By Mario A. Cortez
In front of a small attendance, members of the State PTA presented the new standardized testing and Common Core educational standards at the San Diego County Board of Education’s headquarters. This new system, which has been implemented in several state with varying degrees of success, seeks to make educational standards consistent across states that have adopted them and dictate levels of subject mastery that students must show in their respective grade levels.
“Our children will be most benefited if these are implemented well because they will use critical thinking skills. They’ll come better prepared for college or a career” said Celia Jaffi, California State PTA President of Education.
The standards which were adopted one year ago will be measured through a new system of standardized testing named CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) replaces the previous STAR (Standardized Testing and Reporting) which has been used for over a decade. The CAASPP is done on computers unlike traditional fill in the bubble paper exams. This is where its strengths lie according to it’s supporters.
“What is now being used in this system is thinking to get to the correct answer and recognizing that there are 1000 ways of arriving at a correct answer instead of thinking only one gets an answer” said Aurora Murillo Clark, President of the ESL Council for Sweetwater District.
“There is creativity in the students and we must let them use their way of thinking and their way of being to arrive at solutions instead of using memorization.”
This adoption of this new system which requires new equipments is also a chance for county schools to acquire new computers and trained staff to teach with new technology.
“In the state legislature there was some funding to all schools to help implement this in all schools to help buy more computers.”
Even so, Jaffi recognized that there have been misses in the distribution and availability of resources for technology in the classroom.
“It’s true that schools have had to solve problems of their own financially and how to schedule classes and borrowed equipment from other districts. There are a lot of ways that schools figured out how to schedule kids to computers”
Despite its technological advantages, there are situations which may compromise the efficiency of this new system.
“Latino students will be benefited as long as teachers are well trained and have an open mind and know that this is simply about free expression” described Murillo Clark.
“If the teacher is not well trained and does not know how to implement and receive information then it can be frustrating for the teacher and the student might feel it. From moving in a positive direction, this can turn into a negative experience in which the teacher won’t be comfortable and the student will not learn anything.”
Even so, it is believed that this program will have a positive impact on schools in the Hispanic community
“Schools or districts have students from low income homes which were cast to the side and not given importance to have computers or virtual systems to have access to a world of information like other students. Now we can request through LCAP and say that there is a high need so our children have the same opportunities and access ” Murillo Clark remarked.
However, not everyone believes that these new norms will be most beneficial to our communities.
“If we were low we will be even lower, further behind and no one is going to pull us out of that hole. Until now no one in the district has told us clearly how they will support Latino children” commented Jazmin Bison Mendoza, mother and active member of Latinos y Latinas Siempre en Accion.
“To our disgrace many of our communities that need help don’t receive it. We don’t know how they will implement this. Often times people don’t have computers at home, much less internet. How will this affect children with lower resources?”
One year after the adoption of these norms, teachers and parents will have to be up to date on the effects and results that this system seeks to have once the first CAASPP testing season comes.