Analysis Of Smarter Balanced Assessments

The educational system in the United States was originally developed using concepts from around the world, created using ingenuitive ideas from countries such as China, Japan, and Korea. However, as the United States quickly moved into position as the leading country for state-directed educational standards, America looked less and less to the systems of other nations and more into how we could improve what was locally and currently being applied in education. Consequently, an improved type of education instruction was officially launched in 2010. These new state standards, practically titled Common Core, were declared to focus on developing a child’s skills in reasoning, problem solving, communication, and competition (Conrad, et al. 52). While the standards are professed to be an extremely practical and beneficial method of teaching today, there are issues which have recently surfaced and raised some concerns. The Common Core State Standards are emerging as the subjects of a provocative controversy in society today as they prompt discussion on global economic efficiency, nationwide academic standards, and the ultimate well-being of school-age children.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was first implemented in 2010, nine years after I graduated from high school. Although I wasn’t personally affected by the new academic standards, it has a direct impact on the current and future generation of leaders, innovators, and world changers including my future children. The initial purpose of the Common Core Standards is to set high-quality learning goals designed to prepare students to be college and career ready. Given the current controversies surrounding CCSS, studies have shown that although the intent was to benefit students in the long-run it may actually be hindering their mathematical and reading skills. To further explore the arguments behind the Common Core initiative, I will

Adopted by forty-two out states in 2010, the Common Core State Standard Initiative strives to provide an educational structure which details what English language arts and mathematics should be taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The initiative is the federal government’s attempt to ensure all students who graduate from high school are adequately prepared to enter a two or four year college or the workforce. Despite their intentions, the Common Core has caused much controversy in the education community. The thought behind Common Core is very valid and has the potential to help students, however changes must be made to unrealistic standards and wordy statements. Common Core must first be rewritten so that the language is clear and can be easily understood by the general public. Next ask experts on childhood development and elementary school teachers to review the standards and rewrite standards they see as unneeded or irrelevant as well as unrealistic.

The lack of educational benchmarks and standardization in the United States of America, USA is disjointed and subpar leaving students ill prepared to enter the workforce and college. As evidenced by the persistent problem of students graduating and passing required exit exams in high school; yet, they still needed remediation upon entry to college. The Common Core is good because it provides a set of age appropriate learning goals and sets a national high-quality academic standard for Math and English to prepare students for college and career readiness. In essence, the Common Core defines what a student should know and be able to do at different grade levels.

From the word ‘core’ reveals that the Common Core State Standards has higher chances of success than other educational initiative where other improvement determinations have failed. The standards characterise one of the most promising developments in the struggles made to improve a nation’s transformation. The Common Core State Standards are not intended to replace any other standards that might be considered as weak or strong. Rather, they seek to reinforce all other standards in use by enhancing an integrated model of literacy in stating the details of content required for students in terms of grade (Drake, 2012).

Voices across the country are raising concerns about the new Common Core State Standards. But if you listen carefully to the conversations, the main concern is not about the standards, themselves, but about the consequences of high-stakes tests attached to the standards. And those concerns are well-founded. Trying to implement goals for deeper learning through an outdated testing model tied to a long list of punishments for children, educators, and schools is like pouring new wine into old bottles. It will certainly turn sour. The Common Core, for those of you unaware, is a set of “standards”, skills and requirements children need to understand by the end of the school year. Here 's the thing, The Common Core standards do not specify the

Many Americans, including teachers, are very displeased with the new standards children are having to live up to. If parents knew what the Common Core is doing to the classroom, there would be a revolt.; a quote directly from a New York high school instructor. Instead of teaching the fundamental basics of education, many teachers are too heavily stressed on the fact they have to meet a deadline and rush through important materials needed for adolescents future success.

The Common Core curriculum is intended to educate pupils for the increasingly demanding world that we exist in today. Common Core State Standards establish precise, uniform guidelines for what every school child should know and be able to do from kindergarten through 12th grade creating benchmarks for reading and math, replacing education goals that varied drastically from state to state. These new standards focus on preparing the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills that are essential to be successful after high school, and gives teachers a means to evaluate a student’s development throughout the academic

Before the birth of Common Core, Illinois like many other states had its learning standards to identify what students should know and be able to do pertinent to their grade levels. Implementing such standards caused many Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to end up on academic probation, due to low test scores and failure to progress students to proficiency levels in core subjects like reading and math. In fact, Chicago Tonight reports that only 35 percent of eighth graders across the country meet proficiency standards in reading while only 25 percent of high school seniors that took the SAT examination showed college readiness through their test scores.

The days of spending hours on the playground interacting with students are long gone, now the stress of common core is taking over the lives of teachers. Aimee Jones mentions how seventy percent of teachers evaluations focus on how students perform. (Jones) Teachers barely have time to think because the common core material is being shoved down their throats. Teachers have accepted that every student may not to excel on tests ,but now their jobs are at risk.

In the 2017 school year, only 70.20% of West Shore Middle School students achieved their target (average percentage of target achieved) on the Mathematics Smarter Balanced Assessment. By the 2018 school year, 75% - 80% of West Shore Middle School students will achieve their target (average percentage of target achieved) on the Mathematics Smarter Balanced Assessment.

The Smarter Balanced Assessments has similar attributes to Sternberg’s visions of assessment. Each one emphasizes and creating a safe learning environment and give students the opportunity to test their knowledge. Sternberg’s vision assessment focusses on creating wisdom and creativity. Sternberg’s vision allows students to be more resourceful rather than just having kids memorize a bunch of information and get tested on it. The Smarter Balanced Assessments focuses on students solving real world problems while testing their critical thinking skills. This would fit perfectly with the Common Core State Standards.

This method evaluates a case report on various Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) models, that each criterion is fulfilled individually. It has an added advantage that it considers an alternative causative factor as a possibility and not just as a separate factor. Each case is assessed independently by different assessors and the evaluation depends on the assessor’s skills knowledge

Currently, instructors are pressured by state education department to adjust school curricula to meet the expectations of the standardized test. Educators alter the curriculum to “match the [standardized] test” (“How Standardized”). Therefore, instructors are limited and classroom instruction is focused around test preparation for the annual standardized test. Teachers are forced to abandon their creative lessons and “teach the test,” or concentrating only on the material that will be evaluated (“How Standardized”). This frequently involves taking multiple choice tests that are formatted identically to the standardized test and only memorizing facts, formulas, and items included only on the standardized tests (“How Standardized”). Even though test scores may improve, students are not learning how to think critically and perform better in other subjects that are not on the test (“How Standardized”). Instructional time is limited in the other subject areas such as science, social studies, music, and art. Instructors feel “handicapped” and plead to state officials abandon these standardized tests for the sake of the “quality of the instruction in American schools” (Zimmerman 206). School curricula are being modified only to prepare students for a single test, not for education the students need in the future.

The Harry Potter series relates to children and all types of readers, inviting them into the new and different world. The Harry Potter world however parallels the real world much more than many initially think. Students who relate to the world of Harry Potter and have grown up hearing his name along with other favorite characters engage in the story more than with any generic story often used in classrooms. The Harry Potter series engages the students and encourages learning through a subject in which the students have found interest. Keith McPherson in his article “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Motivation” from the journal Teacher Librarian discusses the importance of an engaged child while they read,“Reading-related research finds that reading motivation increases when students are actively engaged with real-world reading materials in real-world interactions (qtd. Brophy, 1998; Csikszentmihalyi, 1991; Yair, 2000).” Children who enjoy the stories they read, develop greater reading comprehension skills and have greater motivation to continue reading and learning. A student who also relates to the characters he or she reads about will discover a connection to reading that only improves the child’s desire to read.