Standardized testing dumbed down...but that's not how they describe it

As in many areas, there has been a HUUUUGE outcry against our state's standardized testing (called the WASL) in public skools. Parents, teachers, and kids whiiiiiiiine constantly about it. Some parents even refuse to allow their kids to take the test (what a great message *that* sends the pansiefied brats).

So now the state superintendent says he's going to replace that test...

But (superintendent) says the tests he proposes would be shorter, less time-consuming, less stressful, cheaper to administer and quicker to grade than the WASL. Essay questions would be reduced from 40 percent of the work to 25 percent. The test would be taken on a computer, not on paper.

Translation: It's been DUMBED DOWN and will be EASIER.

Less stressful? What exactly does that mean? That's pretty damn hard to quantify, yet he's basing his changes on that. Of course, anything harder than 2+2 is probably "stressful" for the fragile flowers.

Heaven forbid the delicate little snowflakes have to do anything that is difficult or challenging. Isn't that what school is SUPPOSED to be about? Lately, I've seen the way some kids write, and it is nothing short of HORRIFYING. We are doomed.

I'll be voting NO on the upcoming levy.

That is fucking pathetic. How are these brats ever going to survive at kawledge and in the real world?????

That is the whole point: they don't survive the real world.
a) the girls are sluts who shack up as unpaid whores. they imagine it is going to be a deep and personal relationship with 'mommy and daddy and baby' but the guy is just looking for a housemaid and warm place to put it.
b) the girls take the moo-whore route out by getting knocked up. the guy usually runs out (because they have no sense of responsibility) leaving the taxpayer with the bill. this way, the girls don't actually have to earn a living.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

There have also been reported cases of superintendents encouraging certain kids to stay home on mandatory test days, so as to not lower the scores of their school.

Schools seem to have the attitude that they don't have to fix their problems, just wait long enough and someone else can deal with it. Elementary school kids having a tough time with reading? Not a problem...they can offer extra tutoring in middle school. Weak middle school math program? Hey, they'll deal with it in high school. Kids can't read critically by the end of high school? That's what college is for.

As part of my mandated teacher inservice training, I had to sit through countless day-long conferences on all things educational. One year in particular, we had a presentation by a special ed mother who thought it was perfectly reasonable for schools to give her son (and all other special ed kids) all the time in the world to complete a given task, complete with repeating the instructions as many times as needed, and allowing kids to be late to school and skip altogether without penalty because "schools prepare kids for working life, and that's what employers would do." She said this with a straight face, too. Personally, I do not know a single employer in the private sector who would tolerate this behavior from an employee if they were even remotely interested in turning a profit.

Before I was a math teacher I worked in private industry as a design draftsman, so my perspective of the working world was not completely shaped by educational bureaucracy. One of the things that always bugged me in listening to educators come up with ways to "help" kids always seemed like completely misguided efforts. The big push for having kids take more high school math classes was that favorite of educational phrases, "but math is a gatekeeper." Basically, employers and colleges were sorting applications by how many high school math courses a person had taken, to thin the applicant pool. So administrators thought they could magically level the playing field and empower all students by having everyone take three years of high school math. Well, of course that wasn't successful because they were putting kids into courses they couldn't ever do well in, so even for the kids that muddled through, the applicant pool was simply thinned by a different criteria, but these policy geniuses could never seem to figure that out. Of course, they now also had the additional problem of a backlog of kids who couldn't pass those extra courses and weren't eligible to graduate, so administrators came up with a new trick--take a one year course and slow it down so that it lasted for two years, and tack on a year at the beginning, and call it a "Pre" course, like Pre-Algebra. Right number of credits, one year of material spread into two or even three. This was so ridiculous to me, that I got into a discussion with my building principal and asked her, point blank, if we were now going to let kids graduate with a math major for essentially completing a freshman Algebra course.

So, CrabCake, I've seen the system from the inside, and it is at least as horrifying as you describe.

And to think that American schools were once the envy of much of the world. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

For a little historical comparison, check out this eigth-grade test circa 1900

http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895finalexam.html

...with eigth-grade tests in the here and now.

http://scotthochberg.com/taas.html (on the left side)

Heck, get Barney or Elmo to teach the little snots instead.

I don't see why we don't just wall off a major metropolitan area, like Los Angeles, and send every child to it when they reach the age of 10. Who ever is still alive at 25, and passes some sort of competncy exam, gets to return to society.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

Quote
CrabCake
Less stressful? What exactly does that mean? That's pretty damn hard to quantify, yet he's basing his changes on that. Of course, anything harder than 2+2 is probably "stressful" for the fragile flowers.

Hey, brats: REAL LIFE is stressful, so get used to it!