Friday, February 6, 2015

Round 2: Learning for All Presentation Continues on Monday, Feb 9 at Oak School, 7:30 p.m.

Like sands through an hourglass, The Learning For All saga continues with another presentation listed for the Committee of the Whole meeting next Monday. Undoubtedly, there will be more chuckles, giggles, sighs, and nonsensical double talk from our Department of Learning and Dr White than there was at the last meeting because, dear friends, the focus this time will be on math. Prepare yourselves for a non-explanation of why our kids suffered through an entire year of compacting, only to have it discontinued and discarded quietly like an old tube of lipstick gone bad. 
We bloggers will be waiting for the BOE agenda to be posted on Board Docs early Saturday morning in advance of the next meeting. 
Stay tuned....

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anyone look at their child's MAP score? My son jumped 17 points in math from fall to winter. I know there's been a lot of doom and gloom about tests and test scores recently so I thought I would share one positive outcome. His reading score also increased nearly double the expected growth rate. I have to say I am impressed. I should also note that these increases are due to what has been happening at school - no extra tutoring. I sincerely hope my experience is one shared by many.

Anonymous said...

My fifth grader had hardly any growth. The administration has really messed with this grade.

Anonymous said...

6:18, do you mind telling is what school and grade and if your child is in a classroom with all ability levels?

Anonymous said...

My daughter's reading scores are less than they were this time last year.

Anonymous said...

That's great 6:18. By any chance did your son's score drop significantly from last Spring to Fall? My daughter's did and I was pleased to see it come back up, but the Winter score is only slightly more than last spring.

Anonymous said...

My children's reading all scores went down and I am horrified. However, I wouldn't be so bold to assume that everyone's scores went down. I will wait to see what the district's data analysis will be. If there is one.

Anonymous said...

My 4th grader dropped from the 97th percentile in math to the 90th. His reading dropped from the 86th percentile to the 47th. 47th!!!
And my 5th grader's scores have been stagnant since the 3rd grade. Gee, I wonder why...

So all the news is not good, 6:18. Pretty far from it. I'm ready for private school.

Anonymous said...

My daughter went from 99 to 99 in both reading and math. She is a beast.

Anonymous said...

I have a child in HMS and results were up in math and basically flat in reading. Not great, but not awful.

It will be interesting to see how the results are in aggregate. I hope that they are good overall, but am becoming less optimistic as I read these comments.

Anonymous said...

My fifth grader is stagnant.

Anonymous said...

Take a look at the math charts for Monday's meeting! Am I seeing things or are the tiers in middle school going away? And no ability groups in the lower grades? Just Common Core?
Way to go 181 administration!

HMS Parent said...

Board docs are up. No part 2 of the seminal document. No true narrative on the history of the math portion of ALP/L4A. And of course no data analysis. Just a couple of charts and a short report filled with, at best, half truths, which of course means half li--....how pathetic. I expected more Dr. White.

Anonymous said...

My 6th grade daughter's scores are the same as the end of 4th grade. RIT hasn't changed. Percentage plummeting. Corresponding to implementation of LFA. Coincidence? I think not.

Anonymous said...

A critical question, a troubling response, and how it sounded to me.

Mr. Hennigan:
“Do we have data that shows that we have raised the floor, or raised the ceiling by raising the floor?"

Dr. Schneider begins:
" I think your going to find that in different areas, whether your looking at the MAP assessment or historical ISAT, you will see different points of growth, for different grade levels in different areas."

How that sounds to me:
Students are doing worse across the board that they were before, but they are still learning something is some areas, so at least learning hasn’t gone negative. It just isn’t nearly as much as it was before we implemented the L4A program.

Dr. Schneider continues:
"And so, again the emphasis has been on math because the sensitive group that first got targeted for change several years ago before I got here and so its not that there's been an intentional, I disagree that there's been this intentional, pervasiveness to answer a question."

How that sounds to me:
I think he meant to say “intentional evasiveness to avoid answering a question.” Ironically he is denying evasiveness to once again evade answering the question. Comment: Intentionally not answering direct yes or no questions from the BOE is the type of thing that can get one terminated quickly

Dr. Schneider continues:
“What I think we need to develop to move forward is a common understanding of what are those sticks that we're going to put in the sand with regards to evaluation of the plan as a whole. And I think developing that type of a data dashboard is the direction that we need to come to, because otherwise it makes it very difficult, no one's wanting to purposefully not answer a question, or be evasive, it's trying to mobilize, to hit the target but it's hard to know what the target has been."

How that sounds to me:
Dr. Schneider has realized that there is no way that what he is doing with L4A today can possibly get back to the level of student performance that we had using tiering, before we implemented the L4A program. The results of the L4A program are an abject disaster so far. Why else do you think he is continuing with this embarrassing double-talk instead of answering the question? If the results were not a disaster, I would show you. Since they are a disaster, I am going to pretend that we do not know the performance levels that we had before, and I am hoping that I can make up some new measurements of my own that will be really, really easy to achieve, and maybe no one will notice that this program that I am responsible for is destroying their children’s education. If I can continue to obscure the truth, maybe they will allow me to continue to use their children as guinea pigs.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Benaitis, “...I think it's important that you know when we look around here that meaningful learning is taking place..."

How that sounds to me:
Ms. Benaitis is reassuring the BOE that, although students are no where near the levels of achievement that were being realized under the tiered system, the students are still learning more than absolutely nothing with L4A.

Anonymous said...

Can we parents be socially just and stop paying our property taxes until Dr. White and friends start answering our questions?

Anonymous said...

After reading this transcript, it is unbelievable to me that our BOE is not furious with what is going on. My guess is that Clarin and Turek have talked to a handful of teachers who are somehow making this work, and/or are afraid of saying that it is not, and are then assuming that it is working for everyone. They don't seem to care about data or common sense. It's been 3 years since we started down this road, people! Schneider has been here since May 2012 and, with Benaitis (she was still principal), Sonntag and Russell, putting together the task force since Summer 2012. That is long time.