Who's to blame? Who teaches these vile tests to be so racist? I blame the parents, these test's parents raised them in a house of hatred, then sent them in the world to spread that racism one scantron at a time. It started when the tests were mimeographed at birth, then their kids xeroxed their parents behavior, now they just download their hatred. When will the madness end? Shut down all racist testing!

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
I also just asked an NYC teacher and she said the test is pointless. They take 2 classes in the program that cover the material from the ASLT. If you fail the test but pass the courses there are 4 tests total and the ASLT is the easiest and must redundant. People who fail the ASLT remain in the program anyway then get weeded out by failing the CST. She said it's just $300 that's wasted because if you pass the you just submit your grades then move on. You don't fail out of the program. She also said ASLT test you still have to take the courses that are required and pass you anyway. Just another way for Pearson testing to make money.

I think you hit the nail on the head about Pearson testing. It's all about who knows who and someone knows Pearson.

My brother-in-law this year moved out of Staten Island to get his kids into a better schools, and Staten Island is not as bad as the other 4 boroughs.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Who's to blame? Who teaches these vile tests to be so racist? I blame the parents, these test's parents raised them in a house of hatred, then sent them in the world to spread that racism one scantron at a time. It started when the tests were mimeographed at birth, then their kids xeroxed their parents behavior, now they just download their hatred. When will the madness end? Shut down all racist testing!

In this particular test I don't think you can blame the parents or teachers. It is the top Administrators that decide which test they will use and the lobbyist know who will vote their way.

quote:

Originally posted by olfuzzy:

“We want high standards, without a doubt. Not every given test is going to get us there,” Pace University professor Leslie Soodak told the AP.

Bitch, please. You want social justice. Period. High standards my fluffy, white bottom.

Maybe we should vary the size of home plate so it will become wider for poor MLB pitchers too. How about expandable goal posts to help poor NFL kickers.

Everybody wins......right?

Mike

caus diversity be mo impotent

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Remember the movie "Idocracy"?

It's becoming more and more apparent that it was a wry documentary and not a comedy.

I don't remember anything. It must be all the Brawndo. I'm so thirsty.

quote:

Originally posted by rtquig:
I don't know if this is still the case, but if you were a teacher in NYC, you had to get your Masters degree within 5 years of becoming a teacher.

Last I knew you had to complete the masters course work within five years. You didn't need the actual degree to stay teaching.

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
I also just asked an NYC teacher and she said the test is pointless. They take 2 classes in the program that cover the material from the ASLT. If you fail the test but pass the courses you just submit your grades then move on. You don't fail out of the program. She also said there are 4 tests total and the ASLT is the easiest and must redundant. People who fail the ASLT remain in the program anyway then get weeded out by failing the CST. She said it's just $300 that's wasted because if you pass the ASLT test you still have to take the courses that are required and pass you anyway. Just another way for Pearson testing to make money.

If I am reading this correctly it sounds like they are lowering the first hurdle in a series of 4. That keeps people in the process longer but probably doesn't help get over the remaining hurdles. So basically it just keeps applicants in the system longer - draining them of more money before they are booted. Is that correct?

Editing to add. Ok I went and researched a bit. This article does a nice job of summarizing the situation. I don't buy argument that a disproportion number of minorities failing is evidence that the test is biased. However, I can certainly believe they created a crappy test that doesn't do anything but make money for a testing agency.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireS...-minorities-46065836

New York education officials are poised to scrap a test designed to measure the reading and writing skills of people trying to become teachers, in part because an outsized percentage of black and Hispanic candidates were failing it.

The state Board of Regents on Monday is expected Monday to adopt a task force's recommendation of eliminating the literacy exam, known as the Academic Literacy Skills Test.

Backers of the test say eliminating it could put weak teachers in classrooms. Critics of the examination said it is redundant and a poor predictor of who will succeed as a teacher.

"We want high standards, without a doubt. Not every given test is going to get us there," said Leslie Soodak, a professor of education at Pace University who served on the task force that examined the state's teacher certification tests.

The literacy test was among four assessments introduced in the 2013-2014 school year as part of an effort to raise the level of elementary and secondary school teaching in the state.

Leaders of the education reform movement have complained for years about the caliber of students entering education schools and the quality of the instruction they receive there. A December 2016 study by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that 44 percent of the teacher preparation programs it surveyed accepted students from the bottom half of their high school classes.

The reformers believe tests like New York's Academic Literacy Skills Test can serve to weed out aspiring teachers who aren't strong students.

But the literacy test raised alarms from the beginning because just 46 percent of Hispanic test takers and 41 percent of black test takers passed it on the first try, compared with 64 percent of white candidates.

A federal judge ruled in 2015 that the test was not discriminatory, but faculty members at education schools say a test that screens out so many minorities is problematic.

"Having a white workforce really doesn't match our student body anymore," Soodak said.

Kate Walsh, the president of National Council on Teacher Quality, which pushes for higher standards for teachers, said that blacks and Latinos don't score as well as whites on the literacy test because of factors like poverty and the legacy of racism.

"There's not a test in the country that doesn't have disproportionate performance on the part of blacks and Latinos," Walsh said.

But she said getting rid of the literacy test would be "a crying shame."

In implementing the exams, she said, New York had become "light years ahead of other states" in its teacher certification regimen.

"New York put together a suite of testing products that really got at the lack of rigor in teacher prep," Walsh said.

The Academic Literacy Skills Test consists of multiple-choice questions about a series of reading selections plus a written section.

A practice test available for $20 on the New York State Education Department website features John F. Kennedy's inaugural address as one of the reading passages and asks questions like this one: "In which excerpt from the passage do Kennedy's word choices most clearly establish a tone of resolve?"

Ian Rosenblum, the executive director of the New York office of the Education Trust, a nonprofit that advocates for high achievement for all students, called the literacy test "a 12th grade-level assessment" — something a high school senior should be able to pass.

But Pace University student Tabitha Colon took the test last year and failed to get a passing score. She likened it to the English portion of the SAT and said it was "pretty difficult." Plus, she said, she was thrown off by the fact that the test was given online, rather than on paper.

"The format on the computer was a bit confusing," she said.

Colon, 21, was still able to pass thanks to a "safety net" provision that lets students demonstrate proficiency by submitting grades from a class. She is now working as a student teacher at a middle school in Ossining.

Several education professors told The Associated Press the test doesn't measure anything that isn't covered in other exams students must take, including subject matter certification tests, the SAT, the GRE and tests that are part of their coursework. Also, they said the test's $131 price tag is too steep.

Michael Middleton, dean of the Hunter College School of Education in Manhattan, said that of the battery of assessments, "It's the one that looks like it's the least related to the actual work that teachers do day to day."

Charles Sahm, the director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, is a strong supporter of raising the bar for teachers but not a fan of this particular literacy test.

Sahm took the $20 practice exam and thought it was a poorly designed test with multiple-choice questions that seemed to have more than one correct answer.

"I do agree that it's not a great test," Sahm said. "I found the reading comprehension section to be kind of infuriating. I only got 21 out of 40 right."

^^^the reason you know it's a horseshit test is that if you fail it but pass the classes you still pass and move on. If you pass the test you still have to take and pass the same class to move on...you are just poorer. NYC makes you take four different tests...a lot of states have just one. If passing the Test in question made it so you could skip the 2 classs then I could see it having some validity or benefit. As it stands pass or fail it has little effect on your standing in the program.

Let me ask a basic question

How the hell does a person make it through 4 years of college, emerge with a Bachelors degree, and yet be unable to pass this basic test?

How can a teacher be expected to teach a subject that they cannot pass themselves?

How on earth are there so many unskilled yet degreed teachers?

quote:

Originally posted by olfuzzy:
Just 41 percent of black teaching candidates and 46 percent of Hispanics passed the test on their first try, compared to 64 percent of white candidates.

Sounds like a whole lotta non-hiring oughta be going on.

To be fair, assuming applicants are proportional to population demographics, there would probably be a lot more white prospective teachers rejected than others, statistically. But let the chips fall where they may.

Teaching is no place for the illiterate.

quote:

the test's $131 price tag is too steep

That I agree with.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Just want to clarify. Teachers. Those who are supposed to have the skills necessary to impart knowledge upon our children. Those who have graduated from high school and college with some sort of degree.

In NYC, at best, 36% fail a basic reading and writing literacy exam. Am I reading that right?

Almost 4 out of 10 of those in NYC with college degrees who are applying as teachers can't pass a basic reading and writing literacy exam?

I do believe I have discovered a problem.

That's a HUGE problem. How can you teach kids if you don't know how to read or write yourself???? WTF

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Let me ask a basic question

How the hell does a person make it through 4 years of college, emerge with a Bachelors degree, and yet be unable to pass this basic test?

Ran across one in Officer Basic. ROTC commission, college graduate. The course had 5 tests. If you failed one, you were given a reteach on the questions missed and then tested only on those questions. The officer failed ten times. They finally gave her an IQ test then boarded her "intellectual deficiency."

Last I heard there was an external review of the college and the ROTOC program.

With testing, particularly intelligence based tests, no one test should be a make or break. Fail several, then it's a good predictor of problems. My question would be why so many minorities are failing. The next question is the racial breakout of the rest of the tests.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Let me ask a basic question

How the hell does a person make it through 4 years of college, emerge with a Bachelors degree, and yet be unable to pass this basic test?

How can a teacher be expected to teach a subject that they cannot pass themselves?

How on earth are there so many unskilled yet degreed teachers?

I asked my friend the same thing and she said in her experience the people who didn't pass were people who English was a second language for. But if you read the above article that guy who runs a conservative think tank also failed...perhaps the wording is retarded.

Hell, if you keep lowering the standards for teachers and kids to graduate why bother sending them to school at all. Just giver the social promotions on day one of pre school and send them on their way.

Can you we get anymore stupid ..... ?

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
] How about expandable goal posts to help poor NFL kickers.

Everybody wins......right?

Mike

I can see it now, I'm sorry Mr. Kicker, you missed but it was so close we are going to give your team 2 points because you tried so hard to make it. Here, have a lollypop and go sit down.

How about the blacks and hispanics start teaching their kids that integrity and intelligence is more important than perpetuating their thug cultures and this wont be a problem in 20-30 years.
Oh wait a minute, I thought this was about solving a problem rather than attempting to usher in any illiterate, felon, SJW that would push their agenda.
Silly me.

quote:

Originally posted by rtquig:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Who's to blame? Who teaches these vile tests to be so racist? I blame the parents, these test's parents raised them in a house of hatred, then sent them in the world to spread that racism one scantron at a time. It started when the tests were mimeographed at birth, then their kids xeroxed their parents behavior, now they just download their hatred. When will the madness end? Shut down all racist testing!

In this particular test I don't think you can blame the parents or teachers. It is the top Administrators that decide which test they will use and the lobbyist know who will vote their way.

That was a joke, maybe not a very good one. Reread it.