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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums20-fold increase in standardized testing coming with Gates Foundation's "Common Core":
Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 22, 2012
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/may/22/letters-education-changes/
I wonder how many people are aware of the amount of testing that will eventually accompany the Common Core Standards (“State plans big changes to testing, instruction,” May 21). It will be more than we have ever seen on this planet, and much more than the already excessive amount demanded by No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
Testing done at the end of the school year will be expanded to include all subjects that can be tested and more grade levels. As noted in Union-Tribune, there will be “interim” tests given through the year and there may be pretests in the fall to measure growth through the school year.
This means about a 20-fold increase over NCLB.
The cost of implementing these electronically delivered national tests will be enormous, bleeding money from legitimate and valuable school activities. There is no evidence that all this testing will improve things. In fact, the evidence we have now strongly suggests that increasing testing does not increase achievement.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/
Common Core is the name for a set of nation-wide learning objectives/national curriculum. The Gates Foundation had a big role in developing it & pushing it.
In order to get Race to the Top funds, states had to sign on to CC. So far, 45 states have done so. 85% roll-out scheduled for 2015.
A lot of rationales are given for Common Core, but the most important one is that the new privatized Education Services Corporations will get economy of scale; i.e. they'll be able to sell one product to every school, every district, in every state.
Standards are internationally benchmarked, which means the globocorps will be able to sell some of their wares abroad as well. And vice-versa; overseas corps like Pearson (UK) will be able to sell their wares here (as they already are).
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exboyfil
(17,863 posts)Physical Science and Algebra I finals this week. They employed a new standardized test that my 10th grade daughter did not have 2 years ago. At first the math teacher was going to use the raw score (85%) into calculating the final grade (my daughter was worried about the final grade). He then decided to take the percentile (92%) instead. The Physical Science test had a question about a helicopter ascending and descending that no one in the class (including the teacher) could figure out as they discussed it after the test. My daughter had about a 100% going into this final and has already gotten As in 10th grade Biology - she is very good in science. She was pretty disgusted by the whole thing. It did not impact her grade, but she can tell that something is rotten in Denmark. I am wondering what my 10th grade daughter's finals will be like this week. They have given no hint of a standardized final.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I'm in my 50s. When I was in school, teachers would either apply your raw grade for a test, or sometimes grade on the curve, if the entire class did below what the teacher was expecting. Most teachers used the raw grades.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)diagnostic tests.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)TO CALCULATE GRADES.
No idea why you didn't understand that.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)What business does he have influencing education when he isn't all that educated himself?
Sure, he is smart, and he did well with computers and business.
But he is not an educated man. He did not succeed in school. Even if he had good grades in high school, he did not succeed in school.
Remember! I am not saying that he isn't smart. He is.
But he was unable to complete college. And school is about meeting certain goals and completing the work assigned, not just about passing tests. Some people have a gift for passing standardized tests. Some don't.
School progress should be measured by a balance of different kinds of testing and performance evaluations.
What a waste of money and time for the students and teachers.
Igel
(35,309 posts)Regardless of what theory says.
However, he's a naif. I think he's recently come to realize this. You can do all kinds of nifty research and get trash data if you don't know what you're doing or if you're on a mission. You make bad assumptions, you run multiple trials and select just those that fit your theory, you don't have good controls and you wind up with glowing data. "Glowing data" sounds great, but in hindsight it often turns out to be radioactive.
So Gates helped the entire "push for data-driven results", without really caring about the quality of the data.
Most education reform for the last 30 years has been a waste of money. We continue to proudly push money into the python and assume that everything that comes out the other end are eggs that'll prove fertile.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)he was in good academic status when he dropped out. I'm not sure where you get "unable" from -- sounds like the sort of spin I expect to read on Foxnews.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)enough money to finish college or whether you just decide you don't need to finish college, makes no difference. If you have the ability to finish college, you finish.
I suspect but do not know for sure, that Gates just got fed up with college. He felt he did not need the degree. That means he did not have the ability to finish college.
Part of having the ability to finish college is having the humility to go through what is required of you even if you don't think you need it, even if you think you have something better to do.
Gates did not like college. I don't think he likes formal education. Maybe he is one of those people (they exist) who did not need teachers to learn. If so, bully for him. But most of us need the social environment of a school and the nurture of a teacher in order to learn.
The whole private school bit is about making kids conceited and think they are better than others. Gates went to private schools. That's the way he is. He was unable to finish college. He is not a humble guy who sees himself as being in the same boat as the rest of us. He is not and never was in the 99%.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)attention. He had to make a choice. He thought it was the time, so he chose to go with the company, which ended up being Microsoft. If it hadn't worked out, he could have finished later. But he was sure it would work. It was already working and profitable.
He had the foresight to know that the personal computer was on the verge of taking off, so he had to move quickly. He and his partner had to work very long days to get the company to be what it ended up being.
So that's not quite the same as being "unable" to finish. He was able, but he chose another path, where his passion and genius were.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Might do him some good.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)he's doing. He is a workaholic and literally doesn't have time to go to school. He's saving lives. That's more important. He's also spending time with his children and wife, which is very important.
It's not like he didn't get a higher education. He did, after all, complete some higher education at Harvard and is better educated than most people in the country.
He has given an example of opportunity, passion, and working hard.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)If you want an example of a philanthropist who also finished school, look to Warren Buffett. He had both a Bachelors in Business Administration as well as a Masters in Economics from Columbia University.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)up and complete his college education. Silly, silly, silly. Just being argumentative for the sake of arguing.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)education is. He can do all the charity he wants, but he should keep his nose out of education. He apparently didn't think he needed it so he should let those who do want and need it to get it without interfering in what they want and get.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Having the "ability" to do something pointless doesn't mean everybody is equally conned by it.
Being easily fooled isn't much of an ability, in my book.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)not choose to acquire on your own in an orderly, systematic way. A good education is the foundation on which you build your own knowledge.
Formal education is the basis. Once you have mastered the core of knowledge that is taught at school, you can learn on your own and reject what you learned in school.
But to understand the educational process, you need to have finished school.
If you don't finish school, you shouldn't meddle in what school is or try to tell teachers what they should be doing.
boppers
(16,588 posts)And maybe that says a lot about the purpose of school, as seen by different people.
I agree that it's entirely needed to understand prior knowledge to build on the "shoulders of giants" (which, BTW, was a cruel and snarky joke), but one does not need a history of creationism to understand the science of genetics.... sure, you may need it if your field is the public policy of genetics, but if your field is gentic engineering, all the bible study in the world is a total waste of time and energy...
...and that is what a large part of education has become. Not just books filled with myths about god, but books filled with myths about culture, identity, physics, etc.
Example: You have probably been lied to about the following question:
"If you drop a 6 pound ball, and a 12 pound ball from the same height, to the earth, which will land fastest?"
The 12 pound ball will win, every time. Every. Single. Time.
Most people were taught lies about gravity, by teachers who are not physicists. The teachers teach what they've been taught, and that's often filled with absurd superstitions.
You know why the 12 pound ball will win? It has more mass, and it's own gravity field. It pulls the earth as the earth pulls back. Drop the balls from the orbit of Neptune, and you can get almost a second of difference between the two balls.
Meanwhile, teachers continue to teach falsehoods, because, well, that's what they were taught. It's the same reason people are *still* being taught to put two spaces after a period... the teachers aren't educating, they're imparting faith in the same religious beliefs that they were taught. Science tell us that a photon likely has a very small mass,that we cannot measure yet, but most schools still teach a theory of light from the 1900's, where light has no mass.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)on earth in our atmosphere, the gravitational force delta between the 6lb and 12lb ball is negligible compared to air resistance.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)There was never a moment in his life when "success" was not assured.
Igel
(35,309 posts)Tx has standardized testing, and has for decades. We're transiting from "TAKS" to "STAAR". They're keyed to the "TEKS", the standard state-wide curriculum, basically a bullet pointed list of topics and skills that students need to learn grade by grade and subject by subject.
BTW, from what little I've seen, the STAAR tests for high school are a lot harder. It's not every grade or subject, though. Math, English, Social Studies, and the sciences, once you're in high school. These tests are a week a year.
But the district likes knowing how teachers are doing and what they're doing. We have course assessments, mostly multiple choice, every 3 or 6 weeks. Some the district supplies; some the campuses supply, based on criteria determined by the district (which also has to approve the campus-produced tests). In some cases the district tests are benchmarks--they try to give a mock test in September so we know how to prep our kids. (Yes, "teach to the test." Since the test, the curriculum, the state standards are all the same--with the state standards recently revised to be a bit closer to national standards--teaching to the test is also teaching to the curriculum and teaching to the state standards. This was a problem when the test was the minimum skills. Now that the test will be harder, the problem's mostly gone. For now.)
As a result we get data. Lots of it. On line. Quickly. I gave an exam on Friday, scanned the results during my conference period, and knew that afternoon before I went home what I needed to reteach. I also knew which teachers did a good job teaching those points and emailed them. "So, Ms. Smith, how did you teach solubility so that your kids learned the material so well?"
The data comes sliced and diced. By SpEd and ESL level, there are racial and ethnic breakdowns, we can view data by student class/grade or by SES, male vs female. I know that one unit I taught had blacks score 15% higher than whites, and females 10% higher than males; on another unit, blacks did 8% worse than whites, but all males did 5% better than females (so black females did especially badly). On another test, my students did a pretty consistent 10% below average; on another, I was 4% above average for my school and 9% above average for the district. I got the results the day of the test. I didn't have to look back to what I taught months ago. I still had the 3 weeks' worth of materials sitting on my desk with my lesson plans and 3-week grade sheet. I could tell if my in-class grades and the test results were a good match or not and figure out why.
We learn which "TEKS" we need to reteach or failed to properly teach, we know to all stay on the same page and not to get more than a day or two behind (or to catch up). Bad teachers can be IDed and a support person will visit and model lesson and give feedback on how to improve teaching. We can compare teacher to teacher and campus to campus for each skill or topic taught and we can even compare across years.
We meet weekly to look over the data. After a course assessment there's a long meeting. Sometimes administrators visit our meetings, usually they don't. The IS is invariably there. At the end of the meeting we know what materials need to be revised and have some idea how to revise them. We know what to reteach as a team or we set aside a day for each teacher to reteach some particular chunk of content. Or we move on with a note to make sure that when the kids need the knowledge as the basis for future learning we reteach then.
The downside is the statewide tests. In some cases we're confident that the district and the state aren't on the same page. So one standard gets 1 week but we know it will be on the standardized test; another gets 3 weeks but might be on the test. We know a certain kind of problem will be on the test, and it's in the TEKS, but it's not on the scope and sequence or anywhere in district curriculum. The worst is the current TAKS, which lets mediocre students do well simply because it's easy. The goal is to get all the kids to pass it, meaning we keep classes completely mixed by ability group but then focus on the bottom 10% who will struggle and let the top 50%, who pass easily, coast. The STAAR has some mechanisms that'll make this harder to do. (But all standardized tests suffer from the same kind of problem. It's just a question of extent. In fact, all tests suffer from the same problem, because ultimately no school is going to let a teacher fail more than perhaps 10% of her students. With excellent documentation by the teacher, perhaps 15% could be allowed to fail.)
ProgressiveEconomist
(5,818 posts)decisions about student progress. That seems like an important distinction.
Testing well before the end of the school year can be helpful in pinpointing what needs to be re-taught or tutored and to whom. But do you have the resources available to act on what diagnostic testing tells you? It seems to me if you don't have resources available (Teacher aides, Saturday volunteer tutors, laptops with targeted learning software for independent use by individual students, in-school Parent Centers, etc) you can't make much use of the diagnostic data the tests give you.
But at least standardizing curricula within and across states should lessen the harmful effects of student mobility. Every time a student changes schools, her chances of eventually graduating from high school decline measurably, especially when every school district has a different curriculum.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)Seriously, we already have an entire week taken up with testing, if testing increases by even ten fold, that means that about one third of the school year will be taken up by teaching, one third lost to learning.
Such massive high stakes standardized testing does nothing for improving our schools, it just makes teachers' jobs more difficult, and insures our children are learning less and less.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Say teachers stopped all testing.
They just "taught".
How do they know if their teaching is effective, without testing?
No quizzes, no written assignments, no grades, just "teaching"?
I think this is a case of sour grapes, because teachers can be *measured* on their teaching abilities, on a student by student, subject by subject, level.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)But rather stop this standardized testing madness.
Teachers can be measured on their teaching ability without having to resort to a highly inaccurate standardized test.
boppers
(16,588 posts)MadHound
(34,179 posts)Many kids simply don't take standardized tests well, no matter how well they know the material. They do better presenting, or writing, or some other way of assessment.
Furthermore, standardized tests simply don't count a child's individual differences in what they've learned. For instance, say a question asked a question about the First Battle of Bull Run. This test is given in, oh, say Alabama, where they refer to the battle as the First Manassas. The child doesn't find that answer, guesses and guesses wrong. There are lots of little details like that.
Then there is the fact that, for students, standardized tests don't mean shit. They have no stake in the test, no grade is involved, nothing. Thus, a lot of kids don't care and simply come in and make pretty patterns with their bubble answers.
Finally, why do we need nationwide standardized testing? When I grew up, we had three standardized tests during my entire K-12 career, and my generation grew up having a great education.
This emphasis on testing uber alles is leading us down a dead end. What we need to focus on is better pay for teachers, better equipped schools, and putting actual educators in charge of making education decisions, rather than businessmen and politicians.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Thousands of test questions, test measures, test results, that's a much more helpful assessment.
As far as students taking bubble tests, that's already an indicator that something is wrong.
"Finally, why do we need nationwide standardized testing? When I grew up, we had three standardized tests during my entire K-12 career, and my generation grew up having a great education. "
Just because people think they thought they had a great education doesn't mean they actually did.
When did you learn your 1st foreign language? Your second? Your third?
When did you learn Geometry? Physics?
I bet *none* of that was covered in your K-12, or very little of it.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)It addresses the differences that children have in both learning and assessment. Not every child is a standardized cookie cutter part, in fact most kids aren't. Thus, standardized test, especially the fill in the bubble type, are not an effective or accurate measurement tool. I've explained this before, why do you refuse to listen? There are reams of studies backing my position up, where are the studies backing your position?
Your lack of knowledge about teaching certainly shows, you have no clue about child development, or ed psych, or any of the basics about teaching. You rely on your own, anecdotal experience, but have no clue about how real education takes place. In fact you are a perfect example of why non-educators shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about education in general. You apply the facts and myths of the education you received to education as a whole, and done recognize the simple fact that everybody is not you.
And yes, I know I received a quality education, because the school system I went to was ranked among the top American school systems, an American school system that was ranked among the top in the world(goes to show you how old I am). I learned my first foreign language in gradeschool, my second in jr. high. I learned geometry in jr. high, physics in high school, along with calculus and college level courses in English, biology and chemistry. Anything else you want to whip out and do comparative measures on, or are you done with your "I learned Algebra in third grade" schtick(which, given the background material learned in K-2, I seriously doubt that you had worked your way up to Algebra by third grade. Are you seriously saying that you were learning FOIL and manipulating variables in third grade, after having already mastered basic math and fractions?).
boppers
(16,588 posts)Test everyone, test them often, test them in many ways. I think bubble tests are a massive waste. So test the children with things where a teacher cannot "teach to the test". Figure out the kids who need work on primes, on multiple numeric systems, vocabulary, word connections, etc.
On math:
If you learned FOIL, that's an error in your education. The order *doesn't matter*. It never did. Ever.
When you have two simple multiplicative two-part sets, both sets have to multiply.
OILF will give the same result.
LIOF too.
FOIL is just a tool for the forgetful, not an important mathematical concept.
As for me, I didn't learn "fractions", I learned "ratios"..... same thing, it turns out, just different symbols. (Separating symbols, syntax, and concepts, turns out to be quite handy in my field). 1/4 vs. 1:4 is just symbols.
You don't have to believe me, it doesn't matter to me, but I do hope you don't talk down to children.
I was "talked down to" an awful lot, and I eventually learned to "play dumb" to get along. They used to test me (often, with bubbles) every few weeks, which was annoying as hell, and something I didn't understand, until I got much older, read up on theories of intelligence, and checked my scores. That's when I realized they were treating me as a freak.... because I was. I tended to max out their tests, and on tests with higher scales, I was as low as an IQ of 186, and stupid-high (200+) on others (hence, re-calibration). (Cue conversation about the huge problems with these tests, cultural bias, etc).
It does sound like you had a good education. I wish I had that.
And yes, though you don't explicitly say it, I do have the curse of "why don't others think like me". It comes in many flavors, across many numbers. I find I relate to the edges of the stanines much more than the center. I'd rather hang out with somebody with an IQ of 60 or 140 than somebody who is a 100. (See above note about how the the tests are broken).
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)Side tangent: how can you not appreciate the world's richest man when he decides to take 1/2 his money and put it in a charitable foundation to solve the world's toughest problems? He then convinced the world's second richest man to do the same.
Back to the topic: Recall that one of the primary conclusions of the GF's research on education is that the top correlating factor to student performance is teacher performance (i.e. the quality of the teacher is more impactful that class size, teacher:student ratio, quality of the books, teacher certification, school schedule, etc..). Good teachers can effectively teach, and the number of students in their class doesn't appear to be a strong limiting factor in a good teacher's ability to communicate. Bad teachers can't teach, and reducing their class size to near 1:1 ratios and providing them the best books and teaching supplements still doesn't make them effective teachers.
GF education research
Standardized tests, implemented on an annual basis, allow a quantitative means of evaluating the progress of a given student, thus providing a quantitative means of evaluating the teacher:
-compare each student's test performance this year to last year
-compare teacher A and B within the same school
-if all of teacher A's students improved by 20% this year over last year, and all of teacher B's improved by only 10%, it's a fair conclusion that teacher A is doing a better job than B
-recall, the goal is not to compare how Johnny is doing to Billy; the goal is not to compare how school system X in the DC suburbs compares to school system Y in the Appalachian backwoods
I don't think standardized tests are the ideal method for evaluating teachers and wouldn't advocate using them as the sole litmus test, but they do provide some indication and I haven't heard anyone offer better suggestions. Ideally, we would have a way to correlate a high school graduates career contribution to society and the work force back to their K-12 teachers, but that seems like a stretch goal at this point is history and technology.
As someone who supports the role of the teacher, I applaud this research and the conclusions. I hope this leads to policy shifts where we see teacher salaries increasing to the point where education, as a career choice, once again attracts the best and brightest minds into the field. The path to becoming qualified to teaching K-12 has become a joke: education majors have the lowest (or nearly) among college attendees, certification tests to be licensed as a K-12 teacher require no more than a college-bound high school education to pass and education degrees are considered the easiest to graduate with.
If more standardized testing gives us the data we need to convince the public that major change in our education system is needed, I fully support it. (FTR: the issue of how to create a "good" standardized test I have no opinion on.) If someone sees another path to evaluate teacher and student performance, I'm very open-minded to listen and read.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)A couple of studies go against decades of research, and somehow they're more valid than anything else?
Not all data is relevant or good. There is no good standardized test, as other countries are starting to realize, but they sure are expensive and take money out of districts' coffers to line those of the test company owners.
Students aren't products, clients, or widgets. They're people, and people aren't so easy to shove into boxes and keep there. Teachers are people, and we're not so easy to shove into boxes and keep there. In your teacher A/teacher B scenario, there are so many variables as to be ridiculous.
As for teacher evals, people have offered other solutions. You might want to read up on that.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)please point me to the decades of research that concludes the teacher's capabilities are not a primary correlating factor to student success -- I will review it and read it carefully.
We're in agreement that not all data is relevant or good. is there some data in particular that you're suggesting we differ in terms of perceived relevance? please explain.
my teacher A/B description was not a scenario, it was language used to describe the point of why standardized testing can benefit in evaluating teachers. i never suggested that test scores alone should be used here, I believe I explicitly said "I don't think standardized tests are the ideal method for evaluating teachers and wouldn't advocate using them as the sole litmus test". I never encountered anyone who advocates for tests as a sole measure of teacher effectiveness.
thanks for the response and at least considering my points
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)You can try looking, but you will also find decades of research that says that socioeconomic issues have the greatest impact on educational achievement. Mom's degree level, where the family lives, whether there are books even in the home at all, and on and on all are good indicators of how far a student will go--they're not perfect, thank goodness, but they are there.
The other thing is, I have yet to see one of these studies that really defines teacher effectiveness. We're all told to write effective lesson plans so we can be effective teachers, but no one actually ever defines what that looks like in the classroom. That's because we can't define it other than by outcomes, and those are influenced by so many variables as to be ridiculous.
So, they attack teachers instead. Much easier.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)but as I said below in #34, education improvements can't fix that. I do believe that improving education is a necessary (but not sufficient criteria) to leveling those socioeconomic factors. Education improvements, however, can fix the amount of learning a student receives. We shouldn't stop trying to improve education just because we don't have immediate solutions to the wider problems.
Now, I don't want to attack teachers. Not good ones. I do want to identify the ineffective teachers and put them on an action plan. For that matter, I want to identify the most effective teachers and ensure they are compensated appropriately. I believe that measuring individual student improvement YOY provides a statistic method for quantitatively measuring student learning while providing the ability to adjust for the very socioeconomic factors you mention. I do not believe this should be the sole criteria -- I support subjective evaluation from supervisors, peers and students, continued education programs and other means that should also be given consideration in measuring teacher effectiveness.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)There aren't that many ineffective teachers out there. They've been weeded out. I've been subbing in all the area schools for three years, and I've only know one I'd fire in a heartbeat out of more than 50 I have directly worked with and observed. Do you know any other profession with numbers like that?! I've been a long-term sub in three schools now, was a parapro/writing coach in an alternative charter, and have been in many classrooms, and seriously, I'd only fire one. One could have gotten better with help but was let go instead, and the rest vary from amazing to pretty good. Where are all these ineffective teachers? I sure haven't run into them, not in these last three years, and not since I started teaching in 1997. Bad principals, sure, ineffective superintendents, definitely, bad teachers, not many.
Saying that we can't fix the home/family issues is weak. We know how to fix those but would rather spend the money on defense and huge outlays to banks and multinational corporations. Take the money we're throwing into the pockets of the 1% for testing and curriculum materials that suck, and let's actually do something for our students.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)I am listening. carefully. let's continue rational debate with respect -- I never did suggest there were many ineffective teachers, I don't have data. your personal experience is interesting, but only your experience over a limited data set. I had two children I fathered through a combined (so far) 24 years of public K-12 education. i'd like to see about more than one of them on an action plan (firing as last resort, but acknowledging that doing a poor job of educating our youth is unacceptable).
I note that yearly testing gives a means of identifying high performing administrators also, a problem you identify (one I haven't considered, but makes sense intuitively).
I did say I thought the barrier of entry to the profession was too low -- and I stand by that. If you tell me there are effective means in place to weed out poor performers, great, but that still shouldn't prevent us from implementing a means of getting measurable trend data.
I'm not saying we can't fix socioeconomic issues, I said it's not within the scope of education to do so and that I didn't think that should be a distraction from continuous improvement in public education.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)Same with different teaching colleges. My college's education department would kick us out for anything less than a B in any required class, if we didn't past the National Teachers' Exam on the first try, and for a whole host of other measures. They weeded out a lot, and almost all of the people I graduated with I'd want my kids to have as teachers today. Raise the standards in the teaching colleges (which they won't because those departments are cash cows--students bear a huge financial burden, tons go through and pay tons of money for the privilege, and most programs now are 5 years long), and you'll see a difference.
When even the testing companies say that the tests are not designed to measure the effectiveness of teachers and administrators, it makes no sense to use them that way. You still haven't shown anything higher than a weak correlation, and it's bad math, bad science. Test scores are out of a principal's control--it's far more effective to measure a principal's worth through talking to staff, students, and parents; looking at what the principal has done to mediate conflict and manage staff; and have him/her put together a portfolio of all the meetings, crises, grant issues, and budget issues s/he's dealt with that year. You'll get a far more complete picture than just looking at the snapshot of one test.
That's all the tests are: snapshots. They measure how that particular student handled that topic on that particular day. That's it (and barely that much of the time). When the writing graders can spend more than 1-3 minutes per test, when the test writers have eliminated bias from the questions and content, and when we can control for the students who didn't sleep the night before or eat right in the days prior, then I would consider using them.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)
Seriously, I don't know where to start with your post. You obviously haven't spent any time in the classroom, and just as obviously you want to entrust our education system to the very people who want to profit from it. After all, who is developing all that new software that creates and scores those tests, who develops all that new software that is supposed to improve education(hint, the initials are MS).
And the fact that you buy into the Gates studies, while discounting decades of actual academic studies simply goes to show how gullible you are.
I would suggest that you take the advice in your sig line, and think.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)factor to student success. I am very interested in this and open minded to the idea.
Note, the issue of whether the tests need to be privitized or implemented by the DOE is a separate issue. I'm perfectly fine with moving this under DOE control with appropriate oversight. Private profit does not have to factor into testing to make them one of multiple effective means of evaluating teachers. let's not make that a distracting issue -- for purposes of further discussion I'm willing to agree that an effective transition plan could be implemented to make this happen.
I will follow our collective advice and continue thinking. thanks for reinforcing what continues to be an excellent suggestion.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)I was discounting the study that somehow "proves" that class size doesn't matter. There are decades of academic research that show that class size indeed effects learning.
There are also decades of research that show that many students, while intelligent and great students, simply don't do well on standardized tests, especially fill in the bubble tests. That is not how they learn, that is not how they should be assessed. For these students, they need to do portfolios, presentations, papers and other forms of assessment in order to truly show what they know.
Furthermore, these "high stakes" tests aren't high stakes for most students. For instance, in the state where I teach, the MAP test are our high stakes test. They take a week. They are high stakes for the teacher, the school, and the district. But they aren't high stakes for the student. They get no grade, if they fail, they still go on to the next grade, the students have no skin in the game. So throughout the state there are lots of students who walk into these tests, fill out the bubbles in any random pattern they choose, and they're done. They simply don't care. Thus, the scores get skewed, the teachers, schools and districts get skewed.
That's a huge part of the problem facing education, the simple fact that non-professionals are making these huge decisions for our eduction system with little or no input from actual educators. Gates is no more qualified to make education decisions than I'm qualified to fly a space shuttle. We wouldn't allow a software engineer make major decisions about a surgery, why are we allowing them, and all kinds of other non-educators, make vital decisions regarding education?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)And the education "reformers" acknowledged that in some study or other, but effectively said "But we can't do anything about economics, so we'll go after teachers".
And private profit has *always* factored into standardized testing.
These aren't distracting issues, they're key issues.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)I don't question that parent's income tightly correlates to student success. I give you that it might be the top factor. However, I thought we were discussing whether or not standardized testing is an effective tool that can be used for evaluating teachers. To recap, I was taking the position that they could and that this was a good idea, as the GF research showed that the teacher's capabilities were a primary correlating factor to student sucess. Now, even if your suggestion that parent's income is a stronger influence than teacher ability is correct (it may be, I don't know), I don't believe that it's the within the area of influence for education improvements to address parental income -- that's a totally separate and much larger issue. I do believe that improving our education system is a necessary criteria to closing the income gap. this isn't "going after teachers instead of fixing the economy", it's fixing the education system as a step towards fixing the economy.
I don't want to "go after teachers". I believe the only reasonable conclusion of the GF research is to raise the bar for the teaching profession. I want to see Public K-12 teachers compensated at a level with engineers, lawyers and accountants. Now, I do want better teachers for this money: I want to see education degrees as hard to graduate with as engineering degrees. I want education admissions to be as difficult as law school admissions. I want to see qualification tests for K-12 teachers as hard as the CPA exam. I don't know what a transition plan would look like to get there -- I suspect a series of incremental changes over a couple generations.
I don't see any reason why standardized tests have to continue to be privatized. I would have no issue bringing testing 100% into the public sector if that is a hangup issue for any significant group of voters.
thanks for the continued discussion
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)teacher effectiveness.
"R-Squared is a statistical term saying how good one term is at predicting another. If R-Squared is 1.0 then given the value of one term, you can perfectly predict the value of another term."
"For the math geeks out there, the R2 for each test average/income range chart is about 0.95. On every test section, moving up an income category was associated with an average score boost of over 12 points."
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/
"Teacher effectiveness" as measured by students' test scores is a circular measure.
There is little to no evidence that changing out teachers improves student performance generally, but lots of evidence that teachers who move from low-income districts to high-income ones suddenly and miraculously become more "effective".
The rhetoric about "paying teachers like other professionals" in exchange for busting union protections is a trojan horse. It's not going to happen, because in a capitalist system there is no profit in paying big bucks to educate the masses.
And the comment about how we can't change the economic situation but we can change teachers is like the old story about people losing a key in a dark spot but looking for it under a light because "the light's better here."
The "poorer quality" of teachers isn't the reason that students' test scores mirror social and economic hierarchies. Not in any way, shape, or form.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)Yes, I've stated a number of times that I agree there's a correlation between parental income and student performance. I don't think addressing the parental income gap is within the scope of K-12 education (I believe it is an outcome, however).
Now, since we both agree on that, let's consider the GF research that shows, when controlling for variables like income gap, the teacher has greater impact than other variables that most would agree do come under the scope of public education (text books, class size, etc..). you seem to have enough understanding of statistical methods to understand that those variables can be controlled for, especially across a large population group.
Setting aside the issue of testing being public/private (by all means make it public if that's a barrier).
Setting aside the issue that nobody advocates testing be the sole means of teacher evaluation.
Setting aside the issue that tests aren't perfect, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I believe that we can make progress on developing tests whose results correlate tightly to students learning skills that translate to jobs; there have to be dozens of education students doing PhD research every year on this topic).
What's the objection to performing annual standardized tests so we can start gathering quantitative data?
It may be that today's teachers are the best and brightest, if so, then let's pay them as such. but let's also raise the barrier to entry of the teaching profession.
what do you propose are the most effective means of evaluating teacher effectiveness? From my admittedly inexpert survey of the field, it seems that most subjective methods depend on evaluating teacher methods. However, there is a lot of info that effective teachers employ a great variety of methods with near equal effectiveness so those means of evaluation seem flawed at the outset. I certainly would expect peer, supervisor and student review to be a part of teacher evaluation, but what else?
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)I'm confused. Which is it?
Do you ever wonder why lawyers and doctors don't go through this? Doctors take their patients' lives into their hands daily, so why don't they have to get tested and evaluated like this? My ex is an internist, and trust me, there's nothing like this for doctors. Why not for lawyers, too? If they screw up, someone can go to jail, so the stakes are high there, too. Why not CEOs?
Oh, that's right: they're considered professionals, and we're not even considered management.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)sure, here you go: Huff Post summary links there to full studies, with criticism.
here's where we're at. We have data that shows test scores tightly correlate to the teacher being the overwhelming factor correlating to student scucess, within the scope of public education. I think we disagree on whether those test scores are representative of student learning. the answer is, maybe.
let's limit this discussion to mathematics for the moment. at the K-12 level we're talking pre-arithmetic through calculus. it's fairly objective, builds on itself (both of which I admit makes my argument easier but bear with me) and I actually have a minor in math so I feel somewhat credible here, even though I don't have an education background. Current standardized tests exist which do an outstanding job of measuring those skills. The SAT, ACT and GRE are outstanding examples of this. The CPA exam and GMAT are examples of a standardized tests that many feel do a good job of testing one's skills in applied math. Actually, the Praxis could probably be cited here as well.
Let's assume that we test students annually, K through 12 in math where at the end of each year there tested on a comprehensive level that covers material from K through current year + 2, with emphasis on this years information. If we gather this data each year, soon we'll have trend data that might reveal:
- within a given school system, students average improvement in math skills of 15% YOY; over a three year period, Mr. Jones' 4th grade students only average 10%, while other 4th grade math teachers show the same 15% average. if at the end of 5th grade those kids are back to 15% improvement that says something even stronger.
- within the same school system over a three year period, Mrs. Smith's 4th grade students average 25%, while other 4th grade math teachers show the same 15% average. likewise if after 5th grade, Smith's 4th grade students are back to 15% that reinforces the correlation
both of these indications, along with appropriate review and other evaluation methods, help identify top and bottom performers. again, not suggesting test scores be the only tool in the box. yes, students and teachers are people, not numbers, but numbers can help identify which people are doing the most good, or harm.
now, I'm convinced that I just laid out a logical argument that standardized tests in math are an effective means of identifying top and bottom performing teachers and therefore could be used as an evaluation tool. my reasoning depends on
1. an assertion that standardized math tests could be implemented at the K-12 level where test scores correlate tightly to student's comprehension of math. if we disagree here, let me know. I'm not suggesting that current implementations are ideal -- I'm sure they could be improved
2. an assumption that math is a skill we should be teaching (i.e. I assume that math skills lead to valuable job skills).
3. a basic understanding of statistics and how using trend data to improve the system is not anything like "treating people as a number". if a teacher is identified by trend data as not being a good conductor of information, that should be used as a indicator of "something to look into" -- Again, I'm not advocating that this be the sole means of evaluation. If this sort of trend data allows us to spot a poor performing teacher, isn't that good?
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)And what they know (and don't know) does not point to teacher effectiveness.
Those are two completely different things.
Here's an example. I had a student this year who was absent 43 days. That's about a quarter of the year. His attendance for the year was 76% His attendance last year was 74% and he was retained. So this was his second year in the same grade. And yes, his test scores sucked. How do those measure MY effectiveness? How can I be effective when he isn't even in class?
I employed every tool at my disposal to get him to come to school. I've never expended so much energy on ONE kid. If my effectiveness was based on how hard i worked to improve his attendance, I should get a raise. But if we just look at test scores, I'm a failure.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)correlating attendance to test scores is not a hurdle here.
I agree with your point that test scores measure what a student knows. However, testing each year gives us the ability to calculate the delta in what a student knows before and after a class with a certain teacher, and looking at enough data points, meaningful trends can be identified.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)There are too many other factors involved. Until I can take these kids home, make sure they read every night, eat well and get enough sleep, don't judge me by those test scores.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)There are too darn many variables. Looking at test data and thinking it's entirely due to the teacher's "effectiveness" (whatever that actually is) leaves out the kid's health issues, home issues, absence rate, etc--all of which aren't anything we have any control over.
It would be like testing a new med and ignoring the side effects because, well, we can't do anything about those and really should have this effective drug out there. It's crappy science.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)He's finishing 2nd grade, his second year in 2nd grade. When I tested his reading level at the end of the year he had only made one month's growth. He's been in 2nd grade for 2 years and still reads at a kindergarten level. So I told him he was never going to learn to read unless he read every day at home. It's just like riding a bicycle, he needs to practice practice practice. He can't just read at school and expect to improve his reading skills.
So he says "Well, I can't read at home." i asked why not and he said "There aren't any books in my house." And he laughed, like the funniest thing he had ever heard was that a house would have books in it, books he can read.
And the reformers want my salary based on this kid's test scores.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)She doesn't read to her son and didn't know that she should or why. Her son is almost a year old, and they have no books in the home for him.
When you have to fight stuff like this, it makes you wonder why anyone would think tests are valid for much at all.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)is that we KNOW that meeting needs like health care, (especially dental care), child care, adult education (English classes for adults especially), parenting classes, social needs, etc WORKS. Addressing the issues relating to poverty results in an increase in student achievement.
But we refuse to fund these programs.
Just sends me over the edge.
a la izquierda
(11,795 posts)I am a college professor. I ask all my students at the beginning of the year what the last book was that they read *for fun.* It's an ice breaker, and I'm interested in what my kids read (and they get to ask me what I'm reading- they're usually appalled at the answer). One of my students, a freshman, said he hadn't read anything for fun since the sixth grade. And he was dead serious. I almost passed out.
Sounds like an 18 year old version of your second grader
(as a side note, I normally don't know about the books my students read, and they think I'm a monster nerd when they find out I read history for fun, even though I'm a history professor).
boppers
(16,588 posts)Oh, wait, we do.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)We gather scads of data on each student daily, reams of paper, scores of assessments, projects, standardized tests, practice tests, you name it. We cannot possibly control for everything. In medicine, it would be considered bad science, but in education, it's perfectly okay to ignore what we can't control for.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Yes, in medicine, it is bad science, too.
That's why in medicine, paper is being discouraged.
If you cannot control for it, you can still account for it, and use error bars.
Stats 101.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)& nothing even *studying* it.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)that (1) we assume that tests do, and can be designed to, correlate to student's actual knowledge
(2) believe that the teacher's primary responsibility it to conduct learning on the subject being tested.
let me know if either of those require further discussion
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)pushing this stuff *assume," as you say, that students with worse scores have worse teachers.
No correlations are made, just assumptions.
Which is shit science.
And more specifically, there's nothing in the link you posted that talks about any research justifying those assumptions.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)You say that the ACT is a great test. It's not. Not even close. There are still culturally and socioeconomically biased questions in the English and reading sections, and the math ones don't necessarily correlate to the state standards, so the kids are tested on math they were never taught (which is somehow the teacher's fault and not the state school board's).
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)if somehow everyone got the same scores on standardized test the income gap would close?
You really believe that the division of income is a function of education?
Like, the gap between the rich and everyone else widened so much in the 80s-present because the rich got better educated or the rest got dumber?
LOL.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)necessary but not sufficient criteria to closing the income gap in the US. your statement refuting my converse isn't applicable as I never stated or implied the converse was true (I'm not sure it isn't, though)
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)to close the income gap.
Your claim was that education would close the income gap, so I have no idea what you're talking about in this post.
Specifically, you said that the income gap was an *outcome* of education, i.e. having more education = more income. The education gap has narrowed, not widened, during the same period in which the income gap widened.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)<sarcasm> you got me, I can't argue that kind of irrefutable logic</sarcasm>
nobody said education was the only correlating factor. my claim was that improving education was a necessary but not sufficient condition to narrowing the gap. no one will dispute there are other factors.
but check yourself rationally here, do you honestly believe that the current income gap can be narrowed without improving education? I see the bottom income class headed into deeper poverty unless our public education system starts graduating kids with marketable, sustainable job skills at a faster pace than we're currently seeing.
thanks for the continuing discussion. i appreciate your attempts to keep it civil, logical and rational.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)americans are more educated than ever before in history.
as the education gap has narrowed, the income gap has widened.
you didn't acknowledge that, you just kept pretending that people are poor because they don't have skills.
no, they're poor because a capitalist system creates poor as it creates rich. the more rich, the richer, the more poor.
it has nothing at all to do with education. nothing. education may help *individuals* to improve their situation, but in such a system one individual rising = another falling to take his place. there are only so many slots, and increasing the general level of education doesn't increase the number of slots, it just makes the competition for the slots divide along finer and finer lines.
there has never been *any* capitalist society that didn't have a substantial income gap, nor any capitalist society that had enough living wage jobs for all takers.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)are enough "living wage" jobs for everyone, some people will get left out. I think there's a strong possibility that human population has gotten big enough and technology has progressed far enough that the 6B people on this planet can have all their goods and services provided for with a much smaller worker population. I have no data to back this up, I'm just agreeing with you that we have no reason to believe there's enough jobs for all able-bodied adults.
Now, I am a capitalist. I'm not suggesting the capitalism model is implemented flawlessly in the US (or anywhere). Nor do I think education can fix it. However, I do believe that US citizens have an increased probability of getting jobs that we've lost to China and other LCCs by training our students to either:
a. step into jobs that are in demand worldwide (electronics assembly, agriculture)
b. have a more solid base of knowledge to proceed to post-secondary education (writing, math, science)
We're not going to compete with China on labor costs, but if we have a workforce ready to be productive employees coming out of pubic education, we have a chance to compete on total cost.
No, I don't think education is the silver bullet but I do still believe it's necessary to improving society.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)what are you talking about?
kwassa
(23,340 posts)It works like this: since would-be reformers can't control any of the variables in the education process BUT the teachers, the teachers must be the problem. Otherwise, the "reformers" can't actually change anything.
The teachers can't control the real variables, the reformers can't either.
This other point: the reformers HAVE NO IDEA how to improve teacher effectiveness. All they do is to place the RESPONSIBILITY on teachers to figure that out for themselves by measuring their effectiveness, though they don't know how to do that either. All the "reformers" are doing is to look for someone to blame for educational failure, without anything substantive to add to the conversation.
The problem is poverty, and all the associated conditions that go with it.
I teach in Montgomery County, Maryland. We are one of the best public school systems in the country, and have done more to narrow the achievement gap than any other system in the country. We are just north of the District of Columbia schools, some of the worst performing schools. I would point out that we are highly diverse in Montgomery, and have just become a majority minority county.
Some of the highest rated public school systems in the country are in the DC suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, also highly diverse. The top-rated high school in the country is in Fairfax County Schools.
What do we all have in common? Affluence. Five of the top ten income per capita counties in the entire US are in Maryland and Virginia, and most are DC suburbs.
But we can't talk about that. This subject is off the table in the modern "reform" movement. The idea that the teacher is the single most important factor in improvement is absurd in the lack of societal will to address the real factors that create a permanent underclass in this country.
ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)right here!!
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)mythology
(9,527 posts)there is a far better chance that a college graduate will have/get a job than a non-college graduate. Yes unemployment is high, the rate is double for those without a bachelor's degree.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm
Yes education isn't correlated with the highest levels of income, but it's also not chopped liver.
Also education has been correlated to a rising standard of living for most of human history. For a very basic example of this, look at how literacy rates correlate to GDP.
Capitalism doesn't inherently create ever larger income gaps. Unrestrained capitalism, which must be aided by government policy does. The Scandinavian countries have capitalism, but don't have nearly the same level of income inequality as we do. Additionally, feudalism was quite effective at creating an oligarchy, which further leads away from the idea it's just capitalism that causes economic disparity.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)capitalism is all about creating ever-larger income gaps if left to its own devices.
feudalism didn't pretend to be democratic, & no one has ever pretended that it's "just capitalism" that produces economic disparity. one of the selling points of capitalism was that it was a system where "anyone" could have a decent life if they just worked hard -- the anger comes when people realize it's a lie.
scandinavia has a smaller income gap because the gov't reduces capitalist-generated inequality with welfare payments.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Say hi everyone!
Logical
(22,457 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Search my journal for the copious work I have done on the subject, kthnxbai.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)me another one.
If you think putting your money into your own private foundation = giving away money, you need to do some research.
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)they want to shut down public schools.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)could you please site credible sources where I can explore this point more?
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)but if you haven't run into credible sources yet, read a bit more, they aren't all that hard to find.
Sitting here I have watched to growth of testing, because I have put two kids through public schools. Each year they rachet up the standards, for a fact, they actually do. They increase the score needed to pass, for a fact, they actually do. My kids took the tests.
When they bump the passing score up enough, they then mark schools as "failing" and push vouchers, because "no kid should be trapped in a "failing school"". These are the same schools I went to. It is complete bullsh*t.
Never in our history has a larger portion of the US population had HS diplomas and college degrees. The schools are not failing. It is hogwash pushed to defund the schools, spend masses of money on private sector test administrators, and push vouchers for private corporate profit.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)It's a way of keeping a large portion of money untaxed. These "charitable foundations" are nothing of the sort, and tend to push for changes that will make their parent companies even more money.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)After a class hits 25 or 30 students. His foundation's aim is specifically the many (expensive) class size reduction programs aimed at the near legendary 15 students per class. Meanwhile, tomorrow I'll go teach at least one period of lower SES kids packed 50 deep in my room. If they all show up, one has to sit on the floor; as it is I don't get to sit down.
The article you cited also makes the value added assessment model, which in economic terms is fairly good, but when assessing educators seems to be accurate about 75% of the time. How would you like it if your job performance reviews were generated by a computer and was inaccurate 1 out of 4 times?
If you think that the certification tests are a joke (and they do vary from state to state), it would seem obvious to most teachers that you have never taken one of those certification tests. At least not at the secondary level; my opinion of most elementary teachers I've known isnt that great, and I suspect that many of the bad aggregates come when including elementary teachers (who still work harder than most people).
Ths "bad teacher" thing is not only a bunch of corporate propaganda, it's bullshit, plain and simple. It's a problem only in the minds of people who find it easier to scapegoat.
sendero
(28,552 posts).... god help the country.
adigal
(7,581 posts)of college. He has no experience in the field of education. How many classes has he taught???
It blows me away when Know-Nothings think they are capable in a field just because they are rich. Would you let Bill Gates operate on your brain?? So why let him mess with education?? He knows just as much about that as he does brain surgery. Ask the experts about education - the researchers and the teachers. Tell Bill Gates to try to design an operating system that doesn't suck.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)which is the correct analogy in the case you present
adigal
(7,581 posts)class size, citing a very few studies which are in opposition to the many and varied studies over the years. It would be like him saying, "I think Laser surgery is the way to go." He has no clue.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)He is actively pushing his unproven, untested agenda.
adigal
(7,581 posts)
Romulox
(25,960 posts)What a GREAT guy! 
Dokkie
(1,688 posts)gave away all his money to The Gates foundation too, so when he finally dies, the US govt gets 0 in death tax. If you ask me, I say we start taxing charity donations once again
mzteris
(16,232 posts)oh noooooo standardized testing like it's some new thing.
I went to school in - well - a LONG time ago and we took two standardized tests every year in elementary & middle school - the beginning and the end. It was either the CAT or the IOWA or the Stanford, etc. . . the same test in any given year, but different tests in different years. (And from one state to another - we moved some.) Achievement tests, "IQ" tests, reading tests - heck I think we had those quarterly or something. All standardized, fill in the bubble. (Of course, no electronic scanning, but the teacher used a template and just used a red pen to mark the "right choice" if it wasn't colored in. Count the red marks, subtract from total, etc. . .
They knew what you "knew" in the beginning of the year and how much you had progressed by the end of the year.
So why all the hysteria NOW when it's been going on forever?? Seriously, my older sister and brother took them, too and they're a good bit older than I.
Robb
(39,665 posts)There once was a great deal of shoulder shrugging when scores were low. Nowadays underperforming schools get wholly restaffed -- fire everyone, reboot the school.
The idea seems to be that given the threat of losing their jobs, teachers and administration spend all their time trying to protect themselves by teaching only things that can improve the test scores.
The solution most offered here seems to be to stop testing. 
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)My kids spend 25% of their school year taking these tests. That's an entire grading period - 9 weeks. That only leaves 27 weeks for instruction.
It's overkill.
I don't think we should stop testing, but we do need to give fewer tests.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Did something change?
Or are people upset that they don't get to personally "grade" students every day or two?
Have they stopped taking attendance as well?
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Surely you understand that. Or maybe you don't?
boppers
(16,588 posts)That's the distinction I was hoping to elicit.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Way too much of it.
Teachers will always test. But as I said there's a difference between tests like weekly Spelling tests and standardized tests.
boppers
(16,588 posts)For example, is there some point in education that students should know the difference between "Yore, You're, Your"?
Or should that be all local, and it's fine if people in a school district never learn that distinction, because there is no minimum "standard" of what a person should learn?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Which is the *goal*.
And if it were *your* job on theline, I guarantee that you would do the same; and in fact, the orders to do so come from higher up.
And no one on this thread has said anything like "stop testing". But *parents* are beginning to catch on & refuse permission, & I hope more and more do the same.
bhikkhu
(10,716 posts)...in private school, up until high school. It was never a big deal, and our school was always about a full grade ahead of the public schools. It was all fine until I went to public high school and didn't have to study or work hard anymore - coasted for a couple years complaining about what a waste of time it was, then took the GED just to get out and move on.
Which is a bit beside the point, but the main problem I have seen in standardized testing at my kid's school is that many students were not prepared for it, and the teachers had to spend too much time getting kids up to speed. If its a part of the curriculum from the beginning its no problem, but the implementation is the hard part.
I think all the arguments for standardized testing have some merit - US educational standards have been pretty questionable compared to other developed countries. A big military-dominated Idiocracy is really not an option I want to think about. If you have to change something, what other affordable plans are out their?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)has increased since you were kids & will increase 20 times what it is now with Common Core, as was clear in the title of the OP.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)The rigor has ramped up to an unbelievable level. Especially for younger children, these tests are just exercises in futility for them. It makes me ill that we do this to our children.
boppers
(16,588 posts)If a 4th grader was doing algebra, back in the 70's, they'd get lumped in with kids still trying to grasp multiplication.
"100% score", rather than "okay, Johnny gets high school math and needs to be challenged at that level, but needs work on his reading, Sally, OTOH, reads at a college level, and needs help with math".
Think of a system where *every* student has an IEP, and boring standard "all class" lessons finally get the boot.... Teaching per student.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Until class size is drastically reduced (like 10 or less) an IEP for every student is just a silly pipe dream.
This is actually one of Broad's more ridiculous goals. They claim class size doesn't matter while calling for intensive amounts of paperwork, useless and time consuming data analysis, and more individualized instruction. It's no different than a restaurant doubling the amount of tables while cutting the wait staff in half.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Yes, class sizes need to be reduced, an individual IEP per student is hard as hell, so, the best a teacher can hope for with 30 students (ugh.) per class is to try to find group patterns.
I'm not sure who is insane enough to claim class size doesn't matter, I guess that's the "Broad" you are referring to?
As far as the restaurant metaphor, there are some folks who order off the menu, and some folks who want their food different, sauces on the side, this or that "crispy" or "raw", and those people make a server's life hell. If you want that kind of food, expect to pay double, or triple, for it.
Maybe that's what's going on, people who want a "picky" meal are the same people who want a "picky" education for their child.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Some core beliefs are
1. Tenure needs to be eliminated
2. Teach for America will save our struggling schools
3. There is no credible research linking class size to achievement
4. Every student should be on an IEP
5. Experienced teachers are ruining our public schools
boppers
(16,588 posts)1. Tenure is over-rated. Ask any teacher terminated for sexual misconduct.
2. TFA is an idea hothouse, and a way to drive more people into the field, but it's a field with a huge washout rate, so that problem needs to be fixed before a "hiring" solution makes any sense.
3. That's absurd, and either you're not giving their actual opinion/position, or some moron out there actually thinks we only need 1 teacher for the entire United States, and even the whole world.
4. This I agree with on principle. Students are not products, and teachers aren't assembly line workers.
5. I'm guessing age and experience mean different things to different people. I had two very old teachers on different sides of the spectrum.... one was just phoning it in, hoping for a pension payoff, not giving a damn about his students (who, of course, all "passed with excellent grades"
, the other was personally involved to where she would remember every test question a student of hers got wrong, and try to teach that question to that student, personally, on her own time.
aquart
(69,014 posts)It hasn't worked out well.
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)2 from Palast:
Mr. high stakes testing, l'il bush, had to take a high stakes test once, to get into the Air Nat'l Guard during Vietnam. He scored 25 out of 100, one point above 'too dumb to fly'. He thought NCLB testing was a brilliant notion. This speaks to your post #24 here, Hi, in spades.
Gates backs Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights enforcement by the WTO. He realized that WTO TRIPs enforcement could be destroyed on all issues, if attacked at their weakest point. Which was TRIPs restrictions against cheap AIDS drugs for Africa. So his foundation put money into a high profile campaign of philanthropic donations fighting AIDS in Africa, while his foundation simultaneously invested hundreds of millions in drug company stocks. That way, he keeps his Intellectual property rights safe, and benefits financially from the AIDS crisis's parasitic middle-man, big PHARMA, at the same time. Just another indicator that his foundation's education 'philanthropy' is really about him trying to get his already obscenely rich hands on taxpayers' public school dollars. SOP for billionaires.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Not one teacher helped write these standards. They were authored by the governors association, who hired textbook authors and college professors to do the work.
They are incredibly developmentally inappropriate. 1st graders are expected to master comprehension skills we currently don't teach until 6th grade. 3rd graders are expected to master multiplying and dividing fractions, also currently not expected until 5th or 6th grade.
Textbook publishers are already putting new materials on the market that encompass common core expectations.
Follow the money, folks.
Follow. The. Money.
Robb
(39,665 posts)Seemed odd, so I looked it up:
The NGA Center and CCSSO received initial feedback on the draft standards from national organizations representing, but not limited to, teachers, postsecondary educators (including community colleges), civil rights groups, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Following the initial round of feedback, the draft standards were opened for public comment, receiving nearly 10,000 responses.
Although they're probably lying, I guess.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)I was on a review team. By the time they were ready to 'collaborate' the product was finished. They had no intention of letting us make any changes. They just wanted the teacher teams to say "Oh yes, this is wonderful! Well done!"
One of the first things my team did was ask for a list of the authors. So I know for a fact no teachers wrote these. The authors were textbook writers (who rarely have any experience in education) and college professors (also not always experienced educators).
As for that initial feedback, I'm not aware that they consulted either of the nation's two largest teachers unions. Where else could they find teachers who have real life experience working with students and knowledge of reasonable expectations? And I'm a fan of civil rights groups, but I don't understand where their expertise comes from for reviewing curriculum.
As for lying, there's no doubt in my mind. I should start a blog detailing the lies told about education and public schools in my lifetime. It's how they roll.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Because of course, giving "initial feedback" that's immediately tossed in the trash = "collaboration," don't cha know? Ditto for "public comment".
boppers
(16,588 posts)Well, I suppose we could lower the expectations as a possible solution.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)And we don't teach that particular content because it's not developmentally appropriate.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Do they test the child somehow?
What is the gatekeeper on "developmentally appropriate"?
I was doing algebra (though I didn't know what the name for it) in 3rd grade.
Should I not have been challenged?
For the most part, I wasn't, until I got shipped into the local special education programs.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)Tests are part of it, age and development of the child is another(which is why teachers take all of those child development and ed psych classes). What the child's educational background is, ie have they had the foundation learning blocks mastered so that they can move on.
A question before, other than wiring schools, have you had any experience inside a school, such as teaching experience?
boppers
(16,588 posts)I have also never been a professional mechanic, and yet, can somehow repair cars. I have no computer degrees, and yet, that is how I make my living, usually teaching to those with all kinds of education, yet having very little knowledge and wisdom from the field.
Would you teach a 3rd grader algebra, if that was what they wanted to learn?
MadHound
(34,179 posts)Your lack of knowledge about how kids learn, what it takes to teach a child, is severely lacking. Kids aren't standardized, they aren't plug 'n play like computers. They are young, developing humans, a much more complicated animal.
Ooo, you learned car mechanics on your own, congratulations. You know what, you are probably a visual/kinesthetic learner, like millions of others who learn how to work on cars while growing up(including myself, first learned mechanics at ten).
I would teach a third grader algebra if they were ready for algebra, if they had the basics required to learn algebra. Somehow, unless you had some seriously accelerated math in K-2, I doubt you actually took up algebra in the third grade. It generally takes at least four, five years to learn all the basic math needed to undertake algebra.
So since you've not had any training or experience in education, what makes you think that you're an expert, that you have all the answers? Sheer hubris?
boppers
(16,588 posts)Often called "g".
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Commom Core expects 3rd graders to compute fractions. That's insane. Just because a gifted 3rd grader can do this doesn't mean ALL should. That's what gifted Ed programs are for.
Developmental appropriateness is critical in curriculum writing.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Children all over the world are doing it. Is there something geographic that prevents 3rd grade children in the US from computing fractions?
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Do you have some information to back this up?
boppers
(16,588 posts)Teaching fractions to children as young as *three* is part of the Suzuki method of playing a violin.
The US is in the low 20's on teaching math, because, well, we think our children are stupid.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Robb
(39,665 posts)Do you think those standards are static? In other words, should 1975's 3rd graders be taught the same things as 2015's?
boppers
(16,588 posts)So, no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
If you are not smarter than your parents, something is being done wrong.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)This does not mean that even the most skilled teacher can effectively teach students something they are developmentally not ready for.
In the limited thinking of the "reform" movement, education will improve if contents and standards are forced onto kids at a younger age; for example, make all second graders do fourth grade work. All this really does is make second graders fail a lot.
MattBaggins
(7,904 posts)I bet there will be lots and lots of money to be made with this plan, but it's "for the children" so it will pass with flying colors.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)That means if they have similar contracts in every state = 5 billion a year -- from state coffers. government gravy train city.
What drives this kind of education? In Texas, it might be the one hundred million dollars paid every year to the test publisher.
Last year, the first year of a new state five-year contract with Pearson Educational Measurement–the publisher–Texas taxpayers paid out that sum. The same amount was paid for this year’s test.
By the end of the current contract, Pearson will have been paid one half billion dollars.All of this is happening at a time of deep budget cuts in education, school closings, overcrowded classrooms and, worst of all, teacher dismissals.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/florida-can-look-to-texas-for-relief-from-jeb-bushs-testing-regime/
boppers
(16,588 posts)As compared to, oh, bussing costs per-student-per-year? Teacher salaries per-student-per-year?
Let's find a breakdown that isn't just throwing around big numbers, and lets see it in context.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Public school children are used as free guinea pigs to validate questions on (which is under protest in some districts) & school teachers administer the tests in taxpayer-funded facilities. Tests are scanned locally and fed to computers.
About 55 million school-age children in the US; the same tests can be used for all of them. Once you've developed a valid first test, you just mix up the questions each year, take out some, add some; or you develop 3 tests intially and rotate them. Not much ongoing cost except in the executive suite.
Busing & teaching serve useful functions and provide jobs. Test development mainly generates profits.
boppers
(16,588 posts)Print tests cannot change questions dynamically based on prior answers. They rely on technology useful for the 20th century... static, inflexible, and cannot take into account a child's answers on prior tests, or even their answer to a question answered only 10 seconds ago.
Up next, you'll tell me that children still use pencils, in some places, I'm sure.
Sadly.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)jobs and the schools *still* do the majority of the work.
A colleague of mine who works as a home and hospital school teacher for those sick and disabled children who cannot make it to school, told me he is required to test all of his students, regardless of the severity of their illness or injury. In most cases, disabled students are given testing accommodations according to their individualized educational plans (IEPs) but he teaches one boy who was, just weeks ago, paralyzed in a car accident.
With no IEP to indicate any accommodations, the teacher is required, by law, to place the CST answer sheet and testing booklets and a No. 2 pencil in front of the poor child and wait there.
Since these tests have no time limits the teacher is supposed to carry on this cruel farce until the boy has a miraculous recovery and is able to hold and guide a pencil or until his IEP is written or until the boy's parents toss the teacher and the tests into the street or until the absurdity of these billion dollar testing requirements are mercifully rescinded.
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2012/06/do-you-need-another-reason-to-resist.html#comment-form
boppers
(16,588 posts)First of all, I think it's an injustice to not give *EVERY* student an IEP.
Every, single, one. Regularly.
This is what *I* think is currently broken about our education system, we treat children like cars. On the 4th year, we try to replace the radiator, broken or not. We train teachers to replace said radiators. We give them guides to replace them, lesson plans, textbooks, all focusing on the damn radiator. The kid could have a fine radiator, and a bad battery, but we focus on the "statistically frequent" issue.
Secondly, if a student can cursor, mouse, blink, handsign, or communicate, they can be tested.
It's hella harder than the idiotic bubble tests, but so is the rest of the education for people with complex communication problems.
Thirdly, and this pops up in my thread history, I resent teachers who fear technology, because they can be judged because of it. Every excellent teacher I've met (and I have a lot in my friends and family) *wants* to know how to teach more, who to teach, what to teach, what needs to be in their class. The crappy ones don't like that somebody can actually finally quantify their abilities.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)what don't you get????
boppers
(16,588 posts)Tell you what.
Run a "computer drive".
Ask you students to solicit used computers. Get a bunch of hardware.
Ask local geeks to rebuild it. Get students in on it too (it's not rocket science, it's just a computer).
Put Ubuntu on it.
Those "old, outdated" computers from 5 years ago will run faster than any windows box.
And not a damn cent needs to come from the local district.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)even have textbooks for every student or paper, & you think the *students* are going to come up with computers for the school by doing a "drive" among their low-income parents & friends. Her students are the children of farmworkers, a lot of them immigrants from Mexico whose parents can't speak english & are just scraping by.
Teachers don't design the curriculum, they don't make the rules, they don't design the testing regime, they can't even protect their jobs or keep themselves from being vilified in the press as "pervs," & you think they can get computers for their schools by asking their students to do a "computer drive".
That might work in a nice little upper-middle class suburban district, but those districts already *have* computers aplenty. Which still doesn't mean they get to use those computers to do testing in their own way, because the rules come from above.
My friend spent $1000 of her own money on supplies her first year until she realized she couldn't keep doing that every year. She still spends a bunch getting basic stuff like paper, copies, stuff for bulletin boards, etc.
You are clueless, and all about blaming teachers.
boppers
(16,588 posts)"can't even protect their jobs" is suspicious as hell, BTW.
"do testing in their own way" adds fuel to the fire.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)yes, it's certainly suspicious that teachers are under attack in every state in the union and the supposedly "powerful teachers' union" can't parry the attack or protect their members' jobs.
"do testing in their own way" was what i assumed you thought they should do with the computers they got from their "drive," since you were in *rage* about how the tests were being done with pencils and scantron sheets instead of on computers.
boppers
(16,588 posts)If you know the student, you bias the test.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)unbiased test.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)That's why many states still use them. And in states where tests online have been introduced, there are reports of school computers unable to handle the increased use and data input. We need a massive upgrade in technology before we switch to online testing.
boppers
(16,588 posts)It's been at least 10 years since I last re-wired a school, but I do recall the technology being laughably antiquated... with the resulting, expected, effects.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Mr. Gates may be both rich and intelligent, but he has zero qualifications to talk about "what works" in education.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)he was behind in florida that had to do with testing too, only it was defeated. can't remember the details.
on edit, just saw this: pearson bankrolls jeb:
While considering things that are perversions, a major bank roller of Jeb Bush’s foundation is Pearson. It seems that every education initiative in Florida comes from Bush and his reputation depends on the sanctity of standardized tests. The corporate ed reformers he represents cannot survive without standardized tests meaning everything.
Florida’s republican dominated legislative body can easily dismiss a Democrat governor like Jerry Brown as a crackpot. But the revolt that’s happening in a republican state like Texas will give them pause as its potentially large enough to stand up to Jeb Bush.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/florida-can-look-to-texas-for-relief-from-jeb-bushs-testing-regime/
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)...and people blame everything else on our continued slide down the shit hole.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)adigal
(7,581 posts)Just because someone is rich, does not mean they know how to teach. Duh. I hate this, ignorant rich people, telling those of us who have been teaching above standards for 20 years, how and what to teach. I would not presume to tell my experienced brain surgeon how to operate, get the Know Nothings out of education!!!
boppers
(16,588 posts)At all?
Or are you excluding all future brain surgeons from your class?
adigal
(7,581 posts)I have no idea what you are getting at.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)goclark
(30,404 posts)Repeat of " Most Children Left Behind" ~ Bush Cousin owned the test materials as I recall.
NOt sure exactly but I know that the Family made $$$'s.
Follow the money.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)When you're digital all metrics can be tested in real time, statistically telling you where a student is at any given point. Indeed, it can probably get so accurate as to "test" a students daily abilities, and be able to tell if a student is having a down day or not. The role of teachers will be to adapt to it and help the students along in other ways. Stressful end of week? Start the next week slower. Over achieving? Increase the overall data until the student adjusts. In the end there will be no testing. The test is daily activities, not some thing at the end of a school period.
Eventually the role of the teacher is going to be more of a pattern recognition guide, they will teach students how to use the technology, how to best utilize it, and how to succeed at it (many kids are self-taught on technology because it comes so easily).
Some teachers, I suspect, aren't really willing to adapt to this, but new teachers will replace them in due course. This same sort of evolution happened in the nursing sector, as the nursing sector digitized there was a bit of blowback, but nursing informatics is practically everywhere now. It saves lives, just as the digitized classroom will teach students better. If nurses could adapt, teachers can.
The good thing is that Gates isn't going to be able to monopolize it. As soon as schools start to recognize that digital software is infinitely copyable and the "charge" used for it by the corporations selling it, they will move to open source solutions. I think ultimately the real revolution will affect the developing world, however, as the institution is too entrenched as it is in the developed world. It will take time for us to truly take advantage of the digital classroom.
