Teachers and administrators have been posting their comments on the new Common Core tests at the new website testing talk.com.
This was typical.
I copied this from the testingtalk.org website just now and thought you might like to see this. Bravo to this principal. I wish I taught for him/her!
Disheartened and Disgusted
Author: Anonymous, Administrator, Principal
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State: NY
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Test: State test: Pearson
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Date: April 3 at 4:38 pm ET
“As an administrator of a suburban public school, I have dedicated my life to educating young children… as a teacher, as a parent and as a school administrator. When asked, I will readily share that I believe my job to be exciting, invigorating and rewarding. I describe it as the best job a person can have. After all, I awake each morning eager to get to school because I have the privilege of spending many hours with students who bounce into school with a thirst for learning and a dedicated staff, who work tirelessly to provide the best education possible for their students. When the common core standards were first introduced, my staff and I did what we always do…we met, we conversed, we scrutinized the standards to gain an in-depth understanding, and then we organized our curriculum and collected materials so that we could work with our students to achieve the desired outcomes. As an experienced curriculum leader, I take my responsibility to students and teachers very seriously. Today, for the first time ever, I doubt my work and question what it is we are trying to teach children.
“Each day of the ELA testing, I sat down to read the assessments my students were taking. I was appalled at what they were asked to answer and exhausted from reading and rereading passages over and over again. If I as an adult struggled with the task, I can only imagine how my students suffered.
“Each day of the ELA testing, I have walked my building, peering into classrooms and observing my third, fourth and fifth graders attempting to complete what I have now termed a ludicrous ELA assessment. I became increasingly disheartened as I watched my young students, with anguished looks upon their faces, struggling to answer poorly worded and ambiguous questions based on text too difficult for them to comprehend. After twenty-nine years of administering standardized tests, I noted for the first time children handing in test booklets with many blank pages. Instead of children feeling exhilarated after completing the ELA because they knew they had successfully met the high expectations that have been set for them, the children were forlorn because they knew that they had failed to rise to the occasion. How could we have done this to young children????
“Throughout the day, I have engaged in informal conversations with my teachers questioning how going forward we will try and prepare our youngsters for this exam. The answer is unanimous… preparing for this exam is impossible and so going forward, we will continue to do what we do best, teach children to embrace the joy of reading and writing. We will teach to the common core standards so that we prepare children for real-life reading … reading for enjoyment, reading for key ideas and details, reading for craft and structure, and reading for the integration of knowledge and ideas.
“All of my life I have been a rule follower. Now, for the first time, I will become a staunch advocate for eliminating these assessments that have no validity and offer no legitimate data for improving students’ English Language Arts skills.”
What a great idea that site is. Thanks to the people who set it up. A lot of the posts are beautifully written, BTW. People are putting real thought and heart into it.
I liked this one:
http://testingtalk.org/response/refusals-may-not-be-the-answer-but
This one is heartbreaking. We should start calling our state DCF offices on test days and report ourselves.
http://testingtalk.org/response/for-the-love-of-reading
Just read both links…please all, read them, particularly Linda’s link. It is poignant and expresses the situation clearly. Pass it along to all your lists as a commentary on the convolution of the CC testing and how it turns students off learning.
Thanks to Anthony Cody for introducing us to this new site.
wow
beautifully said
Peason has the best and most aggressive marketing machine in the business, but their actual products cannot begin to compete. Their staff development packages in my district were a huge waste of teacher time and district money. Their secondary ELA texts are inferior in every way to those published by Holt/McDougalLittel, which employs most of the top people in the ELA world, including several past NCTE presidents, to help craft their texts.
For those who were unaware, Pearson has also purchased the GED, which was formerly operated by a not-for-profit company. The new GED is supposedly geared to the common core, contains essays in both the ELA and Social Studies sections, and a paragraph in the Science section, and (guessing here) is normed at 12th grade, or even higher. The sample ELA essay on the GED site is actually more difficult than the essay given as a placement test for entering first-years at the Cal States.
Rigiculous = Rigor + Ridiculousness
lol
I monitored a class of middle school special ed students for the 3 day ELA test. Students were given extra time but they could not have their test read to them though some have a reading level as low as second grade. I watched a student get frustrated and put his head down. Then he took the test and tore it in half and buried his head in his arms on the table for the remaining 80 minutes. I am sure he felt stupid because he couldn’t read what appeared to be high school level text to me. We don’t need to do this to these fragile children in the name of big data. It felt like bullying, like cemotinal child abuse. Now that we lost 3 days to the ELA test, the ELA teachers will be out of their classrooms grading for 7 or more days. One test destroys 2 weeks of ELA instruction. Way to go Mr. Gates.
The scene you describe was played out in countless “extended time” testing rooms across the state. Its sickening to watch and we seem helpless to stop it. Way to go Mr. Ianuzzi. This was a no-brainer for any educational leader, and you failed every innocent child and well meaning teacher in the system. NYSUT should refund our dues for allowing this travesty to occur. Just wait until this shite hits the HS fans.
This was the conversation I had today with a colleague. But you said it better. The election tomorrow night at the RA will tell all.
What a tragedy. This is really, really evil.
It needs to be stopped.
My heart goes out to that child and to the millions of others being abused by these ill-conceived, invalid tests.
Stop the madness.
Tell everyone you know to tell everyone they know to opt their kids out.
http://www.ctn.state.ct.us/ctnplayer.asp?odID=10102
I would love to hear comments/reactions to this video.
How Education is Like Guitar Center
From the article:
“In the final analysis, this is less about business sense and more about business domination. There are dozens of industries that have been locked up by a few players in this way: mortgages, cars, pharmaceuticals, retail, you name it. Since the chances of antitrust suits under “leaders” like George W Bush and Barack Obama are so low, the tiny tranche of society with all the money can run a time-worn playbook – consolidate companies, squeeze vendors, push manufacturing overseas, lower wages, wash, rinse, repeat, discard. The numbers of the business – which suck in [Guitar Center’s] case – do not matter as much as control of yet another industry. As long as you have dominance over an industry, your positions are hedged for risk automatically because there is no other game in town – or at least people believe that. In the meantime, you get management fees, income from bonds, the occasional IPO payout.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/04/how-to-get-beyond-private-equity-parasite-economy.html
You can just about replace every instance of “Guitar Center” with “public education” and get the picture of where our reformers are taking us.
I read the posts on TeachingTalk.org and think,
Our students would be in great hands IF THE DAMNED POLITICIANS AND STATE DEPARTMENT EDUCRATS AND RAPACIOUS VENDORS OF STANDARDIZED ABUSE WOULD GET THE HELL OUT OF THEIR WAY.
Sorry, Diane, about the language. It was mild compared to what I was thinking.
These people are abusing children.
The Regents and Commissioner of the Education, by forcing kids to undergo this, are abusing children.
Do they mean to be abusing children? Well, I don’t think so. But they are abusing children nonetheless.
Child abuse is against the law.
This needs to be stopped.
Or are these idiots simply going to continue COMPLETELY IGNORING WHAT EDUCATORS ARE TELLING THEM, loudly and clearly, by the hundreds?
HOW MUCH DOES IT TAKE TO GET THROUGH TO THESE PEOPLE?
This is an article well worth a read.. speaks volumes about the realities of public education for teachers and students…
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410
The Regents exams are written by TEACHERS…and we trust these test to determine whether or not students in public schools graduate. WHY NOW is this decision left up to a company that makes MULTIMILLIONS creating tests and curriculum for OUR STUDENTS??? Kids are not test scores or $$$!
The Regents exams HAVE BEEN written by teachers, of course, some of those newbie “fellows” we’re clueless about this. I’m not so sure Regents exams will continue to be written by teachers. And these exams are shifting format. For example, the CCSS English regents exam eliminates the critical lens essay, the one for which students support a thematic statement with literature they have read. Many NY parents do not know this. The algebra test also is being reformed.
Previews of the new CCSS aligned algebra test (required for graduation) are doomsday-like. Some have compared it to AP level mathematics, with an extra dose of convoluted word problems.
with Disgust
That just about sums it up.
I was told I cannot tell parents they may opt out of the test. I am in California, and my union rep. said it was in our ed. code. Isn’t this a violation of my free speech? Isn’t this deception by not informing parents of all their options and rights?
So then you tell the parents that you are not allowed to talk about opting out their children. And if they want more information that you are available off contract hours.
Just when you think things can’t get any worse, Pearson surprises us with an even more inadequate test.
I predict that there will be an increase in the number of kids who opt out for next week’s Math assessment.
And those parents who are cooing over the fact that their children found the test “easy” – don’t be fooled. Wait until you get the test scores before crowing. Then, if your child was one of the lucky minority who passed, please do not condemn others – whether parents, students, or teachers. We are all in this together, and your child’s success is another child’s failure. Be considerate in your comments and remember that your life might one day be in the hands of one of those “other” students.
so…. parents are opting kids out…. WHEN WILL TEACHERS – WHO HERE CALL THIS ABUSE – STOP ADMINISTERING THE TESTS?…. c’mon people…. you whinge, you whine, you lament, you wring your hands, you tell each other to spread the word to get parents to Opt Out their kids, but who amongst you has the moral fibre to STOP COLLABORATING, STOP ENABLING giving the tests you despise so much?
19 “I”s, 10 “my”s, 11 “we”s and 2 “ours” (my quick tally).
And it’s about the students, eh?
Just saying. . . .
Reblogged this on onewomansjournal.