The controversy and uncertainty around the legislated curriculum and the current system of accountability are causing a lot of anxiety in my school community. To put it bluntly, there is a real sense of urgency to see lawmakers, educators, community leaders, organizations, and interest group to reform education in the state of Mississippi. Students are failing the state assessments by increasing numbers and everyone is nervous about the new Mississippi Assessment Program (MAP). This assessment is more rigorous and requires more critical thinking. In addition, students in the third grade are now required to take and pass the MKAS2 assessment to be promoted to the subsequent grade. This requirement has a lot of teachers and parents worried. The …show more content…
On one end they have to continue to prepare students who failed the PARCC assessment last year and on the other end, they have to wonder about the demise of the entire assessment as well as the unknown with the new assessment. This is particularly hard for me and my district. My leadership experiences have been affected because as the District Test Coordinator, I have always believed that I should have the answers to questions and concerns from administrators, teachers, students, and parents but unfortunately, I do not. As a result, it is difficult to get stakeholders on board when they constantly hear conflicting reports. I fear that the contradiction and inconsistency with the state assessments will to have a negative effect on students’ performance this testing cycle.
Given all the ambiguous and quarrel with the new assessment, I would recommend the elimination of MAP assessment for this year. I think this will benefit students in my school district as well as throughout the state tremendously. As a school counselor and district test coordinator, I see first-hand what our children have to endure while preparing and taking these assessments and it seems unfair for them to have to test under these circumstances. MDE and state officials need to come to an agreement on the best way to assess students in Mississippi before they punish students by assessing them on something they do not even like or want. Our students deserve a fair chance to graduate from high school and this policy change will afford them that
Mississippi legislation requires school systems to test students annually in grades 3-8. Students in grades 9-12 must take a test at the end of certain courses. In a system that places the results of a statewide test as the sole indicator of student achievement and proficiency, it is important to understand the relationship between the common core standards and how these standards will impact the current curriculum structure on such short notice.
The mississippians were a group of people from North America. They lived here about 2700 years ago. They were very different than what we are used to now.
In Colorado Coalition Says PARCC Testing is Not Teaching by Anthony Cody on the Teacher Blogs website in April 2014, Anthony Cody argues against the PARCC test in schools. Anthony Cody touches on key reasons that he is against the implementing of PARCC testing in schools. Anthony states, “Since the inception of NCLB, we have been adding to the pile of tests that our students must hurdle.” Anthony Cody believes that the schools are placing unreasonable stresses on students during the school year. Anthony believes that PARCC testing puts “high-stakes pressures on students and teachers alike.” Anthony bases his claims on the “lost classroom time, exorbitant cost, and post secondary remediation rates that continue to climb.” Mr. Cody believes that
The purpose of me writing this essay is to discuss the history and achievements of Mississippi. Mississippi joined the Union as the 20th state in 1817 and gets its name from the Mississippi River, which forms its western border. Spanish explorers arrived in the state in 1540 but it was the French who made the first permanent settlement in Mississippi in 1699. In the 19th century, Mississippi produced the most cotton in the United States. The capital of Mississippi is Jackson. Its population for 2010 is at around 2,967,297. Its size is approximately 48,432 square miles. Mississippi state nickname is famously known as “The Magnolia State”. Its state motto is “By valor and arms”. Its state is known as the Magnolia. Its state bird is the Mockingbird.
“Shrinking state and local education budgets matched with the added pressure of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which sets rigid standards in reading and math that schools must achieve in order to receive federal funding, have created a new challenge for districts” (Van Harken).
Texas contains a lot of issues when it comes to its education policies. The issue that has the most people thinking about and I feel more passionate about when it comes to education is the high-stakes testing in the Texas high schools, middle schools, and even elementary schools. This issue has brought plenty of attention from students and their parents. The testing situation in Texas has been addressed from time to time, but there hasn’t been a proper solution that keeps the student performance numbers from decreasing in numerous reports. The problem is that Texas education emphasizes the importance of standardized testing - such as the current State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR - implemented to
"Making Sure That Schools Measure Up." Education Week, vol. 36, no. 16, 4 Jan. 2017, pp. 18-20. EBSCOhost. PDF. In this periodical article, Alyson Klein, reporter for Education Week, reflects on Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), an update to the K-12 education law, in the one year since it was passed in 2016. Klein discusses how the ESSA was designed to improve shortcomings of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the previous version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Klein also examines concerns over greater flexibility given to states and districts regarding issues such as standardized test, school choice, marginalized students. The Obama administration wrote how the accountability portion of the law would work, allowing states to pick their own goals, both a long term goal and short term goals. These goals must address students’ proficiency on tests, English-language proficiency, and graduation
In the news lately, there has been a controversy regarding the Common Core State Standards in Louisiana. This controversy has been going on for the last several months and there have been different ideas said by different groups of people. The parties that have been involved in the controversy include parents, teachers, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Education Superintendent John White, the Board of Education and Secondary Education (BESE), and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The controversy over Common Core has to do with the lawsuits that have been filed, certain tests that should or should not be taken, and the legality and suspension of state contracts regarding the state’s education.
The City of Columbus Mississippi recognizes the need for a new analytical unit. This is a proposal that aims to develop this new analytical unit in an effort to support all levels of the Police Department, to include command personnel, supervisors, detectives, and patrol officers. law enforcement agencies in. This analytical unit will obtain and analyze as much information as possible in order to identify crime patterns, trends, offenders, and develop correlations, to improve short-term and long-term decision-making. Once this new analytical unit is in place and all key positions are filled, the pertinent information gathered and analyzed will aid in the prevention of crime and the catching of criminals.
Mississippi is in the United States that is located in the southern United States. The name of the state derived from the Mississippi river which flows along the western boundary. Mississippi is lowest median household income. Mississippi is covered by wild trees such as pine, pecan, and sweet gum. Mississippi has more acres of cotton than soybeans. Mississippi is the second cotton production in the United States and Texas is the first state.
Laws will be changing this year, Washington has revised its No Child Left Behind law, that is breaking down and showing who’s failing what subjects by race, equality, income, special needs student's it’s giving Washington a more definite idea of what’s not working, since this bill was adopted by president George W. Bush back in 2007. This bill is being changed that state's need more flexibility when it comes to state testing and more attention needs to show towards the students not just in Texas but all around the United States. With Washington is changing the laws or really just showing what’s not working. Governor. Greg Abbott signed a bill saying high school students can graduate without having to pass all five –exams of the STAAR test with over 20,600 high school seniors having failed one or two of the exams included with the STAAR testing, this new bill will give those high school seniors a chance to one retake the exams, and to only pass three STAAR exams instead of all five but still be held up against a “graduation committee” before they can walk the stage. These new laws being put into place show there’s a problem, but at least some high school seniors won’t have as much pressure put on them to graduate, it’s a start, with students have some pressure taken off of them. It would take a lot more for Washington to change its
As I progress toward being a principal one day, I found myself with a need to figure out what to do with test scores and how do you fix low scores. To be honest, I have not had a lot of time or practice interpreting test scores and what those scores mean in the end. How to improve those scores was even farther away from my thoughts? What the article brings for me is less of specific strategies and more along the lines of good leadership for a school. I have been teaching for eighteen years and can count on one hand the number of times I have been asked to interpret test scores and figure out strategies to help. The last time I looked at Iowa Assessments was about six years ago and I noticed a large gap in what we were teaching versus items that were on the test. The result of that gap analysis was changing from a cultural approach to a much wider spread history course. On top of that, we as a
Although legislatives assumption was that high stakes testing would enhance understudy inspiration, and raise understudy accomplishment, that supposition was completely incorrect. The effect of standardized testing (high-stakes testing) has not been positive throughout the United States at all. Due to the lack of motivation, the high retention rate, and notable change in dropout rate, it may be a while until many states recover, especially for states like Louisiana. According to Nola, Louisiana is tied with Florida for having one of the country’s fifth lowest graduation rates, and one of the highest dropout rates. Our society needs to come together and think of a plan that will help students, and prevent the increasing number of kids who decide to give up on school. A system that will benefit both students, and teachers should be created; making it better for both, students and teachers to work together properly. With a new system student motivation may improve, the number of over aged students sitting in the wrong grade will decrease, and the notable dropout rate will actually
The No Child Left Behind Act should tremendously be re-examined and amended because the focus on the standardized tests decrease the quality of other subjects not on the tests, the tests are not an efficient tool to make certain that a student is receiving an excellent education and the tests create unnecessary stress for the students, teachers and administrators. The purpose of No Child Left Behind is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a top-grade education. This is a great proposal to strive towards but, legislation plans on achieving this proposal by making schools responsible for their students’ proficiency and to measure their proficiency with the use of standardized tests. After the students take the
Students are falling through the cracks, being left behind, and are not being educated properly; these are statements we hear every day about our educational system. Attempts have been made to reform and overhaul the educational crisis. However, few have been successful. High expectations are being placed on students to perform well on standardized tests so “no child is left behind” and schools are not labeled as “failures.” This strict discipline of teaching to the test is only harming the quality of education students are receiving. Informal assessment needs to become the primary focus of evaluation rather than formal assessment.