Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 72 posts

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#41

Post by WalterBright »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #26
WalterBright wrote: post #18

> Children starting in the third grade may spend more than 10 hours a year taking state tests — and weeks preparing for them. I don't really understand the issue there. There's about 900 hours/year of instruction, and 10 hours of that being tests doesn't seem like a large burden. Secondly, "preparing for the tests" sounds like "learning", what is supposed to be happening. The article also complains about the inept im…

It has been some time since I've been in school, but I still remember that horribleness of the standardized test. You spend weeks hearing how important it is, and we spent days sitting there still, in silence, filling in the correct multiple choice answer on a sheet with a #2 pencil, hoping the teacher didn't think we were cheating if we were stretching. For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days. They…

> For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days.

This is inconsistent with it being 10 hours total for the year.

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#42

Post by mod »

castratikron wrote: post #17

No Child Left Behind started when I was in 6th or 7th grade. On a day where we all had to do one of those standard tests, all of the students would get a small breakfast for free, usually juice and granola bars. That part of the test I liked. Whenever I'd get one of the tests, though, the material that they tested me on was always a couple of years behind where I was currently at, so for me it was mostly a waste of t…

> The only classes that were worthwhile in high school where the ones that were taught at a college level.

This is not true. It's more of a humblebrag. High-school level classes are relevant and often difficult for high-school level students.

You were ahead of your peers, it doesn't mean the classes were worthless (except perhaps to you and others at your level).

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#43

Post by Broken_Hippo »

WalterBright wrote: post #41
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been some time since I've been in school, but I still remember that horribleness of the standardized test. You spend weeks hearing how important it is, and we spent days sitting there still, in silence, filling in the correct multiple choice answer on a sheet with a #2 pencil, hoping the teacher didn't think we were cheating if we were stretching. For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days. They…

> For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days. This is inconsistent with it being 10 hours total for the year.

This is from a child's point of view, as my memories were from being a child, so a few hours a day was a really long time. The actual math works out, however. They did these over 3-4 days. 4 days is 2.5 hours a day: 3 days is 3 hours 22 minutes, approximately.

A day of testing, the SAT for example, wasn't quite that rough at a much older age. 2 months ago I took official language exams here (immigrant). The main portion was about 4 hours. I had a couple hour break, then the last portion took about half an hour. The main part of the test was somewhat tiring for me as an adult - I very highly doubt the testing week is less tiring for children.

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#44

Post by ScottBurson »

rayiner wrote: post #38
davidgerard wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental problem is the US habit of funding schools out of property taxes. Then being actually surprised when schools in rich areas are good and schools in poor areas are terrible. Gosh! How could this have happened? This is not a problem that more tests are going to solve.

Only half of school spending comes from local property taxes. The other half comes from state and federal grants to poorer school districts. In almost every state, students in poorer districts get more money per student once you account for federal and state money: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2...

The article does not support your claim. In fact, quoting from the second paragraph:

[I]n 23 states, state and local governments are together spending less per pupil in the poorest school districts than they are in the most affluent school districts.

As the graphic farther down shows, only in about half the states do students in poorer districts get more money; only in 7 states do they get more by more than 5%, and only in two states is the difference more than 10%. Those numbers strike me as piddling, frankly; 50% would be more like it, and 100% might not be too much.

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#45

Post by kefka »

rileymat2 wrote: post #33

"If we awarded driver’s licenses based on standardized tests, half the adults in this country might never receive one." This is an intersting quote, because I had to take a test to get my license.

But a standardized test assumes that a certain percentage will fail. Its the same reason why aberrations like "Stack Ranking" are just as evil.

"What? All my people are excellent on my team, yet I have to rank a number of them as 1's (a number of 1-bad, 2-neutral, and 3-awesome). I have no choice..." - Stack ranking in a nutshell.

You could be an a school that 99% have the intelligence to pass. But yet, some bureaucrat says that a certain number has to fail, no matter what.

Compare that to a Drivers License test, where we test on if you know that material to drive. There is no required minimum number of people who fail, nor is there a comparison to others. It's you and a minimum test passing rate.

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#46

Post by ScottBurson »

WalterBright wrote: post #18

> Children starting in the third grade may spend more than 10 hours a year taking state tests — and weeks preparing for them. I don't really understand the issue there. There's about 900 hours/year of instruction, and 10 hours of that being tests doesn't seem like a large burden. Secondly, "preparing for the tests" sounds like "learning", what is supposed to be happening. The article also complains about the inept im…

> "preparing for the tests" sounds like "learning"

That's the problem: it sounds like learning. I think it's the least useful kind of learning, though, and the most likely to be forgotten quickly.

The best kind of learning is learning for the sheer joy of it. A totally test-driven education leaves no room for that; indeed, it beats all joy out of the students, teaching them that learning is a dry chore.

And reducing time spent on the arts is an especially tragic mistake. In the 21st century economy, with so much less that we need people to do, there's a lot more room for people to create value in individual ways, and I think the arts are likely to be a big part of that. We need to be expanding funding for them, not reducing it!

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#47

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tzs wrote: post #28

Common Core has attracted some rather far out criticism. I have not been able to decide whether this is amusing or appalling. It "will promote double-mindedness in state education and attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can", according to Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zant (R) [1]. Similar criticism from the American Family Association [2]. If it is not stopped, the only way f…

At least the people who think their kids will be brainwashed into homosexuality are clear about what they think the problem is. I've read quite a few things on the supposed problems of common core and been left with no information whatsoever. Generally I'm not even sure the person knows what common core actually is. complajning

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#48

Post by WalterBright »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #43
WalterBright wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For hours and hours at a time. The tests took a few days. This is inconsistent with it being 10 hours total for the year.

This is from a child's point of view, as my memories were from being a child, so a few hours a day was a really long time. The actual math works out, however. They did these over 3-4 days. 4 days is 2.5 hours a day: 3 days is 3 hours 22 minutes, approximately. A day of testing, the SAT for example, wasn't quite that rough at a much older age. 2 months ago I took official language exams here (immigrant). The main port…

Sure, but 10 hours over 900 hours in the school year, this is not a major part of it.

I remember taking standardized fill-in-the-bubble tests in the 60's and 70's. They were mailed off to some central location to be graded by computer. It just wasn't a stress filled, onerous thing, even though they were used to assess school performance.

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#49

Post by rayiner »

ScottBurson wrote: post #44
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only half of school spending comes from local property taxes. The other half comes from state and federal grants to poorer school districts. In almost every state, students in poorer districts get more money per student once you account for federal and state money: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2...

The article does not support your claim. In fact, quoting from the second paragraph: [I]n 23 states, state and local governments are together spending less per pupil in the poorest school districts than they are in the most affluent school districts. As the graphic farther down shows, only in about half the states do students in poorer districts get more money; only in 7 states do they get more by more than 5%, and o…

You gotta flip the button on the graphic to account for local, state, and federal spending. In all but four states, poorer school districts receive more money.

As for your second point: that's a different argument than the one I was responding to, which was that lower educational spending in poor districts causes the achievement gap. Now, you can make a different argument, which is that poorer school districts should receive more money than rich ones. That implicitly concedes that the achievement gap is not due to a lack of funding, but due to external factors.

So the question is, how to overcome those external factors? Why do we assume spending more money on teachers and facilities will do that? If kids in poor schools are at a disadvantage because their parents are working two jobs, why not just write those families a check? I'm highly skeptical of this whole idea that the way to help poor people is to funnel more money to middle class teachers and administrators. I think that's ass-backward actually.

Re: The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students

#50

Post by WalterBright »

ScottBurson wrote: post #46
WalterBright wrote: post #18

> Children starting in the third grade may spend more than 10 hours a year taking state tests — and weeks preparing for them. I don't really understand the issue there. There's about 900 hours/year of instruction, and 10 hours of that being tests doesn't seem like a large burden. Secondly, "preparing for the tests" sounds like "learning", what is supposed to be happening. The article also complains about the inept im…

> "preparing for the tests" sounds like "learning" That's the problem: it sounds like learning. I think it's the least useful kind of learning, though, and the most likely to be forgotten quickly. The best kind of learning is learning for the sheer joy of it. A totally test-driven education leaves no room for that; indeed, it beats all joy out of the students, teaching them that learning is a dry chore. And reducing…

I do not understand how anyone could tell if the kids are learning anything if they are not tested.

> it beats all joy out

Would you also say that scoring a football game beats all joy out of it? I would posit that an un-scored football game has little joy in it. It's just meaninglessly running around holding a ball.

I remember tests from grammar school, and enjoyed it much as I enjoyed working puzzles. A couple of the other kids and I would compete for bragging rights.

Post reply on HN