Well said, Sundae and Dana ... your comments stitch together the empirical with the theoretical.

I'm quite proud of Oregon in many ways, but here is another "real world test" of how well Oregon schools are doing.
This has been a public secret for some time, and parents and students are frustrated at their costs, both in $ and time.

Certainly, not all students are expected or need to go on to college,
but for those that do, I doubt Oregon education is far removed from other US states.

75% of Oregon high school grads who go straight to community college must take remedial classes
OregonLive.com-May 7, 2015
But here, by coincidence one week later, is one response of the Oregon legislature...
[in Oregon "Smarter Balance" = "Common Core"]

Oregon Senate Passes Crucial Testing Law, HB 2680
Salem-News.com - 5/12/15

My kids' report cards don't have grades on them. What they mark is whether the child is proficient in a specific skill--not just "math," but multiplication vs. division, etc. They have to take the state tests by law, but they ignore them as much as they can; it's just a thing they do one day then they go right back to their own curriculum.* And they tell prospective families at application information meetings, "if standardized test scores at the elementary level are important to you, do not come here, because our lower elementary students do not perform as well. However, by the time our students are at the high school level, they are far, far outperforming their peers, because the only thing their peers ever learned was how to take a test."

And yet, by definition those students had passed those tests, or they could not have graduated. So they took they test, they passed the test, and yet they didn't have the skills. It's almost as if they were taught how to take a test, rather than the underlying skills they were supposed to be learning.

Teachers in public schools spend literally weeks on "test-taking skills:" how to narrow down multiple choice answers and make a more likely guess, how to go through and pick out the easiest ones first so you don't waste your limited time on a hard problem... I agree that the students need the skills. What I'm saying is the test does not accurately determine whether they have the skills, and in fact prevents them from having as many skills as they could have.


*The International Baccalaureate curriculum, which is not just a charter school thing, it is available and used by many public schools across the country, and is wildly successful pretty much everywhere it is implemented.

Clod, My use of “grades” wasn’t intended to mean only “A,B,C,D,F”.
Many public schools also have “report / grade cards” similar to your description.

As I have seen on this IB web site, their descriptions are multiplex - a mix of different implementations,
from an "IBschool” meaning an entire school, to a particular/separate class, to several different “opt out / opt in” situations.
On one hand IB seems similar to Advanced Placement (except also being available for K-12 / ages 5-16).
Also there are IB programs for non-college bound students.

So I have no idea in which form of IB your children are enrolled,
but IB does seem to have good reputations for well designed educational programs.
And I am happy for you that you have the resources to make such choices for your children.

But IB, like other non-public education centers, do make additional $ and other demands.
I read one news article that Utah had been spending $300k a year on IB programs.

To wit, IB says:

And if these higher costs are absorbed within a public school system -
i.e., in order to benefit specific students - then remaining resources for other students are diminished.

It’s like a private trash or a delivery company saying they can do a better job
by taking over trash-pick up or mail services, but only to pre-selected addresses

I simply believe that overall, “public education systems” work better in this country
than succumbing to “ support the cream of the crop and leave the rest to fend for themselves”

I better sit out until Clod clears this up.

While you're waiting grab some Styrofoam cups and magic markers, fuck Pearson. ;)

Charter schools are free to students. You do have to pay for the certification tests as a 12th grader in order to actually receive transfer credits for college, but 1.) the curriculum is still worthwhile even if the child doesn't intend to go to college, because it teaches topics in a completely different way, and 2.) there are tons of scholarships available to cover the cost of the tests for any who can't afford it. The certification at the end is the least important part of the program.

All curricula--including whatever textbooks and programs the public schools currently choose to use that meet common core guidelines--cost money. It's possible that IB is still more expensive, I don't know, but paying IB means not paying, say, Pearson. It's also worth noting that $300K across an entire state's education budget is next-to-nothing. That's equivalent to 7 teachers' salaries in a state that employs almost 26,000 teachers. (And before you say it, no, I'm not suggesting that they should fire teachers to pay for it. I'm just saying $300,000 sounds like a lot but in reality is very little.)

As you said, the quality of the program depends on the implementation, but that's true of any curriculum. And while it's true that there are some schools who only partially implement the IB program and allow students to opt in or out, I have never heard of a school hand-selecting students to benefit from the program--each child can decide for themselves whether to participate, assuming the school isn't exclusively IB to begin with. It's really not about the tests or college credit, it's about what happens for the 12 years leading up to it. I also disagree with their assertion that children who struggle in school may not be up for it. My son was struggling, and does better with IB because of how it is structured differently.

I agree that you can't support only the cream of the crop and leave the rest to fend for themselves. But you also can't teach to the lowest common denominator and leave everyone else bored out of their minds, which is what the standardized testing forces teachers to do.

This was our K-8 school too. last one about to graduate 8th grade. My two highschoolers have 3.9+ GPAs so it seems like no standardized testing and no grades to compare between students until high school hasn't harmed them.

The focus on each report was skills acquired, skills needing work and individual improvement between assessments

Ha! I was going to throw that up. He actually gets it.

If I have overstated or said something inappropriate, I do apologize and need and want to be set straight.

I have been reading as much as I could about CC standards, and am truly surprised at all the furor.
So far, many links, discussions, and the majority of website discussions have been about the horrors
of CC testing, evil corporations (Pearson), absence of “actual teachers” from the CC process, etc.

One exception is an argument that CC standards are inappropriate to students with IEP’s.
My first reaction was, Yes, that’s probably true.
But then in my reading, I found some links designed to assist
Special Ed teachers understand and implement CC.

A major assertion on these sites seems to be that there is no need for there to be a conflict
… that all legal standards for IEP remain in place ...
specifically including that students have access to all education curricula,
and the opportunity to learn the same skills and concepts,
at an appropriate level for each individual by incorporating
“specially designed support and accommodations”.

And, while access to grade level standards must remain available,
CC does not prevent students from working at other levels
based on individual assessments... that is, the IEP.

Here is such a link from Washington State (67-page pdf)

It's exactly like John Oliver said, it all sounds like a good idea on paper. It's the implementation and unintended consequences that have turned out so awfully. It's not about what Common Core hoped to do. It's about what Common Core has actually done, in reality.

I asked my son yesterday if he got any flack from his teacher for not turning in the form, and he said that he didn't, and that there were a bunch of other kids who also didn't turn in the form.

So this morning I got an email from the school. To "dear parent." They haven't received my form and would like it as soon as possible.


They don't explain what "appropriate remediation" looks like.

It does look fine from a distance. Let's look closer.

I have a kid, carrying an ASD label on my caseload, whose behavior, memory problems, and anxiety put him in that 93% of children with IEPs who will fail the assessments. He was doing okay at school in the weeks before the tests having mostly "green days". Then along came the two weeks of testing. For two weeks on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday he had a two hour blocks of testing. This is a child who would never pass these tests. He could have had extra time as an accommodation. So he sits for 2 hours a day for 6 days while the test reinforces the idea that he does not know a goddamn thing. If a parent locked a kid in a room for 2 hours a day while telling him that he's stupid and Child Protective could prove it they'd remove him from the home. He actually bit himself during the testing period. That was a behavior not seen in many months. He's had mostly "red days" in the month since the testing period but was doing better when I saw him this week.

That really does sound like a miserable situation.

I don't have any understanding what is ASD, or what makes for a "green" day in this child's life.
But I'm fairly certain the intentions of CC were not to have such a negative impact on any child.

I don't know what the legal limits are for IEP's
I don't know what the limits are regarding CC testing
I know I don't know what I'm talking about !

But assuming this was my child, John, and for whatever reason, as his parent,
I believed that CC standards were important for my son,
I might try the following arguments...

John may never "pass" the CC tests, but as an "assessment" it might help me
and/or his teachers to understand better what are John's potentials and his current capabilities,
compared with other kids with ASD here and in other schools.

Can't John's IEP be written to allow other accomodations
to give him the support he needs while he is taking the test
... not just more time sitting and being miserable ...

Maybe one of his friends could be with him.
Maybe one of his teachers could be with him.
Maybe one of the ESD staff could be with him.
Maybe the questions could be read to him.
Maybe the questions could be interpreted to him.
Maybe his answers could be written down for him.
Maybe the assessment session could be broken into shorter segments.

I know....I don't know what I'm talking about.

What I am trying to do is ask if the IEP is a strong enough tool
to give John access to the benefits of the CC standards
in a way that may be unique, but necessary for him, to yield a valid assessment.

That is, his "test score" may not be "passing", but it's only a number.
But if it's a valid number across schools and states, then resources
might be better used or created to have a better outcome for John.

Of course not. Common Core is not evil, it's just a failure. Intentions are irrelevant.

Generally speaking, all of these are illegal under current testing guidelines. The whole point of "standards" is they apply to everyone, and that is why they don't work. The teachers don't need a new way to know the kids' strengths, they are the ones in the classroom who already know everything there is to know about these kids. It is the state who is demanding to see a fish ride a bicycle, and the teachers are the ones trying to get the state to understand it's a fish.

What's more, if a school has too many kids taking modified versions of the tests, they get first scrutinized and then possibly penalized. The point of all standardized testing is not to evaluate the students, it is to evaluate the schools.

Short answer, no. But the weaknesses of the IEP process are a whole other issue.