Live data from Hacker News

A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

latimes.com

121–122 of 122 posts

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#121
post #49

I’ve traveled to Europe and Asia and it’s saddening to see what a difference they place on the value of Education/teacher compared to us. NC is ranked 48th in the country and willing to give away almost a billion dollars in federal funding over the right to bully transgender individuals.[1][2] Then we have Texas spending 64-million on a high school stadium.[3] How did we get into this mess where our culture values sp…

Maybe if you went to more than two places in the US you'd get a different picture.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#122
post #66
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common Core, in theory, isn't a problem - unifying standards across schools has a lot of benefits (easier to design reusable curriculums, perform scientific inquiries, develop software). The problem is when it gets conflated with high-stakes testing, which is a terrible thing.

High-stakes testing need not be terrible. You just have to be careful: 1. High-stakes testing requires exam security. One must assume that the teachers and administrators, if rated on student performance, will assist cheating. 2. High-stakes testing should be spread out across the year, with the result being a running average that discards the low values. (sickness and other bad luck should not be punished) Instead o…

You did not talk about the necessity of unlinking the results of high-stakes testing and the funding for schools/teachers/districts. Or at the very least, to not penalize low-income areas for low test scores by stripping their budget, since that will only make the situation worse. If anything, more resources should flow to areas with lower test scores, even though the opposite happens (or they just flow to charter schools, which are not a great idea either).

Look beyond the mechanical aspects of the problem, and consider the ramifications of testing within the education system as a whole.

Post reply on HN