I'm on my phone in my car waiting to start high school weight lifting. I'll find the link and post it on here in a few if nobody took the practice tests. My kids take it on Thursday and the prep for it has been awful. I'll post how we do in the summer. I'm really worried. My biggest complaint is the vast vast majority of my kids have a knowledge and comprension base to the question. They don't understand what the question is asking and the computer is a statistical anomaly in and of itself. Poor districts still use pen and paper. Our superintendent wants our kids to use computers because the district spent money to upgrade the computers to justify the expense. Never mind that the districts that use computers score significantly lower. I'll post an article on that too.

new proficiency tests are BULLSHYT. I'm going to post some sample questions provided by the State. Take 15 minutes out of your day to feel my pain. For the first time in my teaching career I'm concerned. I really am.

https://login1.cloud2.tds.airast.org/stu...?c=Ohio_PT

I can't copy the link from my phone and get it to work. It's in the one thread on Kaplony's on public unions.

Got to go be back in 3 hours.

Can the parents of the students choose to opt-out? Here in New York they have that option and its causing a lot of ill will. Some districts saw almost 50% opt outs last year.

My daughter and her husband are both public school teachers and they had their kids opt-out. And both are in gifted programs.

They can opt out but then they count as a fail on my record.

https://login1.cloud2.tds.airast.org/stu...?c=Ohio_PT

That link works. Try the pba and eyo. Performance based and end of year exam. If I didn't have the key in front of me I wouldn't have been able to explain the test to kids. Half of the time I had no clue of what the author of the test wanted. Like I said. I taught gene expression. I taught dihybrid Mendellian crosses. My kids can do that for you on a paper and pencil test. This monstrosity that they have spent billions on developing. It's a clusterduck.

(04-09-2016 06:40 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I'm on my phone in my car waiting to start high school weight lifting. I'll find the link and post it on here in a few if nobody took the practice tests. My kids take it on Thursday and the prep for it has been awful. I'll post how we do in the summer. I'm really worried. My biggest complaint is the vast vast majority of my kids have a knowledge and comprension base to the question. They don't understand what the question is asking and the computer is a statistical anomaly in and of itself. Poor districts still use pen and paper. Our superintendent wants our kids to use computers because the district spent money to upgrade the computers to justify the expense. Never mind that the districts that use computers score significantly lower. I'll post an article on that too.

I did the bio one and I did not see the problem. I'm not a fan of computer testing but it does offer some nice features. For instance it can self tune as the test is taken to really see what level the kid is at.

The eye or the pba or both? You could answer the 5th question on the pba. I have a real problem with that one. On the eyo the DNA one on gene expression is bad too.

(04-09-2016 11:06 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  The eye or the pba or both? You could answer the 5th question on the pba. I have a real problem with that one. On the eyo the DNA one on gene expression is bad too.

The dna expression, as in "follow the original dna".. That seemed pretty straight forward and I've not touched biology in 20 years.

That was the first one and I will be interested. How many blue strands did you have total in the four boxes?

BIE? I would like to have your answer so I can see if you made the same error as a lot of my kids. I'll even give you what it is called. Semi Conservative replication. I'm interested in if you can answer what the author wanted and I'll tell you why it's a poor question. How many single strands of blue did you have in the total of four boxes?

(04-09-2016 11:57 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  That was the first one and I will be interested. How many blue strands did you have total in the four boxes?

Honestly I don't remember... I did it days ago.

But my memory goes like this.. First Generation was one blue/yellow and one yellow/yellow. The next generation (of of the "blue yellow") made one blue yellow and one yellow/yellow.

so I guess that's two....

That was wrong. Just sayin'

The answer was the first two boxes was blue yellow and the next two was blue yellow yellow yellow. If you care to go along with the dialogue I can tell you how kids get very confused.

It's just bull hunky hunky when you get down to brass tacks.

then you think that school districts that fall below par they get to open up vouchers in that community. That's the whole end game here. Let's make a whole generation of kids to feel inadequate so we can privatize education. That's the whole end game here. That's what I want you guys to understand. I know the majority here will cheer lead that but to the rest of us it's an absolute sham.

No

The format was annoying.

(04-09-2016 06:20 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  That was wrong. Just sayin'

I got it right at the time, but don't remember 1 question I did at your request nearly a week ago.

(04-09-2016 06:22 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  The answer was the first two boxes was blue yellow and the next two was blue yellow yellow yellow. If you care to go along with the dialogue I can tell you how kids get very confused.

Mach I recounted my answer incorrectly, but that sounds like what I got..

And I did it 20 years removed from a teacher talking about it to me.

(04-09-2016 06:36 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  then you think that school districts that fall below par they get to open up vouchers in that community. That's the whole end game here. Let's make a whole generation of kids to feel inadequate so we can privatize education.

Oh that's horse-shaq... I know you said you don't give a damn about the graduation rates in poorly performing school districts but a lot of people in that district do!

You think we ahve a problem with kids feeling inadequate in this nation? Seriously?

About the only thing we do really well in is self esteem.

Quote:That's the whole end game here. That's what I want you guys to understand. I know the majority here will cheer lead that but to the rest of us it's an absolute sham.

I don't want the end of public education. I want two things...

(1) Local control and only local control of schools. No department of education meddling, and limited interference from the state.

(2) ** CHOICE ** for people who's local schools are dumpster fires.