Anonymous wrote:


The 9th grader who is reading at 3rd grade level: Unless he has a bonafide learning deficiency, the chances are pretty good that he's been failed by a half dozen teachers from ES through MS and that's why he's still at a 3rd grade level.

The chances of that are very, very low.

And where is parental and individual responsibility in this scenario?

Anonymous wrote:

The 9th grader who is reading at 3rd grade level: Unless he has a bonafide learning deficiency, the chances are pretty good that he's been failed by a half dozen teachers from ES through MS and that's why he's still at a 3rd grade level.

No, that is empirically untrue. There are many possible factors, only one of which is teachers.

The many possible factors are why value-added models for evaluating teacher performance are so complicated and unreliable:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/nov05/vol63/num03/Challenges_of_Value-Added_Assessment.aspx
https://www.amstat.org/policy/pdfs/ASA_VAM_Statement.pdf
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14442

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's testing kids on how well they read - not on the content.

That's what you and many others don't get.

It's a reading test.

If a 10th grader is reading at a 5th grade level, s/he will bomb the ELA PARCC b/c the reading levels are very advanced. We are assuming that all students will master more and more complex texts each year, which isn't the case.

So in theory, while the tests are written to assess certain skills, even IF a student understands the basic concept of theme, s/he may not be able to grasp the theme if a text is w/in a higher lexile band.

Get it?

And that's not our fault as educators. I can't take a 9th grader and move him from a 3rd to 10th grade reading level by June.

No, we are not. We are saying that grade-level texts become more and more complex with each increasing grade. Thus, for a student to stay on grade level, the student has to be able to read more and more complex texts with each increasing grade. Otherwise the student is reading below grade level.

A ninth-grader who is reading at the third-grade level is by definition not reading on grade level. And even if the ninth-grader is reading at the seventh-grade level by the end of the year, which would be an outstanding advance, the ninth-grader would still not be reading on grade level.

The 9th grader who is reading at 3rd grade level: Unless he has a bonafide learning deficiency, the chances are pretty good that he's been failed by a half dozen teachers from ES through MS and that's why he's still at a 3rd grade level.

^^^also, anybody who says, "It's the teachers' fault that students aren't reading on grade level!" is a fool.

Anonymous wrote:

It's testing kids on how well they read - not on the content.

That's what you and many others don't get.

It's a reading test.

If a 10th grader is reading at a 5th grade level, s/he will bomb the ELA PARCC b/c the reading levels are very advanced. We are assuming that all students will master more and more complex texts each year, which isn't the case.

So in theory, while the tests are written to assess certain skills, even IF a student understands the basic concept of theme, s/he may not be able to grasp the theme if a text is w/in a higher lexile band.

Get it?

And that's not our fault as educators. I can't take a 9th grader and move him from a 3rd to 10th grade reading level by June.

No, we are not. We are saying that grade-level texts become more and more complex with each increasing grade. Thus, for a student to stay on grade level, the student has to be able to read more and more complex texts with each increasing grade. Otherwise the student is reading below grade level.

A ninth-grader who is reading at the third-grade level is by definition not reading on grade level. And even if the ninth-grader is reading at the seventh-grade level by the end of the year, which would be an outstanding advance, the ninth-grader would still not be reading on grade level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sticks and carrots. As opposed to the tests previously being of no consequence. Basically your argument fails because you're making the case that the tests were previously completely worthless and a waste, as opposed to actually trying to achieve some sort of outcome now.

Quite the contrary. The tests of the past were used by teachers for diagnosis of weaknesses and strengths. They served a true purpose. Didn't lead to turning out robots.

PARCC Testing doesn't create robots. If schools are choosing to teach to the test or are doing rote memorization and drill-and-kill, that's by their own choice, and they aren't doing a good job of educating. Look, PARCC isn't testing kids on obscure or random stuff that would be taking away from normal curriculum and learning. It's not testing kids on their knowledge of Old Church Slavonic or Underwater Basketweaving, it's algebra, grammar, reading comprehension - stuff that kids should be learning anyways.

It's testing kids on how well they read - not on the content.

That's what you and many others don't get.

It's a reading test.

If a 10th grader is reading at a 5th grade level, s/he will bomb the ELA PARCC b/c the reading levels are very advanced. We are assuming that all students will master more and more complex texts each year, which isn't the case.

So in theory, while the tests are written to assess certain skills, even IF a student understands the basic concept of theme, s/he may not be able to grasp the theme if a text is w/in a higher lexile band.

Get it?

And that's not our fault as educators. I can't take a 9th grader and move him from a 3rd to 10th grade reading level by June.

Anonymous wrote:

Not exactly - they are being developed by different groups and different state consortia. It's up to the states and always has been. That's why there's PARCC, Smarter Balanced and others, as opposed to all 50 states having to do PARCC.

Spin, spin, Spin. They were developed by most of the same people and, if you do not understand that you need to do some research.

Ah, the Pearson conspiracy theorist.

Only 12 states plus DC are going to use PARCC. 18 states will use Smarter Balanced. 20 states will use their own tests.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/what-happens-when-the-common-core-becomes-less--common/2015/01/25/33b8eb58-a2bf-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html

(Of course you can gallop from argument to argument like this, if you want.

You: Pearson is running everything!
Me: Actually, the great majority of states are not using Pearson tests.
You: See, the Common Core is failing!)

Anonymous wrote:

LMAO @ the 14:10 posters, you've only proven the point all the more - The feds point out the shit on your ass, you whine and complain that the feds should do more, the question is raised as to whether the feds should wipe your ass for you too, and one poster responds saying "um, no, we're dealing with things as we should and you don't know what you're dealing with" as though we can't recognize shit on someone's ass and a failure to wipe, and the second poster says "stop looking at the shit on my ass"

You're really not helping your case here - in fact, it only makes it all the more evident that if you are part of the school system, that YOU are probably a BIG PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Huh? I said the feds should do less, not more. How did you get this out of my post?

Go ask the anti-testing "golden scales" poster who whined that the feds need to be helping more about that.

Anonymous wrote:

The feds point out the shit on your ass,

Shit seems to be a specialty of the feds.

I don't think they would recognize roses if they smelled them.

There certainly aren't many roses around here.

The feds point out the shit on your ass,

Shit seems to be a specialty of the feds.

I don't think they would recognize roses if they smelled them.

LMAO @ the 14:10 posters, you've only proven the point all the more - The feds point out the shit on your ass, you whine and complain that the feds should do more, the question is raised as to whether the feds should wipe your ass for you too, and one poster responds saying "um, no, we're dealing with things as we should and you don't know what you're dealing with" as though we can't recognize shit on someone's ass and a failure to wipe, and the second poster says "stop looking at the shit on my ass"

You're really not helping your case here - in fact, it only makes it all the more evident that if you are part of the school system, that YOU are probably a BIG PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Huh? I said the feds should do less, not more. How did you get this out of my post?

Anonymous wrote:

Not exactly - they are being developed by different groups and different state consortia. It's up to the states and always has been. That's why there's PARCC, Smarter Balanced and others, as opposed to all 50 states having to do PARCC.

Spin, spin, Spin. They were developed by most of the same people and, if you do not understand that you need to do some research.

Again, you aren't helping your cause with this nonsense.



If there were a grand scheme, there wouldn't be separate initiatives for PARCC, Smarter Balanced, et cetera. It's the states calling the shots. Do they hire companies like Pearson as consultants? Yes. Because companies like Pearson have a lot of relevant and applicable experience, probably more so than most others out there - but the fact that they use companies like Pearson certainly does not even remotely begin to prove your point. You clearly have no idea what the logistics of an initiative like this are.

LMAO @ the 14:10 posters, you've only proven the point all the more - The feds point out the shit on your ass, you whine and complain that the feds should do more, the question is raised as to whether the feds should wipe your ass for you too, and one poster responds saying "um, no, we're dealing with things as we should and you don't know what you're dealing with" as though we can't recognize shit on someone's ass and a failure to wipe, and the second poster says "stop looking at the shit on my ass"

You're really not helping your case here - in fact, it only makes it all the more evident that if you are part of the school system, that YOU are probably a BIG PART OF THE PROBLEM.

^Don't make us buy the toilet paper!

Do you want the federal government to wipe your ass after you go to the bathroom also? How about school districts, local governments and states deal with it AS THEY SHOULD IN THE FIRST PLACE?

If the feds aren't willing to wipe our asses, please don't hand us the toilet paper in the first place.

And guess what? We didn't need the toilet paper because we've been dealing with things as we should. You just have no idea how we should deal with things because you don't know what things we have to deal with.