Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog debate a new study that found Georgia had one of the largest gaps between students deemed proficient by state tests and those found proficient by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Here is a sampling of comments:
4PublicEd: Educators still use the Iowa Test of Basic Skills for a really valid test to determine academic placement in gifted and special ed programs. It is reliable and has been around a long time; I am retired, and I took it as a kid. Teachers and parents can gain more information from the ITBS, which is a norm-referenced test, than any of these more recently developed criterion-referenced tests. But no one will gain any money from choosing the ITBS.
Carlos: If proficiency scores are dropped low enough, then we can declare Georgia students 100 percent proficient and close the schools. Think of the savings.
Sheared: The whole testing craze came about because of a lack of grading integrity on the part of teachers. Decades ago, awful stories were published about students who couldn't read or do arithmetic, yet somehow managed to graduate from high school. They were passed from grade to grade by teachers who didn't want to award valid grades for fear of rocking the boat. This is the fruit of those deceptions.
PhysicsTeach: We don't have an education problem, we have a jobs-for-everybody problem. If the lying legislators would stop trying to defeat Obamacare, stop trying to blame teachers, stop trying to start wars, stop looking for scapegoats, quit blaming our problems on immigration and do their jobs — keep American jobs in America — maybe things would improve. But that's too simple, right?
Redweather: I wonder what our state school superintendent, Richard "Georgia-Grown-and-Georgia-Owned" Woods thinks about this. Somebody wake him up.
ScienceTeach: You don't have to compare our scores with the NAEP if you think that's too rigorous. The ITBS or the state's own Lexile comparisons will show the same thing. One can only hope the new Georgia Milestones tests will be more realistic, but since the state Department of Education isn't publicizing any results until the fall, I doubt it. I think they're just using the extra few months to come up with politically correct cut scores.
Man: Kids are not held back because they cannot do the coursework or perform to standards set by the curriculum. Public school teachers are paid by the degrees they have, and many obtain them online and during a month or two of "intense" work during the summer. You are conditioned to think the more degrees or knowledge a person has, the better the results should be for the students these highly qualified teachers work with. But most perform at the same level as the teacher who is minimally qualified. I don't blame teachers or students. A system that wants to "leave no child behind" is to blame. Grades should be earned and not given out like food stamps to any eligible applicant.
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