Fred Smith is an experienced testing expert who now advises a group called “Change the Stakes,” in opposing high-stakes testing. He was invited to testify before a committee of the New York State Senate about the woeful recent history of state testing. The scores went up, up, up until 2010, when the state admitted that the previous dramatic gains were illusory, a consequence of artful adjustments of the “cut score” (passing rate). Then the scores began to rise again, until this past year’s Common Core tests, when the state scores fell deep into the basement, and three quarters of the state’s children were marked as failures.
As Smith quite clearly describes, testing has become a political game that hurts children.
Please read through his testimony, linked at the bottom of the page.
He wrote this to me:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
… and a sick, sick game it is. Teaching is all about the relationship between teachers and children… there’s no room “game playing” of this sort. The only games that should be played are those WITHOUT stakes attached: Duck, Duck, Goose, Heads-Up-7-Up, Tag. Relationships are the place for “keeping it real,” not playing games.
Hannah,
I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s indeed a SIC game and for PROFIT, too. Reprehensible.
Marvelous explanation on the problems associated with stand-alone field testing of test items.
The very first chart speaks volumes!
Recently, Diane posted about being wary of the “progress”of three specific states; Tennessee, Indiana, and the District of Columbia. I believe she cited a story telling people to look at these states. Apparently, the Dallas Morning News can’t think for themselves, they just parrot what they read and certainly don’t check their sources. The link below is pathetic in its attempt to denigrate public schools in Texas. Somehow, they associate a perceived lack of progress on the recent NAEP to Texas have lower expectations sense 2005. Can anyone point me to Diane’s piece, I would like to be able to use it in a response to the paper.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20131113-editorial-texas-scores-on-nations-report-card-are-troubling.ece?nclick_check=1
“The link below is pathetic in its attempt to denigrate public schools in Texas”
This reform argument fails completely. They have been instituting market based reforms in Texas for better than a decade. These reforms were sold to the public with the premise that they would improve public education. Not replace public education with a privatized system, but improve existing schools.
If Texas reforms don’t improve existing schools, the reforms failed.
Each and every public school parent needs to ask reformers that question. How have the last decade of ed reforms improved existing schools?
Is they’re using test scores to continue to bash public schools, they’re all but announcing that the reforms they sold to the public were either sold dishonestly or did not work.
Thank you Fred for the invaluable work you do for us and our children.
Several years ago, I did similar graphs of the raw-score to scaled-score conversions being done in New York and showed them around my office because they were so ludicrous. They jumped all over the place. The state was obviously manipulating its conversion charts to get whatever outcomes it wanted to show.
I was fortunate to be with a large group of parents united against inBloom and Common Core yesterday, when the CDE announced to us that they have severed ties with inBloom statewide! Please spread the word that Colorado will “Bloom no more”! Cheri Kiesecker CoreConcerns.weebly.com
So we saw media, politicians and reformers blast the NEAP scores from TN and DC.
What is the claim, then? If the NEAP scores had gone down or stayed level media, politicians and other reformers would have dropped the current reform mantra and reconsidered the entire agenda?
Does anyone believe that? I don’t, but is there anyone who does? If TN MEAP scores had been poor, Arne Duncan would have switched gears and pushed some other reform method? That seems unlikely- unbelievable, really. Has there been ANY adjustment to reform theories or approaches based on test scores in these states over the last decade?
From Fred’s testimony: “Today I will provide information about significant flaws in the program, particularly its field testing procedures; what makes the “core-aligned” 2013 exams a non-starter in efforts to establish a baseline; and the need for truth in testing and timely disclosure of test-related data in order to treat parents and the public with respect and restore a measure of trust in the integrity of testing.”
First to “treat parents and the public with respect” would entail the complete abandoning of the educational malpractices that are educational standards, standardized testing and the “grading” of students.
Second, there is no need to “restore a measure of trust” in the “integrity of testing” as there is no “integrity in testing” as the whole process is so rife, fraught with error as to render any conclusions drawn completely invalid. For integrity to be there there has to be validity and these educational malpractices certainly are invalid as proven by Noel Wilson in his ““Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
So much waste of time, energy and money in pursuing malpractices that are invalid. Insanity thy name is trying to “restore a measure of trust in the integrity of testing.”
Summative testing rests on the assumption that learning is so unpalatable that we must coerce kids into doing it be threatening them with failure. Wrong from the start. Testing should disappear into the curriculum, taking the form of diagnostics and formatives, and ideally, kids would be involved in setting their own bars, their own hurdles to pass over, in pursuit of individualized paths. Learning is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire. The standards-and-testing regime assumes the “filling the bucket” approach. You fill it. Then you measure it. Wrong from the start.
Robert,
What’s it going to take to get many many more to realize what we say?
And I agree that assessments can be a part of the teaching and learning process in the fashion in which you describe. How have we gotten so far from the origional purpose of “testing” as an assessment to help student learn to the current toxix “summative testing” environment?
toxic, although toxiXXX has a certain visual effect or maybe toXXXic, eh.
I speak to so many GOOD teachers whose hearts are SO FOR THE CHILDREN they teach and this horrific testing climate is LITERALLY making them ill. They are under such stress each and every day, being measured for each and every component of their day, wasting needed collaborative time to review useless data when all they want to do is plan lessons TO TEACH THE STUDENTS before them each day. The students feel the teachers’ stress, the students are stressed, the students are learning that learning is all about “the game” of choosing the one right answer. Books are no longer read for joy. Students must artificially pick apart meaning instead of coming upon meaning by reflection. Meanwhile, in the title one schools, students move around a lot. Each classroom throughout the year has students entering and leaving. So there is no way “a baseline” for data can even be set even if this were possible. Math and English IS THE FOCUS with double periods of each at the expense of every other subject. The whole high stakes testing needs to be tossed out the window. And if common core is linked to testing and requires a cookie cutter mandated implementation (which it is), then it too needs to go. How many experts need to tell us over and over and prove to the public over and over that it is “b” sh…t”??? I just wonder when there will be an elected official willing to step up to the plate and stand up for justice… Thanks Fred Smith! I only wish someone in a position to speak out against Duncan, Gates, Obama would do so in order to restore sanity to education and TO FOCUS ON THE REAL CULPRIT.. THE EFFECTS OF LONG TERM POVERTY AND TO STOP IT FROM INCREASING AS IT IS DOING RIGHT NOW.
Diane- I am hoping you will read this and maybe post-and Definitely listen to the show. We have what is turning into a huge, live, debate on-air tonight in Denver.
This evening, Thursday, December 19, on Denver AM 560 KLZ, from 5-7 p.m.(MST), the topic will be Common Core. Dr. Terrence Moore will be debating with Laura Boggs,former school board member, followed by Mr. Anthony Cody. Dr. Sandra Stotsky then Michael Brickman/Fordham Inst. will be joining debate at 6pm (MST).
We are asking people to pose questions via Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/GrassrootsRadioColorado
This show is also available by listening on line at http://www.560thesource.com just click “Listen Live.”
thanks from Colorado!