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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The test whisperer Parents United for Responsible Education

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The test whisperer

Can anyone really take this seriously?
Guy is a rancher, develops a program to boost test scores based on how he relates to his horses. It has something to do with trust, but apparently a lot more to do with teaching to the lump of sugar.
The Tribune reports that “school turnaround guru” Dennis Parker “insists that teachers cover all content in the state tests. Many do not, he said, because they follow textbooks that don’t include everything California students need to know.”
Um, you mean, need to know ON THE TEST.
Parker pushes teachers to have all students answer all questions; for example, by having them reply in unison. Doing so allows students to answer as many as 7,000 questions in the classroom per year, compared with 300 if called on individually, he said.
On Aguirre’s walls: a chart of every algebra concept the state expects students to know, with