This comment was just left on this site on another post but I want to give it broader exposure and use it to introduce this post.

“I just googled CAT testing.  Computer Adaptive Testing.  I am wondering if the reason they are giving pre-SAGE tests is to gather a pool — “The pool must be calibrated with a psychometric model, which is used as a basis for the remaining four components. ” “In CAT, items are selected based on the examinee’s performance up to a given point in the test. However, the CAT is obviously not able to make any specific estimate of examinee ability when no items have been administered. So some other initial estimate of examinee ability is necessary. If some previous information regarding the examinee is known, it can be used,[1] but often the CAT just assumes that the examinee is of average ability – hence the first item often being of medium difficulty.”

So, when they say no data is being collected, do the kids put their name on the test? Is it just general pool material for the school/state or is it really a pool connected to the child’s name?”

Also, Debbie B. posted this on Facebook this week:

“My son is in Kindergarten and his very first experience with public school was the teacher rushing him to take his assessment test and in a roundabout way shaming him for being shy and not wanting to leave his mom (mind you, this was a couple of weeks before the school year started). He’s 6 and completely HATES school. His homework consists of spelling and memorizing words and math problems. He is also given spelling tests. In Kindergarten, for crying out loud. This is not age appropriate and is ruining his spirit about school. So what I’m wondering is, is it required that he take the assessment tests, or can I opt out of having him tested (is it a good idea to opt him out?). Also, will they not let a child advance to the next grade if they don’t complete the work in the steps that the core teaches (even if they know the answers, just in an easier fashion)? This is our first year and experience with public education and I’m NOT impressed. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.”

SAGE exams are the Common Core assessments the state got us into. We’ve been getting a slew of questions on SAGE exams as parents around the state opt-out using our form.  Not all districts are opt-out friendly, but most are. Charters are mostly not friendly toward opting out because current Utah law says if less than 95% of students take the test in a school, the school gets an automatic F grade, and charters do not want F grades when they rely on enrollments. However, SB 209 that just passed and is waiting to be signed into law, makes it so schools only drop 1 letter grade, and SB 122 that just passed says parents have a right to opt their child out. So what do schools mean by telling parents their child will be labeled non-proficient? Alpine school district board member Wendy Hart explains this and more in two new blog posts. Click these to get the scoop.

SAGE State Tests FAQ

SAGE tests: Will My Kid be Labeled ‘Non-Proficient?’

I received an email the other day from a substitute teacher who travels around and has kept track of the things she’s seen and heard. It’s mind numbing. After her stories, there is a story out of California as well. After reading the stories, check out this article showing even more issues.

Common Core math education intentionally designed to make America’s children mentally ill
http://www.naturalnews.com/044338_Common_Core_math_education_Americas_children.html

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Oak,

Here are the few things I actually documented. There have been so many, but if I don’t write, I don’t remember. Now I wish I had written them ALL down. I promise I will do that from now on, and I’ll send them off to you. I have not included the dates or the schools on any of these, for I know that my assignments can be traced. There have been some days where I was the only sub at that school.

Some math problems I’ve encountered:

6th Grade Class: The math aide was flustered about the lesson she was teaching regarding volume. She kept getting the information wrong, because the lesson gave two separate formulas for volume: B x l x h and b x l x h. In the teacher’s manual, it gave B=base area, and b=the width of the base. However, on the student worksheet, B=width of base. The students had to spend time cutting out a rectangular box and tape or glue it together, measure it, then use it to figure the formula for volume, and the answer for their solid shape. This took up so much time, and most of the kids were confused about what B or b meant, so when they had to write the formula, they were still confused and didn’t understand it.

6th Grade Class: I have 34 candy bars. 29 got stolen. How many do I have left? Correct answer: On the left hand side of the page, draw 34 rectangles, and circle 3 sets of 10 each. There are 4 left over. Draw a line down the middle of the page. On the right side of the page, draw 29 rectangles. Circle 2 sets of 10 each. There are 9 left over. With another colored pencil, circle the 9 and bring it over to the left hand side of the page with an arrow to one of the circled 10. Cross out 9 of the 10 on the left hand side. Now use another colored pencil and circle the one that wasn’t crossed out, along with the 4 not previously circled.

3rd Grade Class: Kya jumped rope 77 times in a row. That was 49 times more than Katara. How many times did Katara jump? Correct answer: Draw 7 lines. Draw 7 little x’s. X out 4 lines. Circle 2 lines. X out the last line. Draw 2 separate x’s and circle them. Draw 8 little lines and circle them…The entire class made this diagram, some with success, some not. But the majority could not calculate the equation by borrowing, or even recognized the clues of “crossing out.” Most students just gave up.

3rd Grade Class: This took the class the entire math period. I had to take them on an array hunt throughout the entire school, both inside and out. Students drew arrays and the dimensions of each array, e.g. a column of 2 by 5 rows. Most students were not participating, and out of control. Duh, like that wouldn’t happen.

At Christmas time, 1st Grade: Students were to color, cut out and paste a witch onto a student-composed letter consisting of 4 things they could tell her that they had done to prove they were good, so she would give them presents on Christmas day. The teacher said she would send these to the good witch La Belfona.

Teachers at lunchtime were expressing their own confused state of mind regarding Common Core math, their compassion for their students–who they said did NOT understand it, and that THEY could not help them. They needed the math aide to come help!

At another school, teachers were saying how badly they felt because their Kindergartners did not have good enough keyboarding skills to even take the computer adaptive tests. Their reason was because they didn’t even know the complete alphabet yet, and yet they were scheduled that day to take the tests! The teachers knew there were going to be tears of frustration and mayhem.

One First grade class had to share mirrors to draw themselves EXACTLY as they saw themselves in the mirror, then label it with their first and last names, PLUS their date of birth. The assignment had to be completed in 15 minutes and turned in. They had to wait their turn, didn’t know their last names or if they knew them, they didn’t know how to spell them, and I didn’t have a list! Most didn’t know their birthDAY, let alone their birthDATE. Hence, they were confused, and out of control.

Regarding cell phone usage and District Policy: Most teachers do NOT abide by the rules and allow cell phones and earbuds during class. This is a TREMENDOUS problem. I caught one student watching a movie on her cell phone, told her to turn it off, or I would confiscate it. Just as the bell rang, she had it out and was watching the movie again! She went out the door before I could catch her.

100% of classes I substitute in where there are laptops, or full desktops, there is an internet abuse problem. About 1/2 the students in these classes are constantly playing games, going on their gmail, OR google images and loitering there. One day, a 4th grade student was looking up images for his power point presentation and on the same page as the image he was looking for, there was a close-up image of some sort of an animal’s vagina! He looked horrified, and told the boy next to him to look and see. This caught my attention, so I went over to see what they were looking at. I told him to get off that page! I had heard that this was not even possible, that there are protections built into the school internet systems. I can tell you from personal experience, that the amount of actual productive work completed on these devices is minimal AT BEST. This is a complete waste of educational time and citizen tax dollars, for computer usage is approaching half the class time.

Students cannot write legibly, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The excuse I hear is that it is taught solely in Kindergarten. The kindergarten handwriting lessons I have viewed and had to teach were pathetic. In one class, during “Centers” (that is the only time they were taught this subject), students had to fold a piece of paper lengthwise and unfold it, then fold it again width-wise, then unfold it. Then cut along a dotted line, then push the paper together, then fold it one way, then another, then fold it like a book. Then the students had to trace the letter “a” and then color it. They had 10 minutes to do this, and were so confused, some were crying. They had no time to practice writing the letter “a” and were not given the opportunity to even do so. THAT was their lesson on HOW to write the letter “a.”

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I think those last two stories should be shared with legislators intent on transforming our classrooms into technology centers. We are losing basic skills. High tech CEO’s send their children to non-tech schools so they learn to think without technology thinking for them. But I digress…

This story is from a California teacher who has served in the highest capacities of their state’s system, but wishes to remain anonymous.

“I spent today watching a 90-minute in class lesson, using real students in a
real high school  geometry class, given by the math content expert for the local
district.

She starts out by passing out a hexagon and asks the kids to find the area.
They could not figure it out. So she passed out a page with rectangles that
had square units marked off and had the kids count the boxes. Eventually
they might have gotten base times width, though I am not sure. The district
version of Common Core means that we don’t give formulas, the kids need to
determine that themselves. Eventually they were to cut the rectangles in
half (three of them) and then the last one cut into three pieces, all of
them triangles. The kids them spent a half hour estimating the area of each
by counting. Never did the formula for area of a triangle come up.

90 minutes after the start of the lesson, the kids were instructed to (as
the bell rang) use their “knowledge”; to determine the area of their regular
hexagon. They had neither the ways or the time to do so. The paper was
their exit ticket. No practice problems, because Common Core doesn’t do
practice problems. I asked later in the debrief what would have been
assigned “if you had more time,” the response was that the kids could write
in their journals how they found the area of something in their houses.

I am not kidding. _______ can confirm this is true.

So 90 minutes was spent on a topic that is a 5th grade standard in the old
California standards, and that any teacher worth anything could have covered
– well – in five or ten.”

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I received this email from math teacher and football coach Malin Williams who gave permission to post it with his name.

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My name is Malin Williams.  I teach math at Enterprise High School in the Washington County School District.  This letter is being typed at home on my own computer and on my own time. I did not participate in the essay contest, but have some thoughts that may be useful.  If so, use them.  These thoughts are my own and in no way am I attempting to speak for any official entity, organization, or individual besides myself.

It is difficult to express myself concerning the common core.  There is much “official support” for it.  I fear that teachers who oppose the common core may somehow be punished, but my perception is that most teachers do not really want the common core.  We want to be allowed to use our professional judgement and serve our students the best way we know how.  We welcome professional development which we can use to increase our effectiveness.  We chafe at being told “you must” by people who are not in our classrooms and communities.

I have spent a significant amount of time studying the pros and cons of the common core.  Many of the math standards are very good.  Some are not.  (Does a kindergarten student really need to know what a hexagon is…Does he really need to be able to distinguish between whether a shape is two dimensional or three dimensional?  Will this cause confusion and frustration unnecessarily?)  I am very concerned about Utah losing our ability to control our own educational standards and programs.  I am concerned about struggling students being forced from one failing experience to the next.  I am equally concerned about our best students being slowed down.  I would very much like my own children to be in a school that did not have to worry about federal controls, education standards with inflexible copyrights held by massive cooperatives, data mining, over-emphasizing of coercive testing and compliance, excessive corporate controls, etc.

We are moving ever farther from the small, locally controlled schools that produced our parents, grandparents and great grandparents.  Family friendly schools and policies seem to be decreasing.  The schools and social forces that produced the greatest nation in the world are disappearing.  Will the new experiment work?  The farther we get from what made us great, the farther we seem to fall.  Hope and individual initiative seem to be decreasing.  Can they be successfully replaced by rigid standards and increased bureaucracy?   Must our sons and daughters be placed under more distant and more regimented controls?  Is federal money so necessary and dear to us?  Is parental input so unimportant?

My colleagues can be trusted.  We want to feel trusted and empowered.  We need to return local control and empowerment to Utah students, parents, and teachers by rejecting the common core.  We can do better.

Thank you.

Malin Williams
Head Football Coach
Level 4 Math Teacher
Enterprise High School