...except colleges think that grades are the best predictor of success. I don’t think we should throw out evaluations entirely, but portfolios are infinitely better than standardized tests, because they actually show work, learning, growth, whether the teacher actually taught anything, can be used for a variety of…

Haha! Me too. "Rigorous reading" makes me shiver.

I’ve never known a single iteration of tenure that protects physical violence. That’s not a problem with unions or tenure, that’s a problem with a particular school or a particular union local.

Why do we have to compare the kids at all? We are told time and time again that kids in poverty don’t score well. The time to do something about it was when we instituted the tests, in the 1990s. Now, it’s just an exercise in torture and repetition.

Another issue my mom has told me as that these assessments place ESOL kids in lower reading levels, even if they have very high comprehension, simply because they equate English being your second language with not being intelligent.

I’m used to the venting with my mom no worries! But I totally agree I think one of the worst things happening in education is the switch to focus on nonfiction texts in English, just because you can’t standardized a test accurately for reading and writing. Which is the beauty of literature!!! I’m an aspiring writer…

Hell, my dad was just involved in the unionization of the support staff and then all of the sudden, he was getting all sorts of evaluations, members of the community/school board dropping by his classroom, and escalating to constant phone calls in the middle of the night. The union was key in providing support—…

My mom was a teacher for a long time in an affluent school district. Once one of these kids who’s never heard the word “no” accused her of hitting him because she wouldn’t tolerate his bullshit. The union stood behind her until supported her she was proven innocent. Without the teacher’s union that little rich brat…

“Those tests clearly need to be fixed. That is a valid issue.”

It has become the *only issue*. Ask any teacher, their ONLY directive now is the test. Tests have taken over and have *ALL the power now*, which is precisely WHY the tests that need to be fixed won’t ever be as the system now stands. They put a facade of a…

If you take the average kids students life by way of these tests, the odds that they will continuously get an “easy A” is next to nothing. Do you really think that these standardized tests are better than actual grades for homework, quizzes, tests and finals over the course of elementary, junior and senior high? Not a…

I just looooove seeing the people that back these efforts are also the ones that are invested in charter schools. So predictable.

“So yes standardized testing has a place in education, but it should not be the basis of education”

Exactly. Obviously education needs a rubric. Yet when it’s ONLY ABOUT THE RUBRIC - it’s not *applicable* to anything else and thus has no real value outside of itself.

That is the current status of public education, (yet…

I hate that! They choose "challenging" texts because they confuse rigor with reading above grade level.

Totally false. The only way a student is actually “evaluated” in their educational process is in their grades. Grades that show either progress or a regress, not some test they memorized prior. This entire system is ridiculous.

They do actually. The best schools typically have the most funding from property taxes, or if that is not a factor, state funds from increased monetary allotments. The more money, the more opportunity to hire the best teachers. They also have more money to hire teaching assistants, have “extras” like orchestra/band,…

I’m 100% with the unions on this one. Unions provide teachers with due process and protections. The “tenure makes teachers lazy” bullshit is exactly that: bullshit. This is just another right wing attack on public education.

Indeed - people who just get behind the myopic rhetoric, without having any idea of the very REAL problems in which standardized testing is now the ONLY thing taught - doesn’t understand the very underfunded/remedial environments for which expecting equal results is literally *insane*. Oh okay, they can’t even read…

You have swallowed the Kool-Aid that the enemies of public education prepared for you. The only thing that tenure does for teachers is to give them due process and the right to offer a defense when an administrator decides that it is time to fire them and hire a less expensive brand new teacher. New teachers start at…

Yeah. A race to the bottom is the last thing that public schools need, but it’s exactly what for-profit schools want.

But I’ve also seen that these protections help protect deserving teachers where a school board has taken aim at anyone who isn’t on the “correct” side. Frankly, I’m always skeptical of any group that wants to reduce the tenure rights for those in education. There can be a balance reached, but if (and fingers crossed…