I would never have expected this level of vitriol about a faulty test item.

[madfloridian]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025566838

[elehhhhna]

1. why? high stakes + erroneous content = crappy education

[Journeyman]

2. What did you expect? How do you perceive the responses should have gone? . . .

[madfloridian]

3. That there was no minus sign in the answer choices.

[madfloridian]

10. You know..that's a strange question.

As a long time teacher of primary grades, I understand that they would expect there to be a subtraction problem there.

There is not. If they wanted an addition problem they should have asked for it.

The defense of this faulty test item is really worrying me.

It is not okay to do that to little kids...or big ones for that matter.

[Journeyman]

11. I agree. I also thought the structure of the question a bit odd. . .

Are first graders expected to understand language like that? "Related subtraction sentence" seems a very stilted way to explain anything to a six year old. And yes, there not being a subtraction answer certainly confuses the issue. Look at how much debate it generated amongst a discussion group composed of adults. In a room full of little kids, something like that would generate more blank looks, I suspect, than it would eager participation.

All this said, I have to point out that it appears to be, if anything, a preafrooding failure. As a graphic designer & typographer from way back, I'm offended by such shoddy craftsmanship. Especially when the end user is intended to be little children in a learning environment.

[immoderate]

4. All you need do is restructure the English language.

Any first grader can do that.

--imm

[unblock]

5. i remember a faulty sat question

it relied on the sum of the angles of a triangle adding up to 180 degrees, which is true on the usual flat surface (euclidean geometry) but not necessarily true otherwise. you can even have a triangle with 3 right angles on a sphere, for instance.

so some kid wrote in "none of the above" or the seemingly incorrect "b" response instead of the intended correct response "c" or whatever it was.

eventually, i believe, the kid and anyone else who responded similarly got credit for the correct answer, as did everyone who gave the intended answer.



for what it's worth, i've rarely taken a complete test that didn't have some problem along these lines with at least one question. it's actually hard to develop a comprehensive test and not make a mistake somewhere. a question assume that zero divided by "x" is always zero, forgetting that zero divided by zero is undefined, for example.

that said, they should obviously put these tests through a very thorough quality assurance process if they're going to be so standardized.

[malthaussen]

6. I was just reading that thread...

... I didn't see so much vitriol (especially compared to some threads around here), but there were sure a lot of people who were hot to defend the test, which is interesting. I wonder how many of them actually have a stake in the game -- i.e., children in school or a job in education. There was a definite flavor of "you teachers should stop complaining," I thought.

-- Mal

[elleng]

7. All it really takes is Carol Burriss' comment,

on the video you provided: 'Even' she, a high school, principal can't figure it out OR why its on the test.

[madfloridian]

12. The CBS interviewer even noticed.

I have a headache from reading the responses in GD. And from

[elleng]

14. Not reading.

I don't torture myself.

[madfloridian]

8. I am feeling a little sick about this whole thing now.

I did not realize things were this far along in accepting the new reforms. Accepting an answer with the wrong operational sign because it is in the same family? I always taught my students to think, and they would be the first to argue that there is no right answer there.

[Demeter]

9. That's the "creating our own reality" paradigm, coming into play

Combined with the complete lack of rabies vaccinations amongst the opinionated, it makes me want to leave.

[roody]

13. Also a decade is now ten days in first grade.

Not Common Core, but a new-fangled up to date math program I am piloting. Of course it is aligned with CCSS. I am not lying to the kids and telling them that ten days is a decade.

[xocet]

16. The word 'decade' does have a more general meaning...

decade

...

3. a group, set, or series of ten.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decade%20?s=t

So, it really would not be lying, but it would be confusing to them I would think.

What is the spirit of the course? How general is it trying to be, and how does that align with the upper elementary grades? Is there any good reason to try to be this general so early? How do children of that age respond when presented with such generality?

Here is an example of the usage that you noted:

French republican calendar

TITLE: calendar (chronology)
SECTION: The French republican calendar

The seven-day week was abandoned, and each 30-day month was divided into three periods of 10 days called décades, the last day of a décade being a rest day. It was also agreed that each day should be divided into decimal parts, but this was not popular in practice and was allowed to fall into disuse.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/154851/decade

All that being said, it doesn't seem like a good idea to be so general without a firm foundation, but I don't know how children react to this material. Good luck!

[xocet]

15. That is one heck of a thread. Thanks for the OP. n/t