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Old 07-19-2011, 01:36 PM
flacaltenn's Avatar
flacaltenn flacaltenn is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
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I'm just as appalled as BHunter is that this fuss is over MINIMUM expected standards.. It's NOT anything like what the behavioural shrink in the WPost article equates to measuring an executives' "ROI on advertising". It's more like judging him being capable of CALCULATING the ROI..

The teachers cooking the books are doing so BECAUSE too many of their students can't pass MINIMUM competency tests in Reading, Writing, Math and Social Studies. We're not even CLOSE to AP classes or ANY form of biology, chemistry, physics, or world lit.. More than 30% of our kids are mathematically and fundamentally illiterate in the 8th grade. And that precludes them from even participating in those advanced academic endevours. (Is that gonna be the expectation?) If so -- let's have a beer and call it quits.

Now realizing that I'm NOT convinced that these tests should be the SOLE determinant of funding or an alternate form of teacher evaluation -- They SHOULD be a statistical point in space for the FEDERAL Dept of Ed to determine how to allocate THEIR resources.. Without that kind of metric -- we should just fold up that whole endevour and their $100K+ salaries and block grant the money.. Sell the very building. Because they cannot BLINDLY solve any problems without first measuring the problems.

Quote:
Minimum standards on these sorts of tests (I am speaking from the Maryland HSA perspective); a mile wide, 1/2 inch deep? Rote learning- the lowest/most primitive form of learning? Is that what really ought to be going on? By the time students get to HS, it should be about thinking, problem-solving, and synthesis to prepare for college, trade, and for informed and productive citizenship. C'mon guys...
We're not talking about YOUR physics kids. We're not even talking about High School. At that point, those 30% who have been underserved are already on a path to the massive drop-out rate we also experience. Even if they had a wonderful experience with gradeless, testless, group hug assignment type K-12. And YES, the PUBLIC expectation is that they SHOULD have a minimum competency at the 8th grade or the rest of their public schooling experience is written on the wall (pretty much) BEFORE they get to high school.

You need to look at the actual type of test content that we're discussing here. "wrote knowledge"?? Heck yes.. It's the basis of being able to balance a checkbook, read a contract, or be qualified to participate in a Democracy. These are NOT things that Google when you need them..

Indicting the tests are tantamount to HIDING the problems so that the public won't attempt to draw irrational conclusions about the teaching profession in general or the efficacy of throwing money blindly at the lower 30%. We CAN do better if we honestly appraised the situation.. Not hide it.

I've seen too many slick academic experiments foisted on the K-12 public schools in my lifetime.. From the "whole language -- kill phonics", to "new math" to "group assignments" to gradeless evaluations done en masse with dismal, mostly destructive results. ALL THAT experimentation done on our kids and the teaching leadership of K-12 has the nerve to whine about NAEP testing as being "distracting"????? They tease gullible parents with slick marketing ploys like a 5-6th grade "Journalism Magnet School" that affluent parents stampede to like K-Mart lemmings -- but can't fathom why jonny needs to be able to calculate the area of a rectangle or find a verb in a sentence structure??

You C'mon TyBrad..
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