How Do You Solve A Problem Like Christina? Cathy Hegedus Sure As Hell Isn’t The Answer!!!!

It wouldn’t be a school board election season without some controversy springing out of the Christina School District.  Hot on the heels of the district’s crushing loss in their referendum last week, Christina voters will head to the polls again on May 14th to elect the District D candidate.  Many are trying to make sure two-time board member John Young does NOT get re-elected.  But the biggest threat to the district does not exist with Young.  It lies within.

Delaware DOE Plans To Make Teachers Scapegoats For Smarter Balanced Scores, Don’t Fall For It Parents!

The spinsters at the Delaware DOE are at it again.  They have the Smarter Balanced scores, and they know they are terrible.  So how do you get the public behind you?  How does a State Department remain unscathed in the whole debacle?  You blame.  You scapegoat.   But it won’t work.  One, because I know.  Two, because parents aren’t as dumb as you think they are and you have ALWAYS underestimated them.  And Three, it makes absolutely no sense at all.

A couple years ago, the DOE wanted teachers to submit potential material for the Smarter Balanced Assessments.  This is not a lie.  This happened.  But it’s what American Institutes for Research (AIR) and their psychometrics division did with that material that made the Smarter Balanced Assessment what it is.  The devious ways in which questions were created, the whole “wrong answer is right but a right answer with a bad explanation is wrong” came from the demented people who created this test.  The folks behind AIR have been crafting public policy for three quarters of a century.  Did you really think they wouldn’t create a test that served their perverted worldview?

Teachers are NOT to blame for what so many of us parents opted our children out of.  That rests solely on the Delaware DOE and their contracted vendors.  Like the one we have spent $38 million on the past five years, AIR.  Delaware teachers also did NOT set the benchmarks for these tests.  That was done by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  They set the cut scores last November.  And I’m sure the states will adjust them accordingly to serve their own purposes.

The spin that is about to be thrust upon this state most likely didn’t even come from the DOE or Governor Markell, but one of the consultants the DOE loves to hire.  Here is a novel idea DOE: if you want to solve the whole problem with the Smarter Balanced scores, just get rid of the test.  Problem solved!