School grades are coming

Sure, getting all those reams of FCAT scores has been fun. But the school grades and adequate yearly progress results are the main event.

And now you have to wait only five more days.

As a holiday gift, the Florida Department of Education has announced that it will release the grades on Tuesday, July 8, a week earlier than expected. Enjoy the weekend.

Comments

[whocares]

Oh, yippee! The high point of my summer! I can't wait to find out how well our schools are taking tests! Of course grades will improve after years of teaching to the test created to make Brother Bush look good! Maybe they'll make a P.E. FCAT soon and fail all the unfit kids, taking them out of social studies (after all, it's not tested) to run laps until their BMI is reduced. Then the new governor can say he made Florida healthier. Who cares if the kids don't even know that Florida is a state?

[Teacher]

Oh, please don't be an "A". Please don't be an "A". Please don't be an "A". The last time we were an "A" school the teachers, faculty, and staff turned on each other to divvy up the bonus money. It was a morale nightmare. I hope to never have to go through that again. Please be a "B". Please be a "B". Please be a "B".

[Joseph]

For those of you who are interested, take a look at the concept called "regression toward the mean." This is the big problem associated with the FCAT school grades.

Here is a link that explains it fairly well:
www.socialresearchmethods.net/tutorial/Cheng/lcheng.htm

In short, the high-stakes testing is forcing an artificial average on every student and school. Thus, the gifted students are being forced downward to the average, and the remedial students are being artificially inflated to the average.

This is politically correctness gone awry, and it has immeasurable negative consequences for our society. In short, it punishes children for being smart, high achievers while rewarding the remedial kids.

We need to find a different system that rewards high achievers and sets minimum standards while eliminating the competition and the negative labeling and the punitive damages that are associated with the current system.

Until such a time, I would strongly recommend that parents send their children to private schools. A public school education is pretty much a “death sentence” for high-potential students.

[privateisnotbetter]

Ah yes Joseph....and you think private schools are better?

Indoctrination..indoctrination..indoctrination....that is the mantra in christian based private schools....

it's there way or no way...

reality..

1)most state colleges don't have 15 student rosters.....private school kids and homeschoolers go through culture shock....the real world has many people in it.

2) students from private schools don't do any better on standardized tests than public school students.
More take AP in public schools than private.

3) more % of public school students get athletic scholarships..which help students who would otherwise not even go to college...

4) and private schools are not all the same just as all public schools are not the same.....

I sent mine to private and yanked them out and realized what a waste of money it was.....the honors,AP, Dual enrollment programs allowed my son, a UCF student, to surpass his private school roomies....

He is set to graduate in 3 years instead of 4 and can laugh all the way to the bank as he waves to his private school cronies, who don't even know how to do laundry yet, because their nanny always did it.

[Joseph]

Ah yes, "privateisnotbetter" you are the latest recipient of the moron award.

I have this same conversation with my undergraduate students.

Your argument concerning your kid suffers from an ecological fallacy.

I don’t know how your child got so smart from your DNA. Are you sure that he is yours? Or maybe his mother is just very, very smart.

Your comment about athletics is hilarious; typically the athletes (especially the football, basketball and baseball players) are the weakest students, and the only reason they are there is because they play sports. Most of them don’t the meet academic requirements to attend college, but get in under a NCAA special exception. Then the schools spend so much money on extra-services for theses students – extra services that are DENIED to all other non-athletic students that it would make you sick to your stomach. And even after all of that, the percentages of the big 3 sports athletes still have putrid graduation rates.

Last I checked, it looked like Montverde Academy, Northside Christian, Keswick Christian, Canterbury Christian, Shorecrest, and First Academy were doing a quite nice job at educating their students and getting them into “exceptional” colleges like Yale, Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory and so forth.

Where’s UCF on that list of “exceptional” colleges?

It’s not.

Sounds to me like you have some pretty serious anger and self-esteem and jealousy issues. Are you mad because you couldn't make it with the blue-blood families?

Other than that, your post is not even worth a response because, in the end, you are just plain wrong. Your statistics are wrong. Your ideas are wrong. Your methods are wrong.

Just go away. But before you do, please go over to Admiral Farragut Academy and tell them that there private school is no better than, say, Lakewood High School. Okay, then, Seminole High School.

Same response.

Would anybody take you seriously?

Joseph- Why do you assume that privateisnotbetter is male? I saw no indication of the poster's gender in his/her post.
One comment about where graduates of public and private schools attend college...Yale, Duke etc. may well be out of the financial reach of many students. With competetition for limited spaces in colleges, many of the smartest graduates receive little to no merit based scholarship money. In Florida, the Bright Futures and Taented 20 programs guarantee top grads tuition-free admission to a FL public college. I would argue, but don't have stats at hand, that many of the public school grads are accepted into top programs, but decline without a substantial financial aid package.

That's "Talented".

[Joseph]

First, I’m p+i+s+s+e+y, and I like to be p+i+s+s+e+y; so you can’t take me too seriously. Second, generally speaking, when one does not know the specific s+e+x of an individual, one typically uses the male pronoun or s+e+x as a proxy. It very well could be that the individual in question is, in fact, female; similar to the riddle where the doctor comes in the operating room and gasps, “…oh my, it’s my son!” Who is the doctor? Answer: The child’s mother.

It is also an arrogance thing with me. I love to hear others’ ideas and opinions, but I hate opinions presented as facts, especially when said “facts” are idiotic presented by idiotic people. In short, let the experts be the experts, and if one has an opinion and he or she is not an expert, by all means, share the opinion, but do so explicitly as a non-expert. In other words, don’t pretend to be an expert!

Experts can always be identified by the quality of their argument, and clearly “privateisnotbetter” is not an expert!

Confession: All societies are stratified; I like it that way. I’m not opposed to upward social mobility, but I would like for people to earn their way up the social hierarchy; not through “free passes” based on some true believer ideology rooted in some multicultural religious-type fervor that effectively lowers and eliminates nearly all standards of excellence.

I am quite sure that you are correct in your last premise; it sounds very reasonable based on prima facie evidence. However, the statistical concept of a “rate” is appropriate in this situation; that is, public schools have higher numbers of students than private schools, and this is very important. In terms of raw numbers, more public school graduates do “whatever” as compared with private school graduates; however, when you look at “whatever” based on “x” cases per “y” number of students you get a completely different and more accurate picture. For example, last year 100% of the graduating class at First Academy in Orlando got accepted to university! When in the world has this happened in PCS? Never! Do more kids from a typical public high-school go to college as compared to a “typical” private school? In terms of raw numbers, yes; this is very likely.

But, to argue that public schools are better than private schools based on certain criteria using raw numbers is flat wrong.

But, to argue that 1 public school student’s experience supersedes the collective experience of all private schools is flat wrong.

Private schools do a better job of educating their students. This is not to say that public schools cannot or do not do an equivalent job with a certain percentage of their students; but to come off and say that private schools are no better than public schools is flatly wrong.

What p+i+s+s+e+d me off the most was that “privateisnotbetter” presented a lame a+s+s “opinions as facts” argument based, in part, on his/her/its feeble interpretation of statistics.

[publicschoolteacher]

Joseph, please go back to your private school and ask them to teach you the difference between their/there/they're.

Also, I am not so sure that private schools do a "better" job of teaching students as much as I believe that parents who send their children to private school EXPECT EXEMPLARY GRADES from their kids. If I was shelling out big $ for my kid's education, she had better be making the most of it!

[Mencken Jr]

publicschoolteacher nails it. Parents who demand good grades tend to have children who get good grades; it's very hard to get kids to care enough to get good grades when they don't have supportive (or even demanding) parents at home.

[iknowwhati'mtalkingabout]

Oh thank God someone finally sums it up. Thank you, publicschoolteacher.

[Parents Should Get Merit Pay]

Publicschooolteacher and Mencken Jr. have provided commentary that would support the concept that exemplary grades or good grades is directly dependent on the quality of the parenting.

There is much ado about MAPS and STAR's and other cleverly named programs that attempt to show that the public education system sees value in their teachers. This value of course becomes diluted when there are arbitrary cutoffs so some teachers get it and some don't depending on where their name appears on the list. This value also becomes diluted when the MAPS and STARS (why not SWAG- simply wild a+s+s+e+d guess?) award is divided with the secretaries and janitorial service and some administrators (depending on the administrator’s flexible duties?).

To end the confusion, I submit we should have merit pay for parents. It could be called:

Bringing Up Little Learners Shows Home Is Tantamount.

The acronym is apt to the system.

Joseph- the issue of 'rate' might be appropriate if public schools were allowed to be as discriminating in admission policy as private schools can be. Public schools cannot work miracles. You are comparing apples to tractors in this argument.

[privateisnotbetter]

Actually Joseph it is obvious that it is you who has the self esteem problem since you rant and rave.

I am pointing out my first hand experience of both public and private school choices.

No, I do not have stats as you would have liked, but I am sure if we were to compare %'s (rather than totals) and apples to apples I could accomodate your need for numbers.

Secondly, I hope that you are aware how much $$$ sports brings into the marketing end of the application process, e.g. UF Gators.

So to negate the effect of athletics for some otherwise "weaker" students is quite naive of you. Universities use these "weaker" but athletic students to increase their "market share" by
enticing others to their doors. So the investment in some "assistance" is well worth it for universities. And some of these kids need the sport to motivate them to stay in school.

For the record, I am female, a college grad(UPENN undergrad '82,grad '83)
IVY LEAGUE in case your simple mind isn't sure...check out US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT....UPENN ranks 4th or 5th in top tier behind Stanford/Harvard/Yale, so my son got my genes thank you very much.

Fortunately neither my children nor I were born with silver spoons in our mouths like you probably were.
We are 1st & 2nd generation European immigrant products. So if it were not for the US public education system we could not have moved up the socio econ ladder as quickly as we have.

Another thing I learned, in my own experiences with both public and private schools, (elementary,secondary and university levels), it isn't where you go to school to get your education, it's what you do with it once you're out
(FYI, NASA IS RUN BY A UCF GRAD).

So private school grads are no better, they just have families who are richer and can buy them something else that "looks" like it's better.

I also was brought up to look for the best that money can buy. Although I initially sent my three boys to private schools, we ultimately decided that choosing good public schools was a better road to take.

The private schools you speak of "appear" to do a better job only because they are selective with their clientele, I know I subbed in several of the ones you mentioned.
Select public school programs can exceed even private school performance, (e.g.King H.S. in Hillsborough).

So I did my shopping as a good parent should.
And as many teachers on this blog have suggested, there should be a "parent merit program" because that is indeed the best measure of student success....the parent.

So if that is the case, then isn't paying for a private school a waste when a good parent can easily shop for a good public school?

[publicschoolteacher]

Parents Should Get...,

I do believe "exemplary grades or good grades is directly dependent on the quality of the parenting." Not exclusively on the quality of parenting, but there's definitely a correlation.

Can there be students with demanding parents who will still fail, either because of effort or ability? You betcha! Will there be kids who succeed beyond all others despite having parents who could care less? Absolutely!

But for the most part, parents who place a high level of importance on grades and education yield students who perform at the top levels and are amazing contributors to the classroom. And to those parents, I thank you!

[Milton]

Regarding private versus public schools: Joseph, private schools do not have to have certified teachers in the classroom, public schools do. Case closed.

[Parents Should Get Merit Pay]

Two interesting comments from - privateisnotbetter | July 05, 2008 at 11:33 AM

1= "So I did my shopping as a good parent should."

and

2- "So if that is the case, then isn't paying for a private school a waste when a good parent can easily shop for a good public school? "

*************
Questions:

What entails "shopping for a good public school?

From you shopping experience, how many "good public schools" are there in Hillsborough County and how many are simply "Dollar Stores", so to speak?

If a parent does not have or control (enrollment caps?) the essentials to enter the "good public schools" does that make them a "bad parent"?

The fact that one has to shop for a "good public school" is an interesting point.

[Parents Should Get Merit Pay]

Oops - should have been "shopping for a good public school"? and

'From your shopping....'

[privateisnotbetter]

When parents shop/rent homes they should also be shopping for schools simultaneously, as many generations of parents have done and still do.

Some Pinellas parents shopped with choice, others in Pasco/Hillsb. shopped when they bought homes in certain neighborhoods, or completed the school choice forms(where allowed) which lets parents take their child to any school that has room. And others have shopped for public charter schools where available.

Yes enrollment caps are the limiting factors, but this is the same in many private(waiting lists)& public schools(happening now at the private/public univ. level.)

[Joseph]

Some things to consider:

1. Please read about Bourdieu's concept of social capital. It is the one idea that might bring this whole discussion together.

www.williambowles.info/sa/cultural_capital.html

2. Take a look at the difference between an education major and a subject area major; for example, a math major typically requires calculus 4, whereas, the typical math education major needs only beginning calculus. Moreover, take a look at the certification requirements from the FDOE. Again, for math, one can go get a BA in psychology at USF and then get certified to teach 6-12 mathematics completely via the junior college. So, I am not convinced that an education major is the best preparation for teachers. Education courses teach kids "how" to teach, not "why" we teach. I could go on, but this is a big deal; its logic has its roots borrowed from business. That is, we need more theory of teaching in education majors! "How" is just fine as long as everything is standardized, but as soon as something varies too much, then teachers with only "how" loose efficiency. Teachers need to know "why" in order to develop solutions. Experience doesn’t work here, because as it is now, teachers only have experience in "how" to teach, and in order to develop new solutions, one must have a solid foundation of theory – that is, they need to be exposed to different versions of “why” we teach. B. F. Skinner and Glasser are not enough!

3. The whole thing on rates. You just really don’t know what the hell you are talking about…a rate is a kind of control, and it is designed to allow us to compare “apples and tractors,” that IS ITS purpose. You really need to think in terms of quadratic regression models:

Y=b0+b1(x1)+b2(x1^2)+…+e

Because of what is known as “growth models,” one must account for the “bend” in the data.

What is it about the quality of being a private school that differentiates it from public schools on some important dependent variable?

4. As I said before, I am an elitist, and I will defend stratification in American society. I think castes are good. Everybody has their place, and they should stay there…maybe that is our real problem! Thankfully, I have enough money that we will never cross paths, hopefully, and I will never teach your bratty kids because I am way to smart to waste my time in the public school system. I am a researcher, not a babysitter.

[publicschoolteacher]

Joseph, if that is really how you feel about students (that they should stay in the socioeconomic status dictated by their parents' income level) and that they are "bratty," then you are not a teacher at all. I'd appreciate it if you NEVER categorize yourself with the rest of my profession again! Obviously the reason "why" you teach is not because you truly care about students. What does Skinner say about that?

And I hope that all those people who are "beneath" you take you for a ride. Let your mechanic, plumber, electrician, and landscaper charge you through the nose for services you don't really need because you are too high and mighty to know the difference.

Meanwhile, many of us will keep "wasting" our time in the public school system, doing what we love, knowing that we won't make enough money to rise out of our current "caste," but also knowing that we make more of a difference in the lives of our students than you ever will with your lab rats. Good luck with your research. Maybe you'll find some information on what it takes to be a decent human being.

[privateisnotbeeter]

Joseph, please tell us at which college you teach so we may NOT send our money and students there, since you indicated that you teach undergrads.

Too bad you only research and teach, and not do "real" work. Many a good student has come from humble beginnings to contribute good things to society.

Too bad your ARROGANT/ELITIST attitude will probably keep you a lowly researcher and not a real capitalist nor contributor to society.

With your various rants on this blog, you have cemented who really has the insecurities.

P.S. even Trump, who went to PENN's Wharton School had humble beginnings, as did Bill Gates, Aristotle Onassis, Sam Walton, & Oprah Winfrey.....you couldn't possibly have more money than they do....so go back to working your glorified teaching job.

....And be wary, some of us have quite intelligent children who might actually be the future president of the university/college where you teach, so my advice is don't speak to arrogantly, because your next boss might be my BRATTY KID.

[Susie]

Joseph,

Oh, oh

I believe that would be - way TOO smart to waste my time in the public school system.

Your grammar is lacking.

[Joseph]

Oops, did I make another mistake? Oh, how I hate it when that happens.

[Susie]

Me TOO.

[Joseph]

Okay, a couple of things. First, I AM NOT A TEACHER! I am a critical theorist and a statistician.

Second, you are correct, "no," I don't care about my students; I am NOT there for them. If they want to learn critical theory and research methods, then fine; if they don't, then that's fine also. Either way, I don't care. I am not chasing kids down and begging them to be interested in their education, much less in learning my subject areas. That job is left to parents and k-12 school teachers and administrators.

Third, Skinner would not have anything to say about my attitude. Skinner was only interested in observable behavior. He did not believe in theory; he was an empiricist who was only interested in external states, which, he argued, were the consequence of one's environment. Skinner had very little to say about internal states. You would be much better to come at me with Glasser's work.

[Joseph]

Oh wow. I have read through the responses to my posts, and all of you have so personalized my opinions.

I did not realize that I could so easily upset all of you.

You all are so busy demonizing me, that you cannot even see that I have some pretty good ideas.

I’m an A+S+S+H+O+L+E, so what? Do you think that you all are the first ones to think that?

We are never going to cross paths, ever; and if we did, you would never know that I was the “Joseph” in this forum.

So what, I don’t like people?

So what, I don’t want to teach your bratty kids?

Why do you care?

Don’t worry, I will never teach k-12 again. I HATED IT! I have all these wonderful ideas concerning critical theory and statistics and philosophy from Plato, Nietzsche, Weber, Marx, Dewy, and so forth in my head. K-12 kids and most undergraduates don’t give a S+H+I+T about those topics, so I was miserable!

How would you like it if everyday you walked in a classroom to teach the subjects that you loved, and instead, you were forced to listen to, “…why do I need to learn algebra, I’m never going to use this…”

Meanwhile, I have DEDICATED my life to learning this information, but everyday I had to justify the value of my profession to a bunch of idiots.

Why on God’s green earth would I want to be in a situation like this?

Why are you so P+I+S+S+E+D O+F+F because I am willing to admit it?

Try to listen to what I say and not how I say it.

Ask me about regression toward the mean and how that influences FCAT scores and school grades. Ask me about Bourdieu’s theory of capital and it influences classroom learning. Ask me about the social construction of grades or the structure of difference that is reproduced in classroom contexts.

I have a lot of good ideas and solutions; I just don’t place nice, and I really hate free-riders!

[Hussein Obama]

To Joseph,
You really need to get laid.
As far as you being better then everyone, the best part of you ran down your momma's leg.
Try to learn their, there difference.

Thanks for the lessons on teaching, please tell us
"one must have a solid foundation of theory – that is, they need to be exposed to different versions of “why” we teach"
What are you talking about.
Your little theories and philosophy are a joke and really are irrelevant to the real world.
Glad your not in my caste as well, you would get beat up.

[publicschoolteacher]

Joseph writes, "How would you like it if everyday you walked in a classroom to teach the subjects that you loved, and instead, you were forced to listen to, '…why do I need to learn algebra, I’m never going to use this…'."

I do walk into my classroom every day to students who question the reasons for reading my favorite literature or poetry, or ask me why we need to know 30 synonyms for the word "beautiful," or wonder why I refuse to let them use text messaging abbreviations in their writing. And every day, I show them other worlds they would never know but for Bradbury's fiction, the utter loneliness in the words of Emily Dickinson, that the thesaurus is your ticket to an amazing SAT score, and that text messaging will never replace a well-written heartfelt letter to a friend.

They may not understand "why" when they enter my classroom, but they are grateful that we covered it by the time they leave. And half of the material I present has no practical "real world" application for my students. They see how much I love my subject, that translates in my methods, and some of them (not all) adopt my enthusiasm and grow up to be life long readers and writers. I'll never know if I lit the fire for some of these kids, or if one of the selections from my class was the story or poem that inspired them for the rest of their lives. But there's a chance. I create those chances every day for my students. Someone has to inspire these kids to care about education so they can sustain themselves when they encounter pompous assed professors like yourself.

And the reason teachers have to justify the value of their profession to others is because of people like you. I'd venture a guess that I know my subject matter as well as you know yours, but unlike you, I know students as well. I know how to pique their curiosity, how to spark some excitement, and how to get most to totally buy in to what I'm selling. No class, book, theorist, or otherwise can teach that. You either have it or you don't. We know which camp you're in.

[Kudos]

GREAT JOB public school teacher!
I can tell you are an excellent teacher just by your passion!!
We need more like you. The problem is that so many good teachers just get burned over and over by the admin, or parents, and so many kids who just don't care if they fail, and not to mention this inclusion crap that drives the entire classroom to the lowest common denominator.

Joseph you obviously were a complete failure in the classroom because you are a jerk, and the kids can smell a phony in a minute.

To explain the "Why" to students is a true craft of a master teacher and you sir are a master loser.

[privateisnotbetter]

Joseph you must also be not sure of the definition of "teacher".
In your own 2nd post you mention your own "undergraduate students".

Then in a subsequent post you say you are NOT a teacher, but a critical theorist (aka someone who reads and writes and doesn't do real work).

Did you not take your meds, or do you merely need the definition of "undergraduate student" which implies you are teaching them at the collegiate level?

Bloggers he must be a fraud because he isn't sure what he is, or he forgot his medication.

Just let us know where this fictitious college is so we don't send our students there (is it in the Land of Oz?)