And so it begins.
They ratchet up the test difficulty by three grades levels.
They fail to give teachers and schools the curriculum needed to prepare students properly.
They barely - but just barely - inform teachers and parents what is going to be on the tests.
They tie teacher evaluations to the scores.
They know the scores are going to fall 30% from last year.
They will blame this decrease on teachers.
The new APPR system allows them to "i rate" tens of thousands of teachers across the state using these Common Core test scores.
The clock begins to run - those tens of thousands of teachers MUST get scores up next year or face dismissal under APPR.
Testing as a weapon of mass destruction.
That's high stakes test accountability education reform in a nutshell.
That's certainly the intent, but they find out they've wakened a sleeping giant in the parents.
ReplyDeleteObviously, the AFT/UFT and NEA are hopeless, but there's a good chance this turns into a train wreck for the deformers, since in their desperation to roll out the tests prematurely, they risk a great deal of pushback.
Not to mention all the mistakes the tests and the VAM connected to the tests will have. Yeah, I agree. The desperation with which King, Tisch, Walcott et al. shill for this makes me wonder if they know they're going to own all the crap they comes along with it and, when all is said and done, they're pushing this so hard, so heavy, so fast might actually undercut their so-called reforms more than anything.
DeleteOne good thing for teachers is that baseline test scores for students in September will be low....easier to improve on...no?
ReplyDeleteWho knows what baseline scores will be? What will the tests look like? What happens when students change classes? What happens in high schools where students switch teachers in February. Do we do baseline scores in both Sept. AND February, measuring so-called teacher effectiveness both semesters? Or do they choose just one? If so, which one and why?
DeleteIt's a mess and quite frankly, I do not trust the functionaries at the NYSED, the Regents or the NYCDOE to play fair with this nor do I trust the press to report this mess accurately.