Thearticle_excerpt posted:

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday will free 10 states from the strict and sweeping requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, giving leeway to states that promise to improve how they prepare and evaluate students, The Associated Press has learned.
The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, a White House official told the AP.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Yes, but freeing 1/5th of the states from it is a pretty shitty way to do business. Meanwhile the other 80% of us will slog through with the same ridiculous cookie-cutter requirements.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Hatred of standardized testing is funny. Poet comes here and rails about it sometimes. He says that it gets teachers to "teach to the test" which he says is a bad thing. He says he refuses to do it and "teaches the right way." He says that his students do the best on the test anyways.

Somehow it escapes him that his story proves that "teaching the right way" is in fact "teaching to the test."

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Cawlin posted:

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The test is about mathematics and writing/reading competency. Those skills should be sort of already in hand by the time kids get out of grammar school and students should be on to learning critical thinking and applications of skills like math, reading, and writing rather than still learning basic add/subtract/multiply/divide and about nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions.

What illustrates reading and writing better than having class discussion of books and/or writing papers/reports on reading assignments? What illustrates mathematic competency better than doing exercises APPLYING those skills rather than simply drilling on the basics that are on the test?

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Cawlin posted:

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When I was in school after about 8th grade, our curriculum was about applying our skills, not about simply learning them. With the whole "teach to the test" concept, there's no time or room for doing exercises applying those skills, it's just constant drill and repetition, and while it may being UP some lower performing demographics/districts, it holds back other demographics/districts.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Cawlin posted:

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The test is about mathematics and writing/reading competency. Those skills should be sort of already in hand by the time kids get out of grammar school and students should be on to learning critical thinking and applications of skills like math, reading, and writing rather than still learning basic add/subtract/multiply/divide and about nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions.

What illustrates reading and writing better than having class discussion of books and/or writing papers/reports on reading assignments? What illustrates mathematic competency better than doing exercises APPLYING those skills rather than simply drilling on the basics that are on the test?

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I've always said that the key to standardized testing is making a good test that evaluates the right things. If everything you want kids to learn is on the test, then the teachers damn well better be teaching to the test. If there are things you want kids to learn that aren't on the test, then you just need to improve the test.

Cawlin posted:

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When I was in school after about 8th grade, our curriculum was about applying our skills, not about simply learning them. With the whole "teach to the test" concept, there's no time or room for doing exercises applying those skills, it's just constant drill and repetition, and while it may being UP some lower performing demographics/districts, it holds back other demographics/districts.

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Poet doesn't do the drill and repetition thing. He "teaches the right way" and his kids do the best on the tests.

If teachers are doing the drill and repetition thing it's because they are lazy, not because they are trying to get the kids to do the best on the test.

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Cawlin posted:

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Yes, but freeing 1/5th of the states from it is a pretty shitty way to do business. Meanwhile the other 80% of us will slog through with the same ridiculous cookie-cutter requirements.

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Did you read the article?

The states getting it waived have made their own plans and committed to implementing them, that will meet the requirements of NCLB.

NCLB is hamfisted and clumsy AT BEST, as is almost any other sort of program of its kind that is foisted on 350 million people. The states in question have taken presumably proactive steps to provide for the tenets of NCLB - writing and math competency for example - without a lot of the arduous crap NCLB brings.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Actually you're the one stuck on semantics. My argument is two things:

1) Teaching the way you say standardized testing pushes teachers to teach gives inferior results (on tests) compared to teaching the right way. Therefore it is not the tests that are driving teachers and administrators to do things the lazy way.

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paulg_68 posted:

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2) Whatever you want kids to know, put it on the test. If you feel the tests are causing curriculums to shrink, then expand the test.

See, no semantics in my argument.

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Cawlin posted:

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ZigmundZag posted:

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Yes, but freeing 1/5th of the states from it is a pretty shitty way to do business. Meanwhile the other 80% of us will slog through with the same ridiculous cookie-cutter requirements.

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Did you read the article?

The states getting it waived have made their own plans and committed to implementing them, that will meet the requirements of NCLB.

NCLB is hamfisted and clumsy AT BEST, as is almost any other sort of program of its kind that is foisted on 350 million people. The states in question have taken presumably proactive steps to provide for the tenets of NCLB - writing and math competency for example - without a lot of the arduous crap NCLB brings.

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Trust me, EVERY state has their own plans for tracking student performance and graduation requirements. There's not a state education department out there that couldn't submit a summary of state educational milestones, goals and requirements over time. Hopefully these 10 are just the first round of approvals.

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Cawlin posted:

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Standardized testing has a place in education, but its place is presently inappropriately emphasized. School funding and even teacher advancement and compensation is based on standardized testing scores.

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Cawlin posted:

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paulg_68 posted:

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2) Whatever you want kids to know, put it on the test. If you feel the tests are causing curriculums to shrink, then expand the test.

See, no semantics in my argument.

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Your entire argument is about semantics.

Show me a standardized test for critical thinking that incorporates competency in reading, writing, math, and science. Show me a standardized test that asses the ability of students to APPLY skills rather than to simply repeat the equivalent of multiplication tables.

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Cawlin posted:

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it was harder for teachers to really focus on expanding the capabilities of the higher performing students, not to mention that those students apparently had unfair advantages so they deserved less time and effort and all that other PC horsesiht, and now even exceptional students wallow in repetitive drill and regurgitate sessions to prepare them for "The Testâ„¢".

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