Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

Did that "old, failed policy" yield better results than the current one?

You’re putting a lot of otherwise good people, teachers of low income students, into a very bad situation.

Many would just quit, and among those who stayed what are the options ?

Get fired when the school is shutdown for under performing.

Fill in tests for students.

If we use programming as an example, the best tech manager on earth can’t get a bunch of random people to write production ready code in a month ( maybe JS, but not Rust).

Public schools can’t pick and choose students. Charters sorta can.

If I ran the school system I’d set up *paid* apprenticeship to job programs in high schools. Actually get these kids real careers. You SHOULD be able to afford an apartment with a high school degree.

I am a teacher and I write education software for math as a side gig, which I must have because I'm a teacher.

It's rare for any teacher to just discard the standards. And anyone who says "common core" is talking about something from 20 years ago. The new math framework--already years old--has sparked the latest wave of UC revolts and NO standardized testing is part of it.

"Common core" is the exact opposite. When people say that they are referring to the standards and the tests that go with them. Standards are just standards you can teach them or not, but the framework, something entirely different, give schools guidance on what courses to offer and how to approach it.

The latest framework poo-pooed Calculus and Algebra for advanced middle schoolers in the name of "equity." And dissing admissions tests is part of this movement, that gave us the "Data Science" class that UCs rejected. That was supposed to replace Algebra 2 and therefore make students UC-ready. As someone who taught that class, I can tell you it was a joke. And it had zero, nothing to do with common core. Finding a way to link it to those existing standards was difficult at best.

And I promise your mom's school at least gives the CAASPP. Every school in the Bay Area is not not doing that for decades out in the open. Sorry.

> If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district.

This would absolutely deepen the issue.

Public school has faced various compounding issues over the years related to policies like this. One big example is teaching to the test, diminishing the actual education because the standardized tests are the deciding factor whether or not the school gets funding.

Ironically, it would make it worse because a lot of school problems simply are funding problems. Public schools in wealthier neighborhoods do better because wealthier families can afford to support the children, where poorer areas have way less access. These problems begin to compound.

The SAT thing was pushed aside originally because it was partially an indicator of who could afford tutoring on the specific weirdness of the SAT vs who was on their own.

Kids who grow up poor also tend to have more home responsibilities. Parents may work longer hours(or be a useless deadbeat), kids will have to watch their siblings or take on part time jobs which cut into the time they can dedicate to education.

I do agree that the equity approach is short sighted and the totally wrong approach, but the correct approach would cause riots when the policy calls for funneling more funds to the worse performing schools to stand up tutoring early. Money can solve the issues of "wealthy areas can afford tutoring", money spent on teachers to provide better educational materials, and generally more spent on additional teachers overall, to cover problematic students who distract the rest of the class.

Destroying public school infrastructure due to a systemic problem would be a colossal mistake. All you need to know about adding a profit motive to education can be seen in private colleges, where education often takes a backseat to metrics like research positions, tuition costs skyrocketing, and even more overpaid admins compared to the public sector.