Why should Common Core tests require 8-10 hours? Does anyone know? Why should third graders, 8 or 9 year-old children, be expected to sit for eight hours of testing? This is nuts!
This from a teacher in Utah, responding to a post called “Good Riddance to Common Core Tests.” Let the parents know. They recognize child abuse.
“And it’s not just the SBAC or PARCC that are long and awful. Utah went with its own CC testing, created by AIR. The 7-9 grade students at my school were forced into NINE 70 minute testing sessions per student, and MANY students took much longer than that. This included TWO major essays. There were several topics instead of one: how can you reliably compare students who wrote essays on different topics? The essays required reading several articles and then formulating and writing the essay. The test designers estimated that the expository essay would take a total of 30 minutes to read the articles and write, and that the argumentative essay would take 60 minutes. The tests were not timed, so theoretically the kids could take weeks to write the essays, and some did. No one, including the extremely talented, high-level writers, could finish the essays in the short time the test makers estimated, which, in my mind, calls into question the entire enterprise and the entire test writing company. ALL of us who work with students KNEW that these essays would take far longer than the estimated times. So if this company really knew how to write tests, how is it that they so grossly underestimated the time these essays would take?
“I have tried to let parents know how ridiculously long these tests are. I have now been told that I cannot do that, or the state will take discipline against my license. So how do parents even know what is being done to their children?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on V-Hypnagogic-Logic and commented:
Teachers, counselors, principals of schools … if you are reading my blog, please check out this article!
Although my son scored Advanced on his 8th grade test, it took him 6 hours to complete and he didn’t get to eat lunch. Unreal!! Thank God this didn’t happen to me as a kid because I would have given up!
The fact that your son couldn’t eat lunch is actually illegal. If you have a good attorney, you should sue.
Guess TORTURE is “THE” American word these days!
Has been since Georgie Porgie and Dickless Cheney (Mr. Go hunting without proper licenses and shoot my hunting partner) decided that “enhanced interrogation” techniques were supposedly legal. For that alone they should be rotting in jail in the Hague, not to mention many other constitutional abuses for which they should be rotting in jail in the US.
Please come up with something intelligent to say, which relates to the topic at hand. Worn out insults about former administrations have no place here. There’s PLENTY of blame to go around, and right now, we need to deal with who currently is doing this and stop them. No one should use our children as political footballs, including you.
Another repressive tactic in the ward on public schools – threatening a teacher with a “discipline” against your license. Apparently sharing factual information is not protected by the First Amendment.
Care to guess what the SCOTUS opinion would be on this?
I think the time for teachers to push back against these Rheeformist thugs is long overdue.
Utah should not have awarded AIR the contract without having a very clear idea of what AIR was doing. The people responsible for this fiasco are not just at AIR.
Agreed, but we teachers have no say in this mess. The state board of education in Utah is just as responsible.
In my district there are four PARCC testing windows already on the school calendar for the 2014-15 school year spanning 62 school days. Granted, students will not be tested for 62 school days, but other educational events must be scheduled around these testing windows which account for approximately 1/3 of the student days. Further, PARCC is not the only standardized test we are required to administer.
Our district has “windows” for testing as well. How is it fair to be compared to other classes that took the tests later in the “window”. They will have had more “teaching” time than the earlier. Doesn’t make sense.
“How is it fair to be compared to other classes. . . .”
Why in the hell are we “comparing classes, students and/or teachers” to begin with?
What the hell does this “comparing” have to do with striving to provide the best teaching and learning environment for each student?
Rank, sort and separate, make sure the colors don’t get put in with the bleached whites, perhaps?!
Cindy, you bring up an interesting point but because the PARCC tests are designed to fail students, exactly when they take the tests won’t be a significant factor.
And Duane, I totally agree that all this testing is an absurd waste of human potential. I believe that this dark time of “edu-reform” will eventually be seen as one the most archaic and brutal periods by historians and the larger public. We see it for what it is right now because we are directly experiencing its awful effects.
Do the administrators who perpetrate this outrage ever really think about what this signifies? ” ‘I have tried to let parents know how ridiculously long these tests are. I have now been told that I cannot do that, or the state will take discipline against my license. So how do parents even know what is being done to their children?’ “
AIR is designing Florida’s assessments. Great. Just what we need.
You’re buying our tests from Utah first, Chris! Good luck with that.
Really quickly: Diane: I was the original poster. I think there may be a misunderstanding on the test length. This test length was for 7th-9th graders, ages 12-15. It’s still horrendously long, and I know that this test length is for at least 5th grade to 12th grade. I don’t know how long the 3rd grade tests are. Still abusive, but there may have been a confusion on the grade level.
The tests at the lower levels take more time to administer than the ACT or SAT. That’s insane.
Challenge in court – freedom of speech.
My union has told me that I have no case, that the state superintendent is within his rights to threaten all teachers in the state (it isn’t just me). The union says it is because my talking about opting out and the awful tests is like insubordination. The union even told me that my own children should not tell their friends that they can opt out of the testing, because it could be tied back to me. That’s why I post anonymously.
I understand you cannot risk losing your job. But just for argument’s sake, I’d say your union represents all that is wrong with union leadership today. There may be a state regulation supporting what you were told but that doesn’t mean it would stand up to challenge in court. It sounds like suppression of free speech to me. Maybe you can find a financially secure retiree to lead the charge.
Publish a weekly/daily syllabus for your class and send it to parents. Highlight testing days and let them do their own math.
Oh, I agree that the union is wrong. Maybe once my children have left the house and I can “afford” to be jobless, I’ll challenge this garbage.
Have any of these folk– admin or union — put any of this in writing? Or do they just use behind-the-scenes intimidation?
It’s in writing. I have saved the email. It was even in the newspaper: http://www.standard.net/Education/2014/04/24/25-SAGE-warning.html
The union’s information is also in writing.
Thank-you! “…the point of testing is to let teachers know in what ways they need to improve their instruction, and in what ways a particular student needs extra help.” Because teachers would have no idea of this through daily interaction with students…
Not to mention that, since teachers cannot see the tests, there’s no way that these tests inform instruction. We can’t help students with problems if we don’t know what the problem is!
The tests are being to grade us. The teachers. Not the kids.
gitapik,
“The tests are being to grade us. The teachers.”
And that is a completely UNETHICAL use of the results of these tests as they are not designed as teacher evaluations.
Not that I can discern or find any ETHICAL usage of these tests due to the myriad epistemological and ontological errors involved in the standards and standardized test process as shown by Noel Wilson in his never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
So as to not stringbean this thread anymore see separate post below for summary and my comments.
Can someone anonymously contact the local media to publicize such abuses, or the PTA, at least?
They used fear to sell Common Core and in my opinion people would do well to take a hard look at anything sold using fear.
Telling people their children will never work or can’t compete without this heavily-marketed initiative was and is manipulative and disrespectful.
There was no reason to choose that sales tactic other than to create a sense of urgency and a “bandwagon” effect.
The thing would have been stronger if they had allowed dissent, caution and a real debate.
I read Duncan’s speech to the PTA. The man is incapable of selling anything without relying on fear. That is a “tell” to me of one of two things: either he doesn’t believe the thing can be sold on the merits, positively, or he thinks his audience is too stupid to understand this without what amounts to threats.
I understand how charged the phrase I am using sounds, but how can this round of high-stakes standardized tests not be described as other than an abusive “hazing ritual”?
Let me remind folks of a previous posting, 3/23/2014, on this blog entitled “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”
The entire posting reads: “This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.”
In the online piece that Diane links to in that posting is this statement [the first four, of six, paragraphs] issued by Ms. McQueen:
[start quote]
As with any change in leadership, questions and concerns often arise as a natural part of the transition process. Because of my role as the dean of the university’s College of Education some of you have expressed concerns about my appointment and the direction Lipscomb Academy will take as it relates to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I want to take a moment to address some of these concerns and possible misinformation.
First, the Common Core State Standards have not been adopted by Lipscomb Academy. While the standards have been adopted by the state of Tennessee along with 44 other states, private schools have the freedom to determine if they will use all, some or none of the CCSS. To date, Lipscomb Academy administrators have not adopted the standards, but have encouraged the faculty to learn about the math and English/language arts Common Core State Standards that are changing the expectations of students not only in Tennessee but also across the nation.
Second, I have also not been in any discussions about formal adoption of the CCSS at Lipscomb Academy. Currently, Lipscomb Academy draws from a variety of quality national and state standards selected by the school leadership and faculty to set a vision for what content, instruction and curriculum will be used at each grade level. This has proven to be effective; thus, I don’t anticipate any changes to this process now or in the future. As is current practice, all standards available will be reviewed at set intervals by leadership and faculty to determine the direction of Lipscomb Academy.
Third, some of you have voiced concerns that the academy will adopt the PARCC test that will soon replace the current Tennessee standardized test or TCAP. Lipscomb Academy uses the ERB test, not the TCAP, and there are no plans to replace the ERB test with PARCC.
[end quote]
Link: http://nashvillepublicradio.org/blog/2014/02/10/lipscomb-academy-chief-advocates-for-common-core-but-not-at-her-school/
Strangely [?!?!?], the schools attended by the children of the leaders and enablers of the charterite/privatizer movement like Sidwell Friends [President and Mrs. Obama], U of Chicago Lab Schools [Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel], Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee], Delbarton School [NJ Governor Chris Christie], and Lakeside School [Bill & Melinda Gates], are following—or setting—the lead for Lipscomb Academy.
So what they mandate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN [a growing majority] is not what they ensure and provide for THEIR OWN CHILDREN [the increasingly advantaged few]. Of course, they don’t mention the gap between their words and their deeds in their MSM appearances and glossy brochures…
A very dead, very old and very Greek guy nailed the edufrauds over two thousand years ago:
“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is He who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
$tudent $ucce$$, anyone?
😎
Nice to hear someone call this what it is – state mandated child abuse!
As a parent in the state of Utah, I was very upset about the amount of time my children were tested. I have students in grades 5 and 8 and was alarmed not only by the amount of time they spent taking tests but that their classes were disrupted for weeks while the computers were used for the rest of the school to test. I complained and was told that if I chose to opt out of testing for my children I would be hurting teachers. My daughter was told that the tests would be her final grade in those classes. I know that can’t be true because we have never seen the test results and the school says it doesn’t have them. I would like to know how opting out hurts teachers.
It doesn’t hurt teachers in reality, however, in Michelle Rhee-speak, it hurts excellent teachers because excellent teachers’ students will excel on the tests and ineffective teachers’ students will fail. Then, based on the tests, the teachers whose students did well will be kept and the ones who did poorly will be fired, regardless of seniority, experience, etc., where these test scores are tied to teacher reviews in any amount of weight against other review methods. It doesn’t matter to Rhee that the test questions are flawed, skewed, poorly written, vague and often have more than 1 potentially correct answer. It doesn’t matter that after hours and hours of testing, the students are fatigued and disinterested in the testing.
Theoretically, the teachers who teach to the test, whose students have learned nothing but the answers needed to choose the correct bubble on the test, will be considered excellent, but Rhee et al. don’t care about what the students learn or do not learn. As a matter of fact, this aspect of reform is just another way to oust teachers.
If I taught you how to cook chicken parmigian and on test day gave you ham and cabbage and asked you to make chicken parmigian so I could fail you–mission accomplished.
Michelle Rhee has graded schools, not on their test results, but on what policies they employ (to close schools, to test kids, to get rid of seniority, to get rid of tenure, to promote charter schools, etc.). The grades she gives flies in the face of the test scores of the children. Florida gets high grades while New Jersey gets low grades; despite the evidence that Florida’s kids are doing poorly overall and New Jersey’s kids are doing well overall. Up is down, down is up, in Michelle Rhee’s crazy agenda to charterize everything.
The assault by the wealthy on teachers and unions in order to get their hands on the public tax dollars is never going to stop – however, we have gotten wise to their agenda, and are getting good at understanding the doublespeak and exposing their results.
“. . . because excellent teachers’ students will excel on the tests and ineffective teachers’ students will fail.”
And that bloviation, as we know, is complete bullshit.
TAGP!
Utah teachers will not get the scores this year until November. The state has said that starting next year that the scores will come out before school gets out, which means that those essays MUST be graded by computer. Check your district’s policy on using the standardized tests for class grades. My district just passed a policy that standardized tests CANNOT be used as a class grade.
When we went to opt out my high school son from the tests, we got every excuse in the book–that it will hurt the school’s grade, that the scores help plan his next year’s schedule, etc. It’s all a smoke screen. HOW can he plan his schedule using test scores when those don’t come back until fall? Opting out will NO LONGER hurt the school’s grade–state law was just passed that doesn’t count opt-outs in school grades.
I think that administrators were forced to give a bunch of excuses to try to prevent opt-outs. Ignore them! You have the RIGHT to opt out. PLEASE tell other parents and go to the media about your children’s experience. We teachers CANNOT go to the media, or even post information on our OWN personal Facebook pages (that’s what I’m in trouble for). But you CAN!!!!!
I live in Utah and I have a third and fourth grader that completed the AIR SAGE test this last school year. Yes, those test are just as long as reported for my children. These tests were given over a number of days and my children suffered from high anxiety on these days and they were exhausted. After the testing was finished I asked them how they felt about it and they said they didn’t really like it because it was long and hard (there is no ceiling). I also heard from my children that some kids in their classes cried or just put their heads down and quit, which is interesting because some of the questions were supposed to get easier if they get a wrong answer on a harder question.
I spoke with a retiring third grade teacher in another district to see if her experience with SAGE was similar and she said it was awful for the children. She said the tests lasted up to 10 hours for some children because of the essay section. Although, she said she had two students finish the essay in 10 minutes and then they hid under their desks.
The crazy thing is that in Utah State Code R277-515-4 Educator Responsibility for Maintaining a Safe Learning Environment in Section B4 it states educators “shall take action to protect a student from any known condition detrimental to that student’s physical health, mental health, safety, or learning”. But right after this section, in B5, it states their duty on administering all of this testing. So, which is it Utah? Because I can attest that this testing is doing more harm than good for our children. Should educators administer the tests and remain silent (which I think they are being told to do) or should educators share their experiences so we can learn from them and hopefully do better?
Shame on those in the position of power in my state for making this happen. And shame on me for allowing my children to be the guinea pigs. I know better; but I was curious. They won’t be taking SAGE tests next year.
Thank you to all of those that have stood up and have been brave! You have educated me and reminded me that I too can be brave. I have a voice and it is time to use it.
Thank you to BOTH of the parents that posted here. NOW, please parents: spread the word. We teachers CANNOT spread the word, but YOU can! Tell everyone you know. Post on social media. Contact your legislators and let them know how horrible the experience was. Write to the media. Do what I wish I could do. Thanks!!!!
We who can recognize psychological abuse in TEXAS have been calling this “institutional abuse” for at least two years, but no one is listening……! Parents are still sending their 8 year olds to take two days of four hour STAAR tests that are designed to frustrate, confuse, and intimidate them. Children are still suffering STAAR psychological torture from this “test” that has no merit or validity as authentic assessment.
This “parental passiveness” reminds me of my grandmother who remained silent in the house anytime my grandfather would take my father, as a child, behind the woodshed and beat him with a leather strap as “discipline” for any misbehavior. These people were “salt of the earth” farm people in the south who worked hard and did what they thought was right. They, and others of their generation, didn’t know they were causing their son to become a broken man and an alcoholic. I think my grandmother knew, but I think she was afraid to speak up. I think she had been conditioned to “learned helplessness”.
Now, Common Core has created this same dysfunctional scenario from “learned helplessness” of parents and teachers. Parents are afraid of “authority”. Teachers are afraid of “authority”. These adults are “knowingly” allowing their children to be abused, and they are perpetuating that abuse, because they are afraid of “authority”. They are afraid to question the status quo. They are afraid of bringing any criticism or judgement to themselves. They are afraid of making a mistake. They can’t trust their own judgement and have to rely on others to tell them what to do. They have no sense of self or identity. They are not connecting emotionally with their children or they would recognize this as abuse. Just like my submissive grandmother, these parents are using “denial and avoidance”, the coping mechanisms that children learn in dysfunctional families, and then continue to use in adulthood.
Common Core illustrates how this country is running on “fear”. It’s time for that to stop. Parents, Wake Up! Protect your children from Common Core abuse! Don’t be afraid of bullying school administrators who will try to shame and intimidate you. Organize parent groups and demand to sit in those classes to observe what is happening. Have faith in your ability to recognize the difference between kindness and cruelty to children. Recognize bullying behaviors from teachers and administrators. Validate your child. Recognize your right to protect your child from institutional abuse. Toss out Common Core and bring in authentic education like Montessori.
Our children need recovery from this evil experiment that was created by a mad scientist named Bill Gates. Bill Gates, and others like him are the epitome of Dr Jekell Mr Hyde. It’s time we take these child abusers behind the woodshed.
“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is He who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
KrazyTA & izzy…….I think Homer may have been the first to recognize Dissociative Disorder that comes with extreme Narcissistic personality, even though Robert Louis Stephenson was the first to write about it with Dr Jekell Mr Hyde.
Dr Jekell Mr Hyde (Dissociative Disorder) apparently is epidemic among the Billionaire Boys Club, the DOE, and even the President. Scary thought isn’t it.
This really is insanity. I’m sure that money is a cornerstone of the decisions…but how could anyone in authority even think to inflict this kind of punishment, much less mandate it?
Nose to the grindstone. Raise the bar higher and train them to clear it. Grit.
Disgusting.
The Utah SAGE tests are administered by AIR, but developed wholly under the leadership of the Utah Department of Education. AIR cannot write one question according to the contract.
Next year the writing expectations is length is going to be shorter (2-3 paragraphs for grades 5+, 1-2 paragraphs grades 3 and 4) .
There is no question the tests are too long, but can it be a valid display of the core with less questions? Hopefully it will be shorter without as many pilot items.
John Allan, no test should be longer than an hour. It is a sampling of a domain, not a test of everything students have studied. An eight-hour test is absurd.
I would be interested to see if this gentlemen would comment to the fact that the SAGE test is longer than any AP test, the ACT, the SAT, the GRE, the MCAT, and the bar exams. For eight year olds.
Who are the tests really grading, John?
How can the writing be objectively graded when it’s done by computer? That’s how the DWA (Directed Writing Exam, given to grades 5, 8 and 11) has been graded for years, and while I can’t verify it, I expect the essays for the SAGE will also be graded by the computer.
And if next year is going to be so much shorter next year, WHY wasn’t it shorter this year????
“. . . but can it be a valid display of the core with less questions? Hopefully it will be shorter without as many pilot items.”
Yep, product development costs (pilot items) are thrown onto the end user, the student. Can you say UNETHICAL, John?????
And no, these tests are not “a valid display of the core”! Noel Wilson has already proven the COMPLETE INVALIDITY of the standards and standardized testing in “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 See below for summary.
So, John Allan, what’s your stake in this game? Who do you work for? Are you a public school teacher?
Needless to say I don’t expect any answers (the edudeformers cower when challenged) but would be interested to find out.
Continuing from above:
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Your union never said anything close to this. They have stated the consequences as it relates to Utah law. To do anything less would be irresponsible! I am a Utah teacher and I appreciate that my union gave clear facts in this right to work state. Would you have rather the union say nothing about the law! The consequences if that wiukd be you getting fired and the union not being able to help you. Likely you would complain that they should have given you the facts!
It’s absurd that teachers are being threatened with losing their license. What happened to freedom of speech in this country? All teachers should ban together and fight this craziness. We are parents need to stand up and support them and out children. I also saw that with Common Core they are teaching in the 4th grade about masturbation. I am appalled that that can even be taught in our schools. My daughter has 3 more years to go but seriously home school is sounding better and better. We need to take a STAND!
Tracy Shurtleff writes: “I also saw that with Common Core they are teaching in the 4th grade about masturbation.”
Um, no, Where did you see this in the CCSS? Please give the exact standard to which you are referring.
Those supporting this cult mentality should all be in jail. Parents who allow their children to be subjected to this abuse should follow them to jail. Wise up! These worthless test are being used to get rid of good content teacher and create more corporate charter schools which will destroy representative government. We already have unelected councils making the decisons at the state and local levels. Sick stuff!
“The state will take action against my license” is a haunting thought. Is it not a self declaration that they have no leader and the state is run by inept managers? When has trying to cover up the truth with threat of harm been an acceptable business practice? It sounds like the state people are tainted like with PCB and need to be exposed of.