Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three

The Hare and the Pineapple

This is Common Core. Point is: we are determining a student’s future, a teacher’s future, a school’s future, and the entire future of the combined Educational Departments of the University of Delaware, Delaware State, and Wilmington University’s …. based on a race between a pineapple and a hare…

Please send more examples… Thank you.

They’re Trying To Trick You.

I’m usually done with a piece of legislation when it doesn’t go my way.. I always shared a disdain for those who lose and refuse to accept reality for what it is… But I’ve received so many questions over SB51, that I’ll break protocol, to discuss it for one last time…

The main question I’ve received most often, is why did I take on this unattainable cause. Surely one could see the writing on the wall when the Senate voted? Wasn’t it a waste of time?

Oddly, no. And I’m perplexed a little as to why I feel that way. Because it did suck up a lot of time and it had only two people vote against it in the entire General Assembly, and two abstentions (one principled and one physical.) So I’m going to try and work it out here, in type, as to why it was important to lead a fight against it. One that if one was keeping score, turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

The reason for SB51″s success, was its stealth. It was out of committee, in the Senate, out of the Senate, in the House committee, and on the House floor, each time with very little notice. In fact, it wasn’t until after it had passed the Senate that I began hearing how bad this bill really was. Perhaps in a regular year, that would not have occurred. Someone would have read the bill earlier as it hit the docket and passed that information along. It should be noted this is an extraordinary year. The recomposition of this General Assembly has made many big changes possible. Gay Marriage, Background Checks, Reporting Stolen Firearms, Repeal of Death Penalty, Kinder-Morgan, Assault Bans, Bans of High Capacity Clips, have kind of sucked the wind out of the room when it comes to a bill that says something sensible like we should be hiring smart teachers instead of dumb ones.

One of our most progressive commentators said something like “I can see no one having a problem with that.”

And indeed. This bill seemed to have everyone on board. DSEA, that educational labor union who represents teachers, RODEL who represents the corporate Investors, the Governor who put this prominently in his state of the state address, both parties whom neither wanted to be seen as being against better education, the Chamber of Commerce and those who fund the entities inside the Community Service Building on 10th Street, progressives, conservatives. There was no one who seemed not to want to rubber stamp it…

It took a lot of work to wake up even three people to contest it…. And that is a start….

With overwhelming support, my goodness, in percentage terms…. 93% of the entire General Assembly was in favor. That ironically was the same percentage of Delawareans that wanted Offshore Wind over the objections of 4 well place members of the Executive Committee back in 2007-8…

How can anyone “credible” be against such a good bill with “overwhelming” support?

I would say there is one common thread among those who first voiced opposition and carried the water for trying to educate the public about this bill. And if you agree or disagree, please feel free to chime in. This is an informal piece.

Anyone who has experienced Common Core, who has actually experienced it, would be against this bill. I experienced it by helping a student with their homework assignment. Teachers and administrators experience it in their professional capacity. School Boards experience it by being in the cross fire between the DOE and parents who are as upset as I was with the crap that is being passed off as “learning.”…

Obviously from the results of the vote, very few people in Delaware have experience Common Core. Once you see what it has done to your kids, you are outraged. Outraged. There is no other accurate description….

So the vote in support of SB51, was primarily based, if I could extrapolate, on ignorance. I too would have been right there with them if I had not had the cathartic experience of meeting Common Core face to face. Once one does, one quickly learns to hate it. For many, many years I have been privy to a lot of grumbling from educators over each new “program of the year”, but never, never have I experienced a deterioration in a student’s drive to do well, as I have seen across the board with Common core…. “A” Students just giving up and settling for “C’s”, because of the capriciousness of the teaching and those learning materials that come in “packets.”

Here is what has to happen. These tests and packets need to get leaked to the public. Once seen and ridiculed, the proper perspective and potential damage from Common Core becomes clearer. Further more, every single member of the educational committees of both the Delaware Senate and House, should take this bill. Then the General Assembly would finally be in alignment with where the parents will be next year.

This year was really the first where Common Core was trialed. Next year it will be much more extensive.

So when one says that our teaching colleges and universities will be rated by how well their student teacher’s students do on Common Core tests over the next five years, quite a bit of that sentence totally depends on how good or bad Common Core is… I can tell you… it’s really.. really… bad.

Common Core is no better than “No Child Left Behind.” That too was a landmark piece of legislation to make teachers accountable to teaching, and not sending unprepared students up the ladder. It was hailed as the crowning achievement of American Society. Those very few who looked at the detail, and questioned how it would work, were laughed at as being among those who wanted to “leave children behind.” But guess what? When that was implemented in full across the nation, it didn’t work. Students did worse instead of better. Gee, the educational structure asked? How can this be? Answer was, it didn’t work in Texas under then Governor George W. Bush, either. They just tweaked the test scores.

Common Core is no better. In fact, it is probably worse. And there are many reasons why, which have been discussed on this blog many times, as well as on Transparent Christina, Kilroy’s of Delaware, Delaware Way, and Seventh Type… It “can” be better, but those pieces are being squashed under “bigger” principles, such as busting the teachers union, paying off Wall Street investors, making fistfuls of dough out of charter schools and vouchers… Big money has got its roots into education and is now trying to choke off all competition from good crops..

This bill’s overwhelming victory is not the end…. In fact, I think it may just hasten the end of Common Core, instead of extending it… I think so because I know how bad this program is.. I know there is no way you, once you experience it’s insanity, its inadequacy, and its ineptitude, will be supportive of common core… You can’t be.. No one like being inside a Kafka novel. We have nine months to educate Delaware what Common Core will do to your children. Nine months… If we are wrong, and the public does not by then demonize this program, then perhaps it is good that this bill passed.

But I’ve seen Common Core face to face… so I sincerely doubt that outcome….

Then, come next January, January 2014 an election year no doubt, we again will see these familiar words with a lot of support behind it.

“Section 1. Amend the title of Chapter 12, Title 14 of the Delaware Code, by making insertions as shown by underlining and deletions as shown by strikethrough as follows:”……

Cherry Picking Is Great If You Love Cherries

“Blah, blah, blah Obamacare”. say Republicans.  I say “Get over it.”   This day the House is going to vote on Michelle Bachman’s  House Bill Number One, to completely abolish Obamacare…..

Of course it is ridiculous.  And if the entire Republican contingent votes to undo it, the entire Republican contingent as I have said all along and most of America agrees, is ridiculous…. The best thing Republicans can do for their party is censure Michelle Bachman by having this bill go down to inglorious defeat….  Because this will bludgeon them in 2014.

My title said “Cherries”… So here is the cherry… an account from someone upon getting insurance for the first time… and reflecting upon how it feels…

“Financially, I’d be maybe $100 a month poorer [without coverage]. I would not be monitoring my blood sugar. I would not be paying as much attention to my cholesterol. I probably would have lost some weight but I don’t think I would have lost so much, and I don’t know if I would have been so good at keeping it off. I’d be much more anxious about what could go wrong. [...]

And there’s something about just feeling like you’re part of regular life. There’s a lot of emphasis on how everyone should be healthy and everyone should live longer, and you don’t want to be a burden on society. If you don’t have medical insurance, you’re kind of not part of that. It’s hard to explain, but there’s an element of participating in society that being able to go to the doctor gives you. Everybody always asks everyone how you’re doing, and to be able say “My doctor says I’m doing really well,” that’s nice, instead of being in a group of people and saying, “Well, I don’t really go to doctors.”

Obamacare is good. People want it.  We need it badly. We have it. No one is going to take anything away from the American People that they want without losing the fight….

Partisan Politics Above The Nation’s Good... That banner hangs in the RNC’s Washington DC Lobby…. and is the first thing one sees upon stepping in….

Sermon On The Mount

Bottom line in all cases I think everyone here would agree, is that we do what is best for the children. In certain cases  in which you may find yourself in,  a charter school scenario seems better to achieve that, than that situation’s public school alternative.

I guess the opposing point to your argument,  would be that instead of allowing charter schools to siphon funds away from public school systems, hard changes are now needed to be implemented inside the public schools. Raise the revenue, invest in quality, and make the public school system move itself forward to do what is best for the children.

Then, the charter’s group counter-argument to THAT…, is:   that is exactly what existed before charter schools were brought in! What you suggest didn’t happen then! Instead as situations got worse, administrators were told to deal with it; use good judgment. Charters are what brought in the necessary competition and now therefore they are responsible for today reforming public schools.

The retort for THAT, would be of what I spoke before:  that too many mouths at the trough make thin pigs. No one benefits from too many hungry mouths fighting over too scarce resources…

And that is where this argument seems to lie. Am I seeing our differences now as question of perspective? Sort of like from where one is looking, sort of determines how one sees this problem?

Let me elaborate. charter supporters speak of charters making positive inroads on children lucky enough to attend their schools … So from the perspective of those particular kids (our number one priority) the charter moving in and siphoning resources from a neighborhood dying entity, is a very good thing… Seen from that perspective I’ll agree….

However,… as a society one has to have the broad approach. One has to look for the Ying that corresponds to the Yang… In this case, that Ying would be…. what is happening to those children NOT being put into a charter school?

The answer is….. drumroll…… that they are doing worse then when public schools alone ruled the educational fiefdom. And shockingly, students at charter schools seem across the whole to be doing worse than when public schools alone ruled the educational landscape as well….
And this is where we have to be careful… we can say, look at this Charter… see how well it is doing?

But we must first know … is it doing well comparatively because it is teaching superlatively, or because the students it takes in were originally more highly motivated to succeed in the first place? Had those same students been in public schools, would they  now be boosting the public school’s results upward?

So from a theoretical perspective, it appears that the only sane way to determine whether charters have a positive or a negative impact upon societal education as a whole, is to use the numerical data to see how well students are responding now.

Doing so is a lot more complicated than this upcoming explanation, but using a simpler model will allow me to communicate it more easily. … Think if we were to give each student a number based on whether they graduated or not, and make those numbers either a +1 for graduating, or a -1 for not…. and then add up all of an entire city’s students, we would have a number for that district. We could then compare that number with numbers of the past, and also have the future come back to compare with us…

If with Charter schools in the equation, our success (graduation) number for ALL combined Public and Charter students is lower than it was before the time that Charters came in, then despite lots of  individual success stories, the concept of starting charters is over the total system, … disruptive… On the other hand, if with Charters our comprehensive success (graduation) number is higher than it was before Charters came in……. then thank heavens, someone brought in charter schools…..

Does that make sense?   If we took all of Delaware and compared all the numbers of students who meet the graduation standards before Charter Schools came in to disrupt, and compared that with all the numbers of students who meet the graduations standards now, … we would see, flat out, if that disruption was a positive one, or a negative one!  Is that clearer?

I think what has always quantified the difference in perspective between the two camps,… charter versus non-charter, is that one side is adding the negative numbers into the equation, and the other side is strictly only looking at the positive spectrum…

As in positive: … “look this kid was failing but now in a charter he is graduating… Isn’t that great”. Versus,“look over here, these two kids are dropping out of public school while one person graduates from a charter, that’s a combined score of a negative one… We should switch priorities, fund public education and then at least, should the charter wither and fail, we’d have a score of a positive one at the very least. Positive three if the kid in the charter succeeds!”

And if I’m a good writer, I’ve led you right to the solution that should be forming in your mind right now as you read this… The real solution is to refund education, period; allowing for both the successful existing charters to continue, and for adequately funding public education to provide increased opportunities to close the gaps still existing among our students. Remember again, our goal is our children.

Public education thrived post second World War! Only when the tax revolt began and people even considered lowering property taxes and cutting spending, did quality levels of education start declining. We once had a very robust educational system… How can we tell? Our nation today is the byproduct of that intergenerational system stretching beginning and end across the 20th Century.

But somewhere in the 80′s we began to make a conscious choice as a society that we would benefit more if we gave the wealthy more wealth and gave public education and other things… less..

Somewhere in the past we as a society made a conscious choice to allow our nation’s leaders to put less money into education, and keep more for themselves and their friends…. ( of course in fairness, we thought we were going to get some of it too…. Psyche!)

And the longer and longer I look at today’s educational problem and all the millions of pieces that need to be glued back together, the more and more I come to the inevitable conclusion that we simply really need to take that money back, invest it where it should have been all along, and still, keep that same fire in our bellies which we have now, and make education fun again so that great things can happen…..

Just like it probably did for each and every one of us… After all, we’re reading blogs for heaven’s sakes… Where on earth did THAT curiosity come from? Does that make us all sort of weird? lol.

Can Someone Help Me Out? What’s A “Doight”?

Still don’t know, but dirty deeds are done doight cheap.  As in “Dirty deeds and they’re done doight cheap.”

SB 51 The Cuts and Stitches…..

“Here are the guts of SB 51… The cuts are in one color, and the add ons are in another….

” …has achieved a passing score on both a content-readiness exam and a performance assessment as specified by the Department no later than July 1, 2015,” Added.

, except that this provision shall not apply to applicants seeking an initial license to teach in a core content area. For the purposes of this section, “core content area” means any subject area tested by the state assessment system, including Mathematics, English/Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies.  ”Added

 ”an initial license may be issued to an applicant who meets all other requirements for initial licensure except for passage of the PRAXIS I exam, provided that the applicant must pass PRAXIS I within the period of time from the date of hire to the end of the next, consecutive fiscal year. If proof of passage of PRAXIS I has not been provided during the time period specified, the initial license will be suspended unless the superintendent of the school district submits to the Secretary of Education a written request for a 1-year extension. The request must also document the effectiveness of the applicant.”  Cut

 An applicant seeking an initial license to teaching the secondary content area of Math Mathematics or English/Language Arts must also meet the achieve a passing score on the corresponding section of Praxis I. The Department may also require that an applicant achieve a passing score on both a content-readiness exam and performance assessment. The assessments and the passing scores shall be approved by the Department, and shall be developed or identified in collaboration with Delaware educators. ” added.

” This requirement shall apply to all applicants teaching special education in a core content area, as defined in § 1210 of this title, in secondary schools”  added.

The Department shall recognize a professional status certificate or standard certificate that is otherwise valid if issued prior to August 31, 2003. The Department shall also recognize a limited standard certificate or a temporary certificate issued prior to August 31, 2003, provided that the educator successfully completes the requirements set forth in the limited standard certificate or the temporary certificate.” cut.

And this entire passage was added….

Subchapter VIII. Education Preparation Programs

§ 1280. Educator Preparation Program Approval.

(a) Consistent with § 122 of this title, no individual, public or private educational association, corporation, or institution, including any institution of post-secondary education, shall offer an educator preparation program for the training of educators to be licensed in this State without first having procured the assent of the Department for the offering of such programs. A program approval process based on standards adopted pursuant to this section must be established for educator preparation approval programs, phased in according to timelines determined by the Department, and fully implemented for such programs in the State. Each program shall be approved by the Department based upon significant, objective, and quantifiable performance measures.

(b) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall establish rigorous entry requirements as prerequisites for admission into the program. At a minimum, each program shall require applicants to:

(1) Have a grade point average of at least a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale or a grade point average in the top 50th percentile for coursework completed during the most recent two years of the applicant’s general education, whether secondary or post-secondary; or

(2) Demonstrate mastery of general knowledge, including the ability to read, write, and compute, by achieving a minimum score on a standardized test normed to the general college-bound population, as approved by the Department.

Each educator preparation program may waive these admissions requirements for up to 10% of the students admitted. Programs shall implement strategies to ensure that students admitted under such a waiver receive assistance to demonstrate competencies to successfully meet requirements for certification.

(c) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall incorporate the following:

(1) A clinical residency component, supervised by high quality educators, as defined by the Department. The clinical residency shall consist of at least ten weeks of full-time student teaching. Clinical experiences shall also be interwoven throughout and aligned with program curriculum.

(2) Instruction for prospective elementary school teachers on research-based strategies for childhood literacy and age-appropriate mathematics content;

(3) Ongoing evaluation of students, consisting of no less than an annual evaluation, aligned to the statewide educator evaluation system;

(d) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall establish rigorous exit requirements, which shall include but not be limited to achievement of passing scores on both a content-readiness exam and a performance assessment.

(e) Education preparation programs administered by institutions of higher education shall collaborate with the Department to collect and report data on the performance and effectiveness of program graduates. At a minimum, such data shall measure performance and effectiveness of program graduates by student achievement. The effectiveness of each graduate shall be reported for a period of 5 years following graduation for each graduate who is employed as an educator in the State. Data shall be reported on an annual basis. The Department shall make such data available to the public.

(f) The Department shall promulgate rules and regulations governing educator preparation programs pursuant to this subchapter in collaboration with Delaware educators.”  Added.

Section 3. The effective date of this Act shall be July 1, 2014.

Here is the bill in full….

And here is the Delaware code for that same passage as it stand now, before any changes get wrought…..

Ok, done… Sounds good right?  Well for most it does.  But… some of us have inquiring minds. and since there are no National Enquirers on newstands this time of night, these changes here will have to be the object that absorb our attentions….

For example…

At first glance it appears that before one could still teach first and take the Praxis later.  Now one must take the Praxis first, period.  My problem with this is that if a super-great student teacher trains in one school, and that school is aware of an upcoming vacancy and really wants that teacher to fill it, they can’t until the Praxis is first taken.  Now one doesn’t walk in to take the Praxis, … or do they?  One has to wait, like we did back when we took our SAT’s, until the test is being offered.  That means this school which had a great chance at acquiring an awesome teacher, one they knew and wanted, must hire someone else who is a complete stranger to them, and who may not have as good of qualifications as did their own student teacher who they hoped could get that job.  Under the old bill, she could have worked and taken the test when it was offered.  Now, she can’t.  An amendment could solve this!

Secondly.  It appears that the old bill grandfathered anyone who has a certificate from before August 2003.  With a stroke of a pen, those are no longer valid.  I see some issues here.  I see a home economics teacher, who is impossible to replace (who learns home economics in college anymore?)  now at age 63 having to take todays recertification exams.  As a normal human being, I can barely remember most of my education because I don’t use it.  Today I pride myself on still being able to figure out my kids algebra. Woo Hoo!  Back in class our exam was to start from scratch and prove Einsteins theory of General Relativity; I can’t even begin to start it now….  Forgive me for being cynical here, but this just looks like a vehicle to remove someone before retirement sets in.   At most, a person in this capacity has been teaching for 10 years.  If you didn’t fire them in ten years because they were so good, you are planning on firing them now?  Is it because they make too much and you can hire someone cheaper?  Is it because if you remove them before retirement, you can cut back on the pensions they have saved up?  I don’t know this so I’m asking, but do we make Doctors take their MCAT’s over again in their old age?  We don’t?  Why not?  They are dealing with life and death.  What if they made a mistake and gave us 40 milligrams because they added 2.0 plus 2.o and missed the decimal points, giving us 40?  We don’t test them for a reason.  Because they know more already than the tests can check.  And why don’t we make lawyers take their LSAT’s over again?  Our OWN Attorney General had to take his Delaware Bar exam 3 times before he squeaked in over  the 154 benchmark.  He’s our Attorney General for heavens sakes!!!  Surely we should test HIM once a term maybe?  If he’s good, he should whiz through it… Hell, give him the Delaware Bar right now and let’s pull him if he doesn’t get a passing score… After all, if he can’t muster it, he shouldn’t practice law, ..right?  I don’t know this so I’m asking… So why don’t we test lawyers, like we are going to do teachers?

Because its just plain stupid that is why.  You test those to determine who gets in, and once they get in, their time needs to be spent on the tasks at hand, not focused on retaking test they’ve already taken….  Requiring ongoing multiple tests is as sensible as selling your stock and buying it back yourself just to say you don’t have any old stock… It’s  costing you a lot  in commissions to do so.

Passage of this bill allows for the removal of tenured teachers who after teaching all this time, can’t pass the exam…..  Something none of us could do, no matter how successful we are in our current careers.  By the way.  Did Mark Murphy have to pass a competency test as would these teachers,  before he took office?   Let’s give him the Praxis today and make his position dependent upon its passage.  If he fails to accept the challenge, then obviously, there is something wrong in this bill.  Although set in talk of raising standards,  there belies intent behind this bill to arbitrarily remove people the Department does not like…

Again, an amendment grandfathering this group, similar to the one before, can solve this problem.

Thirdly… and forgive me for going into this, but flat out… this is vague.  ”Each program shall be approved by the Department based upon significant, objective, and quantifiable performance measures.”  And that’s it.  No explanation.  What are or will be the performance measures?  As Steve points out, we have considerable measures currently in place.  We receive excellent teachers from our current crop of schools. So what exactly will be the significant, objective, and quantifiable measures? ( Playing devils advocate here, but the language is so vague, it could apply)  Do you have to be white?  Do you have to be a woman?  Do you have to be willing to work for $15,000 a year?  Do you have to be willing to work with no pension?   So how are you going to rate Del Tech’s teaching, Del State’s teaching, UDel’s teaching any differently than you do now?  If someone comes from Harvard,  how do you measure that, without telling us how you are measuring that?  We used to have to measure intelligence at the polls to vote. We thought is was funny to ask a white boy who was the president of the United States, and a black boy what the square root of 32 was to the 4th decimal place…  yes, it created lots of laughter.  But that is exactly what this legislation is creating.  An impartial, willy-nilly, capricious standard that can let some through the door, and close it on others…  Where is the standard?  If we don’t have it, why are we voting on something we haven’t seen?  Who here would sign a contract with a bank that was blank?  (Good thing I switched that around; that was going to be a Wilmington Trust jibe)…

Fourth, and again forgive me for asking, but what is the reasoning behind passing super high standards … then creating a back door so 10% of those below standard can walk in and join the party?   Isn’t that an exercise of futility?  The result is going to give you exactly the same results one has now.  Today 90% are 3.0 and above; 10 percent are just under.  Perhaps quantifying it could be their excuse… That’s the way it is so we’ll put it in writing.  Or maybe its trying to set a minimum so at some point in the future, generations not yet born, will not be tempted to go to 80/20 or 70/30 ratios.   Still, it just seems futile.  Of course we all know what happened was the original standard got offered, then the 10% was added to insure the objections raised were met, but still, the final piece now lacks credibility.  It was as if we said, “ok, you must follow the no text rulings, no texting or hand held phones… Except 10% of you will be allowed.  No problem for you.”  As an old corporate dog once advise me:  “If you’re going to make a ruling you can’t enforce, don’t make it.  It gives you personally only one option, and that is to lose.”

Fifth:  As noted by Steve, Delaware already utilizes far more than ten weeks of student teaching this bill requires.  By dropping the levels required to just 10 weeks, Delaware student teachers will be overqualified and should easily get jobs here in this state.  Is this lowering of the requirement to allow us to recruit and bring in cheaper teachers from other parts of the country, parts whose educational departments are perhaps not as thorough as is Delaware in its requirement for teachers?   I do know in some states, teachers tell their students that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.  Is this an attempt to whisk “those kind” into Delaware? ..  Our standards are already higher than that, so why are we lowering them while pretending it is raising the bar higher?  Do we need to start warning our children to beware of teachers who talk with funny accents?

Sixthly:  What do you mean when you say this:   Instruction for prospective elementary school teachers on research-based strategies for childhood literacy and age-appropriate mathematics content.   Excuse me for asking, but “whose” research will you use?  I’m sure you are well aware that the now accepted failure, No Child Left Behind, was attempted at all because of faulty research.  I’m sure you are well aware, the the school voucher program pushed forward in some states is failing desperately because it too, was based on faulty research.  I’m sure that you are well aware, that the entire charter school program is failing across this nation, and taking all its children down with it…. was based on faulty research…  So when you say research-based strategies, the hair sort of goes up on the back of my head… Uh oh.  As every single working teacher will tell you, each year there is a new, proven,  brand-new strategy that will finally, finally magically transform all students into a model classroom,…. and each year afterwards, … there is a new, proven brand-new strategy to replace it… All costing the state millions of dollars to implement I should add.  And furthermore, each time there is a top personnel change there is also a new research-based strategy to go along with it.  And as you know, each strategy takes up weeks of a teacher’s time they could spend with students, and if there was any redeeming value in that strategy, it is only discovered in the final weeks of the year, but alas it is too late.  Next year there will be a new strategy and teachers get to start all over.   And as reports of the tests come filtering back, there are multiple issues of where 7th grade material ends up being on 5th grade tests.  Who is determining the age appropriateness of the mathematics?  Surely not the same people who are making the test?  And while I have your attention… what really is the point of putting a question on a test that no one taking it has been trained to answer?   Why give a student who has passed algebra and trig and geometry and done well mind you, a Galileo equation?   As adults, none of us are tested on things we should not know? I mean would we really put complicated questions of Ugandan history on Beau Biden’s Bar Review that he must pass to pursue a career?  Of course not… That is torture.  To do so would just be mean and nothing else.  So why are we torturing little children?

Again, there is no definition of standards. What are they?  Can they be misused like almost the exact wording was put in law back during the Southern Segregational Era?   Do you know how many research strategies their are?   Google gives you 56,700,000 in under a second.  There have been at least 10 used in every school over the last 10 years…  So out of all of them, which one is right?  Isn’t that an extremely arbitrary decision?

Seventh:  As has been frequently pointed out, we currently have standard that must be met to teach.  They are rather difficult to achieve.  Most schools have a final exam. After four years of college it is nice to get a score to see where you stand.  And heaven forbid, if beer was your major and you failed to meet the standard of the college on its final exam, you couldn’t represent that college as alumni.  No problem there.  But I’m curious, how one expects to discern the educational aptitude of  teachers coming from a variety of locations,  like George Fox University, or the University of Central Arkansas, or Concord University, or Everglades University, or Franklin Pierce University?  Sure they pass their tests, they got their degree, but can they even be close to as good as someone coming from  a much more difficult regimen at a Delawarean university or college?   So we say No to someone to entering college got a 1400 combined on their SAT, because they didn’t pass Delaware’s stringent test, and say yes to someone from Everglades University, who entered college with a combined SAT of 1000, and was taught the test and passed it with a high score.  How does that benefit children?

That question could be fixed with an amendment requiring the GRE to be part of the assessment.  Otherwise, this action is pointless because of so many standards nationwide.

Eighth.  And here is the crucial point.   After graduating the bar of success or failure will be data collected from testing students. When a new teacher joins a district, where do you think they will be placed?  In the best classrooms with the best students?  Or in the classes after every current teacher has been given the opportunity to move up, that are left?  Obviously the latter.  So a great teacher, one who would teach suburban students amazingly, finds themselves in a classroom of students whose lifetime ambition is to get a good rep in what was once Gander Hill, but is now the Howard Young Correctional Center…  ”I’m sorry miss, but your scores are embarrassing. You can’t work in Delaware anymore.”  Likewise a teacher who doesn’t give a damn, who luckily is in a great environment, gets raises year after year.   Tests do not measure students accurately, so using them to fire teachers is just plain wrong.  If you’ve read this far… you had good teachers.  None of them were tested into the ground like we are doing to ours today.  What?  How can that be?  How on earth can you have great education, one that make America into a world power, without testing 3 times a year, and again, many times between that?  How can it be?….

Obviously it was.  And in the real world, that alone would put an end to this policy of testing ad nauseum.

But we don’t live in a real world anymore, do we?  It seems not.

Ninth.  And there is one important thing that is missing.  How much will this cost?  Any estimates?  Who will get the contracts? Pearson?  ETS?  College Board? The ACE?  Someone’s getting wealthy…  But how much will this cost, and will that be supported by a tax upon the wealthy to pay for it, or will it be culled from existing programs now doing a great job today?

These issues need to be addressed before the House passes the bill….  As i said at the beginning, it all sounds nice… “higher standards for teachers?  Sure, why not?”   But then, a year later…. “What!  They fired Ms. Jones!  Are they effin’ crazy?  She’s the best teacher in this school!”  and two years later, … “Mr. Principal:  your scores are down. You failed.”  Then at three years later: “ladies and gentlemen, we are closing this school.”

Perhaps it’s time to look at bills closely before passing them unanimously.

Has The News Journal Awakened Yet?

Let’s see, any new news on RTTT and the failure of our current educational program?

Nope.  They are still asleep.   But the blogs are where it’s at.  They’ve been busy….

Stop Blaming Teachers For Your Own Incompetence

Document leaked

Kilroy exploring run

I Told YOU So!  

We Should Stop Trying To Emulate China: We’re Better Than That

Somehow it seems like Deja Vu and Global warming all over again. The News Journal is ignoring the evidence world-wide, and focusing only on what one tiny enclaved establishment wants them to hear…

So sad.

Children! Sit Down! Time For Today’s Quiz!

Courtesy of Obamarmy

Ok kids, Look at the graph…. and see who can be the first to tell me….. Why do we really need to ramp up the education of our black and brown kids now?!!!!

Tax the Rich. Hire teachers to reach an 11 to 1 ratio. Test beginning, mid, and end of cycle only to evaluate the student’s needs ( don’t use them to close schools, fire teachers, or divvy out bonuses to your friends and supporters)… and lets get it done….

Btw, it has to start with the first one.

President Obama Is Your Gun Investor’s Best Friend

Courtesy of Obamarmy

The future looks dark ….(man I tried, but there was just no way I could let that thought go without saying that, lol)…..

Courtesy of Obamarmy

Just the amount of the increase in gun sales since we got ourselves the best President ever, is more than all the guns sold during the Bush Administration….

If you currently have investments in American (or foreign) gun manufactures, time go get out is now. With such a glut on the market, who is going to buy a new household gun anytime after 2016 when the president is again white? You’ll be able to get them for free on Craigslist….

And, on a completely unrelated topic, with all those guns now out there, without establishing a registry how on earth are we going to keep from having a gigantic bloodbath at some future point? Just imagine if we didn’t have any laws, registration, or insurance pertaining to cars, what a mess we’d have now?

Gun Registry is common sense and one day will be put into action. It is similar to all the great things this nation has done, like freeing the slaves, banning desegregation, breaking apart monopolies, banning tobacco inside of buildings; it is just one of those common sense things that will eventually rise through the filters and become the law of the land.

Without the NRA being so stupid, I don’t think I’d have ever come to that conclusion independently…. So maybe it is a good thing they are daft with brains as smart as pigeons placed inside of boxes…..

Ban High Capacity Clips Today!!

As reported in the Washington Post…

Finally discovered, the Tsarnaevs led police on a chase through residential streets, hurling grenades and makeshift bombs as they drove. When cornered, they battled police with guns and more homemade explosives, wounding a transit officer and trading more than 200 rounds until the officers ran out of ammunition.

If they only had to reload at shot number 15…

And, wtf?  Officers ran out of ammunition?  This is how the NRA is ruining America.  Give Criminals more rights than have the police…   (That and shooting defenseless pigeons in boxes…. )