In Kentucky and New York, the Common Core tests caused test scores to tumble by 30 points or more.
State officials assume–with no evidence–that the scores will go up every year. What if they don’t? What if they go up only by a small increment? What if 50-60% of students don’t pass?
In New York, the “passing” rate on the Common Core tests was 30% statewide. Only 3% of English learners passed, and only 5% of students with disabilities. The pass rate for African American and Hispanic students was 15-18%.
If the state continues to insist upon a wildly unrealistic passing mark, the percentage of students who do not graduate will soar.
If Pearson aligns the GED with the Common Core, a startling number of students will never have high school diplomas of any kind. They won’t even qualify for the military. Will they be doomed to a life of poverty, of working in fast-food shops at minimum wage?
It is time to think of multiple ways to earn a diploma. It is time to think about career and technical education for students who want and deserve a chance to have a fruitful life. It is time to re-think what schools should do in addition to preparing students for college.
School should be a place for opportunity, not a single program–not one-size-fits-all, where the losers end up on the streets with no diploma and no hope.
What exactly is the point of making tests so “hard” that only 30% or 40% or maybe 50% can pass them? What will happen to those who never get a diploma? Do we really want to manufacture failure, knowing that those who fail will be those who already have the fewest advantages in life? As we follow this path, what kind of a society will we be 10 years from now?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hello Dianne. While the military has a requirement now to graduate high school, it seems as if you are impugning the services as the place to go if you are stupid. I wonder if that includes people like Air Traffic Controls, Weather Forecasters and a myriad of high tech skills where not only are they sharp, but sharper than most college graduates with liberal arts degrees.
I did not imply that military services are stupid. Nor do I believe that. My point was that kids without a diploma have few or no options.
Thanks, I just wanted clarification on that. And by the way, I can’t stand the idea of more testing. As a person who has a problem in test-taking, I would be so stressed out. I was in my Meteorology training, though I am fairly competent.
Again thanks for your making that clear.
Larry
I don’t believe that she was insinuating that at all. I have seen many many gifted individuals choose to devote their lives to the armed services and I have also known just as many struggling students who otherwise would have few options join the ranks to serve. Our job as educators is to provide all students the opportunity to be the best that they can be.
I came into the military at a time that we as veterans were loathed. A kind of institutional bias and children saying the worst of things, calling dad a baby killer. And of course, that we were a cut below our neighbors. This is in stark contrast to these days, where outside of the haters, we are held in pretty high esteem.
What Reagan resurrected from the pall cast by LBJ and Robert S. McNamara is steadily being undone and it is indeed unnerving.
I had the chance to train to a be a Meteorologist and due to a distinct poor evaluation by teachers in NY, set me back, Needless to say I wanted to do the weather and I somehow made it.
Not only that, but I excelled in physics. It took me awhile to gather the belief in myself that I was in fact, not mediocre. What sixth grade and the best teacher of my life had gave me, was a light but was quickly extinguished by a form of prejudice.
So, if a Vietnam-Era veteran is somewhat jaded, you know why.
You bring up an interesting point. How one event or a series of events can damage the psyche of a child (or young adult). As teachers, we need to be aware how we treat our students. My rule of thumb was that I treated them the way I wanted my children to be treated by their teachers. If they deserved to be reprimanded then do so (and all my kids were suspended at one point), but don’t be cruel, ever.
That teacher didn’t give you that light, Foghorn. It was within you. He or she, perhaps, showed you what was there.
Reformers are setting up kids to fail for their own self-interests and those of certain legislators and the attached corporate donors.
The money trail there is a lot of truth in that.
Interestingly in NC there is talk by McCrory of two types of diploma, one college focused and one technical career focused. Some folks think that is too early (14-18) to streamline a kids’ options, but I figure so long as either type diploma gives you some type of guarantee into a community college to switch focus later, it might be a good thing.
Florida has already done that. But there have been two tracks through high school for years, the difference now is that schooling has almost completely abandoned the vocational aspect. Diane barely touched on vocational in Reign of Error, I would love to know what she thinks…
Michael, you’re right there are two tracks, but the one kind of dead-ends because, as you said, we’ve abandoned the vo-tech platform. The few times I’ve seen Diane comment on vo-tech schooling she was in favor of it. It’s a common sense kind of solution, which is why we don’t see any politicians pushing for it.
I am very pleased that you raised this issue, Michael! Kids differ. They differ a lot. Kids are not parts to be identically milled. A complex, diverse, pluralistic society needs those differences. What a horror to create, instead, a system designed to tell most kids, early on, you are not what we wanted. Not at all.
Have you ever read John Ruskin? He understood that the crafts overlapped with the fine arts.
That sounds horrible for NC students to be piegon holed like that. What about dyslexics kids that can run rings around most people and have a difficult time reading. It would be ashame that they would not be able to go to college. The people down there really need to take a look at who they voted for. They should be ashamed of themselves and vote him out before he destroys the whole state. Glad we moved when we did. What a backward state.
Bravo, Diane! This is the best post yet. It’s as if you can see into my heat and soul. Why one path? Why college prep? There has to be a better way to educate all our youth.
In ten years they’ll have their wish. We’ll be just like other countries with fifteen year old drop outs washing high rise windows or picking up shopping carts at the local Walmart.
We live in NYS and My son fits that category. We pulled him out of school and he passed his GED (it was on tape – there were only two other kids in the room).
He couldn’t get into culinary arts at the local community college because there was a written exam he couldn’t pass. He works at an upscale restaurant where he learned hands on. He often runs the whole show, #2 after the head chef. He knows how to order/restock for the next day. He’s in charge of the other chefs to make sure the kitchen is spick and span clean.
I am so proud of him. ECC’s lose.
I disagree. Not everyone will want to go to college. There should be options. I think there is a way to make it work, like I said, if there is the option to later piggy back on either type diploma to dovetail into the other easily.
But I don’t get the feeling real solutions are being sought right now.
I love NC. It’s my home. We will get through this.
Ok, that is what makes horse racing. Since, Clinton has moved out most of the jobs in this country out it has become harder to make a living without going to college. NC is making it more difficult for kids with disabilities to go to college. I think that is a shame and a shamful way for a state who says they care about kids to behave. I hope the people of NC see through there politicians and understand it is a way for them to become richer while everyone else becomes poorer.
This sounds like another way to push people towards private schools Students who do not pass their state exams on their last chance often enroll at private schools that don’t mind allowing them to earn a diploma in a short time so that they can begin college on time with their classmates.
Bill Gates is infiltrating Catholic schools. Hope there will one that is not corrupted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/02/catholics-split-over-common-core-standards/
And Institutions of Higher Education. They are next on the war plan.
And Montessori schools (from http://jola-montessori.com/article/common-core-montessori-common-sense/):
[Anna Perry of Seton Montessori in Chicago has been one. She sees the standards as a way to show the rest of the world that Montessori works.
“While Montessorians generally do not advocate for standardized testing, standardized childhood, and universal standards in general, we have to recognize that this is how the rest of the world is examining efficacy of educational formats and should take the opportunity to promote ourselves before we are forced to defend ourselves for lack of evidence.
“The Common Core State Standards offer Montessori an excellent opportunity,” she said. “To provide for the world documentation of what Montessori is in terms that the rest of the world understands—educational standards.
“When I first saw these standards I realized that they could become, in many ways, the answer to our advocacy prayers. However, it has been challenging to achieve consensus within the Montessori community about how we define which Montessori materials and techniques address each standard (particularly challenging in aligning the Language standards at the Elementary levels) and how we translate Montessori activities to the larger population in terms that it can understand and value.”]
Maria Montessori is rolling over in her grave.
Seems politicians ALWAYS NEED a MANUFACTURED CRISIS…of their own and corporate interests. Or…what would they do in front of the camera?
If you go to the Achieve homepage, you will see that it LEADS WITH the manufacturing of the crisis (Chomsky called this the “manufacture of consent”): Look at those international test scores. U.S. schools are failing. The sky is falling. The sky is falling. We need something ALTOGETHER NEW. You can’t fix something this serious with old, stale ideas.
And here it is–the philosopher’s stone!!!–standards and high-stakes tests of those. No one has ever tried that before. (I added that last line. I couldn’t resist.)
Step right up, ladies and gentleman, for one thin dime, and see the alligator man, the Leviathan, and the magickal philosopher’s stone that transforms prole children who differ into identically milled parts for low-wage plug-and-play in the Great Economic Machine!
Pay no attention to the fact that on our own preferred measure, the international tests, U.S. students lead the world, if you correct for the socioeconomic status of the kids taking the tests. And pay no attention to the breathtakingly high correlations between test outcomes and poverty. And pay no attention that we are two weeks away from 2014 when, according to what we were saying the last time we got you to buy into this line, 100 percent of students would be proficient! This is about failing teachers and failing schools!!! We need to get tough, here. No excuses!!!! Off with their heads!!! Watch Davido the Magnificent pull the bullet list the bullet list out of his . . . pardon me ladies . . . Not since Giorgio the Duplicitous made weapons of mass destruction appear and disappear will you have seen such wonders!!!
“I believe in standardizing automobiles, not people.” –Albert Einstein
“There’s no bullet list like Stalin’s bullet list.” –Edward Tufte
My question is why are they passing 3rd graders who don’t pass the test and punishing only 10th graders. It doesn’t make sense to wait until they’re HS to fail them, not that I think it’s right to test at any grade. The overall construction of this ed reform is not logical from any perspective.
May be there will be more kids in special ed who do not have a disability, but who can’t fit into a one size fits all. Or they’ll invent a grade called 3 and 1/2 or a minus 12th grade as a holding station hoping their CC crap will permeate our students’ brain. Whatever their alternative solutions are, it won’t be good as they have no answers. Houston we have takeoff, but we forgot the landing gears. Good luck!
The kids in special ed. these days aren’t getting specialized instruction anymore. They are doing what the general classrooms are doing in a dummy down way. District got rid of SCIENTIFIC researched direct instruction programs for special ed. and replaced it with engagedNY (direct instruction) and CC ELA only to set the bar higher for ALL students. Imagine that! First direct instruction wasn’t cool; now it’s the IN thing. The catch is this new one is experimental without proof of success. How is it possible that CCS can be tested for the first time on the entire population or engagedNY released to schools like it’s the next best thing to babywipes?
Finally, if reformers are thinking about holding our student back a grade, they need to read the research on retention–IT DOESN’T WORK for most kids. More of the same is not good and the gift of time is a cliche’ that people buy into.
You bring up an interesting point, jon, about kids being punished in 10th grade and not in 3rd. I don’t think that kids should be punished in any grade. Their issues should be addressed early, not ignored as they currently are in NYC and other districts. I have two ninth graders in my gen ed English classes who are totally illiterate and quite a few whose reading levels are below 3rd grade. When NYC became data-driven, numbers became more important than learning. Teachers have been forced to pass kids that they shouldn’t have on all levels, even in HS, just to raise passing and promotion rates. These kids hit a road block when they have to take Regents exams. Usually, they keep taking them until they age out of school. It’s such an injustice to the kids.
That’s one reason my son did not succeed in high school. They had large classes of 30 with two teachers (meeting the 15 to 1 model) who co taught and assisted the identified kids. The classes were too big and confusing. The work was not modified.
The smaller self contained rooms contained emotionally disturbed children who called out and swore at the teacher. My son was a well behaved boy with a learning disability. Those classes upset him too much to be useful.
He fell through the cracks.
I’m sorry to hear about your son’s experience. Unfortunately, elem, Jr High, & HS have no clue of what to do to support students who are at risk, because their state has been sucked into the bad disease once called NCLB and now CC. First out of ignorance and now out of fear of the consequences of these mandates, the trickle-down effect only hurts kids and teachers who want to do their job.
The only way to turn around this disaster that corp and politicians created is to keep building the resistance. Gather up your parent allies and have them opt their kids out of testing. Go to the media.
In NC they will not be passing third graders. In Florida they don’t either. My understanding is in Florida they leave them in third grade until they are twelve and THEN they pass them on, even if they still did not technically pass.
Guess the reasonin would be they don’t want 5th graders who can drive to elementary school. Here in NC they will not pass 2nd if they are below grade level in reading but there is a way around it. If you agree to put your child in summer school and he tests at grade level in October they can move up. Problem is now they have missed the 1st 2 months of grade level instruction and will be behind again! Sen. Berger has destroyed public education in NC to further his own interests. Sad!
That’s ludicrous to hold kids back until they’re 12. It’s hard enough to have them in 6th grade because of physical development. Some are bullies. Can you imagine how a 3rd grader might feel being in class with a “peer” who is 3xs as big.
What are these policymakers thinking about?
Just think – the students will be able to drive themselves to elementary school. They can buy a car with the money they make at their job flipping burgers, after spending a grueling day in grade four.
“It doesn’t make sense to wait until they’re HS to fail them,”
There’s that effin four letter “F” word again and no, I’m not talking about “fuck” but one that is much more insidious and damaging to the students, FAIL.
Why do we choose to label students thusly?????
How stupid are those who command that we do????
Any teacher who doesn’t actively reject, fight against and not use that dirty “F” word is part of the problem, a GAGAer who rightly should be consigned to hell for harming the innocents.
I agree! I can relate ,I had a learning disability and was dyslexic growing up. I wasn’t very good in school,but thank god some one liked me and seen something in me enough to give me a chance ! I was able to work my way up the in a good job that paid very well. I didn’t go to college but like The person above stated I ran circle around people who did go to college and had a degree in that field. I worked really hard and took pride in proving that I was just as worthy of this job without a college degree. Its really said people look down on you for not having a college degree and think your lazy, I can promise you I never let my disability get in the way of what I wanted,just had to go about it a diifernet way then some.!!
A job well done. Keep up the good work.
Just like there is planned obsolescence in the world of manufacturing and marketing….the Common Core brings us a new way of looking at children. Are they useful or not? It is a sorting system, a very unfair sorting system, that values obedience and indifference and compliance.
Sooner of later, Diane, and everyone else on this blog will have to admit that Bill Gates is a eugenicist and what he is pushing is actually genocide. As far as he is concerned, the more students who fail and fall through the cracks and end up in the streets with no job and no hope….the better. They will die younger. Last year, in 2012, Bill Gates co-hosted a meeting in London to commemorate and continue the work of the original meeting of the International Eugenics Society of 1912. Unfortunately, there are a lot of eugenicists hiding in plain sight in very high level positions around the world. They hold meetings and write white papers about this stuff but most people don’t really understand that they are quite serious in their views about people and their plans to eliminate most of them (for the good of the planet, of course.)
People like Maurice Strong make statements about well educated people using too much energy and too many resources. Developed countries with Constitutions and a concept of sovereignty make it impossible for the UN to take global power to control all resources and dole them out fairly. The Common Core is part of the inventory and control of human capital mandated by Agenda 21 in Chapter 36.
And if you still believe in global warming, you are part of the problem. The eugenicists are a cynical bunch of lunatics who have no problem using well meaning environmentalists as dupes to call for their own destruction (i.e. carbon taxes.) You have drunk the Kool-Aid and you are passing the brainwash on to your progeny. Research the 31,000 scientists who refuse to sign on to the GW hogwash. Research Bill Gates and his ties to eugenics. Research David Rockefeller and his ties to the UN and eugenics and Bill Gates. The Common Core is not a mistake. It is not just a poorly constructed flawed document with no evidence and no standing. It is part of an agenda to destroy public education, the minds of our children, and the entire US economy — nothing less than that. I dare anyone to refute it.
Yes, one great day, Dawn, the online war games and the quaint institution that we used to call school can be combined into one great online game run by the Masters of the Universe via the inBloom database, drawing, of course, upon the standards promulgated by the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth. When that glorious time comes, perhaps the poor proles will give up their pathetic attempts to think for themselves.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Bubbling is assessment.
Only threat truly motivates.
To teach and to learn are to check off items on The List.
Difference is failure.
Work will make you free.
So have you called congress to demand Glass Steagall yet?
Stop the globalists from looting us. Stop Wall Street from speculating on charter schools and test prep. Stop Governor Cuomo in NY and all of the other governors from implementing Agenda 21. Stop Bill Gates from implementing the Common Core. Organize to save this country. Use your abilities to act and call others to action.
This blog gets bogged down in the minutia and loses the big picture. And rarely calls for action. Except when Diane suggested that none of us should be shopping at WalMart which was a good call.
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Here’s the dirty little secret of standardized testing–you can rig these tests to provide any outcomes that you want. There are many, many ways to do that. A few of the more common ones:
1. Test potential questions by giving them to representative samples of students. Determine what percentage of kids got each question right. Throw out questions until you get the pass percentage that you want.
2. Use a phoney raw-score-to-scaled-score conversion to get the outcomes that you want.You can count on the proponents of “data-driven” education not to bother to check to see if you’ve done a standard conversion.
3. Choose whatever cut scores you want. Again, you can count on no one ever calling you on it (unless you do something really idiotic as the state of NY did with its cut scores on the recent exams). Again, the proponents of “data-driven” education at the federal level who are receiving your scores won’t blink if you change your cut scores, arbitrarily, from year to year. If you’re worried about that, hire someone to throw some bogus language into your report to describe the process by which cut scores were determined.
The states have been doing all of the above for years under NCLB, and the feds haven’t questioned a thing. If the same sorts of things were done in accounting, the feds would be accepting ANY NUMBERS WHATSOEVER that people made to put into their financials, as long as they balanced, sort of.
The Deformers have a bit of an issue. They need to substantiate the claim that U.S. schools are failing and that dramatic action, like VAM, like national standards, like national tests, like firing older teachers and replacing them with pimply TFA kids, like turning public schools into charters. So, they need the outcomes to be low.
The question is, how low can they go without everyone in the country calling foul?
That’s the real question: when the new tests roll out nationally, how low can they go, and how can they get away with the data cooking that has been going on at the state level for a decade now when everyone in the country is going to be demanding to look at the books to see how they’ve cooked them.
Of course, they could just go ahead and cook up their “failing schools” numbers nationwide, in keeping with Coleman’s “No on gives a $&$&@**!! what you think.” But if they do, it’s quite likely that the villagers will grab their shovels and pitchforks and track this deform monster to its lair and slay it.
cx: The Deformers have a bit of an issue. They need to substantiate their claims that U.S. schools are failing and that dramatic deforms are need, deforms like VAM, like national standards, like national tests, like firing older teachers and replacing them with pimply TFA kids, like turning public schools into charters. So, they need the outcomes to be low.
Robert D. Shepherd: I do not disagree with your points but I would take out the word “rig” and simply state what the psychometricians of the test producing companies already know and do—
You provide the eduproduct that the customer wants and pays for. If the customer wants 70% of those taking the test to fail, then they design and produce [confirmed and honed by pretesting] a standardized test that produces that particular score spread. Given many decades of work on such eduproducts [including by some very talented people], this is the normal and expected procedure and experienced psychometricians are quite good at matching their eduproducts to a customer’s demands and expectations.
I know I am nit-picking, but using the word “rig” might imply that there is some exceptional or out-of-the-ordinary process involved. Not at all. It is banal, commonplace, humdrum psychometrics.
Any wonder why the edubullies and edufrauds and educrats love their accountabully underlings?
A small question: what harm could possibly come of simply obeying the orders of your bosses and their customers, producing those toxic eduproducts called high-stakes standardized tests, all within the law?
I know I am over-stating for the purpose of emphasizing my point, but for anyone who sees this as innocuous, please google “Hannah Arendt” and “banality of evil” and “Adolf Eichmann.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
One Hundred KIPP 5th Graders in a Single Classroom on the Floor for a Week Until They “Earned” Their Desks
http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/one-hundred-kipp-5th-graders-in-a-single-classroom-on-the-floor-for-a-week-until-they-earned-their-desks-schools-matter/
KIPP … I attended a Lakota Literacy View in the early 2000s here in SW Ohio when a KIPP teacher made a presentation. He was a big, booming, over-bearing guy. He spoke with total authority. He was intimidating to me and to most of those listening to his presentation. I would NOT have wanted my kids to have him as a teacher. I wouldn’t have wanted him as a professor or a boss. He was self-assured, demanding, exhausting, and not friendly. Yet, as an author he is held in high esteem by many. In any case, I can surely see him making the kids sit in the floor for 2 weeks to earn their chairs. Yes, I can.
If this is the future of education, I want no part of it. Didn’t then. Don’t now. Never will.
Students in career and tech Ed must be as educated and skilled as students in academics. They both go hand-in-hand. Students are expected to pass industry certification tests upon completion of their program of study.
Bravo, Diane! This is the best post yet. It’s as if you can see into my heat and soul. Why one path? Why college prep? There has to be a better way to educate all our youth.
In ten years they’ll have their wish. We’ll be just like other countries with fifteen year old drop outs washing high rise windows or picking up shopping carts at the local Walmart.
In NYS, the Common Core didn’t hit the high schools last year and the regular Regents tests were given. There is a severe penalty for students who don’t graduate so basically everyone graduates. There are ‘”twilight” programs, “sunset academies” and a whole bunch of computer programs related the “credit recovery” so that kids who attend will graduate. If you haven’t noticed, graduation rates are up!
And imprisonment rates. Almost 3 percent of the U.S. population is now in jail, in prison, or on parole. One percent of the U.S. population is in prison–the highest figure in the world. Think of the most despotic regime in the world. It’s higher than THAT.
The problem, of course, is that we are not telling enough kids, early enough, that they are utter failures. We are not saying to enough of them, early enough, you didn’t pass our test. You are not what we wanted. You are not what we wanted at all. Telling kids that earlier, when they are more vulnerable, would enable us to increase astronomically, the rate of growth of the prison population, which is already, as you know, one of the boom industries benefiting from crony capitalist privatization. After all, these people certainly aren’t needed. We have automation. We have outsourcing. Any sane projection from present trends will tell you that production of the same levels of luxury for the wealthy that are now enjoyed will, in the future, require fewer and fewer of these expendable prole people. And Oh, the money to be made!
Did you know that being in prison didn’t count as an absence from school for one of my husband’s students? He’ll be expected to pass the Earth Science Regents (or whatever new exam they come up with) in June.
Reblogged this on Roy F. McCampbell's Blog.
Will those who pass and get a diploma want to go to college or will they decide that they have had enough?
The “reform” plan has a wide scope beyond k-12; the plan is to drastically change college, teachers, schools, and curriculum. Arrogance is the fatal flaw of the reformers because they do not consider the possibilities outside of what they deem important.
It will be fun to watch them try to pull this crap in higher ed. Sure, most of the upper-level positions in Higher Ed are now held by suits whose primary skills are investment portfolio management, and most of the classes are now taught by adjuncts who are not given full class loads so that they can be called part-time employees and the University can skip providing them with any benefits. But there are still some full-time faculty members left, and those people–damnable intellectuals and scholars–have this quaint notion that they should be able to think for themselves. Perhaps those people can all be done away with. Perhaps we can have adjuncts only teaching in our colleges and universities. Perhaps what we need is for TFA to get into that business too.
Graduate students are the TFAs of higher education.
They are already trying to pull this off in higher education. NCTQ already artificially failed almost all of Colleges of Education by making arbitrary criteria and then refusing to look at relevant data and never visiting a single college or university. And now Obama is going to rate colleges on criteria that is somehow going to make college more affordable. Believe me we are next.
It seems to mirror the way King is treating public education in NYS.
I don’t see the college professors playing along. They have their own agenda and it has nothing to do with CCSS, sometimes I’m not even sure it has anything to do with teaching.
The college professors may not play along but what happens as more colleges receive grant money from a small circle of foundations, especially Gates?
For example, from http://www.successnc.org/initiatives/common-core-alignment: In 2012, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) launched an effort to promote stronger K-12/postsecondary alignment. With a specific focus on supporting greater communication across all sectors of K-12 and postsecondary education in North Carolina, NCCCS is coordinating work to align expectations, standards and assessments stemming from NC’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards in public schools. With a clear focus on promoting career and college readiness, the office of K-12 and Postsecondary Alignment Initiatives is directing this statewide policy engagement strategy. Support for this initiative comes from a “Core to College” grant, funded by the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors through support from the Lumina Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
I can’t imagine that a kid graduating from high school, after years of jumping through hoops and taking meaningless tests, would want four more years of the same experience.
Scary! College is a time to explore, not be shut in a box.
There is an amazing diversity of colleges and universities in the United States, so it is difficult to talk about a single viewpoint. Would a faculty member at Deep Springs College have the same viewpoint as one at MIT or the University of Chicago? Probably not.
Ouch- what makes you think we do not care about K-12 education. Many of us have devoted our lives to trying to improve public education. Notice I no longer use the word reform.
Sorry Janna, I was referring to some of the teachers at facilities like SUNY at Buffalo where their focus is on research and not teaching. Plus many of the teachers for undergraduates at UB are graduate students trying to complete their requirements/dissertations and don’t necessarily consider the students a top priority.
There are many fine University and College Professors out there. Some taught me.
What happens to the kids who don’t pass the tests once they are held back or summer-schooled after 3rd grade?.. What happens if they NEVER catch up? I don’t see any kind of PLAN. If this idea is so great, then what do they plan to do with the kids who are part of the 40-50-60 percent who NEVER show proficiency? If these tests are designed to be so difficult, then what is going to happen to the kids? They most certainly won’t be going to college. And, think of the numbers in college. The student numbers will decrease so much that … professors will lose jobs, too. Is this what we want? Do we want a test that only a few people can pass and that rich kids don’t have to take? It sure looks like that is what is going to happen.
Absolutely agree with Robert D. Shepherd’s comments from 10:10 PM. It’s the TESTS, and most on this blog have been saying this for years. Todd Farley’s book,
Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry came out in 2009, & not much has changed, except for getting WORSE!!! Come on, people, the only way to stop this is when so many parents OPT their children OUT that there will BE NO DATA TO LOOK AT, and there will be NO MARKET FOR TESTS.
This is what happened in Seattle with the MAPS–was it two years ago?
This has been going on for far too long–what’s happening with the Opt Out movement? Readers of this blog, tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW to tell EVERYONE THEY KNOW to go to the United Opt Out website, download the materials from the state they live in, write the letter and OPT YOUR CHILD(REN) OUT NOW–2014!!!
In accordance with everything written above, we’re running out of time, but we CAN stop this–do it NOW!!!
This is exactly what the Mayor of Somerville MA said when the “back to basics” movement was in full swing….. but people who wrote NCLB don’t know what a mayor’s job is…. they don’t know that when the state inadequately funds education the taxpayers in the cities and towns have to come up with more resources and those in the least affluent districts have to proportionally tax themselves more …….. vicious circle (Romney never understood while he was in Massachusetts and he would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs)
If the state continues to insist upon a wildly unrealistic passing mark, the percentage of students who do not graduate will soar.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
The purpose of all these tests is to decide which kids should go to the end of the food stamp aisle… it has been this way all along. It is no better than the “gentlemen’s agreement” that was common in the 50s to lock people out from opportunities. Now they say they have tests that can make the process more sanguine — filled with lies and propaganda (the tests have no predictive validity).
School should be a place for opportunity, not a single program–not one-size-fits-all, where the losers end up on the streets with no diploma and no hope.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
The over riding question is what happens to those who don’t reach proficiency or are pushed out of school b4 graduation? Of course, they turn invisible and aren’t counted. But change can be in the future if we pay attention http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/is-stumbling-and-bumbling-good-thing.html
Stop whining start preparing
Agreed, Dr. Ravitch had no intent to degrade the military personnel. But there is a larger issue here. In 2012 American wars were being fought by soldiers who were several cuts above the average current high school output. As reported by the services, 80% were not educationally or physically competent for military service. We are now dependent on the voluntary military (many of whom were recruited with college incentives) and the Reserves and National Guard. School dropouts due to false academic testing standards will exasperate the problem
I agree and share you fear! I have learning challenged children and they are great human beings that have hopes and dreams. I had a phone conversation the other day with a ACCESS-VR counselor and she also is concerned about how high are they willing to let the drop out numbers go or even children that just can’t do it. IF they can’t make those achievements we as a society will have to. Here is the picture I am worried about: our healthcare system is stressed(that is as far as I am going with that one), food is costly to have a good diet, clothing, housing and so on…Our medicare/medicaid numbers will go up, cash assistance will also, and housing for the poor is already tight.
FYI – my learning challenged are no longer in the public school system and are home schooled due to the stress, the multiply grade levels at which they work, and a few other reasons. So therefore the school in which we live has lost that money that they would have received if my children were attending. So one more issue to add to the list.
Thanks for the listen.
We need to improve public perception of all trades. My plumber makes more money than me, so does my hairdresser. Many truckers make great salaries and so do entrepreneurs. College education is appropriate for some careers but not all careers and certainly not all of the best careers.
I just read an article titled, “Americans who say “college isn’t for everyone” never mean their own kids. — http://qz.com/155397/americans-who-say-college-isnt-for-everyone-never-mean-their-own-kids/
The link to The Atlantic/Quartz article came to me by way of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
My response to the article corresponds with many of the above comments.
I teach English in Cumberland, RI and even after reading your article I still believe that “college isn’t for everyone.” Perhaps I am one of the few exceptions to your title – “never mean their own kids.” My oldest son did not follow a traditional college prep to college track. He went into the military first. My youngest son has a cognitive disability and while he was at Cumberland HS he was in a transition program that included culinary arts, service learning, and independent living skills.
I agree with you when you say, “We need a different model, one that puts equity at its center instead of tracking more students away from college.” I don’t think Germany is the right model for us. I decry tracking. However, the financial reality of schools and curricula shaped by high stakes testing have narrowed the focus of school – at least in Cumberland, and from what I have read, many places.
Cumberland used to be a non-tracked comprehensive HS but now all courses are college prep. Course options used to include vocational technical classes such as wood shop, auto, electricity, business, culinary arts, computer repair, and child development. Special education students were not tortured by tests and forced into a frustrating college track where their performance is measured by grade-level rubrics far beyond their ability. For instance, a 10th grade Common Core rubric will not show a student’s improvement if their baseline performance is at a 3rd or 4th grade level — even if they improve by one or two grade levels throughout the year.
How does a single college track provide more opportunity?
And the assessments are basically testing intelligence. The students are not taking the identical test each year, they are taking one which expects growth from the year before. If a “failing” child shows the expected years growth, they are still a year behind. Is it reasonable for anyone to suddenly leapfrog to the top of the class? That would certainly be an exceptionable child, regardless of the teacher.
Not all educators are Anne Sullivan and not all students are Helen Keller.
@dianeravitch You should really make article about Texas’s STAAR testing, I think less 30% of students passed them state wide. The test is only a year old