The mighty machine that Leaves No Child Untested has now arrived in kindergarten, as tots in New York City encounter their first standardized tests.
Children are now learning what matters most in school and getting ready for the Common Core tests, which will place them on a sure path to college- and career-readiness. No more nonsense about sharing and caring. Our nation is falling behind other nations because we have not started cracking the whip when they started school. It is never too soon to start test prep!
According to the story,
“Administering the exams is a complete headache, teachers said. “They don’t know how to hold pencils,” said a Bronx kindergarten teacher whose class recently took the Pearson exam. “They don’t know letters, and you have answers that say A, B, C or D and you’re asking them to bubble in . . . They break down; they cry.”
“Because the little test-takers don’t know their numbers, teachers direct them to find each question by an image printed next to the answers.
“Education Department officials insist that the 32 early elementary schools don’t have to give the kindergarten test yet — though they are required to administer it by this spring. But officials also acknowledged schools may not realize they can wait a few months.
“At the same time, officials defended the use of multiple choice as an an easy way for even kindergarten teachers to learn how much their students know at the beginning of the year.
“Teachers should have access to multiple tools that they can use in a variety of ways to diagnose what students already know and what they need help with,” said Nancy Gannon, executive director of academic quality for the Education Department.
“But teachers said testing this way is slow and traumatic. Trying to get a proper answer was next to impossible. “We said to color it in with a pencil, so they were taking out crayons,” said a veteran teacher on Staten Island. “I can tell when a student needs help. I don’t have to give them a test.”
When Bill de Blasio is elected mayor, he must clean house at Tweed and hire people with classroom experience who value children more than test scores.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, there was an immediate response from a Columbia professor today. See here http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/bubble-tests-kids-article-1.1481126
I wonder how the professor managed to respond to this garbage in such measured tones.
My NY suburban first graders just took the MAP test. 36 questions. They took it three times as kindergartens. Testing in NY schools is out of control.
It is true that each child is different. What he or she knows is unique, that is certain. But filling out answers on a multiple choice test is insane. Are we funneling students onto a conveyor belt that hopes to spew out little identical boxes of craisins? Each new piece of information that is revealed seems to point to eliminating individuality. How very sad.
Tomorrow I will spend the day coaxing about 350 kindergartners on a computerized math test called iReady. Lucky kids…they get paper and pencil, too, for their “calculations”. Meanwhile, I must cancel my ESL classes to participate in this torture. How is this supposed to improve education? When will this madness stop?
Refuse to do it!!!!
Stand up and shout it “I REFUSE TO BE A PART OF THIS EDUCATIONAL MADNESS.
JUST SAY NO!
Take the tests outside and set em on fire! Have the kids help by ripping them apart!
The teacher said it all, a highly qualified teacher knows when a student, kindergarten on up, needs help. He/she doesn’t need a test to tell them that. That’s the value of a teacher, not a test.
What an absolute waste of time and money. I’m sure kindergarten teachers have been able to monitor a child’s performance without standardized tests. Each child develops differently. How has is come to this???/
Follow the profits and the commercialized “intellectual property” with related royalties. Read the small print and file open records requests for the vendor contracts.
Your last few lines were the best. Tweed is inundated with people who count their two years as a tfa teacher as having an in depth knowledge about the complexities of urban education and create detrimental policy because they actually do not. I can’t wait for tweed to clean house.
Those poor Kindergarten babies! I LOVED my Kindergarten! I would not want to be in Kindergarten today in New York or anywhere else! I hope the parents protest loudly.
http://www.lemproject.eu/in-focus/news/a-silicon-valley-school-that-doesn2019t-compute
New York Times, October 23, by Matt Richtel. He discusses how Silicon valley executives and engineers are sending their kids to schools that do not use technology in the classroom but rely on old fashioned methods because they do not believe computers and other technology enhance learning. On the contrary, they point to research that shows that it limits creativity, mind body coordination, and the human dimension of school that is so crucial to child development.
It is frightening to think that a generation of kis (or more) may grow up with limited interpersonal skills! I am very concerned that the goal is to have little Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee type people and no thing else. Do we really want everyone to be alike, no matter the model? I don’t.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052977/The-Silicon-Valley-school-tech-honchos-send-kids-DONT-use-computers.html
“‘I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school,’ Google executive Alan Eagle, 50, told the Times.
Mr. Eagle’s children, Andie and William, attend the Waldorf elementary and middle schools in Los Altos, where three-quarters of the pupils have parents with connections to the hi-tech industry.
Rather than routers and wireless connections, the nine-classroom school boasts chalk blackboards and book shelves full of encyclopedias, an anathema in most schools these days. It’s only when children reach eighth grade when teachers allow the limited use of gadgets.
‘The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that’s ridiculous,’ added Mr Eagle.”
Standardized testing mania is the Berlin Wall.
Mr. Duncan, Mr. Obama, Tear Down That Wall!
The Berlin Wall came down because of a mass uprising. Gorbachev didn’t do it. The people of Germany did.
Good point!
YES!!!
Wow.. I agree it is cruel and shameful.
Dear Mr. Gates:
It’s no news to you that we aren’t testing nearly enough. I know that this keeps you up at night, and I hate to add to your concerns.
However, my group has recently conducted rigorous studies of fetal performance in mathematics and reading.
We have found, shockingly, that U.S. fetuses lack fundamental skills in these key areas. In fact, the fetuses in our nationwide sample group showed NO PERFORMANCE WHATSOEVER on various standard measures of mathematical and reading ability.
It is well known, of course, that nothing comes of nothing. How are we to expect that these fetuses will be ready for colleges and careers, nineteen years on, if they show not only low performance but no ELA and math performance at all in this critical stage of their development?
And, shockingly, a review of existing state standards in ELA and mathematics and of the hallowed new Common Core State Standards reveals that these do not even begin to address skills deficits for up to five or six years after this critical period of development!
To address this grave threat to our 21st-century workforce, I have formed the following working groups:
The Committee for Research on Intrauterine Measurement in English (CRIME) and
Intrauterine Administration of pre-Natal Standards and Assessment for Numeracy Excellence (INSANE)
We have modeled the goals and organization of these groups closely, of course, on those of Student Achievement Partners, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced.
We estimate that we can have new intrauterine standards and assessments ready for implementation in 2016 for a mere 160 million dollars per subject area, which you can wire to our accounts in the Caymans.
And thank you for your service to your country.
uh, sorry Mr. Gates, that would be
Intrauterine pre-Natal Standards Assessment for Numeracy Excellence (INSANE)
We are certain that our intrauterine math and ELA standards and tests will be every bit as reasoned and effective as are the CCSS in ELA and the new PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments. Clearly, they couldn’t be worse.
Robert
I love this post!!!!
I have been thinking the same but could never have expressed it as eloquently and as completely as you!!!!
Thank you, Neanderthal! But I read your posts, they are awesome.
TAGO!!
Kindergarten means “child garden.” The kindergarten movement in the 19th century was all about early learning through arts, projects, stories, songs, gardens. What in heavens name have they done!? Would someone up there please stand up to the ghouls and refuse to give our little children tests that make them cry?
Robin, I wish that every citizen in the country would read your moving comment. What in heaven’s name, indeed!
I hope parents are reading this blog!!
If these grotesque policies continue, we’ll have to change the name to Kinderfabrik: the Children’s Factory.
They are on their payroll. They won’t do anything
They not only need someone who values children more than test scores, they need someone who values kids more than test company profits.
Very well said!!!!
IS ANYONE LISTENING…???????
Is any LAWYER listening????????????????
The fact the DN is writing about this is remarkable. On one hand they love the reform movement, but on the other they see that this borders on abuse.
We as teachers have had no say in any of this even though we have a union who thinks they can speak and negotiate for all of us without our input. Meanwhile our dues were raised again. For what?? Certainly not for representation.
When Blasio is elected, it will be very interesting indeed to watch the showdown between the city and the state unfold.
Wasn’t this inevitable with teacher ratings based on standardized testing?
“The state’s teacher ratings, which are in their first year, require each city school to administer some tests. ”
If they’re rating teachers based on test scores, they need a test score.
One of my big worries with public schools adopting reform experiments is parents won’t blame Bill Gates or Michelle Rhee or Arne Duncan or the thousands of paid employees of ed reform organizations, parents will blame public schools – thereby further damaging public schools.
It’s yet another problem with “market-based” public education. The people imposing the mandates that make public schools less appealing to parents are the same people “competing” for public school students. I don’t know how public schools break out of what is a cycle that can only damage and weaken them, as “competitors” for students.
I administered the STAR assessment to my second-graders in our computer lab not too long ago. It was not an issue for my advanced students, but many had difficulty from logging-in to completion. Children repeatedly asked me to read unfamiliar words to them, which I could not do. Several asked to use the bathroom, a sure sign of stress in a young child. Some of my grade-level kids did poorly on this “assessment”. I have resisted the call by others to provide remediation for these kids based on one score, considering that all their other work is fine, while also keeping in mind that student growth on this assessment is linked to my evaluation at the end of the year.
Goddamnit, when are all of us going to JUST SAY NO! and refuse to cooperate with this madness. Call in sick on those days, get some ipecac and go puke in the principals office so they’ll send you home. Time for some serious civil disobedience.
Going along to get along just doesn’t cut it anymore. GAGA is soooo 20th century. Stand up and JUST SAY NO!
Remember what is in store for the GAGA crowd:
Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers’ agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution upon their passing from this realm.
and
Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to and repeating two words-Educational Excellence, repeated without pause, for eternity.
Duane
I don’t even know what you’re saying but you are THE BEST!
Ah, yes, the 21st circle, otherwise known as the Ed Reform echochamber. Well said, Duane! Those who are creating this hell for kids should have one of their own.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.”
Leave behind all hope, you who enter.
I had to look this one up. Have you been reading Dan Brown? ;>)
I have been reading Dante. He’s much weirder than Dan Brown! : )
Good piece on parents fund-raising for public schools.
One of the best arguments against the insane amount of standardized testing is how much money we’re spending on it.
I think that’s reflected in the polling, where people who actually rely on public schools (as opposed to people who seek to ‘reform’ public schools) responded that their biggest concern re: their public school was a lack of funding. Are standardized tests a prudent use of resources, when the fact is public school parents are aware that their schools lose funding every year under various “reform” schemes? What could we be doing with this money if we weren’t testing kindergartners? I think that’s an approach that would be persuasive to parents, and it also serves to open up a debate that has been presented as already decided. Funding choices reflect priorities. Is standardized testing a priority for parents? I don’t think it is.
From the piece: “The city’s leaders should do what it takes — whatever it takes — to provide enough money for well-rounded educations in every public school. ”
The DOE budget has exploded during Bloomberg’s three terms–from around $12 billion when he took office to $25 billion this year. Adjusted for inflation, that’s at least a 50% increase, and it far outpaces the inflation-adjusted increase in education spending nationally during the same time frame. At about $25,000 per student, New York City is outspending, in many case by huge amounts, the vast majority of districts in the country.
It’s not polite to talk about where the money goes, though. Opt out of your tests but keep paying for your supplies, specials, and anything else beyond the bare bones education available for $25,000.
Tim, the city of Néw stork has had an explosion of spending on failed technology programs (one called Citytime started with a budget of $80 million, but cost over $600 million and the principal actors were arrested), the $80 million ARIS tech project (IBM) flopped, the city spends hundreds of millions on consultants and no-bid contracts. The explosion of small schools has meantime a larger number of highly paid principals. Class sizes are higher than ten years ago. Very little of the new spending trickled down to classrooms.
In the district my children attend we received $1,30 per student from Race to the Top “winnings”. Our BOE is projecting a cost of $17.60 per student just to upgrade technology for the impending PARCC assessments. That of course does not include textbooks, modules, PD, no-nothing consultants, etc.
No such thing as a free lunch.
Anyone have a sample of these K test questions??
And before anyone throws a temper tantrum, I had the pleasure of reviewing a Christian Private School…..
I can say from my experience as an educator….these children are learning the subjects the way any parent on this planet would want their child to learn….
Whether you believe or not in the religion…..they have a very organized curriculum and the children are learning so very much.
It is structured….but they do not teach a test..
America’s Public Schools do nothing but Teach To a Test!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The difference is Night and Day…….The Plastic Politicians are ruining the lives of so many children,,,This ‘One Size Fits All” is not going to work.!!
How many inches are in a foot??? (It depends on whose foot it is!!)
I say elect Robert Shepherd for Secretary of Education or appoint …whatever they do up there!!
The New York Post article (hopefully linked) has sample bubble questions for the kindergarten tests. It helps to know how to read words and numbers. Many, perhaps most, kindergartners can’t.
It’s important to remember that many children enrolled in kindergarten are 60 months old. The for-profit early childhood corporate assessments have NO learning value. ALL corporate assessments have the potential to be harmful for children’s learning and development. It’s not about learning or accountability, it’s about a new funding stream for testing profiteers.
May God have mercy on our souls.
If I may correct your statement:
“May God have mercy on THEIR souls.”
Not all of us are GAGAers or edudeformers. Some of us have been fighting this madness (starting with “data driven decision making in the late 90s”, since before NCLB. Some of us have paid the price for our defiance also.
JUST SAY NO!, NY teacher, JUST SAY NO!!
I stand corrected.
Problem is, there’s still a lot of “educators” still drinking the Kool-Aid.
There’s also a lot of fear.
Fortunately parents love their children too much to let this madness continue for much longer.
You said it all, NY teacher. Fortunately, people love their kids too much to let this continue. This fight is going to get nasty soon, and a lot of reformers who were unwilling to engage in any public debate of their policies, who were impervious in their certainties, are going to find themselves back-pedaling very, very quickly. Many, of course, will just go onto the next thing–that appointment at the American Enterprise Institute or whatever.
The union leaders who took the Gates money and backed these “standards” are going to rue the day that they did.
Great point. AFT and NEA will rue the day they made these deals with the devil. Here in NY we were sold down the river on the APPR which is unreliable and invalid, yet careers continue to hang in the balance. This has over-pressurized a system that needed the opposite. Expecting an implosion soon.
What’s next? Administering the first bubble test right after the umbilical cord is cut?
This is getting crazy-insane.
“This is getting crazy-insane.”
Yep, that’s why I took acid when I was younger so as to prepare my mind for times like these. (apologies to L. Black)
Calling all NY teachers. Is it not time for a state wide walk-out?
Get em going NY teacher!!
How about a state wide puke out! Won’t be any syrup of ipecac left in the entire state. Make sure you drink some grape juice before!
like the barfarama in “Stand By Me.”
That’s funny.
Can’t do it alone.
And yet our union is complicit in this travesty. Mulgrew is quite on board with the corporatization of our public schools and the continuing war on the teaching profession. Mr. Mulgrew, the Danielson model is AN INSULT TO my training. Common Core has not been vetted…so how can you say that it is a good thing? Time to throw out these self serving bums!
With the UFT’s shameful co-managing the implementation of the Common Corporate Standards and checklist teacher evaluations, it has essentially become, at best, a hybrid of company ombudsman and company union. At worst, it is now an arm of the DOE’s Human Resources Department.
Weingarten’s AFT takes money from Broad and Gates, and gives seminars at the Aspen Institute on for-profit opportunities in education. Mulgrew’s sister works for a vendor with a fat DOE contract: are these people merely Stockholm Syndrome-captives of the so-called reformers, or is there something more venal going on?
Are they enabling this destruction because of some deluded urge to be validated by proximity to the powerful, or are they just as corrupt as those attacking the teachers they were elected to represent??
1) The AFT and NEA are in bed with corporate reformers
because they __.
a) are well intentioned but incredibly naïve
b) have fallen under the spell of their captors
c) always act in the best interest of children
d) have a strong desire to rot in hell for eternity
You forgot:
e) all of the above
f) none of the above
g) A & B only
h) B & C only
i) C & D only
j) A & C only
k) A & D only
l) B & D only
m) B & A only
n) C & A only
o) C & B only
p) D & A only
q) D & B only
r) D & C only
s) it’s all a crock of . . . .
t) it’s easy to make a multiple guess test
u) somebody take a pick axe and put me out of my misery
v) ipecac is the best
W) I’m a GAGA
X) I love to torture students, the younger the better, with these tests
Y) Lookin forward to the 21st level
Z) JUST SAY NO!
Given the myriad of choices Dwayne, if I were forced to choose after my last department meeting I would have to bubble-in “u”
complicity and collaboration
It doesn’t get much uglier than that.
That’s what we are getting from the teachers’ unions.
We describe it and we denounce it but we don’t stop it. That is where we are headed next.
An action is inevitable as our understanding deepens of just how abusive this really is to our children. Something will click in someone, somewhere and the next step will be taken. Maybe by parents, a mayor, a team of teachers or a principal no longer
de-sensitized by decades of test trauma.
Our district started the year off with a message from the superintendent about the “new normal” and then we did an activity where groups of teachers had to do a commercial for our school so we could focus on the positives. It totally reminded me of my days working for a chain retailer when I was in grad school. I felt like I did when I was paid $7.50 an hour at a Limited Brands store.
But I would say to them that if they are going to adopt this mindset (acquiesce?) that they need to realize that this notion of testing kindergarten students is not attractive to parents. So if you really want to “market” yourselves as public schools, and you don’t like what you’ve got to market (in that regard), what are you to do? Take the good with the bad? That’s where we are now, I suppose.
I’m thinking really more in terms of my own children. This is not what I want for them and yet I am furious that my local public schools have been hijacked (so it seems) by the “new normal.” But it does not make me excited to shop around. A, I would never qualify for a voucher, and even if I did on principle I would not want one. B, I don’t want to send my child to a charter school.
I’m pissed. Where is the neighborhood school for my child where he can experience what I expect out of public school? All I want for him is what I had, back in 1978.
Were there ever reactions against stuff adopted by public schools before like this? (I want to know if this is similar to any other time period in public school history. LIke, what happened in the 80s after “A Nation at Risk”. . . anything? I was too little to know or care). Hoping someone will answer that for me. Like is this just the 2010s version of something that has happened before? Or has this never happened before?
This is completely unprecedented. I’ve been teaching since 1980 and nothing compares to this. Not even close. None of the previous reform movements (up to 2002/NCLB) were punitive. None of them were completely indifferent to the development and growth of children.
None of the previous reform movement were based on corporate greed and political agendas.
You’ll be able to tell your grandchildren about how you lived through the Dark Age of education. Don’t worry, the enlightenment is coming soon.
It’s outrageous that the people running our education system have no understanding of child development.
Outrageous, yes. Predictable, yes.
Child development is considered fluff by them. They are influenced by the mind, not the heart.
Patriarchal, goal-seeking, bottom line, top down, data driven, techno geeks.
Do we want all kids to be like they are?
No, we don’t want any humans to be like them.
The most important part of Dr. Ravitch’s post is in the title:
Child Abuse in New York: Bubble Tests for Kindergarten
Abuse. The school districts, administrators and teachers have become accomplices in this abuse of our children through no fault of their own. By identifying the abuse, she has once again observed that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.
What remains is to determine how to proceed from here. Who will take the legal and compassionate initiatives to intervene on behalf of our children?
The most important part of GE2L2R’s post is in the phrase:
“LEGAL [INTERVENTION]”
I have another question. I was just talking to a kindergarten teacher at lunch who has been teaching a long time. She says she does not mind CCSS (likes it in fact), but that what she doesn’t like is all the testing. Then she said that RttT only required that we have accountability. So her views of the testing is that it is all coming from Republicans in office now.
I thought CCSS, RttT, and testing were all the same ball of wax. Can anyone break that down for me or point me to a place to find it? She seemed to not have a problem with decisions made prior to the legistature we have in NC right now. But I was under the impression that RttT is the reason we have the testing.
???
Joanna, the chronology is detailed in my last book “Thr Death and Life of the Great American School System.” I explain what NCLB requires, then show that RTTT is even noted that that RTTT demands even more high-stakes testing. It continues to expand. Now the US Department of Education protest preschool testing and wants to grade colleges ad education schools by value added measures.
Diane,
Don’t forget David Coleman (new president of the College Board and architect of the CCSS) also plans on aligning both SAT and ACT exams with CCSS. So, this one individual who has not taught for one minute in a classroom, science lab, or lecture hall will have undue influence over 75 MILLION students across America.
So is this a true statement: CCSS requires testing because in order to “win” RttT you had to adopt CCSS and accept more testing. Do they go hand in hand by definition? I am thinking that at this point they do.
? Is it possible to hold an opinion of CCSS independent of testing (or rather, does it matter if you like one without the other) that is based on a true situation? When I have heard people separate the two, I generally assume they don’t know what they are talking about. But I have heard enough teachers make an opinion on CCSS exclusive from testing that I am beginning to wonder if I understand. Does such a state of affairs (CCSS without testing) exist? And if not, why not?
Common Core “State” Standards and NCLB waiver were the sheep’s clothing. the assessment/teacher evaluation package is the . . .
The federal Race to the Top program was a true contest as points were awarded for the degree of state of compliance as per their applications. Points were awarded for a) Accepting CC standards and companion exams by PARCC or SBAC or comparable assessments; b) accepting teacher evaluation based on test scores (all teachers – not just ELA and math); c) easing restrictions on charter schools; and d) implementing data collection system – including dada mining test results.
Lucky us here in NY! WE WON – the maximum payout too: $700,000,000 to be distributed among the nearly 600 school districts.
The district my kids go to (1300 students) received about $17,000 as our slice of the RTTT pie. That’s about $1.30 per student.
Not every state won RTT grants, but almost all applied. To sweeten the pot, the DOE offered all states that complied with CCSS and companion PARCC/SBAC assessments (even if they did not win a grant) a waiver to the federal NCLB Act. This was the KEY to sucking nearly every state into CCSS as NCLB legislation was about to punish every single public school district in America for failing to comply with the AYP goal of 100% proficiency in math and ELA grade 3 – 8.
So, yes, CCSS standards and ensuing PARCC/SBAC tests were a package deal with devil. To further complicate matters, the official PARCC and SBAC computer assessments are not scheduled to kick in until next school year; children are now taking the warm-up act.
NY is a member of the 20+ state PARCC consortium. PARCC requires that students be tested at the 70% and 100% points in the school year, doubling down on the current April only exams
A lot of what students and parents are experiencing this early in the school year revolves around the APPR component of Race to the Top. That is every teacher, in every subject, and at every grade level (K – 12) must administer both state and local pre (formative) and post (summative) exams to all students – which accounts for 40% of our Annual Professional Performance Review evaluations. Through a rather convoluted scaling/scoring system, pre-and post test scores are converted into HEDI numbers ( 20 pts. state and 20 pts. local)
H = Highly effective; E = Effective; D = Developing; I = Ineffective.
The remaining 60% of our evaluations are determined using the Marzano or Danielson scoring rubrics that principals use during one 40 minute observation and up to four 10 minute walk-through, informal observations.
Sorry for wandering.
NY, thank you. I like this condensed as you have it here. My state “won” too. And I have read the application, but it is long and when I hear people make an opinion of CCSS aside from testing, I scratch my head because I thought they went together (and I see here that they in fact do).
When I don’t hear people echoing the same info, I get confused. But I think the problem is, many folks do not realize it was all a package deal. Or about the corporate backing behind it.
I think many teachers are still under the assumption that Democrats are friends of public schools and Republicans are not. And maybe this is why they have not discovered or searched for the details in RttT that are hurting our public schools.
Don’t feel bad, “confusion” is clearly an intentional tactic being employed by the powers that be. they are hoping that by the time most people make sense of what’s happening – it will be too late.
Now, some people wonder why so many of the 50 different sets of state standards under NCLB were written to the lowest common denominator. It was the existence of these weak state standards that apparently gives credence to the more rigorous CCSS.
Facts be told, NCLB was an extraordinarily punitive law when it came to meeting AYP requirements. The NCLB implicitly stated, “We will punish every school (grades 3 – 8 only) in which students fail to meet state standards in math, ELA, (and science, sort of). However, we will allow states to set their own standards; we will not penalize states for writing weak educational standards so as to avoid the punishments.”
)We will kill you if you don’t pass a math test, and – its your job to write the test) Well, what exactly did the feds expect?
Now under NCLB many states (NY, MA, CA and others) wrote very fair and reasonable standards. Yet the AYP goals required continued improvement – until this school year when it maxed-out. 100% proficiency in math and ELA was THE LAW.
NCLB had virtually no negative impact on schools in well-to-do, affluent districts in the leafy suburbs. Standards were fair and reasonable, IQ test really. “Good” schools were never punished because they always met AYP and did not have the “sub-group” issues of more diverse city schools. Schools like the middle school I teach in were hammered by NCLB for failing to meet AYP – often just within a sub-group or two. SINI status and time wasting improvement plans have been our new normal for the last 10 years. With the 100% efficiency clause about to kick in, every district was about to join the SINI cub (School In Need of Improvement). Enter RTTT and CCSS and PARCC and SBAC and threat went away but the testing doubled down.
Think about this: Under No Child Left Behind, MILLIONS of students were unable to score as”proficient” in math and ELA. So the solution to this educational (should read, societal) crisis brought to us by Coleman, Gates, and Duncan was brilliant. Lets write standards that are much, much, harder! Yeah, that’s the ticket. Better yet, lets ignore everything we know to be true about brain development, cognitive learning theory, child growth and development, and while we’re at let’s ignore all we know about the devastating effects of poverty, broken, dysfunctional families, crime and drug ravaged neighborhoods, and the utter hopelessness produced by 250 years of overt and veiled racism. Yeah, that’s the fix! Lets write standards that are way harder than those easy standards that MILLION of STUDENTS could not master. After all we are MASTERS of the UNIVERSE.
Apologizing for typos in advance.
This news makes me very sad. Testing at kinder has been around for awhile but was designed to be diagnostic, age appropriate, and administered one-on-one. Which company made the test used in New York? Test developers and their area of expertise (e.g. early reading skills) should be part of the conversation.
This is child abuse. Read the N.Y. child abuse laws. I have them downloaded as I do the California laws. They are very similar. Child abuse is psychological, physical and sexual. This is psychological abuse.
This is happening in SW Ohio, too. Our small rural/suburban school system of less than 2000 students is likewise testing kindergarten students in this manner. Due to “security” the teachers can’t say anything that might be construed as “helping” a student.
It is necessary for the media director, paraprofessionals, the principal and others to monitor these tests while they are being given to students who don’t yet know their numbers, their letters, or how to use a keyboard, let alone to read the questions and select the correct answers.
Our district has been scoring very high on the OAA tests for years. But, this is “necessary” for some reason. Kids are frustrated and crying. Even teachers of older students have said that they didn’t even get around to having reading groups until October. First report cards are due at the beginning of November as are conferences. Isn’t it interesting that the teachers will have little to report on but the events surrounding testing protocol?
I find this to be ridiculous and absurd. Yet, we are sheeple.
The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) has outsourced technical assistance for the RTTT agenda to ICF International. a consulting-services corporation that also has many contracts with diverse federal agencies and other clients. In late 2010, ICF received a four-year $43 million contract from USDE (USDE, 2010, September) (Award Number-GS-23F-8182H, Order Number-ED-ESE-10-O-0087) to support the Race to the Top (RttT) Program, specifically by creating the Reform Support Network (RSN) serving two main purposes. The first was to help the initial RTTT grantees learn from each other across state lines. The second was to codify, scale-up, and place their “best practices” into a national and self-sustaining system of accountability for K-12 education aligned with teacher education. RSN turns out to be an entity with no officers but a bunch of “experts” in statistics, economics, and various aspects of personnel management. Eleven experts worked with testing and data management corporations. Of these, four were from the University of Wisconsin Value-Added Research Center, two represented Educational Testing Service. Three experts were affiliated with foundations that funded the development and promotion of the Common Core State Standards. Of these, two were from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, including two lead researchers for the Gates-funded Measures of Effective Teaching Project, a portfolio of studies that center on the use of so-called value-added measures as the main indicator of teacher effectiveness and as a test of the validity of the two other measures—classroom observations and student surveys. Three experts represented the legacy of Michelle Rhee’s New Teacher project and offshoots that promote alternative certification and entrepreneurial school leadership by for-profit companies. Three experts were consultants on personnel management, especially communications. In addition to these experts IFC appears to have subcontracted for PR expertise. One recommendation calls for “teacher SWAT teams that can be deployed for teacher-to-teacher communication at key junctures of the implementation and redesign of evaluation systems“ to develop buy-in to the agenda (RSN, 2012, December, p. 9). A related campaign to explain and justify value-added estimates as growth measures relies on the analogy of a gardener influencing the growth of an oak tree (Value-Added Research Center, 2012). You can find the You Tube version with “oak tree analogy.” Works fine if you think kids are plants, passive recipients of nutrients, in need of annual pruning, etc.
Kindergarteners should be BLOWING BUBBLES not FILLING THEM IN!!
Ah. Now there’s the slogan! Wonderful.
Thank you, Diane, for calling this what it is.
Child abuse by the state.
This is the MOST illogical test I have ever seen!
Because the kindergartners don’t know their numbers they must use pictures for the teacher to guide them to the right question (“Point to the ‘ear’ with your finger. Point to the ‘eye’.”) and then they ask them “What number comes after 36” and “Identify number 15”!! Talk about setting a student up for failure, tears and frustration!