Very well said!!!!!!!!! My letter to the NYS Commissioner of Education: Dear Sir, Thank you for publishing your letter (dated August 7th) to parents regarding the 2013 test results and core standards. While I can appreciate the fact that our society is ever changing and we need to try to roll with these changes, I would like to point out my concerns with all of this standardized testing and the new “Core Standards”. 1. More children are diagnosed and suffer from anxiety today than ever before. This is a real concern in today’s ever changing society. A society where kids are facing many more challenges than I myself ever had to face as a child. How do you think these children cope with the additional multiple weeks of testing, preparation for this testing and the pressure that is certainly placed upon them as a result? I think this is a real issue for more than just the children who suffer from anxiety. Is it really necessary for 10 year olds to be tested to death in order to educate them? 2. The schools in NYS are suffering from lack of funding, lack of quality educators and are failing in many areas. I am certain there are costs to putting into place these new standards, facilitation of the testing and publishing the results. Why could these funds not of been used to put money into our current system? My son needs more teachers in his class to work with him. Not more tests put in front of him. 3. May I ask why my child needs to learn five different ways to add and subtract numbers? I am pretty good at math and I was only taught a single way that seems to work every time. With the advent of calculators, computers, smart phones, ipads and every other electronic device known to man, do you really think my son will use all of these methods to add up numbers? Now mind you, I am pretty good at math. My son was in the 4th grade last year. Do you know how embarrassing it is when I can’t show my son how to do his homework? Instead, many nights I spent showing my son how I learned to do things because it was how I was taught, and I know that it works. Doesn’t this seem a bit counterproductive? 4. Testing for my son was performed with several weeks left in the school year. Really? So….lets break this down. They stopped learning a few weeks before the testing so they could “review” and “prepare” for the testing. Then came the testing. Two weeks of stress for my son and all of the other children involved. Basically a month of teaching lost just to accomplish the end of the year testing. Then once the testing was completed, the kids were “done” for the year. Not done going to school, but done learning. I don’t feel the kids were any longer in a state of mind to learn anything following the testing, I also feel the teachers may have adopted these feelings as well. To me it is kind of like singing the National Anthem after the baseball game. Not as many people are left listening. I look around at the state of our society and see that we are failing in many areas inside and outside of schools. In each of these areas you can see a common problem. Instead of fixing these problems in most cases we continue to create new problems. This is a common issue in most areas of our lives. Take care of what you have, work hard at improving it and develop some consistency. I do not believe these new Core Standards are a solution to anything, but just the beginning of yet another problem. Sincerely, Tracy L. Stewart
Posted on: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 18:16:38 +0000
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