<p>Article in the Washington Post, not The Onion, although the whole thing seems Onion-worthy.</p>
<p>Two years ago every classroom in our school system put up posters about being “college and career” ready. I was volunteering in a kindergarten classroom when I saw the first one and thought it was an April Fools joke, but of course it was Sept. By years end the best kindergarten teacher in the building with her 20 plus yrs of experience had decided to retire early.</p>
<p>I have 3rd graders in the building and I can tell you many teachers and kids are showing signs of burning out. This was a very good elementary school in a good system were most of the kids already went on to college well prepared. This is story is just one more unexpected (hopefully) result of poor implementation of the common core. </p>
<p>Yes! Finally someone has realized that the so called “arts” and “creativity” have nothing to do with becoming “college and career ready”! This gives the kids plenty of time to study for and then take standardized test! </p>
<p>“College and Career Ready” = able to make the school/teachers/administration look good on standardized test.</p>
<p>There are simply no words to describe the ridiculousness of this letter. Have these educators lost all perspective?</p>
<p>Welcome to the Common Core. With the Common Core comes oodles of tests (yes, even for preschoolers and kindergartners). The tests are needed because teachers’ evaluations are now tied to test scores thanks to the Race to the Top initiative. The teachers no longer have time to do anything other than test prep. I thought the test prep and time to take the tests were ridiculous with No Child Left Behind but it’s even worse with Race to the Top since evaluations are based on test scores. They now have to test in every subject so all teachers have test scores. In my school district, I heard they are thinking about getting rid of PE and music because there aren’t any tests for those subjects!!! Welcome to 21st century education! </p>
<p>Gator88NE - The teachers and administrators have nothing to do with this. This came straight from the federal government and teachers were barely involved in their creation. The only mathematician involved in the math standards creation would not sign off on them. Our state (Washington) didn’t even get to see the Common Core State Standards before voting on them. They had to adopt them prior to them being completed in order to compete for Race to the Top funds (which we didn’t receive). The next year, the only way they could not be adopted was for the Legislature to vote them down but the chairs of the House and Senate education committees would not let them come up for a hearing in their committees so our Legislature NEVER saw the standards but, yet, they were adopted. So . . . the standards are not state-led like the federal government likes to claim. Don’t be upset with teachers for anything related to Common Core.</p>
<p>Ah, Race To the Top…so much bad encapsulated in a catchy title. Who are we racing? why order each others’ schools at all? if you come in first, then I can only aspire to second? Why are children a product to be standardized by the government/business industry? </p>
<p>Common core is a miserable idea shoved down our throats by Edubusinesses in order to increase their profit margins. Has nothing to do with better education for anyone. </p>
<p>Fun sidelight of the day: if a PA child throws up on one of their 20+ standardized state tests, staff are supposed to tag and bag the test in a ziploc bag and return it with the rest. The offending child is to stay in the room. Lest they be faking. </p>
<p>That is truly eastcoast crazy! I think there are some crappy schools, crappy districts and crappy state funding systems so these plans seem to me more of a race to the middle which may positively impact some districts while dragging the higher performing ones down (speculation and opinion). I agree with the education as industry tag that @greenbutton uses. Unfortunately I think that if one convenes a roundtable of “experts” a good chunk of them will have some vested financial interest in promoting testing, test prep, boxed curriculum, test books and charter schools. Also, while recognizing that there are some bad teachers out there, I think the pendulum has swung to a dangerous level of “teachers can’t be trusted and are lazy can’t-do types who are just exploiting the system.” Segments of the public have clamored for “accountability” and now are getting what they wished for. Unfortunately a test given in one grade (particularly at the elementary level) is not measuring the effectiveness of the teacher that year. It is measuring everything the kid learned up to that point (or didn’t learn) and a teacher can get docked for high student mobility, high ELL, low SES, etc that have nothing to do with their personal effectiveness. The only way around some of that that is to test at the start and at the end of the year every single year. That still doesn’t control for classrooms of student from tougher circumstances who may not have as much bolstering at home.</p>
<p>All good points, saintfan. Not to mention the fact that in some of the schools in the local area, there is about a 50% turnover in the student population in the lower grades, between the beginning and the end of the year. So even the very sensible idea of testing at the beginning and the end would not work well, if one wanted to determine a teacher’s effectiveness. I think that it has to be said that any testing in the elementary grades is determining the combined effect of schooling + the student’s home and community environment. </p>
<p>I think it makes sense to evaluate teacher effectiveness when the subjects require a lot of work by the students, and when the influence of the student’s home environment is at least somewhat reduced. I was thinking of trigonometry as an example, but it would be important to determine whether the student had any out-of-school tutoring . . . then I had the amusing idea of a pre-test–for the parents!–to determine whether they remembered any trig. </p>
<p>I think a calculus teacher is bound to be labeled as “more effective” if at least 50% of the parents took calculus and at least 25% of the parents remember it.</p>
<p>In foreign languages, it’s highly relevant whether the language is spoken in the home, or by the student’s relatives. If neither of those applies, it’s relevant whether the parents took the language in school or not, and whether books in the foreign language are available in the home or not, even before the child is taking the language. There is also the question of whether the parents have an interest in promoting foreign language learning, and have provided tapes, videos, coloring books, etc. for the child.</p>
<p>Based on personal experience, I am not confident in the reliability of standardized testing. And high-stress standardized testing on topics that weren’t in the curriculum, because nobody had the materials in the first year of the test (as I understand the situation in New York)–well, that’s just crazy.</p>
<p>My youngest was only in private school for 3 years,( then she attended an alternative school for 6), but my oldest was in private schools through her masters degree.</p>
<p>Something I find very ironic considering, the elementary school that Bill Gates sent his kids to, only uses spelling & math quizzes in the upper grades, nothing like what the Gates Foundation pushes in the public schools.</p>
<p><a href=“http://teachersletterstobillgates.com”>http://teachersletterstobillgates.com</a></p>
<p>I read the letter and it was impossible to keep having the feeling, even though I know it’s wrong, that I was reading something in the Onion. Really unbelievable. </p>
<p>I know two girls, now in college, who were labeled “not reading at grade level” and referred for remedial help. In first grade. One of them, who was the youngest in the grade, was the top reader in her class by 4th grade. The other, who remembers standing in front of the class and being told to “Read, Susie, read!” by the teacher, as the letters blurred because of her tears, because she was unable to read, suffered long-lasting effects. I know from personal experience and long observation (including a sibling who suddenly became able to read in church on Sunday, and who started loudly reading aloud every word he could see), that reading is developmental and learning happens on its own schedule. My kids learned to read on their own schedule and they were absolutely unable to read before they were ready, no matter how good their pre-reading skills and no matter how much instruction was provided. First graders are expected to read, and no one takes into account that some kids are not ready in first grade, or even that a class of first-graders includes age differences of more than a year. </p>
<p>I can’t believe that kindergardeners benefit from more instructional hours, after a certain point. </p>
<p>Some kids aren’t ready to read till they are 7 or 8. Ten years later, they don’t look any different than those who taught themselves at 3.</p>
<p>@NYMomof2. Exactly! Reading is developmental and it can’t be rushed. My sister began reading at age 3. I didn’t read until first grade. Max didn’t read until 2nd grade. We read to our kids everyday from the time they were babies. Both were late readers and both have always scored in the top 99 percentile and beyond for reading. </p>
<p>I agree, Agentninetynine. In the Waldorf school system, reading is not even part of the curriculum until 4th grade, I believe. </p>
<p>A very wise teacher once told a room full of 4th grade parents to continue to read to our children as long as they would allow it. He said that being read to is a different experience than reading to oneself, and it is valuable.</p>
<p>There is this “click” component to reading capability. I have seen it happen many times.</p>
<p>The other thing I’ve learned is that math is also developmental. Apparently, kids are unable to learn calculus until a certain level of brain development has been attained, no matter how brilliant they are. </p>
<p>I imagine that most of the additional instruction these kindergardeners are receiving is related to reading, but maybe they’re trying to push their math abilities as well?</p>
<p>"There are simply no words to describe the ridiculousness of this letter. Have these educators lost all perspective? "
- Argentinetynine</p>
<p>No . . ." lost their minds!"</p>
<p>One of the other crazy repercussions of this is that more and more parents hold kids back even when they don’t have those edge of the cut-off birthdays. The holder backers are more likely to be the parents who have one at home and aren’t burdened with day care expenses so lower income schools may have younger kids who are less developmentally ready for some of the new expectations. Also, many of the more affluent kids who hold a year take one more year of “academic pre-K” to get a jump start. Up against that the true 5 year olds may have trouble stacking up.</p>
<p>That is a big factor, saintfan. It makes a big difference if a kid is 18 months older than another kid in the same grade. This has happened (my kid was never the older one). </p>
<p>If I were looking at this kind of educational environment, I might hold back my 5-yo until he was 6, too, and possibly ready for this. But first I would probably try for a private school or, if I could manage it, and reluctantly, homeschooling. </p>
<p>Insanity. I’m happy to say that my niece, in a NYC charter school, is getting lots of stage time and other non-test-related, age-appropriate activity.</p>
<p>I guess the motivation behind this is to evaluate teachers. I’ve had some experience with kids in public and private schools. From what I could tell, it was unusual for a teacher to change after having been granted tenure. There were always a few bad teachers, but the vast majority ranged from competent to superb, even after years of job security.</p>
<p>What I have found to be true is that, especially in the younger grades, the match between the teacher and student is of primary importance. </p>