Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My son's at American Heritage, and not only did he get into a top liberal arts school (Pomona) with a FULL 4 year scholarship, but there have already been acceptances to Yale, MIT, 2 George Washingtons, and Johns Hopkins, and we're only in December.
My son's at American Heritage, and not only did he get into a top liberal arts school (Pomona) with a FULL 4 year scholarship, but there have already been acceptances to Yale, MIT, 2 George Washingtons, and Johns Hopkins, and we're only in December.
Everything one does in the corporate world is a test. We are tested our entire lives. Never could understand the concept of a test not being fair (everyone has to take the same test), or the preparation for one being a "waste of time".
The government wants accountability for the money it spends on education and I don't see a problem with that. Parents should spend more time with their kids to make sure their spending time on their homework, rather than in their room watching TV or playing X-box.
So many things wrong with what you said, I don't know where to begin.
Where did I say that the FCAT's are the "core" problem. I never said that nor did the original poster. I simply argued that the FCAT's are a waste of time and I stated reasons why. I never suggested or implied that the FCAT's were the CAUSE of the problem, but that they are one part of the problem. You then asserted that FL schools are way behind NY schools, and that NY students would pass the FCAT with flying colors. I don't disagree with you there. But WHY are NY students ahead of FL students? Because they take Regents? I beg to differ. So you basically beat around the bush of the original question about whether the FCAT helps or hurts students and why.
Then you went on about why the FL schools are so screwed up. The part about teacher's salaries being too high, and teacher's unions preventing schools from firing bad teachers is ludicrous. First, teachers salaries are so low in South Florida schools that they can barely afford to live. The average teacher makes a measly $28,000-32,000 a year. What type of salary do you think these teachers should be making? $8-10 per hour? You have got to be joking me. Everytime I hear the "teachers salaries are too high" argument it cracks me up.
And this idea that "teachers unions" are the keeping teacher's salaries too high is laughable. Again, teachers are barely making a living salary. Doesn't sound like the unions have much power in that case. The unions are the only thing preventing teachers salaries from becoming minimum wage jobs. And tell me how do you pick out "bad" teachers from good ones? That is so subjective you'd be conducting a witch-hunt. If a teacher is that bad they will be fired, trust me. Are you telling me that FL schools are the only ones with "bad" teachers? Or that NY schools pay their teachers barely living salaries/wages?
The "core" of the problem starts with the State government and their education agenda that they force upon the state. They poorly fund the schools and pay teachers dirt. So what do they expect in return? Are teachers supposed to work harder if they get paid less? No wonder why teachers hate teaching here. Maybe that's why there are so many "bad" teachers in FL? Maybe if we raised their salaries to standard levels that more "good" teachers would flock to FL. See Harry, you compared the NY schools to FL schools. The big difference is funding.
The FCAT is not the "core" of the problem. Kids in New York State had to take reagents for years before the "no child left behind" act, and they were much better educated than some of the surrounding states. The "testing is the problem" complaint just doesn't wash. Florida has a number of factors that contribute to the education problem.
1. Transient kids from other countries, and specifically some of the Caribbean countries where education is not a major concern.
2. Entrenched low income families with attitudes that are a hold-over from the days of segregation.
3. Teachers unions that allow poor teachers to continue "teaching"
4. The language issues from mixing English, Spanish, Creole, Portuguese and other native languages.
5. Mismanagement of education funds.
6. Focus on sports, marching bands, and what are diversionary or trivial subjects in the adult world.
7. Poor curriculum choices.
8. The warm and even hot weather. Even in the north, student attentions noticeably flagged during warm spells.
9. Violence and gang activity and drugs.
10. Disillusionment by the students.
11. Undisciplined students and classes
There are more, but those are a start.
A couple years back, a Junior at a respected private religious school in Ft Lauderdale (W.A. if those initials ring a bell) asked me to proof a few papers prior to his submitting them. The kid was a great kid, very smart, and able to go on to an ivy league school and get good grades, but his papers at that time were written at what would have been a Freshman level at my high school in the northeast.
Yes the FCAT keeps kids focused on passing the FCAT. IMO, the only reason it does so is that the level of education is SO low that what should be an easily attainable bar seems set far too high. I have very little sympathy for parents and teachers complaining about standardized testing. It is a travesty that generations of kids have graduated from Florida schools with functional illiteracy, while the teachers unions have demanded higher wages and spent money on corrupt leadership. FCAT is merely the messenger that things are horrendously wrong. I can flat out guarantee that every kid in my sophomore high school class could have passed the senior level Florida FCAT with flying colors. I'm sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings, but the adult world is cold and hard, and employers toss the applications of the illiterate into dead files, unless they need a grunt worker that can be abused.
as a Freshman in HS. Is that far enough back in comparison to the FCATS? I also know that I was not the first generation to take these tests.
I was a TA in NY. I am now a TA in Florida. Sorry, guys, no comparison. Did you know that last year Florida state education officials went to NY to discuss the NY method of Regents exams? I haven't heard anything more about it. I suppose they decided not to institute them. Everything you have posted is very true. How do they improve the test scores? They "dumb down" the tests to get the results they want to achieve. In just the district where I work, the powers that be have instituted a 50% only minimum grade. That is right. No student can score below 50% on a test, even if they leave the entire test blank. What does that accomplish? It bumps up the scores for the district. It is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
I went back to college at the age of 48. Most of my fellow students were young enough to be my children. The first day of my Advanced Expository Writing class the professor announced that he did not give A's in his class. I got straight A's in his class. He, in fact, asked my permission to submit one of my papers for publication. Since he announced this in front of the entire class, nearly all the students came to me for "tutoring". I offered to help a few of them and I have to say it was a complete shock what they were writing in college. Could this be just a generational phenom? Maybe kids just don't READ anymore the way we used to? Florida? I really hate to say this but I cannot tell you how many times the TEACHER in class has asked me how to spell something or whether something she has written to a parent "sounds right". It gets very frustrating. She makes twice the salary I do.
At any rate, I hope this new administration tolls a death knoll for NCLB. That is the first step.
The FCAT's are a waste of time because they take time away from learning history, math, english, reading/writing, and other lessons. And the material they teach for the FCAT's is less beneficial to students than the previously stated lessons. They teach you how to pass the test, but the test is not a helpful thing. The FCAT does not help you get into college or help you pass the SAT's. There is no long-term benefit to the student from taking the FCAT. If the state wants to measure the success of the students, that's fine. But to take weeks away from learning real material that will help them in life is the key problem.
By the way, FL students have been taking the FCAT for 15 years now. If the FCAT was so great, why do FL schools continue to rank 50th? Here's any idea. Start teaching kids to read! and write, and do math!
They dumb down the tests to get their results. No better way of saying it. What's the point of having students taking an easy/dumbed-down test and preparing for weeks for it? At the cost of less math, reading, writing, and history?
They dumb down the tests to get their results. No better way of saying it. What's the point of having students taking an easy/dumbed-down test and preparing for weeks for it? At the cost of less math, reading, writing, and history?
So...
You are saying that Lou's kid prepared for weeks to fail a dumbed-down test, and we know he had both private and public school educations. That pretty much sums up a problem, don'cha think?
I repeat my comment. The FCAT is only the messenger. The real problems include those I listed and many more.
I regret that you find "So many things wrong with what you said, I don't know where to begin. " As a person who had to deal with the end result of the educational mess, as one who was one of many that had to decide which people were approved for hire and which were not, I can assure you that excuses and whining about state agendas and poorly paid teachers played no part whatsoever in my pragmatic decisions. Most students and graduates of the Florida school system did not meet the standards of transplants to the state, and those students not meeting even basic standards weren't employed. I guess the state government had to deal with the unemployment and food stamp issues that resulted.
If you feel that the points I listed are "so wrong," all I can say is that I disagree. As for teacher competence and union corruption, I bring to your attention the scandal a few years back with a certain south Florida teacher's union leadership, and ask you to merely judge the competence of tenured teachers in Florida vs. those in other states. AFAIK, the state did not choose union leadership. AFAIK, the state didn't say which teachers got tenure and which didn't. FWIW, to the best of my knowledge the state doesn't even breed the kids being taught.
As for teacher pay, my mother taught school in a one room schoolhouse in the northeastern U.S. for a pittance before she moved to a larger school district. Her predecessor got a small stipend and had to board at the home of one of the local residents because the pay was so low that there was no money for even renting a room. Somehow, under those conditions, both of them turned out educated students. The point is that the relationship of pay to competence isn't linear in education and never has been. As a matter of fact, we just today had a couple of PhDs visiting us from another state. Both taught at the same college, and the one that was tenured at professor status earned twice as much as the untenured one, who had four times the student load as an adjunct as the professor did. Life isn't always fair. To clarify one of my earlier points that you may have misinterpreted, when money for education goes to union coffers, and the union doesn't police its members, kids don't benefit and teachers don't benefit. When comparing a poor teacher earning 50K and a poor teacher earning 10K, BOTH are poor teachers, and membership in a union doesn't change the fact.
... and oh yes, I'm very aware of the positives and negatives of unions. One of my brothers used to be a union steward in a different field, who reported horror stories of treatment by management. I, on the other hand, had to be part of easing an old and corrupt union out of a business where I was employed. I listen to the songs of both union and management with equally jaded ears. The songs of the south Florida teachers unions always sounded particularly discordant to me, as did those of the school boards intent on favoring certain construction companies instead of students.
But, if you want to blame the FCAT for all the problems of the educational system in Florida, go ahead.
Last edited by harry chickpea; 12-16-2008 at 09:27 PM..
TANnaples, I agree with a lot of what you wrote. I also think the ruin of the English education was brought about by "inventive spelling", where, in order to get the kids to feel comfortable writing, they were encouraged to spell the way they thought the words sounded. That wasn't a FL thing, my kids were taught that way when we lived in NJ too. After years of that, they don't see the importance of making sure their spelling is correct. Thanks goodness for Spellcheck.
And Nolefan, I agree with you regarding under-appreciated teachers. Many of the ones I met in FL were excellent, and hated being hog tied by the FCAT restrictions on what they could teach. The curriculum bores the kids, but it also bores the teachers.
My son went to a private school for 3 years. Private schools do not have to take the fcat. His senior year was at a public school. He only needed 2 credits to graduate for his senior year BUT needed to pass the fcat. Well, he did not pass the fcat. Missed it twice by 1 point, thus, no high school diploma.
get him a tutor and then he can go take it again. And yes as a former teacher I agree, Fcat is one of the dumbest things ever created. Not only that they spend half the school year "training" kids how to pass the dumb thing. Leaves very little time for them to actually learn anything of substance.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I took NYS Regents in 1962
