Despite the fact that the new Common Core tests showed that only 26 percent of students in New York City “passed” the new state tests in reading, and only 30 percent in math, Mayor Bloomberg hailed the sharp decline in test scores as “very good news.”
The scores were especially grim for black and Hispanic students, as well as students with disabilities. The achievement gaps on the tests were very large.
“In math, 15 percent of black students and 19 percent of Hispanic students passed the exam, compared with 50 percent of white students and 61 percent of Asian students.
Students with disadvantages struggled as well. On the English exam, 3 percent of nonnative speakers were deemed proficient, and 6 percent of students with disabilities passed.”
Despite the drop in scores, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appeared on Wednesday at a news conference just as he had in years when results were rosier. He rejected criticisms of the tests, calling the results “very good news” and chiding the news media for focusing on the decline. He said black and Hispanic students, who make up two-thirds of the student population, had made progress that was not reflected in the scores.”
The mayor saw the upside of the scores. The lower the scores, and the higher the bar, he reasoned, the harder students would work to improve their test scores in the future:
“We have to make sure that we give our kids constantly the opportunity to move towards the major leagues,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Major leagues? We will more likely see them moving for the exits and dropping out in frustration and disgust. They will lose everything that makes learning fun with wall to wall test prep.
He is happy for the low scores because why?!!! Really?!!!! What planet does the person live on that would be encouraged by tests that do not represent the potential and possibilities for thousands of struggling learners? Is the push through drop out statistic, bound to increase by the very nature of testing to death the students who test poorly or badly, better for the rosy thinking arrogance of a comfortably accomplished Mayor? Does he have stock in the For Profit Prison companies? For many that is the formula…push through, drop out, net them up, put them in prison. There they can be low wage earners to rebuild the infrastructure and do manufacturing for the profit of others. Diabolical!!!!!!!!
Wishing, testing, and then telling a person with one leg to get up and walk without supports, accommodations, all that is needed to accomplish walking and the belief that they will and can is ridiculous. It is no different with the challenged learners no matter where the challenge is coming from. Without diagnosing the problem and severity and reasons for the failure and getting the appropriate help, you set the student up for failure. There is no one size fits all formula.
This is testing as a faster result for sorting and finding the students for the global needs of our government and corporate interests. The romantic notion that this is for the health, welfare, education, and future for all our children is a fairy tale told to us by the powers that be for their own comfort zone and in denial of the truth that they are all too aware of and have some share in. Deceptive by nature and disingenuous by design.
Apparently, Hizzoner has been in the stratosphere for so long, it’s clearly affected his thinking and judgment.
That, or, he’s just triangulating, just a wee bit?????
I am a little unclear about the consequences to the students that follow from passing or not passing these exams. Are students held back if they don’t reach the bar? Will the be denied a high school diploma? Will they be required to take extra classes?
“consequences”
There’s a tree. Now all fish must climb it.
The students who do not pass will not be allowed to graduate? Is that what you mean?
No. Why are people so focused on consequences? To we as a nation hate our young people that much? We seemed obsessed with quantifying every aspect, every outcome, every process of education as if the numbers will reveal some magical solution somehow to have escaped human thought and reasoning in the past. So we set some arbitrary and contrived “bar” and expect all children to uniformly reach that bar as if individuality and what makes us human never existed.
Is there a bar students must pass over in order to graduate from high school?
To answer your question, TE, yes,students have been and will be held back, denied admission to some schools, and either prevented from graduating or graduated with second-tier diplomas if they don’t pass these exams.That is why they are called “high stakes” exams. But the stakes are also high for the schools and the teachers, which will be evaluated on their test scores. That’s a lot to have riding on an incredibly flawed instrument.
In my state at least these are no stacks exams for the students. That is one of the criticisms. I have looked around a little and have been unable to find threshold scores for promotion to the next grade or graduation. Can you point me to a web page?
They will likely get some sort of certificate of attendance which is a code for business that they are not a sutable candidate for employment. I believe some states have already gone in this direction. Research is not high on retention. Maybe the hope is that they will stay long enough (or retained) in an educationally vigorous environment to be off the streets, but then drop out and on to social service rolls, maybe prison.
What are we solving? The taxpayer will pay on either end of this.
Worse, the individal could have a failed life. How sad. So, tragic!
Not what good educators are about. Not what we as human beings should be about.
Businesses will figure out if their employees have sufficient skills to do the job independent of the employees status as a high school,graduate. It might just take a few weeks.
I have been asking folks here if they could articulate the academic standards for high school graduation, but with little success. Do you have any thoughts? Can all high school graduates read at the tenth grade level? The eighth? Are they able to do arithmetic? Use fractions?
“Are students held back if they don’t reach the bar? Will the be denied a high school diploma? Will they be required to take extra classes?”
What state are you in? In Massachusetts, the 4th grade MCAS is the gatekeeper for the middle school “pre-AP” track, so if the PARCC test replaces it, we can assume it will also serve to keep riff raff children in their place.
In Florida, I think promotion is dependent on the FCATs. Individual states have different stakes for the children, but the stakes for taxpayers are remarkably similar.
The requirement to take “extra classes” is real, and so are the classes. They’ll be offered online by Pearson, and districts with high “failure” rates will be compelled (by all the political appointees placed over state education departments) to purchase them “voluntarily”, or face being taken over by the state and forced to purchase them. That’s what “accountability” means.
Bloomberg and Klein’s cronies at the US DOE have been very clear in their business plan behind the Common Core, and you’ve supported them solidly. Can you possibly pretend, even to yourself, that this wasn’t your “teachingeconomist” goal all along?
I live in a state in the middle of the country. Change comes very slowly here.
You are correct that the FCAT is used for promotion in grade 3 and high school graduation in grade 10. I have not found any threshold PARCC scores for graduation in New York, however.
I am not sure I have a goal related to the common core or the educational policies of a city far away from my home. I do think that the awarding of a high school diploma should be contingent on having achieved some level of academic success. I have asked around here what that level currently is, but have had little response.
Um, TE, since your state is rather big and you won’t be drawing attention to yourself by identifying it, please tell us your state and maybe we can help you answer your questions.
My state is large in area, but rather small in population. But in any case, I am fairly familiar with the promotion and graduation requirements in my state as I have put two students through the public school system and my third is a rising junior in high school.
I was asking about other states policies, especially because on of the criticisms of exams like MAP exams is that they are no stakes exams for the students.
If I remember correctly from past conversations with my friend here, teachingeconomist is in Ohio. Is that correct, TE?
No, I am in a much smaller state.
Here in Nevada, our high school proficiency tests (in reading, writing, science and math) are being phased out in a few years, to be replaced by SBAC. So we did have minimum competency tests that were challenging for many students. In my school, for example, about 60 percent passed the reading test on the first try, about 50 percent the math, mostly because they take the test their sophomore year and havent had Algebra II yet. The test is way beyond fractions etc. They get several tries, but if they don’t pass all four tests plus their classes, they don’t graduate. The problem I see is that we already have a graduation rate in the 60s, so SBAC will make things even worse, not better. I have seen the ELA samples, and they are almost like AP tests, way too hard for the majority of our students, many of whom are ELL. Or, perhaps due to political pressure,the tests won’t be used for graduation at all, so in effect we will have lowered, rather than raised, our standards by dropping our own state proficiency tests. Yet I would prefer this to using SBAC for graduation. Our schools, teachers and students will all be deemed failures when we can’t reach these ridiculous stanards on what so far looks like an inappropriate and invalid assessment.
TE,
Why so reluctant to tell us what state you are in?
What does it matter? A big squarish one in the middle.
If it’s big we won’t be able to find you, so why so cagey?
Why so curious ?
Answer it or don’t. Whatever TE.
I won’t. Want to maintain a little anonymity.
I don’t think people are going to narrow down one teaching economist in Ohio vs. one teacher named Linda in CT. It doesn’t really matter. You’re still you.
If I lived in Ohio you might be correct, but even in that state there are only a small number of economics departments that award doctorates.
TE,
Contact the Kansas Department of Education for that info.
Duane
I know my states requirements (no standardized tests have any stacks for the students). I was asking about other states.
“If I lived in Ohio you might be correct, but even in that state there are only a small number of economics departments that award doctorates.”
Ah, excellent point. We certainly ought to respect your privacy in this matter. I hope you will never be singled out in a negative way that would affect your professional or personal life.
On another note, too bad public school teachers cannot say they, as a group, haven’t been singled out in a negative way that would affect their professional or personal lives.
There have been a number of negative comments here, though I know economists are held in high repute in the wider world.
The negative comments have nothing to do with your profession.
The man is a maniacal clown! Who could have ever conceived what has happened to NYC public school children and their teachers, and how far back this mayor has pushed the city? Insanity to the infinite power.
This is good news for ed deformers like Bloomberg who will use results not to be accountable for 11 years of failure but to claim poor results need higher doses of testing, school closings, charter choices etc. There is a grand plan and Bloomberg and pals are executing it quite well from their point of view.
I completely agree with you. This is great news for people who make their profits from public education. Charter schools can come and take over the “failing schools,” textbook publishers will most likely pick up some business, software companies will get business if they are in the educational sector for interventions, and the testing companies make money even though their tests obviously have problems.
Sadly, I couldn’t agree more.
What Bloomberg would say to his child if he had a child who was miserable and hated school because of the policies and practices endorsed and pushed by Bloomberg?
In reality, I probably do not really want to know the answer. Many New Yorkers probably cannot wait until he is out of office. For their sake, I hope that a candidate with a soul wins the election.
PS…FLERP, in case you read this, I pictured you and your son reading together as I was unpacking boxes of books and getting them back on the shelves in my classroom today.
(Today being Weds. 8/7; it is not quite yet midnight in Alabama!) I hope that he loves being a first grader as much as I love teaching first graders!
Wow. This kind of “reasoning” is difficult to account for. I can’t recall one student of mine who would ever work harder to raise a score if I told him that the next test would be harder. And certainly if he DID work harder, took the test and his score was lower. . . . can you imagine if I told him that I would have to raise the bar until his score went up? DUH!!!!!!!
It is Orwellian; or something Ray Bradbury would like to write about; My neices when they were 4 and 5 used to love to play the Alie in Wonderland lines together: “Do you want some wine? ”
“There isn’t any” . I think kids get it.
Diane Ravitch quotes Groucho Marx: The kid who is 5 will get it. Go and find me a kid of 5″ and bring him here.
I didn’t get the quote exactly right but you get the idea. Thanks for your comment. I think this kind of reasoning really points out we are in trouble; yet, they expect us to teach critical thinking? I know where I would start (as a retired teacher of reading comprehension)
That’s KrazyTA that has used that Marxist line!
Sorry…I meant What would Bloomberg say….
What test do NY students take?
(PARRC or Smarter Balance)
PARRC
PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)
New York is scheduled to be part of PARCC testing beginning during then2014-2015 school year. However, Pearson designed this year’s elementary and middle school tests. High school tests, known as Regents exams, for nearly a century, have been written by…wait for it…teachers. The state will pilot Common Core Regents exams beginning next year.
Major Leagues? huh? Another sports analogy…sheez! What nonsense.
Doublethink.
I try, I really do, to understand how people like this think, but it doesn’t seem to me that they are thinking much at all. “Very good news.” That is INSANE.
These people are going to have some explaining to do when the parents receive their kids’ scores. I hope that the resulting shockwave knocks a whole lot of idiot politicians out of office and prevents some ex-mayors from having any further credibility on the subject of our childrens’ education.
What if the results on the tests are in fact “accurate”?
The skills that the tests are trying to “measure” are way too complex to be assessed in a “one-size-fits-all” manner. So, no, the results on the test are not “accurate.”
And to give my reply some validty, I’m a NYS Certified 7-12 ELA teacher, with a Master’s Degree in Reading Literacy.
Outraged, see my post tomorrow at 7 am
HU,
Read Wilson (that’s a command), please!
Duane
Well, Robert, to paraphrase comedian Lewis Black “I’m glad I took acid when I was young to prepare myself for that kind of thinking”.
Here’s the theory behind these exams: that it is possible to but together
a brief,
criterion-referenced test
that validly
and reliably
measures a set of standards
that in turn validly describes concepts
and skills
(but not specific world or procedural knowledge)
that constitute an ability to read and write
at a level of proficiency, at each grade level,
that will ensure that a student is on track to be capable of reading and writing
at a level required for EITHER college or a career
upon graduation from high school.
I’ve broken this down in this way because there are numerous pitfalls for test design associated with each line, above, that would make any such instrument extraordinarily suspect, if one bothered to think about the matter at all.
In their astonishing hubris, the “reformers” have failed to understand just how difficult a task that might be, even if such one-size-fits-all tests were desirable.
The “reformers” fail to understand just how complex “reading” and “writing” are, how very little is captured by their exams and how unrepresentative of overall reading and writing ability those exams are. These are extraordinarily crude instruments that are being used to make fine-tuned decisions. Its as though one were trying to measure the sizes of the components of a cell with a yardstick.
I meant “It’s,” of course, not “Its.”
“. . . just how complex “reading” and “writing” are. . . ”
Was just discussing the complexity involved in learning a second language with my brand spanking new AP when he said I need to come up with a “Professional Development Goal” that would enhance student “achievement”. I proceeded to discuss with him that there are literally thousands of concepts/skills/abilities needed in learning a second language and that not any single one has more importance than the other. And that I believe in breadth of study and not so important the depth aspect at the beginning stages of learning a second language. Needless to say we didn’t come up with a “goal” and he politely excused himself to go talk with others about their goals. I’ve got a bit of work to do in “breaking him in”.
I am assuming that there are some who do not simply want to use these tests to provide an excuse for privatization of education, that there are some who actually believe that these standards and these tests are well vetted and will serve to achieve the end of making students college and career ready.
The politicians and pundits and plutocrats pushing these “reforms” are WAY, WAY over their heads. They know very little about the complexities of reading and writing ability, or they wouldn’t take these “standards” and the high-stakes tests based on them seriously as accurate descriptors and measures (even if, and it’s a big if, one granted that one-size-fits-all standards and tests were a good idea). Suppose that, as an empirical matter, you chose one representative “good” 8th-grade writer and reader and set about to study what constitutes his or her expertise. Well, if you put an army of scholars of syntax, morphology, discourse structures, literature, rhetoric, composition, logic, and related fields on the case, it would take a hundred years and thousands of volumes to specify with any accuracy that expertise, and one still wouldn’t have begun to account for different TYPES of expertise across individual eighth-graders. The notion that one can come up with a single brief test that validly measures all that is cuckoo, completely idiotic. And yet the politicians and pundits and plutocrats (and, horror of horrors, some English language arts educators) take these “standards” and “tests” seriously. To the extent that the latter do, they don’t understand the field that they are working in.
Thank you for your posts. In the minds of the politicians and pundits, they are able to read and write. They have gone to school and taken tests. They have gone to college and have careers. Therefore they are experts. Seems to me, they know enough to be dangerous, very very dangerous.
The current crop of Duncan’s and Bloomberg’s are not interested in educational reform. They want to dismantle K-12 public education and bring back child labor en masse. If you have a high IQ and are poor you may be afforded the privilege of a charter school.
To suggest they are sincere but misguided in their attempts is delusional. They know what they want.
Your second paragraph is 100% correct!
…and if the students don’t work harder…there’s always the school-to-(privatised)-prison pipeline which may just be what these reformers want anyway
Amazing. Low student scores mean teachers will be fired, but those who run the system and hire the teachers hail them as good news. Are we living in Bizarro World?
Yes, it is quite bizarre! And I can oly imagine who I would be today if I had taken these types of tests as a child and failed! My self esteem as a learner would be horrible! For those students with their nose to the grindstone to FAIL…..a horrible feeling and such futility.
Yep, Foucault calls it subjectivization, Hacking calls it the looping effect and I call internalization.
Yes, very good news for the one percent who will profit from this. Please read this great article from the NY Public School Parents blog: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/?m=1
The closing is spot on:
To achieve their ideological ends, politicians, billionaires, and educrats are not only willing to define your children in terms of their test scores, but also to redefine them as failures – to help them implement their mechanistic, reductionist, and ultimately inhumane vision of education. It is all a high-stakes game, carried out by people with little thought about how these wild test score gyrations affect the self-esteem of the children whose fate they claim to care about.
Let me make you even madder than you already are by revising your post a bit.
“To achieve their ideological ends, politicians, UNIONS, and educrats and are UNwilling to define your children in terms of their test scores, but also to redefine them as failures UNLESS THE STUDENTS BUY INTO THE COMMUNITARIAN, reductionist and ultimately inhumane vision of STATE LOYALTY education. It is all a high-stakes game, carried out by PARTY MEMBERS with little thought about how those wild test score gyrations REALLY RELATE TO WORKPLACE READINESS and how they affect the ABILITY OF STUDENTS TO SEE THROUGH THE PARTY LINE AND DISPUTE IT. THE PROBLEM WITH CAMBODIA IS THAT NOT ENOUGH EDUCATED PEOPLE WERE KILLED TO GUARANTEE CONTROL OF LIFE BY OUR COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY.”
That’s what I think is the real message under the rhetoric of compassion.
Mr Goldstein,
We are living in a world, as the Bible says it will happen at the end of Times. Where good will become bad, and bad, good, just like it has happened before your eyes.
Have you seen what the politicians have done with the laws of this land, lately? Same thing!!
It is all coming as planned, for one to see and take note, to prepare for what is to come. Doesn’t make me fear one iota for me and mine, but highly fearful for those that could care less, about this subject and life in general for them.
Yep. A thousand years of darkness.
Hasn’t it been two thousand years of darkness in the parts of the world that has embraced xtianity?
No need for over 2,000 year old Mideast desert tribal myths handed down through the mouths of men to inform me about the current conditions of American (sic) public education and it’s supposedly negative influence on the planet Earth.
And the test scores, sounds about right too, especially an attempt to get the young students hooked on gay and lesbian subjects, while they are in the school setting. Kinda makes one wonder, doesn’t it?
Huh??? This is the first I’ve seen an ‘End of Times’ advocate posting on this blog. I don’t quite get your point Cherry Six.
Blaming every catastrophe on “The Gays”- how novel! Just go away please if that is all you can contribute to the discussion Cherry Six. So glad to hear you and yours will be saved and the rest of us damned. Go away. please.
Now, now, now Terry. Where is the famous “tolerance” of the liberal? Can’t you bear to see and hear what other people believe? Or are you willing to go even further and in contravention of the first amendment, try to punish or expunge speech you personally are uncomfortable with by some sort of hate speech code.
I’m a “cherry pit” in your shoe too, I know, because although it gives you some insight into the thinking of ‘the other side’ it interrupts your scratching of each others’ backs.
Bloomberg got his way. The ‘public’ with not, most likely, blame the testing the way you do (and I do too), but will blame the teachers in the public schools.
So my question this morning is “Have you got the guts to end social promotion?”
You blame the public school teachers for just what exactly? (Oh, this should be good.)
Gee, I thought God had a Plan for me, and that He wants me to be rich!
Thanks for ruining my day.
“especially an attempt to get the young students hooked on gay and lesbian subjects,”
Where is this happening?
Specific, detailed examples, please.
I have had several LGBT students who have been terribly mistreated in school and I would like to direct them to these places.
Thank you
I find it funny that he says, even though the scores had declined, that he was pleased because the students had shown growth in other areas. It’s too bad that those teachers’ job performance is not measured by those other areas. He has just proven the point that the tests themselves have shortcomings that success can be measured other ways. I hope he praised those teachers up and down for the growth their students did make.
“Bloomberg Hails the Collapse of City’s Test Scores as “Very Good News””
Personally, I will hail the collapse of Bloomberg’s seat as Mayor of New York City as very good news . . . .
To the masses, he’s never going to appear to have collapsed as long as he continues to buy his control over the message.
Cheer up, LG.
There’s always heart disease or chronic illness. Even with his bar on trans fats, you never know. Bloomberg is mortal also . . .
Well, true, but would that be karma, heredity or just bad luck? Wouldn’t wish the man physically ill, but I do wish he’d get his head out from that part of him in which it has been perpetually stuck. THAT position just might do him in if he isn’t careful.
Now, LG, a few natural causes never hurt any economic fascist dictator . . . .
If you call facing punishment in a court of law a “natural cause,” then I’d be all for it. The amount of money, time, and resources wasted on his nonsense coupled with the negative influence of his actions on children and their teachers should be enough to put him away for “crimes against humanity,” but we all know that would never happen.
LG,
Can we agree that all the bad karma Bloomberg has thrown out to the universe will have its effects upon him?
I agree with everything you’re saying . . .
I don’t know if this man will ever give a damn about the damage his agenda has done. He knows a life unaffected by it.
The only thing these guys listen to is the law which is why he should be charged with crimes against the public. He should stop trying to speak Spanish in public, too.
What planet is Bloomberg from???
NYC-ha ha!!!
He’s a Reptilian shape shifter from the planet Oligarkia
Very nice piece in the NY Daily News, Diane.
Is it today’s paper?
I found it…diane you should post this….yes?
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/punishing-kids-adult-failures-article-1.1420622
What a beautiful, truthful, and powerful article, Diane.
Everyone reading this: Raise your hand if you are motivated, inspired, and empowered by this recent artcle!
Me. I’m shocked the Daily News even printed it. Won’t that upset its corporate bosses?
My hand is raised! Thank you to Diane…already emailed and tweeted this piece.
good article,
love how the Regents Chair and Chancellor are on the floor “interacting with the kids”,
what phonies.
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Welcome to Drop-Out Nation!
Billion$ were spent to finally get us to the place where Blacks and Latinos are tattooed with the Highest Scientifically Selected: R-E-J-E-C-T-E-D-! Now we have the stats: WHITES ARE SUPERIOR! Should we return to measuring skull circumference to predict race and intelligence?
This ought to motivate millions of students and their parents to aim high and work harder. What has happened to the human race in this country. The Statue of Liberty is weeping.
Be careful, mankind has been there before…history will repeat itself if we do not speak up >>> LOUDER! They can’t hear us….LOUDER!
Preach it!
Sick, isn’t it?!
Love those sports analogies.
Now the billionaires and Hedge Funders are calling their versions of reality the “major leagues.” That’s as swollen as Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa’s heads became after a few seasons on Dianabol™ — or whatever it was they were juicing on then.
But at least Chicago has reason to cheer when the Bloomberg Majors came to town, juicer(s?) and all.
Especially now — and coming from New York.
Our White Sox — which have been “laboring” this season — just got some relief from the newly A-RODDED Yankees.
Thanks, New York.
We had lost seven or eight games in a row. Then A-Rod flashed into action for the first time in a long time, and in time for Chicago. And, as they say out South, “All good…”
Late last night (August 7, 2013), when the Yankees left town after that three-game series against our Sox, the Sox had their first three-game winning streak in months.
As to the news: “The Sox swept the Yankees in back-to-back series of at least three games for the first time in 100 years. They won three games at home August 20 – 22 last season.”
As the British said about Lend Lease: “Thanks, Yanks.”
We also showed our class by giving Mariano Rivera that long standing ovation. That’s the kind of baseball analogy Bloomberg should consider — but won’t.
Footnote to fans: Anyone who’s in Chicago with an extra day or two should call us. We always can get decent seats if you want to see the worst team in the American League on Chicago’s South Side. Don’t act like a tourist and go paying all that money to see the (almost) worst team in the National League on the North Side.
I would only go where I could bring my own goat to the stadium. 😛
“But at least Chicago has reason to cheer . . . to see the (almost) worst team in the National League on the North Side.”
At least you’re rooting for the correct Chitown team. I was going to offer my condolences. (I’m a Cards fan) Should thank the White Sox though for letting TL go!
I’m serious about that offer. We have Sox ticket vouchers (very different from eduvouchers) for a total of nine free nosebleed seats for any South Side game the rest of the season. Let us know.
Why does every high school graduate have to be COLLEGE READY in the first place? Bloomberg, Walcott, the New York Post, Reformy John King, etc. all tout Common Core as a panacea for making every kid college ready.
Years ago every high school had vocational programs which imparted valuable skills, while training students in such careers as auto mechanics, tool and dye making and electronics. The programs often led to good paying jobs and promising careers. Now all of the schools have demolished their auto and wood shops, while forcing all of the kids into college preparatory programs.
Many students, who might otherwise be truant or drop out, were often motivated to attend school to partake in vocational education. Why is it that countries such as Japan or Finland, with more advanced education systems, do not require every student to be COLLEGE READY?
The New York Times editorial on the abysmal scores New York City achieved on the Common Core Tests attempts to prop up the reputation of Mayor Bloomberg. They compare New York’s scores to the even more abysmal scores of other upstate cities, ignoring the fact that the five boroughs have historically scored higher than Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester on standardized tests. Ultimately, their assessment is damning . Mr. Bloomberg began his mayoralty telling New Yorkers to judge him on his stewardship of the city’s schools. What has followed has involved millions of dollars going to consultants and partnership organizations, the disruption of school closings, a plethora of high stakes tests briefly showed progress, than were shown to be too easy. Now, twelve years later, we have, in the words of the Times editorial writers, “a kind of baseline to evaluate student progress.” We have no actual progress, but yet another promise of a test that will measure future progress.
What the Common Core tests show has little to do with the value of the Common Core standards themselves. What they show is the bankruptcy of high stakes testing. The central defense for the drop in scores is that the standards were too new, students had not been properly prepped for the tests. But they were prepped for tests – there is universal agreement that the major focus in classrooms around the city and around the nation has for years been test prep. If the teaching to the test had any validity it would involve some real world skills and some of the skills learned while preparing for previous exams would be applicable to the new test. What these scores tell us is that test prep does not lead to that kind of learning – the kind professional educators refer to as learning. The increases in scores on previous tests disappear because the students were prepped, not educated.
Bloomberg is more invested in tall sugary fountain drinks than school children. Fighting diabetes appears so caring and many New Yorkers agreed/disagreed with him.
Setting our social clock back 80 years to MengeleTimes where we study on live humans to publish the results of intelligence and superior performance of children who picked the wealthier parents at birth, is insane! All in the name of improving education? Reject children who were unlucky to pick a life in Poverty! Public shaming and casting them to a life-long sentence of Poverty?
Where are those MengeleTimes Spreadsheets where the EdReformers recorded: crying children, vomiting children, memorizing 24/7, panicking parents, instructional time lost, tightening the ToxicTesting noose, squirming teachers, closing schools, firing teachers, SWD spending 2xhrs for testing, lowering scores if too successful, Drill/Kill & Bubble Fill……..wait, longer list, be a use they still don’t have enough $$$! Greed has no end!
On the contrary, Bloomberg and his ilk are highly invested in schoolchildren.
They’d pay no attention to them whatsoever – read his autobiography, written before he became Mayor, and you’ll find nary a word about education – unless they were a potential profit center.
They are all of the same mindset. They stroke each others egos and convince themselves they know what’s best. They don’t listen to any other point of views.
Pushing new standard without ever addressing the same old problems isn’t going to change anything.
That’s not all they stroke for each other!
Oh, this Bloomberg is such a horrid little creature, a Gollum from the Hobbit, a Templeton from Charlotte’s Web, the kind of villain you love to loath, you hate to vote for, and whose stone cold visage you cringe at. . . .
More rotten than a pound of shitake mushrooms left in a moist bag for 45 days, more decayed than the bones in the catacombs of Europe, more filled with stench than the inside of a goat’s stomach after its slaughter, more bacteria ridden than a slab of beef tossed into a dumpster for a month in July . . . .
You’re a mean, rotten one, Mr. Bloomberg . . . .
Few shall miss you; most shall hiss at you.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
We need to STOP evaluating students on tests that were DESIGNED to see them fail, so that Test Prep Companies can them prop up their own work & resources & sell them to the schools, and then show how students improve. Why not work off the abilities and strengths that students ALREADY HAVE? Don’t knock them down just to slowly prop them up later. It’s absurd and a huge slap in the face to the students who worked all year long, only to see their labor be for naught. ENOUGH.
Our kids are in the “Major Leagues”; it’s Bloomberg who’s a bush leaguer.
From exactly what planet does Bloomberg originate?