I Hate MCAS

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I am administering it this week. And it sucks. I helped a child who needed a little bit of help through a text, culled from the 1800.'s, where the major characters were named Jo and Laurie.
He got confused.
And I couldn't REALLY tell him Jo is a girl and Laurie's a boy,
I just said "Yes, that might be confusing."
Who are the people who write these tests? This is my first plunge into the public school system, and nationally/state mandated tests - but the tests are REALLY hard and REALLY ambiguous.
It sucks!
I'm so angry that these tests exist to disrupt learning, for teachers and students alike.

― aimurchie, Thursday, 22 March 2007 22:06 (eighteen years ago)

http://g2007.com/wef/freshhhhhhh.jpg

(sorry)

― gabbneb, Thursday, 22 March 2007 22:09 (eighteen years ago)

MCAS does start with - Massachussetts. But it's national.
gabbneb, that's what most of the students would've preferred seeing on their exam!
"In a short essay, describe this performer. How is his influence on the audience pertinent to the themes his performance reveals to the audience?

You need to discuss two parts of the performance and two parts of the audience reaction, and then talk about the relevance.

― aimurchie, Thursday, 22 March 2007 22:25 (eighteen years ago)

Massachusetts Comprehensive Assesment Survey - aren't these nation wide, by state? Under the "no child left behind" mandate?
Whatever - they suck, and I feel for every teacher who is judged by these tests.
Administering the tests is a nightmare - Apparently the teachers are not supposed to "see" the questions or the answers because that might influence the outcome of the tests!
Well, I'm a sub, not a teacher, and I will bitch about the test on this thread...
These kids, some of whom have no reading skills - although they are bright stars - don't get it.
The mandated tests suck energy out of every part of the U.S. education system - and there is not much left to suck.

― aimurchie, Thursday, 22 March 2007 23:28 (eighteen years ago)

This thread bothers me greatly because whenever I see MCAS I think of this (which I drove past for a non-trivial part of my life)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/22/MCAS_ElToro.jpg/200px-MCAS_ElToro.jpg

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 23 March 2007 05:30 (eighteen years ago)

I'm sorry I disturbed you Telecom. I'm still pissed.
It's a festival of idiotic buerocracy.
My radical thought is...let the kids take the test online. At home, if they have a computer at home, or at the school. These kids have a rich relationship with "online", and asking them questions about Louisa May Alcott's fictional characters ice skating on a pond is like...asking them to analyze a Norman Rockwell painting.
At least, online, they would be able to press the right keys that magically appear as letters on a screen.
(I'm pissed that I can't spell beurocracy. I refuse to look it up on teh internet.)

― aimurchie, Friday, 23 March 2007 23:12 (eighteen years ago)

big complex organizations tend to have a lot of different BUREAUS that you must deal with

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:28 (eighteen years ago)

Bureaucrocy?
It's a very hard word to spell, too many vowels.
Thanks, Tracer Hand.

― aimurchie, Saturday, 24 March 2007 01:44 (eighteen years ago)

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