While I was so pleased with the editorial concerning Common Core and testing, I did take umbrage with one tiny part: "In the past decade or more, students have been accustomed to learning the 'right' answers to test questions through drills and rote memorization."
This is a misleading statement, and it undermines the efforts of both teachers and students.
The ELA leap test is comprised of an essay question involving one or more reading passages; a proofreading test; a research test; and a reading/response test comprised of four different types of literary selections with multiple choice and open-response questions. None of these four tests are seen beforehand by teachers or students.
The challenge has always been and still remains a matter of getting students comfortable with reading fiction and nonfiction fluently and with applying comprehension and critical-thinking skills.
Common Core does increase the degree to which students have to apply higher-order thinking, and students must now be even more painstaking with citing and correctly annotating specific textural evidence.
It is a tremendous challenge - even more so now that many students spend an inordinate amount of time accessing social media sites, playing computer games, texting one another, watching reality television, and enjoying sports
I am pleased and honored to be a teacher at Riser Middle School in West Monroe and I believe we - teachers and students - are up for this challenge.
Let's push our young people to read varied forms of literature and about real things that matter.