A friend of a friend of a friend passed this along, hoping I might be able to answer the question about the appropriateness of this test question in second grade.
What do you think?
“Please read a question on a quiz that my 7 year old son in the 2nd grade got wrong and tell me if I’m crazy for thinking that the testing and vocabulary have gone a bit nutso?”
Kings and queens COMMISSIONED Mozart to write symphonies for celebrations and ceremonies. What does COMMISSION mean?
A. to force someone to do work against his or her will
B. to divide a piece of music into different movements
C. to perform a long song accompanied by an orchestra
D. to pay someone to create artwork or a piece of music
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They need some questions that virtually every one gets wrong??? Maybe this is one of those. The whole idea of 7 year olds knowing about Mozart’s work is absurd. (A) looks pretty good to me.
Actually, A would apply to those of us who are having to administer these assessments,
I think A is the right answer to ALL the questions on the test.
If you read the sample test exemplars for NY’s common core assessments on EngageNY, you will note that most are not written anywhere near grade level. The vocabulary is unreachable and in some samples the language is archaic. It is not possible for a young child to do a “close read” if the materials are beyond their reach and they have no experience with the vocabulary. How many third graders do you know who know what a “hoarfrost” is???
I knew what hoarfrost was when I was in 3rd grade, because I played Dungeons and Dragons. I mean the old school game, not this 4th edition crap. It was written with college level vocabulary!
Teresa – It’s interesting you used the word archaic. NYS put explicitly in their guidance documents about the sample questions that: Passages for these ELA sample questions were taken from public domain sources, while passages for the state assessments can be drawn from copyrighted material. As such, some sample passages may include antiquated language, outdated topics, and other shortcomings. Many are also well-read texts with which teachers and students may be very familiar. This is not indicative of a shift on future state assessments. (http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/common-core-sample-questions/)
The sample items are not meant to be seen by students. They were provided as tools for adults to get a sense of the next text complexity. Odds are very good that if a word like “hoarfrost” appears on a state assessment, a definition will be provided for students.
What’s a hoarfrost?
Isn’t it the same as the hoary dew that one finds in the morning on the plants and such?
You don’t need to know what the word means in order to determine that options B and C are wrong (as the actors are the kings and queens, not Mozart himself). That leads to a 50/50 chance of getting it right for a kid who doesn’t actually know the word.
That’s a pretty complex thinking process for a seven year old.
What’s the point anyway? It’s a waste of time and can also demoralize a seven year old.
I made sure I exposed ALL types of music to my kids from a very young age. But I’m not sure any of them would have associated the words Mozart and symphonies with music at the ripe old age of 7. Nor had they learned test taking strategies such as eliminating the 2 obvious wrong answer on bubble tests as you suggest. I am thankful for that.
I tested very well as a child, and continue to do very well on bubble tests as an adult on those rare occasions where I have to take them. Not inhumanly well, but very well. Of course this makes me a walking argument against corporate education reform, since I was a great success at any standardized test thrown my way but ended up being just a teacher — and we all know how stupid THEY are!
They made him an Officer in the Royal Drum And Bugle Corps.
They made him Officer. He couldn’t refuse.
Absolutely ridiculous. Mozart, symphonies, commissioned….seven year olds? Who is writing this and why?
My daughter failed a textbook provided test on complete sentences when she was in THIRD grade. The district superintendent and I ran the test through a readability formula and found the test was written at a HIGH SCHOOL reading level.
Who failed here? My daughter, the textbook company, or the teacher? (I argue it was the second and third.)
What was the failure of the teacher? Using district-mandated materials? I agree with you that this is ridiculous, I am simply looking for clarification as to why the teacher is to blame.
Teacher implementing uncritically whatever textbook co. provides.
agreed.
They did a study that showed forcing your two year old to watch Baby Mozart had absolutely no benefit. Oh contare, it’s payday, they get a multiple choice test question right in second grade. If this is the cultural richness of modern life, pass me the bong.
It’s a preposterous question for 2nd graders. Unless they know something of Mozart’s biography–not likely–then A and D are equally reasonable. Context clues don’t help a bit.
I just asked my art class, 3rd grade, who knew who Mozart was, most of them didn’t. I also gave them this question, as a group they got it right by deduction and discussion but on their own
I don’t think most of them could have.
The argument could certainly be made that the question is culturally biased, although to be fair we don’t know if it came immediately after a reading on Mozart.
Was this a Pearson developed question?
The more I think about this, the more I am bothered. To many seven year olds, Mozart is probably a name for a dog, and none of this would make sense to them.
My 4th grader came home with a sample question involving two kids eating pizza. It was testing on whether 3/8 is greater or less than 1/4. The directions said to show the portions of pizza eaten by the two kids. Maybe, I am just too literal but wouldn’t it have been better for them to show the uneaten portions? Otherwise, you might get a drawing of poopie showing what pizza looks like after it has been eaten.
That was funny…thanks. I needed that.
Ironic there would be a question about music, since that’s one of the subjects being cut out of the curriculum.
Just out of curiosity, I copied that question and answer into Word and ran the readability statistics on it. The Flesch Reading Ease was 59.8% and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level was grade 7.1.
Yes, I know the built in F-K grade level is not an exact science and this was a short passage. However, it does provide a quick “ballpark” look at readability. This one is nowhere even close to 2nd grade.
It would be interesting to talk to test producers about questions like this–are they put in just to see how many second graders are reading (and have vocabulary) above grade level? Is it an item that they the producers are “testing” to see how appropriate it is when they do an item analysis? Are they checking for validity? We may never know.
Have you had the pleasure of visiting the PARCC website to get a glimpse of the next round of assessment insanity to be paired with the Common Core insanity?
http://www.parcconline.org/samples/item-task-prototypes
I do think teachers and parents are waking up to the horrors of Common Core. If the PARCC assessments do not just go away, (That would be my preference.) I hope it’s the “reformers” last and final “innovation”. Enough, already!
Hard for me to respond without knowing the context. Was this a question on a statewide test? Was it a question on a test for a school where students had been studying Mozart and other musicians? It is a challenging question for many 7 year olds but I would need to know more of the context before responding.
Test it out on the charter second grade “scholars” and get back to us.
Why just charter school 2nd graders? Again, I’d like to know context. Is it a statewide test? A local school test?
This thread is about the Common Core and charter schools are exempt from the Common Core in most districts, so they won’t be subjected to those tests.
Increased standards and high-stakes testing are intended for public schools, not for unregulated charters. This is the double standard that will ensure the failure and closing of neighborhood public schools and the opening of more charters to the benefit of for-profiteers and non-profiteers.
Joe Nathan keeps asking, “Again, I’d like to know context. Is it a statewide test? A local school test?”
Joe, what part of national voluntary state Common Core assessments don’t you understand (irony alert)? Did you miss the whole Race to the Top?
Nobody knows what they’re going to be, but we’re told the train has already left the station, so everybody has to “prepare” like they are the Coming of Gozor. But if you think about it, nobody much has asked exactly who would be using these assessment boundaries, and for what purpose.
If you’re serious about being clueless, here’s my Edweek guest blog, from back in July, trying to unravel how the Common Core got mandated.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/07/the_gates_foundations_educatio.html
Yes, I know a fair amount about Common Core. I was responding to concerns about a specific question that was being discussed and criticized. I still don’t know what the source of the question is about kings and queens commissioning Mozart.
Most likely test prep drill and kill for 7 year olds…..would most know Mozart? Symphonies? Commissioned from context? The interpretation from adults so far has been more than one answer, so how are 7 year olds supposed to figure it out and who cares? Maybe they should be in an art class, signing, playing an instrument, conducting an experiment, solving a hands on math problem, reading a book, or running on the playground. Maybe that is a better way to spend the school day.
Linda, the answer is D. It is possible to eliminate B and C by using context clues even if you don’t know the word “commission”. I didn’t mean to suggest that A could be the right answer.
We got a question which defied common sense, even for a 7-year old:
“If it snowed 12 inches in December, ABOUT how many inches did it snow?”
She thought it was a trick question. Teach to the test much?
If this is a result of the common core then the answer is “A” regardless of the question. Enough said.
I complained to ETS once about a test for Kindergartners that I thought was biased because it expected 5 year olds to be able to identify a ruby. (None of my low income kids could identify it and I didn’t think it appropriate to include gemstones among the different kinds of rocks they studied in KG.)
ETS said it was a question that was included in order to control for SES bias and which was balanced by the inclusion of a question where children were to identify a bottle of beer. I thought that was just pandering to SES stereotypes, not controlling for bias.
Maybe the question about kings and queens commissioning Mozart was thrown in to control for SES bias and there is another question somewhere about how labor unions are bad for serfs in a feudal economy.
Really? Did you save the correspondence? That would be priceless. Did they have to identify the brand of malt liquor or just that it was beer?
I spoke to them on the phone. The correct answer was “beer.” Brand names were considered to be incorrect. (There were more questions like those, too.)
These tests are created by adults who think they know what each grade level should be able to know. I don’t know about anyone else but if I had a seven year old, he or she should know by heart the Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights because if they did, they would all have lawsuits filed against these reformers and their complaints would be the shot heard around our nation. How absurd can a question be? What is the relevance of it? **Sigh**
Some of Mozart’s music was commissioned by an emporer an an empress, but I don’t recall “kings and queens” commissioning his work.
In fact when a king wanted him, he refused to abandon the emperor according to this bio: http://www.nndb.com/people/872/000024800/ (and no mention of queens except a piece he dedicated as a child)
Thank you. We absolutely MUST argue semantics here since one wrong word will bring down a score thus tragically branding a student and his teacher with a lower “scarlet letter.”
Why can’t we collectively sue Pearson et al. and any other responsible party (such as the policy makers who utilize this drivel as indications of school funding and job-worthiness) already for this nonsense? Where is that Labor Lawyer fellow who posts here when we need him? Is there enough evidence yet for a class-action lawsuit against the testing corporate and its henchmen? ENOUGH!
D.
However, I could see many students selecting A.
I think there are more disturbing observations to be made about this question. First, the reading level is not appropriate for 7 year olds. The question is far to difficult and pushing children at that age is developmentally unsound. Second, in second grade music class children should be singing and exploring instruments. They should be experiencing music and learning their scales. They should not be answering factoid multiple choice questions in order to test their vocabulary.
Exactly! I can’t wait for all the 2013 questions to come out, you know it’ll be a mess!! What’ll be so great though is that our smart students will remember the questions and share their absurdity!!!
And they will…they have great memories and attention to detail. Smarter than Pearson, that’s for sure!
When I started teaching I learned from a wonderful veteran teacher. She was given a formula to use to create grade level tests. The same formula that was used to create grade level textbooks. All of our authentic assessments were created using this formula! What formula do these new education gurus use??
btw that was 25 years ago.
Out of curiosity, because I’m not an elementary specialist, could you share some research or firsthand knowledge of how pushing 2nd grade students is developmentally unsound? I know that tone is hard to read on the internet, but I am not being facetious. I am curious to know at what age students can be pushed beyond their level and to read about the developmental outcomes of pushing 2nd grade students. Thank you.
I’d start with looking through literature on Early Childhood; according to NAEYC, Early Childhood is considered to be up to Age 8, so second grade would be part of that domain.
There are fairly definite ages and stages that children go through – not always at the same rates, naturally, but some generalizations have been made over the years by a number of different early childhood researchers: Piaget, Erickson, Dewey, Vygotsky, and I also recommend reading Maria Montessori’s work. Each of these researchers and teachers has a slightly different background and approach that informed his/her work, and I learned a lot from each of them that has informed my own thoughts about the importance of appropriate early childhood education.
Given that humans go through different stages of development at different (approximate) ages, and that neurological development is part and parcel of that process, IMO it stands to reason that there can be negative consequences for inappropriately pushing children places they are not developmentally ready to go. For many kids, reading (decoding skills is what I’m talking about here) happens fairly naturally around age 7, although some kids pick it up earlier (I was a fluent reader at 2YO, as was my first child; my 2nd began sounding out simple CVC words at 3YO but is pretty much on track with her peers at almost-8YO).
But we tend to neglect the psychosocial side of children in schools, which IMO is leading to some AWFUL consequences, socially and behaviorally and possibly neurologically, for these children. At 7YO there should still be a fair amount of unstructured time for learning and experimenting and creating and PLAYING and interacting with peers, and now we tend to cut that off around age 5 in schools.
I don’t have specific links, only my own anecdotal experience, but I would love it if someone could provide them, as it’s an area that concerns me greatly.
Thanks, tiedyedeb — what you wrote is helpful to think about. It has been awhile since I’ve read Erickson, Vygotsky, et al. (I was also reading fluently around 2 and writing at 3, and as you may have read down-thread, perhaps I’m out of the loop with elementary ed. targets). But your comment about the psychosocial experience and of children just EXPERIENCING music is an important one. Sometimes I would like it if our society would provide more opportunities for us adults to experience the good things in life more often, too. 🙂
Actually, from a musical developmental standpoint, in a 2nd-grade general music class there should be more exploration and little to no “learning scales” outside of private lessons. Exposure to notation, sure, but mostly singing and playing and dancing and just EXPERIENCING music. Developmentally there is plenty of time for the scales stuff later – assuming there is still music class AFTER 2nd grade, anyway (that it hasn’t been cut).
I’ve never heard a 7 yr old use the word commission ever in my life. Insane.
Decoding half these words would be the first challenge. I doubt seven year olds can decode the wrong choices in choice c…..accompanied? orchestra? Maybe in context but not well in this format.
Just finished reading Todd Farley’s MAKING THE GRADES: MY MISADVENTURES IN THE STANDARDIZED TESTING INDUSTRY.
I think I am ready for my first foray into writing a test question.
If an Emperor Hare hires a musical Pineapple to write a song about shirts, the Pineapple would call the song: A), Greensleeves; B), Long Sleeves; C), Bare Biceps R Us; D), Sleeveless in Seattle.
According to Pearson there is only one correct answer. Rubric will be provided after the question is administered.
Scorers: don’t hold your breath.
Obviously D – because Seattle & Hawaii are both Pacific Ocean-y places… and the Pineapple is most likely familiar with Hawaii.
Whew.
But if I change my mind later I won’t be able to go back and change my answer. It’s all forward now. Click and move on.
Cheryl: you are correct!
🙂
But your reasoning is only half right.
😦
A Pineapple, regardless of its musical ability, doesn’t have arms. Hence wouldn’t desire or require or care about shirts that have any kinds of sleeves, green or long. And no arms means no biceps. So trust me when I say—and the education trust at Pearson has already backed me up on this—the only shirt a Pineapple would be inclined to honor in song would be one without sleeves of any kind in a Pacific Ocean-y place.
But you seem eager to learn so I hesitate to counsel you out of the classroom at this time. Might I suggest retaking your five weeks of teacher training? Personally, I would recommend the Advanced SLANT refresher course myself. Otherwise you may be falling short of adding sufficient value to our most valuable assets and failing to provide a reasonable ROI.
I know you can measure up if you just try hard enough.
Priceless! You’re right about that refresher course. But don’t you think five weeks is a bit much? Maybe just another Webinar followed by ten thoughtful questions could do the job. All this bluster about “experienced teachers” is so annoying. Who needs experience when all this youthful enthusiasm is so cheaply brought on board?
Thirty years it is that I have been teaching children. I feel that I am still learning & striving to be a better teacher – still honing my craft after three decades. It’s important what we do. Drive-by educators need not apply.
If I wanted to design a “test” that would “conclusively demonstrate” the “failure” of pie schools, THIS is what I’d create. And then my my preconceived narrative would be “validated”, with only one “solution”: the Privatization of our schools, of course… 😉
I meant to say “public schools”; not “pie” schools.
I’m somewhat saddened by the majority of comments to this post. I am currently a district administrator, and I taught for ten years before that. I have two master-level degrees; I speak multiple languages and play multiple instruments; and my teaching specialty is science. I started playing my first instrument at age three, and I certainly knew who Mozart was by the age of seven. I am fairly certain I would have been able to decipher the meaning of commissioned, and I tested at an 8th grade reading leve in grade 2 and was reading with ease and writing well before Kindergarten. My 2nd grade teachers were scared when they received my reading test results, because they didn’t know what to do with me.
I realize that by this point in my comment, I’ve probably alienated many people. I’m not trying to be smug, but I wanted to provide some personal context. I absolutely understand that I enjoyed some privileges as a child — namely, that my stay at home mother taught me how to read, write, and compute at an early age, and that my parents went out of their way to get me a musical education when I begged to learn my first instrument. This did not come from a great deal of class privilege, however. My parents were first-generation immigrants, and they didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up. I enjoyed a degree of cultural privilege, wherein my parents sacrificed many of their own material needs for my benefit.
I absolutely do not believe that standardized tests accurately measure student or teacher achievement. I believe I have a deep understanding of cultural bias and various forms of privilege. Yet, when I read comments like the ones on this thread, I am disheartened. I feel as though you (commenters) want to set the bar so incredibly low for American students. I am not a multi-hyphenate just because of my parents’ influence, but BECAUSE I had the great fortune of attending some incredible schools — both in the US and overseas. It was precisely my schooling that exposed me, a second-generation immigrant to other cultures (though I in no way advocate for a Western-centric view of the world). It is also the place where I became deeply interested in foreign languages, literature, performing arts, and much more. It is precisely BECAUSE of my schooling that I developed into that oft-cited “lifelong learner.”
There is a difference between acknowledging that certain children do not have exposure to a certain lexicon or access to Western cultural knowledge vs. aiming for the lowest common denominator. Rather than saying children “shouldn’t” know or be able to do certain things, why do we not instead work on creating rich, fulfilling learning environments that allow students to know and be able to do so very much more than what is currently being expected of them? I think it’s remarkable, for example, that a parent would not expect her 3rd-grader to know what a complete sentence looks like. Am I just that out of the loop with what elementary education standards look like these days? Or does this explain why I spent much of my early elementary days being bored to death?
I was incredibly aware, as that high-performing 2nd grader, of how inadequate my school was at that time, and of how scared my teachers were of dealing with me. I was frustrated by my peers who could barely read and struggled to learn single digit multiplication. And I am in NO WAY a “genius.” I was just an accelerated learner. I am almost certain that if I knew a group of adults were banding together to ensure that my learning standards would be changed to match the lowest common denominator or that those adults complained about vocabulary words that I already knew, I’d feel very sad.
I’m mainly typing this as I think, so this isn’t a fully fleshed out perspective. I welcome and assume there will be some loud arguments to what I’m writing. I suppose that some of you may argue that accelerated students enjoy many opportunities that less privileged students never get to experience. But I have lived that childhood where there was nothing for me to do, and where being academically or intellectually engaged made you a social reject in some parts of the American schooling system. Fortunately, in the international school I attended, one’s popularity grew the “smarter” one was. I find the comments on this thread to be reflective of the general American anti-intellectual sentiment. In my job, I often hear teachers say, “my kids shouldn’t have to know what decommissioned means; they should just be having fun!” How do you get into the profession of education if you don’t think learning is fun?
There is nothing wrong with setting high standards for students, as long as we can provide them with adequate guidance and direction on how to meet those standards. (For teachers, that of course means they are given the material, human, and intellectual resources to accomplish their objectives). I don’t believe every child progresses at the same pace, and that is why I think it is fallacious to say “a 7-year old shouldn’t … fill-in-the-blank.” I have personally experienced learning environments where I could progress at my own pace or where my teachers expected me to learn material that supposedly exceeded the mental capacity prescribed for my grade level. Guess what — I thrived. Why don’t we look for what the possibilities are rather than precluding our students from ever thriving by assuming they can’t or shouldn’t be able to do certain things? Although I don’t at all endorse the way standardized tests are being mis-used and mis-analyzed to describe student and teacher performance, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having test questions above a student’s level. They’re called screening exams — and they give students something to aspire to.
So … let me know why you disagree or how I’m wrong!
Do you not recognize yourself as an outlier? Your experience probably does not represent the typical experience of a second grader. If you suggested that perhaps the question was meant to test the upper limits, that is legitimate. If standardized tests were being used the way they should be, there probably would not be such angst attached to their contents. Because they are being used inappropriately, people are anxious that they at least come close to testing something they can recognize as within the world of the children being tested. No one is suggesting that instruction or exposure to experiences be limited to those that naturally fall into a child’s world. Teachers continually introduce children to new ideas and experiences that don’t come with a grade level label. You were fortunate to have a family that valued a rich cultural life and took advantage of the resources in the community. I imagine that you were a bit of an anomaly to the typical second grade classroom, and, unfortunately, your teachers were not prepared with the resources and/or experience to give you the same rich attention you received at home.
2old2tch:
I originally started by reply by writing, “Yes, I was definitely an outlier. There’s no question about that.” But, as I think a little more about things, I’m hesitant to simply agree that I was an outlier. Does that mean my opinions and experience don’t matter, despite the fact that I have worked in education for 15 years and researched school culture extensively? I’m not actually sure that I was an outlier in the true sense of the word Perhaps for my particular elementary school, but probably not nationally or internationally. But … quantifying cognitive ability in narrow ways is not really what I want to focus on.
As I think I tried to address in my original comment, I’m not advocating for cultural bias on exams, nor a curriculum full of archaic and/or Western concepts. Truly, if I were in charge of this crazy show, I would eliminate the use of standardized tests as a way to measure student achievement or teacher effectiveness. I don’t believe in our traditional grading system, nor in public education as a “sorting system” by which our capitalist economy can shove our graduates into the wrong social strata.
The overall point I’m trying to make is in opposition to your claim, “No one is suggesting that instruction or exposure to experiences be limited to those that naturally fall into a child’s world.” I just don’t believe this is true, or perhaps the fear of inappropriately deployed high-stakes tests have made otherwise wonderful teachers and parents communicate inaccurately. I’m curious to know what you hear when you read the statements that begin with, “No 7 year should have to ….” or that end with “… that’s completely absurd.” I’m not really arguing that 7 year olds should or should not know Mozart. I think the question Diane posted was plucked out of a test, and do we really know what the other questions looked like? I think Mozart, in this thread, is just a stand in for just about anything for people who continually express sentiments that restrict what a 7 year old should and shouldn’t know. One example from my district: a 4th grade teacher said, “there’s no way my students could every understand the concept of social class.” Really?! I’m sure she didn’t ever try to find out whether she was right or not. THIS is the attitude that worries me, and despite the fact that I think the Common Core and standardized tests are not helpful, I am concerned that the people with this attitude will hide behind their hatred for CCSS/the tests as a way to promote their limited thinking about what students can or can’t do.
Maybe what I’m concerned about is how much of this spills over into the classroom. How many teachers are telling their students, “you shouldn’t have to know that,” or, “it’s crazy that we have to do this.” Even if they don’t say it explicitly, does the message come out implicitly? And what does that do to a student’s general impression of his/her learning environment or attitude toward education?
Pitter, if I may…I think you are fixating on a detail and making an assumption about “all teachers.” Even such a highly educated over-achiever should know the dangers of making generalizations. You make a valid point about characterizing “what students should and should not know” at a specific developmental age, however one must start with some level-expectations as a guide. Structure is necessary when dealing with a differentiated classroom. Without some sort of curricular guidelines, students (unless academically exceptional) will not be able to process or solidify learning. Perhaps by some sort of luck or with extremely supportive parents the more gifted students might have a clue eventually.
There is plenty of knowlege and skill-building in music education that simply cannot be imparted in the way that would be necessary for any child to know every last thing. There simply aren’t enough hours in a day. One must weigh the relevance of such knowledge in the grand context of what we are trying to accomplish in music education. To pick out a tidbit of information about “the commissioned works by Mozart” and pass that off as relevant learning without addressing how it may exist at the exclusion of everything else a child of seven can learn about music, culture, history, etymology, etc. is a fool’s errand.
LG: I can’t tell if your description of me as a “highly educated over-achiever” is a dig or not — and I don’t like the term “over-achiever.” Are you a music educator? I also play with a community symphony, so I am somewhat aware of what is involved in musical education, from the student perspective. It wasn’t clear to me that the question originally posted was from a music class, but maybe that’s my oversight.
I don’t think I’m making generalizations about “all teachers,” and if I miscommunicated that, I apologize. I haven’t met enough public school teachers to make that kind of generalization. I am generalizing, however, based on the majority of comments on this thread, and the majority of my interactions with teachers in the district where I currently work.
I disagree that I am fixating on a detail (if you are suggesting that the detail is the “No 2nd grader should know …” phrase), because that particularly detail — or variation of it — is repeated again and again. On this blog, on other blogs, in classrooms, on the street. I think I am just trying to suggest a change in our framing language. (If you were suggesting I was fixating on Mozart … nah, I don’t really think I can comment on the relevance of Mozart and his commissioned works in the 2nd grade curriculum. I’m just saying it’s not “insane” or “ridiculous” for some 2nd graders to know who he is or answer the question).
And, for anyone else reading, I am receptive to your criticism and to learning more about what teachers believe and what is going on in our system.
You are right to be concerned if the thrust was an attempt to control what a child can or cannot learn. As soon as that is said, ten exceptions to the rule will pop up. I disagree with a rhetoric that “demands” high standards of second graders. What the heck does that mean?! More importantly, what should a quality educational experience look like for a seven year old child?
Pitter K, Your post basically sums up all that is injust with common core, standardized testing, and teacher evaluations. Your parents instilled a love of learning in you at a young age. In a public school class of 30, not every 2nd grader would necessarily have the same reading level, cognitive ability, or knowledge of Mozart as you did. That is what makes these tests so arbitrary to begin with. Our children come to school with different life experiences and background knowledge.
To answer your question, yes, you are completely out of the loop. Before we create an environment of rich, fulfilling learning environments ( which dare i say the majority of our teachers do), we have many american children coming to school without their basic needs met. Complete sentences? I have kids who show up to school on the first day without a pencil. Commisioning Mozart? I have kids whose only form of entertainment is playing Modern Warfare video games with dad on the couch. Anti- intellectual sentiment? Let me just make sure that the students who came to school hungry have something to eat for breakfast, and then we can get right to the intellectual stuff.
MisterV:
I think we are in complete agreement when it comes to your first paragraph. I agree that the way CCSS/testing/evaluations are being used is not helpful to the profession of education, I agree that our children come with hugely disparate backgrounds, and I also believe that the current reform movement does not promote educational equity and instead serves the needs of the ruling class.
I am genuinely surprised, though, to hear that a 3rd grader should not be expected to know what a complete sentence is. And as I wrote in my reply to 2old2tch, I don’t care about Mozart — I was just using that because it came up in the original post.
I hear what you’re saying about getting childrens’ basic needs met, and I don’t believe that that responsibility should really fall on the education profession. (Well, not solely). Public health, social services, the medical profession, etc. should all be involved — as they are all trying — in improving socioeconomic conditions that can then translate to improved educational equity. (Or … it happens the other way around or in tandem).
Maybe what I am trying to ask is, can’t we demand BOTH things — that our children get their basic needs met AND are exposed and held to high academic and intellectual standards? When people testify in state assemblies and say, “No 2nd grader should have to know about blah blah, because they don’t have that exposure at home, let alone a pencil,” I feel like it sets up a false dichotomy and doesn’t give the right impression about the comprehensive outcomes teachers should want for their students. Someone earlier said it was “insane” for a 7 year old to use the world “commissioned.” I hope that commenter was being hyperbolic, and it makes me feel sad for the 7 year old who is made to feel she is “insane” for having a large vocabulary.
The question of socioeconomic equity is one larger than the field of education. Teachers should fight that fight, too, but if they do so and limit their curriculum using SES disparities as an excuse, I have a problem with that. I think this is where differentiation and supports come into play. And I’m not ignoring the fact that public education is grossly underfunded. I am just not sure that the teachers who say, “No 2nd grader should know this” would change what they do even if they had all the money and supports in the world.
Good points, Pitter K.
Pitter, no. Teaching a gifted child to show off shallow “comprehension” on empty items like this is child abuse. I suspect your own confusion might be the result of such misdirection, if you are indeed the delightful aged-out prodigy you describe.
Have you ever looked at Alice Miller’s book, “The Drama of the Gifted Child”? Even though outliers are rare by definition, out of thousands of students, we will all have some who are a few in a thousand. Miller’s book helped me understand and help some of my gifted students from more middle class backgrounds than my own.
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=1811645&matches=251&cm_sp=works*listing*title
My own experience was different from yours, and from Miller’s, and it encouraged me to understand early that not only I was original and different, so was everybody else.
Everybody is different, but truth and depth don’t come from data-driven curricula. My Daddy read me my first non-fiction book when I was five. It was Bill Mauldin’s “Up Front”, and he explained it by telling me the stories of his own experiences as an eighteen year old recruit. Should anybody ever write a multiple choice item about, “Joe, yesterday you saved my life and I swore I’d pay you back. Here’s my last pair of dry socks”?
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?keyword=up+front+bill+mauldin&mtype=B&hs.x=21&hs.y=13&hs=Submit
Whoops, I didn’t mean to make the comments thread so unwieldy. I wanted to raise concern about one other comment I saw on this thread and hear in real life. It’s the one that goes, “if adults can’t figure this out, how can we expect 2nd graders to know this?”
Are we actually assuming that the average American adult received a terrific education, is a lifelong learner, and is the archetype of what good learning outcomes look like?
I once talked to an angry parent who was upset that her daughter failed a quiz on the metric system. Her argument was, “I don’t even know what a centimer is, so why should my daughter know what it is?” This type of thinking pervades much of the angst I hear about CCSS. (I’m much more engaged by the anti-capitalist arguments than I am the anti-intellectual ones).
Let’s not pretend that the arguments against the CCSS/new assessments are exclusively legitimate, helpful ones that are trying to preserve some kind of well-rounded, rich curriculum for students. I wouldn’t go as far as to use words like “insane,” “ridiculous,” and “preposterous” about Mozart as other people on this thread have done. I would perhaps say culturally inappropriate or grade inappropriate — though as Joe Nathan tried to express, I would think that context and background matters. Nobody was willing to engage his point.
We should always be rooting these conversations in what students are capable of knowing and doing, and what knowledge and skills are going to help them think critically and hopefully, democratically. So, do we really want to compare our students’ potential to what a “typical” adult can or can’t do?
My more detailed comment awaits moderation, but to call this question ridiculous isn’t anti-intellectual. It’s not an intellectually distinguished question at all.
At seven, it would have been immediately clear to me, and to any other child raised in a military household, that the best answer is A. Lieutenant Mozart, once he was commissioned, would be subject to military discipline and certainly had no choice in what he wrote for the kings and queens.
I don’t know, chemtchr. I’m inclined to agree that the question itself isn’t intellectually distinguished at all. But there is literally NO context for this question. In my personal experience, words like “ridiculous” and “insane” get commonly used when people don’t take the time to explain why they think something is inappropriate. Now I am a broken record and will probably stop commenting on this thread, but … I just don’t find the “it’s ridiculous that any 2nd grader should have to know this” type of comment sufficient or helpful.
Your explanation about why you would have chosen answer A made me chuckle. 🙂 I personally find arts patronage to be an interesting subject … but, yes, not really necessary for a 2nd grader. I think now I will definitively say this question is not the best way to measure what a 2nd grader knows or can do. But I won’t change my stance on what I think is narrow or unhelpful framing language in the responses.
To be clear, in isolation, I wouldn’t find the responses to the Mozart question anti-intellectual. But when I lump it in with all the other stuff I described in previous comments (parent reaction to the metric system, teachers thinking 4th graders can’t understand class, mis-using socioeconomic inequities as an excuse to limit rather than differentiate curriculum, using adults as the archetype of learning outcomes, etc.), then yeah — my overall impression is that there is some anti-intellectualism here.
I think there are a lot of incompatible opinions on this thread, too, though that’s not clear upon first read. We may agree that the question is not a good one, but we don’t agree WHY the question is the bad one. And the why, I think, really matters for how we shape learning experiences for our students.
By the way, chemtchr, I had come across your Edweek article a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed it. I am frightened by the extent to which Gates has infiltrated education and public health. My hope is that more and more people in education start asking and researching who is really behind the latest reforms. Top administrators at my district had no idea that teachers were not involved in writing the CCSS, nor did they agree with my assessment that CCSS implementation will most benefit the test-makers who were waiting in the wings.
I think I get worried about what I perceive as anti-intellectualism, because I do have an agenda. I want our students — at whatever age they’re able — to recognize class differences and the huge wealth gap in this country. I want them to leave our schools with an understanding of what true democracy is — not our sham representative democracy — and to have the tools to dismantle and undo what capitalism and neoliberal economic policies have forced upon our educational system. I think people on this thread are going to mistake my reasoning for criticizing their comments. I may be in an elite category based on my experiences, but I try very hard not to be an elitist — just the opposite. I guess people will interpret however they want to, and I should also do a better job of representing my views.
There are different camps of people who oppose the CCSS, and their philosophies are not always compatible. I just personally want to resist arguments that seem to favor restricting students’ abilities. The heart of the matter for me is not whether (as an example!) 2nd grade students should know Mozart or could the word commissioned. They could. The question for me is about whose interests these tests are serving, who gets to determine learning standards for children, and why we won’t fund what works. I would have been more encouraged if people had explained their perspective rather than resorting to the word “ridiculous” (or the euivalent). I suspect some of us think Mozart questions are ridiculous because they are Eurocentric, others who think classical music is archaic and irrelevant, and yet others who just think Mozart is better for 5th grade.
chemtchr, Based on your Edweek article, I had hoped you would be able to engage with my comments productively. This comment: “if you are indeed the delightful aged-out prodigy you describe” is facetious and condescending. May I ask why you chose to include that in your reply, and how you think that helps to educate me on what I have misunderstood?
You also seem to be deliberately ignoring or misreading my main points. I didn’t say anything, for example, about data-driven assessments guiding curriculum nor did I endorse shallow multiple choice tests. It would be nice if you had engaged with the real substance of what I wrote.
I am definitely not confused or misguided about my own education, nor what constitutes authentic learning. I attended schools where I was more often assessed on portfolios, research papers, applied performance tasks, lab practicals, and the like. Not multiple choice tests. Some were public, some were not. And I have been deeply immersed as a student and teacher in the pedagogy of problem-based learning. So please do not presume to know anything about my educational background nor what I think is best for gifted children.
I appreciate the book recommendations. I am disappointed, however, that you of all people would resort to sly ad hominem retorts and completely avoid addressing any of my points. I was hoping to learn from you and to learn more about others’ perspectives. Oh well.
Pitter, I’m answering a specific error you made. You mischaracterized the comments in this actual discussion when you wrote this:
“I find the comments on this thread to be reflective of the general American anti-intellectual sentiment. In my job, I often hear teachers say, “my kids shouldn’t have to know what decommissioned means; they should just be having fun!” How do you get into the profession of education if you don’t think learning is fun?”
Please look back at the comments in this thread, which don’t reflect the particular mental construct you brought with you to denounce. You could, according to your better self, just agree with them.
The commenters you’re misrepresenting are, in fact, addressing the points you say you never raised about data-driven assessments and shallow multiple choice tests. So, by refusing to acknowledge their actual comments, and by substituting your “anti-intellectual” straw bumpkin arguments, you have invited a certain amount of irony.
I love Diane’s writing and her thinking. I think she presents really rational, well-balanced, democratic analyses of what is happening in public education. I hoped to find more of that in the comments of her blog, but I am disappointed. I don’t mind my thoughts being deconstructed with facts and logic, but I won’t be convinced by personal insults or passive-aggressive responses that still don’t engage specifically with the substance of my arguments.
So, chemtchr, I’m doing what you asked me to do: “Please look back at the comments in this thread … The commenters you’re misrepresenting are, in fact, addressing the points you say you never raised about data-driven assessments and shallow multiple choice tests.” I will also repeat myself and say that I am taking these comments along with the ones I’ve heard in my real life experience as an educator.
Here are some of the comments that make me anxious. I don’t see that they productively address concerns about data-driven assessments and shallowness of multiple choice tests, if at all.
1) We hate that NCLB/CCSS is driving arts education out of schools, but … “The whole idea of 7 year olds knowing about Mozart’s work is absurd.” — I would be surprised if young string students did NOT know who Mozart was. Would the average 7 year old? Probably not. Absurd? No, that’s hyperbole and offensive to the students who do know this.
2) Also to above point, “How absurd can a question be? What is the relevance of it?” It’s not absurd or irrelevant if someone is learning about how works of art are commissioned. There is no context for the question. I don’t know, however, at what grade level it is appropriate to learn or assess these things. But that’s not what the comment addressed.
3) “Absolutely ridiculous. Mozart, symphonies, commissioned….seven year olds? Who is writing this and why?” — So, for the seven year olds who do know this, precisely because they are getting some arts education, shall we tell them they are ridiculous?
4) “It’s a preposterous question for 2nd graders. Unless they know something of Mozart’s biography–not likely–then A and D are equally reasonable. Context clues don’t help a bit.” — Sure, but we have absolutely no idea what context the students were given whatsoever.
5) “The question is far to difficult and pushing children at that age is developmentally unsound. Second, in second grade music class children should be singing and exploring instruments. They should be experiencing music and learning their scales. They should not be answering factoid multiple choice questions in order to test their vocabulary.” — What’s the evidence for these comments? And is this evidence commonly known and accessed by adults? And when should students learn subject-appropriate vocabulary? It would just help for people to qualify their claims.
6) “These tests are created by adults who think they know what each grade level should be able to know” yet … “The interpretation from adults so far has been more than one answer, so how are 7 year olds supposed to figure it out and who cares?” — So, what exactly is the feeling about adults and their knowledge? Is adult knowledge trustworthy or to be used as a comparison standard, or not?
7) “What’ll be so great though is that our smart students will remember the questions and share their absurdity!!!”/”And they will…they have great memories and attention to detail. Smarter than Pearson, that’s for sure!” — Wonder what you think about your “dumb” students.
8) “I’ve never heard a 7 yr old use the word commission ever in my life. Insane.” — I’d guess children of artists might know the word. Let’s tell them how insane they are.
9) “Completely inappropriate question for a 2nd grader and the context is also quite inappropriate. Wrong on so many levels.” — What’s the reasoning? What are all the leves on which this is wrong?
10) “Our children come to school with different life experiences and background knowledge.” — This is a truism and the catchphrase I have heard people use to tell me why fourth graders can’t understand social class (I’d be willing to be our high needs children absolutely do understand it) or why we shouldn’t teach the metric system in ninth grade.
But, what’s more telling, is that in response to myself and Joe Nathan (I don’t know him, and I don’t support charter schools), we got these comments in return:
*”If you’re serious about being clueless …”
*”Even such a highly educated over-achiever should know the dangers of making generalizations.”
*”…if you are indeed the delightful aged-out prodigy you describe.”
Ad hominem insults don’t educate anyone or help sustain debates. More importantly, though, it’s striking that you’d defend the level of intellectualism in this thread and then attempt to insult or mock me for what I have achieved. I wonder what messages you send to your students about achievement.
Bumpkins and irony, indeed. I believe I’ve learned all I need to about who’s supposedly fighting the “good” fight.
“Works of art” aren’t being commissioned by kings and queens in our century, Pitter, so we aren’t insulting any actual advanced children by depriving their age cohort of the privilege of being assessed and ranked according to this excess of academic vocabulary. The context of the Common Core standardized assessments is that all children in 43(?) states will be subjected to them, under force of law. They will read a stimulus item on a computer screen, answer multiple choice questions, and generate text to be scored by a computer.
Test-makers are substituting false and stultified intellectualism for the intellectual richness, art, and feeling children need, and this item is a good example of that. Don’t fall for it.
I’m going to try to summarize Pitter’s long thread, which confounds two very different questions:
1. Should we set limits to what young children can be allowed, encouraged, and empowered to learn?
2. Do specific assessment and accountability instruments being developed to measure student outcomes of the Common Core support or undermine intellectual development of children, when they “set the bar” higher by incorporating deliberately specialized examples of manufactured academic discourse?
While Pitter specifies that he has reservations about the Common Core assessments, he yet characterizes its actual opponents as anti-intellectual. He lumps their comments on question 2 with a world-view he claims to see elsewhere, in response to question 1. He adds colorful examples of backwards-thinking anti-intellectualism, which are not present in the actual comments he’s denouncing.
“One example from my district: a 4th grade teacher said, “there’s no way my students could every understand the concept of social class.”
“Her argument was, “I don’t even know what a centimer is, so why should my daughter know what it is?” This type of thinking pervades much of the angst I hear about CCSS.”
I’m sympathetic to Pitter’s account of his own vulnerability and triumphs as a GATE child, and can see how those hurtful experiences might arouse an unconscious blurring of what children are allowed to know, versus what they are “held accountable” for knowing.
However, there are direct distortions in his accusations that seem to go beyond any honest difference in perspectives. In his list above, Pitter again refers to this mischaracterization of PL Thomas’ comment. Pitter wrote, “I am genuinely surprised, though, to hear that a 3rd grader should not be expected to know what a complete sentence is.”
What Thomas actually said was,
“My daughter failed a textbook provided test on complete sentences when she was in THIRD grade. The district superintendent and I ran the test through a readability formula and found the test was written at a HIGH SCHOOL reading level.”
I don’t think its likely that Pitter’s failure in reading comprehension is sincere. This line of argument appears to me, therefore, to be a deliberately constructed muddle, to divert cogent criticism of the
absurd assessment metrics being promulgated now, in our actual schools.
In addition to the ambiguity and elevated language of the questions themselves, an added problem will be the actual passages students encounter. This is the warning found in the educator guide for the ELA 8 test in New York that can be found on the engageny website:
“The move to using authentic texts allows for the inclusion of works of literature that are worthy of reading outside an assessment context. The use of authentic, meaningful texts may mean that some texts are more emotionally charged or may use language outside of a student’s particular cultural experience. While all assessments will include appropriate texts, please be aware that authentic texts will likely prompt real responses—perhaps even strong disagreement—among our students. Students need to be prepared to respond accordingly while engaging with the test. The alternative would be to exclude many authors and texts that are capable of supporting the rigorous analysis called for by the Common Core.
For example, a selection from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer may appear on Common Core tests, although the complete work from which it was drawn may include controversial ideas and language. Likewise, a passage from Richard Wright’s Native Son may appear on a Common Core test, even though some may find the ideas and incidents present in the rest of the text (that does not appear on the test) to be provocative.”
How many parents know this? How many parents know that the New York curriculum maps (and state Ed reps as well), demand that To Kill a Mockingbird (great book, but I’m not a fan of 8th graders discussing rape) and Unbroken (wonderful memoir that contains pages of description about abuse and torture of an American as a Japanese prisoner of war)?
Re:Potter: I am overjoyed that you have been so fortunate. Thankyou for your clarity and insight for us inadequate, American Schmucks. 😮
If you have specific arguments to make against any of the points I raised, I would be happy to read them. Yes, I was fortunate. And yes, I do think your response is inadequate and not in the interest of productive discussion or debate.
I’ve been hearing in CA that the tests will all be computer run. (Will we actually get all the new machines in time? No, but that’s not the point.) The software certainly exists whereby students can read a series of passages that increase or decrease in complexity during the test. So why must this question rest on a 2nd grade exam? Why aren’t we looking at fluid tests that can measure a non-fiction reading standard (like context clues) while customizing the passage read to the student’s reading ability? Which, as you know, almost never matches the grade they’re enrolled in.
In 2nd grade my teacher was Mrs. Lincoln and I remember doing the “bunny hop” with my class during field day. Pink pajamas and a home made cottontail. That was in NYC PS. My brother”s class in 5th grade did the “May Pole” dance which I thought was pretty cool. Could I get a question on one of these topics for the next test?
Completely inappropriate question for a 2nd grader and the context is also quite inappropriate. Wrong on so many levels.
I wanted to add my 2 cents to this interesting discussion. I was proctoring a CTBS (California Test of Basic Skills) test over 25 years ago for a Kindergarten class. The school was on the Tohono O’odtham Indian Reservation in Southern Arizona. Since it was a Kindergarten class, I read the questions and the students circled the appropriate picture answer. I will never forget these two questions. These isolated desert dwellers were asked to ID a picture showing “skiing”. They were later asked to circle a picture of a cactus to ID the thing that was “prickly”. The cultural and geographic bias seemed obvious to me. This was back in the day when such tests were given once a year and tests like the CTBS went through a much longer development period. I agree with Diane about the Common Core Standards. They may be a good idea but they should be piloted. We have also strayed too far from the real purpose of tests, to assess students and adjust instruction. They are now used to attack teachers and teachers are naturally going to be defensive.
My second-grader defined “commission” without needing the multiple choice prompts this morning, but her school has a really strong music program. She credited her music teacher for having taught her the term–which was done in the context of an annual all-school field trip to a local Symphony Orchestra concert. (This is not district-wide; our PTA fundraising pays for the cost of the buses necessary to take all the kids. I don’t know of another public school in the district or in the area that has all of its kids at the concert every year; most take only one or two grades, if they participate at all.) Before they go to the concert, our music teacher gives the kids the elementary-school equivalent of a pre-concert lecture–which is to say, it takes place over a few weeks and isn’t a lecture, but they come away with much of the same information.
My daughter has also played violin since she was 4, and her public school has a fabulous strings program that she’s been in since kindergarten, also thanks to our fabulous and amazing music teacher (who, it might be noted, belongs to the union and runs the entire strings program during her free periods). Our school is also blessed with amazing parents, and several of them attend each and every orchestra rehearsal to help the kids tune their instruments and set up music and stands.
And in the spirit of full disclosure, my daughter has a musicologist for a mother.
Do I think most second-grade students could define this term? Probably not, especially with so many schools cutting music and arts programs. Unfortunately, putting terms like this on a test will likely have the effect of extending vocabulary lessons and cutting into time that would otherwise be used for music or art or P.E.
I teach seniors and have some who would not know this
unfortunately…