The New York Times recently ran a feature debating testing today.
There were my favorites in the debate.
This by Leonie Haimson.
This by Pedro Noguera.
Both make excellent points. Tests are overused and misused, as Leonie says; and accountability should be for those at the top, not just those in the classroom as Pedro says.
Standardized testing as mis-used today has become an obstacle to good education. Judging teacher quality by these flawed measures is ruining education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sorry, there is no need to debate standardized testing anymore, just a waste of time, air, ink, paper, digital resources, etc. . . . I thought that standardized testing had been given a death blow by Wilson in 1997*, but unfortunately it appears to be some kind of semi-eternal life form that continually mutates and sends out offshoots as it keeps on coming back stronger than before to wreak havoc on students’ educational lives along with teachers’ lives. Who are the one’s that feed this beast????? Who are today’s Victor Frankensteins that create, feed and help propagate these beasts????
So, maybe there still is a need to “debate” or should I say become informed/educated on the fallacies that are educational standards, standardized testing and grading practices*. I challenge all to read, understand and then spread the disinfecting word that is Wilson’s work*.
*See: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577
“A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at:
http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html
Where are the teachers in this debate? This debate is like having a group of people standing around my non-functioning automobile with its hood up. Everyone gathers around and because they’ve driven a car they have an opinion but no one has ever fixed one. The mechanic who knows what’s wrong and can fix it isn’t there.
As important as the teachers are in this debate, let us not forget the students. They are the ones who must face these tests year after year. Even after they have completed the years of mandatory state testing they are transitioned into the notion that a new batch of tests are required to continue their education. They are the ones who panic over the PSATs, the SATs, the AP tests, who have testing strategies engrained in them from a young age. Do students really retain much when they cram for these tests?
The “teachers” in this debate are represented by the NEA and the AFT, which just made another big deal with the two testing consortia to function as propaganda ministries and on-the-ground enforcement units for them.
The flawed testing approach continues to be pushed without debate because open honest discussion, involving true experts in the fields of child development, education (and ed-research), and valid data gathering/application would reveal painful truths for those behind the brand of reform we are seeing.
Truth1: Increasing the amount of tests as a means of finding and firing bad teachers is a perversion of assessment in education. Assessments are tools for teachers to use in shaping instruction for their students’ individual needs, which vary between students and can change year to year. Once well-funded and empowered, schools identified and addressed these varying needs. Schools have been attacked and de-funded over time, leaving them less able to address the range of needs students have. As the economy has further crippled average families, students come to school with more challenges, the attack on schools and the teaching profession has intensified.The intention of “reformers” to use assessment to attack the profession instead of inform it is undeniable as teacher evals are based mostly on the test results-despite the fact that the brand new CCL standards haven’t been fully integrated with curriculum and the tests being used haven’t even reached final phase of development. Yet the identifying “bad” teachers using this amorphous data has been priority. Truth number one is that reform isn’t really about valid improvements to the education of children. It’s about: 1) control and redirection of public funds, 2) profits for a testing/charter industry that dominates the reform narrative, 3) intimidation of a profession with a long history of middle class empowerment and political activism.
Truth 2: The focus on schools and teachers as the source of educational ills is treating a symptom, not curing the disease. This isn’t a result of misguided naivete or ignorance, it is intentional. There is plenty of data linking economic hardship to family insecurity and disruption to lack of “school readiness” to final educational outcomes. Schools and teachers can work hard to maximize potential and help students surpass obstacles that might otherwise hold them back, but what if policymakers continue creating more obstacles? Well, they ARE creating those obstacles, and they know it. Unfortunately, as policymakers they currently have the power to not only create the obstacles-they also have the power to divert attention and shift the blame. Truth number 2 is we need to take back our democracy. We can no longer be afraid to be politically active within our schools if we have to protect our students. We need to be heard, we need to vote, and we need as many doing it as we can possibly get.
Here’s my favorite:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/29/can-school-performance-be-measured-fairly/school-assessment-tests-an-imperfect-but-vital-measure
It is pragmatic and calls out that no single measure should ever be used to evaluate a teacher.
Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed, said in my disgusted teacher’s voice. Have you read the assignment (Wilson’s work) like I’ve requested you to do multiple times? If so what are your specific problems with his arguments? And then how does his observations/arguments square with what the article has to say? Let me help you get started.
From the article:
“But perfection is too high a standard. The relevant question is whether there is information in V.A.M. estimates that improve a school system’s ability to distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. There undoubtedly is.”
For starters there is nothing associated with the teaching and learning process that is “perfection”. No one, myself included is asking for this “perfection”. It’s a strawman argument. Since VAM is based on an invalid process (see Wilson) logically any results will more likely than not invalid and “vain and illusory”-Wilson. So “there undoubtedly is nothing in the process that is usable unless you want to base your conclusions on falsehoods and illusions.
“In contrast, V.A.M. can be used to predict a teacher’s future performance in the classroom. For instance, research by Dan Goldhaber and Michael Hansen shows that a teacher’s performance as measured by V.A.M. in her first two years in the classroom is a far better predictor of student learning than are conventional measures like a master’s degree.”
This argument is a false comparison. VAM is supposed to be an “evaluation” method that describes a teacher’s performance and not a “predictor of student learning”. A masters degree is not and never has been designed to “evaluate” a teacher’s performance and has never been designed as a predictor of student’s performance. So to confuse and conflate these two separate concepts through statistical manipulation is a disgusting misuse of statistics and certainly is in no way a “scientific” endeavor, as it more likely than not purports to be. Remember correlation is not causation, eh??? For the author of the article to use this particular piece of “research” shows his inability to understand what real research is about. It’s a totally bogus argument.
“We will never have a perfect evaluation system. But careful use of student test scores to evaluate teachers can drastically improve the quality of teachers in American public schools.”
I agree with the first sentence, at least he got that right. Using student test scores to evaluate teachers is illogical, invalid and UNETHICAL. So no, it will do nothing to “drastically improve the quality of teachers in American public schools”. You start out with shit you still end up with a shit sandwich.