Posted on 12/24/2014 8:31:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I love to read, I love to write, I love to do math. I don’t like the PARCC. Why? Because it stinks. I’m glad my mom and dad are letting me opt out because I don’t want to deal with this nonsense.
Elizabeth Blaine, who was barely tall enough to see over the podium, had the courage to speak those word at a recent New Jersey school board meeting. The PARCC she referred to is the “Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers,” which is one brand of testing that will be used to assess students under the Common Core standards.
When she appeared on Fox & Friends this week, the tiny girl, wearing a sweet blue dress with white tights and a sparkly headband, calmly explained to host Elisabeth Hasselbeck that when the audience gave her a standing ovation after her speech she felt “very honored that everyone was so happy for me and that they were impressed with me and they respected me.”
Hasselbeck asked why the Common Core issue was so important to the little girl. “Well, I don’t really like the PARCC because it has many problems and we have — it’s all on computers, so we have to be typing when most of us have never even typed before,” Blaine said. “And we’re not required to take a typing test, but — typing class, but then we have to type on the test.”
“You’re saying a majority of the kids don’t even know how to type when they do this test,” Hasselbeck said.
She wanted to show viewers another example of the work 10 year olds were being tested on and put up a slide containing a question that shocked Elizabeth Blaine when it appeared on her PARCC practice test:
Identify a theme in “Just Like Home” and a theme in “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” and write an essay that explains how the theme of the story is shown for the characters and how the theme of the poem is shown through the speaker. Include specific details from the story and the poem to support your efforts.
“I think most grownups reading that right now would feel dizzy,” Hasselbeck said. ”How do you feel?”
“I didn’t understand it at all, mostly because I didn’t understand the poem,” Elizabeth Blaine said. ”And mostly because we haven’t even done anything with themes. I don’t even know what a theme is.”
Hasselbeck asked Elizabeth’s mother, Sarah Blaine, why she is opting her daughter out of the PARCC testing. “Sarah, I’m looking at you as a mom … for a parent to want to opt out … why do you want to opt out of this for your child?”
“I feel the best way to speak back against these standardized tests is to vote with our feet by not letting our kids take these tests,” she said.
“Strong mom, strong daughter,” Hasselbeck said. “I have to say, you’re a wise student, Elizabeth. I want to thank you for joining us and for speaking out for truth for all those students who feel the way you do. Well done.”
Common Core-aligned testing, including PARCC testing for states choosing that method of assessment, is not yet fully operational in schools. According to PARCC/Pearson’s website, they are currently conducting “field testing” and “collecting data” before they can set performance levels for college and career readiness.
In the meantime, preliminary practice tests, like the one Elizabeth Blaine took, are available online.
EXCELLENT !!
I would venture to say it is unlikely that the person/s who wrote the question for the common core test understood what a theme was either.
A 'podium' is NOT the thing you stand behind. It's the raised platform on which you stand. The thing you stand behind is a LECTERN................PJ Media must be using Common Core journalists..............
Apparently the so called “Common Core” represents the perceived intelligence of its target demographic. Remember even 50 % of Whites and Asians fall below 100 on standard tests.
This little lady will make a fine citizen... let’s just hope she stays on the right track for the right reasons.
Although knowing what a theme is and how to detect it within literature is a very important skill. We were drilled in it at Catholic school & public High.
She’s smarter than Jeb Bush.
“She’s smarter than Jeb Bush.”
So is my cat.
This made me curious as I've never even heard of the poem. So... I looked it up and GUESS WHO IT WAS WRITTEN BY ?
Excellent Post TexasCajun!
I swore to myself against name calling on forums whether poster, commenter or subject. But, this subject, Jeb Bush, is an exception because I just can’t help myself. To be from Texas and support common core and amnesty and big government makes this man a Liberal, a moron and an idiot! And of the three labels, the first is the worst! He really should just join the Democratic Party and run for Prez as a Dim. He is an embarrassment to most Texans and does not stand a chance of carrying Texas in the GE.
And don’t even get me started on the fact he’s a Bush.
Here’s a link to the poem.
http://genius.com/Maya-angelou-life-doesnt-frighten-me-annotated
ALL I can say about it is that it’s the ‘black’ version of “I DON’T LIKE SPIDERS AND SNAKES” by Jim Stafford.
Frankly, I am surprised. I teach sixth grade and some of my students are 10. They type. They do a LOT of the work on computers. We just recently had a unit on themes in a story and my students all successfully answered a very similar question like the one in the example.
FWIW, my class is 15 students, some are US citizens, others Canadian and Aussie. I have Indonesian students, one from PNG, South Koreans and Japanese-Chinese heritage. Not all are native english speakers.
By the time we finished the unit, my students could do this work.
These programs have been around forever and will never go away. Sure, CC will eventurally be kicked to the curb but an even worse program will replace it.
Back in my school days, we had the New Math and had to take the California Achievement Test as if California was the be all to end all in educational standards. I was the IQ test (WISC, etc.) guinea pig and would point out mistakes which threw diagnosticians into tizzies - uh, this puzzle of a car doesn’t have headlights... hey, this is the maze for right handers and I’m left handed... yawn, the rule is if I miss 3 questions in 5, I get to stop so here’s 3 wrong answers.
Our kids were reading by age 3-4 but I had to sign an idiotic contract that we parents would help the school have our kids reading by the end of 1st grade. Yippee! The school gets a brownie point for all their effort! Many of their classmates were already reading so they begged the teacher to throw out the required reading text which had several instances of wrong tense used (bend/bent). Their teacher fought with the school but the kids still had to take all the reading tests which they completed in a few days rather than wasting the entire year. The teacher let them go to the library the rest of the year to read what they wished. Usually at 6th grade levels. Of course, she was fired. Upon HS graduation, all but one of those kids graduated with honors.
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
She was paid for that garbage? Can’t say I miss her.
LOL...very good!
Imagine then, trying to do this : “ write an essay that explains how the theme of the story is shown for the characters and how the theme of the poem is shown through the speaker. Include specific details from the story and the poem to support your efforts”
What could one say ? The theme was apparently Halloween (are more than single syllable words allowed in the essay?)
Specific details from the story are that she said “I” a lot.
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