NYC Educator: What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?

NYC Educator: What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?

What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?

The NY Post is on the case of students who pass English and math but fail state tests. Evidently the only conclusion they can reach is that this is grade inflation. As usual, neither City Councilman Robert Holden, the fraud-alleging complainant, nor the paper has bothered to examine what is actually on those state tests.

The assumption, as usual, is that the state tests are the gold standard. This is odd, since just a few weeks ago, the Post was calling the NAEP the gold standard and saying its results were "final proof" of de Blasio's educational failure.

It's not surprising when a paper's editorial staff is out of sync with its reporting staff. I see it all the time. Daily News and NY Times editorials are generally no kinder to us than those of the Post. But the more I read the editorials, the more I think people who write them just ignore current events and grasp at whatever to support their already well-established prejudices. Good reasons, bad reasons--who cares as long as the points they wish are made?

I don't know very much about math, and I don't know very much about state math exams either. Perhaps the state math exams are the best standardized exams on earth. I doubt it, though, since they're based on Common Core, exemplified by David Coleman's core philosophy, "No one gives a shit what you think or feel." I won't begin to speculate what that portends for math, but it's extremely hard to see how that philosophy motivates living, breathing students. (People are not very important in David Coleman's world, and I can see why. I, for example, don't give a crap what he thinks or feels, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn he met many people with that opinion in his formative years.)

I'm a lot more familiar with English exams. The NY State English Regents is total crap. It doesn't measure reading or writing. I know students who've passed it with scores in the high 80s. Teaching them, I learned they were patently unable to construct a coherent sentence in English. I know students whose strategy to ace the multiple choice sections is to avoid the reading passage altogether and simply hunt for the answers.

It's hard for me to lend credence to an examination that actively discourages reading. It's hard for me to imagine any worthwhile writing being created by anyone who followed the CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?