New York City’s chief academic officer–a testing zealot–here announces that scores will plummet on the new Common Core tests administered last spring for the first time. They will plummet because the state decided to align its standards to NAEP, which are far more demanding than those of any state.
Over the years, many researchers have maintained that the NAEP achievement levels are “fundamentally flawed” and “unreasonably high.” If you google the terms NAEP and “fundamentally flawed,” you will find many articles criticizing the NAEP benchmarks. Here is a good summary.
What you need to know about NAEP achievement levels is that they are not benchmarked to international standards. They are based on the judgment calls of panels made up of people from different walks of life who decide what students in fourth grade and eighth grade should know and be able to do. It is called “the modified Angoff method” and is very controversial among scholars and psychometricians.
Setting the bar so high is one thing when assessing samples at a state and national level, but quite another when it becomes the basis for judging individual students. It is scientism run amok. It is unethical. It sets the bar where only 30-35% can clear it. Why would we do this to the nation’s children?
Nonetheless, these “unreasonably high” standards are now the guidelines for judging the students of Néw York.
Consequently, teachers and parents can expect to be stunned when the scores are released.
The good news is that teachers and schools will not be punished this year. The punishments start next year.
Here is the letter that went to all public schools with grades 3-8 in Néw York City:
From: Suransky Shael
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 1:54 PM
Subject: 2013 State Common Core Test Results
Dear Colleagues,
I’m writing to let you know that your school’s performance data on the 2013 State Common Core tests is now available for you to view. It is important to note that this data is embargoed by the State Education Department (SED)—you are not to share this information until Wednesday, after citywide data is released and the embargo is lifted.
As you review this information and prepare to share it with your school community, please keep in mind the context in which students took these new tests.
At its heart, our ongoing transition to the Common Core standards is about equal opportunity. It is about giving all students a fair chance to develop the skills they will need to pursue higher education and a quality job and have options that will lead to successful and happy lives.
As you know best, this shift is not easy, and so we are also making sure it is not punitive. These results will not be used to evaluate teachers this year, and students and schools will not be punished. The new tests are about developing a realistic understanding of where students are on the path to college and career readiness and adjusting support to improve students’ performance. Educators across the City are investing remarkable energy in this work; from this new baseline, we expect performance to increase.
SED has said the results will be similar to the City’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which also measures being on track for college and career readiness—for the City, similar scores would mean proficiency rates around 25-30 percent. Scores for individual student populations could be lower. These numbers might be familiar—in addition to our NAEP scores, the City’s College Readiness Index is also in this range—but seeing these results may still be jarring at first for you, your school community, and the public.
To access your school’s embargoed results now, you may view the State’s verification reports in L2RPT. After the public release, your school’s results will also be made available through the DOE public website, ATS, ARIS, and ARIS Parent Link; see below for a general timeline of when test results are expected in each system. If you need support accessing your school’s results, contact your network data support liaison.
Data System
Expected Timeline
L2RPT
August 5
DOE public website
August 7 (school-level results only)
ATS
Mid-August, within 1 week of State release
ARIS; ARIS Parent Link
Late August, within 3 weeks of State release
Item Skills Analysis reports (available in ARIS private communities)
September
Note: reports will be available according to tested year and current year enrollment; a version based on early October enrollment will be available in October.
The coming days and weeks will be challenging as we work together to explain these results to students, teachers, families, and the public. We will be providing materials and additional information in Principals’ Weekly to make sure you understand and feel comfortable discussing these results and the work ahead. And we will reiterate, time and time again, that students will not be penalized by these new tests and that they can—with hard work and support from their teachers, principal, and family—reach this new, higher expectation.
Ultimately, no one will be pleased by a measure that is expected to show fewer than 30 percent of students are on track for success after high school. But I deeply believe that this change—and the more accurate understanding that will result—is part of a transition that will benefit thousands of students for years to come, and I thank you for your leadership in supporting your school community through this time.
Best,
Shael
To: Principals of schools with grades 3-8
Cc: All cluster leaders; all network leaders; all superintendents
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So Suransky admits the transition will be hard, and the scores will plummet while at the same time reminding that ‘punishments’ are coming…ponderous.
I think part of the reason that standardized tests are popular is because there is a great deal of uncertainty about existing standards across the nation. I hope some high school teachers can help me, and perhaps others, understand those standards by explaining what is reasonable to expect of any high school graduate. For example, can we assume that any student who graduates from high school can read at some level of competency? Can any high school graduate do mathamatics at a certain level?
TE,
To answer both your questions (only one answer needed for both): yes and no! Not respectively but yes and no for each question. If you do not understand why that is the case, stop and think about the “absolute” nature of your questions.
Duane
Time to go listen to our new supe and all the accompanying joy o joys that are the beginning of the year meetings. Yeeee Haaaa!
Just trying to reach around for the edges here. Could we at least say that all high school graduates are functionally literate?
I think the unwillingness or inability of teachers to answer this question about what academic standards students must meet in order to graduate from high school is part of the reason that those of us outside the K-12 environment turn to standardized tests to find the answers.
The standards are easy to Google for each state. But I imagine we were all pretty much similar.
My background is in elementary.
http://schools.nyc.gov/offices/teachlearn/documents/standards/math/es/18description.html
The standards for graduation in my state simply list the courses (three units of math which must include algebra and geometry, three in science, one of which must include a lab, etc.) it says little about the content of the course and the standards to which the students are held. I keep thinking about the high school teacher who had many students reading at the first to fourth grade level. A number of these students were pushed along and graduated from high school. I think it would be useful to understand how many high school graduates are reading at an elementary grade level.
I can tell you that many schools push our neediest students out. My former principal told a teacher to make a certain student pass the June promotional assessment so the child could be sent to the local middle school. Then with the cuts to summer school, many principals promoted students. Bloomberg wants people to believe he got rid of social promotion, but in reality it still exists. In high school students get “seat credit” to help raise the grad rates.
Another (more egregious) act was turning backs on students with referrals. Principals didn’t want those numbers counted against them. One principal told me I gave her too many referrals. It was 3. My answer was if these children had been caught early, I wouldn’t have to fill out the forms. My school lost 2 Resource Room (SETTS) teachers due to cuts.
I, and many other teachers, have helped raise reading and math scores. But I did it at a time when class sizes were lower and I didn’t have to follow any set curriculum calendar. I still followed the curriculum, but did it my way. For instance, I always started the year teaching place value because IMO it was the foundation to the math I was teaching. I was able to play math games that helped students conceptualize. Then when the calendar and test prep came into play, it was all I can do to get through a curriculum that had too many concepts for one school year. Without spending time on concepts, it’s harder to teach the next step.
I personally didn’t have a problem with the standards. The children understood what they had to achieve and I set up a rubric for each standard. This is why I don’t understand the need for Common Core. NYC is going to spend a billion dollars on CC when standards were already in place??? Makes no sense.
Today with the news of the horrible test results, the media took the side of the Bloomberg PR machine. What’s wrong with these journalists!!! None asked to see the tests in their entirety.
So without some sort of standardized testing we really have no idea what our students know?
I think you are really missing the point. Standardized tests should only be used as one measure, not the only measure. Good students freeze on these tests. Should they be penalized because of that? Teacher judgment and recommendations should also be a factor as well as their classwork and class tests.
If you disagree, so be it.
I am certainly not talking about penalizing any students, and am confused about why you think i hold that position.The concern is to build a window into the school. What do students know? What does it mean to be a high school graduate?
I retread the post here, and am unclear that the scores on these exams are used to determine grades for students or graduation. Did I miss something?
State learning standards and course requirements are two different animals.
They may be different things, but there seems to be no consensus on what graduating from high school means other than checking off a set of boxes for each class (at least in my state). Can I be confident that every high school graduate is functionally literate?
But this is exactly the problem… many of you on the outside believe that “failing” these tests means that students are literally functionally illiterate or something. That is not at all the case. No educator believes any kid should be able to graduate literally unable to read, for instance…but these tests grade on ambiguous standards such as “grade level”. Should a kid be able to graduate if they only read at a 9th grade level? I don’t know… but in your question it sounds like you are trying to imply that we don’t believe in ANY standard. We do. But should a student have to be able to pass the SAT to graduate high school? At this point, this is practically what they are asking kids to do and then demonizing schools for not being able to achieve it.
I’m sure glad that I don’t teach in New York!
Love you Diana but think that you are drinking the Kool Aid here.
The problem with testing is that states use norm referenced testing to manipulate the scores for political purposes. NAEP is a criterion referenced test that can not be manipulated. i.e. Each answer has a certain value. It does not fall under the “Bell Curve” model. NAEP is the golden standard. If the Common Core used the NAEP, this would be helpful. The NAEP exposes the fraud of NCLB.
Joseph, sorry you are wrong. NAEP is not a criterion referenced test. It evolved into a norm referenced test. On a criterion referenced test, like a driver’s license exam, almost everyone can pass if they study. By that standard, NAEP is a norm-referenced test, with some items selected to be easy, some to be average challenge, some to be very difficult. If NAEP were a driver’s license test, almost no one would get a driver’s license. (By the way, I was on the NAEP governing board for seven years.)
So pure curiosity, what is your opinion of NAEP, Dr. Ravitch?
While NAEP standards do have critics, aren’t other indicators for NYC students somewhat concordant? Example: approximately 80% need remediation when they enter community college? And, other states such as Massachusetts, seem capable of meeting/exceeding NAEP standards.
Massachusetts falls far below NAEP’s standards. No state has 100% proficiency on NAEP. In Mass, the proportion is 50%.
You could look at how the Bloomberg administration allows that to happen via “seat credit” and phony summer school programs. Also they fool around with student placements against the recommendations of teachers.
“Example: approximately 80% need remediation when they enter community college?”
So, 80% of students who choose to attend community college as opposed to other types of schools are not top scholars.
Wow, really?
It is only a third of the incoming students at the research 1 ( to use the old Carnegie designation) university where I teach.
What percentage of remediation is acceptable?
“Pissed Off Teacher” a blogger a former high school math teacher now teaches at a community college. She is stunned by not only the lack of preparation, but by some of her students lack of interest. Some walk in late, don’t do the assignments and don’t sign up for her office hours. Yet, they still ask her for a passing grade. The one thing PO’s is happy about is the respect her department gives her. They realize it’s the students and not the teachers who must take responsibility. Those that apply themselves do well. Others think they are still in high school.
The most telling part of your post is the last sentence. That is what high school is today?
It really depends on the administration of a high school. In NYC, they give “seat credit” to make Bloomberg look good and grad rates high. This irks teachers, but there is nothing they can do about it.
” percentage of remediation is acceptable?”
Excellent question for the admissions office of the school admitting them.
Surprising question given the general condemnation of any bars to admission other than geographic proximity to the school.
My university used to automatically admit any in state student with a high school diploma for admission. That was enough once, but no longer. Has something about high school graduation requirements changed?
“Surprising question given the general condemnation of any bars to admission other than geographic proximity to the school.”
What?
This discussion is about admission to college and college preparedness, right?
I do not recall anyone posting on this discussion that admission to college should based on geography.
Nor do I recall ever seeing posts generally condemning bars to admission to COLLEGE.
And you know that.
The arguments made here about “creaming” unjustly helping the students creamed and unjustly hurting the students left behind would seem to apply to all schools, not just stop at grade 12. How can it be unjust if the student is 18 but laudable when the student is 19?
TE
“How can it be unjust if the student is 18 but laudable when the student is 19?”
High school is compulsory. (The police will bring the child to school at various ages depending on the state)
College is optional (no po po will come get student if he drops out of college)
But again, you KNOW this.
Please stop moving the goalpost.
If he didn’t move the goalpost he would have nothing to do here. I need to go back to ignoring. 🙂
The institutions are different, but the impact on the individual is the same, and it is the impact on the individual that is surely what is relevant morally. I would argue that excluding women from, say, high ranking medical or law schools is immoral despite the fact that going to these schools is not compulsory. Do you disagree?
Exposing the fraud of NCLB is not bad (although I think most people have already figured that out even if they don’t want to admit it) but scores aligned to a test whose scoring method is questionable and expecting very few students to be proficient and sounding pleased about this fact? That’s crazy. I hope other states don’t follow New York. Parents need to be more educated about NAEP. This was an eye opener to me. Honestly, I think that if I was a parent in New York, we’d move to a more education friendly state. I would not want my child in that kind of environment. Those schools and everyone involved with them are going to be nothing but stressed!
I am not sure I agree that teachers will NOT be punished. He only said schools would not be punished. King recently sent out a memo basically telling principals to be “judicious”. By the way VAM is still being used for tenure decisions, so yes teachers are still subject to this test.
http://atthechalkface.com/2013/08/03/john-king-to-superintendents-be-judicious-when-deciding-whom-to-fire/
Teachers will be punished. Elected officials, not so much. And worse, young children will suffer.
Standardized testing is the sacred cow, because it is a CASH COW.
Exactamente.
Polansky is a man deeply in need of a compass. He sat in front of our school a few years ago while parents begged, pleaded, and cried for our school to stay open. The students ALL praised the school and loved it. At the end of the night, he thanked us (at least he had the decency to not play around on his cell phone like some deputies were known to do), and then explained why this was best for the school (though NO ONE agreed with him) and then the PEP board shut us down.
For him to write things like this, things that he knows are going to inflict pain on teachers and students and parents, and then go along with it as good practice, makes one wonder what his priorities are and how he can back something that sets around 30% of the city’s students as being proficient for the forseeable future will be a net positive when they know that the bar is almost impossible to clear.
Raise the bar beyond what most students can be taught, and you can guarantee failure. While your successes might be real successes, we can predictably say they will be distributed largely according to students’ home income level. Meanwhile, we’ll have a vast majority of our students being told frequently and throughout their schools (with no excuses posters everywhere) that they are to blame for their failure and they need to do what needs to be done to succeed.
I have a very real problem with telling our students for years on end that many of them will have failed even if they work to the hardest of their abilities. It will teach them that giving up is an easier path to take and that the system is the problem (actually, they’re not far off) and that they actually take no responsibility for their failures.
While students are doing this round-about dance of failing yet not being failures, teachers will be blamed for their demoralization predictably (because giving so many tests that either don’t count or that declare them to be failures does amazing things for young people’s mentality towards being part of a school community).
I want to support Diane’s general view. Very few people understand NAEP and how it is structured. Diane, who was on the NAEP board for years, does.
Here are a few facts. Congress has insisted the the NAEP benchmarks of basic, proficient, and advanced are experimental and are to be “used with caution.” No student on NAEP has an individual score. The scale of 0-500 covers all three grade levels (4,8, and 12), with the mean set at 250 for the 8th-grade level. The standard of “proficient” in reading at the 4th grade level is 236, about half a standard deviation below the 8th-grade mean. Although former Secretary of Education Spellings refers to “proficiency” as performance at grade level, the Department’s own analyses indicate that fourth-grade reading proficiency involves dealing comfortably with reading material at the 5th and 6th grade levels. Why should we deem fourth-graders to be failures because they aren’t performing at the level of 5th and 6th graders?
Is NAEP the gold standard, as one writer above notes? I believe it is in its general structure and use of Item Response Theory in developing items. Indeed, I believe its procedures in that regard have served as a model for international assessments. But there is no science behind NAEP’s benchmarks (basic, proficient, and advanced). They were developed not by statisticians but by political appointees overseeing a process of “Angoff procedures” that are only a modest improvement over guesswork.
Will other states follow New York’s example? Yes, they will. PARCC (one of the two Common Core assessment consortia) is publicly on record as reporting that it will rely on NAEP criteria to set PARCC benchmarks. It appears that in adopting the NAEP standards, PARCC has decided that far from using the benchmarks “with caution” it can throw caution to the winds.
My son is 6, entering first grade this year. He’s one of those boys that wants to grow up slowly. He can read a bit, but he doesn’t have much confidence, and he doesn’t really want to read on command. Last year, at his kindergarten parent-teacher conference, his teacher said she was worried that if he didn’t start reading at a higher level by first grade, he’d be behind on the curriculum track and might never catch up. She meant well. But I left that room wanting to burn the whole damn city to the ground.
Flerp,
Don’t worry too much. Read to him and with him. Capitalize on his interests: baseball, dinosaurs, bugs, whatever. Go to the library. Read newspapers, magazines, non fiction.
There are many late bloomers and they turn out just fine. Check out this book and you will feel better. You are a great dad.
Thanks, Linda. I watched my daughter learn to read. She was one of those precocious girls to whom language comes early and apparently without any difficulty, but even with her, I could tell how the process of attaining literacy basically works: You read to them and talk to them, all the information goes in their brain, something mysterious goes on in there, and one day they can read. Trying to rush it seem like trying to rush someone into growing taller. So no big deal, I don’t want him any other way. He’s careful, he has his own way of thinking things through. He’s the sweetest little guy in the world, he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, and he tries to make everyone feel better about themselves. He’s the only person I’ve met that I consider my hero, and I know he’ll be fine. He just wants to be six years old very desperately, and so I want that for him too, just as desperately. Even more than I want him to be “college ready.”
That was beautiful….save that for your son when he’s older.
You made my day! 🙂
FLERP!
Rank heresy! You don’t want your 6-year-old to be college-and-career ready? I have a six-year-old grandson and I want him to be the wonderful, inquisitive, happy child that he is, without the pressure of tests.
I just wrote to you but it is awaiting moderation due to a link. Hopefully posted soon.
In my humble opinion (and I have been cycling as a teacher of first and second grades for the last 15 out of my 16 years of teaching) if Pre K, K, 1st, 2nd & 3rd grades (all of the early childhood grades) could go back to being what they used to be instead of having to deal with upper grades curriculum being pushed down, we;d probably have happier, less stressed students who are more successful at learning, less stressed parents who would be more willing to help in the schools, happier and less stressed teachers and….BETTER TEST SCORES especially if we could go back to just giving tests in certain grades instead of everyone being tested every year. I think we need to send every education unfriendly official a copy of All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.
I would take this with a grain of salt. In first grade my middle son was initially grouped in the lowest reading group, potentially eligible for extra help. In third grade my spouse and I were told that his mathamatics skills were weak (we knew at the time this was to true, so we paid little attention to it). Things turned out finei. Thee d.
Don’t be too angry with the teacher, she may be a victim of “data drive instruction”.
Poor thing.
As to your son, there is such a thing as late bloomers. We have plenty of them, even in high school.
All this testing, categorizing and labeling is most dangerous to them , IMHO.
I agree with Linda.
Read to him and with him.
No drills or whatever other nonsense.
Just high interest fun stuff with his dad.
He will be just fine.
He is a lucky little guy.
The teacher’s fine. She was expressing an honest concern, and I wasn’t angry at her at all. I was angry with the world.
Flerp, you’re getting great advice. Don’t stress….he’ll be fine with a dad like you!
Whisper to the teacher on open house or meet and greet night, “Pssst, just so you know, I don’t give a _____ about test scores.”
And watch this video….you’ll love it.
Tonight is support Flerp and son!
Flerp, we have a slow bloomer in our family. He could not read but pretended, and it caused much anguish. He has done research for NIH and is now a Phd candidate at an Ivy. Take heart.
We are forgetting to look at the whole child. Too much emphasis on academics. Children have their own learning timeline, and yet we are expected to hurry them up. My niece decided to hold her daughter back a year from kinder because of the pressures put on them, even though she is bright and passed the kinder assessment at her local public school. I think she made the right decision. Kinder used to be a time for exploration, socialization and learning through play.
There was a time we taught reading at the first grade level. Now that’s left up to the kinder teacher. Reading readiness is taking a back seat to this madness.
“Redshirting” children seems to be becoming a more common practice. It seems to work as students who are old for their grade do better in sports as well as academics.
It’s also about the social growth too. This movement really started when kinder started to be the new first grade and in some sense, the new 2nd grade. More worksheets, less fun.
Parents need to be informed and stand up to this practice of throwing caution to the wind by opting their children out of tests which scores are aligned to NAEP. Please note that I am not suggesting that parents opt their children out of NAEP, although I am concerned that a test would expect all students to perform above grade level;at least it seems that way.
“Setting the bar so high is one thing when assessing samples at a state and national level, but quite another when it becomes the basis for judging individual students. It is scientism run amok. It is unethical. It sets the bar where only 30-35% can clear it. Why would we do this to the nation’s children?”
I’m a bit of a “hater,” as the kids (used to) say (20 years ago). I can’t help it, it’s my nature. I’m a contrarian and I like to argue. But I can’t think of one good argument against what Diane wrote here.
As this thing bears down on me, I’m at a total loss. The sheer amount of testing is insane, and the tests themselves are largely inane. The standardization of curriculum is insane. The teacher evaluation systems are insane — performance reviews that neither the employee nor the employer understands. The money that’s being blown and will be blown on this is insane. I can assure you that I understand this stuff a LOT better than most parents do, and I am completely, utterly flummoxed. I don’t know what my children will be learning this year. I’m not sure their teachers know what they’ll be teaching this year. When they bring home their homework, I don’t know how much of it I’ll recognize, what this year’s jargon will mean, or whether I’ll be able to help them and make them more confident.
It’s just incredible to me that what began as a hysterical reaction by a bunch of blowhards in think tanks and universities to (1) severe problems at poor, urban K-12 schools and (2) the horrifying absence of Chaucer in university English syllabi is now dictating the education of almost every public school student in the U.S.
“But I can’t think of one good argument against what Diane wrote here.”
Are you feeling alright?
😉
Not really.
FLERP, You crack me up.
PS: the words you wrote above about your son are beautiful.
He is truly a very lucky little guy. He will be fine, and perhaps if we all keep at it, so will the world that you were so angry with.
And Linda’s suggestion to speak to the teacher…perfect.
Good luck with the coming school year.
Flerp, I think your post needs to be a blog post at the very least.
As for your son,he is lucky to have you for his father. I will add my voice to all of those who have already written in support. He will be fine. I had two who learned to read early and two who took their time to get the hang of it. Keep reading to him and find those things he wants to read about, whether it is bugs, cars, or knights!
“It’s just incredible to me that what began as a hysterical reaction by a bunch of blowhards in think tanks and universities to (1) severe problems at poor, urban K-12 schools and (2) the horrifying absence of Chaucer in university English syllabi is now dictating the education of almost every public school student in the U.S.”
Your sentiment is so exactly mine I had to quote it. We moved to suburbs in early ’90’s from a beloved Bklyn nbhd, whose elementary was decent, only because we knew we couldn’t afford private tuition to escape the middle school’s needle-strewn yard.
NJ’s schools did well by our kids: they were a combo of late-bloomer & LD; our horrendous property taxes were still only a third of what it would have cost somewhere else to obtain the terrific special ed & alternative programs still available in our local public schools. Were it today, & had we chosen a NY suburb, we’d be up the creek w/o a paddle.
Maybe teachers could do their own version of an opt-out. If every single teacher in a district didn’t show up on the days high stakes tests were being given, could the district really replace everyone of them? And…this needs to be more than a in just one or two states thing. EVERY real teacher in this country needs to unite.
Unfortunately Alabama, it wouldn’t help in many cases. For instance, in NY, the conservatives would love nothing more than what would effectively be called a strike. Why?
Because it would nullify the current teacher’s contract overnight and then they could do whatever they wanted. That contract is the only thing keeping teachers remotely protected (albeit not for much longer) and keeping them paid a remotely decent wage.
That type of anarchy would give the reformers the ammo they’d need to say that teachers are truly “for adults” as they’d claim it’s because teachers are lazy and don’t like having the heat on them. Teachers don’t have nearly the same money or media machine behind them that the reformers do. Something like that sounds great – until you imagine how it would be spun against educators.
We need educated communities to understand the bad news that is going to rapidly come there way – and we need clear ways to show that the pain is not being caused by inadequate teachers, but an inadequate testing system (and I refuse to use assessment for this – real assessments don’t look like this – this is all about testing for testing’s sake and political agendas).
When we have parents supporting us in that move to block testing, then we can do it. But if parents would look at us mostly askance, then it would bite us where it hurts.
In reality, I know that you are right, M. It was just as spur of the moment ridiculous solution to a ridiculous situation.
I think M is right. I also tend to think this is largely out of teachers’ hands now. To the extent we’re talking about state laws and policy decisions that state officials have committed to, the problem lies mainly in state government. It’s a political problem, and requires a political solution — i.e., angry voters, and specifically, angry parents. And not parents joining in solidarity with educators. Just parents, all kinds. The theme that will resonate with them is “stop making my 9-year-old take standardized tests.” Don’t try to educate parents about privatization and neo-liberalism. Don’t make it about teacher-bashing or assaults on tenure or budget cuts. Don’t mention the various nefarious villains of reform. Most parents have never heard of neo-liberalism, Eli Broad, Arne Duncan, or Michelle Rhee, and they don’t like being educated. But I’m increasingly confident that most parents do not like all this standardized testing.
FLERP,
You and M are right. Parents need to mobilize and organize. Right now the political efforts in New York are splintered and most parents are clueless. Since the people in the NY State Dept of Ed and the Board of Regents are not directly answerable to the people who are most affected by their policies, the politicians responsible for the appointment/election of these officials need to start feeling the heat and losing elections.
Parents in Texas have been successful at pressuring politicians to eliminate some of the testing there.
http://www.tamsatx.org/
Flerp, I hadn’t even heard about neo-liberalism and Eli Broad and Broad superintendents until I started reading this blog. (I was aware of Duncan and Rhee, but not to the extent that I am now!) You are correct about parents and testing. Concerns about Common Core and related testing made me start researching which is how I found this site. By the way, lots of boys in my bottom reading group in my first grade end up in the top reading group in 2nd grade. A lot of them just need time without being pushed and forced. Enjoy the books like Leo the Late Bloomer with your son! Do you have a good book store with a nice children’s area near you? Lots of my students parents find this to be a fun night out with their children, as well as the library
Thanks. Our apartment basically is a small children’s bookstore, courtesy of my highly literate mother-in-law and her donations to our effort to keep my daughter in books. One area we’re wanting in is the masculine genre of “sports and the outdoors,” which I think he’ll love.
My parents were not readers. Our home library consisted largely of books cast off by their parents. Some of my earliest memories of reading were of the full Encyclopedia Brittanica set, 1933 edition, which I read nonstop over a period of about 10 years. I’d give almost anything to have it at this moment. (There was something wonderful about having a vastly outdated 30-volume encyclopedia set in the house. Reading it was always simultaneously an exercise in primary and secondary research. You can’t read spend your youth reading 1933 encyclopedia entries on Germany, for example, without developing an intuitive sense of History as historiography.) I read the Bible, and the Lives of the Saints. And I read a set of sports books, can’t remember the imprint, but I believe they were printed in the 30s. Tales of the Gridiron. Tales of the Diamond. I loved those, and I think my son might like something similar.
If we are talking children’s literate from the 30s, you might check out Arther Ransome. He was a British author, but I think his books are available in the states.
Seattle teachers took a stand!!!
SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS, Arthur Ransom. Messing around in boats in the lake district. Totally outdated now, BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY, all 30 some volumes.
I hope the books could still inspire. The Arthur Ransom society seems to be going strong in England: http://www.arthur-ransome.org.uk/
Flerp: I had 3 sons: only the middle one enjoyed reading. When I was still trying to push books tailored to my eldest’s special interests, he pointed out drily that he in fact spent most of his time reading (oh yeah I’d forgotten about the computer…). My youngest was the active one of the bunch. By late middle school he uncovered a couple of YA series that appealed to his unconventional tastes, but until then, where he really cut his teeth & struggled mightily with his LD’s was on bio’s of Evel Knievel!
My daughter attended community college where she needed to take an english class because, she did not do well on some entrance exam. She was ready to learn when she entered this class and had success. I believe it was more a confidence issue which her professor addressed. It was money well spent. I do not blame her k12 education. She went through some teenager stuff and that sometimes puts education in a different place momentarily. Children must be ready and not all will ever be ready at the same time. These tests are nonsense. Opt Out!
From chalk face:
Twas the Night Before Scores
Twas the night before scores
And all across the state
Teachers waited to hear their fate
The scores will be lower
Was predicted long ago
Now we all wait to see just how low
NYSUT says the scores are a baseline
For informing instruction
When in reality
The scores mean destruction
For teachers and students and entire schools
Education Reformers are a bunch of fools
Be judicious the “King” says with a smile
The “King” is the best we’ve seen in a while
Says Arne and his staff
Which just makes me laugh
When the blood bath begins and
Teachers and Principals and Schools are all blamed
I hope that the public will realize it’s all just a game
Follow the money, the power and clout
Then you will realize that you MUST OPT OUT!
From the Boston Children’s Hospital Newsletter– Makes suggestion for better use of funds
“Why is academic testing leaving children behind?”
Low-income children tend to do poorly on high-stakes achievement tests like the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). A pilot study led by Deborah Waber, PhD, in Children’s Hospital Boston’s Department of Psychiatry, suggests their low scores may arise from developmental issues—particularly in “executive” functions like organization, planning and control over thoughts and actions. Poverty-related factors like poor nutrition, exposure to violence or toxic agents and disorganized or stressful environments can disrupt children’s developing nervous systems, Waber says.
Using cognitive testing and teacher questionnaires, the study evaluated 91 fifth-graders from two low-income Boston schools served by the Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnership (school-based mental health services). Overall, the children’s executive functions were poorer than average, and more than half had “failing” or “needs improvement” scores on the fourth-grade MCAS English and math tests. Executive function correlated closely with MCAS performance: Tests of mental processing speed and short-term memory, combined with teacher ratings on items like finishing assignments, checking work for mistakes and organization of desk and backpack, accurately predicted whether a child would pass or fail the MCAS 86 percent of the time.
Waber now hopes to expand her study, published in Developmental Neuropsychology. She believes that funds used for testing would be better spent on early diagnostic assessment and helping children develop executive functions, through measures like smaller classrooms in the younger grades, explicit teaching of organizational skills and adoption of special-education techniques.
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If you sign up on Research Gate you should be able to download this study at no cost; simply request from Waber on Research Gate.
Diane is absolutely 100% correct. Here is the reference we kept on ETS when they worked with teachers to illustrate Angoff, Nedelsky, etc.
What you need to know about NAEP achievement levels is that they are not benchmarked to international standards. They are based on the judgment calls of panels made up of people from different walks of life who decide what students in fourth grade and eighth grade should know and be able to do. It is called “the modified Angoff method” and is very controversial among scholars and psychometricians.————————————-REFERENCE
Manual for Project Management. ETS Standard Setting Studies Conducted as a Part of Improving Basic Skills Project.
Educational Testing Service, Wellesley Hills, MA.
1979-Apr
This document is designed to assist school districts to implement the Massachusetts State Board of Education regulations requiring the setting of performance standards in basic skills at three grade levels. The appropriate procedures are described in the manual: (1) setting of basic skills objectives, at three grade levels; (2) the selection of tests or other measures that adequately cover the objectives; (3) the setting of a minimum acceptable score on each test or measure; and (4) the reporting of the number and characteristics of those students achieving below the local standard. Information is appended on tests currently available for assessing basic skills development at the high school level and general achievement test series, as well as on holistic scoring. (Author/CTM)
Keywords: Academic Standards, Basic Skills, Cutting Scores, Data Collection, Educational Objectives, Educational Testing, Elementary Secondary Education, Essay Tests, Grade 3, Grade 6, Grade 9, Guidelines, Holistic Evaluation, Mastery Tests, Standard Setting (Scoring), State Programs, Test Bias, Test Interpretation, Test Selection
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I’m sure ETS won’t have it; ERIC is “in flux” and moving so you won’t be able to get the manual in PDF from from ERIC and I threw out my copy thinking that ERIC would
keep it safe for ever….. so much for digital files. P.S. The president at ETS at the time worked carefully with Greg Anrig in working through the staff development. No one knows this any more because we have lost faith in all politicians, CEOs, chiefs etc. ETS worked with the Commissioners I mentioned (like Mark Shed) and a New England group called “NEREX”… I was always pleased with the results back then…. I can’t say much for today.
It’s interesting that the most recent results of the “Common Core” (NAEP) based testing in NYS could indeed be construed to be a real predictor of college readiness. The approximately 25-30% success rate by elementary students is approximately the same as those that have college degrees in the population. The dark side is of course how and what to teach the other 70-75% of NYS students.
This whole business about assessing the “college-readiness” of 8 and 9 year old kids really bothers me. Why can’t they just be children? The Common Core seems to have been written by people who went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford, and think everyone should. But in my daily life, the people I count on to help me do things didn’t go to Ivy League schools and they seem to lead happy, productive lives.
I feel like I live in bizarro world, where everything makes no sense.
Sent from my iPad