Michael Moore, a literacy professor in Georgia, thinks that the state has more tests than it needs already. Where will it get the money for the new Common Core assessments. Moore quotes Peter DeWitt on this blog to make his point. He writes:
“Peter Dewitt, an elementary principal writing in Diane Ravitch’s blog, notes that “we lack the infrastructure to be testing factories, and that shouldn’t be our job in the first place.” Lawmakers, though, face increased lobbying from the same old test makers, Pearson, ETS and, the maker of Georgia’s tests, McGraw Hill. These companies stand to make fortunes on the assessments.”
The word is spreading. The public’s dollars should be spent on instruction, on reducing class size, on hiring guidance counselors and teachers of the arts. Not on more and more testing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And its my understanding that we have even more tests on the way due to the teacher evaluation plan from our race to the top. Pre and post tests for every subject not tested in the state’s current testing plan. At, music, and PE included. Testum ad nauseum.
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Hi,
A fellow Georgian?
Yes, we do have more on the way.
My county rolled out the SLO’s (called “slows”,if you can believe it) this year. More SLOs to come. Ours seem to be made by Pearson. Each slow also has mandatory pre test (I love giving kist tests they are supposed to fail!) to go with it.
This is in addition to the classes that already have Pearson made end of course tests, which also have mandatory benchmark testing to go with.
Any yes, they are working on tests for PE as we speak.
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Here’s your answer to the question of why all the testing…. Cause there in dc lobbying for federal mandates of testing so that they can make money because we have to test. We have to buy their tests.
Sent from my iPhone
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Is anyone who follows this blog a stats guru? I have a couple questions about some map testing data.
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I am NOT a stats guru but I’m interested to learn of your questions and responses. Our district MAP tests three times a year and attempts to mine data on student progress. What is supposed to be a tool to inform instruction is turning into another high stakes test. If we don’t cut back on MAP, eventually students will be assessed ten times a year between math and reading (3 MAP reading + 3 MAP math + 2 common core math + 2 common core reading).
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Well here is one of my questions… This is the data 116 students took both fall and winter math map tests. When the data is put into excel and a scatter plot is made, there is a positive correlation between fall map math scores to winter with a correlation coefficient of 0.5. I am wondering what that tells us.
Also, a class of 30 students included in the 116 had a mean of about 3 points in growth with a standard deviation of a little over 7. Does this tell us anything?
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I believe it tells you that the tests tell you nothing. It means that about 68% of the 116 students scored within +/-7 points of the mean of 3. That means that growth ranged from -4 to +10. Another 27% are with in 2 standard deviations, which means they fell in a range of +/-14 points of that average of 3 growth points.
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I wish I could help you. It’s my understanding winter scores should not be used when interpreting results. That growth should be measured fall to fall, or fall to spring. Yet I did something similar with my students. My students (a population of 47 and statistically insignificant or invalid) had spent weeks on the new 6th grade geometry common core curriculum and I wanted to measure their “fall to winter growth” on the geometry strand of the MAP test.
I examined it a bit differently. I learned that 38% of my students had zero or negative growth (the outlier was -17), while 62% had positive growth (the outlier being +26). Since it’s a normed referenced test I guess I should be very satisfied that more than 60% of the students had positive growth. Again, the population is small, and I shouldn’t be using winter MAP scores.
Good luck!
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I did the same thing with the overall results and got the same numbers as you did for just geometry strand
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The e-mail address at the end of Michael Moore’s article for the Savannah Morning News does not work. Is there a way to get an e-mail address that will reach him?
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It should work. It is correct mmoore@georgiasouthern.edu
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I just got the e-mail address to work. There is no dot (period) at the end of it.
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I just don’t understand why economic conservatives aren’t up in arms about this wasteful spending. We know that all the testing has produced no results (as though testing can produce anything). We are just throwing money at it like crazy with no end in sight. Now they are discussing creating end of course exams for music and art, which is guaranteed to destroy those courses. When PARCC is implemented in conjunction with end-of-course exams, students will take hundreds of tests over their K-12 career. Of course this is bad for teachers, curriculum, and school districts who need to shell out more and more money for these tests every year (win a RTTT grant and spend double meeting the mandates!). However, we cannot forget about how horrible this is for kids. Why don’t spend a little time figuring out what our students are struggling with rather than figuring out how we stack up with other countries. Students know that they are being ripped off. Corporate rheeformers believe that students are empty vessels just waiting for superman to fill up their heads with learnin’. Kids know better. They don’t want this. Parents don’t want this. Teachers don’t want this. Administrators don’t want this. School Boards don’t want this. For the rheeformers to change their minds we need to demonstrate how their policies are hurting students, teachers, and parents now.
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Diane….have you noticed the Leona Helmsley (queen of mean hotel owner) Trust funds the company Achieve which is helping to implement Common Core? Just look it up. amazing.
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All I know is that we will have to purchase about 60 more computers to add to the 30 we purchased this year in order to be able to give the PARCC tests. Each computer must be new and I am sure will have the requisite programs (Microsoft?). Multiply this times each school in my district, times each district in each state. You do the math. So not only are the testing companies getting raiding our public tax dollars, so are the computer and software companies. Not naming any names, just saying. Philanthropists my A**!
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I have taught for over 28 years! I remember when we actually taught, not tested! Education is big business, which equals big money for everyone but our students!
“I Apologize” An Open Letter to My Students! http://oldschoolteach.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-apologize-open-letter-to-my-students.html
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