The Smallest Minority

No matter what their grades say. Read Vin Suprynowicz on the subject. Excerpt:

Cheyenne High School, with its 2009 “Nevada state Principal of the Year,” supposedly made “Adequate Yearly Progress” in 2009-2010, according to Arne Duncan and his federal parachute team. But the main thing the numbers there show is rampant grade inflation — kids who can’t pass the test taking home misleading “passing” grades.
At Cheyenne, the Algebra I common assessment test scores held steady — from 96 percent flunking in 2007, to 96 percent flunking in 2009.

After two years, the teaching staff still didn’t know they had a problem? They still want to claim the test is “unfair”?

Meantime, however, in the same years, Cheyenne parents were told 63 to 72 percent of the kids PASSED Algebra I. Similarly, while 90 to 97 percent of kids flunked the standardized geometry test each year, students carried home report cards informing parents 64 to 72 percent of kids had PASSED geometry each year.

RTWT. Ask yourself if your kids are in the same kind of “schools” these kids are.

I posted that (click on the pic for the backstory), because it’s a perfect lede for this:

IAmA HS teacher: This is a list of “suggestions” we got in our mailboxes today on how to dumb-down our classes even more than they already are. I’m so angry I can hardly see straight.

Of course, as in most workplaces, “suggestions” are requirements-in-waiting. I’m sure if I don’t adopt these “new methods” I’ll get a bad review come June.

They talk and talk about improving our state test grades, but once the news cameras are gone this is how they really want us to run our classes -make them so easy everyone can pass without doing any work at all. Then they blame the low test scores on “lazy teachers” and the Union. It’s beyond sick.

Here’s the list:
Multiple Choice

Consider open book tests using page references

Limit to one word or short phrases

Provide only one choice per letter (eliminate: A and B & All of the Above)

Eliminate: None of the Above

Offer a maximum of 3 choices

Avoid using negatives in questions (Which of these is not…)
True-False

Avoid negative or comparative wording (which is NOT, etc.)

Avoid the use of specific determiners (always, never, and no)

Balance the number of true answers to the number of false (Ex: tell the students “there are 5 true and 5 false”)

If this is impractical, at least tell the student how many of each (5 true, 7 false)

Eliminate the need to rephrase false statements to make them true
Fill-in & Completion

one word answers or short phrases only

Provide a word bank and/or page number clues

Give the first letter of the answer

Limit the number of fill-in-the-blank responses to 1 per question (Ex: President [blank] was the 1st President of America, his vice president was [blank] is not recommended.)
Essays

Weigh the merit of using any essay questions at all

If you must use essay questions:

Allow students to list answers without complete sentences

Provide “answer starters” (provide the first sentence or paragraph from a well-written essay)

Consider providing open book or notebook time

There were several other references to “consider giving open book tests with page references” that I eliminated as redundant. Geez, I wonder what they want all our tests to be from now on, but can’t come right out and say it? I could never guess…

I’m proud of one of my posts drawing 571 comments. This one has (at the time of this writing) 2876.

(h/t: Unix-Jedi for the latter link.)