Tulsa Schools and New Standardized Testing & Common Core

[swake]

Test scores came back for Jenks 3rd graders this week. 6 did not pass.  In my daughter's class, the teacher (her second teacher for the year, because the first one went to jail) passed out a letter (for the kids to take home to parents) to the students and then the teacher went around the class writing each child's score on the letter.  The kids were all excited and confused as to what their score meant, and were comparing scores.  One little girl had the lowest score in the class and was ridiculed by her classmates.  There was a rush to get these scores home to the parents, most likely because the news was going to cover them that night, and the administration wanted to avoid a deluge of calls.

This little girl who was publicly humiliated was one of my daughter's best friends, and very sweet.  She scored unsatisfactory and will be held back.  She was devastated and embarrassed to tears in front of her whole class.  She probably won't come back to school for the rest of the year, or attend Girl Scouts with my daughter and several others from her class this summer. The parents (all of us) were outraged, and my gut is still in a ball.  After a series of angry calls and emails the teacher has been fired, but that does nothing for this little girl.

We have cut our household budget and paid our first months tuition for a private school for both kids next year. Two other families with kids in the class will be doing the same, as well as another teacher, with whom we are friends, she will be leaving the school to take a position at the same private school we have chosen for our kids.

What is going on at Jenks East with your teachers?

I'm really confused about kids getting test scores like this in class too. My son is in 7th at Jenks Middle School but takes a high school level math course so he took a state high school EOI (end of instruction) test a week or so ago. I asked him last night when did they expect to get the EOI scores and he said his teacher already gave them out to the kids and he got  49 (out of 52). That seemed really strange, before these kinds of scores have always been sent home in sealed envelopes or mailed home. Now they are just telling the kids the scores in class? My daughter is a senior and doesn't have any EOI tests this year but I don't' recall her even getting scores like this. She certainly doesn't get AP scores like this. Is this something the state has done?

[heironymouspasparagus]

The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

10 feet per gallon..??!!  You like that??   Ouch!


Wait...was it a claret, madeira, or sherry hogshead?

[heironymouspasparagus]

This little girl who was publicly humiliated was one of my daughter's best friends, and very sweet.  She scored unsatisfactory and will be held back.  She was devastated and embarrassed to tears in front of her whole class.  She probably won't come back to school for the rest of the year, or attend Girl Scouts with my daughter and several others from her class this summer. The parents (all of us) were outraged, and my gut is still in a ball.  After a series of angry calls and emails the teacher has been fired, but that does nothing for this little girl.

That is so sad!!  Am very sorry to hear your - and any of the kids had to go through that!! 


No child left behind...yeah, right....

[swake]

The testing takes up way too much time and the school year is already too short at just nine months. Testing takes the whole first month of school with reviewing and the benchmark tests and then year-end testing takes the whole last two months of school. Yes, two months, schools take a whole month to review and test prep and then the state gives the test a full month before school is out. Little is done in class after the testing is complete so that leaves just six months of the year where actual learning is taking place.

[sgrizzle]

Test scores came back for Jenks 3rd graders this week. 6 did not pass.  In my daughter's class, the teacher (her second teacher for the year, because the first one went to jail) passed out a letter (for the kids to take home to parents) to the students and then the teacher went around the class writing each child's score on the letter.  The kids were all excited and confused as to what their score meant, and were comparing scores.  One little girl had the lowest score in the class and was ridiculed by her classmates.  There was a rush to get these scores home to the parents, most likely because the news was going to cover them that night, and the administration wanted to avoid a deluge of calls.

This little girl who was publicly humiliated was one of my daughter's best friends, and very sweet.  She scored unsatisfactory and will be held back.  She was devastated and embarrassed to tears in front of her whole class.  She probably won't come back to school for the rest of the year, or attend Girl Scouts with my daughter and several others from her class this summer. The parents (all of us) were outraged, and my gut is still in a ball.  After a series of angry calls and emails the teacher has been fired, but that does nothing for this little girl.

We have cut our household budget and paid our first months tuition for a private school for both kids next year. Two other families with kids in the class will be doing the same, as well as another teacher, with whom we are friends, she will be leaving the school to take a position at the same private school we have chosen for our kids.

Ever consider it's not crappy public schools, just your school that's crappy?

My daughter is in 3rd grade at TPS and nothing remotely like what you just said happened with any of the 3rd grade classes at her school.

[Gaspar]

The testing takes up way too much time and the school year is already too short at just nine months. Testing takes the whole first month of school with reviewing and the benchmark tests and then year-end testing takes the whole last two months of school. Yes, two months, schools take a whole month to review and test prep and then the state gives the test a full month before school is out. Little is done in class after the testing is complete so that leaves just six months of the year where actual learning is taking place.

Correct!  All homework and interactive class activities came to a standstill, and the kids (3rd graders mind you) were injected with the fear that not passing the test meant leaving their friends behind.  My daughter couldn't sleep for two days before the test started and was frightened to the point of nausea the day she completed the test.

Now we have 20% of the state's 3rd graders that aren't eligible to advance.  I know that yesterday our state house passed an amendment to the RSA, and the Governor is likely going to sign a bill putting the advancement decision back in the hands of teachers and parents, but what was the state going to do if all of a sudden 3rd grade class sizes exploded with holdovers? 

My child scored well, but every child learns differently and sometimes kids with below average reading skills have above average minds.  The idea of mechanical standardized teaching is ridiculous.  I have a kindergarten boy who can already read and loves nothing more than blurting out math problems.  He is academically advanced but he is young for his grade and emotionally not ready to advance compared to his classmates.  We are holding him back this year because we understand there is far more to education than standardized proficiencies.

Our son is far from being exposed to any of the common core crap, and we have been successful in reprograming our daughter to overcome that learned handicap as well, so that she will be ready to enter and advance in the individual based learning environment she will have in private school.

I remember back in the 80's when I went to school at Jenks, teachers were very involved with parents on educational decision making and beyond the ACT or other placement tests, teachers, schools, and parents made holistic educational decisions based on individual students.  Now it seems that the students are expected to be mechanically placed, and the teachers mechanically governed.  The only realistic outcome for that would be standardized group-think, and the production of cogs for the great machine.

Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. – Thomas L. Johnson 

Ever consider it's not crappy public schools, just your school that's crappy?

My daughter is in 3rd grade at TPS and nothing remotely like what you just said happened with any of the 3rd grade classes at her school.

Grizz,
I understand, but 1/3rd of TPS 3rd graders failed! . . . and without the Governors signature on that amendment could be held back.  My point is that we have just seen some amazing examples of what happens when government attempts to override the parent, the school, and the teacher.  I'm glad I'm done dealing with it.  I wish I didn't have to pay double for my kid's education but I must through force.  It would be cheaper by about $1,000/yr for the state to provide me with a voucher, but that's a pipe-dream for now.

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact that they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times. – Lawrence W. Reed

[sgrizzle]

Grizz,
I understand, but 1/3rd of TPS 3rd graders failed! . . . and without the Governors signature on that amendment could be held back.  My point is that we have just seen some amazing examples of what happens when government attempts to override the parent, the school, and the teacher.  I'm glad I'm done dealing with it.  I wish I didn't have to pay double for my kid's education but I must through force.  It would be cheaper by about $1,000/yr for the state to provide me with a voucher, but that's a pipe-dream for now.

I don't know who didn't pass (because we don't believe in public flogging like Jenks (they probably just want those kids out of their district, skewing their numbers) but as I understand it, those who tests as poor reading performers were, by and large, poor reading performers.

In 4th grade and later especially, kids need to have good reading skills to learn. Teachers can't just ESP everything to their students. Maybe not 1/3rd should be held back, but I'm guessing 1/3rd of TPS kids aren't reading as well as they are supposed to. While I don't necessarily agree with how things are being handled, just letting kids who can't read fly right on by has proven to be a flawed theory for the last few decades. "Being smart" isn't a reason to advance. My son does math on the 3rd grade level and reading on 2nd. He's pretty smart, but that doesn't mean he should be a 4th grader (especially since he's 7)

[heironymouspasparagus]

Here is what a 3rd grader would be using in 1879.  Through about 1910.  Lots of these available free....

McGuffey's Third....

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14766/14766-pdf.pdf

[AquaMan]

I don't know who didn't pass (because we don't believe in public flogging like Jenks (they probably just want those kids out of their district, skewing their numbers) but as I understand it, those who tests as poor reading performers were, by and large, poor reading performers.

In 4th grade and later especially, kids need to have good reading skills to learn. Teachers can't just ESP everything to their students. Maybe not 1/3rd should be held back, but I'm guessing 1/3rd of TPS kids aren't reading as well as they are supposed to. While I don't necessarily agree with how things are being handled, just letting kids who can't read fly right on by has proven to be a flawed theory for the last few decades. "Being smart" isn't a reason to advance. My son does math on the 3rd grade level and reading on 2nd. He's pretty smart, but that doesn't mean he should be a 4th grader (especially since he's 7)

The 30% reading failure rate, like most percentage "facts", is very misleading. Yes, some TPS schools did badly. The ones you would expect to do badly. Gilcrease, Hawthorne, etc. But many did quite well, and they were the ones you would expect, like Eisenhower, Lee, Eliot etc.  Its doubtful that someone as clever, prosperous and insightful as Gaspar would have his kids in the low performing schools or even live near them. To then use those figures to fill private schools is exactly what the low funding policy of the state of Oklahoma is designed to accomplish. Sheep need good herders.

[Gaspar]

The poorly performing schools also cost the state more per student than many of the private alternatives. It seems that throwing money at the problem is still not working.

[sgrizzle]

The poorly performing schools also cost the state more per student than many of the private alternatives. It seems that throwing money at the problem is still not working.

Cars in Maple Ridge are nicer than cars in Apache Manor. Obviously if everyone just moved to Maple Ridge then everyone would have nicer cars.

[AquaMan]

Grizz, Idealogues are poor listeners with weak comprehension skills.

[TheArtist]

  There was an article in the news about one Tulsa school whose 3rd graders did really well and noted how small their class sizes were and how hard their students worked to pass the tests.  One commenter said something interesting wondering how many special needs and english as a second language students they had compared to some other schools?  

Was talking to a teacher about common core the other day and she noted something interesting I hadn't thought of.  She said something to the effect of, say you start teaching common core to a new 3rd grade class, what is being taught and how it is being taught is highly dependent on having had the common core teaching methods used with those students the year before, and the year before that... but of course they weren't used before because the method is just now being taught to these 3rd graders for the first time.  Rather than these new methods and tests being implemented gradually from the lowest grades up, they are basically being applied across the board all at once with upper grades straddled with the disadvantage of not having been taught the way and type of information the years before, that they would need in order to start the new year off on a solid footing.  So many teachers would not only be working on meeting the tests for this year but also trying to play catch up and help the students learn what they should have learned the years before had they taken common core classes earlier.  Then throw onto that larger class sizes like this teacher has and english as second language, parents that don't care  (and she told me some stories that would make you quite sad) or parents who "care" but are on drugs or are no more than undereducated kids themselves, etc.

As for public and private schools.  Our city and state will rise and fall mostly depending on the public schools performances, not the private schools performances. Even if you put your student in a private school, their welfare in this city and state will be greatly affected by the success, or lack there of, of the private schools. I don't think we will likely see how our State ranks in this or that indicator as a reflection of how well our private schools do.  

[AquaMan]

Very well said, especially the last paragraph.

In conversations with teachers, they feel besieged and trapped. The legislation required them to teach in ways inconsistent with logic, which you pointed out. They feel in their hearts that the legislature, the governors office and school boards are populated with idealogues who want the system to fail and be privatized. True or not, its a conspiratorial mindset that seems to be borne out by actions and supported by the general public.

There is no target more popular for criticism than public schools, yet few private schools would do much better with the students the public schools have to instruct.

[swake]

The poorly performing schools also cost the state more per student than many of the private alternatives. It seems that throwing money at the problem is still not working.

Or it's more difficult and more expensive to teach children with less support at home.