Alyssa Katz is a member of the editorial board of the Néw York Daily News, which has been a reliable cheerleader for the Common Core, high-stakes testing, and all of Governor Cuomo’s bad ideas to punish public schools, teachers, and children.
But Alyssa Katz has a singular advantage over most editorial writers: she is a parent of a child in public school. She has seen what Common Core looks like and how confusing the sample questions on the tests are.
She understands why Cuomo’s popularity rating has plummeted and why it is rock bottom among public school parents. He has only a 50% approval rating. 28% approve of his education ideas, as do only 21% of public school parents.
Since Cuomo has asserted his education leadership in a state where he has no legal authority over education (he does not appoint the state board or the state commissioner), parents will blame him for incoherent Common Core assignments and for the failure of their child on Common Core tests. If favorite teachers are fired for low scores, it will be Cuomo’s fault.
Katz has had it.
She writes:
“With kids prepping for April tests, anxieties are again mounting. At least, that’s the view from my dining-room table, where my third-grader grapples with hair-tearing homework , and where her guiding inspiration for writing assignments is a laminated card drilling “RADD” — for Restate, Answer, Detail, Detail.
“If the questions on kids’ homework and, by extension, their standardized tests, are tough to understand, how does it make sense to base high-stakes teacher employment decisions on those tests?
“Take this math assignment: “Draw an array. Then write a fact family to describe your array.” The sound you hear is sweat trickling down my husband’s face.
“The question that follows asks whether it’s correct to surmise that a family whose members have 14 legs consists of 7 people. One kid answered — it became an internet meme — “Yes, because 14÷2 = 7, but not everyone has two legs. Go to http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org.”
“My breaking point came with a math problem asking kids to combine Grover Cleveland’s electoral votes won in 1884, 1888 and 1892, a sum that would mean nothing to even the most obsessive presidential historian.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
He’s a good politician. He stays bought.
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Since teachers’ or school leaders’ protests against the Governor’s education positions are seen as self serving, it will have to be parents like Alyssa Katz who reveal that the emperor has no clothes!
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Agree, and the perfectly abrurd details in this report are just what is needed.
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I just hope that Cuomo will be held accountable and will be blamed. The weasel has a habit of blame- shifting and I don’t know/let me waffle here.
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Our family has 16 legs, but there are only two humans, my wife and myself. We consider our pets an essential part of our family, and the three felines ad 12 legs to the count.
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Like our president, Cuomo never attended a public school. He neither understands, nor appreciates that public schools are a cornerstone of democratic principles. Maybe that is why it is so easy for him to try to sell them off to the highest bidder.
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Here’s a graphic of the problem.https://www.facebook.com/speakupforkids/photos/a.115236388517172.7162.112325855474892/922611857779617/?type=1&theater
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From the article in question:
[start]
The question that follows asks whether it’s correct to surmise that a family whose members have 14 legs consists of 7 people. One kid answered — it became an internet meme — “Yes, because 14÷2 = 7, but not everyone has two legs. Go to http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org.”
[end]
A child shows more maturity, wisdom and good sense than the governor of the state of New York?
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
¿? Then let me add, a child shows more maturity, wisdom and good sense than the governor of the state of New York and the former Chancellor of DCPS combined.
When will the ‘thought leaders’ of the self-styled “education reform” movement brush up on their American history, even if ever so slightly, so as to avoid putting their feet in their collective mouth over and over and over again?
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Although, to be fair, Mark Twain isn’t a favorite with the CCSS crowd…
😎
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All legislators, governors, corporate execs wanting to impose these senseless tests should first be required to take them and post publicly their results.
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Yes, but their term of office would be up before they received the results.
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I’m aware of the incentives that encourage schools and teachers to use worksheets xeroxed out of test prep booklets for homework assignments. But is there some rule that actually *requires* them to do it? Since day 1, years before the Common Core, my kids’ homework has been *nothing* but pre-fab worksheets. And I never saw one that I didn’t hate.
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What are you suggesting?
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I suppose I’m suggesting maybe not using xeroxes from canned curriculum or test prep books for homework assignments.
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Yes. I agree worksheets can be monotonous. Alternatively, I used to do a unit mixing matrix math, encryption, history, Enigma, Turing, some videos, and fun student interaction. But to do that unit now means running afoul of Common Core or risk my ranking due to divergence from PARCC content. You can bet many of my students remembered matrix operations when they decrypted each other’s messages. I still remember activities from high school that would not follow the CCSS curriculum today. But sadly teachers are forced to test prep worksheets and the creativity, innovation, and learning is gone.
The worksheets will get worse as collaboration and planning time are replaced with test prep, money is transferred to testing, and teachers are forced to teach to the test. Besides, does anybody really care if a teacher puts in extra hours to create a different and exciting lesson anymore? Is that even allowed under the rank and yank, test and toil reforms?
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In NY, this has become a very common practice in math and ELA in grades 3 to 8. Like it or not, this is what happens when test scores are used to threaten school districts, administrators, and teachers.
Some administrators do require the use of CC test prep materials.
Most teachers do have leeway in this regard, but they all have to follow the CC standards – and very few have the time to create their own activities aligned to the CC. Unfortunately many experienced teachers have been forced to shelve proven math and ELA activities developed and perfected over many years – creative activities that were challenging, engaging, and successful but no longer follow the CC standards. Why don’t you ask your children’s teachers this important question.
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The ridiculous Pearson test prep worksheets are the only way to properly prep students for the NYS Common Core tests –written by Pearson. In fact, first year Pearson NYS Common Core test prep materials even included a reading passage that showed up on the test later that year. Schools got the message and scrambled to buy this crap, because stakes are jigh. Nothing else matches the absurdity, opacity, and in appropriateness of tasks presented in an NYS Pearson Common Core test except Pearson Common Core curriculum and test prep. Which you would know if you were a current ny public school parent.
The examples provided seem pretty close to the sample questions we parents have seen.
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I guess you just proved that I’m not a current NY public school parent. That was a real Columbo moment.
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Plus the Columbo reference pegs your age a bit more to the seasoned adult side. Most of my kids would have no idea. Shame really as those shows were gems.
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Here’s a look back at the only one guidance counselor’s report on my district’s 2010 8th grade cohort to see how they fared relative to their 8th grade scores on the ELA or Math state assessment illustrates this quite well. (Bear in mind that the 2010 test was pre Common Core and represents a much easier assessment.
Colleges accepting students who received a level 3 in either ELA or Math in 2010: Cornell University, Harvard, Bryn Mawr, Boston College, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Hunter College, University of Delaware, SUNY Purchase, Albany, Binghamton, and Stonybrook, FIT, Tulane, University of Baltimore, Kenyon College, Franklin Pierce, Emory, Hofstra, University of Vermont.
Colleges who accepted students who received a level 2 in either 8th ELA or Math: Manhattanville, University of Michigan, Indiana University at Bloomington, University of Delaware, Ithaca College, Towson University, SUNY Purchase, Plattsburgh, and Cortland, Ohio University, Hofstra. It becomes apparent that scores on a test taken in 8th grade do not indicate future ability to gain acceptance at strong and highly competitive colleges.
According to our findings, the test has no bearing on acceptance rates f
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No stakes test don’t even motivate our best students. Even as 13 1nd 14 year old kids they knew these NCLB tests had no bearing on their futures. The refusal and opt out talk will de-motivate many stuck taking the CC tests even further. I expect to see a lot of students finished in under 30 minutes, taking one hour naps and dreaming about things that really matter.
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On today’s Times Union website (www.timesunion.com), there is an article about Sheri Lederman, a Great Neck, NY teacher who is appealing her teacher evaluation in NY courts. She was rated “ineffective” because of her students’ test scores but “effective” overall.
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Take it to the courts. Maybe the judges will be able to convince the legislature that this whole evaluation system is bogus.
Ellen #SupportsCommonSenseNotCommonCore
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