I have not been paying attention to politics recently because of my move so I just discoverd today how cute this O'Donnell chick is. Hubba crazy hubba!

Lil' Vulture has had a "computer class" once a week since 1st grade (she's in 4th now). She hates it and believes it's a waste of time. Now, she loves computers. She wants to learn html or whatever they use nowadays to design web pages. She has this idea that should could basically hire herself out as child labor and do cut rate web design for small businesses in the area. I don't think that's a good use of school resources, as it would probably be about as useful as the Pascal I learned in 1984.

gr wrote:I have not been paying attention to politics recently because of my move so I just discoverd today how cute this O'Donnell chick is. Hubba crazy hubba!

You ain't gettin any from her, pal.

Now we're finally wading into somethings I don't know everything about. But why wouldn't we want our kids to have computer skills? When are they going to learn how to use a computer if not when they're a kid? That's valuable. Teach a kid the multiplication tables and they know 5*5. Teach the kid how to use Excel and they know a helluva lot more.

Put another way. I studied for the CFA where they still take the attitude of memorizing all the formulas for the test. I did it because I'm an awesome memorizer, but I can't really tell you what the formulas do.

As opposed to grad school where the majority of my tests were taken open book open note. The formula shouldn't be what's important, it's how to apply said formula.

jeff2sf wrote:You keep talking about this cooperation of the students. It's NOT required, or at least, not at the beginning to judge success. Do you not understand the baseline idea? Let's test the kids at the beginning of the year. Let's test em at the end. Did they improve? No? Why not? Every single kid didn't want to learn? This has nothing to do with the teachers? You stood up there preaching multiplication tables and the kids either refused to learn it or learned it and then got one over on the teacher by deliberately diving on the test?

You've got to be $#@! kidding me.

When I was in school (Catholic school, which had/still has a teachers' union), the diocese wrote the final exams that the students had to take. A teacher could alter the content of said exams somewhat to cover variances in material they may have covered, but I believe no more than 10% of the questions could be changed (on what were ordinarily 100 question exams). The exams COUNTED, significantly, toward our final grades.

That's a fine system that could be used to evaluate teacher performance, if you looked at appropriately-lengthed samples (say, over 5 years). The kids have a stake in the exam, and so do the teachers, that's fine. I doubt the AFT would have a big problem with that system either, from everyone I've ever talked to.

But administering exams in which the students have no stake? I mean, you remember high school, don't you? How much would you have worried about or cared about an exam that meant nothing in terms of your grade, your ability to graduate, get into college, etc.? That was just something in front of you, and then gone.

It doesn't even take kids who are intentionally tanking the exam (though I am certain that a few smart-asses out there, once they got the notion in their head that they could deny a teacher a pay raise or even get him fired, would do exactly that). All it takes are kids who come in for this meaningless, as far they are concerned, exam, who treat it as such: who stayed up all night the night before, didn't do anything to prepare at all, etc. THAT is a bad system, particularly if you are going to use those exams to evaluate teachers who are working with the most difficult kids to begin with, which is where these targeted reforms are always targeted. And you can't tell me otherwise.

When I was in high school, the grade above me was taking the state test as one of the first groups to be subject to the NCLB rules. The test did not count and most of the kids did not prepare for the test as a result. A lot of kids simply didn't show up on test day.

Only then did the administration realize that this system was flawed and decided to make the test a graduation requirement for the next group(mine).

Tie the test results to lunch length

Moz, terrible example.

If it's a meaningless exam then presumably they stayed up late the night before on the baseline test. So they're equally unmotivated, equally tired, equally whatever. The difference is that the kids would have accrued some knowledge along the way that would allow them to deal with the test. Most of these tests didn't need to be studied for anyway. You either know how to read the sentence or you do not (comprehension) or how to do the equation or not (math).

They're not asking you in 1492 who sailed the Ocean Blue?

In PA, they're actually phasing in testing for the other major subjects. Science is next.

jeff2sf wrote:Now we're finally wading into somethings I don't know everything about. But why wouldn't we want our kids to have computer skills? When are they going to learn how to use a computer if not when they're a kid? That's valuable. Teach a kid the multiplication tables and they know 5*5. Teach the kid how to use Excel and they know a helluva lot more.

You're an awesome memorizer probably because you had to memorize a lot of shit to succeed in school. It's a skill, and it can be learned.

As far as computers--there's just no convincing me that putting computers in elementary school classrooms has any real benefit considering its cost. You could teach kids excel, I suppose, but I wonder how much sense a typical 9 year old could make of a spread sheet? What would they use one for? Do they know enough math to even understand the most basic excel functions? Are they capable of understanding the logic behind how a spread sheet works and why it's a powerful tool? And then of course, the spread sheet you teach them in 2010 won't exist in 2025.

I suspect software skills for most users will be taught in 3 day sessions when companies adopt this or the other software package, or they'll learn it the way I learned it--trial and error.

The issue of unmotivated kids is not too tough to address--tell them if they don't test at grade level, they've got to repeat a grade. Yeah, some kids will get discouraged and drop out. But how many of them will graduate high school with a real high school education anyway?

I think my biggest question out of all of this is the "kids intentionally screwing up on tests to screw their teachers" a standard AFT/union line against testing as a key component in teacher evaluations or did Moz just dream it up?

jeff2sf wrote:....hearing you guys talk makes me want to go work for Walmart or some other union busting place.

you might want to

unfortunately they'd have to hire you first

Smoothie, why the thinly veiled line? You know Walmart would love me. They'd love any MBA willing to move to Arkansas and being ready to bust up unions would be a plus.

kopphanatic wrote:In PA, they're actually phasing in testing for the other major subjects. Science is next.

Science was implemented like 2 years ago.

What is happening now is they are changing it from the PSSA to the Keystones. They will be much like New York's Regents Exams in that you need to pass them to graduate.

The tests are alright. The biggest problem is they take so much freaking time. With out social studies right now it is seriously like 2.5 weeks to do these things.

jeff2sf wrote:Now we're finally wading into somethings I don't know everything about.

Yeah, I'm done here.

jeff2sf wrote:Smoothie, why the thinly veiled line? You know Walmart would love me. They'd love any MBA willing to move to Arkansas and being ready to bust up unions would be a plus.

They might just cure you of your zest for evaluation

They might just, but not likely. I've done a lot of incentive comp stuff in my day. It's not easy, it's not always fair, as you well know, but that doesn't mean you just throw up your hands and give up. You could learn a lot from me, young smooth.

jerseyhoya wrote:I think my biggest question out of all of this is the "kids intentionally screwing up on tests to screw their teachers" a standard AFT/union line against testing as a key component in teacher evaluations or did Moz just dream it up?

Not a standard AFT line that I am aware of, but a genuine concern, but not the only concern, or even the major concern. I can definitely see some kids being savvy enough to intentionally tank a test if they think they can screw with a teacher they don't like (I knew plenty of kids who would have been more than happy to do that back in HS, had it occurred to them and had it been possible), but, in most cases, it won't be vindictive, intentional tanking, just carelessness about a test that doesn't affect them and doesn't concern them. That's my point: how can you use an exam to evaluate one person's ability to transmit information when the person TAKING the exam has absolutely no stake in its outcome, and therefore no reason to prepare in any way? You can administer such tests, if it floats your boat, but I don't see how they can be an accurate measure for anything.

jeff2sf wrote:Smoothie, why the thinly veiled line? You know Walmart would love me. They'd love any MBA willing to move to Arkansas and being ready to bust up unions would be a plus.

I think Smoothie was asking if you really want to work for Wal-Mart, a company that doesn't treat management much better than check out clerks, that for years had a policy where you'd have to share your hotel room while on business travel? The living in Arkansas part is merely icing on the cake.