I actually learned this from studying the Common Core testing results of the state of New York.  In the matrix of numbers was the silver lining that practically eliminates the black/white achievement gap once and for all…. If implemented, those students living in poverty here in the city of Wilmington, will score the same as those from $500,000 dollar homes on the west side of Newark…  Identical scores.

Just make the tests so hard, that no one can pass them.  It doesn’t matter if they are black.  It doesn’t matter if they are Hispanic.  It doesn’t matter if they know English.  It doesn’t matter if they never learned to read…  They all get a zero and the achievement gaps all disappear….

Funny, huh?

Would you think it was funny if I told you that was the design behind making the tests so hard?  Would you think it was funny if I told you that was the reason the scores were cut in New York,  a cut so extreme it failed 70%of New York’s children?   Would you think it was funny if after taking the Smart Balance Assessments,  (like how can you make math any harder) you yourself would have to wonder who wrote such unintelligible questions, questions so convoluted one can’t even understand what is being asked?

Obviously all is done to make it impossible not to fail.  Fail everyone.  Then show that even within that failure, just how much the achievement gap had grown smaller, so see…. Common Core is working….

Still sound too bizarre to be true?  It does, doesn’t it?

But that is what happens when you make a test more important than teaching children.  When you fire or promote a teacher based on a test score, you focus on the test score.  When you keep open or close a school based on a test score, you cause everyone to become obsessed with that test score.  When you compete as a state for jobs, based on ones test scores, all funding for education is going to be aimed at raising that test score…

“Mommy?  …  …..  I don’t like school anymore.  I’m not learning anything….”

That is the direction we are heading.

Instead of allocating proper resources, resources owned by the top 1% and just begging for the taking , and applying them to the known problem we have, poverty’s effect on learning…… we are instead, making tests so hard that everyone fails, and calling Common Core a great success….

See, everyone is equal.  They all got an “F”…….

“But what did they actually learn?”

If you really are concerned about the achievement gap, you will leave funding for affluent schools as is, and increases the overall educational budget, and apply that increase to schools who have over a 50% level of free lunch students….

You will not focus on testing. You will focus on teaching. The way you will know you are successful is when the student, someone’s child, performs successfully.

That is what we all signed on for. That is what we thought was going on all along. But you tricked us.