Right: someone else measured your yard for you, in other words.
Me, I just eyeballed it and got 650. I’m not saying it’s impossible to solve; I’m saying that it’s artificially difficult, for the reasons I listed above.
Well, six for seven on the reading test, and I maintain that my “wrong” answer is defensible and the gardener can indeed be described as “attentive, but impractical”, at least in the eyes of the poet/observer. I don’t really see the “anxious” vibe in the allegedly correct answer - it strikes me as something the person writing the question threw in while operating on a bias that parenting is inherently “anxious”, more so than merely “attentive”.
Regarding the tree plot question, I figured the sample portion was about one-fifteenth the size of of the overall plot (i.e. 6.7%) and chose the closest answer. I can easily imagine the sample portion being a little smaller and the puzzle more ambiguous, forcing the reader to guess if the sample is around 6.1% of the total (leading to the answer 650) or around 4% of the total (leading to the answer 1000). If the overall plot was more irregularly shaped, or if the sample plot was irregularly shaped, the estimation becomes even more difficult. It’s only barely a math problem - it’s a “how many of these can you fit in this” problem with a bit of math stuck on the end.
It can cut the other way, too: what if his strategy is to eliminate one or two obviously wrong answers before randomly selecting a remaining answer? And what if he keeps figuring the right answer is “obviously wrong” before he even reaches the guessing stage?
I got 6 out of 7 on the math correct. I actually found the math questions to be more difficult than I had expected they would be before beginning the test. But they were all easily solved anyway. Except that palmetto question. I missed that. It was a bullshit question and I’d strongly object to its inclusion on a test.
I estimated my answer before I looked at the choices and came up with around 800. I decided to go with 1000, but even if I had gotten it right and gone with 650 I’d still maintain that it was a bullshit question.
For instance, compare it with the previous question about parallel streets and angles. For about 30 seconds, I was struggling to figure out how to determine the angle of ABC and I almost said “to heck with this. I know this angle is 60 degrees so I can just estimate the other angles based upon how they look as compared to the angle I know.”
Then I said no. That’s NOT how you do math. You can’t trust a map to be an accurate representation of the area. You have to trust your math and there has to be a mathematical way to solve this. And then I found it and then I solved it, logically and mathematically correctly.
So that palmetto problem is bullshit because there is absolutely no mathematical way to solve it and guestimating based upon a crude drawing isn’t math.
Holy cow, here’s the first question:
Followed by some multiple choice selections.
Notice how they formulate it in English, then give you the necessary formulas? I am not usually one to grouse about education standards etc but come on. Kid should be able to come up with those formulas based on that English text.
The palmetto problem assesses the benchmark of “estimating.” For that test, the benchmark was “The student uses estimation strategies in complex situation to predict results and to check the reasonableness of results.”
It may very well be true that it’s actually a bullshit standard, but I could probably make an argument that estimating strategies are a useful real-world skill that students should be expected to have mastered by tenth grade.
To my knowledge, there has never been a benchmark that expects students to understand which formula to apply based on text. Sure, students should be able to do that, and they will learn how through the course of learning algebra. Again, the test is based on the benchmarks, so if there’s no benchmark for that particular skill, there won’t be an item on the test that expects it. So the FCAT gives all the formulas that might be needed, in both the mathematics and science tests.
(Question 3, though–the one abot the distance from the house to the park, involving the Pythagorean Theorem–I really like. It’s a great example of using multiple choice questions to test for comprehension rather than simple memorization and application of formula. BTW I think memorization and application of formula is awesome, whereas I think most people tend to think it is not awesome. But I do think also it can’t be the only, or even the central focus in math ed.)
I have to admit I’m floored that that’s not a benchmark.
Knowing how to start with a concrete situation and figure out, for oneself, how to think through it formally–that’s pretty central to the value of math ed. I would have thought. Not just knowing how to plug in numbers or how to remember formulas, but rather, understanding how to get from the situation to the problem-solving method, how to use the tools of mathematics to formulate the method, and how to follow the method you created.
Keep in mind I say this as a teacher. I am not convinced that a committee of teachers is the best group to be coming up with educational standards. Especially not if the group is going to base the standards, as you put it, on “what’s going on the classroom.” Arguably, the standards should be based on what’s going on outside the classroom–and what’s going on inside should be adjusted accordingly.
I said I’m saying this as a teacher, but to be clear, I’m a university teacher and not a grade school teacher. As such, I do (of course I would!) think there’s a difference between how the standards should be created in the two cases. I think that university faculty should be responsible not only for knowing how to teach, but also determining what to teach. Meanwhile, I think grade school teachers should most typically be responsible for knowing how to teach, but not determining what.
(ducks and runs)
Well, it wasn’t a benchmark then. With the Next Gen SSS, it may very well be. I don’t have all of them memorized. However, the formulas are still presented on the newer tests (I just reviewed them), so I’m thinking probably not. In fact, there isn’t even a Grade 10 comprehensive mathematics assessment in FL anymore; there are now two computer-based end-of-course assessments for Algebra and Geometry. So an 8th grader could take the Algebra EOC and never have to take another math assessment in high school. (The EOCs are administered several times throughout the school year, so the students can choose which administration they want to take.) The math and reading tests are slowly all going to EOC assessments and are not taken on paper anymore; it’s all computer-based testing and the kids can take the assessments whenever they feel ready and prepared to sit the exams for that material. Some of the non-high stakes assessments (Writing, Science) will remain paper-based for the time being. Florida has also introduced US History, Biology, and Civics as EOCs, but passing them is not a graduation requirement.
Keep in mind, the people who write the items for the tests, and the people who build the tests are not the same people who write the benchmarks. I’ve found that most criticisms of items on the test actually go back to poorly written or barely (if at all) assessable standards.
And yes, some standards cannot be assessed. There is a science standard that requires students to set up an experiment, record the results, and draw a conclusion about their hypothesis based on those results. There is no way to assess that in a multiple-choice exam on a large scale (something like 6 million students).
There’s also a concept called Cognitive Complexity, which is based from the work of Norman Webb in Wisconsin. The items on the test are split up so that about 1/3 only require one very basic step to answer the question, about 1/3 require slightly more complex skills and maybe 2 steps, and 1/3 require very complex deduction skills and maybe 3-4 steps. You see those in the performance tasks; often those require students to construct a graph, solve an equation, and then maybe perform a couple more operations to get to the answer.
Sadly, with the newer standards that were adopted, and because of costs to develop, Florida has removed all of the performance tasks so all of the tests are now multiple choice. This is paving the way for a national, common-core standard set. There are two consortiums (consortia) right now that are comprised of assessment professionals in 20-30 states each and both are working toward coming up with common core standards that all students, in all states, anywhere, should be able to master. The statewide assessments will be going away and the high stakes will soon be attached to the national/common core assessments. (And yes, that means I will be out of a job in a couple years.) The common core assessments are supposed to start rolling out in 2014, IIRC.
This has been a huge criticism of statewide testing from the beginning. What Florida students are expected to be able to do could be a very different range of skills than, say, what Ohio students are expected to do. The concept behind common core standards should help to bring the states together in terms of: Alabama/Mississippi won’t be dead last anymore and students from those states may start to be academically competitive with Ohio/New York students. (For some reason, students seem to get the best education in New England and the Midwest and the worst educating states seem to be mostly in the South.) The common core standards are supposed to reduce the disparity of skills mastered across states.
Which brings me to this: the FL school board member in question is probably not really aware of the impending common core standards, and he is also taking a test for which standards are no longer assessed, and which no longer exists, so he’s completely wasted his time and is vilifying the wrong demon. And sorry, the new EOC assessments will probably not be released to the public. It costs millions to develop all those test items and the minute they are released, those items can no longer be used on a live assessment. So releasing the tests is a lot like painting the Sistine Chapel and the minute you’re finished, just cover everything over with Kilz.
No need to duck and run. 
I’m all for dispelling ignorance, and in this case, I oversimplified to keep the discussion on track sort of. It’s not JUST committees of teachers. There are also committees of university professors and professionals in the field who review the items (for bias, sensitive issues, and based on what curriculum is actually taught on the ground). There are also committee members who are psychometricians and professional test builder types. The FL DOE is also deeply involved; taking teacher feedback into account, but let me ease your mind: the teachers aren’t the end-all, be-all source of the standards, the curriculum, or the test. But they do participate in all stages of the process developing the tests; they are just one portion of the participants.
And that’s a good thing. No offense meant here, but I have been shocked at how stupid some teachers I’ve met can be. The ones who participate on the committees are usually the good ones. You have to be nominated and vetted with DOE and your district’s administration before you can even participate. Dipshits need not apply. We do not want high-stakes testing in the hands of dipshits.
You make a great point about elementary teachers shouldn’t necessarily be the ones who decide what to teach. They don’t, so much. We’re talking maybe a couple dozen teachers pulled out of classrooms for a 3 or 4-day meeting to review items or standards and offer input. The Deciders are in the ivory tower at the FL DOE. There’s also the contractor that provides input into the DOE decisions (my company does this for about 20 states) based on their professional and nationwide experience.
DISCLAIMER: They’re not *all *dipshits, obviously. I’m just shocked at what I perceive to be a such a large proportion of dipshits out there teaching your children to write, read, and do math. Sometimes I really fear for our future.
The problem is twofold. First, there’s nothing in the problem to indicate that the drawing is to scale or that we should be using it as the basis of our estimations. Sure, you could assume that. But this is a math test and I’m looking for concrete answers and I think it’s fair to NEVER assume a drawing is accurate to the degree necessary to solve a problem.
Second, even were it to say the drawing is accurate and to use it as the basis of your estimations…it’s on a computer. The best I can do is eyeball the thing. I couldn’t even take, like, my pencil and make some crude markings and measurements.
For students not going on to hard sciences, I would say it’s the most useful skill on the test. I don’t remember ever having been taught it in the classroom, though.
My problem with it is that it’s not a real-world estimation situation. You’d never find yourself in the real world with a map lacking measurements and a confusing and disorganized pictograph buried within the map. Sure, it tests the standard, but only in a context that mocks the standard: if this is the closest the real world comes to requiring you to know estimation, you’ll never need to know it. Which is clearly untrue.
This kind of estimating is used (by me) all the friggin’ time! Are you kidding me?
You never find yourself in a large room full of people and wonder to yourself how many are in attendance? You count the number in an area and then estimate how many more of those areas are in the room and multiply?
“How many people attended the conference you were at last week?”
“Well, I estimated about 350 to 400.”
Come on. This is a pretty crappy example, but of course this kind of estimating is done in real life.
I think the FCAT in Florida is useless
Did you read my criticisms above? What you describe is highly different from the problem.
The FCAT is a waste of time, money, children, teachers and education. Most teachers are “called” to the work and this test should be abolished. It causes every teacher and students to waste 3 months preparing to take a test that should have been outlawed years ago. Let the teachers do what they want to…teach!!!
I have a page on Facebook that suggests we cititake this cause and make the school board get rid of this boondoffle.
Could this also be because dipshits, like the subject of this thread, tend to be ideologically opposed to any sort of assessment at all, and so would not participate on such a committee (unless to intentionally sabotage it or something)?