An early version of the PARCC common Core tests have been released, and bloggers are underwhelmed.
Chris Cerone thinks they look more or less like the same old standardized tests, but way more expensive.
Blogger Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters wrote:
“They just released computer based sample PARCC items.
http://www.parcconline.org/computer-based-samples
Go directly to the test items in grades 3-5, grades 6-8 and high school.
Last night I looked at the sample HS ELA questions and got such a headache! I couldn’t answer the second question, glanced at others, and then quit.
It was based upon a very difficult poem.”
At the end of the day, how many billions of dollars will be spent for new computers, new bandwidth, and professional development? How many arts programs will be eliminated, how many social workers, guidance counselors, and librarians laid off?
And will we wonder if this vast new expenditure was worth it?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Could have used all this money for two teachers in each classroom and technology resources, and all studnets would succeed. Not rocket science…Just good “teacher “sense.
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I feel like it’s Charlie Brown,mLucy and the football all over.
Every time we get new tests, we get promises of better, more authentic, whatever tests.
Yet when the deals are done, compromises are made, all that, it’s the same thing.
And now, apparently worse than ever.
Good test development is hard and complicated. It takes time and costs money. When I see costs of $29 per kid, I cringe. That’s pure cheap. AP exams cost almost $100 a test and aren’t developed overnight.
This is terrible.
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Peter Smyth: very occasionally I have referred to the [supposedly surprising] results of meticulously produced high-stakes standardized testing as a “sucker punch.”
They are not casual eduproducts. They are designed, produced, and tested with great care in order to produce or not produce certain results. By this point, and speaking only for myself, the only surprise is that so many people are surprised by the “unexpected” results…
But the Charlie Brown, Lucy and football analogy is even better because it highlights [among other things] the violation of expectations based on trust and friendship.
A perfect description of the guiding Marxist principles of the charterite/privatizer playbook:
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Touché!
😎
P.S. Groucho.
Why do people keep asking? Is there another more famous Marx I haven’t been told about?
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This Marx?
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because it highlights [among other things] the violation of expectations based on trust and friendship.
well said!
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Basing questions on poetry seems unfair, especially considering how little PARCC thinks of poetry. That which cannot be measured by Lexile.com, is not fit for study in the common core era; however, I’m not surprised.
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Basing questions on poetry seems like a good idea in principle, because educated people should be able to read poems with understanding and enjoyment. (Not that I think we’d actually be able to assess their understanding and enjoyment using a standardized test.) But the fact that the test-makers have chosen a 1941 translation of Ovid is one clue that that’s not what they had in mind. Why that translation? “His sceptre is not regnant of the air”… “‘Twas never seen”… “Assumed a careful lead solicitous.” This does not seem to have been chosen because someone found it meaningful or beautiful, but because readers would find it difficult. It is a test of so-called rigor, rather than of poetry.
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Not a test of rigor – A TRAP!
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You’re definitely on the money as to why they chose that translation, I should think. Or perhaps they chose it because it is likely that the translator is dead and they had to pay less in royalties. Either way, the translation is pretty crappy (and I know whereof I speak; I’m a Latin teacher and I’ve read this in Latin. It’s actually easier to understand the Latin than that translation). Moreover, some of the questions are head scratchingly odd and not at all getting the actual meaning of this portion of the Metamorphoses, IMHO.
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If they had used a wonderful contemporary translation of the Ovid, such as Rolph Humphries’s translation, they would have had to pay royalties. Gotta save those Gates Foundation bucks to pay the consultants working on this C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
Common Core College and Career Readiness Assessment Program
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cx: not royalties, permissions fees
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Not Gates Foundation bucks for this one. The C.C.C.C.R.A.P. was paid for by Arne Duncan with your money.
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Is it worth it? It is to the test makers and people like Bill Gates AND to the other corporate CEOs who will make money.
For our nation and our children.
Need I ask?
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Isn’t it as is there is a concerted effort to embrace a form of data driven “efficiency” that demands the use of computer technology as the foundation of pur very existence?
I find that the more efficient thing to embrace would be employing as many humans as possible to take care of and nurture people, plants, animals, and earth. But people such as Gates seem to operate from a world of efficiency devoid of humanity and emotion.
I don’t wish for myself or anyone else to be reduced to a number on a grid or computer program. Is science fiction overtaking reality?
Bizarro world has arrived.
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If a student scores 100% of putting blocks of text in the correct boxes, what have you learned?
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For more evidence about why a Common Core testing moratorium is necessary, see: http://www.fairtest.org/common-core-assessments-factsheet
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i just looked at the first item in the middle school English/Language Arts test, which includes a several paragraph long biography of Amelia Earhart. The passage seems intentionally difficult with vocabulary and archaic terminology that I don’t expect more than a tiny percentage of eighth graders to understand. Things like she attended “finishing school,” “belly-slammed her sled to start it downhill,” “…Noonan’s premier method of tracking, celestial navigation…” and “It wasn’t until the caller supplied excellent references that…”
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PARCC spelled backwards is CCRAP.
Just pointing that out because we know the devil’s work is supposed to be read backwards!!
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ROFLMAO!
That or a Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse has been summoned.
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Hope you enjoy this about the “horseman”.
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YES!
The Common Core College and Career Readiness Assessment Program.
C.C.C.C.R.A.P
or, spelled backward
PARCC
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LOL. Well said, Don Duane!
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Don Duane, Hidalgo, I just love that!
We need bumper stickers:
PARCC is CRAP spelled backward, as evocations of devils always are.
More on testing and the Comon Core:
http://esotericarchives.com/solomon/lemegeton.htm
LOL
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And here. Notice that this one has the seals of all of the leading deformers–NACNUD ENRA, NAMELOC DIVAD, EEHR ELLEHCIM, HSUB BEJ, RJ HSUB EGROEG, SETAG LLIB.
LOL
http://esotericarchives.com/solomon/ksol3.htm
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🙂
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Can I just say that these tests are boring? Maybe it is just because I have “been there/done that”. Yet even still…snooze fest. How many of these tests do students in grades 3-8 have to take per year? How many minutes of testing is that?
It makes me wonder how much the tests under-measure student achievement simply because some students don’t give a [hoot] about working hard on the test. They’re tedious. Humans are all about seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, right? 😛
Does anyone know the reason why we’re not doing brief computer adaptive diagnostic testing instead? You can still collect data and analyze trends with diagnostic testing but teachers and students would have an immediate opportunity to take a look at wrong answers and review them. Doing this, rather than sending off the test to be graded and sent back months later, would give the student an opportunity to own their own learning in the “here and now” (which is exactly where students in grades 3-8 live). They will discover things about themselves (their favorite subject) when they realize that they’re always getting a certain kind of fraction problem wrong. They will have an incentive to figure out why this kind of problem is tripping them up. On the data side, I am sure there are predictive models that could be created by looking at which topics tend to cluster together when a student is having problems.
I think we are not setting the bar high enough on the testing firms. The goal should be the most accurate measurement of student achievement using the least amount of test questions. As a taxpayer paying for these tests, I want to see annual progress on this metric.
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Emmy,
“. . . why we’re not doing brief computer adaptive diagnostic testing instead?”
When did the teaching and learning process devolve into one of diagnosis, prescription and prognosis? Does that discourse really benefit the the teaching and learning process? Why that discourse?
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“I think we are not setting the bar high enough on the testing firms. The goal should be the most accurate measurement of student achievement using the least amount of test questions. As a taxpayer paying for these tests, I want to see annual progress on this metric.”
Now, I’m not sure if my sarcasmometer is being effected by beautiful snowfall outside, but that’s a line right out of the far right of the edudeformer spectrum’s talking points.
Please tell me you were being sarcastic with that one (if you were).
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Hmmm. My own thoughts on education are very far away from the current situation. So if you are saying that proposals to dial things back are ultimately unhelpful then perhaps you have a point. As Sir Ken Robinson says, we need revolution not evolution.
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PS. I really do think that the testing companies aren’t held to task in creating assessments. In other research, for example, there is this notion of “respondent burden”. For ethical and other reasons it is understood that the researcher should do what he or she can do to reduce the overall number of questions being asked. Some questions highly correlate (for example) and with some pretesting you see which questions you can drop and still have a valid measure. (There is one I know that was able to drop from 30+ questions to only 8.)
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Emmy brought up Sir Ken Robinson. If you haven’t seen these, readers, you are in for a treat:
It was Robinson who said, “I don’t think that there are many kids who get up in the morning and rush to school so they can help their state improve its test scores.”
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Emmy,
“Some questions highly correlate (for example) and with some pretesting you see which questions you can drop and still have a valid measure.”
and:
“My own thoughts on education are very far away from the current situation.”
I have a hard time resolving those to thoughts together. The “current situation” pretty much completely involves the idiology (purposely misspelled) that the teaching and learning process is amenable to “measuring”, which Wilson and many others have shown to be a false ideology and completely invalid as a teaching and learning practice. I’m not sure how your “own thoughts are very far away from the current situation” when you insist that you can do what you say in the first statement and have a “valid measure”.
There is no “valid measure” of the teaching and learning process. There may be assessments but they are in no way a “measurement” even though the discourse has been “numerized” (put to numbers). A simple logical thought is that just because one has counted some things it doesn’t mean those things have been measured.
Have you read Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”? If you have what are your thoughts on his work? If not I’d suggest you do. It can be found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Duane
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Ack. I realize that I am not making any sense to you. Let’s put it this way. I am a researcher trained in quantitative and qualitative research methods. I also teach writing intensive courses from time to time. I haven’t read Wilson yet but from your summaries I can say I am sympathetic. I’ve got my own children in a progressive school that does next to no standardized testing.
Unfortunately I don’t see this testing mania abating any time soon. Although I’d like to see many more public schools become like the school I send my kids to, I realize we’re not going to turn on a dime. I think analytics can play a useful role in improving public education but things have gotten way out of hand. I like to consider how we might dial things back because I realize getting the powers -that-be to just abandon this mess is unlikely. We’re a culture comforted by measurements.
I’m the kind of person who feels the need to search for common ground. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate that this may be a weakness as much as it is a strength.
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Emmy,
I’ll pull a KrazyTA here and quote an long dead man:
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
~ Francis Bacon (1605)
And it’s that last part whereby the “search for common ground” for me can very much be “a weakness [more so than] it is a strength.” Andre Comte-Sponville (a still living French guy) in his “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” has an excellent chapter on “Tolerance” and why it is not rational to tolerate “every kind of imposture”. And the edudeformers definitely propose/spew for all kinds of “impostures”.
My training is one of “Critical Enquiry” as formulated by Dr.s Charles Fazzaro and James Walther at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in the late 90s and early 00s. It should not be confused with the philosophical “school” of critical inquiry. From Dr. Fazzaro:
What is Critical Enquiry?
The capital “C” in Critical emphasizes social criticism at the most fundamental level of what ought to constitute an ideal just social structure. Enquiry emphasizes the self-conscious use of all forms of analysis and interpretation of actions and discourses that create, maintain, and justify social structures. To this end:
• Critical Enquiry is suspicious of al “isms” [and/or ideologies] offered as The ideal social structure because like all “isms” they purport to transcend human subjectivity, that they are constituted in nature, outside the boundaries of human consciousness.
• Critical Enquiry fully recognizes the political nature of social structures, and seeks to reveal the power embedded in all forms of historically contextualized discourses to condition popular thought to accept a particular ideology, an “ism,” as natural and inevitable. Of particular concern are those “isms” that attempt to justify socioeconomic power differentials as inevitable, as normal.
• Critical Enquiry works dialectically in an unremitting search for contradictions between existing social arrangements and the Enlightenment ideals of natural rights, such as those embodied in the Founding Documents of the United States.
• Critical Enquiry is particularly concerned with those contradictions which systematically exclude individuals and groups from sociopolitical power or from the free access to information that is used to both condition and justify the status quo.
• Critical Enquiry is based on the belief that emancipation comes only to individuals that increase their understanding and self-reflective analysis of their social conditions. Such an analysis depends on the free and open exchange of knowledge and information uncontaminated by authoritative privilege and sanctions. Only after meeting these conditions regarding knowledge can citizens in a democratic society be sufficiently prepared to make ethical and moral judgments. (emphasis in original)
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Duane, I’d rather not derail this thread any more but I do want to say that I hear you. This is a question I struggle with often – when to be patient, to listen and to seek middle ground and when to draw the line beyond which you’re going to fight. In terms of all of this testing, and pushing down the curriculum to younger and younger grades, there is no question that it is abusive. I am willing to fight on that point. But as you know, it’s still an uphill battle. It is not just nameless administrators and Arne Duncan who think that “college begins in kindergarten”. I am with Sir Ken Robinson in that “kindergarten begins in kindergarten” and also that “a three year old is not half a six year old”.
But I have found that sometimes you can get people to come around by pointing out that they are being silly by their own logic. So if we are going to have some form of standardized testing because that is the only way we can be comforted that we are educating our children, let’s do it as best we can. It should be minimally invasive and it should be formative. I think we can make better progress in this area and I don’t see any reason why we should be afraid to experiment with computer adaptive instruments to get us there.
And while I do think that the whole thing is preposterous on some level (a la Wilson), it is also sloppy work by its own standards. Frankly, this pisses me off. This is much like the cradle-to-grave data collection thing. Relentlessly poking and prodding students isn’t the only way to see if they are learning anything. But right now there are few people saying “you’re doing bad work, you better innovate or we’re going to stop paying.” The debate is all about to test or not to test. We need people who can offer more technical suggestions and a public that will demand them. The testing/publishing companies are getting away with too much bad work. I am trying to be part of that conversation, even though it is incongruous with my overall preference for a school system similar to Finland’s.
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Does anyone know the reason why we’re not doing brief computer adaptive diagnostic testing instead?
Because that would be sane.
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What a shame to do this to Ovid’s wonderful story and to Anne Sexton’s magnificent poem! The translation of the Ovid is, I think, quite readable . . . BY A GRADUATE STUDENT. There’s a typo in one of the lines of the Ovid. I guess that the 330 million dollars in taxpayer money spent on this C.C.C.C.R.A.P. doesn’t cover proofreading.
Very, very sad to do this to such wonderful works! Ovid and Anne must both be rolling in their graves!
BTW, I used precisely this pairing of the Ovid and the Sexton a long, long time ago in a text, but I used a different retelling of the Ovid for obvious reasons.
The questions for these pieces are just terrible. They are, for example, often intentionally misleading because of a problem with multiple-choice questions generally. If you make the distractors too easy, the correct answer is obvious. So, how do you keep that from happening? You create distractors that sound plausible. So, you have a choice between creating lame questions and creating questions that are intentionally misleading. C.C.C.C.R.A.P. chose the latter alternative and has pursued this course with a vengeance in the mistaken belief that having kids sort out misdirections is rigorous assessment.
Unfortunately, unskilled editors of these tests often don’t recognize that some of the answers that they mean to be plausible but not correct are, in fact, arguably correct. As a result, poor editors of these tests often end up with questions that accidentally have more than one correct answer, which means that some kids will choose a correct answer that is scored as incorrect.
I did a couple of these question sets a few minutes ago, and I found a couple of examples of this problem of answers that were meant not to be correct but only plausible but that were arguably correct answers to the questions as asked. It would be fun to explain to these people why that’s so. I also found a question in which the answer that the test makers thought was correct wasn’t because the test makers didn’t quite understand the meaning of a term.
But the quality of these of the tests themselves is not even the biggest issue with this C.C.C.C.R.A.P. The biggest issue is this: It rests on a horrifically misguided theory of education–that learning is mastery of a bullet list of skills (the standards) and that the way you get kids to do learning is to dole out extrinsic punishments and rewards. THAT’S INCREDIBLY BACKWARD, NINETEENTH-CENTURY THINKING. The whole C.C.C.C.R.A.P.-py undertaking is WRONG FROM THE START.
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cx: But the quality of the tests themselves is not even the biggest issue with this C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
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Once these are done, the first person to take them needs to be Arne Duncan, who paid for them with YOUR MONEY.
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On Feb 4, 2014 12:01 PM, “Diane Ravitch’s blog” wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “An early version of the PARCC common Core tests > have been released, and bloggers are underwhelmed. Chris Cerone thinks they > look more or less like the same old standardized tests, but way more > expensive. Blogger Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters wr” Respond to > this post by replying above this line > New post on *Diane Ravitch’s blog* > The All-New Online Common > Core PARCC Tests: Not So New After All by > dianeravitch > > An early version of the PARCC common Core tests have been released, and > bloggers are underwhelmed. > > Chris Cerone thinks they look more or less like the same old standardized > tests , > but way more expensive. > > Blogger Leonie Haims
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Great! Harder tests that will shame more students, teachers, school communities, and parents. The ed deformers will be so proud.
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I tried the high school ELA test, but never got to find out if I’m college & career ready because I got an error message when I tried to enter my essay, and then a screen telling me to sign in. Maybe other readers of your blog can tell me if I’m ready for college yet, based on my essay. Here it is:
What I have learned from reading both texts is that one series of events can be descrivbed and interpreted in different ways. For example, Sexton sees Icaraus as a hero, taking risks, while Orvid sees him as an arrogant youth.
Orvid says Icarus is “foolish” and “bold in vanity” when he “forsook his guide” by failing to follow his father’s instructions. Sexton, though, makes fun of Daedalus as “his sensible daddy” who did nothing more interesting than go “straight into town”.
I think that this test is another example of how people can interpret the same situation differently. The proponents of the Common Core believe that by forcing millions of students to struggle to answer questions as foolish as the ones on this test, they will give America a better work force. I believe that, at most, they will give America a generation of young people who will hate poetry, and have skills only suited to becoming boring English teachers — if they are lucky
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Started to take the online ELA test and realized that I didn’t give a $h!t about the reading and didn’t want to waste my time and energy doing it.
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Yay!! No one cares for sure…It is Cr$p
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Duane: you speak for my students.
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Exactly!
Now perhaps with a paper copy, good teacher and good discussion and background information I would enjoy it, but as it is on the screen where I have to scroll through it, no!
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Very sensible, Don Duane!
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Proof of how to kill the enthusiasm that we hope kids will develop toward school.
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Ironically, most students love mythology and generally enjoy the story of Icarus and Daedalus. However, the craptastic translation of it would kill any student’s love of that story. And if this is indicative of the material they are to subjected to, we will quickly kill any love of learning or reading that those few who still have it in high school may have.
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April, we have Core-aligned curricula for precisely that purpose. Kill any intrinsic motivation. Turn every act of reading into an exercise into mining the text for examples of abstract formal characteristics of texts as enumerated in the CC$$ for ELA.
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I’m just dreading how public schools will be slammed with these tests.
Ultimately, it comes down to trust and I no longer trust that my state and federal leaders value public schools enough to use this as anything other than an opportunity to hammer them.
The tests themselves are almost beside the point.
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If at the end of the day the billions are spent and we’re no better off, then resistance was futile
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If these new tests do not test for minimal reading, writing, and math skills and instead test a student’s ability to navigate intentional trickery they should be sent back to the publisher marked damaged goods. These sample items suggest traps not tests. Tax payers across the country should get their money ($325 million bid) back from RARCC and SBAC.
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Traps of Trickery…Love it NYS Teacher..
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And then, report the results of the trickery traps in a fable of a table.
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Will the rubrics that are used to score essay questions be published? Who gets to see them?
Or will it be possible for the testing company to change rubrics to adjust scores as needed to improve or even reduce a district’s or even states’ scores? That’s not a very big jump to make that inference in this environment if the rubrics are not publically available.
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Make sure, all of you looking at these tests, that you get to the math ones. They’re a treat too.
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Did you try them.?. I did the first two …skipped the rest…time factor here…hoping to go back tomorrow…but since I did not sign in I guess those answers are gone…Oh well…..These test items are full of tricks…
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The reading passages are not grade level appropriate. The average third grader is reading Little House on the Prairie or Junie B Jones. The reading passages for 3-5 should be 6-8. The 6-8 would be better for grade 9 – 10. Ovid is more a college level choice. There are other great poems which could have been used instead.
Issues:
It is a formula. Do this, this, and this. Compare this and this.
The online version is cumbersome. You can’t see the whole text at once.you can’t see what you are writing (the box is too small), and it is hard to go back and forth to look at both texts for the comparison essays.
The above formatting will be inconvenient for high school students, challenging for middle schoolers, and detrimental for elementary children, even if the passages were age appropriate.
I, personally, would need scrap paper to prepare notes and to outline my essays. I am unsure if young minds would be able to juggle all the information necessary to complete a reasonable comparison essay without easy access to the written passages.
It adds another layer of assessment. Not just reading and writing ability, but word processing skills as well as comfort level in general computer usage. (And this does not take into account differences in computers and internet capacities between school districts, between schools, and even within an individual school. And what happens if the computer freezes or the system crashes – a relatively common occurrence – during the exam?)
Of course, all this assumes that there are enough computers to accommodate the appropriate student population. (And iPads won’t do it. They do not have the flexibility of computers and would put the student at a disadvantage.)
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Superb analysis. This is like witnessing the launch of the Titanic from Southampton. States will start jumping ship like rats sooner rather than later. NO school district in the country will get their money’s worth from this monstrosity. I love the smell of fiasco in the morning.
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My point..
***”If you can not explain it to a 6 year old..you do not understand it yourself”….
***I love Einstein
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I replied to the wrong post let me do that again..
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PARCC is ignoring the most important guideline in test writing which states, “If it can be misconstrued, it will; do not confuse the test taker.”
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Meany to say, “intentionally ignoring . . .”
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t not y
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I so agree as I have written hundreds of test items..
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Same here. Anyone with the least bit of experience as an item writer recognizes this crap fro what it is and what its meant to be. Criminal.
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Criminal is the perfect word to describe this…
Did you see the second math question.???
Based on each of the runner’s average time,
write an equation for each person that describes the relationship between his distance form the starting line in meters and time in seconds????????????/
Look at that wording..Have you ever??
That one would have gone in the trash!
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My Point
“If you can’t explain it to a 6 year old..you do not understand it yourself.”
I love Einstein…..
The tests are tricky and the directions are not precise…
They have been written to trick…..not for quality……
I would hate for these people to write questions for my Doctor….Can you imagine spouting off the gobbledygoop in the emergency room….and later discovering all one had to say was “Heart Attack”
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We need talking points to counter-act theirs. This is a political battle not an educational discussion.
I think that this meme will resonate with parents:
Traps not Tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
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Repeat this line over and over.
Traps not Tests.. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests.. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests.. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests.. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests.. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests.. Trying to trick your child into failure.
Traps not tests. Trying to trick your child into failure.
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There is no college and no workplace on earth where people talk like these test items read. Students will need the Sarah Palin on-line translator to decipher this gibberish. They really are trying to trick students into failure.
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Great phrase, Neandertal!
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*NY Teacher……original!!! So true
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
Traps not Tests, Trying to Trick your child into failure.
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I just looked at the math assessment. I’ll let the math experts critique. However, on my iPad, I could not see all the information needed to complete the operation or set up the equations (in other words, I could not see the complete question). The assigned “keyboard” was difficult to use and not always responsive. I would have needed to complete computations using paper and pencil, then transfer to the computer. Once again, cumbersome, even when you knew what to do. Impossible if the questions were beyond the scope of the test taker.
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RE: h.s. sample ELA questions (Ovid and Anne Sexton on the myth of Icarus). It is sad to see what could have been a great classroom discussion reduced to right-and-wrong answers. Way to kill exploration of literary texts.
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SO VERY, VERY WELL SAID, Spanish & French Freelancer!!!
Exactly!!!
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True. And one can answer those questions without reading either poem in its entirety. One of the beauties of poetry is its (generally speaking) concision, making it conducive to multiple readings, both in a classroom setting and a personal one. I can’t imagine anyone answering those questions and coming away with a deeper appreciation of poetry.
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Very well said. People who do this kind of crap to poetry don’t understand what poetry is about AT ALL.
Wallace Stevens said that “A poem should almost successfully escape the intellect.” He wrote,
“I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections,
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling,
Or just after.”
W. H. Auden said that “Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”
This C.C.C.C.R.A.P. (The Common Core College and Career Readiness Assessment Program) “blasphemes down the stations of the breath,” as Dylan Thomas put it.
This C.C.C.C.R.A.P. is the triumph of technocratic philistinism over humane scholarship and learning.
Only someone completely deaf to literature would intentionally produce a sacrilege like these tests.
In the days of the ancient Welsh Bards, the red cloaked ones would have had the heads of the creators of this C.C.C.C.R.A.P. on pikes.
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Robert Frost must be turning over in his grave as are all of the Brilliant Poets whose words have inspired the lives of billions..
How can one computerize my creativity??
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Apologies to Graham…
When your job has gone away
You must face yourself and say
I remember better days
Don’t you cry ’cause it is gone
It is only moving on
Chasing mirrors through a haze
Now that you know it’s nowhere
What’s to stop the kids from leaving home
All they got to do is stay there
Then they’ll really realize what’s going down
Sent to a strange school searching
For a truth you knew was wrong
That’s when the heartaches started
Though they’re where you want them to be
That’s not where they belong
When your kids have moved away
You must face yourself and say
I could have given them better days
Don’t you cry ’cause they are gone
They’re only chasing rainbows of your daze
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Wow. Thank you, Graham Nash, for that!
“The education system . . . consists in making children ashamed of what they are.” –Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, III.1.1., trans. Hazel E. Barnes
The creators of this C.C.C.C.R.A.P. are doing their part to ensure that we live up to Sartre’s characterization of that system.
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And thank you, No Brick, for posting this. You understand what these tests will mean.
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I’ve got a master’s degree in Speech Pathology, teach at a high school level and couldn’t come up with all of the answers myself. My students don’t have a chance.
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I agree – boring, no translation to real life or what students need to know to be a successful reader. I felt like I was trying to second guess what the answers were supposed to be when you had to drag them – not understand the story. I quit, too. I’m glad to see other people struggled because I was starting to doubt my intelligence and comprehension – so think what it will do to our students.
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To answer your thought..I think……..(I know)….
THIS PARCC CCRAP WILL …..
Turn them Off
Burn them Out
Send them Home…
Without a Doubt…
Ensuring their Future
Is ruled by Clout..
They set them up
To fail this Bout…
Of Tricky Testing
Its time to Flout
The CCrap we See
We now must SHOUT
They do not hear
They think we Pout…..
Hopes and Dreams
In crisis….in Drought
We beg we plead
This tumultuous rout
Must be stopped
Before we all Strike Out
** A special thank you to the makers of Highlighters and my old reliable Roget’s Thesaurus
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More like the all new Solyent Green assessments. The harmless name belies the truth.
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
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These test questions are like Kramer at the Judo school on Seinfeld. Congratulations test makers, you can trick a ten year old. Who knew it could be done.
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“Tests Changed School For Worse”
A letter to the editor written by a 7th grader: “Before the Common Core standards, I really enjoyed English and was very enthusiastic. The Common Core standards force every student to learn at the same pace with no creativity, marching like soldiers who get criticized if they fall.”
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hcrs-18524–20140130,0,88426.story
Also, let me add to the video clips: http://youtu.be/xJjE-UtqQdU
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I would think our students would be better prepared for college and career if they spent the time building a tree house instead of trying to answer the ridiculous questions about the tree house builders.
And the test wouldn’t register my math answers.
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I started taking the sample test but it was so boring and not human-friendly so I quit and made a batch of cookies.
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Very sensible! Would that all the children who will be abused by these tests could do the same!
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THIS PARCC CCRAP WILL …..
Turn them Off
Burn them Out
Send them Home…
Without a Doubt…
Ensuring their Future
Is ruled by Clout..
They set them up
To fail this Bout…
Of Tricky Testing
Its time to Flout
The CCrap we See
We now must SHOUT
They do not hear
They think we Pout…..
Hopes and Dreams
In crisis….in Drought
We beg we plead
This tumultuous rout
Must be stopped
Before we all Strike Out
** A special thank you to the makers of Highlighters and my old reliable Roget’s Thesaurus
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very funny, Neanderthal!
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ROFLOL 🙂
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I foolishly wasted my time answering some of the questions, thinking I would get a test score and a chance to review my responses. No such luck…what a frustrating waste of time. Exactly how students will feel.
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But remember what King David says, “No one gives a $&$&@!!! what you feel.”
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Rhett to Scarlett….
‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a da*n!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you’ve had enough!!!
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… and now, no one gives a S*** what King David says anymore either!!!!
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These computerized tests test computer effecient skills or lack of. We don’t have time to teach keyboarding, so our kids pluck away 1 or 2 fingers at a time. The Smarter Balance Test requires kids to move objects on the math test. There goes time for instruction when we now have to give a tutorial.
Why don’t these test developers (idiots) send out people to administer the test, so we can have some prep time?
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Yes!
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For years (forever?) we have been pretending to test Science and Social Studies knowledge when those tests first and foremost assess reading ability and if the student could not read the test, well, “look how little students know about Science and Social Studies these days.” And they can’t “do math” either. Never mind we’ve been expecting them to read and comprehend word problems when some of them cannot read!
So what has my reformy Dept. of Ed done? Why, they have completely dismantled and eliminated the Literacy office of the Dept. and nary a word is spoken about literacy or reading.
So now, with online testing, we will be assessing reading AND computer skills. But not to worry. We will be doing lots of practice testing and dry runs. No one speaks of instruction, only testing. I guess kids are supposed to learn by osmosis.
Oh, I forgot. They don’t know what osmosis is.
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Robert
What has happened to the reading?
We had to read-read-read in school.
Now..they only read excerpts..for testing prep of course..
Students do not know anything of value except how to prepare for a test.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Students can not add a list of two-digit numbers without a calculator and forget asking them to find 50% of any amount..Unless their parents have taught them these skills..they are lost..
“Building that airplane in the air”…So sad..
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Sample questions have been posted on both the C.C.C.C.R.A.P. sites for some time now. I wrote analyses of some of them on this blog weeks ago.
It’s really a hoot to read the hybrid edubabble and marketing pitch posted on both sites about the test formats–the stuff that suggests that that clicking on a word and moving it to an answer blank is as revolutionary as the invention of the syllogism or the wheel.
Predictably, the tests are dreadful. I will, when I get time, put together a detailed analysis of the selections, questions, answers, test formats, and rubrics and their myriad problems. Bottom line is this: When these tests are rolled out nationwide, there is going to be a policy supernova.
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As I keep saying Robert…
Waiting for that book of yours…
I would like a signed copy!
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Grab your phone, folks, and for a mere 100 billion dollars avail yourselves of the magic elixir, the philosopher’s stone, the fabulous educational cure-all!
You’ve heard about those expensive fixes–highly educated teachers, healthy home environments, small classes, after-school enrichment programs, well-equipped schools, libraries, arts programs, science programs, special education, carefully thought-out learning progressions, robust curricula, great curricular materials, and all that rot. Fuggitabouit!
Why pay for all these when for half your school budget you can have DEFORMY MAGIC?
Just teach to the bullet list of standards and teach to the test. It’s THAT EASY!!!
And DEFORMY MAGIC not only does students. It does teachers and schools as well!!!
The secret to DEFORMY MAGIC is our patented new not-SMARTER, im-BALANCED and PARCC on Kids’ Throats tests, collectively known as the Common Core College and Career Readiness Assessment Program, or C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
And boy, do I have a deal for you on those!
120 students per class? No problem!
High crime and poverty rates? No problem!
Students with crack-addicted mothers? No problem!
Schools falling down? No problem?
Hungry children? NO PROBLEM!
DEFORMY MAGIC takes care of it all as quickly as you can say VAM, BAM, THANK YOU MA’AM!!!
DEFORMY MAGIC is a registered trademark of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
Offer void in sane nation states.
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OK…Now I am laughing so hard I almost choked on my Cheerios..
🙂
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And notice that they are not posting much at all.
They don’t dare. LOL.
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BTW, 330 million dollars of taxpayer money was awarded for the creation of this C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
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And I had to spend $2000 at Staples????
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SBAC means dog in Russian (pronounced S-baka, written sobaka, but o is silent).
Children joke that SBAC- sobaka bites you!
Of course there might be some cute sobakas but that one is a nasty
http://grandwallpapers.net/photo/ostorojno-zlaya-sobaka/
So this is what it is – SBAC-bites!!!
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LOL
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I only did a few questions. It’s an annoying test which purposefully chooses an obscure and meaningless poem (at least to me). Provided you know the underlying story, based only on the few questions I looked at, it’s not actually necessary to read the poem. In fact, that would probably be not just a waste of time but would be a bad strategy. That, at least, was my impression.
On the math section, it seemed very light on the “math” part. Word problems are great, but the high school questions seemed much more like middle school, or maybe 9th grade type questions. Or maybe it was for ninth grade?
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