Students missing math classes needed for NECAP
More than a third of Providence high school students who took the NECAP test in October may not have taken either the necessary algebra or geometry classes to fare well on the test, according to the Providence Student Union. A full13 percent of NECAP test takers haven’t taken either algebra and geometry in school, the [...]
How RIDE Undermines Their Own NECAP Test
If I had to pick one thing to complain about with the high-stakes NECAP testing regime it wouldn’t be the pressure on the students, the deformation of the curriculum, or any of that. If it was just one thing, it wouldn’t even be the misguided policy to use NECAP as a graduation test. It would [...]
NECAP Grad Requirement Trumps Good Grades
Just 30 percent of high school seniors in Central Falls will get diplomas, if the other 70 percent doesn’t improve on their high-stakes standardized test scores under a controversial new state graduation requirement. In Providence and Pawtucket, two of every three students won’t graduate if they don’t do any better on the test. In Johnston, [...]
Students Call On Chafee To Stop High Stakes Tests
Public high school students, teachers, and other community members staged a press conference today to protest Rhode Island’s new high-stakes testing graduation requirement, calling on Governor Chafee to end a policy they described as unjust and ineffective. “We are here today to explain why we believe this graduation requirement will do nothing to improve the [...]
Why High Stakes Tests Shouldn’t Grade Students
A broad coalition of education activists and defenders of the less fortunate will attend the Board of Regents meeting tonight to ask the public education oversight committee to reconsider a new rule that would require high school students to pass a standardized test – traditionally used for grading school performance, not student – in order [...]
Protest RIDE’s High-Stakes Testing Policy Thursday
Next Thursday youth, parents, and other advocates will be heading to the Board of Regents meeting to protest against the new high-stakes testing graduation requirements that Commission Gist and the Regents passed last year. This discriminatory policy, which is scheduled to be implemented in Rhode Island schools this October, is an absolute disaster. It uses [...]
Providence’s Five Million Dollar Man
What do Providence schools need? The school board apparently thinks it’s high priced consultants. The Providence School Board is taking some heat after they unanimously voted to give a $5 million contract to a consultant to help turn around three low performing schools in Providence. Jeffrey Hernandez, the CEO of National Academic Education Partners Inc., [...]
Minority Students as Pawns in War on Public Schools
Earlier this year, the “nonpartisan” (*cough*) Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity (RICFP) released a report, “Closing the Gap: How Hispanic Students in Florida Closed the Gap with All Rhode Island Students,” which purported to explain “in some detail why Florida’s reforms, while benefiting all students, have been especially beneficial to disadvantaged students.” I [...]
High Stakes Testing: Not So Hot
Last week friend of the blog, Dan McGowan at GoLocal, asked: Everyone agree that “teaching to the test” is a bad idea, but it makes no sense to get rid of standardized tests that could determine whether a student is eligible to graduate… Why not continue to test, but also offer the right interventions that [...]
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