Principals, teachers, and parents in New York state complained that the Common Core tests for grades 3-8 were too long. The tests for math and reading together take about 7 hours. Commissioner John King responded in a recent speech at New York University that students were spending “less than 1%” of the school year, which is sort of an odd way to explain (defend) 7 hours of testing for little children.
One of our readers decided to compare the amount of time required foe Common Core testing to the amount of time required for other examinations typically administered to college applicants or adults:
So I was curious about other standardized tests and how they compare to the tests they expect 8-13 years olds to do. Why would an 8-year old need to sit for longer than 7 hours to see if they can read and do math which is longer than every test until you get to the NYS bar exam.
GRE:
The overall testing time for the computer-based GRE® revised General Test is about three hours and 45 minutes. There are six sections with a 10-minute break following the third section. https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/content/cbt/
SAT:
The SAT is made up of 10 sections:
A 25-minute essay
Six 25-minute sections (mathematics, critical reading and writing)
Two 20-minute sections (mathematics, critical reading and writing)
A 10-minute multiple-choice writing section
Total test time: 3 hours and 45 minutes
You’ll also get three short breaks during the testing, so don’t forget to bring a snack!
http://sat.collegeboard.org/about-tests/sat/faq
LSAT:
The test consists of five 35-minute sections of multiple-choice questions. Four of the five sections contribute to the test taker’s score. These sections include one reading comprehension section, one analytical reasoning section, and two logical reasoning sections. The unscored section, commonly referred to as the variable section, typically is used to pretest new test questions or to preequate new test forms. The placement of this section in the LSAT will vary. The score scale for the LSAT is 120 to 180. A 35-minute writing sample is administered at the end of the test. The writing sample is not scored by LSAC, but copies are sent to all law schools to which you apply.
http://www.lsac.org/jd/help/faqs-lsat
MCAT (Medical school)
Total seated time 5 hours and 10 minutes and total content time 4 hours and 5 minutes.
https://www.aamc.org/students/download/63060/data/mcatessentials.pdf
NY Bar Exam:
Schedule for First Day of the Examination (Tuesday):
In the morning session, which begins at 9:00 A.M. and ends at 12:15 P.M., applicants must complete three essays and the 50 multiple choice questions in three hours and 15 minutes. Although applicants are free to use their time as they choose, the Board estimates an allocation of 40 minutes per essay and 1.5 minutes per multiple choice question.
In the afternoon session, which begins at 2:00 P.M. and ends at 5:00 P.M., applicants must complete the remaining two essay questions and the MPT in three hours. Again, although applicants are free to use their time as they choose, the National Conference of Bar Examiners developed the MPT with the intention that it be used as a 90-minute test. Therefore, the Board recommends that applicants allocate 90 minutes to the MPT and 45 minutes to each essay.
Schedule for Second Day of the Examination – MBE (Wednesday):
The second day of the examination is the Multistate Bar Examination. The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) is a six-hour, two-hundred question multiple-choice examination covering contracts, torts, constitutional law, criminal law, evidence, and real property. The examination is divided into two periods of three hours each, one in the morning [9:30am to 12:30pm] and one in the afternoon [2:00pm to 5:00pm], with 100 questions in each period.
Our school started testing yesterday. I’m not sure if it’s in all of California, or just the Bay Area, or maybe only in my district, but we’ve not actually started CC yet. We’re in the preliminary year, but yesterday became the first of the preliminary tests taken on computers. First up, a third grade teacher, completely up for this, but it took 50 minutes just to get the computers to their starting point. There was glitz after glitz.
And the amount of time actually taking the test pales in comparison to the amount of time prepping for the test. Easily half the school year is lost to testing.
BTW, is John King one of those “educators” (ahem) who claims that no activity (no discussion, writing assignment, project time, etc.) should last longer than 11 minutes because that’s the length of a child’s attention span?
My thoughts exactly, Dienne. I think it’s so insulting for someone to claim these tests don’t take up that much of the school year. In my opinion, there are only two reasons one would make this claim: Either he really is that ignorant of how the tests drive EVERYTHING all year long (and John King has no excuse for being this ignorant) or he is trying to dupe folks, once again.
Fixin’ To Test Rag (To the Tune of “Fixin’ to Die Rag by Country Joe and the Fish)
Well, come along all of you teachin’ folks
William Gates needs your hearts and souls
He got himself a brave new plan
To make him richer at kids’ expense!
So put down your books and pick up a test!
We’re gonna screw a whole lotta kids!
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
We can’t teach in our schools anymore!
Next class is a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, Open up the college gates!
They don’t know Rome and the don’t know math!
Whoppee! They can pass one more test!
Come on Wall Street, don’t be slow!
Rupert says to pillage the schools!
There’s plenty good money to be made.
By stealin’ from kids and selling our souls
To charters and privates and vendors and such
Keep the poor from thinkin’ too much!
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
We can’t teach in our schools anymore!
Next class is a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, Open up the college gates!
They don’t know Rome and they don’t know math!
Whoppee! They can pass one more test!
Awesome. Thanks for the flashback. I can remember an 8th grade field trip in 1969 when we sang this just after singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall. My god have times changed.
Thanks! I wrote it during my planning period today after being inspired by one more round of testing.
“I don’t know how you expect to stop the testing if you can’t sing better than that.”
Duane you are one kick ass poster
Gimme an F, gimme a U, gimme a C, gimme a . . . .
What’s that spell? What’s that spell? What’s that spell?
You forgot the intro to the song!
I didn’t think that, “Gimme a “T”, gimme an “E” . . . would be as effective. Perhaps I should lead with the Woodstock original! It is very approppo!
Gimme an D, gimme a U, gimme a N, gimme a C. . . .
What’s that spell? What’s that spell? What’s that spell?
. . . LOSER
NY Teacher – I thought you were spelling out “DUNCE”. Well, same difference.
Just testing your higher order/problem solving/critical thinking/close reading SKILLS. Ha!
Brilliant!
Thanks! I appreciate your comment. I’m working on more verses for the YouTube edition. I want to make sure that I include a verse for Arne, for Governor Malloy and his Commissar of Education Stefan Pryor, for Steven Adamowski, and for good ole’ Dubbya.
Don’t forget David Coleman. CCSS, PARCC, SBAC, GRE, SAT, ACT and One Man to Rule them All.
Let us know when you got it up and running.
Every minute of every day if you are talking about assessing their skills.
If you’re talking of standardized testing, it shouldn’t be done other than as a diagnostic instrument for SPED purposes.
8th grade ELA by Pearson: 90 minutes X 3 days = 4.5 hours
8th grade math by Pearson: 90 minutes X 3 days = 4.5 hours
NINE HOURS
Now if you are learning disabled or ELL you have it made! Its like hitting the testing jackpot because if you max out your IEP you get sit for
18 HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Same in PA, then (for 8th grade) add Writing 90 minutes x 2 days = 3 more hours and Science 90 minutes x 2 days = 3 hours for a total of 15 hours. Plus many times that figure in test prep for each.
From another post: Time allocated for testing in my Spanish classes for the year:
Spanish 1 & 2: 9 quizes @ 15 min each, 7 tests @ 50 minutes each, 2 final exams @ 50 minutes each = 585 minutes or about 10 hours/160 hours = about 6% of class time.
Spanish 3 & 4: 2 hours for finals.
And they are “low stakes” meaning that they count for about 25% of the semester grade (and that’s more than it should be). Anymore would be an educational travesty to me.
Let’s call it what it is, child abuse.
I’ll revise the lyrics from “We’re gonna screw some kids . . . ” to “We’re gooa abuse some kids . . .”
Bill
I wish some talented people would put together a youtube version of your parody. it would GO VIRAL.
I’m working on it. I perform in a rock band.
Go for it!
It’s abuse of children, intended as a weapon against teachers and the public schools.
It is. How does he spew such illogical rationalizations? “Well they’re only getting abused 1% of the year, so what’s your problem?
Hey we only water boarded those terror suspects for 1% of the time they were in captivity.
And to think next year tests are scheduled back to back. ELA one week and Math the next. http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/schedules/2015/38testingschedule15.pdf. What is state ed thinking?
Ohio Achievement Tests allow students 3 – 8 to work up to 2.5 hours but most students are fnshed within 1 – 1.5 hours. This allows time to check answers and allows for slower thinkers, readers and writers to complete their work.
Thanks for the source. Kasich was a parrot for this model legislation from ALEC. It is causing havoc because the reading test scores are not processed in time to know who gets held back and who gets to enroll in grade 4. Some of the students who report to grade 4 classes will be in the wrong class.
At the ALEC website I just tripped over model legislation called “The Innovative Schools and District Act.” I am trying to deconstruct it and hope to have more. It appears to be designed to reduce the role of school boards in setting and monitoring district-wide policies and limit the give and take of decisions arrived at by open meetings with democratic deliberation. I don’t have a website to post the gist of the legal language, but this model legislation is likely to be picked up by the simple trick of not using the word reform but innovation.
You should see Kasich’s campaign ad that jystbrolled out. He takes credit for things he did not do, twists facts, acts as if he is salt of the earth when, at best, he is fertilizer.
You’d think he is the Messiah according to this ad. And he is actually thinking of running for President. OMG. He is one of those who was at Lehman Brothers and brought about the collapse of the middle class.
Argh.
He was following in the same path of Wisconsin’s Gov Scott Walker. Ohio turned back SB5. Kasich has only been good for the already wealthy.
deb, the ELA exam, based on common core, given in NYS a few weeks ago, had numerous long reading passages as well as complex questions and answers which required a lot of backtracking into one or more of the texts. Many students took the entire time allotted and many more did not have time to complete the exam.
In other words, this too could be you in the near future. Learn from New York’s mistakes.
I am sure you are correct. We haven’t had the PARCC tests yet. I retired in June 2012. I feel badly for anyone who has to endure this.
This is the ALEC model bill on high stakes testing in third grade.
It’s nearly identical to Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee:
C) Beginning with the 20XX-20XY school year, if the student’s reading deficiency, as identified in paragraph (a), is not remedied by the end of grade 3, as demonstrated by scoring at Level 2 or higher on the state annual accountability assessment in reading for grade 3, the student must be retained.
Just shameful that adult lawmakers were purchased by this lobbying group, and third graders will be paying the price.
http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/the-a-plus-literacy-act/
If I told the pediatrician my child had spent seven hours with a stomach ache and he/she told me “well, that’s only 1% of his awake time during this year of growth,” I’d be slightly annoyed.
This 1% claim is bogus; it doesn’t even pass the smell test.
If you tell a class of 8 year olds that there is a ticking time bomb in the school that will go off in April and that they have to spend from September to April learning how to diffuse bombs (in lieu of more important activities), then the 7 hours spent actually diffusing the bomb doesn’t begin to paint the picture. More voodoo math from the politicians.
Lets not forget that PARCC requires TWO rounds of ELA and math testing: SBA (March/April) and EOY (May/June). And loss of school computers for uses other than testing during extended windows. May god have mercy on our souls.
And that includes high school, where juniors may be taking David Coleman’s AP exams in several subjects as well as David Coleman’s SAT and, likely, his ACT. Nothing like a testing gauntlet from March through June.
This is one very deep hole that they have dug. Instead of putting down their shovels, they went out and got a backhoe.
Less than two years before I have to figure out a way to protect my daughter from this. Oh joy.
OPT HER OUT!!!!
Move to Canada
I’m sorry! My kids are just out of college and no grandkids are on the horizon for some time. Maybe we can kill this monster before it devours too many more of those we hold most dear.
I vote for that!
GRE and TOEFL iBT take approximately 4 hours. I remember I became exhausted after finishing the exam, feeling my head wobbling like a drunken man. Even more stressful is National Center College Entrance Exam for Japanese high school students. It’s two-day stint, and takes 7-8 hours for each day.
That’s exactly what the NY Ed reform kingpin is forcing little kids every single year. Lord of insanity!
Obviously, John King doesn’t know what he is talking about. If he really thinks it’s just a breeze for young kids, he should go to school with his kids and spend the whole day to take the test together, and see if his presence can make his kids and students in the classroom feel a little better–or much worse.
Do what I did Ken. Go in drunk and you’ll come out sober.
That’d be a waste of good alcohol.
But then again I think I was still drunk when took the SAT on that Saturday morning way back when in high school-40 years ago-we had a gooood party that night before.
Duane, that’s one way to relax or reduce your anxiety before a big test whose results determine your future. Perhaps alcohol or anti anxiety drugs or little pills to help you focus will all be part of future testing protocol.
Duane, you might just have been a trail blazer.
Aspirin will be for the resulting headache after the testing session.
On a more s serious note. You made such an excellent point; and almost always overlooked:
>forcing little kids every single year.<
EVERY SINGLE YEAR? No, no, no, a gazillion times NO!
There is absolutely no reason to make this an annual torture fest.
Spoiler alert Duane:
Even good tests could not possibly be accurate enough for this level of discretion; that is measuring year to year development, especially in ELA.
John King’s kids don’t go to a public school, so they don’t have to face this garbage. OOPS! I forgot I’m not supposed to bring them into the conversation!
The tests are the curriculum.
Prepping for them, taking them, making them a life-or-death gatekeeper are all intended to provide “social learning,” so that teachers and students remain passive, fearful and helpless.
For teachers, it’s to acclimate them to their newly evolving status as scapegoat while they segue into becoming interchangeable temps.
For students, it’s to provide the learned helplessness that they are expected to maintain as consumers and as a temporary, poverty-wage precariat.
Michael Fiorillo, if the tests are the curriculum, and they certainly “drive” the curriculum, them Arne Duncan broke the law by funding two federal tests. It is against the law for the Feds to control, direct or supervise” curriculum or instruction.
This is great reasoning. But Arne Duncan is likely to say that he is not driving the curriculum, nor are the CCSS. Both would be fraudulent statements.
Here is the evidence.
PARCC and SMARTER were launched with about $300 million split two ways. Less then two months later both knocked on Arne’s door and said we need more money for curriculum. Each received about $15 million more in USDE funds to develop the curriculum for their respective tests.
In other words, Arne Duncan is so dumb he just thought you could have standards and tests with no intervening curriculum.
Now the plot thickens, when do teachers get to see the curriculum that PARCC and SMARTER used as the basis for the tests? Who developed and tested the curriculum materials? Did Andrew Porter, the expert on parsing curriculum and checking for “alignments” of this-with that, or someone comparable publish the metric for alignment of these curriculum materials with the CCSS standards? Which standards? What principles for selection for the purpose of these tests?
The alignment metric should have been near 1.0 (meaning perfect). The tests are supposed to sample 1,620 standards (counting parts a-e).
I am not dropping these numbers to show off. I don’t think anyone knows how the tests were designed to fit the CCSS standards and the selected curricula or portions of these. As far as I know, the curricula (or curricular frameworks) worth $15 million each have not been field tested or published.
The folks at PARCC and SMARTER should be experts at the craft of test design and thoroughly familiar with the ethical dimensions of this whole venture.
Are they so preoccupied with field testing specific items–or so eager to spend federal funds–that they cannot see the fraud they are helping Arne Duncan perpetuate?
He may not have chosen the curriculum that enabled PARCC and SMARTER tests but he is the CEO of the agency that signed the check for that curriculum. I agree with you conclusion that he has violated the two federal laws that prohibit exactly what he has done. There is a money trail of evidence. Class action suit anyone?
The tests are in-facto the de-facto curriculum. Arne can do all the verbal gymnastics he wants, this is a federally imposed curriculum. Duane, where is the ACLU?
Laura H. Chapman:
Doesn’t it make you cringe a little bit to have to refer to one half of the CCS testing duopoly as “SMARTER?” Both sets of tests are bound to be stupid and counterproductive. It’s kind of amazing that the Common Core Standards are still being promoted as “raising the bar” for students and teachers.
Thanks to all for your success in unmasking the charlatans.
Duncan clearly broke the law here.
Email sent by TNCore (Tn state dept involving all things PARCC and CC) yesterday. Please note the interesting wording both before and following the bulleting list:
New Reading and English Language Arts Units
Reading and ELA Units
The department is excited to share new instructional units in K-3 reading and 4-12 English language arts (ELA). All units feature complex informational or fictional text and focus on text-dependent questioning and writing in response to text. The instructional units provide connected lessons that cover multiple standards in reading and 4-12 ELA.
These units should be considered an optional resources and are not mandated/required. Educators should feel free to use or implement these materials however they see fit.
The following units can be found on http://www.tncore.org.•Reading grades K-1 Veterans Day
•Reading grades 2-3 Oceans and Continents
•4th grade ELA: Historical Fiction
•5th grade ELA: Author Study
•7th grade ELA: Influences: Studying Style
• 8th grade ELA: Sherlock Holmes: Reading like a Detective
•10th grade ELA: To Kill a Mockingbird
•10th grade ELA: Satire
We encourage curriculum planners and educators to consider using these units next year as models for Tennessee standards aligned instructional resources.
Support for Teachers: Using Complex Texts in Your Classroom
Teachers have expressed the need for more support with the difficult task of determining the complexity level of a text and gauging whether it appropriately challenges their students. To help teachers select and use complex texts, the Tennessee Department of Education has partnered with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and Tennessee’s affiliate stations to create online learning tools on text complexity. These resources reinforce learning from 2013 TNCore summer training. In four concise videos, we address the following questions: What is text complexity? Why is it important? How can I identify and select complex texts for my own classroom?
That’s Diane, nothing against Duane.
That’s okay. I used to be a card carrying member of the ACLU and the NEA and the NRA-some of the most hated organizations from all sides of the political spectrum.
Now I’m just a DU card carrying member. (only have so much spare change)
Okay, Duane, I’ll bite. DU?
Ducks Unlimited.
A very worthy cause if one loves the outdoors. DU has raised funds for over a million acres of habitat preservation in the US, Canada and Mexico since its inception in ’36-7.
Thanks, Duane.
We can spend all day determining how much time is too much or not enough. This is critical.
But I am just as interested in not tying those results to teacher worthiness . . . . .
Too much testing time and tying test scores are both pernicious behaviors . . . .
Don’t forget that for many tests, like ELA and Math, the student sits without the teacher for a week while the teacher slaves through a grueling test correcting session. So a 3 day test becomes 2 weeks of non educational wasted time for the student.
I have no doubt that if the testing time in NY were 3 hours rather than 7 hours, the anti-testing crowd here would still be complaining: “3 hours is far too short a time to test kids on an entire year’s worth of knowledge and skills!”
Then you are an idiot.
In Utah, our language arts test ALONE is 4 and a half hours. Then the math test is 90 minutes and 90 minutes for science (which is mandated by the state). Each student at my grade 7-9 school will be in the computer lab for parts of nine days to finish the testing. The state also mandates a 90 minute separate writing test for the 8th graders, which is taken in February. My district has a (currently optional, but probably mandatory soon) social studies test that takes two additional days twice a year, as well as the Explore test for 9th graders that takes 2 and a half hours. That’s just the testing that involves the three grade levels at my school. When I wrote to my district assessment “specialist” two years ago and complained about the amount of testing, I was told that it “only” comprises two total school days of testing, even though that is spread out over weeks, so that it’s “no big deal.”
Starting next week, the computer labs and library (because there’s a lab in there) are ALL off-limits until the end of the school year. Six weeks where we can’t research or do technology activities in any class. I’ve taken to checking out dozens of books and brought them through the school to my portable classroom outside, just so that we can research in my classroom.
Where are the Mormons in this? They support it? I can’t believe LDS supports this in Utah! Clearly, the apocalypse is upon us.
Mormons tend to be rule followers in general. I’m not completely surprised, really. If parents were aware of the shady way this came about, I think there would be more fight against this, but we as teachers are not allowed to tell them they can opt out at the risk of our licenses, according to an email we got from the state superintendent.
“How Many Hours Should It Take to Test Children in Grades 3-8 in Basic Skills?”
This is actually a pretty tough question to answer as phrased. 7 hours, 1 hour, 3 hours — I have no idea. The question reads like a trick question, with the trick hinging on the very idea of testing “basic skills” in the first place. Boy, do I hate the word “skills.”
Bob Shepard, please complete my thought, I need dinner and a bourbon, in reverse order.
Shepherd, I believe. Apologies for the spelling.
If what were being tested were VERY BASIC skills, these standardized tests would be an appropriate mechanism. However, they are trying to test higher-order skills, and so they are using entirely the wrong sort of mechanism. They might as well be trying to measure synaptic junctions with yardsticks. And, of course, the whole undertaking begs the questions of whether it is “skills” in the abstract that we should be testing. I would explain why I think that for most domains in the English language arts we should NOT be doing that, but my explanation would run to several hundred pages.
You make an excellent point. Educational standards should be targets that detail the essential skill and knowledge sets required of ALL students. They are not guidelines for the gifted and talented only.
Using an MC approach to assess higher order, critical thinking skills or even the nuance of close reading has been a disaster. What we saw with the new Pearson ELA tests was proof to me that they have dug themselves a hole that cant be climbed out of. That is, their plan is fundamentally unworkable. You can’t measure the abstract and often subjective skills outlined in the CC standards by using objective testing. Yet that is their only realistic option thanks to PARCC and SBAC and the computer/data mining requirements of their business plan.
The assessments are ill conceived–the wrong tool for the job.
Except for the SAT, only the top college students in this country take these exams – and it’s strenuous, even for them. I know my brother studied long and hard for both the LSAT and Bar Exam. Grueling can best describe the experience.
How can an eight year old be expected to have the same stamina as an adult?
It is truly amazing what kids will do when treated with understanding, love, and respect. My students knew I loved them, believed they could do their best, and that it was enough to just do that. It is a long haul but they are so relieved when it is just over. I tell them my beliefs all along and they know I don’t want them to be stressed out. They have always been very cooperative. There are a few each year that have attitudes, but most of the time they made a good effort. Of course, this was 4th grade.
However, as the stakes get higher for teachers, the stress will have to increase, too. Even if younger teachers are driven away, they, at least, have more opportunities to change careers. The longer one teaches, the less likely it will be to find a new career that can sustain them financially.
Deb, I’ve proctored numerous exams and did my best to help relax the kids and give them my support. As the exams got more ridiculous, this became harder to do. I can’t tell you how many students cried or were distraught after one of these assessments. And this is children if all ages. It is heart wrenching to see.
Perhaps the exams in Ohio are more reasonable. As I said, if Ohio begins to emulate New York State, you will soon be singing a different tune (the one previously posted would be a good one to start with).
Meanwhile, PARCC keeps tweeting about how magnificent its tests are and how much everyone loves them while on TestingTalk.org, educators from around the country tell the uncensored truth about how ridiculous the exam was.
As you know, all the reports and comments are based only on preliminary field tests. Like many movie trailers, they do not paint the full picture. The PARCC and SBAC rollout will be the true supernova that you have predicted. New York was the field test for parental and teacher reaction (outrage) to this new wave of punitive reform. Add in the logistical nightmare of testing 20 million students, ages 8 to 14, online, and the PARCC/SBAC testing rollout will be the beginning of the end for Gates and Co.
I wonder about that, NY. There are many ways that they can manipulate the numbers so that the initial results aren’t too awful. I’m afraid that they might do that for the actual rollout in order to prevent the sort of backlash that occurred in New York. If they do, they will mask the underlying issues, and then they can change their manipulations of the numbers over time. These guys are adept at numerology.
I don’t think they truly understand what a logistical nightmare they have created with the technology demands.
Computer and keyboarding skills are another problem
And here’s one that I only recently thought about. Many of the comments regarding the PARCC field tests involved students finishing very, very quickly. Much faster than teachers have typically seen with paper and pencil tests.
Now what could be the root cause of unprecedented rush to finish?
Possibilities include,
1) Field tests really don’t count so why kill yourself
2) Frustration with the format and computer glitches
3) The standard operating mode when playing computer/video games takes over. Speed matters.
I really don’t know, but some food for thought
And don’t forget Bob their entire business plan is dependent on poor test scores to support the claim that America’s public schools are failing. Failing scores are the disease. adaptive, computer based instruction and assessment is the snake oil cure.
I am torn here. While I whole-heatedly agree that we are spending way too much time on testing overall, I would also like to think that if we are forced to do it, we must give students – all students- ample time to work through the test at a reasonable rate. I don’t know if that is why they take so long or not, but it is something to consider.
It amazes me that the implementation of these tests is bad science at best. Where is the baseline? Where is the control? The “results” mean nothing when comparing VAM to scores on totally different tests previously administered by the states. What is the hypothesis? “Students who fail these tests or who do not achieve a year’s growth shall prove that schools are failing and that teachers are terrible.”???? What an awful experiment!!! And students a and teachers and public schools are the lab rats …
I’ve been screaming this same argument for years! But, Boards of Ed simply don’t care, at least according to an ally I have on the Hartford BoE. They do understand these arguments; they simply have a political agenda and will bend the rules of sound statistical analysis to meet this agenda. Unfortunately, the general public has little understanding of data analysis and will believe those in power. As Vladimir Lenin said, “A lie repeated often enough is the truth.”
But this is the crux of the problem. This creates the cognitive dissonance that quakes in my head, driving me crazy.
This and the group of hate-filled people who act sanctimoniously religious.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I have actually confronted Dr’s Steven Adamowski and Christina Kishimoto (both staunch corporate reformers and former Superintendents of Hartford Public Schools) about their knowing that the statistical models they use to destroy schools and careers have no statistical validity, hence, they are unreliable. They just shrugged. I have reminded them that I, too, am an Ed.D. who fully understands that they are committing fraud. They simply do not care; they have political power supporting them. I have even publicly confronted our BoE with this; they could care less.
I have taken this to the press to no avail. Rupert Murdock controls the news outlets, and he is staunchly behind the fraud.
I love the argument that pooh pooh’s student stress over exams. “We all have stress in our lives. They need to learn how to handle it.” It’s one thing to have adults handle stress (and many adults still haven’t learned how to do this – thus medications abound), it’s another to expect an elementary school or even middle school student to deal with a ridiculous exam. Aren’t we supposed to protect our children from harm? There is enough time later in life for them to discover the hardships of our existence. Let them be children as long as possible. Let them learn in a nurturing environment, couching education with fun and the simple joy of discovery. They should love school, not dread it.
And even fourteen year olds, facing their first set of Regents Exams (in NYS) are too young to face such pressure. After all, If you don’t pass five Regents Exams, you don’t graduate from high school. (My son opted out by getting his GED). Talk about life changing events.