Rick Roach, who has two master’s degrees, argues that his results suggest that the test is not really testing what students need to know and that the tests pigeonhole students unfairly.

One could also argue, as a few commenters on that post have already, that Roach’s poor reading and math skills are to blame, not the FCAT. He does admit in an email to educator Marion Brady that his math skills are rusty, but I contend that Roach and his detractors are also not considering the time factor.

For example, 10th graders have 70 minutes to answer 58 or so math questions, and 70 minutes to answer about 45 reading questions, from what I can gather from the 2006 exams available online.. That works out to an average time of 1:12 for each math question and 1:33 for each reading question. If any Floridians can correct my information, please do, because those figures don’t seem realistic.

Anyway, my challenge to people who dis Roach and refuse to criticize the test is this. Try these math questions from the 2006 FCAT for 10th graders and time yourselves. I’ll be generous: you have 2 minutes for each one. No cheating. You may use your calculators.

Question 1:
Tonja and Edward are participating in a jog-a-thon to raise money for charity. Tonja will raise $20, plus $2 for each lap she jogs. Edward will raise $30, plus $1.50 for each lap he jogs. The total amount of money each will raise can be calculated using the following expressions where n represents the number of laps run:
Tonja: 20 + 2n Edward: 30 + 1.50n
After how many laps will Tonja and Edward have raised the same amount of money?
A. 3
B. 6.5
C. 14.5
D. 20

Question 2:
Which of the following is equivalent to √50?
A. 5√2
B. 10
C. 25
D. 25√2

Question 3:
Highlands Park is located between two parallel streets: Walker Street and James Avenue. The park faces Walker Street and is bordered by two brick walls that intersect James Avenue at point C, as shown below.

What is the measure of ∠ACB, the angle formed by the park’s two brick walls?
F. 96° G. 84° H. 60° I. 36°

Question 4 (last one!)
In music a certain “A note” has a frequency of 440 hertz (vibrations per second).
This is called the first harmonic. The second harmonic of that “A note” is 880 hertz, and the third harmonic is 1,320 hertz. According to this pattern, what is the frequency of the fifth harmonic?
F. 880 hertz
G. 1,760 hertz
H. 2,200 hertz
I. 2,640 hertz

If eight minutes have passed, your time is up. Put down your pencils and close your test booklets.

Here are the answers. If you got them all right, you can maybe pass 10th grade algebra. If you got none right, or you guessed, then you’re in the same boat as Roach. In that case, shut up and listen to what he says.

1. D 2. A 3. G 4. H

The board member, Rick Roach, is no dummy. He has two master’s degrees in education and educational psychology, and he’s working on a doctorate. He’s trained 18,000 teachers in 25 states, and served on his school board for four terms.

But his reading score on a version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test was 62%, which would have sent him to remediation classes. On the math part, he guessed on all 60 questions, getting only 10 right.

In an email to education critic Marion Brady, Roach wrote:

It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.

Roach went on to note how his life would have much different had he been required to take the FCAT in high school, and done as poorly as he did now.

He makes a valid point which should bring up school “reformers” up short, but probably won’t. While reformers bemoan the supposed lack of “teacher accountability,” do they also hold accountable the makers of the tests they buy to measure teacher and student performance? If even one well educated adult fails a test for 10th graders, something is very wrong. Scientifically speaking, if our theory is that standardized tests accurately measure student performance, just one negative result would invalidate the theory. At the very least, Roach’s test results should either call into question his qualifications as an educator or the validity of the FCAT.

Chances are, neither question will be raised. Roach is clearly well qualified. No argument there. But school assessment tests are the latest fad in education “reform” — a form of quality control for a corporate mindset that treats schools like factories, teachers like assembly line workers and students like widgets. Too many politicians, big names in education (Michelle Rhee?) and test makers have invested a lot of time and money to give up their pet assessment exams because one board member flunked an exam.

But Americans need to get off the testing bandwagon long enough to evaluate the tests being used. Students should not be pigeon-holed, nor teachers be punished, on the basis of only fill-in-the-oval examinations. Most colleges in the USA no longer use only the SAT or ACT to make admissions decisions, after all. They use other measures of student quality, too.

China could serve as a model of what not to do. Standardized tests are the be-all, end-all of a person’s education here. The dreaded gaokao — the college entrance exam — is the ultimate hurdle for every high school student here. Graduation is merely icing on the cake. A student’s score on the gaokao determines his or her future for the next four years, and probably beyond. Unlike American colleges, Chinese colleges only consider a student’s gaokao score. If you’re even a few points below the cutoff for the school, tough luck, kid.

It’s draconian, to say the least. And there’s no way out. I’ve had several students here who are bright, well spoken (in Chinese and English), thoughtful and diligent, but their gaokao scores banished them to this third-tier university. Future employers will give preference to graduates of first- and second-tier schools, perhaps disregarding other qualifications, because it’s efficient. With a huge population, bosses have to find some way to whittle down the applicant pool to a halfway manageable level.

The Chinese system invites cheating and fraud, because the gaokao, and the many other required examinations, carry so much baggage. The allegations of fraud in the Washington, DC, testing system while Rhee was superintendent only hint at what could happen in the US if people take the whole testing system too seriously.

I have seen what damage standardized tests can do to Chinese students (including suicide). America doesn’t need to go in the same direction.
————————–
The links above about Roach and Brady take you to The Washington Post. Brady has the original commentary at his own blog, www.marionbrady.com.
The link for the Teflon-coated Michelle Rhee is to a scathing critique of Rhee by Diane Ravitch, a fairly conservative but very thoughtful education expert.

Without going into a lot of details, let’s just say that teacher, John Freshwater of Mount Vernon, was removed from classroom teaching pending an administrative hearing about insubordination. After a two-year-long administrative hearing process, Freshwater lost his job earlier this year. He and the Mount Vernon school system were also named in a federal discrimination complaint brought by a student’s family; the school district settled out of court and Freshwater, following an unsuccessful appeal, also had to pay damages to the family. Meanwhile, he filed, and later dropped, his own discrimination complaint in federal court against the school system.

So, after all these proceedings which suggest that Freshwater was to some degree culpable, I learn that he has the nerve to play the victim card on David Barton and Rick Green’s WallBuilders Live radio program.

Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.

Freshwater: When the 2007/2008 school year came along, there was a new principal, a new Superintendent, and three new school board members and what took place that year was they wanted me to removed my Bible from my desk. And I felt I have academic freedoms and I thought I had the right to have my Bible on my desk, so I left it on my desk in 2007/2008 school year and they told me to remove it and that was when they suspended me – April 16, 2008 – they suspended me without pay and I’ve been in litigation since then, the last four years.

Green: What’s their complaint about having a Bible on your desk? I thought teachers were allowed to do that?

Freshwater: You know what? I thought so too, but they said I needed to remove it from my desk. Here is what it comes down to Rick, and it’s this: there is a lot of fear in public school teachers, especially Christian public school teachers. They put fear into them and they keep them ignorant; they don’t teach them, they don’t train them on it, so what a teacher does is they take off their religious beliefs, they take their hat off before they walk into a public school building because they don’t want to lose their job. They really don’t have a good understanding of this whole thing called religious belief and separation of church and state, it has been convoluted, it has been putting fear in the people and it is sad, it’s very sad for a public school teacher in a public school in America today.

Freshwater conveniently omitted the religious posters on his classroom walls, the shelf full of Bibles for students to borrow, his teaching of creationism in class, and comments disparaging Catholics, among others, as not being Christian, which were significant charges that led to his removal from teaching and the federal suit against him and the school system. It is true his principal told him to remove his Bible from his desk, so it was not in plain sight. It is also true that Freshwater refused, and also refused to change any of his other actions that got him and the school in hot water.

As for the malarkey that public school teachers have to leave their religion in the school parking lot, there are no laws that forbid teachers from keeping a Bible in their desk, praying privately or stating their own beliefs in a non-judgmental, non-threatening way to their students. There are laws, however, that forbid them from teaching creationism or Intelligent Design as valid “scientific theories” or using their teacher’s desk as a church pulpit to preach to a captive audience.

i won’t even mention the unprofessional, nay, stupid, practice of using a Tesla coil (technically, a high-voltage, high-frequency vacuum leak tester) to give volunteer students skin burns in the shape of an “x” (or a cross, depending on your viewpoint). These charges were also part of Freshwater’s legal woes, if not the catalyst that brought his other dubious actions to light.

Cry me a river, John Freshwater. You’re not a victim here. You’re the instigator — you made your own bed, now lie in it.

————-
If any readers are sufficiently curious to read about the Strange and Curious Case of John Freshwater, this link will take you to the Panda’s Thumb, where Richard Hoppe has chronicled in excruciating detail the whole saga.

Here’s an excerpt describing the typical day in a Chinese high school. Contrast his description with life in your own high school.

I have to say that high school is a monastery and an army boot camp combined. Eleven classes every day. We had to rise before dawn and went to bed after 11. After the last class, we were encouraged to use any bit of extra time for study. There was one student who would go to read his lessons every night in the toilet, because that was the only place where the light would be kept on 24 hours. Everyone hated him, because his breach of a delicate equilibrium that is vital for us to live in peace with each other — he studied just a little too hard. The school encouraged us to be frugal with our time. It had a slogan hanging from the main building: “Time is like water in sponge; if you squeeze harder, there is always more.”

And contemplate this paragraph about the possible consequences of tying teacher pay to students’ performance on standardized tests.

It was not only the students dealing with a lot of stress, but the teachers as well. A teacher’s salary was determined by how many of the students that they were responsible for went to university. Even the school principal would be evaluated on such statistics. At my junior year, a girl committed suicide. Not a big surprise. There are always weak ones who just can’t make it. That is how natural selection works. The cause of the suicide was that the girl’s head teacher asked her to forgo the college entrance exam. Not that he hated her personally. He simply talked to all the students who were deemed hopeless and would only dilute the average results of the class. The girl refused. The teacher told the girl something that must have been very humiliating, and she drowned herself in the sea that afternoon.

It’s a different world here for students, folks. College is a picnic in comparison to the final three years of secondary education.

Amy Myers the Bachmann Slayer (and Scourge of the Right Wing) is not the only high school student making national news. Damon Fowler and Zack Kopplin, both of Louisiana, have made some national waves recently, too.

Fowler is a 2011 graduate of Bastrop High School in Bastrop, La. Earlier this term, he learned that there would be a school-sanctioned official prayer at his graduation ceremony. He objected, and asked that the prayer be scotched. (FYI, the Supreme Court has held that public school-sponsored prayers are verboten under the First Amendment, which Fowler knows but the school apparently didn’t.)

The ACLU followed up with a letter advising the school of the legal requirements and ramifications. School officials agreed to forgo the prayer. As if. In the meantime, the community got wind of Fowler’s objections and the shit hit the fan.

Fowler got threats of violence and death. His fellow students turned on him. One of his teachers publicly berated him. His parents kicked him out of the house, and put his possessions (except his PS3) out on the porch.

The graduation went on without him, since he reckoned attending put him at some risk. And a prayer was said by a student, supposedly against the wishes of the administration but basically within the letter of the law.

On the bright side, Fowler is living with his sister in Texas, and an atheist website has raised more than $30,000 for him to attend college, since his parents cut him off.

Kopplin is a Baton Rouge high school senior who objects to his state’s so-called science education law, which encourages, nay requires teaches in Louisiana to explain that evolution is only one possible explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, creationism/Intelligent Design being another.

He challenged Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) to a debate about creationism. Myers, of New Jersey, also challenged Bachmann to a debate on American history and the Constitution.

Bachmann has so far ignored both challenges.

Kopplin’s letter to Bachmann begins:

I’m a 17 year old from Louisiana, and I’m calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s bluff when it comes to creationism and Nobel Laureate scientists.

In 2004, while she was in the Minnesota State Senate, Congresswoman Bachmann tried to pass SF 1714, a bill similar to my state’s creationism law, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which I’m fighting to repeal. This misnamed and misguided law creates a way to sneak the teaching of creationism into Louisiana public school science classrooms.

The LSEA is hurting my state and the students in it. And now, as the congresswoman is laying the groundwork to run for President, she is upping the ante for the rest of the country by bringing an anti-science, creationist stance to the national stage. Why is this a junk hand for students? Just look at the lessons from Louisiana. Colleges both at home and across the country may question our science education and withhold admission because of our dubious science background. In addition, Louisiana students may lose out on cutting edge science jobs to kids from countries like China and Britain where they teach accurate science and the theory of evolution.

He demands that Bachmann “show him the money” and say who her anti-evolution experts are.

Kopplin later appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball, and made quite an impression. Interestingly enough, he’s the son of Andy Kopplin, Baton Rouge Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s chief of administration.

While there is an active group of teachers, students, parents and scientists lobbying for the repeal of the act, Kopplin has become the lightning rod for criticism and condemnation. Typical of the reactions is this opinion piece from the Shreveport (La.) Times, whose author demonstrates a poor understanding of both science and Constitutional law.

The Times recently carried a front-page article titled “Group seeks repeal of science education act.” (Baton Rouge) High School senior Zack Kopplin, who is on the front line in this imbecilic group, should wait until he has a little more experience in the real world of ACLU actions in this country.

The ACLU, an organization started in communism, convinced our exalted and supposedly intellectual Supreme Court to affirm that the U.S. Constitution means a separation of church and state. It says nothing of the kind. It does say for Congress to keep hands off.

It was not Congress but the Supreme Court, educated beyond its capacity to understand, that gave the ACLU a law to go after anything Christian in the schools and public places. This has led to untold havoc in this nation, helped and abetted by the elements that want to force-feed the theory of evolution to American students. Russia excelled in this.

Evolution is a theory, not factual or scientific. The article says teachers, scientists and college professors (doesn’t say which ones) are backing Sen. Karen Carter Peterson’s bill (Senate Bill 70) in the Senate. They are asking (telling) students that the “big bang” arranged everything in the universe and somehow started life on Earth with a one-celled animal and, surprise, this is where they came from.

They brook no opposition or discussions, which is all the present law advocates. How ignorant can you get?

I ask them to look around and see what has happened in this country since they took God out of schools and everything public. We have an ungodly crowd making laws in this nation.
- Kenny W. Hopkins

Hopkins repeats a lot of fallacies familiar to us who follow the creationism “movement.” Here are the answers.

The First Amendment established separation of church and state in 1787. Even before the ACLU was established, the Supreme Court maintained that government institutions (such as public schools) cannot foster one religion over any other. While it is true the ACLU has participated in many cases involving religion in schools (see above, Damon Fowler), the ACLU itself does not serve as the plaintiff. It advises or represents the plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court cannot give a law. Congress passes bills, and the president signs them into law. The Supreme Court can rule laws are unconstitutional, and then Congress can try again. This is all in the Constitution, by the way. Something about checks and balances.

There is no law banning prayer in schools. Students can lead prayers at public events. Teachers and administrators cannot. Teachers and administrators are free at any time to pray privately. They cannot induce or require students to follow suit. This is not rocket science.

Russia (I suppose he means the former Soviet Union) did not teach Darwinian evolution, but Lamarckianism, which had been discredited as a theory in the “capitalist West” early in the 20th century. Lamarck proposed that offspring inherited characteristics their parents acquired during their lifetimes. Thus giraffes had long necks because they repeatedly stretched to reach the tops of trees, for example.

Evolution is not “force fed” to students, any more than math or English is. It’s a scientific theory, supported by craploads of evidence (aka facts) , and accepted by most of the world’s scientists. In addition, geology and cosmology corroborate the basic assumptions of evolution.

Creationism/intelligent design is not science. It is religious belief, which a public school cannot teach. The ruling in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover case clearly established that Intelligent Design is just another word for creationism, as in the story of Genesis.

Public school teachers are required to teach science. Public school teachers cannot teach religion. We call that separation of church and state. Those teachers and their students are free to believe whatever they like. No one is forcing anyone to “believe” in evolution. The students just have to know enough to pass their tests, for pete’s sake.

“We have an ungodly crowd making laws in this nation.” That would be the Constitutional Convention, I reckon, since those delegates are the ones who drafted the Constitution, which the states later ratified. Why does Hopkins hate the Founding Fathers?

It’s a little sad in some ways that some high school students know more about science and the law than the majority of adults (including lawmakers).

On the other hand, I’m glad someone has a brain.

First there is a quotation from a constitution (which one, I will reveal later), and an explanation by an author. The subjects are religion and public education.

SEC. 4. All persons have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship against his consent, and no preference shall be given by-law to any religious society, nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted. No religious test shall be required as a qualification for office, nor shall any person be incompetent to be a witness on account of his religious belief; but nothing herein shall be construed to dispense with oaths and affirmations. Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to pass suitable laws to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship, and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.

Here’s the gloss:

No one has a right to regulate our consciences or our worship for us. The right of each one to obey his own conscience in the matter of worship cannot be defeated by any law. This applies to his right to attend such church as he chooses, or not to attend; and to helping in the erection and support of any church or religious organization. That a person belongs to any particular church, or does not belong to any, cannot be urged as a qualification or disqualification for an office, nor deny to any suitor in court the right to call him as a witness. This does not say, nor does it mean, that the state, or the law, or the court, only, shall not apply the “religious test;” it means that no one has a right to apply that test. If a voter votes for a candidate solely because of that candidate’s religious belief, that voter violates the letter and spirit of this section of the bill of rights. As all the people have the right to their religious belief, it is right that the law shall not give any preference to any religious body or organization, but that it should fully protect each body in the enjoyment of its own organization and mode of worship. As education makes better citizens, the state ought to encourage it.

The constitution quoted is that of the state of Nebraska (1875), which according to that document cannot foster or support one religion over another. Hm. And that state should also encourage and provide public education. Hm hm. Most states have similar provisions in their constitutions. You should read yours sometime.

The commentary is not from some wild-eyed liberal/commie/socialist/marxist, but an educator named M.B.C True, who wrote a civics book for the Nebraska school system.

In 1885.

A hundred twenty-six years ago, people understood the the principle of the separation of church and state, and the necessity of government (that is, the taxpayers) to provide an education for all children.

Why are these ideas so hard for some people to understand now?
——————————————————————-
Reference:
True, M.B.C., A Manual of the History and Civil Government of the State of Nebraska, Leach Shewell and Sanborn, Boston and New York, 1885.

Fearsome Amy Myers, scourge of the Right Wing

The challenge, issued publicly, is noteworthy in and of itself. But even more newsworthy is the reactions against Myers from Bachmann’s rabid fanbase. And I do mean rabid, as in snarling, drooling, yelping dogs.

Bachmann is the darling of the right wing, a conservative Christian who is at once outspoken and photogenic, and who frequently gets her facts wrong. It was her declaring in a televised speech that the Battles of Lexington and Concord happened in New Hampshire, and that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to abolish slavery that got Myers’ dander up.

Figuring her knowledge of US history and the Constitution was superior to Bachmann’s, she issued a public challenge to a debate. The response from Bachmann has been “no response.”.

There have been plenty from Bachmann’s adoring fans, though. Here are a few samples from Free Republic, which houses quite a few rabid dogs. Remember they are referring to a 16-year-old girl, who looks like she weighs about 90 pounds.

From lalydia:

Why is this even a story? Who cares what some random high school sophomore, whose parents must have give her an overblown sense of her own importance, thinks? Or says? Why should Bachman even acknowledge her existence? What kind of “newspaper” is the Minnesota Independent, anyway?

kbennkc calls her “impudent spawn” and ichabod 1 calls her an “ignorant little twit.”

doulos1:

Where were the high schoolers who wanted to debate the Constitution when the candidate was a half black bastard who had spent much of his formative years in a southeast Asia hellhole, who hadn’t even learned correct number of the states in the Union (57) or how to say the Pledge of Allegiance? Government schools will continue to send out the Obamatrons and fools.
Ignore them like their parents have!

dilbertsandiego:

And are Amy Myers’ parents good liberals???? Just wondering………….Did they put her up to this??? Just wondering…………

Remember the 12 year old girl in 2004, who was in a group “Kids for Kerry”??? She spoke at the Democrat convention, and criticized Dick Cheney for saying a bad word. She wanted to give him a time out, I think?

Anyway, it turned out that her parents were very very liberal, and put the daughter up for a speaking role at the convention.

So wouldn’t be surprising if this girl has very very liberal parents, who want to use the daughter to make their political statement.

albie:

Little dumbass wants to debate the constitution based on what SHE’S been taught by a school full of Marxist asswipes. She’d likely win ONLY because few know what the constitution is all about in the 1st place. Twirp will make up facts, stats and figures and win based on “cuteness” and age.

[Ironically, this is exactly what Bachmann's critics say she does.]

mani4organic:

Amy, you arrogant little sh*t. You are so self-important that you think you matter to Michele Bachmann. Go smoke another bowl with your parents.

From the Yiddish-challenged ontap:

Michele Bachmann would be crazy to accept such a challenge….no way to win…no matter what happens the cute little girl wins for having the hudspa (sic) to challenge a sitting Rep. Any mispoken error would be the only thing to be reported.

The aptly named arrogantsob calls Myers a “lil’ commie” (sic) and praises Bachmann for the many foster children she has raised. (Because being a foster parent automatically makes you an expert in civics)

Commenters on other sites have called Myers a “whore” or threatened her with physical violence, including rape.

There are a lot of people who trumpet they are All-American, God-fearing True Patriots who seem more than a little threatened, or intimidated, that a teenager (1) exercised her free speech rights and (2) questioned a (gasp) US Representative and (3) challenged the kind of kneejerk claptrap these types espouse with any reflection on how truly stupid they look — Bachmann’s ahistorical nonsense included.