Thankfully, we’re not in the Jacksonville school district. We’re in one of the two adjacent counties where people flee to keep their kids out of Jacksonville schools. Mind you, I don’t think Clay’s schools are all that wonderful, but they’re better than the alternative. Even in this county, the quality of the schools varies.
We chose what we believed to be the best of the bunch - it’s the only school that offers IB. There are things about it I don’t like, but with the local private school tuition running about $5-7K/year, we made the best of the options available to us.
That doesn’t change the fact that schools are failing to educate kids because they teach them to pass a damned test that has no value in preparing for higher education or a career.
I think this FCAT may have been a reaction to the problem of the automatic graduation of someone with 12 years in the system, which no doubt was occuring with some regularity whether or not the graduate could read or write his or her way out of a paper bag. Some counties, schools, and individual teachers are worse at this problem than others. This test is a minimal check to see kids can think and do work. 13,000 of them cannot. I do not want someone graduating high school who cannot pass a test given five or six chances.
I feel that the students should not specifically prepare for this test. It is an Assessment Test, not a final exam.
I agree to some extent. We’re not failing to educate the kids, though. We’re doing a fine job of that… it’s just that the Florida Public Education System concentrates very heavily on that FCAT, at the expense of “student-future preparation.” Since I am a HS Math teacher, it is my job to force the FCAT skills down the kids’ throats (99 topics in <90 days). If I don’t do this, and document that I am doing this, I’ll lose my job. I can’t blame the principal, either, because she’s simply doing her job, as the superintendent of schools insists. The superintendent, who is elected by the public (at least in Lake County), answers to the voters, who only know about FCAT scores.
The bad part of this politician-run educational system is exactly what FCM says: we teach them to pass a test, rather than teaching them more relevant things. It is hard to prove that we educators are doing our jobs without some sort of measuring instrument (read: FCAT). So we focus on that, to show the voters that we’re really doing a great job. The result is that the extra-bright students (like FairyChatDaughter) probably don’t get as much instruction as they need. The non-college bound kids don’t, either – they are too busy learning (hopefully) how to analyze the equations of conic sections…
Which, of course, is less interesting and relevant than learning how to fix cars (and make $$) or weld (and make $$) or buy a house or survive in the real world.
You’RE correct, I never make that stupid mistake either, the specialise/specialize misspelling on the other hand was intellectual laziness:D
Please do not be puzzled with why smart people can’t answer questions such as these. IMHO, smart people hang onto what they need to be successful on a daily basis, yet retain the skill do decipher something they rarely see.
I too, would have a problem with an educator that could not figure out interdisciplinary skills with minimal explanations. That being said, I would not expect a physics teacher to be able to explain to me how Berlin crisis escalated the Vietnam War.
Finally, with regard to high stakes testing (FCAT, TAKS etc.), if you do not like it, please go and vote. You have no idea the hours, and I do mean thousands of hours a year, wasted teaching students how to pass this test.:mad: This is the result of YOU (and me) the voter allowing politicians to control education. Call your state rep, find out how they stand on high stakes testing, and vote for the other guy.
[slightly ot]
We have had for years which is called The Academic Decathalon in which students from various schools compete. It’s much like the olympics only on the academic level. All high schools in the area (20 or so public and 3 private) are invited to participate. One high school annually wins the ‘competition’ with few exceptions. The reason: they have actual classes in which ‘Academic Decathalon’ strategies are taught. I attended the years my kids were in high school. I got more gradually disgusted with the whole concept, when I found out what was going on.
[/slightly ot]
I read this threat with interest since it involved my home state. My son attends private high school and the FCAT is not necessary. However, after being educated up north and living in Florida for the past 15 years, I must say that this test is the mimimum that should be done to see that these students are properly educated. The majority of my co workers raised in here are ignorant to the basics of grammer and American History. Not to mention knowledge that should have been gained in middle school such as time zones and government.
I would work night and day rather then have my children educated publicly in Florida. Perhaps the FCAT isn’t the answer but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
Actually, this isn’t such a great question. Assuming that we consider potential energy to be zero when the ball is on the ground, halfway down is right (or sitting on the ground–very clever!). On the other hand, we’re free to choose our zero of potential energy wherever we want. Another common choice would set the PE at zero when the ball is infinitely far from Earth, in which case its PE would always be negative in this problem; thus the PE would NEVER be equal to the kinetic energy. I’ll concede that the “zero PE at ground” assumption is sort of implicit, but it’s easy to see how a well-trained physics student (who would know about the arbitrary constant in the PE) could be confused.
V squared! I always made mistakes like that during physics class. I enjoy the stuff, but there are so many little mistakes, like that, that one can make. Sorry about that, everyone.
I did pay attention. If you look at my first post you will see that I said “towards the middle of the fall.” I could have sworn it was a point just below the middle (say after 17-18 ft). Again, I was wrong. Thank you, E-Sabbath for the links.
My main point was even if a teacher missed that question, it is not a huge deal, a point made by others in this thread, and I stick by that.
The question was not so much what the correct answer was, as if the acceleration of gravity would alter that in any way from the ideal. Since most of us havn’t taken Physics in a few years, it takes a bit of checking to make sure there’s not a gotcha in it. There wasn’t… it was just that darn simple.
They have been taught. We do, in fact, teach such things in public schools. There’s no guarantee that the students will bother to listen or to remember.
I keep getting this idea that non-educators have no idea what’s going on in the public schools these days. They’ll repeat the assertion that public school isn’t doing its job, rather than pay close attention to what we really do to teach the kids. We work very hard. Unfortunately, many of the students do not.
Well, as another product of Florida’s educational system who was subjected to FCAT testing, I fail to see what the big deal is.
First off, it seems that those who argue against ‘teaching to the test’ seem to be taking the stand that what one must learn to pass the test is irrelevant (or at least have not said anything for or against the relevancy of the information on the test). If a teacher spends most of the course ‘teaching to the test’ is he or she failing to educate the student?
Second, there seems to be the prevailing notion that anyone should be able to pass the test. It may come as a shock, but there are people out there who do not deserve to graduate. If you don’t study, do the work, go to class, you don’t deserve the diploma.
The public school system should not be the only source of education any child receives, but it should only serve the basis for a lifetime of learning. I consider myself to have gotten a fairly good education, but not one bit of it has been used in college, rather I’ve had to take on studies of my own will outside the scope of my classes. The public school system gives you a foundation upon which to build, and most importantly teaches you how to learn.
If not for my own inner drive to learn and succeed, I never would have graduated. The FCAT test was, if anything, way below what was normally expected of us in class anyhow. IIRC, the essay portions of the test only required a 200 word essay. Only 200 words! I got in more trouble for exceeding word limits in high school than anything else!
My FCAT scores placed me in the 98% percentile overall, and that was on the first try. About three months ahead of the test we were given a practice test. Students later complained when the questions weren’t exactly the same as on the practice test. This was in an AP class, too, mind you. The questions were ridiculously simple, and the example given by the OP is sad, given that it was one of the ‘more difficult’ questions.
The 2003 Grade 10 Test book for the FCAT can be found here. You know you’re in trouble when in the first few pages they have to explain where the add and subtract buttons are on the calculator. Some samples:
Students are allowed up to 5 chances to take the test, and the cutoff for failure is 40%. Anything above that and you pass.
I stand as living proof that you can achieve a college degree without ever taking a physics course. It’s actually one of the regrets of my educational career: physics seems pretty interesting to me.
That said, on reading the question, I came to the same guess that FairyChatMom did (and that other folks later confirmed): since I have a vague idea of what potential energy (ability to start moving) and kinetic energy (actually moving) mean, I guessed that halfway down, half of the potential energy would be gone, converted to kinetic energy.
If someone almost totally uneducated in physics can puzzle out the answer to the question, I gotta wonder whether the test is really a knowledge test. It seems to me as if it might be more of a cognitive skills test. One of XJetgirlx’s sample questions, the ecology question, bears this out: somebody who knows nothing whatsoever about ecology, brown snakes, Guam, birds, or insects ought to be able to figure out the answer to the question.
The sonar question requires minimal knowledge: if you know what sonar is, the answer to the question is obvious.
The earthquake question certainly requires some very basic earth-science knowledge, but it’s not as if it’s asking students to identify the major American tectonic plates or anything: if you know the mechanism for earthquakes, you ought to be able to figure out the answer. You don’t even need to know that there aren’t any faults in Florida to arrive at the right answer.
I wonder, then, how much teachers can really prepare students for the test? If it’s really a test of critical thinking skills, is this something that teachers have the time to focus on? If somebody is unable or unwilling to stretch their critical thinking abilities, is there any way for teachers to get them over this limitation?
any idea what percentage the raw number of students who failed the test comprise? My understanding is that all students must take these tests. Including those with moderate to severe developmental disabilities. If true, has that been taken into acccount before the wailing and gnashing and bemoaning of the state of education proceeds?
