Texas Schools Felony Fraud numbers of dropouts

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 01:41:15 GMT, "bobb" wrote:

I'd have to dig out some old report cards (Yeah, I still have them) but a
74% = F... which is a far cry from an A or B. An A was merited only for
those who scored above 95 or 96%.

Oh, forgot. I went to school in a small town in Rockland County, New
York. At the time, 60% was a passing grade on the regents exams,
but those of us who took the regents courses in my school rarely
scored less than 80% which was a B. I scored quite high on the SATs
too. I was a merit semi-finalist, so the grades of 80 must have been
pretty good at that time.

The fact is that grades and what they mean is subjective. And not
only that, but it depends on what the test is like and how it is
scored.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

Took some searching.. but this says a lot about the quality of grades
today....

Grade inflation spurs Harvard changes
April 19, 2002 Posted: 1:23 PM EDT (1723 GMT)


CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- Harvard University, addressing
concerns about grade inflation, is considering restoring a B as the average
grade, and clarifying the meaning of each A on transcripts.

The Harvard student-faculty committee, which met this week, also is
considering changes in the way honors are earned, including the elimination
of the honors track for freshmen and sophomores, and the all-honors majors
in some departments.

Last June, a record 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with some kind
of honor on their diploma, The Boston Globe reported.
About half the undergraduate grades last year were A or A-minus.

The Globe report on grade inflation led new Harvard president Lawrence H.
Summers to asked faculty members last fall to review their grading
standards.

Most Ivy League and top universities award honors only for outstanding work
in a student's major. Some, including Yale and Princeton, cap total honors
at about one-third of the graduating class.

One of the proposals being considered at Harvard would encourage professors
to give more B grades by narrowing the grade-point gap between an A-minus
and a B-plus. Another would include on transcripts the percentage of A
grades received by students in a given course.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

bobb

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:49:31 GMT, "bobb" wrote:

It's no secret that half the kids in college today do not
have the appitude or the ability to perform at what used to be the college
level and your following statement suggests exactly that. The college
degree has become a substitute for the old high school education.

bobb

This has to do with our insistence that *everyone* must go to college
not with deficiencies in the high school education people are getting.

The fact is that we send a much larger percentage of our population to
college than we used to and so some of that population is bound to be
less qualified.

OTOH, I do not believe that half of the kids are unqualified. I know
that the high school education my children received was of a higher
level and quality than the one I received (I graduated in 1962)


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:01:58 GMT, "bobb" wrote:

Grade inflation spurs Harvard changes
April 19, 2002 Posted: 1:23 PM EDT (1723 GMT)

There is some contention about this in that many Harvard profs have
said that the students on the whole are *more* qualified and do better
work, so the grade inflation is justified.

If everyone does outstanding work, then they should all get As by the
objective standard. We shouldn't curve downward any more than we
should curve upward.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

I'd have to dig out some old report cards (Yeah, I still have them) but a
74% = F... which is a far cry from an A or B. An A was merited only for
those who scored above 95 or 96%.

Sorry, but I cannot, nor will I accept a B for knowing just 60% or the
required material and it certainly doesn't merit honors

I don't see that getting 60% on a test necessarily means that you knew only 60%
of the material covered in class. It *really* depends on the test! I had at
least one teacher who used to routinely give tests that he didn't think anyone
in the class could possibly get 100% on, so that he had some idea of what
students *didn't* know, or *couldn't* figure out. In that class, 60% often was
a B or even an A.

As some others have pointed out, on some of the normed tests that students will
be taking later, there must be enough ceiling for percentile scores above the
99th percentile, so, on the SAT's for example, a student who's scored in the
99.9th percentile has answered more questions correctly than 999 students out
of a thousand. So kids who are expecting to get a raw score of 95% or better
are in for a shock.

I don't think it is right for teachers to be forced to make their tests a
certain way in order to be certain that a 95% (or whatever) is an A.

--Helen

: These were kids who were used to getting straight A's, so
: for
: them to get finished with a *multiple choice* test and know that they
: *might* have gotten half of them right, usually meant they'd
completely
: give
: up on the second part.
:
: Why is it that a straight A student suddently becomes a 'failure'? Could
it
: be they came from an inferior teaching environment where grading on a
curve
: was the norm?


No. It's because the expectations of the College Board on the AP
exams--especially those in chemistry, physics, and calculus--are so far out
of whack with reality that they completely crush kids. In preparation for
this exam I had to teach kids things that **I** didn't learn in **three
years of college chemistry.*** All that so they could get out of taking
introductory college chemistry.
--
ColoradoSkiBum

LaVonne wrote
Of course you will provide evidence that
"every CPS agency in the US failed audits."
I read your entire post which is included
below this message, and I see no support
for this claim. I'll wait for your
evidence.

I do hope I didn't keep you waiting too long!

This is an ASSOCIATED PRESS story, passed through
Wex and Fern. I assume it is authoritative enough.

But you bring up an even MORE interesting point.
Do any US DHHS sites report that every state failed?
Why do you suppose it's not prominent on the
National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect
Information web site? http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/
If you find a FEDERAL source of such a report,
please let me know LaVonne!


From: Fern5827 )
Subject: fw: ALL states FAIL child welfare audit & TEST
Newsgroups: alt.support.child-protective-services
Date: 2003-08-20 11:02:07 PST

FWD msg:

Show how really INEFFECTIVE CPS interventions have been, huh?

Subject: States Failing Child Welfare System Test
From: Wex Wimpy
Date: 8/19/2003 12:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time


STATES FAILING CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM TEST
Mon Aug 18, 204 PM ET

By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Not a single state has passed a rigorous test of its
ability to protect children from child abuse and to find permanent
homes for kids who often languish in foster care.

The 32 states evaluated so far could lose millions of dollars from the
federal government if they fail to fix problems within a few years.

The problems of child welfare get periodic attention, usually
following the tragic death of a child. The Child and Family Service
Reviews are the first time federal officials have tried to measure how
well children are faring across state systems created to protect them
— but that often fall short.

The reviews ask whether children are bouncing from one foster home to
the next, never able to put down roots; whether siblings taken from
their parents are kept together or pulled apart; whether it takes a
state too long to finalize adoptions or to send children back to their
biological parents.

Affected are nearly 550,000 children in foster care and an estimated
half million others living at home but under state supervision.

"There is a lot of work to be done," said Joan Ohl, commissioner of
the Administration for Children, Youth and Families. "It's a daunting
task."

In the past, states were evaluated on bureaucratic benchmarks. Now,
the questions are how many children are abused again after entering
the system and whether parents are getting promised help.

The reviews merge dozens of questions into seven "outcomes"
measurements.

Fourteen states have failed all seven. An additional 14, plus the
District of Columbia, have failed six of the seven, and four states
failed five. No state has passed more than two.

"We set a very high bar and we don't apologize for that bar," Ohl said
in an interview.

Problems were found in every state

_In Tennessee, the agency did not respond to abuse reports in a timely
manner nearly 30 percent of the time.

_In Michigan, more than one in four parents with children in foster
care said they had not received needed services such as parenting
classes or drug treatment.

_In Ohio, 27 percent of the time the agency did not make a diligent
effort to help children in foster care maintain connections to family
and community.

The reviews have spurred change.

Georgia began offering assistance to foster parents after it found
more than one child out of every 100 was abused in a foster home,
almost twice the national standard. Initiatives include a telephone
help line, training on dealing with behavior problems and respite care
to give foster parents time without the children.

After California was found to take too long to finalize adoptions, the
state began combining its screening programs for potential foster and
adoptive parents. That means the state will not have to conduct a
second screening if foster parents decide to adopt.

States acknowledge the problems and welcome a clear set of benchmarks
for improvement, said Robert Lindecamp, director of the National
Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators. "States don't have
a problem with having a high standard," he said.

One problem common to all states is the huge load handled by child
welfare caseworkers. The reviews found that families do better when
caseworkers make more visits, but that requires additional money that
budget-strapped states are not inclined to spend.

After the first round of reviews, scheduled for completion next year,
states must write improvement plans. A second round of tests will
determine if states made promised changes. If not, they could lose
some of their federal child welfare money.

While the seven outcome measurements are the heart of the reviews,
states are evaluated on their overall systems — for instance, do
computer systems work and is training done properly. That brings the
number of benchmarks to 14.

Maximum penalties proposed range from $130,000 in Delaware, which
failed six of seven measures, to more than $18 million for California,
which failed all seven.

Whether states will make significant changes is an open question. Ohl
says the examples of innovation by the states "are still more of the
exception than the rule."

"We are still receiving program improvement plans that merely scratch
the surface in terms of the real improvements that must be made," she
said.

Critics, including state officials and outside advocates and experts,
say the reviews themselves are flawed.

The grades are based on statewide data submitted regularly to the
federal government plus in-depth reviews of 50 cases selected randomly
from each state.

Much of the state data is widely considered unreliable. The critics
also say 50 cases, a fraction of any state's caseload, do not
accurately represent the state.

The measurements are essentially snapshots of a moment in time, which
can be misleading, rather than a look at what happens to a child over
years.

For example, the reviews count how many of the children were reunited
with their parents within a year and how many adoptions were finalized
within two years. But neither measure looks at the entire caseload to
calculate the likelihood of reunification or adoption.

Federal officials say the review paints an accurate picture and that
the process marks a turning point in child welfare.

But it will take even well-meaning states a long time to fix the
problems uncovered, said Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social
Work at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Some state systems are truly horrible," he said, "and no amount of
accountability is going to make them jump from horrible to good in one
leap."

[original links broken already due to age]

"Greg Hanson" wrote in message
om...

[original links broken already due to age]

Grrrruuuufffffffff
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news...ge/79008.shtml

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
: These were kids who were used to getting straight A's, so
: for
: them to get finished with a *multiple choice* test and know that
they
: *might* have gotten half of them right, usually meant they'd
completely
: give
: up on the second part.
:
: Why is it that a straight A student suddently becomes a 'failure'?
Could
it
: be they came from an inferior teaching environment where grading on a
curve
: was the norm?


No. It's because the expectations of the College Board on the AP
exams--especially those in chemistry, physics, and calculus--are so far
out
of whack with reality that they completely crush kids. In preparation for
this exam I had to teach kids things that **I** didn't learn in **three
years of college chemistry.*** All that so they could get out of taking
introductory college chemistry.

When I took the music theory AP exam, and started college theory, not only
did it completely cover the first semester of college theory, but most of
the second semester. I ended up taking the second semester independent
study, picking up a few topics my course hadn't had from both semesters, and
starting in the third term.

Since AP exams are meant to prove that a child can get credit at any
college/university, and the sequence of instruction isn't quite the same at
any two schools, the way to get around that is to have everything which
could POSSIBLY be on ANY 1st semester course syllabus on the test, which
leads to a very comphrehensive test.


--
ColoradoSkiBum

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:18:36 -0600, "ColoradoSkiBum"
wrote:

No. It's because the expectations of the College Board on the AP
exams--especially those in chemistry, physics, and calculus--are so far out
of whack with reality that they completely crush kids. In preparation for
this exam I had to teach kids things that **I** didn't learn in **three
years of college chemistry.*** All that so they could get out of taking
introductory college chemistry.

I disagree with this entirely. The AP exams are a good indicator of
whether the kids have learned the ideas and can apply them. They
are not memory oriented and thus many straight A students have
trouble because they have not had classes their memory could not
take them through before.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

x-no-archive:yes

One of the great shocks I had when I got to college was that I wasn't
a straight A student anymore, and that I could fail tests. IMHO one
of the benefits of these tests (AP courses weren't available to me)
would be to give the kids a reality check and (also IMHO) teachers who
teach AP classes should give the kids at least *some* grounding in
what to expect in the tests.

It should be emphasized that they will not know 50% of the questions
on the multi-guess section, and the best strategy is to take your best
guess quickly (as there cannot be any real way to score to eliminate
the extra advantage you get from guessing) and then move on without
worrying too much about it. If the course is taken in order to pass a
test, it is vital that the kids be given the tools with which to pass
the test.

I emphatically do NOT believe that it is as simple as not being taught
how to apply principles.

I've also found that unlike myself a lot of kids (and adults) not only
have test anxiety (which I knew), but are not able to concentrate on
test taking for the full length of a 3 or 4 hour test. They just
aren't used to it, and it is stressful for them. I was surprised that
there were other kids like my daughters one of whom actually said at
the time that she was taking SATs that she stopped concentrating and
just answered the questions about halfway through.

One of my 'talents' is that I take tests well because a) I don't have
any significant test anxiety most of the time (when I do I tend to
flunk), and b) I read very well and can actually finish even tests
which are designed not to be finishable.


"Donna Metler" wrote:


"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
: These were kids who were used to getting straight A's, so
: for
: them to get finished with a *multiple choice* test and know that
they
: *might* have gotten half of them right, usually meant they'd
completely
: give
: up on the second part.
:
: Why is it that a straight A student suddently becomes a 'failure'?
Could
it
: be they came from an inferior teaching environment where grading on a
curve
: was the norm?


No. It's because the expectations of the College Board on the AP
exams--especially those in chemistry, physics, and calculus--are so far
out
of whack with reality that they completely crush kids. In preparation for
this exam I had to teach kids things that **I** didn't learn in **three
years of college chemistry.*** All that so they could get out of taking
introductory college chemistry.

When I took the music theory AP exam, and started college theory, not only
did it completely cover the first semester of college theory, but most of
the second semester. I ended up taking the second semester independent
study, picking up a few topics my course hadn't had from both semesters, and
starting in the third term.

Since AP exams are meant to prove that a child can get credit at any
college/university, and the sequence of instruction isn't quite the same at
any two schools, the way to get around that is to have everything which
could POSSIBLY be on ANY 1st semester course syllabus on the test, which
leads to a very comphrehensive test.


--
ColoradoSkiBum



grandma Rosalie