nansk Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 Came across this today via Slate.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 Thanks for the link! That was mind-boggling to say the least. However, it made my love for the Happy Scientist soar to new heights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2OandE Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 None of that surprises me. There is too much emphasis placed on the FCAT here. My dd did FCAT review her third day of third grade and multiple times weekly thereafter. They stopped teaching curriculum in March so they have six weeks to prep. I could go on and on. Of course this school is ranked #1 in the state because they drill the test all year long! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessedmom3 Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 I didn't prepare my child for FCAT and he still scored the maximum (5) I think a well read child will score high in any type of test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momof3littles Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 We love the Happy Scientist videos, and this makes me appreciate him even more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 Never mind all the usual problems with standardized testing, this blew my mind: Etters, the Florida education spokeswoman, said releasing FCAT exams would add considerable time and expense to producing the tests — forcing test writers to come up with an entirely new batch of questions each year, instead of the existing practice of using some questions repeatedly. So, assume you were a Florida public school teacher, and an immense amount of pressure was on you to have your students do well on this test. If you knew that the questions mostly didn't change from year to year, isn't the obvious thing to try to get the questions from your students after they take it each year, and put special attention on those questions in subsequent years? How much of the much vaunted "year over year" improvement can be attributed to this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawthorne44 Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 Plus, teachers are generally the proctors. It is not hard at all to look at the test while it is being taken. Super easy to take photos with your phone after the kids leave the room. I was briefly a teacher and I remember "taking" the test in my head while I proctored just as something to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa B Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 The last I heard, this was the last year of the FCAT anyway. Florida is switching to whatever tests coincide with the Common Core. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraceyS/FL Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 None of that surprises me. There is too much emphasis placed on the FCAT here. My dd did FCAT review her third day of third grade and multiple times weekly thereafter. They stopped teaching curriculum in March so they have six weeks to prep. I could go on and on. Of course this school is ranked #1 in the state because they drill the test all year long! My daughter had a really bad 2nd grade year academic wise. I'm concerned for 3rd grade because I know there is stuff they didn't cover well - and then it is "get ready for the FCAT year". Right now I don't have permission to straight homeschool her, but I'm hoping to have a better year having her do Connections. At least I will have a better grasp on what she does and doesn't know, and be more in control of the FCAT prep crap. She saw the title of this thread and asked me earlier, "Do i have to still take the FCAT this year?" and wasn't happy with the "yes" she got. The last I heard, this was the last year of the FCAT anyway. Florida is switching to whatever tests coincide with the Common Core. I thought that too - but I wonder how that works at schools that haven't transitioned all grades? At my DDs school last year the first graders moved to it, this coming year they will add the 2nd graders - and each year the next grade transitions. Which means DD would never be at CC until middle school. (oh, and K moved the year before 1st). As for the science FCAT - i just remembered that my middle DD took the 5th grade FCAT, with little to no science instruction at the school. She was in a mixed self-contained classroom, and was the most advanced of her classmates (the only one to move to the higher IQ self-contained class in middle school), but functioned at about a 3rd grade level at the time. But because she loves part of the material - she actually almost PASSED the thing. The science test was by far her best one - and her scores so did not coorelate with her math and reading. It was actually funny to look at! AND, why isn't my spell check working in this posting box any longer??? I guess my secret is out.... I don't spell well! :p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraceyS/FL Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 This happened to me once too. The way I fixed it was to highlight a word in the text box (any word), right click on it, click on languages and select English (United States). I don't know if that will help you, but that worked for me. Well, in Safari I'm getting everything as courier - and can't apply fonts and such. In Firefox it is showing up as the HTML preview thing (your quote is in a box instead of text wrapped in [ quote ] tags. I posted in the board area that this computer cannot load pages in Safari in under 30 seconds - so I'm assuming this is a Firefox/Mac issue.... I guess I really need to get on with moving my computer out here because it just works! :p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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