INTRODUCTION
Updated Feb. 24, 2021
 
The Big Picture
What kind of leadership do we have if we don't even know who our best three international competitors are, what results and plans they have that could be superior to what we do? So far, we are progressing toward becoming the worst in public education. I am certain that some people at all levels may feel that other countries do not matter. Most high school graduates end up in the workforce of all industries. Most of our companies compete in the USA and in other countries against the products of other nations. Do the products' and services' quality, design appeal, profitability and national income depend on the workforces' high school education in the country where they are designed and made? Absolutely. We used to dominate almost all industries more than 50 years ago. But then many other nations' high schools started passing our high schools, and we started losing entire industries, like heavy machinery, TV, radio and electronics and others. We claimed that lower labor costs was the reason for losing. My job took me to many countries, every quarter back then. They automated manufacturing faster than we did. The result is that the level of high school graduates is very important in creating a better workforce. Our public education does not care about that to this day, and we will keep declining until they do.
In any activity, if your organization wants to be excellent, it cannot ignore those countries who do a better job than your organization anywhere on the face of this earth. On the other hand, if your organization is doing poorly, then the best three organizations in a similar line of work, will be your best guide. If your organization is doing a medium to poor job, and you are not interested in how the best achieve their results, you will be out of business, or if one is subsidized, like public education is you will just continue to keep doing a poor job. It will cost us many billions every yea rand our children will become unemployable. Today, 70-80% of high school graduates are unemployable. If we do not improve quickly, that number almost all high school graduates and about 30 million in the national workforce will become unemployable by 2025. There will be many unbelievers plus many who will want to pocket our tax dollars as long as it is possible. Our public education does not compare its national test results to the test results of the top three best nations in public education. The schools are to satisfy the employers' needs with their graduates. But public education decides all the standards in individual states, some important decisions on the local school board level, saying that "the best advice about the education of our children comes from the local elected people." Do you know where that statement came from? It came from 1875, when only agriculture and local trade was dominant. We have 14,000 school districts nationally TODAY. How can a GOOD IDEA THAT FIT THE ONE DOMINANT INDUSTRY SO WELL IN THE LATE 1800s BECOME DESTRUCTIVE OVER 100 YEARS? It happened because the political leadership is not recognizing until now that our world became much more complex requiring much more educated and uniform decisions in education than what school boards can provide. Why would our nation become more competitive if each of fifty states had a different curriculum, different high school graduation requirements, teacher training curriculum, different tests for the same subjects, instead of setting identical national standards? We just became the worst among all industrialized countries in high school mathematics. Why can't we see in political and education management that this philosophy is not going to make us the best, but it can make us the worst among the industrialized countries? Education is vital, BUT ITS APPLICATION IS VERY POOR IN PUBLIC EDUCATION. THIS SUGGESTS LACK OF MOTIVATION TO LEARN AS A RESULT OF BORING CLASSROOMS. In less than 25 years thereafter, additional technologies and many new industries started forming at an accelerating rate. We went from the horse and buggy to the moon, with similarly huge changes in more than a thousand sciences, that kept changing the way employers worked. We went from local sales and service and became one of the largest international traders worldwide competing with other international organizations' sales and services. Employers, with few exceptions, often complained to governors about the high schools not producing well-enough educated children BECAUSE THOSE WHO GRADUATE, END UP IN THE WORKFORCE FOR ALL COMPANIES IN ALL INDUSTRIES, SELLING AND SERVICING THEIR PRODUCTS INTERNATIONALLY. IT IS THIS WORKFORCE THAT MAKES AND SUPPORTS ALL THEIR PRODUCTS INTERNATIONALLY. COUNTRIES THAT GRADUATE STUDENTS FROM HIGH SCHOOL POORLY TRAINED, INCREASE POVERTY AND THEIR NATIONAL INCOME DECLINES. OUR POVERTY IS ONE OF THE HIGHEST, AND OUR NATIONAL INCOME HAS BEEN DECLINING FOR ABOUT 12 YEARS FROM 12-14% TO 3-4% necessitating our national debt to rise to $30 TRILLION!!! The interest we pay on that debt is about $7 TRILLION included in the $30 TRILLION, that we lose because other countries win more business with better profit margins than we do. It is the workforce in every country that creates and makes the products. A better educated workforce will make a better product in both quality and profit margins. I find several things very disturbing about our public education that I will describe here. But one is that the international high performers know everything about our public education, but we know nothing about theirs, and we just keep falling behind. The wealthy are immune to this problem. They can send their children to the best private schools. But the poverty at home is growing fast because impoverished people believe that the public schools are telling them the truth. We pay one of the highest amounts per student in the world, and we are on the bottom of the industrialized countries in high school math! We have three gigantic new technologies coming in 2023, that will cause job losses in the tens of millions for two things for which our political and education leaders can take a bow. One is our low quality public education. The other is the black/white problem that we could not solve in a hundred years, BECAUSE WE DID NOT WANT TO SOLVE IT. As a result, our poverty is growing at a high rate. Education was and is the problem creating the situation. Two such problems could destroy our nation within a handful of years unless we raise the education standards. Public education blames everything other than themselves, like parents, children not wanting to learn. They are wrong. I attended a total of 29 high school science and math courses at random since 2012 in ten states. I was shocked because all were boring. This is not a teacher or principal or parental problem. It is a problem of the lower and lower standards that public education sets for teachers and students alike. It is a problem of the public not being informed truthfully until it is too late. You read and decide if what I am writing here is true. If it is, we the public must act because no one in our political leadership, like governors have not done anything to raise ACT and SAT scores. THAT IS WHAT COUNTS. It is not enough for public education and political leadership to claim that they care about our children. The results tell you if they do care or not or they have no idea what to do.
We have two annual national tests in the USA, the ACT, and the SAT. These two annual tests or their results THE INDIVIDUAL STATES CANNOT CHANGE. It is unfortunate that I have to say this because there is work within education that is not focused on improving our children's education, but it is focused only on how to graduate more students, whose knowledge is not enough to be employed. How many such graduates? 75-84% are not even ACT Ready, that represents 59-61% subject knowledge on four benchmark subjects only. In black students' schools, the percentage of those graduates who are not ready can be above 90% in many cases. And we graduate them with a diploma for a few months of happiness so that they will be without a legal job for a lifetime. Somehow it feels like such practices ARE NOT what our founding fathers had in mind and neither do the state constitutions nor the objectives of these education systems have perpetually. We will cover some examples below.
The states have tests that they can "modify to make the results look better with cut scores". Click here for a description of Cut Scores. After you read it ask yourself, what is more important, to improve the grades of students under the old simple A-F grading system, or the incredibly confusing new system that can hide a multitude of sins that costs the state a couple of hundred million dollars? They use the state test results to graduate children from high school. Why is that necessary? Because "education is covered by, or defaulted to the states?" Or because the "US Constitution did not include education?" Around 1786 when the constitution was approved for the US with the thirteen original states, there were many other more important things to deal with, and education was at its infancy. The US Constitution was amended 27 times or so thereafter, but not for education. IS THE INDIVIDUAL STATE'S RIGHT TO INDEPENDENT, INDIVIDUAL STATE CONTROLLED EDUCATION PRODUCING BETTER RESULTS? NO, IT DOES NOT. IT PRODUCES A VERY BROAD VARIATION OF RESULTS FROM STATES WORSE THAN TENNESSEE OR ALASKA TO BETTER THAN AVERAGE PERFORMANCE IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES, LIKE MASSACHUSETTS OR CONNECTICUT. THE AVERAGE OF ALL STATES POOR AT AVERAGE ACT SCORE OF ALL STATES CLOSE TO 21. ACT 21 IS REPRESENTED AS A VERY GOOD TARGET BY THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS TO LOOK GOOD TO THE PUBLIC. IT ACTUALLY REPRESENTS HIGH SCHOOL SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE IN THE 59-61%, AND THAT IS FAR FROM BEING ENOUGH. That is not going to be an employable level even at minimum wage levels by 2024. It makes the state results poor with only a few exceptions. Is this costing us less? No. It costs us 50 times more covering all states. Another example: When your employee turnover is at a very high number like 30% at the state department of education, it is a management problem at the top or close to the top that is causing it. The minimum cost of employee turnover is the annual total cost of the employee with benefits. If the 30% represents 400 people, and the average annual salary with benefits is $60,000, the expense of that turnover is $24 million. Why do we hire or elect people who don't have enough management training and experience to recognize such problems early? The investment per employee to test for a match to the job would cost $500. Using such services would save many millions of dollars. There are groups of psychologists that provide pretesting service to avoid such problems. Our public education does not believe in many things that are appropriate management practices. But the poor results in many of our states, and no action taken by the governors to correct public education performance, is not a job well done. It is the duty of elected officials to do a good job for the public when elected. But unfortunately management oversight in political and education leadership does not appear to exist. That in turn results in poor education for our children.
PLEASE remember this: Old habits die hard. And the great majority of us dislike change. Both are basic human characteristics. BUT, change is a certainty. In many situations, you either change, or you "die." We waste a lot of money in public education and produce results that are too low. About 80% of our high school graduates MINIMUM will not be employable. WE ARE TOP SPENDERS AND BOTTOM PERFORMERS ALREADY. But we claim to provide "excellence for all children" and "world-class education". POOR PERFORMERS ALWAYS DEPEND ON POSITIVE STATEMENTS THAT ARE UNTRUE. TOO MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THEM. GOOD PERFORMERS HAVE NO NEED TO MANUFACTURE GOOD NEWS. THEIR ENTIRE RECORD IS GOOD NEWS. About 5% of our high schools are good, 95% ARE NOT. AVERAGE 25 ACT RESULTS ARE NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH WHEN YOUR COMPETITORS ARE BETWEEN AVERAGE ACT 29 AND 34 EQUIVALENT. HOWEVER NO ONE, NOT EVEN THE GOVERNOR does anything about THE 95% UNEMPLOYABLE GRADUATES. We do not want to visit the high performing countries in education to find out how to solve the big problems and poor results we have. I am sorry but a governor's life must include not only glorious honors, being the most famous person who was voted in by all those people who don't know him. He spoke about fixing our poor education when he ran for office, like his predecessors. He did nothing about it exactly like his predecessors so far. We have some large school districts who do a poor job educating our children. But they have no respect for tax dollars. For example, school district central management having too many people is very common. Not just a few more than normal. How about 8 times normal, for decades! Could governors keep an eye on it and correct it? They should, but they do not. 80% of high school graduates are not even ACT Ready, a very low measure. Why can't a governor keep an eye on it and correct it? We seem to be under the impression in political and education management, that the manager who hires someone in politics or education does not need to know what that new employee needs to achieve and why. So, they hire a Ph.D. He/she is smart (true) and will know what to do. But if the hiring manager does not know what needs to be done in detail AND TO WHAT STANDARD, he/she can't even ask the right questions from the candidate. The local elected school board majority decides to hire the superintendent, who needs to be managing the entire school district. He has to know a lot more than the locally elected school board does. I would think that if a new superintendent had to take advice from the elected board members who knew less than the superintendent in 1875, this was not a problem. But today it is a huge problem. If you ask why, the answer from state management is that "we found that the best decision maker for a successful school is the locally elected school board." It made absolutely no sense, and I found out that this opinion ORIGINATED IN 1875!!! Amazing. What that tells you is that we have a lot of decision makers in public education who are missing a taco or two from the combination plate. I was stunned about what kind of expertise was managing our public education for more than 100 years!
PLEASE LOOK AT THE FIRST CHART ABOVE WITH THE ACT SCORES SHOWING THE PERCENTAGE OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES WHO ARE NOT ACT READY IN KNOX COUNTY TENNESSEE, IN THE ENTIRE STATE OF TENNESSEE AND IN MORE THAN HALF THE USA, THE STATES THAT USE THE ACT AT END OF HIGH SCHOOL. THEY ARE NOT EVEN ACT READY. PLEASE READ BELOW WHAT ACT READINESS MEANS. THEN GO BACK AND LOOK AT THE CHART AGAIN TO SEE THAT THE GREAT MAJORITY OF CHILDREN WE GRADUATE ARE SO UNQUALIFIED THAT THERE IS NO WAY FOR THEM TO BE EMPLOYED EVEN IN THE LOWEST PAYING LEGAL JOB!! WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT WILL CREATE WHEN YOU COMBINE THAT WITH THE LONG-IGNORED BLACK/WHITE PROBLEM?! WE ARE FACING A WORSE SITUATION THAN WHAT OUR LEADERS THINK. WE MUST SOLVE THEM VERY FAST. In 2023, we will see the entry of three significant technologies that will leave us even further behind, if we do not act now and resolve all problems that we identified:
- AI-based cognitive robotics that will start replacing most four-year university degree-based jobs,
- Nanotechnology that will create a manufacturing revolution similar to nanometer resolution 3D printing with major savings and huge impact on material sciences and other sciences, and
- Space Science with significant additions to physics, chemistry, antigravity engines, transportation, literally thousands of new engineering and science areas everywhere worldwide.
 
The “Logic In Using Cut Scores To Fix Failing Grades”
Please go to Cut Scores, page 11, (Nedesky et al.) Cut_Scores_Primer.pdf.
The idea is accepted, written in a complicated way, that if a student has a failing grade close to the passing point, there could be circumstances under which he could be passing the test. Two decades ago, the passing point was 70% correct answers in a test. A decade ago or so, 60% correct answers would pass the test. There are many marginal students in a poorly performing education system like ours. It is conceivable that with this argument, we could name many students who would fail the test, but if they are close to passing, what the hell, lets make them happy and pass them. That is the logic used by Nedesky and three other authorities used in education's justification for using cut scores. . Please remember that the justification logic refers to being close to the pass/fail point, like + or - 5% at most, and such logic also would have slightly passing students who are are actually failures.. But we are applying this logic only to passing failing students. It should be obvious that that using cut scores for this purpose is unjustifiable, because todays's children who just barely graduate will not be employable, when 75-84% of graduates are not even ACT Ready, a low qualification.The real motivation is the fact that the public education system acts traditionally making the graduation rate most important. Who benefits from such practice? Not the graduating student because his knowledge is nowhere near enough to be employed in today’s environment, with major changes coming to potential employers represented by AI Based Cognitive Robotics, Nanotechnology, and Space Science. Look at the ACT score chart for the past 20 years. We have been under performing for more than 20 years. Public education informed the public making ACT 21 looks like a real achievement. Do not believe such nonsense. ACT 21 represent about 59-61% subject knowledge. Employers were always looking for a B average or higher in job candidates, except for minimum wage jobs. But the employment picture changed. It became more demanding in math, sciences as the years went by. Public education decided to teach less math and science. They focus only on graduating as many children as possible. 75-85% of those they graduate with a diploma are not even ACT Ready! With black students, it can be 94% of the graduates! That many are somewhere BELOW 60% SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE!! WILL THEY SURVIVE WITH NEW TECHNOLOGIES COMING AT A MUCH FASTER RATE THAN TODAY? Look at the facts! Does public education care about the education of our children? Are people we elect responsible for it including our president and governor out there? If they were, they would insist on high enough average ACT scores above 27 because that would mean that three quarters of our children would graduate well enough educated. Is that good enough? I don’t think so. We all have to understand that we, as a country, pay the highest amount per student to public education from our hard-earned taxes, and have been doing it for decades. For that money, we get graduates who are the worst in math among the industrialized countries. This is not a friendly, professional act. It does not help our states or nation. It is destructive, and we are requesting all governors to investigate and correct this destructive situation. That should be part of their objective in writing, with a reasonable ACT or SAT objective that ensures at least ten years of employability. ACT Readiness means that the student passed three high school benchmark subjects plus reading at an average ACT score of 21 for the four benchmark subjects. ACT 21 means only 60% subject knowledge. That is all ACT Readiness is. That level of knowledge was not acceptable in the past, and is a lot less acceptable tomorrow. That objective should be minimum 80% ACT readiness OR PASSING GRADE AT 70% OR 80% of high school graduates ON ALL SUBJECTS. THAT’S WHAT WE HAD DECADES AGO, AND THAT’S WHAT HIGH PERFORMING COUNTRIES HAVE. Is that unreasonable? Tell that to all those that we elected to office! It may be your child that will become part of our fast-growing poverty!! By the way, our poverty rate is the fastest growing, one of the highest in the world. Let me just mention to all of you that education picked average ACT 21 an objective in many states like Tennessee twenty years ago. Do you know what percentage of our children will NOT BE ACT READY, WHICH IS A LOW MEASURE?! 75-80%!! AMONG BLACK STUDENTS I THINK WE NEED SOME NEW LAWS WITH VERY SERIOUS CHANGES TO GET US AS A COUNTRY ON THE RIGHT TRACK SO THAT WE DO NOT DESTROY OURSELVES.
The grades used to be F, failing at and below 60% good answers on a test. 60-69% good answers was a D, but a couple of decades ago it was also a failing grade. 70-79% good answers was a C, 80-89% good answers was a B, at and above 90% was an A grade. I may be off by one percent. Many of lives’ decisions are based on specific boundaries set by the country, the company where you work, your religion and so on. MOST boundaries are essential. But all boundaries need to be important and easy to understand. The old grading system was that. The new one IS confusing in my opinion, too complex for the great majority, AND THAT automatically sets up the education system to be "judge and jury" at the same time. State departments of education can change it any year, it becomes too difficult to judge how to understand how our children are learning, how good the school is doing its business, that is not going well at all if you look at the ACT score chart for twenty years. With the new grading method, you are hurting one of the fastest growing people impoverished in the world! That is us people! They can only be asking someone in education, whose opinion is one-sided. Public education lied to us for a long time, and ended up teaching less and less to our children. For more than 20 years they degraded our children. Our children’s education AND OUR COUNTRY’S FUTURE DEPENDS NOT ON MAKING SCORE INTERPRETATION MORE TRICKY AND DIFFICULT TO GRADUATE MORE CHILDREN WHO OTHERWISE WOULD FAIL! OUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH OUR CHILDREN LEARN. AND THAT DEPENDS ON HOW WELL THEY ARE TAUGHT IN ALL CLASSES THAT HAVE INTERESTING TEACHERS. BASED ON WHAT I HAVE SEEN INTERNATIONALLY, “INTERESTING” DEPENDS ON THE TEACHERS’ PERSONALITY, INTELLIGENCE, MASTER’S-LEVEL TRAINING AND HIS/HER LOVE AND HIGH-LEVEL KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT THEY TEACH. WHY DON’T YOU GO TO GOOGLE AND FIND OUT HOW GOOD OUR TEACHER TRAINING IS? YOUR CHILD DEPENDS ON HIS EDUCATION TO SURVIVE! NOT ON THE GRADING SYSTEM! DON’T ASK FOR MORE MONEY FOR EDUCATION! ASK FOR CHANGES IN OUR SCHOOLS THAT CAN PRODUCE RESULTS LIKE THE BEST TWO OR THREE COUNTRIES DO IN EDUCATION AND BEAT THEIR RESULTS! THOSE INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOLS GRADUATE CHILDREN WITH AN ACT EQUIVALENT AVERAGE OF 29-34, AND MANY OF OUR STATES ARE BELOW TENNESSEE WHO AVERAGE A POOR 19-20!! IF THAT REQUIRES MORE MONEY, YOU SHOULD GET IT!! BUT GETTING MORE MONEY WITHOUT CHANGING HOW EDUCATION IS DOING ITS JOB, WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING BUT WASTE MORE MONEY!
Let’s look at the new grading system we have. In 2016 we changed the grades to “Below”, “Approaching”, “On-track”, and “Mastered”. You have to read how this works. Please read the cut score scheme for scoring our students that was approved in 2016 at and click here to read it. Please read it. You have to see this.
Let me repeat. The employability of any child depends on how excellent his/her elementary and high school education was compared to the best two-three nations in education. That excellent education will not depend on the confusing grading system. The excellent education also will not happen if we keep comparing ourselves to the worst regional US performance. It will depend on comparing to the best globally, that is where we should be, and figuring out with the best non-political minds what we should be achieving each year, and learn from the best how they do it, and change accordingly.
You are not going to become better by parroting how excellent you are, when you have poor results. Improvement always starts with open recognition of what and where you are honestly, learn from the best in the world, and improve in order of priority, without lying to the public who pay for it, and with high morale on top.”
CUT SCORES - WHAT ARE THEY?
The public does not know what cut scores are.
"Cut scores increase the grades that our children get!" True.
"Cut scores enable many more of our children to get a diploma and graduate from high school." True.
"Do cut scores require any changes in how we teach and motivate children?" No change required in the way we teach.
"Do cut scores allow children to get a passing grade, so that they can graduate with less knowledge, than was required in the past, regardless of what the curriculum specifies. Yes! Who is/was doing that?! The state Department of Education.
"Do we graduate children who would otherwise fail?" Yes. 75-84% of them.
"But they have passing grades! What are you talking about?" Yes they have passing grades like a B, C, D. We decided to pass them at 30% good answers and 70% bad answers, instead of that bad, bad, very bad 60% good answer requirement! Isn't that nice? The student is happy and his parents are happier than ever before, and we the school feel better than anyone!
"Based on what you tell us you graduate them without enough knowledge, and that way they do not know enough to do well in college or in any job." Not so Mr. Spencer. We are following the Moroccan Boomsie Algorithm to create a progression to have them reach much higher ACT scores. I get tears in my eyes as I am telling you this great news. The governor and the State School Board of Education approved it because Dr. Boomsie earned a PhD not just only at the Budapest Institute of Sexology, but also a second PhD in Chaos Theory. And is he ever good in Chaos!!! Our state school board and other school boards happily endorsed it, and our superintendent at KCS, Jason-Mason Rude' PhD will win The Golden Duck award for it in Nashville for sure.
"I feel better now..."
YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU FIND ABSOLUTELY TRAGIC PERFORMANCE, AND EVERYBODY IS CELEBRATING BECAUSE SOMEONE VERY POWERFUL RECOMMENDED HIM, I WILL BE DIFFERENT. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES. IT HAPPENS TO BE AN EXCELLENT WAY TO LEARN. JUST DON'T DO IT OFTEN. WHEN THERE ARE NO MISTAKES HERE AND THERE, MANAGEMENT IS NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH. LEARN FROM IT, THINK OF IT IN THE FUNNIEST WAY YOU CAN, AND THEN DO IT BETTER THAN EVER.
There are specific companies who create tests under a paid contract for any subject or group of subjects, covering exactly what the curriculum specifies by law. Read about them by clicking here. Some such companies are doing billions of dollars worth of annual business. A state pays many millions of dollars to one of several companies that create, administer on-line the tests that meets the curriculum requirement exactly as contracted. Then we spend millions of dollars on a group of "experts" in the state's department of education to change the scoring in order to change the grades. THE STATE CAN CHANGE THEM ANY YEAR TO MAKE THE STUDENTS' SCORE LOOK ACCEPTABLE TO THE PUBLIC, WITH A COMPLICATED AND VERY POSITIVE EXPLANATION.
In every single case when a cut score is used, it devalues, or dumbs down the created state test by lowering the required percentage of correct answers for a grade, lowering the failing point by lowering the required minimum percentage of correct answers (e.g. 60%) to e.g., 40% most often. This makes the test easier to pass. And the student learns less. The only question is how much does the state Education Department dumbs down the test for all subjects or some subjects and therefore dumbs down the student.
The TCAP cut scores
After 2010 the states started to use something called "cut scores" to change the grading of state tests (called TCAP in Tennessee). The public school scores were very poor and declining. Cut scores are a relatively new way of changing test results.
The company that creates the test prepares it such that if 90-100% of the answers are correct, the score would be an "A". If 80-89% of the answers are correct then the score would be a "B" and so on, until the correct answers are less than 60%. At less than 60% the test result for the student would be a failing grade or an "F". That is the standard to which the test supplying organizations adhere.
It takes a simple effort to make this change. In the scoring module of the software that scores each answer in each test for any subject, there is a grade definition module the species what percentage of correct answers constitute what grade. For example a failing F grade is typically less than 60%. Practically any programmer could find where this grade definition module is, and simply change the "less than 60%" area to "less than 40%" or anything the state Department of Education decides.
Some states like Tennessee decided to redefine all grades, for example from a certain starting date, 52% correct answers will be redefined as a "B" and less than 30% correct answers will be an "F," with all grades adjusted accordingly. Tennessee made such a decision around 2011. Many other states did the same or similar thing. The ACTs and SATs are national tests and have not been scored ever to a lower standard to show higher grades, but became the indicator of our education districts' teaching our children less and less. Our states have done exactly that, to make their education performance look better to the public, and to focus on graduating 90% of the students as soon as possible. However, when the ACT is given close to the end of high school, it provides something called an "ACT Readiness" percentage that is based on a four-subject benchmark that represent what employers would need. "ACT Readiness" indicated lately that only 15-18% of those Tennessee students who graduated WITH A DIPLOMA from high school are prepared to be educated/trained for any job such that they can earn an income to support a family of four minimally. Even then robotics will replace most of them in five years.
For example, McDonald's already contracted to replace all employees in 25,000 stores. Other fast food manufacturers have made similar decisions. Supermarkets are planning to do the same, because today's high school graduates cannot communicate properly, cannot even do basic math or fill out a job application and have a bad attitude. This is just a start, and it is not reversible. These results were formed over 12-14 years of primary and secondary education and became a habit.
Anything to resolve this problem, like a free two-year additional college, cannot solve the problem that was created over 12-14 years. The neuronal interconnections that start in a newborn's brain rapidly in response to neurological "sensors" do this function at a specific age. For example mental math between ages 4 and 10 or vocational preferences are not set up until age 22. After these specific period the neuronal area for the function starts slowing. "If you don't use it, you lose it!" applies. So graduating low performing students will not be anywhere nearly as responsive to remedial education after high school. It will be very hard for them, and if they did not have the drive or interest in school, they will be much less able to learn after high school.It is the primary and secondary education that needs to be fixed. A two-year "patching" of the problem will not solve the problem. It will just cost a lot of money. To evaluate results, just have the two year program graduates take the ACT and see what percentage of them will be scoring ACT Ready. We have 14,500 school districts in the USA. They can monkey around with both the state testing as well as the curriculum. With each of them doing their own thing, the results in learning not only varies state-to-state, but school district to school district. It is not possible to create competitive results state wide or nation wide this way, and the results will continue to go down, because that is the only way that good grades can be created with "Cut Scores". This kind of practice dumbs down the public. The dumbing down started in 1970 or even earlier. So the public cannot notice the dumbing down, because the test grades have been dumbed down
Please note that every state and every school district can do what they want in the USA only. The school districts are guaranteed to receive the same amount of money as what they have received the prior year, minimum. The state can modify the right number of correct answers required for a letter grade every year if they wish with the "cut score" method, to make the poor test performance appear as much as 20-30% better. They dumb down the tests. That, in turn, dumbs down our children and the diplomas they earned. But the results are not consistent. The first test results of a new state test shows that the students don't know as many of the answers as they should. They are averaging an "F," and that looks very bad for the teachers and the school district and the state. So the state Education Department changes the scoring of the test.
It appears that the state could recognize what the problems are and solve it while being open to the public, who paid for all the state test "experiments." They decreased the number of correct answers required for one or more grades to make the scores look as if the school was doing a good job. They do not tell the parents about this adjustment, and this is what they call "Cut Scores." When the state education department changes a "B" grade from between 80-89% correct answers to anything less, like 52%, they actually dumb down the test as much as 20-30% by setting the percentage of correct answers lower than what the standard was, in one or more subjects.
- The test is dumbed down as an example 20-30% by making 52% correct answers in the test a "B" instead of 80% correct answers as the minimum for a "B".
- The state test is producing higher grades, and they celebrate in all school districts the higher grades as legitimate improvement,
- The parents are very happy about little Johnny's grades improving, and
- Then it is graduation time, and little Johnny gets his diploma but cannot get a job and cannot even fill out a job application, cannot communicate properly or do even basic math. Plus he has a bad attitude on the job because he cannot do it well, so he blames his boss. He did not learn enough, because he was not taught well enough to do better. Example to support the following is this. Our African American graduates have only a 3-6% readiness upon graduation from high school to be prepared to learn a job. The performance is that bad all the way down to grade one. But a charter school in NYC called Success Academy Schools, who started in 2006 and have 46 schools in NYC, score in the TOP 1-3% passing even most private schools without using "cut scores" in the New York state tests, WITH POOR, INNER CITY BLACK CHILDREN. WHEN SUGGESTING THAT OUR BOARD OF EDUCATION SEND A FEW PEOPLE TO THIS SCHOOL TO FIND OUT HOW THEY ARE DOING SO WELL, THEY REFUSED. AND THEY ARE PAID $20,000 PLUS UP TO $5,000 PER ANNUM IN EXPENSES AND A CAR ALLOWANCE.
We read all the creative justifications for cut scores by the state's Education Department. The above results are a fact, but instead of telling the public straight what it is, it gets covered up by substituting four differently named performance classifications. The big gap between the ACT Readiness vs. the total number of graduates who are NOT ACT Ready, confirms the same if one discusses this with people in ACT's management.
Each state AND EACH SCHOOL DISTRICT of which we have 14,000 approximately in the nation, is in control of all school decisions that are normally centralized in the high-performing countries. That means that we are not only dumbing down the population, BUT WE ARE PAYING FOR THE DUPLICATION OF STAFF FOR SOME OF THESE FUNCTIONS IN EVERY STATE AND SCHOOL DISTRICT. WE INTEND TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY AMERICAN EDUCATION DECLINED (e.g., AND FOR EXAMPLE ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAVE ADDITIONAL STAFF UNDER THE DEPARTMENT CALLED "CURRICULUM".). ARE THE PEOPLE CHEATED OUT OF WHAT THEY NEED FOR THE REST OF THEIR CHILDREN'S LIVES (EDUCATION, KNOWLEDGE) THAT THE PUBLIC HAS PAID FOR WITH THEIR TAX DOLLARS? ARE THE STATES THAT USE CUT SCORES USE THE PEOPLE'S HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS TO CREATE A SYSTEMATIC DUMBING DOWN OF THE PUBLIC? Or is the truth something like mass hypnosis all over the US by Da Boogabooga Man from the mountains of the Congo, or just a plain old misunderstanding, by the state's education department and supported by the governor, or do Tennessee children have a lower IQ than the inner city children in NYC? I think that we need an explanation from the governor.
The adjustments could be different from state to state since we already have different state tests and state curricula. It looks to us like a huge dumbing down of the curriculum itself. HUGE. There are official explanations on the Internet, but no one can deny the fact that it is the lowered test results for the grades on the test that gave a higher grade to allow children to score higher in the tests and graduate. Many could not have graduated without it. Such dumbing down cannot be done to the national tests, the ACT, the SAT, and the NAEP, but the NAEP is given only every 3-4 years per subject.
WHY ARE THEY NOT FIXING AND IMPROVING THE SCHOOLS TO THE SAME STANDARD THAT OTHER NATIONS LIKE FINLAND, SINGAPORE, FRANCE, JAPAN, CANADA AND OTHERS ADOPTED? WE IDENTIFY ON THE OPENING PAGE OF THIS WEBSITE WHAT AREAS NEED IMPROVEMENT TO DO JUST THAT. THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT DOES NOT HELP WITH CHANGES THAT WOULD IMPROVE THE SCHOOL RESULTS. THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE. THEY, OR EVERYONE ABOVE THEM SIMPLY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. WHY NOT? Because we changed. They cannot read or do basic math, can read and write block letters only but not well, want more money and have a bad attitude. Most of us used to be very interested in learning and understanding new and old things alike. They had fun with the work they were doing. Today, work is for making money, and we never have enough of it. Work is rarely fun. We want more money. Both parents work hard. It is funny to imagine that this way the time will come when a newborn baby will be put to work in a day or two. Imagine such pro wrestlers, bus drivers or teachers, or police men. There will be no time for potty training! How about a democrat running to be president!! He has to be 11. A baby girl could be 8 for a presidential run. Or look around in congress! With everyone less than ten years old. Well, the diaper changers will be robots that can speed-read, can do calculus in the head. But during voting the robots will be very busy. And you thought we had enough droppings around already. And we will be able to solve the "air pollution" inside the meeting halls so that our representatives do not have to wear gas masks. They promised that 25 years before.There will be Disneyland on every block!!!!!
It appears that we never had a board majority who knew what to do, BUT they were also not listening to others' advice. THEY ARE NOT THE TYPE WHO WOULD FEEL COMFORTABLE TO ADMIT THAT THEY DON'T KNOW SOMETHING. This is normal human behavior and it will take more time and education, formal and informal, to grow out of it. Perhaps they could try some magic next. LIKE something recommended by Count Bawkoola (must pronounce it with a deep voice) from Transylvania to implement a magic system. We do not seem to know how to bring our education standards up to a competitive level with any other method than "magic." We will try to help anyone who wants to make our education better.
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There is no doubt that cut scores represent a very significant dumbing down of our children during the last few years. Not that it is a new method, because our education deteriorated for more than 50 years. That means that some in leadership have been doing their own magic on today's parents all along. If we are correct with all assumptions, we do not feel that it was appropriate to hide this huge dumbing down from the public, who pay for public education with their hard earned tax dollars. To lie to the public by telling them that we are doing very well, a B+ average in the TCAPs when that grade without the cut score method would be a big F, was not the right thing to do by JM, superintendent, in our opinion.
The New TNReady Cut Scores or "Let's cut the PASS/FAIL point as before plus let's confuse them with funny names instead of A, B, C, D, F"
Reference: TNReady Cut Scores.
Tennessee results are lower than the US average. The Tennessee state test was replaced recently. It is called TNReady. The Tennessee Department of Education also decided AGAIN, to use cut scores on the new test. We think that it would be a safe bet to assume that the new Tennessee test will be dumbed down, perhaps more than the old one, instead of going in the other direction to align it with the state's average ACT score goal of 21. ACT 21 is a very low score with only a 25% ACT Readiness percentage of graduates. That means that 3 out of 4 graduates are NOT READY. ACT 21 has been a Tennessee goal for 15 years. It is a very low expectation score. Tennessee education people talk about high expectations, but the goals tell one what they really believe.
Again, it was prepared by a professional company to match the curriculum as we stated before. The state is changing to cut scores on the new test, most likely because they do not want to have the public see how poorly educated our children are. Again, let us compare to a normal, traditional grade distribution as before, with five different grades, A - F. 90-100% correct answers are an A, all the way to 60% or less being a failing grade or F. This is how the tests are designed. We are changing the grade distribution to four areas named already. The word "Failing" does not exist in the vocabulary. WE SEEM TO BE TOO CONCERNED WITH THE SELF ESTEEM OF CHILDREN. I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU THAT WORRYING ABOUT SELF ESTEEM AT A TIME WHEN CHILDREN MUST BE READY TO SURVIVE IN A TOUGH WORLD IS WEAKENING THEM, BUT IT GIVES AN EXCUSE TO PUBLIC EDUCATION TO CONTINUE A PATH THAT DESTROYS OUR CHILDREN'S ABILITY TO SURVIVE. THAT JUST TELLS US THAT THE LEADERSHIP'S SKILLS IN MANAGEMENT AND PROBLEM SOLVING IS POOR, BUT THEIR 2016 Tennessee Cut Scores In Detail. The percentage of right answers, to qualify for each of the "graded" entries is below with only one subject. English and various mathematics courses and US History are the only ones graded. No science course is graded. No music or art course is graded. WE THINK THAT THIS IS A VERY SHORT SIGHTED DECISION ON THE CHOICE OF COURSES, ALTHOUGH IT APPEARS THAT WE ARE USING TNREADY FOR GRADES 3-8 ONLY. IT WAS EXTENDED INTO HIGH SCHOOL AS WELL.We are beginning to see very serious preparation to replace low end, not ACT Ready graduates in fast food and in supermarkets to follow with robotics, with a continuing penetration of 125 classes of vocations whose workers have a four-year university degree. By 2026, all of this will be accomplished, along with millions of replaced workers on the street, hungry and making babies. Minority parents are very concerned about their children. We publish good news only from the school districts. The parents' idea is that "My son qualified for a diploma. Why can't you teach him a job?!" That is the impression that our public schools are leaving with the parents and the students. BIG MISTAKE. Leaving sciences, art and music out of the curriculum and testing: all of these are needed for brain development. The job market with robotics within it as a competitor, will require much more training than the 40th nation in high school mathematics could provide. Robotic technology will keep improving much more rapidly than our children. ALLOWING THE DETERIORATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION WAS AND IS OUR BIG MISTAKE.
In A, B, C, D, F grading, these letters identify a 10% range of possible grades for A, B, C and D, plus a 60% range for F. Instead of A, B, C, D, F grading, the cut scores results are also in five grades or levels of student performance, but the cut scores identify a single grade boundary only and not the entire range for each single grade.
The most important segmentation of cut scores is the border between failing and the first passing grade.
Level 4: Mastered (Mastered Grade-level)
Level 3: On-track (On Grade-level)
Level 2: Approaching (Approaching Grade-level).
Level 1: Below (Below Grade-level)
As a conclusion on the TNReady Levels above, it appears that a failing grade in English I is not at or below having 60% good answers on a test or course, but having below 23.7% correct answers in a test. This is the top percentage number per subject in the "Below" column for English I . That means that we are passing a lot more children who have produced failing grades before, who know a lot less than with the old grading system. The results were poor before implementing the cut score system, and the new system graduates even more poorly qualified children. We have many well credentialed people in public education. This not just appears to be an idiotic mistake on the top, but it actually is idiotic, that seriously damages the future of the entire country, especially when you add the black and white problem that we did not make an effort to resolve in a hundred years, plus the fastest growing poverty in the world, all thanks to mismanaging education. This is important evidence showing the decline of many things, like education itself, people not standing up if they notice serious problems, and a total lack of understanding the areas for which people are promoted into in both public education and in politics as well. If you disagree, then please tell me what laws were passed and what has been changed in in public education that raised the ACT and SAT scores! There was no change in the results. Look at the ACT chart.It appears that at the same time we are making the Level 3 and 4 performance more difficult than the A and B grade definitions before. We do not feel that this is the right action to improve performance. We are allowing a huge percentage of poorly performing students, awarding them to get a passing grade, instead of improving the teachers' training and work environment to enable the children to learn more. We are creating the worst possible motivation to learn more when we drop the failure score from less than 60% correct answers to less than 23.70%.
Using English I in the above chart, if the correct test answers fall between 0% - 23.70% correct answers only, the child gets a failing grade called "Below", a brilliant choice for the name of grade to save self-esteem that started in the 1970's and found to be damaging. So the teacher would say "Johnny, you got a "Below" grade in English I!" To which Johnny would say "Below what?! Below the desk?! Where? Where?" "Below" is what we used to call an "F" for "Failure". Not the best choice in names. The lowest passing grade, 23.70% or more correct answers, is called now the new failing grade, called "Below". The child gets a failing grade called "Below" when he has less than 23.70% correct answers in a test. Although not the same, it compares to 0% - 60% good answers only in a test we called an "F" for being a failing grade. The lowest passing grade goes from 23.70% to but not including 73.20% called "Approaching" (23.70% plus 49.50%), another brilliant name that someone who makes probably more than $200K thought up after a lot of agonizing. We called "Approaching" a "D". 60% - 69% correct answers in a test in the past, now corresponds to 23.70% - 73.20% correct answers in the TNReady test. That is almost as large in performance as four times a "D" score. What the TNReady cut scores are doing so far is dropping the passing grade from 60% to 23.70% passing many students who could not have passed before, and loading up the first passing grade so large that we will see the top two grades much more difficult to achieve. Supposedly, this will align us for much better ACT scores. There are two big problems with this logic. One is that it will open up the flood gates to the many children to pass who were failing under the old system that produced only 17% of those who actually graduated from high school in Tennessee with a diploma. Our past educational performance was poor. This will make it worse. Poor schools do not prepare winners by adopting a new Cut Score system that dumbs students down. Student performance does not depend on adopting cut scores for higher grades, because the cut score method reduces children's knowledge. We are dumbing them down. Lowering the first passing grade from 60% to 23.70%, does not increase the children's average knowledge. It reduces it SIGNIFICANTLY. And for the Tennessee Education Department to do this to our children, most likely with the Governor's approval, I never thought I would see such a degrading idea coming from the state education department. It is only the improvement of how we teach all children, starting with a well planned pre-school program, with well trained and happy teachers who know their subject and the latest, most effective teaching methodology in the world that holds any hope for our children. The minimum requirement to achieve that is an 80% ACT Readiness, for which we need to achieve an average ACT score of 25-26.
Tests are designed exactly under contract for the specific subject test within the curriculum as requested by the state, such that 90-100% correct answers will be an "A" and less than 60% correct answers will be an "F". So we pay as a state $50-60 million per year for the new test, and we pay another company an additional $15-20 million per year to totally or partially dumb down a good test to get higher grades and students graduating with less knowledge than intended. In the case of TNReady we dumb down the two lowest passing grades, making the achievement of the top two highest scores' a little tougher. IT IS THE POOR SCHOOL SYSTEM THAT NEEDS TO BE IMPROVED INSTEAD OF DUMBING DOWN THE STUDENTS TO GET HIGHER GRADES. ISN'T ANYONE RESPONSIBLE FOR MANAGING THE QUALITY OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR THE GOVERNOR? Manipulating scores by the state school system does not resolve the poor performance coming out of our public schools. IT MAKES IT WORSE. The TNReady cut scores above appear to represent a smaller change to make grades look better to parents, but it will not help to achieve higher ACT scores, because we are simply lowering the passing grade, with some subjects a lot. That rewards only those children who were producing failing grades in the past by lowering the bar for passing a course. The big problems to improve results are teacher knowledge of the subject and teaching methodology, as well as the conditions under which the teachers work. They don't know the subjects well enough to get children excited about what they are learning, a very important part of teaching. We have to make this process easier for teachers, by having them better educated about the subject they teach, the exciting things about the subject and the work one does in the subject, giving them more authority in the classroom by handling discipline violations with tougher consequences, and eliminating some non-teaching activities for teachers that takes away their preparation time. Teaching is not a fun job any more. Learning is also not a fun job for the children. We have to change that for both.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS:
IF THERE ARE TOO MANY POORLY PERFORMING CHILDREN, WITH LOW "ACT READINESS", THERE IS INCREASING DEMAND TO LOWER THE PASSING SCORE IF ONE WANTS TO RAISE THE GRADUATION RATE. THE STUDENTS CERTAINLY DO NOT LIKE THE SCHOOL AND THE TEACHERS ARE BORING TO MOST OF THEM, STARTING IN FIRST GRADE AND THROUGH EVERY GRADE.
IF SOMEONE IS TRYING TO SELL CUT SCORES AS A POSITIVE MOVE, TO THE BENEFIT OF OUR CHILDREN SURVIVING, THEY ARE LYING.
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Read here the final, approved document about cut scores. PLEASE TRY TO READ IT. Is this the magic plan to improve results? It is not, and it cannot be. Why? Because the problem does not require confusion to implement something that flat cannot work. Surely there are smart people among those who approved it. Did they ask the questions they should have?! No! They were good little boys and girls, fearing their future if the multi-billionaire with presidential ambitions will hurt them if they say anything that he does not like. Political decisions are not a good thing to manage anything efficiently to good results. Look at the promise at the end of this report. Unbelievable BS.
To manage a group of people to ACHIEVE better results, each of them needs to understand what their monthly objectives are, and change the way they have been working every day before. Expert guidance by someone who knows what he/she is doing IS VERY IMPORTANT AT THE START.
Are cut scores the most important tool to improve our poor education system? We don't think so. ABSOLUTELY NOT. IT HELPS THE DUMBING DOWN OF THE POPULATION WITH SEVERAL OTHER CHOICE "PROGRAMS" THAT ALL AID THE DUMBING DOWN OF OUR CHILDREN.
THE BIG PROBLEM IS: the schools are not improving, and the grades are likely to keep dropping as before. The state education department dumbs down the state test scores more, and the grades magically increase! The state has done it before, the public only noticed that the grades improved, and no one notices that the children are graduating with less knowledge and they are becoming unemployable. But the day is coming when this correction by cut scores will give everyone an "A", even if they have not a single correct answer on a test.
The state can do that any time.
ARE WE GETTING OUR MONEY'S WORTH FROM THE TENNESSEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
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