<p>"The number of New York students passing state reading and math exams dropped drastically this year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards." ...</p>
<p>Catch 22</p>
<p>Educators responded with shock? Even someone without their education and credentials would have anticipated those results. Hopefully they will stay the course and not abandon their new standards due to the parents’ response. There should have been more public outcry when the test standards were so incredibly low. That will take longer than a year to fix.</p>
<p>When standards aligned testing started in the 1990s, scores were abysmal. Each year they increased as teaching became more targeted and as kids progressed through the standards at each grade. Now we had a huge shift to new and substantially different standards taught for the first time by teachers with only a patchwork standardized curriculum and little training on the new standards. The students were tested on their grade level standards without any coherence to previous content and tested using computers. Perhaps many of them did not have keyboarding or click and drag skills. Of course scores were low! And with curriculum, training, and practice scores will rise in subsequent years.
I don’t think it was wise for New York to do such wide scale testing this year. California did some pilot testing and the purpose was to improve the electronic delivery system. I believe the Common Core is good for student learning and we must push forward.</p>
<p>College & Career ready? Not so much.</p>
<p>I read the sample questions and answers. The math questions were fair and the answers clear. The ELA – not fair. I hope our school district ignores this nonsense.</p>
<p>[Superintendent</a> Dr. Teresa Thayer Snyder- Voorheesville, NY](<a href=“http://vcsd.neric.org/superintendent/superintendent.htm]Superintendent”>http://vcsd.neric.org/superintendent/superintendent.htm)</p>
<p>The superintendent, no less, of a NY school district explains what is really going on. When we allow corporate lobbyists to influence legislators via donation, it shouldn’t be a surprise that those corporations get a return on the investment. Works the same in education as it does in oil, pharmaceuticals, or banking. </p>
<p>Education isn’t a business, it’s a social service. But as more and more education companies get into the lucrative testing market, this will become commonplace, and the tests will even less meaningful. Testing, and testing supply, companies couldn’t care less about a child’s progress. They are selling a product that relies on our children’s failure for,their success. These companies, and lawmakers, are willing to create that failure in order to make money.</p>
<p>^She speaketh truth. </p>
<p>V’ville is my neighboring district and it is always considered one of the best districts in the area.</p>
<p>Superintendent Snyder sounds like a real educator with a lot of guts to stand up to the testing industrial complex.</p>
<p>We need those failures. Think future Walmart clerks.</p>
<p>How dare someone measure anyone objectively. Everyone is the best judge themselves of how they’re doing. </p>
<p>God help us. I think a majority of people actually believe this.</p>
<p>Don’t worry. In time, districts will figure out how to cheat on the new tests and scores will “magically” go up next year.</p>
<p>dadx, there is no such thing as an “objective” standardized test.</p>
<p>Last year, the same thing happened in Florida when the FCAT was revised, so they had to lower the passing grade. Kids aren’t learning what they need, they’re just learning how to pass.</p>
<p>“The students were tested on their grade level standards without any coherence to previous content and tested using computers. Perhaps many of them did not have keyboarding or click and drag skills.”</p>
<p>These were paper-pencil tests!</p>
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<p>You’re vastly ignorant of the socioeconomic costs and lost opportunity costs. But I’ll assume your very knowledgeable about Walmart employment.</p>
<p>I know what the Department of Labor says we will require most, and I know that our schools are doing a great job preparing our children for it.</p>
<p>Read one superintendent’s letter to state legislature…it says it all. This nonsense is out of control. NYS continues to spend so much money on all of the new testing, APPR etc, while at the same time reducing state aide to the schools. The students that did not meet the cutoffs for the new tests will now require AIS services (academic intervention service), which again is more expenses for the local districts. With the 2% tax cap imposed, where is this money supposed to come from?
<a href=“http://www.comsewogue.org/files/news/letter%20to%20sen.%20lavalle%20and%20attachment.pdf[/url]”>http://www.comsewogue.org/files/news/letter%20to%20sen.%20lavalle%20and%20attachment.pdf</a></p>
<p>Maybe part of the problem is schools who keep passing kids along when they haven’t learned what they should in a particular grade. If you take a 3rd grader who is performing at a 1st grade level and pass them onto 4th grade, even if they progress at a reasonable rate, they are not likely to meet the 4th grade standards. How about keeping them in 3rd grade until they can pass the 3rd grade test? Is the social stigma of being 1 or 2 years older than your classmates really that much worse than the stigma of being 1 or 2 years behind? Let the 4th grade teacher deliver the 4th grade curriculum to the students who are prepared for it, rather than using valuable time trying to help the stragglers catch up. If a parent resists, and insists the student is ready, don’t count that child against the teachers performance rating. </p>
<p>Yes, when new tests are introduced, scores will go down, and perhaps the newness of the test should be considered when setting the benchmarks. Teaching to the test isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if the test is well designed, and really tests what it should.</p>
<p>Cama, thanks for the link. I looked on my districts websites for our Superintendents response yesterday and was very disappointed to see him spouting the official lines. </p>
<p>It all about the money.</p>
<p>The 3rd grade math test had material that was previously taught in 6th grade. The 7th grade ELA had 9th grade level material. It’s not common core, it’s just giving younger kids advanced topics they haven’t been prepared for.</p>