Ohio Superintendent: Testing Is Out of Control. This statement appeared on the blog of the Ohio Equity and Adequacy Coalition.
I gladly add Tom Dunn to the honor roll for speaking out when the state is going in the wrong direction. Another superintendent distressed by Ohio’s testing rage Tom Dunn’s column in the February 22 The Troy Daily News should be requires reading for state officials. How much of a bad thing is a good thing? Ohio: Superintendent Says “Enough Is Enough” I am pleased to add Superintendent Greg Power to the honor roll.
He spoke up to those in power in Ohio, bluntly castigating them for the “assessment madness” that is ruining education. His statement was posted online by the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy. Bill Phillis of the Coalition writes: Ohio won't penalize districts for kids who opt out of state tests. COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state won't penalize school districts if large numbers of students skip this year's state test, state Superintendent Richard Ross announced today.
An ever-growing number of parents are pulling their kids out of new state tests this year, as the state dramatically increases testing time and changes test providers. 11 problems created by the standardized testing obsession. 5 Fantastic, Fast, Formative Assessment Tools.
I thought I could read my students' body language.
Storaasli PARCC testimony. New school tests spur anger, absences. Scroll to the bottom of the story to tell us what you think about the new tests.
More area school parents are taking a "none of the above" stance and yanking their kids from what they say is excessive new testing. PARCC Tests and Readability: A Close Look. I approach the subject of readability on the new PARCC tests with caution.
Readability is the third rail for literacy specialists. While The Literacy Dictionary, defines readability as "an objective estimate or prediction of reading comprehension of material in terms of grade level", such objectivity does not ensure accuracy. All sorts of formulas for estimating readability exist and all of them are both useful and inaccurate or misleading in some way. As I said in a previous post here, readability is too complex to be captured by a mere number as the currently popular Lexile measures attempt to do, or by a grade level as other traditional formulas try to do.
Readability is best understood as a dynamic between the characteristics of the reader, the characteristics of the text and the particular task that is being attempted. Do PARCC Reading Passages Exceed Tested Grade Levels? In Response to the Ohio Department of Education’s “Information on Student Participation in State Tests:” An open letter to the Ohio Department of Education, State Board of Education, and Ohio Legislators. February 5, 2015 Dear Ohio Department of Education, State Board of Education, and Ohio Legislators: Recently I submitted an open “opt-out” letter to my district administrators and school board members through a blog post titled My Sons and Their Teachers Deserve Better.
Apparently my words resonated with others because within ten days it received approximately 15,000 views. I freely allowed others to use parts of the letter that were relevant to their situations for submission to their schools and districts. This letter was a result of culminating frustration with high stakes standardized testing personally and professionally as described in My High Stakes Testing Story. The beginning of this ODE document contains some accuracy, such as the fact that Ohio does not have an “opt-out” procedure or form. Guidance-on-Student-Participation-in-State-Tests.pdf.aspx.
2015-Math-and-ELA-Testing-Checklist_011415.pdf.aspx. 2015-Science-and-Social-Studies-Testing-Checklist011415.pdf.aspx. State Test Preparation Checklist. Preparing for PARCC. Spotlight on Using Assessment to Support Teaching and Learning. The Education Week Spotlight on Using Assessment to Support Teaching and Learning is a collection of articles hand-picked by our editors for their insights on: Using formative-assessment tools and resources in the common-core eraTesting digital tools to improve formative assessmentsDeveloping "teacher-researchers" in the classroomPreparing students to become assessment-capable learners You get the six articles below in a downloadable PDF.
Educators gathered recently for training on how to size up instructional resources for possible inclusion in a digital library that a common-core testing consortium is developing. March 11, 2014 - Education Week Summit High School in Oregon is experimenting with a mix of new technologies to build teacher-student feedback loops that help personalize instruction.
Www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Parent PARCC Brochure for Students with Disabilities.pdf. Common Core in the Classroom: New standards help teachers create effective lesson plans. WINTER 2015 / VOL. 15, No. 1 When I tell people that I spent my summer creating a curriculum aligned with the Common Core State Standards, I invariably get a quizzical look.
In the often heated national debate over the Common Core, opponents have cast the standards as a threat to teacher autonomy and students’ intellectual creativity. The result is a public perception that there is very little wiggle room for teachers in choosing what to present in their classrooms. My experience as a lead lesson planner reveals that perception to be a false one. During my summer planning, I kept the Common Core standards next to me while I dove deeply into the novels and nonfiction works we would be reading in 7th-grade English the next year.
The Common Core standards served as a helpful resource. When the curriculum was completed, I felt confident about the lessons we had created, but knew this meant nothing if they did not resonate with the students. Ohio House panel OKs bill to repeal Common Core. COLUMBUS -- An Ohio House panel has passed a Republican proposal to repeal Common Core learning standards in the state, sending it on to the full House.
The powerful House Rules and Reference Committee passed the measure 7-2 without making changes Wednesday, a day after the GOP won resounding election victories. The hearing came as school districts across Ohio work to implement the standards, which are supported by a diverse coalition including teachers' unions and community and business groups. RELATED: Hearings set for Ohio proposed Common Core repeal The bill's sponsors say the legislation responds to widespread discontent from parents, teachers and communities about the standards. Sponsoring Reps. Read or Share this story: High-achieving teacher sues state over evaluation labeling her ‘ineffective’ Sheri G. Lederman has been teaching for 17 years as a fourth-grade teacher in New York’s Great Neck Public School district.
Campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=5af696cb-a66c-41cc-9fdc-b6f8cabc2214&c=64959fa0-92da-11e3-83b1-d4ae5275396f&ch=6574b500-92da-11e3-83d0-d4ae5275396f. MEDIA CONTACT: Chad Colby (202) 419-1570, ccolby@achieve.org Achieve Posts 50th Common Core-Aligned Lesson through EQuIP Initiative 50 Exemplar or Exemplar If Improved Lessons and Units are Now Publicly Available to Educators Washington, D.C. - October 28, 2014 - For implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to be successful, all educators need access to high quality and aligned instructional materials. Achieve launched the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) initiative to build the capacity of educators to evaluate and improve the quality of instructional materials for use in their classrooms and schools.
Drilling down on education data. A new bounty of academic data is guiding teachers as they adjust instruction in the hopes of boosting student achievement. Some districts are connecting “data coaches” with the teachers’ own professional learning communities (PLCs) to ensure this bounty of information fulfills its pedagogical promise. Using portions of the $4 billion Race to the Top initiative, educators in Delaware, Rhode Island, Hawaii and other states have been working with data coaches—many of whom are former teachers—to learn how to parse data to plan lessons and reach end-of-year academic benchmarks, among other short- and long-term goals. “At some point, it’s vital that we link our instruction to the gaps we are seeing in kids,” says Daniel R. Venables, executive director of the Center for Authentic PLCs. “Once we do, we can make a goal and then develop an action plan.” Common Core assessments will become the most significant data to evaluate, Venables says. Make the most of student data.
When you hear the term data, you might not get very excited. Data has a reputation for being dry, boring and difficult to deal with. All this changes, however, when you consider data’s capabilities. The truth is, of all the amazing technological advancements in recent decades, the ability to quickly capture, analyze and apply data on student learning and progress has the potential to facilitate some of the biggest improvements to our educational system we’ve seen yet.
We’ve had access to basic student data through standardized testing for a long time, but only in the past decade have complex data systems become affordable and accessible enough for administrators and teachers to use them to track real-time student data. These systems can help us differentiate and personalize instruction, use formative assessments effectively and optimize districtwide tech initiatives — in short, they can revolutionize education. This isn’t hype. Academics. The skills gap is a learning gap. Continuous learning, lifelong learning, learning organizations, and constant learning – terms we hear every day about the changing nature of the workplace. We don’t even know what skills to prepare for, but most people agree that we all need to keep on learning if we wish to remain relevant at work, in our professions, or in life. Just watch how new technology is adopted by people of my age. It can be painful. With technology accelerating change in the marketplace and automation replacing highly skilled workers with robots, the decision to invest in any particular set of skills is far from obvious.
What happened when George failed his state standardized test. What happens to a young student who fails a mandated standardized test that decides whether he/she can move to the next grade, or to an older student who fails a test that determines if he/she graduates? Formative Assessment - Blooms Levels Questions. Differentiation. The COMMON in Common Core State Standards is not just referring to the fact that the majority of states in the US have adopted these standards for Math and English Language Arts.
Here in Ohio, where Ohio's New Learning Standards include not just the CCSS but also new standards in Science, Social Studies, Fine Arts, Business, Physical Education, Foreign Language and more, the expectation is that COMMON means for all students in all districts. That's right, ALL students, no matter what their ability level, grade level, economic background, ethnic background or primary language. The challenge for teachers is not only how to implement the new standards effectively ,focusing on text complexity, depth of learning, mastery of content, vocabulary development, fluency etc. but also making sure that all students are "stretched" as learners and show growth over a year.
Test Drive The New PARCC Assessment Questions. Tbowers3.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/student-learning-objectives-presentation.pdf. Common Core State Standards: An Overview. I Teach Bay. General Resources for All Subject Areas - The Common Core Conversation. ODE "Trees" WolframAlpha.