@CT1417 , yes, she got a 5 on AP. She took the US History subject test in May last year also. I don’t know if June test date is helping, but maybe it did. She also got 5 in Biology, and 800 on its subject test in June. She thought she prepared them the same, which is not a lot and cramming at the end 
Maybe it is part of being STEM kid, some subjects are natural to you than others?
@Ynotgo I didn’t read the article, so I don’t know if it was only speaking about CA, but I live in a state where Common Core has been implemented for several yrs. (We moved here in 2013 and the schools had been completely digitized for at least 1 full school yr prior to that.) Every student in k-12 has either an iPad or a laptop. There are no textbooks. In most schools, especially middle and high school, teachers do not teach. They monitor. Students are spending all their time on Knovation and Discovery Education. There are horror stories of kids not understanding, asking for help, and teachers playing on their phones telling the kids to just rewatch the videos. My ds and dd have spent quite a bit of time tutoring these kids in math.
Is that common core’s fault? No, but apparently it is the only way the state felt it could successfully adopt the standards. (And justified the huge amt of $$ spent on the iPads and laptops). The local area (3 counties that I am familiar with) have very poor outcomes.
No way I would put a kid in the ps here. One of my friends had a sr last yr and she was not passing anything. People sat in the room helping her while she retook her computerized assessments so their graduation rate would not be impacted. She graduated and made a 14 on the ACT when took it. (Don’t even want to go there. But she is now at the CC and taking all remedial courses.)
Bc there are no textbooks, no paper trail, her parents had no idea what she was doing to get her help and the school was confrontational when she asked for something physical that showed what she supposed to be mastering.
What a mess! (Guess it is not surprising at all that in those 3 counties, only 3 total ps students this yr were NMF. All the rest were private school students.)
Tl;dr Common core might not be directly responsible, but the way it is being implemented is. More and more schools are relying on technology to do the teaching. I have been a non-expert teacher for a very long-time. I know first hand that technology teaching has its limits. Kids need more than videos explaining things and simple output. They need to verbalize their thoughts. They need discussion questioning their understanding.
(Of course the system will never admit the expenditure of so much $$ has led to poorer educational outcomes. A broken system just continues to become more broken. The most recent announcement in our county is a multimillion dollar expansion in technology to try and improve the delivery system.)
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Wow, just wow. I had no idea implementations were so bad elsewhere. That’s awful! I would certainly homeschool also.
I tell you, I have gained a lot of respect for homeschoolers since I joined CC. I was/am so underinformed on the topic. I see now it makes a lot of sense in lots of situations.
@srk2017 The RPI Medal value has gone up. I believe 4 years ago it was 15k per year. Their BS/MD is 3+4 and so you get only 3 years of it in that route.
Thanks! @SincererLove.
I am wondering if the Bio subject test is an easier test? Son took that in 9th grade after only taking Honors Bio. He did have to sit and teach himself a handful of topics that the teacher had not covered in Bio, but he scored a 790 on that as his first CB test (other than AP CS test for which he did not even open a book). This is the first standardized test I have seen him concerned about in three years and since several of the schools on his list require all testing history, he is trying to avoid a low score.
I also thought that either the USH AP or the subject test had changed so that the two no longer dovetailed as well, but can’t recall which.
@CT1417 I believe the APUSH test changed within the past couple years to put more emphasis on conceptual things such as understanding the interactions between events and the motivations of various groups when writing primary documents. The test is very reading intensive. The SAT II History test remains more memorization intensive. DS’ class has been more about understanding history, so I wouldn’t expect that he would do especially well on the subject test.
@texaspg - Yes, RPI medal value is $25,000 per year for 4 years but as you said only applies for 3 years if it’s BS/MD. However RPI annual cost is $68K. May not be worth compared to UCs.
We got a letter from school stating that DS is in top 9% of the class and eligible to participate in UC ELC program asked for permission to share the info with UC system!
And, for a non Californian, what is the UC ELC? Thanks.
Congrats in advance!
@srk2017 - only if there is an MD tied to it (I think UCs cost about 35-40k too without a scholarship?). A large percentage of Californians do leave the state to earn their MDs because there are simply not enough seats in Cal to accept them.
UC ELC (Education in the Local Context) means that a student will be admitted to at least UC Merced if not admitted to any other UC to which they apply.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I completely understand. I debated how involved I wanted to get on this forum as my fairly average student is not the CC norm. Schools we are looking at are often not mentioned here, we aren’t into academic camps, kids without a summer, ivy dreams, paying for prestige, rank or many of the things that seem valued by a certain contingent on CC. If you aren’t careful, you might think your child had no hope of going anywhere, much less a great school. Thankfully I have been both a hiring manager for a Fortune 500 company and a Development Manager for a much smaller but STEM intensive one. I know full well how little the actual school name means at the end of the day. It is the degree, the accreditation and what the student does with it that counts. It is the student themselves, can they actually work or are they just academic? Yes, certain schools can provide better internships, co ops, networks and a foot in the door. The vast majority of the world has to figure out what to do without some of that. It is not the worst thing in the world to do and I can tell you that our top performers come from all tiers. I have more respect for my engineers that took the full ride at the “less than” prestigious oos random state university to graduate debt free. Sure, the school name for some of the others might look better but you know what? There is an academic arrogance that can come with it that is a job hinderance as well.
The reality is, in my short time here I have learned SO much that has been beneficial for me that the rest of it is just noise I can easily ignore and pick and choose. I feel so much better prepared than I did 3 months ago it is amazing and I learn more each day. That said, not for the faint of heart in some respects and could easily be discouraging if not put into perspective.
@snoozn it was pretty cute. The teacher really was just as upset, and I can appreciate the “tough love”. I told him that S was pretty devastated and he said so was he…and that he may have had a couple of drinks that night as he was so sad and that he’s very attached. His students are his kids and one let him down.
@payn4ward, @Ynotgo that’s a depressing article! Like Ynotgo, we didn’t see any common core testing until 2015 although they did being curriculum changes back in 2012 to prepare for the new testing and rolled out over a couple of years. For us, the MS math curriculum was absolutely horrendous and we did have S17 tutored for Algebra 1. Like @Mom2aphysicsgeek we are highly digitized and that certainly poses problems in our mind, especially with math (and Physics for S17). We do get the occasional text book but it’s highly variable and sometimes only if the child requests it. I despise the iPads. They’ve had them since middle school and neither child wants to use them for homework, they want a real screen and keyboard. They are just school provided toys that everyone knows how to hack around.
Our district has made no secret that these tests will be harder than the state mandated ones that preceded them and to expect lower results (though designing to fail 70% absolutely makes me ill!). Our numbers as a state are definitely down. Significantly. Worse than the 70% quoted.
Our numbers as a district fared much better, with a downturn in 8th grade and younger but not nearly as drastic as you might expect given the dates. The poor class of 2016, tested in 2015 though did not fare well and hit that goal of 70% (+) in math. OUCH. Certainly better than the state numbers but still pretty darn ugly. S19 was part of the 8th grader guinea pigs for the new test. They dropped from 86% meeting standard in reading to 66% and 71% meeting standard in math to 56%. S17’s class took the tests in 10th grade as well but they aren’t reported globally as it’s basically for “out” purposes for graduation. If they pass in 10th, they don’t have to take it in 11th allegedly. I am not sure I believe that. S passed but it doesn’t show as “completed” from a graduation standpoint.
I guess the semi good news for us is it doesn’t really hit hard until 2019, kids have alternative test options to pass to meet state graduation standards and even in 2019 there is an alternative, just less of them.
I hadn’t really looked at this deeply, (or stepped back to look) we have been more focused on the curriculum issues (and iPads) and in pure selfishness…I just knew my kids did well and didn’t look at the larger picture. This is incredibly depressing!
tl;dr
Depressing article, some horrifying state info posted, glad my kids seem to be ok but UGH!
@ynotgo and @2muchquan, we would homeschool anyway bc I have never lived anywhere (even in VA) where the school system could offer what we can at home. Homeschooling, when done well, can have some serious advantages bc of the freedom to progress individually vs. at a classroom rate.
My kids have so much freedom. My current 11th grader read Paradise Lost in 8th grade and it is one of her all time favorite works. Reading epic poetry is something she just loves. (Marmion, Siege of Valencia, Idylls of the Kings…the list goes on.) We can create literature classes around those types of interests. This yr we have included a focus on fairy tales. She read Grimm’s and Jacobs in English and Perrault in French. She is currently reading Russian folk tales in Russian. She has read several books on anaylzing fairy tales. We have had a great time doing it! (And fairy tales pack in a lot of cultural history and allusions. A lot to chew on.)
Our ds created 3 different astronomy courses. He was able to skip 200 level astronomy courses at his university after talking to the professor bc he used the exact same textbooks at home. They let him jump into the 400 level sequence. 
But, yes, some places just have really pathetic schools (and here is just about the worst I have seen).
(I hate not being able to edit posts. 99.9% of the time when I post I am multitasking. Sorry, I committed my own biggest pet peeve–try and vs try to. )
@Mom2aphysicsgeek your kids are lucky to have you. I couldn’t do it and truly admire those who do. How do they balance the social aspect of it?
@eandesmom Thank you for your post describing what you see. My dh and ds both say they witness the exact same thing at work.
All I have to say about Common Core is that I’m relieved my youngest is a junior and that we have been fortunate enough to send our kids to private high school. Our state’s educational woes are deeply ingrained. Sadly, nothing seems to improve. Roughly 35% of our local high school’s graduates attend college. Fewer graduate. The students time and time again complain that they were not prepared to meet the rigors of our local state schools, much less the flagship. Many struggle at community college. And even the brightest, cannot write at acceptable levels. I’ve looked over many an essay and have been shocked and disheartened by the writing levels.
The Spykids attended a small public elementary school where the teachers were solid and forward thinking. Two of the top teachers asked the parent group to fund a morning snack program that had had good results in New Mexico. Every morning the entire school, including teachers, were offered a healthy snack. Tardies dropped, attendance improved and so did test scores. Turns out, kids learn better when they’re not hungry. We were able to do this because it was a small school.
There are solutions to the public schooling crisis, but we won’t find them in more testing. Rant over
Yes, good on you @Mom2aphysicsgeek for figuring it out.
I would probably be in jail or a mental hospital if I had to teach my 2 kids. My wife wouldn’t last 1 day on the job. Fortunately, our town’s schooling is quite good and we have had mostly good experiences.
One thing I wish our high school had would be some sort of meeting or class for parents of freshman that want to learn the ins and outs of the college process earlier on, so that you could better plan for child’s time during their 9-12 years. It’s not well done in our system, and I’ve had to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. The whole process is a lot more complex than when I went to college.
The biggest shocker to me was just how many kids were loading up honors level classes as freshmen and now how many of the kids are fully stacked with AP classes as juniors and seniors. My son is a bright, nice young man who is sort of a late bloomer. He wasn’t selected for a lot of honors as a freshman. We didn’t push for it. He did well his freshman year and got put into more difficult classes afterwards. But, his class rank suffered his freshman year because even though he got good grades, there were so many other kids getting good grades at the all honors level.
He really has no chance of securing a high class rank now.Some of the schools he wants to attend look at class rank, and frankly his not very good even though he has a 3.7 uw gpa. Learning that, we pushed for my younger son to take some more rigorous classes as a freshman and have figured out his high school track for him earlier.
Also, I was also surprised that the school lets kids “opt out” of including 1 class from their gpa. So, for instance, if you took Baking 101, and you don’t want that grade counted against your gpa because it is not an honors level class, you can just opt out at the beginning of the year. That way the 4.0 top grade in baking doesn’t drag down the possible 5.0 scores from honors level gpa, but the class still counts as completed on your transcript So, now that I’ve figured out that “hack” I am using it next year with my older son, and my younger son will be able to benefit for the next 3 years.
It’s quite the game!
@srk2017 congrats (thanks @mtrosemom mom for asking, I didn’t know either)
@eandesmom thanks for sharing your input about your ‘average’ child. I think there are many lurkers here who are afraid to post because their kids don’t have the stats that it seems the majority on cc have. I would hope that here on this parent thread we can all contribute and support each other whether our kids decide on a community college or an Ivy League. It doesn’t matter if our kids get mediocre grades and SAT scores, we should all be rooting for each other because it’s our kids and we just want the best for them for whatever ability they have. So if your kid struggled to just pass a final exam, I will be here congratulating you on that achievement.
Ok, done
Go green8, I second your sentiment