Complaints are pouring in about the New York Regents examination in algebra, which all students must pass in order to graduate. It is now aligned with the Common Core, so it is very “rigorous.” Most students know that they are likely to fail. There are many reports of students in tears, and teachers in despair. What will New York do about the clog in the pipeline? What if most students can’t pass the exam and can’t graduate? Will they remain in high school until they drop out? Ideas? Anyone?
The common theme shared by parents and teachers was that any test that children will likely fail that determines their future is abusive, and that when most children leave an exam in tears something is very wrong. And don’t forget that this incredibly flawed exam will also count toward teacher evaluation, thereby prejudicing and harming teachers as well.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My principal told me today that less than a third of our students taking the exam (9th and 8th graders) had finished by the 2 hour mark. I was also told that there had never been so many kids run out of time and so many kids in tears.
It will be interesting to see how this mess will be cleaned up…
Pansies, they need to suck it up and work all the harder and faster and better till they become the bestest test takers in the world.
I hope this is sarcasm.
No need to hope, the Obomber has shown us what good that’ll do for us. In this case your hope has been fulfilled, so don’t call me Obomber.
I teach earth science and geology. I could provide some grit…
Like to see you try taking the exam. It’s literally 11th grade math with college level reading comprehension. Don’t throw stones.
Please take your sarcasmometer into the nearest dealer and have it recalibrated.
Recalibrate your sarcasm detectors, folks.
This is the problem with Coleman-style ‘close readings of informational texts…’
From what I have read, NYSED will be setting the cut score so that the passing percentage on the new Common Core algebra I test is the same as the passing rate for the old Regents algebra exam. The state average hovered around 75% if I’m not mistaken. Students had to earn 30 out of a possible 85 points in order to pass with a 65%. My guess is that they want to avoid a parent revolt if 70% of the freshman could not earn a math credit that was required for graduation.
My issue is that this counts as a 5th marking period grade at my kids’ school. My daughter is an honor roll student and “just passing” is not acceptable to her, as it shouldn’t be. I am worried what this test will do to her GPA. A test that kids need in order to graduate should test the basic understanding, not try to trick the kids as this test did. It is ridiculous.
Your concerns are shared by many. To make matters worse the cut score scale at the upper end penalizes students by losing points. Read the parent and teacher comments here and welcome to the NYS testing Resistance.
Whatever you do, don’t sit back quietly. Complain loudly to the building principal. superintendent, BOE, NYSED, and the BOR. Let your concerns be heard.
Duane – you are kidding, right?
He is kidding.
Thanks, IM!!
Erin,
Go back through the last couple of days and read my thoughts on standardized testing. I think you’ll quickly realize where I stand on that abomination of educational malpractice.
Wait am I reading you correctly that 30/85 got scaled to a score of 65??
Why are we lying to kids through these square root (or cube root) scaling transformations? Is there seriously no one on government with enough brains to realize this is crazy??
That’s called “psychometric fudging” used in an attempt to make standardized testing seem logical, valid and the best thing since sliced and buttered bread.
rickbobrick56,
And therein is the dilemma for the so-called reformers: fail 70% of the students and “prove” the public schools are failing (which is the original intention), and thus presumably open the gates for further privatization, but also run the risk of intensifying the parent/student revolt against the tests, risking their demise.
The smarter heads among the so-called reformers know this is a long-term campaign, but they are constantly undermined by those who cannot wait to smash and grab the public schools, and risk blowing the whole thing.
Given the irrepressible greed and will-to-power of the our current Overclass, and the role the education reform industrial complex plays in enabling it, functioning as a kind if Id for the Overclass, I don’t think they’ll be able to restrain themselves.
This is from a NYSED memo dated, May 2014:
“Common Core Regents Exams will remain comparable to those percentages of
students who scored at a 65 and 55 and above, respectively, on the current Regents
Exams in English and Integrated Algebra (2005 Standards). This is a transparent and
appropriate approach to standard setting that ensures fairness to students and a
smooth transition as we continue the full implementation of the Common Core through
the Class of 2022. Cut scores for the remaining performance levels will be determined
by educator judgment of the rigor required by the standards.”
Click to access UpdateCommonCoreRegentsExams-5-27-14.pdf
However, the above is a just a temporary delay in the full bore assault. Starting with the class of 2022 (current 5th graders) the passing grade for the CC algebra exam will be set at the “aspirational level” of 75%. given the fact that they can Mickey around with cut scores at there whimsy, who knows what this really means.
Anyone paying close attention to the Common Core rollout in NYS now realizes it is an unmitigated disaster. A disaster that Governor Cuomo owns.
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
How about the fact that the top scorers are penalized according to the conversion chart? Percentages are rounded down from the top and over inflated from the bottom. There would be no need for this if it was a fair and consistent test.
My daughter lost 2 points that way. frustrating for her. you can get half the test wrong(43 questions) and get a 70. But 12 wrong out of 86 is an 84. should be 86. so you are penalized. she is done. next year she is not worrying about the math and going for the 70. going to focus on her science grades(which is not CC yet)
Psychometric fudging at it’s bestest.
“There would be no need for this if it was a fair and consistent test.”
There can NEVER BE a standardized test that is/has been “fair and consistent”. Read Noel Wilson to whom I repeated refer to understand why. See below for details.
The private prisons are not making enough money so the investors in those prisons (many who also share interest in educational testing) are hoping that the students will get so discouraged that they will drop out, turn to a life of crime, and end up in the private prisons where they continue to make money for investors. 😉
Yes, when Diane mentioned the “clog in the pipeline”, that’s the pipeline I was thinking about. I think this test is designed to unclog the school to prison pipeline.
Math should be taught for the student, not to the student. Most students will not need engineering level math. The purpose of teaching math is not cranking through numbers in a formula or memorizing the unit circle. The purpose is to develop a way of thinking. Just as fictional literature nurtures a part of the mind, math helps students reason. The goal is to let them exercise reasoning and proof as best they can. The Reformers are destroying math instruction by undermining teachers and terrorizing students.
The obsession with testing math reflects the flatworld, one dimensional approach of the Reformers. They view math as something dull, colorless, and almost punitive. Just measure it. No wonder kids and adults tell me “I hate math” at every introduction. Math should come in many flavors. Not interested in trigonometry? Try statistics. Even then, maybe your stats could be served up for future psychologists verses a general purpose class with a heavy, practical dose of TI-84s. Going the computer tech route? Give ’em linear algebra, logic, and computational theory. Trying a vocational route? Practical math involving geometry, interest, risk management.
I never understood why some pinhead in some policy tank wants me to teach Law of Cosines to a future music major. Should engineers learn Advanced Orchestration?
To answer your last question-YES!
Excellent post MathVale!
Great post. It seems to me that providing students the opportunity to experience a common mathematical education up through sophomore year and then multiple electives to match a variety of interests and post-secondary plans is better for students and less forced. Where in a traditional AGA sequence or in an integrated sequence would you end the common required math?
Right at the point the student says “when am I ever going to use this?”. :-). Just kidding.
I would like to see more proofs and logic available as soon as students begin grasping abstraction – maybe around 13-14? My own wonderful math prof lamented the lack of ability in American students, even math majors, in logic and proving skills, myself included. Why not show 7th graders the proof square root of 2 is irrational or divide by zero is undefined? There are entertaining YouTube videos doing that now.
Much of base level math is even open to variation. I have students who struggle mightily with ratios and proportions. This is where I would change the whole standards process so people like you and I have input to answer your question.
First, get rid of these useless high stakes tests – PARCC, SBA, state tests. They are a complete waste of time and money and pollute instruction. Standardized tests are for diagnostic purposes only as a teaching tool. Much like a bloodwork report to a doctor. We do not fire my doctor because my cholesterol is bad. Instead, I use the report to lose 20 pounds and cut out Big Macs.
Second, devise detailed instruction and objectives closest to the student, not in a far off hotel meeting room or marbled statehouse. This is why micromanaged, top-down common core is doomed. Instead, federally, very high level, brief, strategic “standards”. Each level – state, district, building, team, teacher, parent/student – adds INCREMENTALLY to the standard. And small increments. Such general to specific refinements are governed by a meta-standard defining process and revision. Nothing over burdening in paperwork or mandates. If we truly want to harness technology, this workflow can be automated and supported to offload the teacher with QUALITY software. Every student gets a true IEP, not to be confused with the current IEP that buries intervention teachers now in progress goals and updates having little practical meaning and pulling them away from intervention work.
Third, the operational key to this process is collaboration, not competition. States meet as necessary, districts meet, buildings, teacher teams, parents with teachers and students. The above true standard may be revised up and down the hierarchy. Top level changes are strategic and far reaching, but infrequent. Changes at the student level are fluid and adaptable. The current business driven, cage-fight, Darwinistic strategy of teacher verses teacher for irrelevant rankings is not even effective in private sector organizations. Instead, mentoring and apprenticeship has been proven successful for thousands of years. Why abandon something that works? If politicians honestly want a top quality education system, they must support and fund innovation, not test and punish.
I cringe every time someone suggests a true IEP for every child. IEP goals suffer from the same malady standardized tests do. We are choosing surrogate behaviors to represent the growth we want a student to show. Throwing in 1/3 of the class with IEPs, each with several goals, and expect a teacher to monitor the progress on all these goals is ridiculous. Instead, it gets reduced to did they pass a ten question quiz that is supposed to prove mastery. A true IEP means we will try to direct each and every child’s growth. I shudder to think what we could come up with. As a special ed teacher at the high school level, I was spending 60-70 hours a week trying to stay on top of my classroom teaching and my case management. I could have spent twice that much time trying to monitor all my students to the same level of intensity as my caseload students, and I still would have been doing an inadequate job. Can you imagine what we could do to the psyches of a generation of school kids who all had “plans” laid out specifically for each one of them? I know the intentions behind this suggestion are good, and I am only seeing the horrors that we could create. I know the thought is for all those children who never get any particular attention, but when do our attempts to maximize potential veer into “thou shalts”? I can’t stop thinking that there is something organic about development that we really should not be trying to control. We can provide a rich and nurturing environment without trying to create a virtual reality for each child in which we hope they will thrive.
MV, I know you are saying “just kidding” but at the point when a student asks that question AND there is not a plausible answer in relation to that student’s needs and future prospects that the math teacher can provide, then it’s time to move from a general course to a pathway.
Reasoning does get too little attention and it is not something that a student can demonstrate via the SBAC or PARCC.
Thank you
MathVale,
How I wish you were Ed Sec’y.
Excellent demonstration of why teachers need to make decisions about content, skill, and tests not regents who are slaves to the flawed product called Common Core.
Since when does being blindsided and sucker punched mean “I/you/we fail”?
The tests are produced, honed and delivered to the specifications of the customer/client/buyer. That is what reform by any other name (e.g., rheephorm) means:
The soft bigotry of low expectations of public school staff and students and parents and their associated communities as confirmed and guaranteed by the hard bigotry of mandated failure.
Why do the victims of smash-and-grab rheephormsters bear the responsibility for the incompetence, ignorance, and casual cruelty of the leaders of the self-styled “new civil rights movement of our time”?
Put the blame where it lies. On the shoulders of the edupreneurs and those that push and mandate the use of their eduproducts.
And call them by their rightful terms: edubullies and edufrauds.
Opt out of the measure-and-punish hazing ritual of standardized testing. Opt in to genuine learning and teaching.
Lakeside School for everyone. No excuses. No exceptions. Whatever it takes.
And how do we get there?
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.”
Frederick Douglass.
Right then. Right now. Right on!
😎
Love it!!!!! Your quotes are the best, you crazy TA!
KTA,
“Lakeside School for everyone” is a terrific approach. Advocates can’t be accused of wanting to protect the status quo/avoiding accountability.
Wonder how Mark Zuckerberg’s & matching dollars would have been spent in Newark, NJ with Lakeside School for Everyone approach? Instead of Big Bucks for Consultants.
This Regent’s Standardized Math Test suffers all the inherent falsehoods and errors identified by Noel Wilson that renders the whole process COMPLETELY INVALID. Another counterfeit “coin of the realm” that needs to be exposed for what it is-a blatant fraud. Hey you need change for those three 10 dollar bills? I’ve got 10 three dollar bills as change for you.
Until we unite and attack the educational standards and standardized testing beast at its foundational heart we will continue to lose the battle and war that is being waged against public school. Keep using the privateers “coin of the realm” and see how much that buys you.
We have to attack that beast and the first step is to understand and then SHOUT OUT TO ALL why those educational malpractices are COMPLETELY INVALID. Start with:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Diane,
Respectfully, I’d like to put you to the test. I said a few days ago that you may be the one who could change the circumstances for teachers and education, and I believe that if you were to propose the following, it would be the beginning of the end for extreme testing and this evaluation nonsense. This is what I propose you do. Call out to all the activists that you are associated with, and all the teachers who read your blog, and propose that as of the new term not a teacher in the country is to use a Pearson test. Let’s put the bastards out of business, and make a statement that the educational community can’t refuse to ignore. Any teacher who refuses will be suspect.They must hold fast, “one for all and all for one.” Now this is a separate issue. I know that you come from the administrative environs, but I ‘m asking that you turn your back on your administrative associates, and propose that they eliminate their titles, Superintendent, Principal etc., and forthwith call themselves Support Personnel. I’m sure that it never crossed your mind that the administrative system which is both authoritarian and intimidating should be changed in support of teachers. We have lost our status in the minds of the general public and among the student body. It’s time for you to step up and kick some behinds. You can do it Diane. What can they do to you or I? Nothing.
Respectfully yours
Ian Kay
I so wish that Diane could wave a magic wand and galvanize a mass uprising that would sweep the country. Unfortunately, I think we have years of work ahead. It’s taken years for the reformsters to build their juggernaut. Now they have been called out, it will still take years to reframe policy and years of continued vigilance. We are hardly anywhere near winning. Whether we realize it or not we are fighting for more than public education as a common good. We have to fight for the common good in general that is slowly being sold off to the highe$t bidder$.
2Old2teach, if I could wave a magic wand, I would indeed galvanize a mass uprising against unjust social and economic policies that hurt children and our society. I would have people conducting sit-ins, die-ins, shut downs, street theater, and dream up new ways to wake up the public to the great public theft underway.
I know you would, Diane. I, for one, am so grateful for what you have done.
“I’m sure that it never crossed your mind that the administrative system which is both authoritarian and intimidating should be changed in support of teachers.”
You’ve already been straightened out on this point. I can only assume you’re being willfully ignorant. Diane has written on this point many, many times. She is clearly on record that administration should be supportive of teachers. But as 2old2teach pointed out, she doesn’t have a magic wand. Knock off your insults of Diane and work with her to overthrow education “reform”.
You know, I thought you were addressing Diane at first. I’m not attacking her. She has the ear of the teachers who could change the culture of the schools if they were united in purpose. Oh, are you an administrator? That could explain your attack on me. I spent my whole career observing and fighting fraudulent administrators, and so did my colleagues throughout the city. Our peers became arrogant and spent their time protecting their positions. They should be supportive of teachers, and that should be the extent of their task. We don’t need potentates and rulers who lead by intuition. Read my book and learn what is really going on in the public schools before you question my motivations.
My attack on you? You’re the one who said, and let me quote you again, “I’m sure that it never crossed your mind that the administrative system which is both authoritarian and intimidating should be changed in support of teachers.” Never crossed her mind??? How utterly offensive, especially considering how often Diane has written on that very subject.
Here’s the thing (yet again, try to pay attention this time), no one is arguing with you that administrators can be very authoritarian and intimidating (although not all are, for instance Carol Burris and Deb Meier as two examples). No one is arguing with you that that is wrong. No one is arguing with you that administration should be supportive of teachers. Are we clear on this? Agreed?
The only point of contention is your willful insistence that Diane is somehow either oblivious to or complicit with the current state of affairs. You seem to be working awfully hard to alienate a potential ally – one who has already done much more than anyone else (including you) to address the very conditions you rant about. I understand you are (rightfully) very upset about the situation you are in, but stop taking it out on Diane.
The Regents exams are not secure. I’ve heard many complaints about the algebra exam but have not yet seen a copy. If you are a NYS math teacher, please post a test or sample questions and help us non math-folks see specifically where the problems were!
Here is the link:
http://www.nysedregents.org/algebraone/
Hi, thanks for the link. I am aware of how to access archived exams. I am hoping a math teacher will publish/comment on the questions for non-math folks
“The common theme shared by parents and teachers was that any test that children will likely fail that determines their future is abusive, and that when most children leave an exam in tears something is very wrong. And don’t forget that this incredibly flawed exam will also count toward teacher evaluation, thereby prejudicing and harming teachers as well.”
I find it curious, that if we as teachers were to create either an environment in our classrooms or some form of student evaluation that was as abusive as described here, we would be removed from the classroom and possibly charged – rightly so – with some form of educational misconduct. And yet, we are being directed to do exactly that by those behind this misguided, mandated testing.
The world has turned upside down.
Shutting down Common Core is simple.
Disenroll the children from Public school en masse and grieve all school taxes. The loss of funds by 1 years end would be profound creating such chaos for the stockbroker and market that it would be repealed just to stop the outflow of monetary losses.
The rephormers would like nothing better than your wish coming true. It would shut down public education forever.
I was in a training yesterday with a Pearson rep, and we were perusing a few of the services that Pearson oversees. I knew the company was big, but… my goodness. Pearson IS public education right now. I am afraid that much of this happened while someone was (many of us were?) asleep at the switch, and we’re left trying to put Pandora’s gifts back in their box… the insanity of this whole situation has encouraged me to vent via webcomic just to make myself feel better 🙂
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
You know the reformer slogan:
Test as I say, not as I do . . .
My son and I tutor a learning disabled high school student. I tutor him in English/Social Studies and my son spent the year tutoring him in Algebra. This is a student who exerts great effort and with the help of my son garnered enough skills and strategies to pass most classroom tests and has a B average in a high achieving Long Island public high school. However, we both warned him that this Regents would be challenging and for him not get upset. Yes, we both told him that this test was going to be impossible to pass. Even with extra time, he could not finish it and said that the wordy questions often confused him. He told us he did the best he could, but he froze and became frustrated. I told him that when most students fail a test, the problem is with the test. Here is a hard working student with a high level of motivation (as well as extra outside support because his parents have the means to pay for such support). And yet, the test was impossible. Those classroom grades are the real measure of his success and not this invalid assessment. Believe me, I have seen his classroom math tests and they are challenging–even challenging to me. That is why my son who is a math teacher is tutoring him in this subject. This test is nothing short of discrimination against the disabled. I am sure that when the scores come out, over 90% of disabled students will probably not pass. Storm clouds are gather and their will be lawsuits to try to invalidate these tests.
Perhaps the public school children should be assigned to the private schools of the Ramapo District.
This is probably not news to you but I thought might contribute to the discussion. http://www.salon.com/2015/06/18/robert_reich_elites_are_waging_war_on_public_education_partner/
Gee the title of this article could make one think they were about to read about the state of the “teaching profession”!!! Cuomo is probably working on how to make more profit and gain more power by trashing teachers even more… perhaps linking the graduation test failure to more mass firings of teachers!
Why should students have to pass an algebra test to graduate? Why should any kid be denied graduation because they can’t pass an algebra test (or any other test for that matter)?
“Graduation ready” has come to mean “college and career ready” which means “college ready”. Rather than letting the vast majority of students graduate with a basic diploma and letting colleges pick who they think is college ready, the rephormers are deciding that no one can graduate unless they’re among those who can go on to college. What are we going to do with the 50%+ portion of the population who don’t meet those standards? It’s hard enough to survive these days without some sort of college degree; now they won’t even have a high school diploma.
And speaking of “college and career ready”, that’s impossible, unless you define “career” simply as “job”. Generally what we think of as a “career” is something that needs additional post-high school training, whether college, grad school, professional school, or just a certificate, apprenticeship, internship, something. So if you’re ready for college, by definition you’re not yet ready for the career that will follow.
I am an esl teacher in Albany ny many esl students took the common core algebra regents last year but they also took the regular older regents which ever they passed was accepted., This is pure crazyness, kids taking test after test after test. Parents must rise up and teachers be careful to vote for people who support them.
I simply do not understand why:
A) Most students who graduated college math before this had old standards with old problems were OK and making the math harder to learn and cramming more of it into one year will help
B) So many students fail that achievement at the bottom of the curve becomes impossible to ascertain
C) The test needs to be so difficult so as to prevent a remotely (I mean remotely) nuanced view of student achievement and curved so much to make up for its difficulty
D) The test is so hard as to prevent all but the very best students from finishing it which also effects outcomes.
Was any of this really necessary? We are caught in the gravitational pull of NCLB – accountability ratcheted up, so cut scores were ratcheted down as was difficulty, now we have high accountability to a highly subjective requirement measured by a subjective test.
Enough with the accountability – it doesn’t take a psychometrician to see that no one really knows what we are measuring at this point and how relevant those predictive scores are (since isn’t that what the test is trying to do? Evaluate what was learned based on a prediction of what they should have learned according to someone else).
If we know the SAT is less than accurate after so many years of administrations and fine tuning compared to GPA, why are we putting so much stock in these new exams based on materials students didn’t learn yet based on standards that have questionable validity for subjects that could be diced different ways based on the ability of students to learn it.
I also think we’re finally seeing where the rubber hits the road and the pace of what we WANT children to learn at divides from the rate that most children can process abstract information at. I always bring this up about how can we differentiate instruction when the test doesn’t differentiate at the end of the year for what we taught – how can you ensure all students throttle up and down in speed throughout the year to hit the finish line (as we can reasonably predict some topics will be learned faster and others slower by different learners).
These tests are hitting the absurdity button to the point where the failing schools narrative demands questioning as the reason for stagnant wages and lost jobs over prevailing societal factors not the least of which are income inequality and globalization of jobs and free trade agreements.
As KTA would say,
“It is not the answers, but the questions that enlighten us.”
Why?
Because THEY can.
“. . . it doesn’t take a psychometrician to see that no one really knows what we are measuring at this point. . . ”
They aren’t measuring anything and never have because there is no measuring “standard”, no measuring device and no way to determine those two things.
NO ONE MEASURES ANYTHING in regard to the teaching and learning process. Things get assessed but not measured.
“that achievement . . . student achievement . . . accountability ratcheted up. . . high accountability. . . ”
Enough with the accountability and achievement. Those are the edudeformers’ and privatizers’ words that completely skew the discussions about the teaching and learning process.
“When the right thing can only be measured poorly, it tends to cause the wrong thing to be measured, only because it can be measured well. And it is often much worse to have a good measurement of the wrong thing — especially when as is so often the case, the wrong thing will in fact be used as an indicator of the right thing — than to have poor measurements of the right thing.” John Tukey, Mathematician, Bell Labs, Princeton University
YEP!
Except that in the case of the teaching and learning process there is no logically valid measurement of anything. Mathematicians seem to think that “numerizing”, assigning numerical values/numbers to things is measuring. And most educators seem to do the same thing.
WE AIN’T MEASURING NOTHING, FOLKS.
Keep up the fantasy world, the duendes, the vain and illusory conclusions involved with “academic measurement” and you’ll keep getting falsehoods, errors, invalidities that harm many students.
New York seems to be the example we in California should hold up as exactly what not to do. Even setting the cut score so ONLY 25% of the students fail is ruthless. It is not focused on human development. It just sorts winners and losers.
tultican,
“It just sorts winners and losers.” YEP! and the accompanying harms have been described in what that labeling does to students:
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Thank you Duane. I agree. One longtime weakness or our public education system is that it has always been a sorting system, but at least the rules for success were not an arbitrary cut score on a dubious test of intellectual attainment. High stakes testing is a huge error if good pedagogy is the goal.
The Senate is looking at revising ESEA this week. The bill looks good right now. It appears that they are looking to reinstate the original purpose of the bill to create a more equitable education for our most at risk kids. They are considering eliminating the high stakes punitive actions. They are also looking to put control back into local hands. This is the time to contact our Senators and let them know how we really feel. It passed out of committee with a bipartisan unanimous vote. We will need to put the pressure on to prevent any last minute punitive measures. If the bill passes, we will then need to put pressure on our individual states as needed. Again text, call or e-mail your Senators. The bill is set for debate sometime between today and next week according to NEA.
Signing this petition will get emails sent to your senator, house representative, and president Obama. Over 5,000 emails and letters have been sent to date.
http://www.petition2congress.com/15080/stop-common-core-testing/
Here is the truth: If you can buy your way into a private school, you child will NEVER have to take these Regents. Private school Algebra is much easier for MANY students — the advanced ones learn these concepts but the many who aren’t particularly gifted in math — who may be excellent writers and thinkers and even scientists — are allowed to skate by in Algebra and are never tested via any standardized exams. Then they go to a nice private college where the only math and science they need is 2 low-level required courses like Rocks for Jocks. So they are their parents float blithely through life never having to know what the poor students who can’t afford private school are expected to excel at.
I promise you that if you give the Common Core Algebra Regents exam to the 8th or 9th graders at Horace Mann or Trinity or Friends or Avenues, a surprisingly high number of them will score low. But since primarily public school students take these exams and are judged on their performance, the state is free to make them as difficult as possible so they can turn around and criticize public schools.
I wish a group of right-thinking private schools in NYC would give these exams to their students one morning in support of public school parents. Just as a control group so we can see if their students are breezing through it, or far more likely, frequently failing them. Give the Common Core Algebra Regents to the students who just finished Algebra and give the Common Core ELA and math exams to their 3-8 graders.
There is a reason that private schools seem to be opting out more and more so they don’t have to take the same exams to prove their worth as a student as public school students do. The ONLY exam that seems to be left are the SAT and ACT (which lots of small private liberal arts colleges — where those private school kids attend — are making “optional”. And the AP Exams, which used to be popular in the top private schools, but now very few of the students except the very best will sit for them. The claim is that the AP exams aren’t as difficult as the private school’s own exams, but the reality is that the private schools will not look good if most of their students aren’t scoring well, so most no longer take them!
I am certain that the desire of “reformers” (really privatizers) to prove that schools are terrible would never hold up if private school students took the SAME standardized tests. But I think all their children between age 15 and 20 should be forced to take the Algebra I Common Core Regents. Now. Can’t wait to see how their college age children do, and can’t wait to hear the excuses that many of them will make when many of their college age children who are not STEM majors fail.
It is time for educators to stop feeding the machines that are hurting us. Until teachers become SMART and ENLIGHTENED about where to spend their money- THINGS WON’T CHANGE! STOP SHOPPING AND INVESTING IN PLACES THAT DO NOT SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION.
Boycott Netflix!
Watch the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings calling for districts full of nothing by privately-run charter schools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9n6g3VkZc4
The supposedly independent Cowen Institute puts out a glowing report on the privatization of New Orleans schools, but keeps using the first person plural pronoun “we” in describing those in charge of this privatizain
“We’re not finished yet… ”
If they’re truly objective, shouldn’t the pronoun be “they” as in “Those New Orleans privatizers… they’re not finished yet.”
If it’s not a truly objective study that’s run and/or funded by privatization folks, shouldn’t that call the whole study into question?
That’s like all those Tobacco Institute studies that showed smoking posed no health risk… It’s a point that the author of this article never addresses:
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2015/06/new_orleans_school_reforms_wor.html#incart_m-rpt-1
NY Resident, will be NJ resident so that daughter, grade 8, can get a HS diploma. Moving on out………..