I just read another of Earl Jacques (lobbyist extrordinaire for charter schools) comments given free to the News Journal and it hit me: that is exactly what drug dealers say when trying to hook you onto heroin…
Exactly.
Word for Word.
Universally.
Paraphrased it was something like… don’t listen to mom and dad… Live a little. Just take the test…
As would a heroin drug seller (we used to call them pushers for good reason), little concern for the well being of children is expressed… It is only about the sale… When can you give me the money?
But it drives home the danger of allowing your child to try the Smarter Balanced Assessment just one time, as hopefully you would educate your children never to try heroin, not even one time…. Because once they got you…. they got you.
If your child takes the Smarter Balanced assessment and passes, essentially he just wasted 2 or 3 days filled with headaches. Congratulations upon your parenting or his Lucky Charms you fed him that morning. (Yellow Moons). Just like if your child tried heroin and decided, no thanks, never again and righteously kept his own word.
But only three out of every ten will pass this test. The rest will fail… Seven out of ten that is, who will fail this test… Not because they are dumb, but because they happened to guess “b” compared to what the test-makers thought was best when they originally chose the best answer out of 4 correct answers to be: “d”… Who, determined it was the “best” answer when professional adults can’t even agree?
Those who fail, will have “FAILURE” permanently etched on their record…. Forever, and ever, and ever, and ever…..
Yet they would never be failures if the test did not exist. Instead they would have been outstanding students, since they are more than capable of doing everything the teacher asks of them and more…
All because they literally got a wrong answer when “guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar”… (dont’ believe me? You must be the last person besides Earl Jacques to have not taken the test). Finding the right answer is literally a guessing game with answers determined randomly or some existential thought process, and not by rules determined by scientific law or by facts.
Here is an example.. the statement is: “If I say I pee’d in a bucket;”… now remember, your entire future depends on getting this right, now cue the music……. (kettle drums) Which of those words is the most important?
Some will say “I”. Some will say “if”. Some will say “say”. Some will say “Pee’d”. Some will say “in”. Some will say “bucket”… But 5 of those 6 will be wrong…. Which is it, adults? To play: leave your answer and explanation below in the comments and let’s see who wins… (for fun)_. But this won’t be fun to the child who gets left behind because his random guess did not fall whatever way the test-maker thought!
In fact, this is nothing less than a screening test to weed out or allow in, those who think alike in a very narrow spectrum.
But for 70% of students…. that failure will never be erased, barring some miracle legislation to come out of this General Assembly… With Schwartzkoph, miracles are unlikely. It will not be allowed on the floor in the House, because if it did, it would be overwhelmingly and rapidly passed…
There is a 7 out of 10 chance your child will be rated a failure…. and have to settle for a minimum wage job across the span of his life, simply because this test of randomness called him out as such…. It reminds me of the taunts I used to get when the spinner would only stop on the ones and twos when I played Chute’s and Ladders while others spun 5’s and 6’s)…
There is only a 4 out of 10 chance your child will become a heroin addict after one try… thus ironically making the Smarter Balanced test worse for your child than heroin…
You are the parent. There are evil people in this world… Some are “pushers” in and around your school… Some are “pushers” in legislative hall… Still… You are the parent….
You need to treat both as equally dangerous… For they are… And the only way to protect your child, the only way to guarantee he/she won’t be one of the four addicts, or one of the seven failures. is to make sure they never try the poison once…. That as every parent knows, IS THE ONLY WAY TO GUARANTEE YOUR CHILD WILL HAVE A LONG AND PRODUCTIVE FUTURE… NEVER TRY HEROIN. NEVER TAKE THE SMARTER BALANCED ASSESSMENT.
Both are evil. Both use children to economically benefit the sellers…..
Don’t let your child take the test and get on the horn and tell your legislator to vote to not allow any child’s Smarter Balanced Score to ever be put anywhere near their permanent record....whether or not they got tricked into taking the test.
Please tell your school your child has opted out. And don’t let him near school on test days.
kavips 
4 comments
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March 18, 2015 at 10:09 pm
anonymous
One sees the conflicting interests, something like this:
Side 1,) public school personnel saying they are doing a terrific job preparing all kids for the future, so leave us alone; and the common core/charter side saying kids need to rapidly and sufficiently learn to learn in order to be better prepared and capable of adapting to future requirements.
And all this reminds one of the climate change problem. With climate change there are two options (or a combination of the two options.) Option A) being the immediate and drastic reduction of CO2 pollution – reducing risks (Mitigation;) or Option B) Adaptation, to hopefully reduce the bad effects of climate change and live with it. One should start Option A immediately. Mitigation could help reduce the severity and harmful consequences. But Option B is also necessary because Adaptation will prepare the public and governments for what’s already in the pipeline. An over abundance of CO2 pollution effects the children’s world for decades and centuries to come. CO’s greenhouse effects lasts for 200 years. (Not to mention the effects of rising temperatures on ice, methane releasing, the dozens of resulting positive (not good) feedback systems, etc. One cannot say Mitigation alone is favorable over Adaptation or vice versa. We’re passed tipping points. Adaptation alone leads to a dead end if pollution is allowed to increase. We need both – now. (And by the way, we need an educated public, educated political leaders, earth scientists, etc. more than ever. Get busy educators.)
Mitigation and Adaptation are both extremely costly. Ignoring both is – catastrophically, world, life altering.
One must acknowledge the Rights of Children, to a livable environment – as well as acknowledging other species, so Mitigation and Adaptation must be demanded to be put to full force, as if a living environment depended on such actions. It does.
Mitigation sounds good – except we have ignored those with scientific authority. Instead politicians still cater to the present day fossil fuel interests and haven’t built up alternative energies in order to be able to rapidly Mitigate further CO2 pollution while maintaining necessities of clean fuels, energy, food, water, transportation, economies, natural oceans, currents, normal climates, etc. CO2 reduction could also buy some time for learning to adapt. And since the rise in temperatures (especially in the Arctic for one example) will cause rapid and profound climate change results, (which are already beginning sooner than expected,) Adaptation must also start now.
So what does all of the above have to do with changing the way kids learn, with existing tests or new tests or public or charter school teachers???
One sees the method of learning, such as the districts, buildings, the materials, the teachers, the administrators, as being secondary and sometimes useless to learning, as is Adaptation to climate change without CO2 pollution reduction. What should be a first priority, is seeing that kids are ABLE to learn, just as it is necessary for CO2 pollution to be reduced to natural (or at least acceptable levels (300 ppm) in order to be able to progress at all.
Children must be pollution free. Free from the pollution of abusive parents, abusive cultures, free from fear, filth, free from hunger, free from lack of sleep, shelter, etc. – before one can expect good results of having kids able to meet their educational expectations.
Think of the missing first step in education as being the same as missing CO2 regulations. One question for the educators.. Are 100% of the children free from a mentally/physically/emotionally contaminated home environment? One already knows the answer. It’s no. And yet, political leadership ignores step one – which is dealing with the present polluting home environments. That’s why there are social services, food allotments, family courts, prisons, a health dept, and a slew of other resources. It’s time to clean up the child’s world, see that they have a safe supportive home life, otherwise, you’re fighting a loosing battle as more damaged children will continue and continue to show up at the school doors, unable to adapt to thinking, learning and a healthy future. It shouldn’t just be all about the educational interests; just as it shouldn’t be all about the fossil fuel interests. It must be all about children being permitted to exist in a normal, healthy world.
Get the parental pollution out of children’s lives, then they will be able to adapt from there. Educate the parents one way or another.
What will happen as politicians continue to ignore CO2 pollution and say – folks just need to learn to adapt. The towns will flood, highways sink, jobs lost, as folks will be without normal climates, ice caps, food security, healthy waterways, energy security, healthcare, economies, without the good life as they once knew it.
One would be in awe of a leader who would say, we will free children from abusive, polluting parenting and see that all children have a Right to be naturally READY to learn. Everyone knows, that’s what the very best parents always do. And the worst parents send their kids to school to fail. And politicians, educators, various agencies, continue to accept that.
One sees the present ‘education’ battle being fueled by the money and powers, instead of by the child’s Right to a better life. If one thinks people wouldn’t ignore the Rights of voiceless, powerless children so – think about children and climate change
Whether it’s the kid’s education problem or the kids climate change problem. doing nothing about the real problems kids face, will change nothing.
March 19, 2015 at 8:02 pm
Joanne Christian
I’ll play. The term pee’d isn’t used at my house. We tinkle. So right off the bat, mine are culturally disadvantaged. And–most likely mine would be looking for word correction over word importance. And then there’s the reveal…..what? you pee’d in a bucket? And down that rabbit hole we go…..
Please identify the gateway drug to SBA 🙂
March 20, 2015 at 3:26 am
kavips
You got boys (men) to say they tinkle?
March 20, 2015 at 3:30 am
kavips
There has been a lot of thought underlying this next terse statement. But the gateway drug to SBA I honestly think, was good intentions fast-tracked way to fast through delegation with no accountability….
It could have been a good thing… But simply… isn’t. In fact, it is so bad, I truly fear for every child whose parent either is clueless or too trusting of authority to opt them out…
People! This is a no-brainer. Don’t let your child take the test. However way you must arrange it!… Don’t let them take the test!