djofraleigh: blog 
djofraleigh's blog
what would you have taken off the math tests so students can score higher?
Published Jul. 22, 2008
No child left behind is the first educational push that doesn't leave out the slower students and puts great pressure on students, teachers, schools and systems to succeed and prove it by performance. Know who is left out of that accountability? The parents are not held accountable.
Most area schools fail 'No Child Left Behind' tests
"Education officials blame a higher target rate in math performance for the low passing rates..."
IF the reason was in reading or writing or anything more subjective than math, then the defense would be that teaches are teaching for the test and not teaching 'real' thinking skills or creative thinking. Math is beautiful that way. Math requires discipline. The will to learn by practice, to memorize, and compute accurately is required, because an A for effort in math doesn't cut it anywhere. You know it or you don't. You can demonstrate you do, or not. It is not cultural, not native language dependent, and math skills can be measured then compared between students, schools, counties, states, & countries.
IF instead of basketball and video games, students were dreaming of being the one who is idolized by all of America for proving Goldbach's Conjecture, then we would have some Michaelbert Jordansteins and everyone would be buying his calculators and wearing the same underwear he does. We don't have it because they don't want it.
So, compared to other devolped countries, the USA is way behind and can't even compete in the World Math competitions. The UN needs a No Country Left Behind program.
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GOLO member since January 20, 2008
July 23, 2008 7:35 a.m.
GOLO member since January 20, 2008
July 23, 2008 7:34 a.m.
Tests should be more frequent, and they should be longer. In Japan they test for days, all day. We teach for 180 days, and measure for a few hours. Testing is teaching, is learning, is important.
For one generation the USA fell into NO competition, NO grading, Pass-Fail mentality where kids got an A for effort and feel good grading on subject matter that was subjective -- at the expense of truly learning something that was demonstrable. Schools pay too little to math teachers, the higher levels, so that classes were taught by teachers with little better skill than the student. All teachers want to be valued the same, but the skill level for math teachers is more demanding than for other spots. If the PE teacher wants to be able to make more money, then switch to Algebra II and show competence. Higher math hath higher demand, so pay higher.
GOLO member since January 20, 2008
July 23, 2008 7:33 a.m.
GOLO member since January 20, 2008
July 23, 2008 7:24 a.m.
GOLO member since January 20, 2008
July 23, 2008 7:20 a.m.
GOLO member since July 15, 2007
July 22, 2008 8:08 a.m.
GOLO member since November 15, 2007
July 22, 2008 7:45 a.m.
GOLO member since July 26, 2007
July 22, 2008 7:43 a.m.
GOLO member since January 18, 2008
July 22, 2008 7:18 a.m.
When students take a test that I have created, I can quickly see what information did or didn't get across to them, and we can correct those mistakes. If my students are given a 50 point test, they know up front that they will need to earn at least 35 points (70%) to pass the test. If the majority pass, I don't suddenly say, "Oh, 80% is the passing norm instead."
However, with the EOG, neither the teacher nor the students know what questions were missed. Some questions don't count toward the students' scores (field test questions). We don't know which questions those were, and if the students did get those right, they have no impact anyway.
We don't even know how many questions have to be answered correctly to be considered a 3 or a 4 score!! Now how can this be an effective measurement?
GOLO member since April 25, 2008
July 22, 2008 6:58 a.m.
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