as it has with the general public. And that could mean attitudes will grow rigid rather than be receptive to change as new information about the Common Core -- whether positive or negative -- emerges over time.

Survey Methods

Results are based on Web interviews conducted Aug. 11-Sept. 7, 2014, via the Gallup Panel, with a random sample of 854 public K-12 school teachers, aged 18 and older, with Internet access, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The data are weighted to match national teacher demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education and region.

Demographic weighting targets are based on the weighted demographic distribution of Gallup's nationally representative nightly poll respondents identified as teachers over a period of four years.

For results based on the sample of 854 public school teachers, the margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.

Gallup Panel members are selected using probability-based methods including random-digit-dial (RDD) methods for selection of landline and cellphone numbers, and address-based-sampling (ABS).


http://www.gallup.com/poll/178892/teachers-offer-split-decision-common-core.aspx

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/04/poll-shows-teachers-parents-give-common-core-low-marks/

Teachers and parents are not giving high marks to Common Core, according to a series of new polls which show widespread dissatisfaction with the national curriculum standards in the first months of widespread implementation.

A poll released last week by Gallup, which is conducting an extensive series of surveys on Common Core, found that nearly two-thirds of public school teachers have concerns about the program, which is designed to implement a national math and English learning baseline for all participating states. An earlier survey, conducted as part of the same project, found that 44 percent of teachers view Common Core negatively.

"The national polling data reveals more bad news for the Common Core because 60 to 65 percent of America's teachers are either 'frustrated' or 'worried' by it, only 20 percent of teachers are 'enthusiastic', and 44 percent of teachers now view Common Core 'negatively', Jamie Gass director of the Center for School Reform at the Boston-based think tank, Pioneer Institute said to FoxNews.com.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"developmentally inappropriate" comments for example are NOT coming from the teachers' unions.

These comments are coming from teachers.

Positive comments about the Common Core standards are also coming from teachers.

fewer and fewer every month.

Anonymous wrote:

"developmentally inappropriate" comments for example are NOT coming from the teachers' unions.

These comments are coming from teachers.

Positive comments about the Common Core standards are also coming from teachers.

"developmentally inappropriate" comments for example are NOT coming from the teachers' unions.

These comments are coming from teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

But then again, we're dealing with the same idiotic people that think Obama's a Kenyan Born Communist Muslin, so there's no rationalizing any of it.

Red herring. I don't know of any teachers' unions that said that. And, I doubt the people who are concerned about CC spouted what you are saying.

Not at all - it's VERY relevant. Again, it's political not because it actually is political, but because political partisans, and the Tea Party in particular have taken it up as a political issue.

Note that none of the teachers' unions have actually put forward any unified statements, let alone specific talking points opposing Common Core - the oft-repeated but never substantiated "developmentally inappropriate" comments for example are NOT coming from the teachers' unions.

But then again, we're dealing with the same idiotic people that think Obama's a Kenyan Born Communist Muslin, so there's no rationalizing any of it.

Red herring. I don't know of any teachers' unions that said that. And, I doubt the people who are concerned about CC spouted what you are saying.

Anonymous wrote:

The top PP is actually opposes the Common Core standards.


same difference. This should not be a political issue. NCLB and Common Core are destroying our schools.

I agree. It should not be political. But. it. is.

Only because right wingers have made it a political issue. They've turned it into the "ObamaCare of Education" for no reason other than that Department of Education provided funding to help schools transition - in complete ignorance of the fact that it wasn't and isn't a federal initiative. It was purely a STATE initiative. The Federal government and Department of Ed was not involved in developing the standard. But then again, we're dealing with the same idiotic people that think Obama's a Kenyan Born Communist Muslin, so there's no rationalizing any of it.

The top PP is actually opposes the Common Core standards.


same difference. This should not be a political issue. NCLB and Common Core are destroying our schools.

I agree. It should not be political. But. it. is.

The top PP is actually opposes the Common Core standards.

same difference. This should not be a political issue. NCLB and Common Core are destroying our schools.