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2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

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Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#91

Post by NegatioN »

tristor wrote: post #83
dogruck wrote: post #81

In my eyes, standardized tests are bad because they will always shine a bright light on differences between groups. We don't like to admit it these days, but humans are not identical. We can accept some basic differences, such as skin tone. We get extremely uncomfortable extending that notion to cognitive skills. To be clear, I'm not singling out any group -- I'm not linking skin tone to cognitive skill in any way. S…

So, eliminate competition because it's unfair? That does not to me seem like a recipe for success on a global scale. If anything, the thing which has made the culture in the US uniquely attractive to so many people from all over the world is the fact that we revel in competition in a way most other societies do not. We love to compete, and are unabashed about keeping score. Let's assume for a moment that we focus exc…

Even if they get a greater shock when entering "the real world", they would still be better prepared for it if they were more competent coming out of school. It's a red herring to say that we would need to further restructure society to get any benefit from helping youth better overcome the challenges of school.

I'd say that probably depends on what you expect from them. But I don't think it's unfair to say that probably more students are left behind because of teaching/learning disabilities than there are people who simply will never be able to cope with the subjects at hand (because of cognitive limitations).

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#92

Post by dogruck »

gizmo686 wrote: post #88
dogruck wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so you have your metric. What next? They plug all of your stats into the function, and it says, "you will never be a good NBA player." With the NBA, we're comfortable saying "meh, not too many of those anyway -- moving on to high stakes poker -- never liked playing basketball anyway." But when the metric is of something much more broad, such as "success at a 4 year college" we're not so comfortable doing that. I…

We want a well educated population. To do this, we have set up an educational system. However, education is a difficult problem, and it is not clear what works and what does not. What we need is some way of measuring how well things work. That is the problem that standardized testing is meant to solve. There are some tests that are intended to assist in accademic discrimination (eg. we only want good students here, s…

The SAT is explicitly designed to predict success at college.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#93

Post by dogruck »

tptacek wrote: post #89
dogruck wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but wealth is also correlated with aptitude. I'm not saying our system is perfect. Plenty of rich bozos. On the other hand, in a perfect system, to me, it seems that the highest achievers would tend to both: 1. Succeed in school and 2. Acquire wealth.

We're referring in this case to the wealth of parents, not of students. Students have very little control over which parents they're assigned.

Most students have the combined genetic material of their parents. Genetics are a key influence on aptitude.

To be transparent, I personally benefited from public schools, and my parents were not wealthy (but they were graduates of public colleges).

I'm not arguing that only wealthy people should have access to quality education. I'm just saying that it's a weak argument to point out that success in school is linked with wealth.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#94

Post by home_boi »

gizmo686 wrote: post #73
swivelmaster wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised I even have to explain this here but testing for basic language proficiency is not the only thing these types of tests are for. They test elements of writing, grammar, critical analysis, and vocabulary that students are still learning. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any easy way to get example questions - they're all locked behind a login that requires student id. Furthermore, this isn't entirely an ESL…

>scores for African-American students were the lowest, and they're obviously native speakers. This isn't entirely true. There is a great diversity of dialects of English. Schools test and grade students on their abilities with "standard" English. For historical and racist reasons, African American Vernacular English is considered by many to be "stupid English", which puts many African American students at a disadvant…

I wouldn't throw out accusations of racism and make the discussion inflammatory when it's not particularly relevant. You can just mention the differences.

Knowing "African American English" still puts one at a severe advantage compared to immigrants who don't know English or American children who have immigrant parents who can barely speak English. There are noticeable and helpful similarities between the AAVE and standard English.

African Americans also have cultural advantages compared to immigrants and immigrant children because their parents and family all grew up in America. Knowing and understanding American cultural references helps them learn standard English vocabulary and concepts much quicker.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#95

Post by WillPostForFood »

swivelmaster wrote: post #7

"California isn’t alone in its stagnating scores and in fact compares favorably with the 12 other states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, that administered the same tests last spring from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Scores decreased in every state, and California’s decline was about the smallest, retired educational testing specialist Douglas McRae said." This is the most important sentence in the artic…

I think this is more important:

The numbers are half a percentage-point different from 2016 — down in English and up in math.

Scores didn't really do down, they stayed the same. Why would one expect them to go up? Kids didn't get magically smarter, schools didn't change. It's more suspicious that the schools got better every year under the previous test.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#96

Post by Waterluvian »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #95
swivelmaster wrote: post #7

"California isn’t alone in its stagnating scores and in fact compares favorably with the 12 other states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, that administered the same tests last spring from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Scores decreased in every state, and California’s decline was about the smallest, retired educational testing specialist Douglas McRae said." This is the most important sentence in the artic…

I think this is more important: The numbers are half a percentage-point different from 2016 — down in English and up in math. Scores didn't really do down, they stayed the same. Why would one expect them to go up? Kids didn't get magically smarter, schools didn't change. It's more suspicious that the schools got better every year under the previous test.

Optimizing test taking took some years, maybe?

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#97

Post by noobermin »

home_boi wrote: post #85
gizmo686 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They had no weight to your grades and there was zero incentive to do well. This doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. One of the bigger problems with tests is that they tend to become a terrible metric once people start preparing for them specifically (and test-prep can suck the oxegyn out of real education). If the students and teachers don't care about the test, it is much easier (but still difficult) to make a t…

> they tend to become a terrible metric Not exactly. When a test becomes study-able, it becomes a good metric for how hard people try and how much time/effort people put into their studies/career. And that is arguably what people making tests were trying to or would want to measure.

Not for a standardized test gauging the understanding of student's knowledge of Math or English.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#98

Post by gizmo686 »

dogruck wrote: post #92
gizmo686 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want a well educated population. To do this, we have set up an educational system. However, education is a difficult problem, and it is not clear what works and what does not. What we need is some way of measuring how well things work. That is the problem that standardized testing is meant to solve. There are some tests that are intended to assist in accademic discrimination (eg. we only want good students here, s…

The SAT is explicitly designed to predict success at college. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT

We are not talking about the SAT. This article is talking about the CAASPP, which is intended to provide feedback and ratings for the schools, not the students.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#99

Post by maskedSlacker »

mcny wrote: post #77
gizmo686 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They had no weight to your grades and there was zero incentive to do well. This doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. One of the bigger problems with tests is that they tend to become a terrible metric once people start preparing for them specifically (and test-prep can suck the oxegyn out of real education). If the students and teachers don't care about the test, it is much easier (but still difficult) to make a t…

> This doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. One of the bigger problems with tests is that they tend to become a terrible metric once people start preparing for them specifically (and test-prep can suck the oxegyn out of real education). If the students and teachers don't care about the test, it is much easier (but still difficult) to make a test that gives useful feedback to the school system. Of course, you want s…

>I don't like how you need so many licenses to be a teacher. Most college lecturers do not have a background in education and definitely don't have a license and we do just fine. The licenses just feel like a way to limit supply.

Teaching adults who pay for the privilege of being in your class is VERY VERY different from teaching children who are forced to be in your class.

The latter requires a very special skill set that can only be described as 'managing psychopaths'.

The former just requires you to show up and tell them they're on "responsible for the material" (i.e. they're on their own).

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#100

Post by rtpg »

swivelmaster wrote: post #7

"California isn’t alone in its stagnating scores and in fact compares favorably with the 12 other states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, that administered the same tests last spring from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Scores decreased in every state, and California’s decline was about the smallest, retired educational testing specialist Douglas McRae said." This is the most important sentence in the artic…

I get the sentiment, but it's possible that schools have in fact changed a bit since last year.

It's not a stretch to imagine the introduction of new math textbooks causing a change of a couple points, if the books are in fact better/worse.

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