Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/573313
Ihavebeenaskedtocommentonthere- sults of the State Smarter Balance test re- sults for our local schools since the results have not been forthcoming in the media. Iwilltrytoconfinemyre- marks to the actual results, the purpose of the test, and the next steps the schools with prompt- ing from par- ents will neces- sarily be taking. I will not judge any one school in particular, al- though it is im- portant to compare the re- sults by school to see some of the differences throughout our county and to make sure there is some coordinated fol- low up on next steps for our schools. The new state test is based on what is called the Com- mon Core; in spite of what some right wing folks will tell you, the Common Core is not an attempt to central- ize control of local education. The Common Core is actually a set of K-12 educational stan- dards in math and language arts. Forty-five states have ad- opted the Common Core, in- cluding California. Officials from 48 states participated in the process to develop the standards over several years. Two states dropped out of the Common Core in 2014, South Carolina, and Okla- homa. One state, Minnesota, just adopted the English/Lan- guage Arts standards, and Texas, Nebraska, Virginia and Alaska did not adopt any. The standards were de- veloped because a 2004 re- port found that many colleges and employers had growing expectations of high school graduates, but that schools had not increased their stan- dards accordingly. Tests are scored as hav- ing "exceeded standards", "met standard", "nearly met standard", and "standard not met." Individual student scores are not available to the public, but are available to parents. Reported scores are for aggregate groups, such as the grade of the student, and various sub groups. Schools have been prepared for this testing for quite a while; they were aware of the standards, and have taken practice tests. The test is not a surprise, but, at least for some of us the local results were surprising. On a statewide basis 44 percent of students from grades three through eight and eleven met or exceeded the standard English/Lan- guage Arts Literacy. There were several subtests within that category: "Demonstrat- ing understanding of literary and non-fictional texts", "Pro- ducing clear and purposeful writing", "Demonstrating ef- fective communication skills", and "Investigating, analyzing, and presenting information"; scores for these subtests were generally low the lowest sub- test score was in the area of communication skills with only 14 percent statewide ex- ceeding the standard. Elev- enth grade students produced the strongest scores state- wide in English/Language Arts Literacy. In the area of Mathemat- ics, 33 percent of students on a statewide basis met or ex- ceeded the standard. Third grade students produced the strongest scores statewide. At Red Bluff High School 52 percent of students met or exceeded the standard for English/Language Arts Lit- eracy; 31 percent met or ex- ceeded the standard for Mathematics. At the recently renamed Vista Preparatory Academy within the Red Bluff Union School District, the results did not compare as well with statewide scores; in English/ Language Arts Literacy Pro- ficiency 18 percent of sixth grade students, 27 percent of seventh grade students, and 27 percent of eighth grade students met or exceeded the standard. For Mathematics, 14 percent of sixth graders, 27 percent of seventh grad- ers, and 30 percent of eighth graders met or exceeded the standard. Scores can be broken down based on a variety of so- cio-economic factors, and as might be expected children from poverty, with broken homes, and who are learning English as a second language generally do not do as well as the overall population. As might be expected schools with higher socioeco- nomic populations did rela- tively well. For example Bur- lingame High eleventh grad- ers had 86 percent of its students meet or exceed the standards for English/Lan- guage Arts and 64 percent in Mathematics; for Palo Alto High the scores were 82 per- cent and 78 percent. The test scores do not make Californians feel good about their schools. Locally there is a partic- ular importance to be well prepared for live after high school. Our graduates suc- cess in the job market will depend on how well our stu- dents can compete when the finish school. At this point there will not be enough jobs locally for them to stay here, and they will have to move to find jobs. They will need the skills to compete both for jobs and higher education. My hope is that the Te- hama County Superintendent of Schools, if he wants to as- sume a leadership position, will bring the various district and school leaders together to analyze the differences be- tween the various subgroups mentioned above, the differ- ences between school scores, and the differences between school practices in order to develop a coordinated ef- fort to improve student per- formance throughout the county. As parents and concerned citizens we need to take a close look at these scores and insist that our local school boards participate aggres- sively to improve the skill lev- els of all students. We can do no less. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop What's the score in local education? Cartoonist's take Editor: If you have been reading the police log in the Daily News over the past several months, you'll notice that dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes are disappearing from Corning. Why? Have any of these dogs been found and returned to their owners? If not, Why? Is there anyone investigat- ing these missing pets? This situation is just plain weird and disconcerting. — Gail Egbert, Red Bluff DumpTrumpand his supporters Editor: Letter writer Les Wolfe warned us against stepping in the BS Trump is spew- ing all over America, but the Tea Party crazies, Republican woman with no self-respect and hypocritical evangelicals, seem to be ecstatically rolling around in it, like Trump is the savior of their perverse and ig- norant thinking. Finally, some- one to truly support the worst of America. They like that he talks the common man's language and is honest, but the truth is, he contradicts himself in the same sentence and has no re- spect for anyone. I love His- panics. Ship them out of here. I love women and they love me. Bimbo, ugly, blood com- ing out of their whereevers. The only women that love Trump are brainwashed, blind women, who have no class, no respect for themselves, ig- norant of the facts and likes squinty eyed, blubbery faced men, who hate them. First, Trump comes out against legal and illegal aliens calling them rapist, criminals and drug dealers. His plan? Deport 12 million of them, in- cluding American born cit- izens. He insists that all of American's woes can be fixed, if we gather them up and ship them out of America. Sounds right out of Hitler's playbook and reason for getting rid of the Jews, who he viewed as im- pure illegals taking away Ger- many's jobs. Will Trump and his group of SS (Super Stupid) yes men ar- rest, terrorize and ship fami- lies to Mexico, via cattle cars or just make them walk, starve and be assaulted by his cra- zies along the way, like what is happening to the Syrian ref- ugees. Once, he runs out of places to deport them to, will he go for the final option, like Hitler did. As our first Ameri- can dictator, I'm sure he will. How can he profess his faith, when he hasn't accepted Christ's forgiveness and grace. People do not become Chris- tians by liking the Bible or go- ing to church, but through recognizing that we are all sinners in need of God's for- giveness. Unfortunately, the radical right Christians, who beat up Obama for being a Muslim and not a true Chris- tian, now embrace a man who has had many affairs and mar- riages, professed to buying off politicians to get his way, hates the stranger and the poor and is arrogant beyond Biblical belief. He fits the pro- file of an anti-Christ, rather than the nation's salvation. The political allies and the majority of the deceived fol- lowers of the beast will wor- ship him as God after the false world church has been de- stroyed. Trump has already started violating our rights, even though he has no legal power to do so. He has made a mock- ery of freedom of the press, as he physically had Univision journalist Jorge Ramos re- moved, because he didn't like his question. He had his ge- stapo henchmen to do it and then, pretended they did it all on their own. Every journalist that has tried to corner him into tell- ing them the truth, he ver- bally goes after. He is a bully, beyond belief, with no moral compass and the hypocrites supporting him just can't get enough of his self-serving BS. Maybe, instead of deport- ing 12 million illegals, who love America and want to be here, we should deport the big- ots, haters and sphincters sup- porting Trump. America could have a new start on the Amer- ican Dream and actually move forward and prosper if we did. — Pat Johnston, Red Bluff Medical marijuana begs election reform Editor: Every day, horrific injury, death, and destruction occurs from the manufacture, sale, and use of alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamine, crack co- caine, and other mood-alter- ing drugs. When children and teenag- ers harm themselves or others, parents are to blame. When adults — government's chil- dren — harm themselves or others, government's to blame. It's bad enough when govern- ment fails to keep its children from using drugs; it's despica- ble when it encourages them to use drugs. That is, as states are increasingly doing in legal- izing medical and even recre- ational use of marijuana. Medical marijuana advo- cates argue they need the drug for pain relief. If that's truly the case, they could see a doc- tor, get a prescription for pain pills, and fill that prescription inexpensively over the Inter- net. They can't legitimately ar- gue that the enormous cost, effort, expense, risk to soci- ety and the environment, and peril to their own health and safety of growing and smok- ing marijuana is their only re- course. That individuals make these arguments to try to le- gitimize illicit drug use is al- most expected. When legisla- tors make these arguments to justify legalizing the cultiva- tion and use of marijuana, it's shameful. That they do dem- onstrates they're either na- ive, that they want to get high themselves, or that increasing tax (or bribe) revenue is more important to them than public health and safety. That such motives com- monly shape public policy is ultimately the fault of our flawed election system. Ac- cordingly, it should be rede- signed to ensure that only can- didates possessing sufficient knowledge, intelligence, and motivation to effectively serve their constituents are elected. This could be accomplished by first, mandating that both candidates and voters pass a test proving their knowl- edge of the candidates and is- sues. Second, by mandating in- stant runoff elections — where voters' alternate choices are counted if their first choices don't produce wins. A final measure for ensuring quality candidates are elected would only apply to small jurisdictions like Tehama County. That is, require them to recruit candidates from ad- jacent counties if they don't initially have sufficient candi- dates running to ensure an ef- fective officeholder's elected. — Nathan Esplanade, Rancho Tehama Letters to the editor What the heck is going on? At Red Bluff High School 52 percent of students met or exceeded the standard for English/ Language Arts Literacy; 31 percent met or exceeded the standard for Mathematics. GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Ma yb e, i ns te ad of d epo rt in g 1 2 mill io n i ll eg al s, wh o l ov e A me ri ca an d w an t t o b e h er e, we s ho ul d d epo rt th e b ig ot s, h at er s an d s ph in ct er s su ppor ti ng T ru mp . — P at J oh ns to n, R ed B lu ff Joe Harrop OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, September 19, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4