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State Tests - how did your school perform?
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CallaLily
Thank you, Saint Gerard!
Member since 10/07 4937 total posts
Name:
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
I agree. If you look at the districts, it's the more affluent ones who have the higher opt out rates. These tests mean nothing. Your superintendent is misleading your community.
As far as your child being prepared, you can bet that he will. As long as these tests are tied to teacher ratings, any teacher who values their job will cut out meaningful education and do more test prep all year. These are not the kinds of tests that determine anything for the child. They count for the teachers and the school. They are developmentally inappropriate and flawed.
Message edited 9/25/2015 11:44:37 PM.
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Posted 9/25/15 11:37 PM  |
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sfp0701
Liam's Mommy!
Member since 1/07 9764 total posts
Name:
Tricia
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by EatingMyVeggies
I looked at the scores and they didn't seem too bad.
At back-to-school night, my son's teacher admitted that she is a big advocate of Common Core method. She's a fan. I was surprised to hear this, as all I hear is negative things.
She explained (lightly) some of the reasons why. She did say she didn't like some of the way it was thrust on /introducted to everyone, but overall, she believes in the method. She is also a mom with kids in the district and she is one of those teachers that really lives and breathes teaching, you can just tell. Like there are teachers and there are TEACHERS, you know? I'm in a wonderful district and I trust her opinion.
I think they are all in such a growth period right now and this is all trial and error. I woudn't put that much stock into it. At least not yet.
Ehhhh I wouldn't put much stake in that. The teachers have to say that. My kids teacher said that and I was shocked and then she said the exact opposite to me in private conversations.
Also testing and common core are different issues. Yes they are intertwined. However, they are not the same thing.
Message edited 9/26/2015 7:07:28 PM.
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| Posted 9/26/15 7:04 PM |
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cj7305
=)
Member since 8/05 12296 total posts
Name:
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by sfp0701
Posted by EatingMyVeggies
I looked at the scores and they didn't seem too bad.
At back-to-school night, my son's teacher admitted that she is a big advocate of Common Core method. She's a fan. I was surprised to hear this, as all I hear is negative things.
She explained (lightly) some of the reasons why. She did say she didn't like some of the way it was thrust on /introducted to everyone, but overall, she believes in the method. She is also a mom with kids in the district and she is one of those teachers that really lives and breathes teaching, you can just tell. Like there are teachers and there are TEACHERS, you know? I'm in a wonderful district and I trust her opinion.
I think they are all in such a growth period right now and this is all trial and error. I woudn't put that much stock into it. At least not yet.
Ehhhh I wouldn't put much stake in that. The teachers have to say that. My kids teacher said that and I was shocked and then she said the exact opposite to me in private conversations.
Also testing and common core are different issues. Yes they are intertwined. However, they are not the same thing.
Yes 100%. You can be for common core standards and/or higher standards AND be against this particular testing and the fact that it is tied to APPR. Separate issues. Most teachers I know want high standards but are absolutely against THESE tests, as they are not a fair reflection of what children know or how well teachers teach.
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| Posted 9/26/15 9:50 PM |
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PatsBrat
LIF Adult
Member since 10/06 2326 total posts
Name:
Ms. Brat
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by itsbabytime
Posted by muffaboo
Posted by NervousNell
I won't even look as it means nothing due to the huge opt out rates, and we plan to opt out and hopefully enough others will until they do away with this bullshitt
 Amen
This is so not the message in our district. I think depends on the area in which you live. The tests are changing because of a new company but for now they are here to stay. Our district uses the tests - they definitely don't mean "nothing" and we have a very very small opt-out. Our Superintendent recently went pretty in depth about the demographics of the opt out communities as well as the students. It was interesting and kind of sad.
I am a teacher in a highly regarded upper middle class district in Suffolk County. We had 70% of our eligible students opt out. You can go tell your superintendent that.
Oh and BTW, the tests aren't changing a bit. They were just sold to another company who will continue to churn out the same horrible nonsense.
What *I* find sad is that people like you believe that the tests are appropriate and meaningful.
Message edited 9/27/2015 2:14:54 PM.
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| Posted 9/27/15 2:14 PM |
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itsbabytime
LIF Adult
Member since 11/05 9644 total posts
Name:
Me
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by PatsBrat
Posted by itsbabytime
Posted by muffaboo
Posted by NervousNell
I won't even look as it means nothing due to the huge opt out rates, and we plan to opt out and hopefully enough others will until they do away with this bullshitt
Amen
This is so not the message in our district. I think depends on the area in which you live. The tests are changing because of a new company but for now they are here to stay. Our district uses the tests - they definitely don't mean "nothing" and we have a very very small opt-out. Our Superintendent recently went pretty in depth about the demographics of the opt out communities as well as the students. It was interesting and kind of sad.
I am a teacher in a highly regarded upper middle class district in Suffolk County. We had 70% of our eligible students opt out. You can go tell your superintendent that.
Oh and BTW, the tests aren't changing a bit. They were just sold to another company who will continue to churn out the same horrible nonsense.
What *I* find sad is that people like you believe that the tests are appropriate and meaningful.
Then can I ask you - and I am really interested here since my DS is in 3 rd grade and will take the tests for the first time. What exactly is the issue with the tests? From what I can see MANY in our district do really well - especially on the math. So if they are not appropriate than how is this happening? Also, after reading many threads like this I went online and printed out the published math and ela tests that were released. I gave them to my just turned 8 DS that is just starting 3rd grade. He got all of them right. Personally, I thought all the questions I saw were very fair. Am I missing something here? Are they only releasing the "easy" questions? Is there some scary stuff that I am not seeing? I'm genuinely trying to sort through everything I hear IRL and try to reconcile it with what I see online and I am left so confused.
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| Posted 9/27/15 5:28 PM |
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KarenK122
The Journey is the Destination
Member since 5/05 4431 total posts
Name:
Karen
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by itsbabytime
Then can I ask you - and I am really interested here since my DS is in 3 rd grade and will take the tests for the first time. What exactly is the issue with the tests? From what I can see MANY in our district do really well - especially on the math. So if they are not appropriate than how is this happening? Also, after reading many threads like this I went online and printed out the published math and ela tests that were released. I gave them to my just turned 8 DS that is just starting 3rd grade. He got all of them right. Personally, I thought all the questions I saw were very fair. Am I missing something here? Are they only releasing the "easy" questions? Is there some scary stuff that I am not seeing? I'm genuinely trying to sort through everything I hear IRL and try to reconcile it with what I see online and I am left so confused.
There are always going to be students that do well on tests. Any tests. Some students are advanced and these tests are a no brainer for them. If you have a student that excels and finds the questions to the test easy, that is fabulous and they should be proud.
There is a much bigger issue at play here that people need to take a stand against. We need to worry about the education of all of our students as they will be our future. These tests allow no flexibility at all. They are forcing special needs students who regularly get accommodations, to take test tests without accommodations. It is a recipe to fail. You may think that the special needs community is small, but it is not. There are probably at least 5 or more kids in each class that are getting some sort of academic interventions. They are asking students who do not speak any English (ESL learners) to take the ELA test after being in school only one year. That is ridiculous. The tests themselves are not developmentally on target for a majority of the children.
Aside from the issue with the students, they are also now making the grades on these tests 50% of your teacher's evaluations. What happens if one year your favorite teacher gets quite a few under performers in their class, they will be deemed ineffective and get fired. No teacher is going to want a middle of the road student or a student with special needs. It is going to start a huge discriminatory case. While I personally do not agree with the whole tenure system, no profession's success should be based on one test, especially a profession that is so multi faceted. The State wants to control the school districts and tell them who to hire, who to fire and what to teach. I agree with standards but not so strictly enforced. That should all be left up to the school district. I won't even go into the new diploma situation which is also another hot topic for many of us.
The point is, yes some kids may do great on the test, but it is time to take a stand for all of our children by opting out of these tests. It will give the message to the State that as parents we are not happy with the way they are molding education into a one size fit's all agenda.
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| Posted 9/27/15 10:04 PM |
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sfp0701
Liam's Mommy!
Member since 1/07 9764 total posts
Name:
Tricia
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by KarenK122
Posted by itsbabytime
Then can I ask you - and I am really interested here since my DS is in 3 rd grade and will take the tests for the first time. What exactly is the issue with the tests? From what I can see MANY in our district do really well - especially on the math. So if they are not appropriate than how is this happening? Also, after reading many threads like this I went online and printed out the published math and ela tests that were released. I gave them to my just turned 8 DS that is just starting 3rd grade. He got all of them right. Personally, I thought all the questions I saw were very fair. Am I missing something here? Are they only releasing the "easy" questions? Is there some scary stuff that I am not seeing? I'm genuinely trying to sort through everything I hear IRL and try to reconcile it with what I see online and I am left so confused.
There are always going to be students that do well on tests. Any tests. Some students are advanced and these tests are a no brainer for them. If you have a student that excels and finds the questions to the test easy, that is fabulous and they should be proud.
There is a much bigger issue at play here that people need to take a stand against. We need to worry about the education of all of our students as they will be our future. These tests allow no flexibility at all. They are forcing special needs students who regularly get accommodations, to take test tests without accommodations. It is a recipe to fail. You may think that the special needs community is small, but it is not. There are probably at least 5 or more kids in each class that are getting some sort of academic interventions. They are asking students who do not speak any English (ESL learners) to take the ELA test after being in school only one year. That is ridiculous. The tests themselves are not developmentally on target for a majority of the children.
Aside from the issue with the students, they are also now making the grades on these tests 50% of your teacher's evaluations. What happens if one year your favorite teacher gets quite a few under performers in their class, they will be deemed ineffective and get fired. No teacher is going to want a middle of the road student or a student with special needs. It is going to start a huge discriminatory case. While I personally do not agree with the whole tenure system, no profession's success should be based on one test, especially a profession that is so multi faceted. The State wants to control the school districts and tell them who to hire, who to fire and what to teach. I agree with standards but not so strictly enforced. That should all be left up to the school district. I won't even go into the new diploma situation which is also another hot topic for many of us.
The point is, yes some kids may do great on the test, but it is time to take a stand for all of our children by opting out of these tests. It will give the message to the State that as parents we are not happy with the way they are molding education into a one size fit's all agenda.
Everything she said and yes they did leave out questions. These tests took hours each day.
Teachers are so afraid of kids failing these tests that they are spending most of the classroom time teaching kids to pass a test. After 2 or 3 years of being rated ineffective a teacher must be brought up on charges of incompetence and fired. Not a maybe. Must. Imagine working in a low performing district. What teacher will want to work there? Everyone is going to want to work in the "Great Neck" type districts. And good teachers that can't get a job there will leave the profession.
It's about so much more than how your student will do on a test. It's about taking a stand against something that isn't right for all kids. It's about making a kid with a 70 IQ sit for a test that is 3-4 grade levels above their functioning. It's about basing a teachers job and livelihood on the score of a kid who has only been in the USA for a year. It's about placing ALL of the blame of education on a teacher. The same teacher could teach in a poverty ridden district and a rich district and her students test scores would be vastly different. Why? Income inequality breeds different views and values about education. The rich parent will hire tutors, do home work with the child, get extra help etc. The poor parent can't afford that and is working 2 jobs and can't do homework with a student.
It's about the money being made behind these tests. Do some reading on Bill Gates and Pearson. It's scary.
It's about people making A LOT of money off charter schools and the state planning to turn low performing schools into charter schools.
Read this article on a charter school in Harlem. They are testing machines. So yeah.. they do better than us. And they also select students and don't take students that have special needs or ELL's. So their numbers are skewed.
And as far as the standards.. I am an SLP so I can only speak to the ELL standards.. It's about creating standards but, doing away with the special ed standards. These special ed students are required to be evaluated based on the regular ed standards. Some take the tests. Other's are alternatively assessed.. based on the CCLS standards. So you have a student with CP and significant cognitive issues who is working on getting a reliable YES/NO response on an eye gaze board.. and twice a year they are assessed on 4 subjects with 2-4 benchmarks in each subject.. based on high school work!!!! So yup.. they made no progress this year. Never mind they learned how to say yes/no.. HUGE progress. Never mind they learned to activate a switch to ask for their needs. Nope. No progress!!!! Because they don't understand high school science. It's infuriating. These standards do not reflect developmental norms for students. They are not based in research. Do you know that 70% of the high school ELA reading material has to be non-fiction. Gone are the days of reading Shakespeare and poetry. The premise is that those things don't matter in the career driven world. We don't need to know how to analyze a poem to hold down a job so it's not important. It's all so sickening.
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| Posted 9/28/15 9:00 AM |
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PatsBrat
LIF Adult
Member since 10/06 2326 total posts
Name:
Ms. Brat
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
Posted by itsbabytime
Posted by PatsBrat
Posted by itsbabytime
Posted by muffaboo
Posted by NervousNell
I won't even look as it means nothing due to the huge opt out rates, and we plan to opt out and hopefully enough others will until they do away with this bullshitt
Amen
This is so not the message in our district. I think depends on the area in which you live. The tests are changing because of a new company but for now they are here to stay. Our district uses the tests - they definitely don't mean "nothing" and we have a very very small opt-out. Our Superintendent recently went pretty in depth about the demographics of the opt out communities as well as the students. It was interesting and kind of sad.
I am a teacher in a highly regarded upper middle class district in Suffolk County. We had 70% of our eligible students opt out. You can go tell your superintendent that.
Oh and BTW, the tests aren't changing a bit. They were just sold to another company who will continue to churn out the same horrible nonsense.
What *I* find sad is that people like you believe that the tests are appropriate and meaningful.
Then can I ask you - and I am really interested here since my DS is in 3 rd grade and will take the tests for the first time. What exactly is the issue with the tests? From what I can see MANY in our district do really well - especially on the math. So if they are not appropriate than how is this happening? Also, after reading many threads like this I went online and printed out the published math and ela tests that were released. I gave them to my just turned 8 DS that is just starting 3rd grade. He got all of them right. Personally, I thought all the questions I saw were very fair. Am I missing something here? Are they only releasing the "easy" questions? Is there some scary stuff that I am not seeing? I'm genuinely trying to sort through everything I hear IRL and try to reconcile it with what I see online and I am left so confused.
I wish I could talk to you, because there's so much to type. First and most importantly, if you have a bright child, the tests are doable. We, teachers and parents, are advocating for the rest of the kids.
I don't know what's published and what isn't and don't have the time to look, however, off the top of my head, while the math test is definitely more reasonable, the language that the problems are written in is ambiguous and far above the reading level of the children who are taking a given test on a particular grade level. In addition, the writing component puts children who are strong in math and weak in reading/writing at a huge disadvantage. These children may score well if the test is straight computation, but are set up to fail because of the wordiness.
As for the ELA, 3 years ago one of the reading selections for third grade was by Tolstoy and had vocabulary in it such hoarfrost and granary, which many teachers had to look up to be sure of the meaning. This test also uses ambiguous language, and tries to confuse the reader by having similar words in a passage (like a story about Amanda who is studying the Spanish Armada) that can frustrate a struggling reader.
Both tests ask children to sit and attend for far longer than is developmentally appropriate and to read for far longer than the stamina for their age will allow.
There's so much more I could share, but I have to drive to hockey practice 
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| Posted 9/28/15 4:33 PM |
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itsagoodlife
LIF Adolescent
Member since 8/15 619 total posts
Name:
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Re: State Tests - how did your school perform?
I don't care how my kids school performed. Means nothing to me. My kids have never and will never participate in any of these ridiculous tests.
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| Posted 10/1/15 8:50 PM |
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