General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Pearson imposes gag order on teachers about test. [View all]Android3.14
(5,402 posts)Or you change mine. The thing is, if my arguments make you appear uninformed, then perhaps you should examine that.
BTW, that last sentence was not sarcasm.
You made some sweeping statements about teacher's opinions of CC, the problems with CC, and the awful ickiness of CC because a company managed to land the government contract to print and grade the tests.
The biggest weakness with these types of forums is that people post strong opinions with the apparent hope that readers will simply load on the compliments and throw in the progressive cognate of a "Praise Jeezus" at a tent revival.
Whereas other folks, such as myself, see the forums as a crucible in which one can test ideas and opinions to see if they hold up under scrutiny and attack.
I've changed my opinion on many things, because someone handed my hat back to me on a rhetorical platter. There's no shame in it, and there's no rancor.
CC will probably be no worse than any other reform that has come along. I dealt with at least three reforms while teaching, from NCLB, to Proficiency Based Learning to schoolwide IEPs to Affirmative Discipline to whatever.
Criminy, when I was teaching in Laredo, they had this idea that the best way to get the poor kids to learn was to pack up teachers into buses, drive 40 miles out to the desert colonias (sprawling cheap housing complexes for poor folks, 99.9 percent Hispanic) and stare dumbly at parents unable to speak a lick of English while I would mouth platitudes in broken Spanish (Su mojito es trabajar de casa muy mucho or something or other). This was when I was a brand new teacher and full of change-the-world confidence. Guess what? The kids that learned, learned. The kids that didn't learn, still didn't learn. But we passed them anyway.
Anyway, it sounds like you are down in the dumps, and maybe we can come at this again some other time when you have the energy.
Take care.