Florida Parents: “You’ll Soon Be Told Your Schools Stink” Even the best ones.

[madfloridian]

From Bob Sikes at Scathing Purple Musings:

He is quoting Scott Maxwell at the Orlando Sentinel. I can not access the article because I am not a paid subscriber to the Sentinel.

Florida Parents: “You’ll Soon Be Told Your Schools Stink”

Some background on this. The new testing coming up for Common Core next year in Florida was field tested only in Utah. Think about that. The demographics of the two states could not be more different. It makes no sense.

Get ready, parents. There’s a good chance you will soon be told your schools stink..

Almost all of them. Even the best ones.

We’re talking rampant F- and D-rated schools throughout the state, leaving you with the impression that public education in Florida is total failure.

That’s what’s happening in Utah under a new Common Core-based testing system — which Florida has chosen to follow.

Just last month, Utah warned that a “majority of schools” could end up D- or F- rated … even though the state believes its schools are still strong.

Now realize this model may be coming here.

There is more at the link about how the private schools getting voucher money both from taxpayer money and corporations (who then see their taxes cut which cuts into taxpayer funding for public schools) do not have to test. Lucky for them.

They do not even have to hire qualified teachers, and in FL there are no regulations on what they teach.

This business of forcing schools to call themselves failing and to tell parents they are failing is already going on in Washington state.

WA state schools must declare failure if even one student fails high-stakes test.

That’s right – because the state chose a different system for evaluating its teachers, Arne Duncan and the Department of Education are punishing Washington State schools. If they do not have 100% of their kids at grade level and above on the tests mandated by the Common Core curriculum, the schools are designated “failing.” So a school with a low-income population that raised its pass rate from 20% to 70% in the last three years is now a failure. In fact, 90% of public schools in Washington State, some in very fancy neighborhoods, are now failures.

[BlueJazz]

1. I live in Florida. We combine the richness of moronic, crooked, sociopaths, with even MORE...

...moronic, crooked politicians mixed in with a population that thinks Rick Scott is "A good Boy"
It doesn't get much better than that!

[HockeyMom]

2. Tell me about it

I have worked in both NY and Florida as a Para. One time when new to Florida I was told to go to classroom "A" until Sub got there. I thought it was a Kinder class from the material. It was a First Grade Class. Different states different curriculum?

[madfloridian]

3. About New York schools

You might like to read this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/17/a-painful-analysis-of-new-common-core-tests-and-the-n-y-results/

By Carol Burris and Bianca Tanis

Why would policymakers create tests that are designed to mark as failures two out of every three children? For the second year in a row, that is the question that New York parents are asking. The 2014 New York State Common Core test scores were recently released, and there was minimal improvement in student performance. Proficiency or “passing” rates went up 0.1 in English Language Arts (ELA) and 4.6 percentage points in math, despite the rollout of the $28 million, taxpayer funded curriculum modules, and greater familiarity with the tests. Proficiency rates continued to be horrendous for students who are English Language Learners—only 11 percent “passed” math, and 3 percent “passed” the English Language Arts tests. Results were equally dismal for special education students, whose “passing” rates were 9 percent in math and 5 percent in ELA.

Whether there are modest increases or decreases in scores, however, is inconsequential. Whether or not these tests are appropriate and fair evaluations of student learning is far more important. High-stakes tests, despite denials, always have and always will drive instruction. That is why bad tests based on inappropriate standards matter.

So how do the New York Common Core tests stack up? While the release of the scores caught the attention of the press, the release of two other important reports about the tests received little attention. The first is the release of the technical report evaluating last year’s Common Core tests, and the second is the release of 50 percent of this year’s test questions.

....Here are some important takeaways:

The test items were far too difficult for many students, thus providing teachers and parents with no real information on what they learned. For many students, the tests were little more than exercises in frustration. For example, on the third-grade ELA test, students with disabilities, as a group, could only answer about 31 percent of the questions correctly. For the bottom 25 percent of test takers with disabilities, the scores were the same as you might expect from chance.

More explanation at the link.

[Egnever]

4. I don't understand why you constantly try to mislead people about common core.

Common core does not mandate certain tests. Each district is free to make their own tests. Common core only sets the standards that should be achieved.

You know this yet continue to try to mislead people into thinking common core mandates a standard test for all schools.

It throws everything else you say about common core into question because you refuse to be honest about the testing.

http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/

it's right there to read.

[madfloridian]

5. I post about the testing, not so much the standards.

It is those who have seized the power over the realm of testing who are the problem.

Arne decreed that if WA did not do things his way about teacher evaluation they would have to declare themselves failures.

That meant grading teachers by how the students score on tests made by companies like Pearson in secret.

I think if you read deeper you will see that I am protesting the testing more than standards.

We have had standards out the wahoo through the years, they changed every few years and were called something new. They would throw out one style of teaching only to bring it back a few years later.

I know that basically public education is a lost cause at DU now. I understand that is because the reform is the policy of both parties, so if we object we are objecting to Dem policy.

I get it.

[pnwmom]

6. Professors of education here have said that the common core math standards for many grades

are too high -- that they're not developmentally appropriate. The test designers started with what they wanted students to know at high school graduation and worked backwards, but that approach doesn't take readiness into account, so young students are being exposed to material that is well beyond them.

The other problem is that the standards discriminate against ESL children and children with dyslexia by requiring them to explain with words how they carried out the math problem. So a child who is skilled with math but not with reading and writing is at a disadvantage. And this requirement can weed out children who are actually very talented at math. Real mathematicians use math to explain themselves-- they don't write out their procedures in English sentences.

[madfloridian]

7. That is right.

But when people hear "standards" they seem to think we never had them before.

Just like many think teachers have never been held accountable before.

It's so discouraging.

Thanks for your post.

[pnwmom]

9. I learned this from hard experience.

One of my kids was a true math lover, but she loathed writing about math. (She would say her hand got too tired.) This might be hard for some humanities types to understand, but for her, it was almost like math was her first language, and English was her second. Why should she have to demonstrate her skill in math via her English skills? The whole point of mathematical equations and algorithms is to simplify! To a person who instinctively "gets" math, substituting words for math symbols just complicates things.

Fortunately, writing wasn't part of the testing till she got to middle school. I finally called up the district to talk about this -- not so much worried about my daughter, who would survive, but about some of the ESL kids in her class who were being unfairly disadvantaged. I questioned the need for all this writing on math tests, and the math specialist said it might not seem important now, but it would when my daughter reached calculus. According to the math specialist, when my daughter took the AP calculus exam, she would need to be able to write answers out (in sentences). Well, my daughter took that exam in 10th grade and I asked her afterwards if she'd had to write anything in it or if it was all math equations. It was all math -- as I expected.

Apparently they want them to be able to write out their thoughts so they can get partial credit when they don't know the answers. But if you can show your work -- using mathematical equations -- you can get a 5 on the AP calculus exam. As you should be able to!

Honestly, I don't know how teachers can stand it anymore. I saw so many good teachers leave while my kids were in school -- driven out by the testing mania and all the unfair pressure put on them. It's such a shame. The only people it benefits are the test-writing companies, and the tutoring companies that get the Federal funds that they're taking away from school districts that won't tie test scores to teacher assessments (as in WA state).

[DirkGently]

8. Yep. One big scam to kill public schools.

... and of course, funnel taxpayer money into the hungry pockets of Jeb Bush-affiliated private and charter schools.

Thanks for posting this. We've got a big(ger) fight ahead of us for Florida's public schools.