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Quote:
The State Board of Education voted today to lower the standards needed to pass the FCAT writing test after state officials admitted they failed to adequately explain or prepare for changes to the standardized writing test.
The action came in an emergency meeting that was held after preliminary results showed about two-thirds of Florida students — using existing standards — would have fail the writing portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test taken earlier this year. In a new grading system, the state increased the emphasis on grammar, spelling, punctuation and quality of details and concepts in the student writings.
Faced with results that would mean lower grades for hundreds of schools, board members — some reluctantly — approved a rule change that lowers the passing score from 4.0 to 3.0 on the six-point grading scale this time around.
“I will support any motion that will essentially hold schools and districts harmless as regards to writing,” said Board Member John Padget of Monroe County. “I would support this for this year only.”
With the lower passing score, the percentage of students considered proficient rises to about 80 percent, closer to the results in previous years.
The upheaval over the new grading system, and the panicked fallout by state officials, has provided more ammunition to critics of standardized tests and their increasing importance in Florida.
The decision to lower the standard amid calls by superintendents statewide for an independent audit of what went wrong and how the grading was done.
The Florida Association of District School Superintendents warned that the credibility of the FCAT, the centerpiece of Florida’s education accountability system, is in jeopardy after the dramatic drop in scores.
Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson said the Department of Education sent districts a letter about the changes on July 5 and also provided some sample essays and a scoring guide.
But he admitted that the poor test results proved that was insufficient.
“There should have been more follow-up on changes and rigor and the seriousness of the test and the impact this would have,” Robinson said. “This is information that frankly should have been communicated much more strongly.”
Local school officials expressed dismay this week at the low results and had urged that grading standards might need to be lowered in order to reduce the damage to school grades.
LINK
Granted they changed the requirements this year, but really this FCAT test has been nothing but a problem since it started. The teachers spend half the year JUST teaching the test. Basic fundamentals are overlooked in preparation for the "answers" on the test.
Last edited by FloridaFan; 05/15/12 02:33 PM.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Legend
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Legend
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that's pretty much how school goes nowadays. they don't teach the material, they teach to the test.
the weird thing is that if you teach the material first, it makes the test easier (just spend the last little bit on test prep). but that would make too much sense.
#gmstrong
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"would have fail the writing portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test "
Past tense,would have failed.
The public education system in this country is deplorable.It's run by communists to create future communists.
I deal with high school age kids,and the commie pinkos that do not educate them on a daily basis.The kids aren't getting stupider,the teachers are tenured and unionized,therefore they need not work.
There should be no unions allowed in the public sector.Unions only add to the commie pinko total.
Our beloved country willnot survive another 50 years.
Indecision may,or maynot,be my problem
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[color:"white"]"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
-- Mark Twain [/color]
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So they were ignoring grammar, punctuation, and spelling before? Nothing, at all, has changed in terms of the test itself, just a few items that they are now paying attention to?
What I do not understand is this - If the test covers what is supposed to be taught, and nobody knows exactly what questions are on it, how is "teaching to the test" different than what they are supposed to be doing if there was no test at all?
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Legend
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They have sample tests. They know pretty much what is going to be on it. It is similar to taking your SATs. You don't get a copy of the actual test, but you have practice tests you can take.
All through high school my step-son would take a "practice test" once a month, which they used to figure out what areas needed more focus. The schools get graded based on the students average scores from that school.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Quote:
that's pretty much how school goes nowadays. they don't teach the material, they teach to the test.
yup, its become a business.
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Up until the 5th of May I was incarcerated in a "correctional facility," and during my time (Dec 28-May5) I realized what an absolute crisis our public education system is in. I was a go-to guy amongst the population when it can to reading/writing/arithmetic--and I spent a good amount of time tutoring people trying to get their GED.
I have to say...it was seriously alarming....26 year old men...with 6 freaking kids (first born at 13 years of age) trying to get a GED. These guys failed to make good decisions--but society failed them as well.....and it was really sad.
I met guys who had HS diploma's but watching them read and write you would be hard-pressed to consider their skills beyond that of a 12 year old---seriously--frightening....
I began to wonder what the hell society is going to do with these people. The facility seemed to think getting them jobs with a temp agency and a GED was going to be the answer.......but no way in hell is that going to keep them from returning to the streets.....
I don't have time now---but I really want to write out what I learned about the system and the situation that many young inner-city adults are working with.....it is tremendously alarming.
I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch......
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Sad fact about all that? It's cheaper to provide a high quality education than it is to incarcerate someone.
I'll respond to the whole idea of this thread later. Much can be said about all of this.
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When I was a kid, my mother and grandparents worked with me non-stop.
I was reading at 3 1/2 and doing addition and subtraction by 4.
Really, it was a half a day every day thing.
Boring as Hades, practically slept through the first 4 grades, but looking back I'm very appreciative for their efforts. They taught me how to think for myself, and how to reason my way through nearly anything through hard work and persistence.
My sister works with all of her kids every day, all excel in school.
I raised my nephew from 3-11 and he's always read 3 grade levels higher than his current grade level, and he was a straight A student that passed all of his tests with flying colors.
In contrast, one of my cousins spent very little time working with his boys because he and his wife both worked 12-16 hour days 6-7 days a week and both have had problems learning, but once mom and dad cut back their hours and sat down with the boys a couple hours every day they started catching up by leaps and bounds and I can happily say both boys are back on track and their grades have been steadily rising.
I don't think our educational system is failing entirely on its own so much as parents either have the lack of desire or inability to work with their children as frequently as many of our parents worked with us due to time restraints and lack of socializing with children the same age in their early years.
That being said, kids going to class and having 15-20 year old text books, teachers having over 30 kids to a class and little time to provide attention to the students that need help the most is definitely NOT helping anything either.
BUT...
There's a reason we're falling behind in the education of our children in comparison to the rest of the world, and lowering standards is going to be the downfall of the next generations.
Last edited by Tobalaz; 05/15/12 09:21 PM.
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Quote:
What I do not understand is this - If the test covers what is supposed to be taught, and nobody knows exactly what questions are on it, how is "teaching to the test" different than what they are supposed to be doing if there was no test at all?
It's the loss of variety that is most harmful. For instance, if you know that the writing sample will have a "5 paragraph theme" about a short essay, then all you teach the kids is how to write the "5 paragraph theme" to the detriment of the hundreds of other ways to write a good response.
The more educational method would be to have students learn about several different types of written responses -- but the students who learn only about the test rubric version, will do better on a test than students who have split time between different methods, even if they are less prepared for the real world.
As an example, my Dad (5th grade teacher), used to have this really cool project students did every year, where they interviewed one of their grandparents several times (and recorded the conversations) and wrote a long (~30 pg double-spaced) biography of their grandparents' life. They learned writing skills, organization skills, history skills (especially WW2/Korea era). And they also learned stories about their grandparents they would never have found out about otherwise.
The program (which had been ongoing for 20+ years) got canned after the 5th grade test was introduced - because that sort of writing isn't on the test.
=======
In Math classes, there are specific methods that the test board has decided are the "right" ways to solve math problems - and that's the method the teacher has to teach, regardless of whether the class is more likely to respond better to another method. The system is horribly inflexible, and limits a teacher's ability to adapt to their students.
Lastly, in most cases the standards aren't even written by teachers, but instead by elected representatives who may have no educational background -- but are somehow supposed to decide whether kids respond better to subtraction by compensation or partitioning.
By the way, I'm not arguing that nothing good comes from testing -- but there are certainly drawbacks, especially when tests are used as a single metric for whether a school is achieving or not.
~Lyuokdea
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Legend
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It's very easy to say that "the system" is bad... but why is the system bad? Who made the system bad? The answers to those questions could take volumes to write but I'll give just a few of my thoughts on where we have gone wrong... and these are in no particular order...
1. Partially as a result of political factors and largely as a result of lack of parenting, schools spend a tremendous amount of time teaching and working on things that have nothing to do with academics but have to do with topics that should be taught at home. Sex ed, drugs, dress codes, conduct.... This takes time away from teaching. They also spend a tremendous amount of time working on things that are "non academic"... I have a 3rd grade daughter and I guarantee you that she can tell you more about recycling and global warming than she can about American history.
2. The whole concept of "fairness" is killing us. Put the smarter kids with the smarter kids and let them go at an accelerated rate... mixing the smarter kids with the not-so-smart kids in the same reading groups so as not to hurt anybodys feelings is only holding the smarter kids back and/or frustrating the not-so-smart kids... nobody wins or learns at the appropriate rate. Trust me when I tell you that the not-so-smart kids in the reading group ALREADY KNOW that they aren't as smart as the other kids, you aren't helping their self-esteem any by pretending that they are all equal... teach them at the level where they are.
3. Total lack of accountability. My son is 15, he turns in almost every assignment late... why? Because he can. I have talked to the school, the administration, the Board of Education... they have this stupid rule that they have to grade the kids ability to do the work and not their ability to turn it in. I asked them if they understood the position they were putting me in, I'm fighting with this kid every night that deadlines mean something, that in the real world stuff has to be done on time and he nods and he agrees.. but at school they tell him that if he turns it in 2 weeks late, he just gets docked 10 points. So human nature as a kid is to put stuff off as long as possible. He's in honors classes and his teachers tell me that 80% of the class turns most stuff in late but the teachers are powerless to hold them accountable.
4. Standardization is another killer. We have very good teachers who have their hands tied by a political body of administrators because they want to have zero tolerance policies and they want to take all subjectivity out of grading and discipline so things can be "fair" or "equal"... Hire the best teachers and then let them do their job and get out of their way... then periodically evaluate them to see how they are doing. Stop hiring young energetic bright teachers and then telling them they have to follow these very strict guidelines..
Well, have to get to work, that's enough for now, I'm sure if I thought for a few minutes, I could come up with at least another 3 or 4 points.
yebat' Putin
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I still do not understand this concept.
I do not see an essential difference between being able to write one paragraph or 20. Are you saying there are different skills involved? I can understand the difference between creating a half-page essay or a 20-page essay, and I do think that having 5, exactly 5, and ONLY 5 paragraphs is silly, the standard there should be more random.
Such as "there will be an essay of between 150 and 1000 words, organized correctly into paragraphs."
Are you saying that the sample tests show such specific items to be covered that other areas can be ignored, ie the World Geography section would have ONLY questions about Europe? Or the Geometry section, for a grade level that should know circles, squares, and triangles, would ONLY cover circles?
Every course I ever took had a test at the end. Since you knew the test would randomly cover various points of the material, you had to know it ALL. You could not "study to the test", you had to study what you were supposed to know. What you were taught was the same thing as what you were tested on.
If the questions are known ahead of time, in such specifics that large areas of material can safely be ignored, well that's just stupid. However, if the test questions are randomized through the required subjects, I don't understand the problem.
Such as exactly what has happened here, punctuation and grammar were part of what was supposed to be taught, and was on the test. The scoring was changed so that these things became more important. This to me is like having a test that will be 50% math and 50% history, 10 questions each, and then afterwards announcing that the scoring will be 75% math and 25% history. The teachers would have spent half their time on each subject. All I think the change does is make it MORE likely that you find out who is doing a good job teaching math, and LESS likely that you will find out who is doing a good job teaching history. Although if you just look at the raw numbers instead of the scoring you would get both.
In this case teachers were apparently told grammar was less important, although still graded, and they did not do a very good job teaching it. The sole impact of this new grading is that the student's lack of grammar skills is more obvious from the scores, and the fact that many of them are unable to read or write can no longer be ignored.
I had not heard that specific methods of teaching had been specified, subtraction is subtraction, getting it correct with a simple, effective method that always yields the right answer is the goal.
Finding out whether or not students can actually subtract numbers requires asking them questions, I don't see any other way to do it.
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Legend
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Quote:
Finding out whether or not students can actually subtract numbers requires asking them questions, I don't see any other way to do it.
They are permitted to use calculators in class now.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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OK, jeez, expand the question. If you need to know if the student has learned history, you ask them questions about history. Is there some other effective way to find out if the student has, in fact, learned history?
Repeat for the following:
Geometry
Geography
Algebra
All the other freaking subjects
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Rote memorization fails to enhance or use critical thinking skills.
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Holy crap. Once again, ask better questions. OR maybe, even, could they require essay questions, complete with grammar, punctuation, and proper spelling?
One major objection for essay questions is that they make more work for teachers as they are more difficult to grade.
The bottom line is that tests of various types have ALWAYS been used to test knowledge levels for various subjects, both academic and professional. Critical thinking skills are good, but difficult to test. A lot of learning involves memorization. This is also easily testable, and grade-able.
In almost any field of human endeavor which can be taught, learning can be measured in some way. Most often, those who object to others making the measurement are those that are not doing a good job teaching the subject.
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Legend
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Yes, tests are used to determine knowledge of certain subjects. but when you give copies of the tests to those teaching, so that they teach specifically what is on the test and not focus on the fundamentals of how or why you arrived at such an answer, then your not teaching.
I know high schoolers that are incapable of multiplying anything higher then 4 x 4, because they only spent a couple days in 2nd grade working on it, and then were expected to move on with the rest of the subject matter.
That's like giving a contractor 2 days to build the foundation of a bridge, and whatever he doesn't get done, then oh well, we'll start building the roadway on what's there. What's going to happen? The bridge will collapse.
We don't teach fundamentals in schools anymore. We touch on them, but don't focus on them. If you don't learn the basics in elementary school, then there is no point in going to middle or high school because everything you learn there is based on those fundamentals.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Quote:
In almost any field of human endeavor which can be taught, learning can be measured in some way. Most often, those who object to others making the measurement are those that are not doing a good job teaching the subject.
Tests are fine. They have to be done. The problem is that the tests have become so broad and so tied to school funding in many places that other aspects of learning are suffering as teachers teach the test full time.
And I can tell you for a fact, with 10 years experience in laboratory settings, that not all learning in the sciences can be measured. I've seen kids come through who scored the highest in their class on their biology tests, but have no idea that science is trial and error and there isn't always a "right" answer. They haven't learned that even if you become the most successful scientist, you will fail more times than you succeed. They haven't learned how to collaborate on big projects that require more than one mind. They haven't learned how to teach others in a way that collaboration requires. They haven't learned how to question other's findings b/c they have been taught that there are only right and wrong answers b/c that is the nature of a test. None of these things, which I might argue are some of the most important aspects of scientific research, are measurable and none of them can be taught from a book.
The best example I can give is my physics class from high school. Our teacher taught the book learning material, but he also spent a significant amount of time on hands-on, group projects. Its one thing to solve the equations behind the principle of a small motor, but many more kids understood the principles after we built motors in small groups using defined materials. They understood b/c they tried a bunch of things that failed, and you learn just as much from failing as from succeeding. They understood b/c others in the group had a better way to explain it than the teacher that resonated with that particular student. They understood it better b/c they had to argue amongst themselves about the best way to move forward. They understood it better b/c they could see it in the motors that worked.
About half of those motors never worked. By your metrics, we would probably say half failed. But that isn't the point. Those kids learned a number of very valuable lessons. Needless to say, visionary that she was, our principal didn't appreciate the approach. She was all for "measurables." The class as a whole did poorly grade-wise (as do most public school science classes in the country when they are not cake walks). So he ended up leaving partly b/c they weren't happy with those grades. In the long term though, that one class of 20 kids helped spawn 3 science PhDs, and even the people who never took another science class have a much better understanding of how science works, regardless of how they graded out. To this day, many remember those hands-on experiments and the fundamental principles they visualized. That is tremendous long term success.
Measurables are fine, but when there is an attempt to measure everything, and you base all success on measurables, you are crushing some of the most important lessons that aren't only important for students, but are critical for an innovation-based economy.
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Legend
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Quote:
I know high schoolers that are incapable of multiplying anything higher then 4 x 4, because they only spent a couple days in 2nd grade working on it, and then were expected to move on with the rest of the subject matter.
That's like giving a contractor 2 days to build the foundation of a bridge, and whatever he doesn't get done, then oh well, we'll start building the roadway on what's there. What's going to happen? The bridge will collapse.
We don't teach fundamentals in schools anymore. We touch on them, but don't focus on them.
My 3rd grade daughter spent 12 weeks on her multiplication tables, everything up to 12x12 and you could go higher if you wanted to. Then they spent a considerable amount of time on division.
They have spelling words every week which are pretty challenging and they are not allowed to use spell check.
I have my issues with the public schools but the reason a lot of kids aren't learning the fundamentals isn't because the teachers aren't trying to teach them.
yebat' Putin
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Legend
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yeah, my kindergartener has his addition tables up to 10 down (subtraction tables 20x5....up to 20, but only subtracting 5 or less).
he also can do long addition / subtraction pretty easily.
#gmstrong
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