Sorry--you're wrong. Race to the Top demands connection to merit pay and testing.

Race to the Top is going to be remembered as a huge failure for this administration. It has been terribly manipulative and has caused division in education. If anything, it has caused the states to be less favorable towards "national solutions". The damage that has been done can now be seen in the huge backlash to CC. It does not matter if CC is the best thing since sliced bread (and it's not) . . . the trust is gone. The situation in governance in this country is at a pretty low point. America runs best when we let our creative juices flow and we share power. They have gone way too far.

Anonymous wrote:

Bzzt! Wrong! It's not Arne Duncan dictating whether teachers should be getting fired for lousy results on standardized testing, it's school district administrators and principals who are doing that.

Sorry--you're wrong. Race to the Top demands connection to merit pay and testing.

Yes, the Race to the Top grant program required this. But no school district was required to apply for a Race to the Top grant. And now Congress has defunded the Race to the Top grant program anyway.

Bzzt! Wrong! It's not Arne Duncan dictating whether teachers should be getting fired for lousy results on standardized testing, it's school district administrators and principals who are doing that.

Sorry--you're wrong. Race to the Top demands connection to merit pay and testing.

Bzzt! Wrong! It's not Arne Duncan dictating whether teachers should be getting fired for lousy results on standardized testing, it's school district administrators and principals who are doing that.

Yes, in the end that is true. However, Duncan is giving them tools by asking for the test scores to be used in teacher evaluations (not even "asking", "mandating"). Why would he want the test scores to be used for teacher evaluations if it is not to help administrators to fire teachers? It's not even valid to use test scores for such a purpose (at the very least it is arguable that they are meaningful). The one thing that Duncan is doing is incentivizing cheating on the tests (because now they are high stakes for teachers as well). So, Duncan can look good when all the scores are coming in higher and he can say, "Look, Common Core is really working well. The students are learning so much more."

I'm sorry to be such a cynic, but I think the tests and the federal involvement at such a micromanagement level causes these kinds of consequences, unintended or not. When you threaten someone's pay check, you are managing them. The teachers are not being supported by the federal government. They are getting a very punitive message. It doesn't matter how much "staff development" you give them (they resent that as well).

Anonymous wrote:

Sad. FWIW, standardized tests don't tell if teachers are teaching.

So true. But Arne Duncan believes they do.

Bzzt! Wrong! It's not Arne Duncan dictating whether teachers should be getting fired for lousy results on standardized testing, it's school district administrators and principals who are doing that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think the point was that nobody was looking for a degree when you got hired. They were looking for ability (and those two things don't always match up). Now, you have to get the degree to get anyone to even consider you (no matter how you write after 8th grade).

We have become much more anonymous. Now we need standardized testing to see if teachers are teaching. The old methods don't work anymore. Everything is credentials, proof, data, etc. You can be fabulous and nobody cares if you get the right scores and look good on paper.

My husband didn't even have a college degree when he was hired for his first big job. He didn't finish until almost 20 years later and yet it never stopped him from better and better jobs. He finally got an Ivy-League graduate degree as well.

Here's an impressive list of high school and college dropouts. It's too bad we have such a narrow view of success these days.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/23-famous-dropouts-who-turned-out-just-fine#.ilYpn3Dxe6

There are definitely some people that do well without a college degree, but for the most part, in today's world, a good paying job requires a college degree.

I think trade jobs can pay well, too, like plumbers and such. I have no problems with that. But for "white collar jobs", you almost always need a college degree and more to get the well paid jobs.

Anonymous wrote:

I think the point was that nobody was looking for a degree when you got hired. They were looking for ability (and those two things don't always match up). Now, you have to get the degree to get anyone to even consider you (no matter how you write after 8th grade).

We have become much more anonymous. Now we need standardized testing to see if teachers are teaching. The old methods don't work anymore. Everything is credentials, proof, data, etc. You can be fabulous and nobody cares if you get the right scores and look good on paper.

My husband didn't even have a college degree when he was hired for his first big job. He didn't finish until almost 20 years later and yet it never stopped him from better and better jobs. He finally got an Ivy-League graduate degree as well.

Here's an impressive list of high school and college dropouts. It's too bad we have such a narrow view of success these days.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/23-famous-dropouts-who-turned-out-just-fine#.ilYpn3Dxe6

Sad. FWIW, standardized tests don't tell if teachers are teaching.

So true. But Arne Duncan believes they do.

We have become much more anonymous. Now we need standardized testing to see if teachers are teaching. The old methods don't work anymore. Everything is credentials, proof, data, etc. You can be fabulous and nobody cares if you get the right scores and look good on paper.

Sad. FWIW, standardized tests don't tell if teachers are teaching.

I think the point was that nobody was looking for a degree when you got hired. They were looking for ability (and those two things don't always match up). Now, you have to get the degree to get anyone to even consider you (no matter how you write after 8th grade).

We have become much more anonymous. Now we need standardized testing to see if teachers are teaching. The old methods don't work anymore. Everything is credentials, proof, data, etc. You can be fabulous and nobody cares if you get the right scores and look good on paper.

Anonymous wrote:

These days, there's no way that he could have done this without at least a college degree -- maybe a master's as well.

The point was that you could finish eighth grade in those days and be able to write beautifully. I bet there were lots of people who had a great grasp of math, as well.

The world was quite different in the '20s, heck it's hugely different even from the 80's when I graduated.

Anonymous wrote:

These days, there's no way that he could have done this without at least a college degree -- maybe a master's as well.

The point was that you could finish eighth grade in those days and be able to write beautifully. I bet there were lots of people who had a great grasp of math, as well.

You can finish eighth grade these days and be able to write beautifully, too. Most people don't, of course, but surely a few people do.

Also, I'm guessing that if you left school in 8th grade then, the only math you got was arithmetic.

These days, there's no way that he could have done this without at least a college degree -- maybe a master's as well.

The point was that you could finish eighth grade in those days and be able to write beautifully. I bet there were lots of people who had a great grasp of math, as well.

Anonymous wrote:cont. Same uncle also worked as chief of staff for a US Senator--a powerful one.

I don't understand your point? It's not the 1920s. These days, there's no way that he could have done this without at least a college degree -- maybe a master's as well.

cont. Same uncle also worked as chief of staff for a US Senator--a powerful one.