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Florida Thinks Their Students Are Too Stupid To Know the Right Answers
gurps_npc writes "Robert Krampf, who runs the web site 'The Happy Scientist,' recently wrote in his blog about problems with Florida's Science FCAT. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is an attempt to measure how smart the students are. Where other states have teachers cheating to help students, Florida decided to grade correct answers as wrong. Mr. Krampf examined the state's science answers and found several that clearly listed right answers as wrong. One question had 3 out of 4 answers that were scientifically true. He wrote to the Florida Department of Education's Test Development center. They admitted he was right about the answers, but said they don't expect 5th graders to realize they were right. For this reason they marked them wrong. As such, they were not changing the tests. Note: they wouldn't let him examine real tests, just the practice tests given out. So we have no idea if FCAT is simply too lazy to provide good practice questions, or too stupid to be allowed to test our children."
You have to realize that teachers teach those misconceptions so they can pretend to teach a particular concept when other essential prior knowledge has not been covered yet. This happens a lot in math as well. For example we covered a problem that could be solved without the mid-point formula but the mid-point formula drastically reduced the complexity. Most teachers would just find a way to fudge it. I went ahead and taught the midpoint formula.
It really is up for debate how much a kid and handle and if we should teach all the essentials or just give them a few hacks so we can teach other parts of the whole. Personally I despise teaching misconceptions but I haven't been around long enough to say conclusively it's not necessary. I just haven't found a particular case yet where it is.
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In michigan during the 80's I proved a chemistry teacher wrong in the 6th grade. He Flunked me on the test for being "combative" and "not respecting authority". I took it home to my dad and my oldest brother, who worked as a chemist looked at the problem and my answer and said, " you are correct, the teacher is an idiot" and went with my dad to a conference with the teacher asking the principal to be there.
By me saying " no you are wrong", and then saying "NO WAY! THAT"S UNFAIR" I was being combative. my dad ripped into the principal and the teacher for 1 hour. My grade got changed to an A before they left.
A lot of teachers are not teaching but regurgitating what is in the book, and the book was wrong. the teacher was outed as not doing his job and by dad found out he actually was an english major and had only 1 class in chemistry.
Any monkey can regurgitate a book. IT's time we get real teachers in there and fire all the administration that makes retard decisions to have the Phys Ed teacher, to hold the algebra classes because he knows how to use a calculator.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They admitted he was right about the answers, but said they don't expect 5th graders to realize they were right. For this reason they marked them wrong.
Some of the problematic questions given as examples are close to techno-babble -- ie, the more you know about the topic, the less sense it makes. I'd venture a guess that the FCAT likely has not been through any sort of rigorous analysis of its test design (let alone the question of test content).
Even without knowing anything about the content, you can learn a lot about a measurement instrument's internal validity by doing analysis on the students' results. One particular technique that would be applicable in this case -- upon examining the particular students that got a disputed question wrong (or right) , was it the highest-performing students that tended to get it wrong, or the lowest? (This type of analysis assumes that the test is valid overall, with occasionally invalid questions).
No, the most important lesson here is that authority can and should be challenged.
The FAA used to administer multiple choice tests from a closed database of question/answer pairs until someone successfully sued. Now every student can study all the questions/answer pairs from which a small subset appear on an actual certification exam. Because the question/answer set is open to scrutiny, it is verifiable, and where the questions are invalid, they are thrown out. The courts found the question of openness worthy of consideration in that case, but you'd probably have a hard time making the argument that a 5th grader has standing to sue the state of Florida for incorrectly assessing its students. Whether the federal government might find the question of accuracy in the FCAT worth pursuing could be another matter, being that they distribute funds on the basis of test results. (Good thing the Bush's aren't still in office to take the heat for elementary-gate.)
Holding students to a standard that implies the state of Florida's authority is unassailable is just the sort of thing I would expect from a bureaucrat who really needs a demotion to a position more befitting of their sense of responsibility to the electorate. Something like turd-wrangler in a public park.
In fact, public schools do not breed the kind of spineless, easily tyrannized citizens that you claim. If what you claim were true, everyone would hold teachers in high esteem. On the contrary, teachers are nobody's boss in America. They are hamstrung by tribal politicians, terrorized by broken testing regimes and bullied by parents who think teachers are simply there to babysit their unruly children.
The problem is not that America's schools breed spineless students. The problem is that America's broken priorities breed spineless teachers.
Moreover, as is often the case, government management is the worst option, except for all the alternatives. Our public schools have many problems, but they do a commendable job, considering what they have to work with.
A generation of young people who don't know which way is up and which way is down is a tyrant's wet dream, for they will be needy and dependent and that's always been the ticket to real power... You don't think this, the side effects it will have, or the fact it comes from government is one great big accident do you? It's not so much a carefully planned conspiracy.
Tyrants these days don't really thinking that far in advance though. I mean, these kids are what, 10 years from voting? Why bother teaching them complacency when they'll just be someone else's serfs?
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. The school officials are trying to teach kids to be followers because they're easier to manage then and there. And also because making a test that is correct is harder.
No arguments here though that this will make them more sheeplike to government orders, but it's a happy accident for our future overlords, not by design I think.
I agree totally.
I happened to have survived the Florida educational system, although many years ago. The examples given were not only in the FCAT tests, but virtually every standardized test, as well as teacher generated and rehashed tests.
Some teachers were (and I assume still are) really good about listening to the *student* and re-evaluating the accuracy of the test. With those teachers, when challenged and provided with an accurate review of the question and answers, where it could be shown that more than one answer is the correct one, the teacher would re-grade the tests and change the question for next year. With those teachers, when the circumstances presented themselves, I would turn a C grade to an A, because my answers were already correct.
Some teachers passed it off with "use the *best* answer if there are more than one which are correct." Best answer for who? The teacher apparently, so they didn't have to consider that their test was flawed.
And some teachers (the majority) were just plain dumb as rocks and honestly were glorified babysitters. They would say "that's what the book says, it has to be right." Usually, those teachers didn't know or care about the material, and the sessions were typically "read these chapters", and then hand out photocopies of the test from the teachers edition of the book. It seemed this was preferred over actually discussing the topics with the students, where they could get feedback from a real person.
I'm surprised more people don't just quit school. There is some point where you simply won't learn any more, or you'll realize that the material being presented to you is just wrong.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
And I think you are wrong. I was 37 when I had my first. My sister started 5 years before me. I was happy to give her advice, which she spouted the "you haven't had kids, you don't understand" response. I didn't think about it until our after second kid and my mother asked if it was what I though it was and if I was following the advice I had given my sister.
Well, I was following my own advice, and it worked great. Yeah, I gave parenting advice when I had no kids. It was good advice, and now that I'm a parent, my advice is worse (rather than giving what "should" work, I give more of what "did" work, much more limited in scope and usefulness), but I'm treated as being more authoritative. It works *exactly* the way I thought it would. That's a basic lesson in life.
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I teach at a school that is more teacher-heavy than that. 3 to 4 teachers per core area, plus languages, technology, and other electives. Compare this to two admins, one counselor, 5 office staff (one of whom took over my technology responsibilities to give me cover), and 4 custodians / plant operators. The district's curriculum specialists were shown the door.
It used to be even more teacher-heavy for awhile, but a prior administration tried to add more non-teaching positions in order to solidify power. After that administration left, we found a ... Happy medium.
It is possible to have a teacher-driven school, but it means committing to more hats than just teaching. In my case, I handle admissions scoring and course registration, as well as other issues that would normally require additional office staff.
That's the big rub of this. There are things that have to be done to keep a campus functioning. If teachers want more power, they have to assume these responsibilities, and they have to defend them, lest the school become too office-heavy. But very often, teachers (on both a personal and union level) have often taken a position of "We aren't required to do that; go away." So that position is one of the things that has caused teachers to lose power over the years.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."