NJ State Testing Just Washed Away

Now what? Sandy is a game changer here in New Jersey. These endless standardized tests and the mounds of money spent on this garbage is now finally being exposed as the state grapples with no way to administer and account for the VAM, value added measures. How many points for what trauma. The social, psychological, emotional and financial toll from a storm like this one, and how many "points" should be subtracted or added to an already meaningless bean counting machine for children, will be impossible to calculate. This was the perfect storm indeed, the one we needed to get rid of the phony, money grubbing education deformers here in New Jersey. We can only hope they will be washed away into the sewer they created for themselves by forcing mindless crap on America's school children for the past three decades.

Time for the students and parents to just opt out  of the stupid tests (go to United Opt Out National ) and just put down your pencils. Then you can begin to think again, learn and innovate and figure out a way to rebuild your communities. Find ways to stop the damage being done to the environment as Exxon runs commercials about how important teachers are while controlling the science curriculum on climate change and energy.

Duncan, ever heard of Service Learning? Didn't think so. Perhaps some of the RTTT funds for measuring and testing and holding teachers accountable for students' scores, scores of homeless, neglected, hungry and poor students, the ones who are now in shelters all across the northeast, could go to rebuild those schools and communities. Is that "common" core standard on the NJ ASK?

New Jersey school testing has been disrupted by hurricane Sandy.

Days lost to hurricane put New Jersey schools to the test

Posted By John Mooney On November 2, 2012 @ 2:59 pm In K-12,News | No Comments

New Jersey Spotlight ^[1]

On top of Hurricane Sandy’s immediate devastation throughout the state, public schools and their students could feel the storm’s disruption well into next year.
Schools were reopening today in many parts of the state, state officials said, but hundreds of districts remained closed for a fifth straight day and maybe into next week as power was slow to be restored in vast swaths of New Jersey.
That left school officials grappling with how to make up days on a calendar that had only just begun, with the state’s 180-day requirement unlikely to budge, if history is any indication.
In 1995, districts saw snow days pile up into the teens, but the state did not waive the 180-day statutory mandate and instead required districts to make up the days elsewhere, including shortening winter, spring or summer breaks.
State officials yesterday said any such decisions would be premature, but others said they expected districts would need to make up the days as best they can. Most have two or three snow days already built in, but any days on top of that would come out of the existing calendar.