Florida edumacation system

[Korietsu]

If the test doesnt provide sections where that type of practice would be useful they wouldnt do that type of practice.

Requiring critical thinking skills and mostly short and long responses would go long ways towards making someone actually having to think on a test. (If done right)

TAKS only has short response in one section. Reading/Writing. Everything else is multiple choice or read and then do multiple choice.

[#686578]

No that's bullshit.

The teachers in Florida suck. What seems like years ago, I want to Spanish River high. A very good s. florida high school. My fucking history teacher would fall asleep mid lessons.

Fucker still works there.

Truth. I've had not only the kind of teacher that just assigns worksheets and falls asleep, but I've had the kind that just plays online poker all day too.

TAKS only has short response in one section. Reading/Writing. Everything else is multiple choice or read and then do multiple choice.

Are you agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or just quoting me as a shortcut to get to advanced reply

[Antithesis]

Recently graduated Southwest Miami High in 2008 and now in Miami Dade College (2cd Year going on 3rd.) Honestly, I didn't really try in High School because it was just so damn stupid after a while. Some teachers were ok, but even while I was getting taught I felt like the material and all the worksheets we were doing was just garbage and total crap. I paid attention in class, but just got lazy with most of the assignments and graduated with a low B. In college now and, of course loving it. Not stuck in a shitty school with stupid ass teenagers 7 hours a day. The teachers actually teach, I learn shit and life is good.

I still feel like the education at my college is still kind of mediocre (compared to what friends have been telling me in other, out of state universities) but it is at least a thousand times better than high school. I'm not a very good student grade wise because laziness is a very bad habit of mine (which I hope I leave behind soon.)

Either way, Florida education. Bullshit. Needs a re hauling.

[Antithesis]

As an addendum, I got put into one of those FCAT Reading classes (because my FCAT score on the reading in Freshman year was low for some reason.) All we did in that class was the same stupid bullshit over and over and over. We didn't focus on actual reading material, only FCAT Reading materiel (And the short stories they give on the FCAT are some of the most boring and shtity written stories ever.)

[Delenn]

Related Update:

Miami-Dade School Board gives teacher pay bill the thumbs down
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/1...s-teacher.html

The Miami-Dade School Board on Wednesday took a formal position against the so-called teacher tenure bill, which would dramatically change the way teachers are paid in Florida.

The resolution, brought forward by veteran board member Marta Pérez, passed on a 7-0 vote.

...

The bill raced through the state Senate and House, and is now in the hands of Gov. Charlie Crist.
Crist has not said if he'll sign or veto. He has until Friday to decide.

...

Later, more than 100 teachers stood outside the district headquarters, protesting the bill. Earlier in the week, more than 6,300 of the district's 21,300 teachers were absent from school in a show of protest.

[archibaldcrane]

Question: For the people who had a high school experience that was "stupid and boring, easy, didn't learn anything, teachers sucked" - are we talking about the highest level, AP, hardest classes offered?

Or were there no Academically Motivated/AP/College prep classes offered, or were people taking the easy classes and complaining they were easy?

[Antithesis]

Question: For the people who had a high school experience that was "stupid and boring, easy, didn't learn anything, teachers sucked" - are we talking about the highest level, AP, hardest classes offered?

Or were there no Academically Motivated/AP/College prep classes offered, or were people taking the easy classes and complaining they were easy?

As far as I know, AP classes in Miami are the same as the easy classes but with a hundred times more bookwork and studying. There is no "college" feel to it, it's just harder book work and more studying. I would have taken an AP class if in fact, it WERE like a college class but I knew I was going to be bombarded with work and not learn anything so I said fuck it.

That's just for me though, I don't know if in other schools around here the AP classes actually taught you shit.

[Delenn]

As far as I know, AP classes in Miami are the same as the easy classes but with a hundred times more bookwork and studying.

...

That's just for me though, I don't know if in other schools around here the AP classes actually taught you shit.

For the record, that was the opposite of my experience. My AP and honor classes avoided busywork and repetition. Then again, I did go to a magnet high school.

The biggest issues I had at the time were a limit of 6 courses a year, which required summer school to take electives, and a lack of course selection.

[Skeeterxi]

Question: For the people who had a high school experience that was "stupid and boring, easy, didn't learn anything, teachers sucked" - are we talking about the highest level, AP, hardest classes offered?

Or were there no Academically Motivated/AP/College prep classes offered, or were people taking the easy classes and complaining they were easy?

AP classes in our high schools, at least mine, were just more work. The material was no harder, they were not college prep classes. The only reason people took them was because it looks good if you do. If you want more work sheets, and to be assigned more bookwork you take AP classes.

I could have went straight from junior high to college and I really wouldn't have missed out on much, my only problem would have been motivation and maturity. People who take dual enrollments really benefit, but that is because they are taking college classes and getting an early start, not because they are in high school.

[Izzy]

At least I got 75% of my in-state tuition paid for thanks to that bright futures shit. It's not like it was hard to get a 3.0GPA lol.

[archibaldcrane]

more studying...I knew I was going to...not learn anything

does not compute

How could a class both require "more studying" and simultaneously mean you "don't learn anything"? If you already knew everything in the class, you wouldn't have to study...

...am I missing something?

And when people say the AP classes "were not college prep" - does that mean people would take them but because they weren't rigorous enough they would still not pass the AP tests at the end of the year - to get, ya know, college credit?

[Acturus]

Question: For the people who had a high school experience that was "stupid and boring, easy, didn't learn anything, teachers sucked" - are we talking about the highest level, AP, hardest classes offered?

Or were there no Academically Motivated/AP/College prep classes offered, or were people taking the easy classes and complaining they were easy?

Every serious academic class (core curriculum stuff, math, english, etc) that I took was either Honors or Dual Enrollment (we had no AP).

It was easy. Absurdly easy. There were about 20 of us in every class together.

I was 5th in my class, and graduated with a GPA of like 4.42, or something. I think our co-Valedictorians each had a perfect GPA and it was 4.46 or close.

The top 25, I remember clearly, all graduated with more than a 4.0 thanks to the extra weighting of Honors and DE.

And I believe my HS experience to be a good one. After I graduated, they started doing that grading thing to the schools. I think my hometown's HS and MS are consistantly at "B", and both our elementary schools are "A" schools. I graduated the year that the FCAT was a pilot program to replace the HSCT. I took both the FCAT and the HSCT, and they were both snoozers. I've heard, however, that what the FCAT has expanded to be completely retarded. It was originally supposed to be just a "can you graduate High School" test, I thought. But now the kids take it every year. Absurd.

[Zalius]

the education system has its mouth dangling over the unwashed penis of the social world, existing on the precipice of ejaculation day after tedious day

[Korietsu]

Truth. I've had not only the kind of teacher that just assigns worksheets and falls asleep, but I've had the kind that just plays online poker all day too.

Are you agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or just quoting me as a shortcut to get to advanced reply

I was commenting on the fact that short response questions don't encourage critical thinking. They encourage critical thinking as much as reading an article and then selecting the correct multiple choice answer.

If it was applied more often in the tests your assumption might be valid, but it only really applies at the collegiate level, anything in the highschool level is pretty much a waste of effort.

[Acturus]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/1...s-teacher.html

VETO.



Still hate Crist though.

[archibaldcrane]

I guess what I wonder is - my public high school had two years of "college level" calculus offered. It was basically two semesters of college calculus spread out into two years (junior and senior) for the highest-level math students. At the end you'd take AP tests, and if you passed you got college credit.

Even for math whizzes, learning Calculus does require studying, and you do have to "learn" a lot to pass the tests. Did people go to high schools where Calc wasn't an option? I guess I don't know how a teacher could make it "easy" unless the class was just shit and you left having no chance at passing an AP test (in which case the teacher is clearly to blame).

[Antithesis]

does not compute

How could a class both require "more studying" and simultaneously mean you "don't learn anything"? If you already knew everything in the class, you wouldn't have to study...

...am I missing something?

And when people say the AP classes "were not college prep" - does that mean people would take them but because they weren't rigorous enough they would still not pass the AP tests at the end of the year - to get, ya know, college credit?

Studying as in doing the shitty worksheets over and over to memorize the answers for the test. Not really learning anything from that.

[Delenn]

I guess what I wonder is - my public high school had two years of "college level" calculus offered. It was basically two semesters of college calculus spread out into two years (junior and senior) for the highest-level math students. At the end you'd take AP tests, and if you passed you got college credit.

Are you referring to AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC? If so, sorry for the tangent, but those courses never really jived for me.

For those unfamiliar with Calc AB and BC, BC is a strict superset of Calc AB. The material in Calc AB is covered in roughly the first half of Calc BC. Passing Calc AB was a pre-requisite for BC in my Florida high school.

When I was in high school there were two 4-year math curriculums based on if you took International Baccalaureate (IB) middle school or not. Non-IB students took: Algebra II Honors > Geometry Honors > Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus Honors > AP Calculus AB. IB students skipped Geometry Honors, took AP Calculus AB in junior year, and then AP Calculus BC in senior year.

I'd understand if Calc BC didn't cover everything in Calc AB, but since it did, taking both felt/feels like a waste of time to me. Since my middle school didn't offer IB, I took Geometry and was slated to take Calculus AB my senior year. I was able to take Calc BC instead, but had to present a case to the school administration backed by my Precalc teacher (thank you Mr. Jacobs!) and a glowing referral. I still find this absurb to this day. (spoiler: I got an easy 5 on the AP Calc BC test)

I wonder if Calc AB is a pre-requisite for Calc BC in other high schools.

[gandorf]

As an addendum, I got put into one of those FCAT Reading classes (because my FCAT score on the reading in Freshman year was low for some reason.) All we did in that class was the same stupid bullshit over and over and over. We didn't focus on actual reading material, only FCAT Reading materiel (And the short stories they give on the FCAT are some of the most boring and shtity written stories ever.)

Oh god did you have to read the story about how spiders use webs to glide too? I swear from seventh grade till tenth I have read that story on every test. It would put me to sleep it was so god damn boring.

[archibaldcrane]

I wonder if Calc AB is a pre-requisite for Calc BC in other high schools.

It was in ours, although I have never heard anyone claim that the BC class re-covered all the AB material and then added to it. Maybe at our school they just taught the new stuff, or your school's program was poorly administered.