So a 2 from all referees would constitute a pass in most states? (Or not?) TIA.
In many states, yes. Some states will have a 1.5. Two readers, one giving a 2, the other giving a one. In most states, that 1.5 would probably be considered failing.
Also, it is up to the state if the want their composition test to be seperate from the rest of their English Language Arts test. In some states, the student can do well on the multiple choice portion and poorly on the essay and still pass.
Papers with a wide gap, say a 3 and a 1, will automatically get a third read.
Methinks that poor child’s exposure to the book was being whacked upside the head with it. Talk about tortured prose.
Those arguments are so bogus! Don’t you want the people you work with to be competent? Doesn’t that make your job easier? It was not teachers who advocated lowering standards!
Spanish-speaking people are naturally more likely to be lazy? Is that why these students speak Spanish at home (assuming that is true)? Do their parents also speak Spanish at home? Is it out of laziness? Do you think that it is genetic? Cultural? Are your Hispanic friends lazy? What about your Hispanic neighbors and colleagues? What about the Hispanics that have married into your family?
In my own experience as a teacher, the one thing that made it most difficult for me to give a student a failing grade was the guidance counselor. She changed the grades on the records of seniors. Yes, it was illegal. I suspect that she did it with the full knowledge of the executive administrator who was eventually removed from his position. He would do anything to make his school look better on paper.
What is bogus about those arguments? Every time I’ve read about standardized testing having any impact on the staff, it is met with staunch opposition by the PSEA. Ditto for testing of the teachers themselves.
I don’t believe any poster in this thread has alluded to lowering of standards at the behest of teachers, so your point with that statement is what?
The blue open mouthed smilie just doesn’t cut it. We need a “jaw on the floor eyes bugging out” smilie.
That’s just disgusting.
AMEN!!!
But no one, not even educated grown ups, knows EVERY word and what it means. Particularly words, such as toboggan, (Hell I’m from AK and we always just said sled…sheesh, and yes, I know toboggans are a a different type of sled), that may be part of another region’s culture.
I have a hard time believing that the school spends four years “teaching to the test” and then does a bait and switch and puts stuff NEVER covered in school on the exit exam.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear in my post above that the assessment tests are given to all incoming students, as far as I know, unless they tested out of it already.
We have some ESL students whose ideas are quite good and they operate at a very high level, for ESL. Others can barely write anything in English. We get the whole gamut.
I wish we had those Nigerians and Ghanians you mentioned, all the same.
The non-readers tend to be the native speakers.
Part of the problem, as I have heard it from teachers who have quit teaching, is in the parents. “Their child” couldn’t do anything wrong! Of course the homework was correct _ “I did it myself”! You have no right to impose disipline on my child - if I don’t why should you?"
I’m so glad I never spawned!
Why is no one challenging the assumption that this test is actually reliable and valid? Is anyone here a teacher in California? If so, is the curriculum aligned to the test - in other words, are the kids being taught what they will be tested on?
I taught in Texas when we had the TAAS test. We had curricular objectives and alignment guides but I can guarantee you some people were teaching whatever the fuck they wanted to. Curricular alignment isn’t teaching to the test necessarily, but it’s more explicit instructional time on the skills that are tested. The MCAS is well-aligned with the curriculum (and vice-versa) with the schools I’ve observed in Boston and Cambridge.
Is the CAHSEE norm-referenced or criterion-based? I assume criterion-based, but I don’t know. There’s also the issue of differential item functioning - are we certain that all kids score pretty much the same on the test questions, or are there questions that favor or disfavor certain populations?
Ever since NCLB came down the pipe there is a lot of money to be made in the creation of exit testing. I wouldn’t be so quick to believe that the assessment measures are entirely accurate. And if some of you think that it’s simply a matter of having easy material on a test that everyone should know, I think you’d be shocked at the relatively simple regurgitative practice that passes for teaching in a lot of American schools. A lot of kids have never been taught to think or reason things out, and I think a lot of people - parents and teachers, yes, but also legislatures, a lot politicians, and “business-sector activists” who don’t know the first thing about how kids learn and how to implement a system of accountability.
Of course the CAHSEE could be completely on the level, but since we’re in the business of fighting ignorance on this board, I think it’s only fair to consider that the assessment tool may not be the best available.
Uh, let’s try that again.
"A lot of kids have never been taught to think or reason things out, and I think a lot of people - parents and teachers, yes, but also legislatures, a lot politicians, and “business-sector activists” who don’t know the first thing about how kids learn and how to implement a system of accountability, are to blame."
Geez. It’s late, that’s my excuse. My preview button is broken.
“A lot of kids have never been taught to think or reason things out, and I think a lot of people - parents and teachers, yes, but also legislatures, a lot of politicians, and “business-sector activists” who don’t know the first thing about how kids learn and how to implement a system of accountability, are to blame.”
I am sure that all those factors do matter to some extent–but as a parent with one kid in elementary, one in middle and one in high school–I see too much of “you tried. that’s good!” My problem with that is yes, it IS good to try–but just trying isn’t enough.
I am far from a neo-con, but education is one place I am rabid–I place the blame squarely on the individuals here. Parents–yes, you WILL have to sit down EVERY noc with your kid and help them with their homework. NOT do their homework, but be a presence so that they stay on task. I sit with my 2nd grader every noc. I don’t with the older ones, but they are somewhat mature for their ages–but I still check on them.
School is (in a way) a kid’s job–they learn alot besides actual info. Guess I’m just saying that parents have to be parents.
Smaller classes, better special and gifted ed, and more focused and larger budgets wouldn’t hurt.
As for the Ghanians and Nigerians–the kids were mostly born here, but the parents and extended families speak the native language at home. Usually Mom and Dad speak English as well–I note that most of them have attended British based schools in their native countries.
Hmmm…that may well be it. I mentioned Alice in Wonderland to a young Nigerian nurse the other day–she not only GOT the reference, but topped it with a humorous reference of his own-he’s been here about 4 years. The Americans, born and bred here, on my floor might have heard of Alice, but certainly wouldn’t have any idea as to the content of it.
I’m not saying that Brit Lit is the only way to go–but to me, this incident speaks to someone being educated, vs being in school for the requisite time.
Well, far too many dudes in America * are too lazy to learn a second language. Doesn’t matter what is their native language- those who speak Ppanish at home are no more lazy than those who speak Vietnamese at home. Really the worst of all are those who speak English at home- Americans are notoriously lazy when it comes to learning a second language. However, in America, we don’t have to.
But here in American we make it too easy for those who speak another language to not become proficient with English- there are neighborhoods in certain large cities for quite a few langauages, and American governments even put up signs, send out voter packets and give Driving exams in other langauges. Then we act surprised when Juan can’t read …English that is. :rolleyes:
Or Tuan, or Vo, or any similar generic name in any of a dozen languages.
Yes. 
Well, yeah. I guess from my post it looked like I was defending the kids who didn’t pass the tests.
I remember the TAAS from my own high school. I can’t imagine failing it, considering the amount of time our teachers spent on the information that was going to be on that test. I can’t imagine failing it and being successful working at McDonald’s.
Indeed. The “But I tried really hard; I worked a long time on this” crowd is in for a real shock in college, where the profs (at least, all the ones I know of) don’t care if you spent one hour or ten hours working on something. A poorly done assignment is a poorly done assignment, no matter how long the student spent on it.
I haven’t many poeple who never studied another language in the gool ole’ U.S. of A. I’ve just met very few who ever used it after High School. Practice and all.
As for Uncle Beer, I’d be happy to discuss the matter somewhere else. I condensed a very complicated thought down into a short little post. Yeah, it took some shortcuts. You try cramming an essay into two paragraphs and see how far it gets you. Deal with it.
I wonder if this is anything like the Georgia High School Graduation Test. All 11th graders take it and it is necessary to pass in order to graduate.
Let me simply put it this way: When I took it, that was the easiest test I had taken in 4 years. The test was rudimentary for a middle schooler. It was so easy that we spent the rest of the week joking about it. Later, I read on the news that there were quite a few failures and people are angry. In my opinion, they shouldn’t be graduated. That test should not have been failed.
I had to take a similar test in high school. My classmates had taken the test in 10th grade, but I had to take it in 11th grade because I’d only moved to Florida the previous summer. The test was ridiculously easy, almost to the point of being insulting.
Some time later my guidance counselor praised me for doing so well on the test. She said that I was the only person in the school to score 100 percent on the math section. I found that very scary, considering that the typical question involved pictures of money and asked the student to state the amount shown (multiple choice, no less). If you can’t add up a few dollar bills and some change by the time you’re 16, you’re in big trouble.