Six on Schools: Isn't it time we see the tests they are serving our kids?; Sacrificing Black Education for a False Meritocrac

[philip panaritis]

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Six on Schools: Isn't it time we see the tests they are serving our kids?; Sacrificing Black Education for a False Meritocracy; ELICITING EXPLANATIONS FROM STUDENTS IS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN TELLING THEM; the Tragedy of Viral Success Stories; NY Post: Bring Back “Junk Science”!; Kids need more than academics at school to succeed;

Isn't it time we see the tests they are serving our kids?

"Their first report focused on the growing percentages of students, starting with the first Common Core-based tests in 2013, who received zeroes on two types of English questions requiring written responses. The report concluded that high percentages of zeroes, particularly in the third and fourth grades, raised serious concerns about the quality and developmental appropriateness of many questions on the tests.

"The meaning of all the zeroes is pretty devastating," Smith said.

Their next study will focus on the test questions themselves.

Smith's passion is reviewing the results of standardized assessments, in detail, to determine their statistical quality, the meaning that can be derived, and to improve future tests. He laments that the state Education Department and test-making giant Pearson released little information about the early Common Core-based tests, undermining public trust in Albany's so-called reforms."

Don't Miss This Statement by Fred Smith, who is consistently trying to shed light into the dark corners of our State Education Department and this informative article by Gary Stern. 

https://www.lohud.com/videos/news/education/2018/12/10/video-nys-standardized-testing-criticized/2239269002/  

https://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/perspective/2018/12/10/statistics-wiz-talks-new-yorks-common-core-era-testing-and-jts/2213253002/

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ANOTHER STUDY FINDS ELICITING EXPLANATIONS FROM STUDENTS IS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN TELLING THEM

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2018/12/12/another-study-finds-eliciting-explanations-from-students-is-more-effective-than-telling-them/

America Is Sacrificing Black Education for a False Meritocracy

"But it also generated talk cautioning outsiders against casting segregation as uniquely southern. Some observers pointed to purportedly liberal New York City as having some of the most segregated schools in the country.

As if on cue, a group of Manhattan parents gathered on Monday to oppose integration. Facing a proposal from New York mayor Bill de Blasio that would expand the admissions process for the city’s coveted specialized public high schools — thereby securing more spots for black and Hispanic students at institutions that are currently dominated by Asian and white children — they made impassioned arguments for why it was a bad idea. One white parent disparaged it as a dangerous “social experiment.” Another claimed it would be unfair to the new black and Hispanic students, who would find themselves floundering and underprepared. Asian parents and their advocates saw the schools’ current admissions policy — which relies on a single, high-stakes standardized-test score — as a rare color-blind means of upward mobility in a city where Asians face high poverty rates but thrive academically.

But the single-mindedness of these warring interests belies a larger, more fundamental point. Every American wants their child to have a quality education, but few seem invested in a quality education for all children. In a country where the school districts with the most students of color receive 15 percent less money per child in state and local funding than the whitest, it is an unavoidable conclusion that advantage is distributed, and hoarded, according to race. During the civil-rights movement, integration was framed as the remedy to such inequality. More than half a century later, its promise remains unrealized. Americans from New York to Mississippi internalized the idea that some kids deserve good schools and some do not. Even those who admit that segregation undercuts American platitudes about liberty and justice balk at solutions that require them to sacrifice their own children’s advantage"

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/new-york-city-school-integration.html

T.M. Landry and the Tragedy of Viral Success Stories - We focus on outliers and ignore systemic injustice.

"T.M. Landry is an inevitable result of systemic injustice, of decades of school and housing policies designed to maintain white supremacy and punish the poor and working class. Part of what drives this system, and distracts from its horrors, is a myth in which we all participate: the American dream.

The American dream relies on stories like mine and the Landry situation to distract from the American reality: There is a conveyor belt that sends most young people, especially from neighborhoods like mine, from nothing to nowhere, while the chosen few are randomly picked off and celebrated.

Now we condemn the people who ran the school — who gave us, for years, what we wanted — while letting ourselves off the hook.

I was born, as the myth goes, on the wrong side of the tracks in Oak Cliff, a Dallas neighborhood. I was raised by my grandmother, who worked as a domestic, and by my sister, who adopted me when our mother disappeared. I watched my father struggle with addiction and watched my friends endure the same or worse."

Opinion | T.M. Landry and the Tragedy of Viral Success Stories

Opinion | T.M. Landry and the Tragedy of Viral Success Stories We focus on outliers and ignore systemic injustice.

 Kids need more than academics at school to succeed. Doing it right is the trick.

"As The Washington Post reported, it showed that while the genetic distribution of markers associated with educational attainment was evenly distributed across the population, “the least gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most gifted children of low-income parents.” In short, our best and brightest born into contexts with limited resources are rarely able to cultivate and contribute their natural-born potential.

- The Washington Post

[It’s better to be born rich than gifted]

- The Washington Post

Is anyone surprised? I could have told you this when I graduated from my hometown high school and was one of the few to leave for college. Now, there’s scientific proof."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/28/kids-need-more-than-academics-school-succeed-doing-it-right-is-trick/

- The Washington Post

- The Washington Post

NY Post: Bring Back “Junk Science”!

New York Post: Bring Back “Junk Science”!

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New York Post: Bring Back “Junk Science”! Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has an editorial chastising the New York Board of Regents for failing to reactiva...