so 'dumbed down' the board of education is warning the public to expect lower scores on last year's standardized tests, because of the introduction of the more strident standards
if they were easier, 'dumbed down' standards, i believe the scores would instead have elevated
The tests will also be computer-based which is new for almost all (if not all) of the states which is another factor in why scores will be lower. Every single student has to have access to a computer in order to take this test. That's impossible for low-income districts who barely have one computer per classroom.
yes, coloring an owl instead of a graph is going to so 'dumb down' our kids [/sarcasm]
It's unsurprising that you missed the point. Everything is data, data, data, data, numbers, numbers, numbers, scores, scores, scores, graphs, graphs, graphs. Who cares about imagination, creativity and just letting 6 year olds be KIDS, for God's sake. Kids should be making Pilgrim hats and writing a story about the Mayflower, not worrying about how many data points their reading fluency scores moved in the past week.
let's first teach them to read and write. once they can do that, let's go onto something creative
You say that as if those things are mutually exclusive....
let's instead expose them to MORE non-fiction - you know, factual information. the stuff which makes possible STEM careers and will assist them into adulthood
I'm all about non-fiction. For some kids, that's what they want to read. That's what makes them excited. That's what will keep a book in their hands. But for most kids, the love, the excitement, the joy of reading is found in magical lands through wardrobes. To de-emphasize the importance of reading fiction is a detriment to our students.
i agree with this. if we have no idea how johnny is performing then we will continue to socially graduate kids who cannot read, write, or perform basic math
the problem i have with this data is that we will not be using it to ability group the teaching of our kids. we hold down the smart ones in the hope that their presence in the class room will enhance the knowledge of the dumb ones. it doesn't work that way. now that we can distinguish the fast learners from the slow learners, let's put them in ability grouped classes
I whole-heartedly agree that kids need to be grouped by ability. I also agree that SOME kids needs to be looked at closely, tracking their progress, collecting information in order to help them. I do NOT agree that we need to do that for ALL kids. Nor do I agree that we need to track social relationship data or emotional data on all children.
the technology is there. seven years ago my son developed software which would allow a teacher to use her smart phone (then there was no iphone, it was itouch) to grade papers. to place that data in each student's efolder, and to identify which questions were missed by the student so the teacher could provide individual help to each student on the material they had not mastered. it would also graph which questions were most missed by the class to allow the teacher to see if the material needed to be presented before the class in a different manner. while he could not get the school system to return a phone call, regarding his desire to give them the software he developed, the teach for America teachers who participated in the evaluations refused to give their devices back. they had become that used to the benefits of the system he had developed. the point is, there IS technology out there to substantially eliminate these time consuming tasks from the teacher's day. there just needs to be a will to identify and apply the available technologies
Tell that to the thousands of low income districts who have 32 kids in a 2nd grade class and zero money for any technology training, let alone the technology itself.