Common Core content decried as more and more examples become available from various places in the USA
Now that the Common Core is being implemented, even in a test phase, across the United States, teachers, principals and school administrators are finally getting a close look at the actual content of the tests. And, as usual, the content is conspicuously wrong, inappropriate, or silly.
In some ways, the Common Core, like many of the projects of the U.S. Department of Education since Chicago's Barack Obama was inaugurated as President of the United States in January 2009, bears the same unprofessional stamp of Chicago's public schools. Many of the Common Core tests resemble a nationalized then localized version of Chicago's CASE (Chicago Academic Standards Examination) tests. The CASE tests, six of which were published in the January 1999 edition of Substance, have the same flaws as all tests that pretend to test a broad range of curriculum in a one-size-fits-all testing program. Despite the claim that states have actually developed that state-by-state Common Core tests, the main controls over Common Core were the millions of dollars that went from private sources to the states, just as much of the CASE development in Chicago had been privately funded.
Once again, the claims of the testocrats are debunked most clearly by the tests themselves.
In the early morning of April 4, 2014, Diane Ravitch reported on her blog:
On the new website testingtalk.org, educators are venting their rage at tests that are developmentally inappropriate and overly technical in their approach to reading. Go to the website to read more comments.
Here is one principal: http://testingtalk.org/response/day-3-grades-3-5
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is absurd. The third grade test includes an excerpt from a book that, according to Scholastic, is written at a Grade Level Equivalent of 5.2. Its Lexile Measure is 650L, and it�s categorized as a Level X Guided Reading selection. Yet, it appears on a test that has been written for third grade students.
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is incongruous with Common Core Learning Standards. The same third grade test asks students to identify how specific paragraphs support the organizational structure of a selected piece of literature. The Reading Standards for Literature in Grade 3, with respect to Craft and Structure, state that Grade 3 students should be able to: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. It is not until Grade 5, according to The Reading Standards for Literature, that students should be able to: Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem.
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is ill-conceived. A short- answer question that appears on the Grade 4 exam calls upon students to explain why a specific piece of text is effectively written. Regardless of what the Reading Standards say, or don�t, about evaluating text, how in the world can a test be created around such an entirely subjective question?
An administrator of a suburban public school, I take seriously my responsibility to students and teachers. It seems to me that the most responsible thing that I could have done this morning would have been to excuse teachers and students from being bullied by an absurd, incongruous and ill-conceived test.
Here is another: Kate Mathews, principal: Day 3 exam, esp for 3rd Grade poorly written, developmentally inappropriate & soul crushing- http://go.shr.lc/1mFdECB
EXAMPLE: A principal at "Testing Talk"
Day 3, Grades 3-5.
[Author: Anonymous, Administrator, Other | State: NY | Test: State test: Pearson | Date: April 3 at 11:53 am ET]. An administrator of a suburban public school, I take seriously my responsibility to students and teachers. I try to greet each person that I encounter each morning with a smile, and a genuine curiosity about how they are doing. Today, though, it�s just too hard.
As I write this, third, fourth and fifth graders throughout the school and across the state are confronting an unfair ELA assessment. I just walked our hallways and peered into testing areas that are filled with row after row of eight, nine, ten, and a few eleven-year-olds flipping pages back and forth, annotating text, and building essays out of bullet points. More than a few are crying.
I�ve read the feedback that teachers across New York have offered these past two days of the Common Core aligned ELA exam. I have the same sympathy for them, and their students, as I do for our school�s own. Their experiences, combined with today�s mistreatment of students that children are suffering at the hands of misguided test makers, have moved me to speak out. I would be negligent if I didn�t.
Imagine a Little League coach putting a team of third-graders in a game against the local Varsity team. Surely, someone would take issue with that. How, then, can I not take issue with third-graders being tasked to read and respond to text about technical instruments with which most adults are unfamiliar?
Imagine asking a toddler to identify their motivation for, say, grabbing a fistful of cookie and crumbling it onto the floor. Surely, someone would take issue with that. How, then, can I not take issue with fifth-graders being tasked to read and respond to text about the cost-benefit analysis of tangible and intangible things as it relates to human behavior?
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is absurd. The third grade test includes an excerpt from a book that, according to Scholastic, is written at a Grade Level Equivalent of 5.2. Its Lexile Measure is 650L, and it�s categorized as a Level X Guided Reading selection. Yet, it appears on a test that has been written for third grade students.
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is incongruous with Common Core Learning Standards. The same third grade test asks students to identify how specific paragraphs support the organizational structure of a selected piece of literature. The Reading Standards for Literature in Grade 3, with respect to Craft and Structure, state that Grade 3 students should be able to: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. It is not until Grade 5, according to The Reading Standards for Literature, that students should be able to: Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem.
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is ill-conceived. A short- answer question that appears on the Grade 4 exam calls upon students to explain why a specific piece of text is effectively written. Regardless of what the Reading Standards say, or don�t, about evaluating text, how in the world can a test be created around such an entirely subjective question?
An administrator of a suburban public school, I take seriously my responsibility to students and teachers. It seems to me that the most responsible thing that I could have done this morning would have been to excuse teachers and students from being bullied by an absurd, incongruous and ill-conceived test.
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