Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The Media Bias Against The "Opt Out" Movement.



























If you read the various newspaper editorials, they would have you believe that the growing anger against the Common Core based high-stakes testing is spearheaded by the teacher unions and a few parent advocates,  despite the poll that parents blamed hated these tests and are against them by a 2 to 1 magin!  These editorials claim that the State's faulty roll out of the Common Core based high-stakes testing simply needs to be fine-tuned and not what it really needs a complete overhaul.   Moreover, they applaud the Cuomo inspired punitive teacher evaluation system and ignore the fact that one of the very same newspapers showed that 75% of the parents "opted out" their child because of the teacher tie-in.

The recurring theme by the newspaper editorial boards is that the teacher evaluation system is a wonderful way to hold teachers accountable for 50% of a student's test score despite the fact that a teacher only accounts for between 1% to 14% of a student's academic growth.  That the newspapers ignore this inconvenient truth is perfectly fine with them.  Who in their right mind believes that one teacher can account for 50% of a student's academic growth when various studies show that 80% of a child's academic achievement is based on social-economic factors?  Moreover, the Value Added Method (VAM) has proven to be unreliable with errors so large that a teacher could be rated "highly effective" one year and "ineffective" the next?  No wonder the VAM is known as Junk Science!

Despite the newspaper editorial boards the anger against high-stakes testing and the punitive teacher tie-in will continue to increase and the 20% of students who "opted out" last year is expected to rise this Spring and just maybe our politicians will finally see the light and demand a complete overhaul of the teacher evaluation system and eliminate the insane Common Core testing regime that has fueled anger and contempt from parents and educators alike throughout the State.






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