Althouse: "When standardized tests are shared nationwide — as they now are, under the Common Core system that's been adopted in 46 states..."

March 28, 2015

"When standardized tests are shared nationwide — as they now are, under the Common Core system that's been adopted in 46 states..."

"... cheating suddenly becomes a whole lot easier. Especially since teenagers now share just about everything on social media."

Computers are undermining efforts to standardize children. That's a turnabout. You'll have to write exams that can't be cheated on. That's hard to do!

35 comments:

mccullough said...: American ingenuity. We'll be fine.; 3/28/15, 11:22 AM
SGT Ted said...: So, all these allegedly educated, smart people cannot outsmart teenagers.

Brilliant!; 3/28/15, 11:25 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Locally, parents are now choosing to have their little darlings 'opt out' of high stakes testing. By international standards US students underperform. There are several components to student academic performance- the students, the parents, the teachers and the system. Of these it is my impression that the parents are the biggest problem. They seem to have lost the will to fight and are willing to cede the future to foreign students. They are unwilling to demand anything of their children. I find this attitude incredible.; 3/28/15, 11:32 AM
n.n said...: The classroom should be modeled as a courtroom, where Common Core is the doctrine, Common Educator is the judge, and sequestration mitigates external influence.

Is there any reason why the Common Educator cannot be a computer?

Its seems that the goal of Common Core is to constrain human knowledge and skill. A computer's structure and design is perfectly suited for that task. And thus a new orthodoxy is established. The central planners were never patrons of freewill.; 3/28/15, 11:39 AM
Roux said...: The Common Core standard and curriculum are not the problem. It is the PARCC tests. They are horrible in that they don't test the skill. The questions are confusing and in many cases there is not enough information to give an answer. This is specially a problem in mathematics.

Also the kid are burned out on these tests. This year in Louisiana the tests did not count for or against the student. Many of them either opted out completely or during the test just quit. Some wrote things like, "this test is dumb" or "I don't feel like writing today".

Pearson is making millions off of this and Pearson is the problem.; 3/28/15, 11:46 AM
Alex said...: Meanwhile employment in Wisconsin is at an all time high.

Good going Scott.; 3/28/15, 12:02 PM
Michael K said...: "Of these it is my impression that the parents are the biggest problem. "

My grandson's teacher told his mother that she cannot do the Common Core math problems and that his mother, who runs a successful business from home, will have to teach him using traditional methods, like multiplication tables.

The teacher recommends abandoning the teaching method.; 3/28/15, 12:06 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Pearson is making millions off of this and Pearson is the problem.

My biggest gripe about education, other than the generally declining quality of the families who send their kids into public schools, is the testing/textbook/workshop industry.; 3/28/15, 12:09 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Roux said...
Many of them either opted out completely or during the test just quit. Some wrote things like, "this test is dumb" or "I don't feel like writing today".

Would you be as sympathetic if they wrote 'this job is dumb' or 'I don't feel like going to work today'. Or 'those foreign kids are too smart for me to beat'.

Where is the will to fight, to compete, to win?; 3/28/15, 12:15 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Michael K said...
The teacher recommends abandoning the teaching method.

The common core is not a teaching method, it is a set of standards. It outlines what a student should know at each grade.; 3/28/15, 12:21 PM
Michael K said...: "The common core is not a teaching method,"

I would be glad to introduce you to that teacehr who has been told she has to use methods that are counterintuitive and resemble graduate school math problems. I'm sure you can see illustrations of sample problems on the internet as I have.

The teaching method is being pressed on teachers as "Common Core."

For example.; 3/28/15, 12:44 PM
mccullough said...: Asians do great on these tests, but aren't go-getters. Chinese government officials come to the U.S. are are floored that anyone here who wants to start a business just does it. Grit is a very important trait, and enough Americans have it.

The Chinese, South Koreans, and Japanese will continue to excel on tests. But not enough of them have grit. They are the ones who need to worry.; 3/28/15, 1:06 PM
pm317 said...: haha..Indian system is all about standardized testing at every major milestone. It generally works, because a leak of the exam is a big deal and everything grinds to a halt with new exams being made. Institutions are strong and people believe in maintaining the integrity of the system and lot of identity verification, blind grading and such are put in place. Well, may be American schools could consult Indian institutions on how they do it.; 3/28/15, 1:14 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: They tried to teach us the Metric System in California public schools in 1977, and we saucy 4th Graders threatened these educrats with open rebellion.; 3/28/15, 1:23 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: mccullough said...
Asians do great on these tests, but aren't go-getters. Chinese government officials come to the U.S. are are floored that anyone here who wants to start a business just does it. Grit is a very important trait, and enough Americans have it.

There is something to this, but it is not very 'gritty' to just bail on a test.

And, what worked in the past may not necessarily work in our increasingly technological future.; 3/28/15, 1:29 PM
mccullough said...: the best american test scores are as good as the best scores anywhere. Tellng test givers to fuck off is consistent with freedom and grit. Those who obey the rules because they are rules will always lose out; 3/28/15, 1:57 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I would be glad to introduce you to that teacehr who has been told she has to use methods that are counterintuitive and resemble graduate school math problems. I'm sure you can see illustrations of sample problems on the internet as I have.

The teaching method is being pressed on teachers as "Common Core."

That's not the fault of Common Core. That's the fault of dumb administrators. Any curriculum can be called "Common Core" by saying it's written to meet the standards. That doesn't mean it's any good or teaches the standards well.; 3/28/15, 1:57 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Freeman, you have mentioned this before but I can't find it. What is the best source of teaching materials for common core math in your experience?; 3/28/15, 2:09 PM
Michael K said...: " in our increasingly technological future."

There is something to this but American inventors are a small subset of the countrymen. And not all are men but technology, in spite of political demands, is still pretty much a male bastion.

The big companies that support Obama, like Google, are using their influence to import H1B programmers to write code, not invent it.

It's a little like Democrats importing a subservient voter population.

The Brits thought they did but seem to have destroyed their country, instead.; 3/28/15, 2:36 PM
holdfast said...: The state-level educrats are using "Common Core" as an excuse/cover/reason to push all kinds of awful stuff. As a result, parents place all the blame on Common Core. While that's unfair, the reality is that public education is getting more complicated and more useless.

Maybe the standards are good, but the implementation is jsut f*cking awful, and for the kids and parents, that's what matters.; 3/28/15, 2:36 PM
holdfast said...: Also, a lot of the teachers - union members all, naturally - don't want to be bothered with something new, and so are resisting/sabotaging the implementation. What say you lefties?; 3/28/15, 2:37 PM
RichardJohnson said...: Many of them either opted out completely or during the test just quit. Some wrote things like, "this test is dumb" or "I don't feel like writing today".

I agree that in general, standardized tests can test verbal or mathematical ability, and knowledge of same. However, I am skeptical about the ability of standardized tests to determine writing skill.; 3/28/15, 2:42 PM
RichardJohnson said...: mccullough
The Chinese, South Koreans, and Japanese will continue to excel on tests.

Perhaps one reason for this can be found when one Googles chinese cheating on standardized tests.

At the same time, I am reminded of a fellow American's remark about the undoubtedly bright Chinese students in our department: "In a country of a billion plus people, you aren't going to send the dummies over." I once knew a number of Chinese STEM students who were doing their undergrad work here in the US. Many of them scored 800V, 500 M on the GRE. Those scores were not a surprise: bright but English was their second language. I knew one Chinese student who, after doing his undergrad here in the US, scored 800M 700 V on the GRE. That was one very bright person.; 3/28/15, 3:03 PM
Levi Starks said...: The shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.
I would argue that the students identified as "cheating" are simply the ones who've found that straight line.
It's hard to apply, or force students to accept a moral code which defines reaching the desired point with less effort as cheating.
And end the end, aren't they really the smartest?
All you have to do is look at the Hillary email situation to see that integrity means nothing.; 3/28/15, 3:26 PM
sane_voter said...: If you separate US test scores by race, we do just fine comparing like to like. Of course as our country becomes darker, expect our test scores to continue to drop. This will confound leftist social scientists, who are science deniers.; 3/28/15, 4:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Actual, it's simple to beat the students: come up with 100x as many questions as the test will ask. Hell, post all the questions.

Then computer generate a different test for each and every student, with a randomly selected set of questions.

The problem with this is that then the "educators" couldn't lie about what they're pushing. And the majority of Americans still love America, and won't approve of a "educational" system that blatantly pushes hatred of America.; 3/28/15, 5:09 PM
Michael K said...: "This will confound leftist social scientists, who are science deniers."

Of course and that will not be permitted. Ask Charles Murray how that worked when he postulated a small difference in the median.

Generating a large number of questions and using them in random order on tests is how the Board Exams in Medicine used to be done.

I don't know if that is still true as the pressure for "equal outcomes" grows.; 3/28/15, 6:11 PM
jr565 said...: There's nothing wrong with standardized tests in many cases for most subjects. Like, math for example. If you take trigonometry then across the board, whatever school district you are in you will be learning the same fundamentals of trigonometry. Why then would it be a problem having a standardized test that tests your knowledge of what would be a pretty uniform class.
And it wouldn't be teaching to the test. It would be teaching trigonometry.
Teaching to the test would be the same as getting excercises out of the math book and requiring students to do them for homework.
The problem with common core is not that tests are standardized but that they teach math in such bizarre ways.; 3/28/15, 7:04 PM
Michael K said...: "The problem with common core is not that tests are standardized but that they teach math in such bizarre ways."

Exactly. I have suggested to my son and his wife that they investigate Khan Academy which uses traditional methods of teaching and should be useful to kids used to online games.

The school they attend, which is in a prosperous area, should know better.; 3/28/15, 7:24 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: AR, one could teach to Common Core standards with Singapore Math, which has a proven track record. Art of Problem Solving for higher grades teaches well above Common Core standards, I imagine.; 3/28/15, 9:55 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: There are many adaptations of Singapore that teachers trained in the United States might find easier to teach. (As a general rule, we don't train our math teachers very well here.); 3/28/15, 9:56 PM
chickelit said...: Unknown said...
They tried to teach us the Metric System in California public schools in 1977, and we saucy 4th Graders threatened these educrats with open rebellion.

I can't imagine doing or teaching chemistry outside of the metric system.

These days, even the liquor and wine industries have caught on, denominating everything in liters and milliliters, dispensing with "fifths" and "quarts."; 3/28/15, 11:20 PM
chickelit said...: Teaching to the test would be the same as getting excercises out of the math book and requiring students to do them for homework.

Exercise--especially mental exercise--is work!; 3/28/15, 11:38 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Just write a million questions, that covers everything in the course in fair proportion, and pick them randomly.; 3/29/15, 3:04 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Roux,

'The Common Core standard and curriculum are not the ONLY problem"

FIFY.; 3/29/15, 8:15 AM