Comments on: Rise & Shine: Talking pineapple state test question baffles all

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:34:00 +0000

Pardon me, but I generously read Mr. F’s comment (“Well…”) as a complement to either Norm’s or Mr. F’s kids’ teachers — but a backhanded slap at teachers in general.

Stepping back, it’s not teachers’ jobs to design “standardized” tests, and we all have every right to expect the test questions can pass the sniff test of rotten pineapples. And to think, that question has been used more than once, let alone that it ever saw the light of day.

I’m still stuck on $34M, moreso after translating that to man-hours.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 11:41:00 +0000

Anyone who finds that hard to believe is probably doing the same thing on his tests. Seriously, Pogue, we’re not talking about the University of Oxford faculty.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I call BS on that personal response.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:10:00 +0000

Well — in recent years I’ve looked at a fair number of teacher-made tests with questions that make no sense or are ungrammatical or based on incorrect assumptions. So either you’re the exception or my children’s teachers are.

By: Reality-based educator

Reality-based educator — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Brooks is a big accountability man for everybody but himself and the establishment figures for which he shills. If he and his fellow Timesman Tom Friedman were held accountable for the garbage they wrote about the the Iraq war, the economy, the lead-up to the 2008 financial collapse, etc. they would have been fired long ago.

See here for how Brooks refuses to take responsibility for hawking the Iraq war:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/david-brooks-no-apologies_b_93265.html

He is a shameless man, but then again, most pundits and political figures these days are.

By: Norm

Norm — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:55:00 +0000

Ken
Do sensible adults hand over $34 million to Pearson which lobbies for more and more tests? Really why should they bother when they have it all locked up? Can we get a refund? My teacher made tests made more sense. Know why? Because I actually knew my kids.

By: Miss Eyre

Miss Eyre — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Brooks’s comments on college professors are utterly ridiculous. If we don’t put the onus on ADULTS to learn, on whom should we put it? I foresee even more college students gaming such a system in order to spend more time sleeping and partying.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:28:00 +0000

I saw a question on a prep test that asked which of four sentences was “correct.” The answer came down to two sentences, one of which used the serial comma and one that did not. The “correct” answer was the one that used the serial comma. I can only hope that the actual tests don’t force elementary students to resolve that or any other disputes between the editors of the leading style manuals.

By: philip nobile

philip nobile — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:34:00 +0000

Extramural grading is real reason the Regents suddenly want to dump the Global exam. Under new scoring rules, hastily established in the wake of the Wall Street Journal’s devastating exposé of Regents tampering (Feb. 2, 2011) that the Regents, NYSED, and the DOE covered up for years, principals and teachers can no longer promiscuously scrub their own students’ failures into passes as was the custom at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies and many other hyper-segregated schools.
Consider a related irony: the so-called reformers have consistently blamed teachers –not poverty, family chaos, poor healthcare, classroom disruption, and lack of study/homework– for the poor performance of inner city students. But by disappearing the Global exam the self-styled reformers are blaming the students and lowering expectations. As a Global History teacher, I can attest that the Regents exam is difficult only when students don’t pay attention in class and blow off their homework.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:31:00 +0000

Everyone needs to go to this link and read Liz Phillips’s (principal of 321, and far from being a knee-jerk alarmist) letter to John King regarding the tests. Once testing is done, there is absolutely no good reason why the content of the tests shouldn’t be revealed to the public, or an individual student’s actual responses returned to parents.

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2012/04/test-protests-grow-as-brooklyn.html

By: B

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:14:00 +0000

About the pineapple question, one thought: How did the question/reading come out anyway? Kids are still taking make-up exams! On the bottom of every test states that you can’t republish or copy the material under a possible 3020 hearing.

Also… ninja? So in olden times, animals and fruit kidnapped ninjas and toothpaste?

By: Nycdoenuts

Nycdoenuts — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:48:00 +0000

I think it may also question something else, Ken. Like the weight that we place on high stakes tests when they may ask ridiculous questions

By: Ken Hirsh

Ken Hirsh — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:54:00 +0000

The pineapple story is hysterical but more than a bit alarming. I hope to see more pressure put on the SED and Pearson to explain how that section ended up on the test. If there are clearly foolish sections of the test, it questions how many sensible adults are reviewing the material before the final edit.

By: Norm

Norm — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:02:00 +0000

IS 318 has long been a flagship middle school in District 14 in
Williamsburg Brooklyn offering lots of programs in addition to chess —
like a part-time yoga teacher who also teaches other “arts” and a
robotics program. But the school has gotten C ratings in the distorted
world of Bloomberg’s high stakes school system. Of course when you
actually offer kids a wide choice of subjects outside of test prep all
the time the scores will take a hit while the whole child will flourish.
These stories should tell the full story and expose the hypocrisy of
Bloomberg who while cutting the school funding to such an extent the
very program he is trying to glom some glory off was threatened.

By: Vote NO!

Vote NO! — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:34:00 +0000

Regarding the “pineapple” question:

Just think, in a couple of years there will be teachers in NY who will be fired if their students get that type of question wrong.

By: Vote NO!

Vote NO! — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:31:00 +0000

The Global Studies Regents should NOT be made “optional” in an increasingly “globalized” world! Just how narrow do these “reformers” want to make the school curriculum? Education ” reform” is truly about creating “worker bees,” and nothing more.