Tennessee Parents - Reclaiming Public Education for our children
  • HOME
  • OUR VOICES/BLOG
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • CONTACT US

More testing trouble in TN

5/7/2014

 
I was proctoring a 4th grade TCAP math test last week and had this experience (as best as I recall):

One of the 2 practice questions was 780 divided by 12.
 
I don't remember all the possibilities but the teacher read from her booklet that the answer was "H" .  There was a gasp in the room and she told the students not to worry about it if the choices were only A, B, C and D and moved on.  At this point I glanced at the problem on the page and looked at the choices.  "H" was actually 60 and the correct answer of 65 was actually "F".
 
Of course, the school and I would be in trouble if I reported this, so I wasn't sure what to do. It's only a sample question but who is to say what else is wrong on the test?!  No wonder they swore everyone to secrecy.  And wouldn't it shake your confidence before a big test to come up with the "wrong" answer on a practice problem?


- a parent in West TN who proctored the TCAP test last week


80 math questions today. Took 3 hours! Second graders sat for 3 hours to take 80, EIGHTY, math questions. 8 years old!!  HOW IS THIS OKAY???  I am disgusted and LIVID!


- an upset parent in Knox County regarding the SAT-10 test given to 2nd graders today


There were 5 items on the Kindergarten Sat10 that the kids weren't even taught, they aren't even on the Kindergarten standards! 

One of the questions was about probability!  At age 5!

One of the sections, the directions were a paragraph long. Those poor babies had no idea what they were supposed to do!

- an anonymous Kindergarten teacher in TN


My 6th grader said they were not taught several things on their social studies TCAP -- probably because they started the year on Common Core and realized they were taking TCAPs in January.


- a parent in Johnson City, TN


From the texts I received today from my 10th grade daughter after completion of an EOC (End of Course) exam for English II, I would say TCAP tests are not the only test parents should be concerned with.  When the majority of a High School English End of Course test is questions of opinions with no true answer, there is a problem. 

Sample questions she shared were: "What is the best way to work in a group?" or "What is the best way to write a newspaper article?"  A total of 20+ questions were opinion questions.  The questions she stated were so crazy that she wished she could of taken pictures of them to show me how ridiculous they were.

High School students can see that this is wrong.  Elementary and Middle School students can not and will answer no matter how strange a question.  Common Core is the brainwashing of our youth, as my daughter states.

- a high school parent in TN


My child said there were completely different tests in her 10th grade English EOC, and that they all have three different cut scores.  She said there were too many kids saying it was easy or it was hard.  

How is this fair for every student?  Is it okay if teachers figure this out and select certain kids to take certain tests to try to manipulate the system?


- a high school parent in Shelby County, TN


Parents are fed up.
Brave teachers are speaking up.
This testing madness must stop.  

High school mom
5/9/2014 01:58:43 am

Our children in high school came home saying the same thing as one of the other parents about EOC tests. They gave me examples and they were absolutely opinion questions, not facts. They are straight A students. Our girls were so stressed over these tests that as soon as they were over, I had to go get them from school with stomach problems. Our child in middle school was so distraught over tcap that he had an accident at school because he couldn't leave the room to go to the bathroom. Get government testing out of our schools and let teachers teach and kids learn. Stop forcing our teachers to teach to tests, and then penalize them when kids do poorly on unfair testing.


Comments are closed.

    Authors:
    real parents & real teachers
    from TN

    They are afraid to speak up and risk their jobs... They want to protect their children... This blog is for them:  Their voices need to be heard.

    These blogs are emailed to these TN officials:  
    the TN Board of Education, 
    the TN Commissioner of Education,
    the 99 TN House Representatives,

    the 33 TN Senators,
    the Governor of TN,
    every Superintendent in TN,
    hundreds of locally elected school board members across TN,
    and parents... lots and lots of parents.

    Categories

    All
    ALEC
    Arne Duncan
    ASD
    Barbic
    Campaign Contributions
    Charter
    Common Core
    Consultants
    CRA
    Crisis
    EOCs
    ESL
    Evaluations
    Faux Parents
    Governor
    Haslam
    Huffman
    Kindergarten
    KIPP
    Laws
    Legislators
    Lobbyist
    Mcqueen
    NAEP
    Next Gen Science Standards
    Opt Out
    PARCC
    Parents
    Petition
    Plan
    Pre-K
    Protest
    Pta
    Ravitch
    Reform
    RELAY
    Resolution
    Rocketship
    RSD
    SAT10
    School Board
    School Board
    Score
    Sneaky Politician
    Student Data
    Student Privacy
    Students
    Studentsfirst
    Superintendent
    TCAP
    Teachers
    Tenure
    Testing
    Tfa
    TNDOE
    TNReady
    Tree
    Tripod
    TVAAS
    University Of Memphis
    US DOE
    Vouchers

    Archives

    March 2017
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.