Whether you are testing the students or the teachers, all the clever
tests in the world will not bring about a higher level of education.
Are we going to focus on teaching or are we going to focus on testing?
They are not the same thing. Better testing does not result in
better education. It merely results in students learning to score
high in tests. But then we do keep going around on the subject of
what education really is. The people in power, the Ruling Class,
determine what skills, which tools the young will need to master in
order to serve the Ruling Class.
Go on line and Google that Eighth Grade Test from back around 1890.
Think of what these children were being groomed for.
True, the children of the Ruling Class were sent abroad to be educated
in the accepted ways of the Genteel, speaking French, drilled in
Latin, Greek Mythology, the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, and all
the trimmings that went into grooming them for their future role as
leaders. But the vast majority of children were learning the skills
that would enable them to do the young Empire's grunt work. They
needed to be practical generalists. They needed to be problem
solvers, able to be creative when the need arose.
Today's Ruling Class does not need the same sort of education for its
workers. Today it is more important to "fit in" as a supporter of the
Establishment, willing to do the bosses work, right or wrong.
Those who, like Edward Snowden, who question or disobey the rules, are
a threat to the Empire.
The real question should be, are our children receiving the sort of
education we want for them> Or are they receiving the education that
prepares them to become mindless servants of the Empire?
Think about this, the Ruling Class educates its sons and daughters to
be the leaders and the thinkers for the Empire. All this talk about
our children falling behind the children in other Lands is simply not
true. Our Working Class children are being well groomed to serve in
the armies of the Empire. All the talk about our failing educational
system is simply a part of the dismantling of public education. The
schooling being promoted for our children is producing exactly what
the Empire needs. And the Empire understands that this level of
education can be delivered by private, for profit schools, as well as
it is being delivered through the public system, and much more
profitable to the Empire.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/23/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> REVOLT WIDENS Tens of thousands on LI opt out of state math exam
> JOIE TYRRELL AND JO NAPOLITANO
> Tens of thousands of Long Island elementary and middle school students
> refused to take the state math exam on the first day of testing yesterday -
> a repeat surge of the record boycott on last week's English Language Arts
> assessment and a huge increase over last year's opt-outs, a Newsday survey
> shows. In 39 districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties, 32,704 of 67,612
> students in grades three through eight who were eligible to take the test
> refused it. The newspaper sought figures yesterday from more than 60 of the
> Island's 124 districts. The math test continues today and tomorrow. Other
> districts that Newsday asked for figures either would not release numbers
> or
> did not respond. Many districts will give figures only on the final day. No
> state agency or official organization gathers data on the number of
> students
> not taking the state test during the actual days of the exam's
> administration. Last year, a Newsday survey of all the Island's districts
> on
> the last day of math testing found that 10,765 children in 64 responding
> districts - about 13 percent - refused to take the exam, which reflect the
> controversial Common Core academic standards. There is a significant
> distinction in the number of students eligible to take the math test,
> compared with those who took the ELA last week. Eighth-graders can waive
> the
> math exam and instead take the ninth-grade Regents algebra exam in June.
> Administrators in some districts surveyed yesterday said many
> eighth-graders
> in their systems are not taking the math test because they plan to take the
> Regents exam. The state Board of Regents approved the waiver as a way to
> avoid "double-testing" of those eighth-graders, and it first was allowed
> last spring. Hoping to force change Testing opponents - a combination of
> parents, teachers and some school administrators - have said the high
> percentage of refusals will force change at the state level. Some also have
> asserted the opt-outs will invalidate the results as a measure of student
> performance and teacher effectiveness. Students' scores are among the data
> used to evaluate their teachers' job performance. State Education
> Department
> officials, however, have defended the test's validity and said the agency
> still will be able to get a representative sample of students who took the
> tests and calculate scores for use in teacher evaluations. David
> Morganstein, president of the American Statistical Association, the world's
> largest organization of statisticians, has told Newsday that if 20 percent
> or more of students skip a test, it may weaken the value of the results,
> but
> it does not invalidate them. The first significant number of test refusals
> on the Island occurred in spring 2013. The so-called opt-out movement grew
> dramatically in last spring's testing season, driven by complaints about
> the
> content and frequency of tests tied to the Common Core, parents' concern
> about stress on their children and class time devoted to test preparation,
> and linkage of scores to principals' and teachers' job ratings. Yesterday,
> the Rocky Point district posted the highest rate of refusal - 79.5 percent
> -
> among the districts that responded, and more than 70 percent of all
> eligible
> students opted out in the Connetquot, Patchogue-Medford, Plainedge and
> Shoreham-Wading River districts. Elmont and Manhasset posted the lowest
> refusal rates among those surveyed, at 6 percent each. Last year, the
> highest refusal rate on the math test among districts that responded to
> Newsday's survey then was 33 percent in Shoreham-Wading River. Search for
> alternatives In Rockville Centre, where 60 percent of eligible students
> opted out yesterday, Superintendent Bill Johnson said the state should look
> for other ways to gauge student achievement. "There are reasonable
> alternatives to the current testing program that should be on the table for
> discussion," Johnson said. "This is not an either, or. It's not, 'Should we
> be testing or not testing? We should be testing, but with the right one. No
> eighth-graders in the district took the math exam, because they will take
> the Regents algebra test, Johnson said. Joanna Negro, mother of a
> sixth-grader in the Huntington school district, said she is well aware of
> the problems associated with the rollout of the Common Core curriculum and
> related tests. But that doesn't mean the data gleaned from the exams are
> irrelevant, she said. "Ultimately, having measurable standards benefits
> kids," Negro said. "Standardized testing as the benchmark of achievement is
> the reality as kids go forward, and it is silly to deprive your child of an
> opportunity to practice a skill that will have so much influence on their
> future. In the Valley Stream Central High School district, 387 of 1,161
> students eligible to take the test opted out, school officials said. "This
> is significant when compared to ELA - where 385 students opted out when we
> had 1,411 eligible test-takers," Superintendent Bill Heidenreich said.
> About
> one-third of the district's eighth-graders instead will take the Regents
> algebra test, he said, so "we have 250 fewer test-takers and two more
> opt-outs ... which significantly increases the percentage of students not
> taking the test. On last week's English test, more than 71,700 students on
> the Island - 42.6 percent of those eligible - refused the exam, according
> to
> figures from 110 districts that responded to Newsday's survey. Anti-testing
> activists said last week that more than 155,000 students statewide refused
> to take the English exams. Asked for response to yesterday's test refusals,
> Education Department officials sent a lengthy statement from Regents
> Chancellor Merryl Tisch, from a speech she gave last month. "I believe that
> test refusal is a terrible mistake because it eliminates important
> information about how our kids are doing," Tisch said then to The New York
> State Council of School Superintendents. TOP 5 OPT-OUTS ON FIRST DAY Here
> are LI school districts with the highest percentages of students refusing
> to
> take the state math test on its first day, from those that responded to a
> Newsday survey. Thirty-nine districts supplied figures; the request was
> made
> to more than 60 of the Island's 124 school systems. The math exam continues
> today and tomorrow. Rocky Point 79.5% Plainedge 76.7% Connetquot 73.5%
> Shoreham- Wading River 73.4% Patchogue-Medford 71.1%
>
>
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