MUST READ!!! KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER REFLECTS ON MAP TESTS!!!



TKC NOTE: This morning we are HONORED to feature some behind the scenes perspective on real world Kansas City teaching life.

To wit . . .


CHECK THIS KANSAS CITY TEACHER TESTIMONY QUESTIONING THE STATUS QUO AND HINTING @ UPCOMING KCPS MAP TEST RESULTS!!!

Take a look:

KCPS Teacher Reflection

As I close in on 30 years of teaching in KCMSD, I ponder the question.

When you have students that are disruptive in the school, should they be kicked out?

If a student is in the school, regardless of the challenges of keeping them on task, at least they are under some type of adult supervision…and may learn something, even if not the ideal amount.

If you kick them out, they are home alone. They could get into serious trouble, run with the wrong crowd, get pregnant, or become used to the idea of not going to school.

If you keep them in the district, they test low and the district’s MAP scores fall … and the whole district appears to be incompetent.

If you threw them all out, the scores would rise and the district would look better…..but look what we are exposing the students to? (look above)

In the end, if it is about the overall well-being of students, the MAP scores should be tossed out as an indicator of district success.

Success is if a student can graduate, alive, literate, without a criminal record, and without out of wedlock children.

I have run into several of my former students that scored horrible on the MAP tests but went on to graduate from college, vocational programs, enlist and stay in the military, and manage to make a living for themselves. Has anyone ever really examined if MAP scores are an accurate indicator of success in adult life?
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Comments

  1. Agree with this teacher and I thank him for his service. This is why KC needs to focus more attention on VO-Tech instead of all of this Internet marketing. Not everyone is going to be a programmer or work in PR. It's time the city started to try and create real jobs.

    Thanks for posting this TKC.

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  2. Maybe they can pass this curriculum. What a joke.

    http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/21/see-what-theyll-be-teaching-in-the-chicago-public-schools/#ixzz2zZX9A5Fl

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  3. Here is what teachers have to deal with.

    http://townhall.com/columnists/leeculpepper/2014/04/22/wrestling-chaos-in-americas-classrooms-n1827156

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  4. If they are violent, they have to go, PERIOD.

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  5. MAP scores are not about the students. MAP scores are about making school districts look bad so politicos can justify funneling tax payer dollars to their "privatize" friends.

    After all, all that public money is one of the few places Wall Street has not been able to fully exploit. There is little money elsewhere for the taking so public schools are being scapegoats for the the elites greed.

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  6. Yes, good achievement on the tests correlates with achievement in school and graduation rates.

    ITBS tests have about 20 years of longitudinal data that indicates there is a correlation.

    The bottom line is that if you can't read or write or do math at a basic level then you shouldn't graduate. It is also good preparation because every college bound KCMOSD student is going to have to take the ACT and maybe the SAT I and SAT II tests to get into college.

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  7. Few in this town care anything about measuring results. This town is full of copycats; monkey see, monkey do. This is the problem. The town now focuses on hipsters who could care less about this town. They're looking at bigger citys while this one continues to pursue pipedreams of attracting them here. One in a while somebody offers something other than borrowed ideas. That's what most of the problems in Kansas City is up against. Doesn't matter how smart or innovative you are, if you want to thrive in Kansas City, ultimately, you'll be forced to conform with the normal that is so ass-backwards that most people just opt to leave altogether.

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  8. They would probably do better to test for personality type and learning style than current levels of achievement. At least then they might know how to connect with and motivate the student.

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  9. It is a little disconcerting that this teacher has taught for 30 years and is just getting around to wondering, and not actually researching to find out, whether the tests correlate with performance (they do).

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  10. Here is a quote last year from a teacher in Baltimore concerning schools and students.

    http://washingtonexaminer.com/a-brave-baltimore-teacher-speaks-the-truth-about-schools-students/article/2533752?custom_click=rss

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  11. Maybe we should sink a few more BILLION dollars in this sinking ship.

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  12. The Feds should get OUT of the education business.

    The states should handle it soup to nuts.

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  13. 8:51 nails it. The MAP is all about grants and funds for the school districts.

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  14. George Carlin from the Grave5/10/14, 2:58 PM

    “There’s a reason that education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the big, wealthy, business interests that control all things and make the big decisions. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want—they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest.”
    George Carlin

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  15. Talk about oxymoron......niggers and education

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  16. @9:33
    After 30 years... the MAP has only been for around half of that and there have been plenty of educators that have voiced their concerns. I am glad that this will be its last year for the MAP.

    Whatever test they use, I don't want to wait until August to get the results. I want to put the results right into the grade book so the kids know that this test counts. The test should matter to the kids. When I was in school in the 80's, I never tried on those bubble tests, because somehow I figured out that it had no effect on me. I did well on the SAT and that was all that mattered.

    ReplyDelete

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