Last year, Louisiana led the nation in passing absurd laws about education.
This year, that dubious distinction goes to North Carolina. Hardly a day goes by without more evidence of misinformed, specious, nonsensical meddling by the Legislature.
The latest: the Legislature insists that all third graders learn to read, so they mandated 36 new mini-tests for the children.
Could someone explain to State Senate leader Phil Berger that testing is not teaching?
No Child Left Behind mandated that all children would be proficient by 2014. Hello, it’s 2014, and it didn’t happen. Maybe there is a lesson here, if anyone is listening. Mandating that all children must be proficient doesn’t make them proficient. Mandating that all third-graders must read doesn’t mean it will be so.
The time spent on testing is time that should be spent reading, writing, listening, and learning.
As the old chestnut goes, you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Mandating that all third-graders must read doesn’t mean it will be so.”
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for continuing to expose the folly of this over-emphasis on testing and oppressive mandates. True student academic achievement is being continually hampered at best. Teachers everywhere are trying to authentically teach while feeding the “data dragon”. It seems that the “edu-reformers” are afflicted with “data fever”. What is the cure?
“Teachers everywhere are trying to authentically teach while feeding the “data dragon”.
I fear that it is our children that run the risk of being that which is fed to the dragon you have warned of.
Yes, GE2L2R, it is the student’s data that is consumed by the gluttonous “data dragon” that appears to have a bottomless pit.
I fear that it is actual the children themselves – in addition to their data (what an awful way to characterize any other human being let alone a child!) – that are being fed to this “data dragon”.
Let me try that again . . . sorry.
I fear that it is the actual children themselves – in addition to their data (what an awful way to characterize any other human being let alone a child!) – that are being fed to this “data dragon”.
RE,
I’m sorry to inform you that the only cure, well there is no cure, so that the only way out is D E A T H.
Unless one has a miraculous conversion, where in, upon his/her passing the Catholic Church will automatically confer saint-hood upon him/her.
Great Post “readingexchange”
Just because you say it’s so, doesn’t make it so. In this case, the inmates are running the asylum.
The inmates have bought and paid for this asylum and then sold it down the river. Welcome to the world of insane education in NC.
I took an in-depth graduate writing course several years ago. We had to write our personal teaching credos. One of my points was “All children can learn, but not the same things at the same pace”. I was considered to lack a forward thinking viewpoint. No, I was and am realistic. Can people not look at their own personal limitations without being viewed as negative or unmotivated? The idea that by 2014 all students would be proficient by 2014 has been viewed as a ridiculous thought BT every intelligent and expetienced teacher that I have ever known. At the time we thought NCLB would just be proven wrong and that would be the end of it all. But when RttT dangled federal dollars in our faces, school officials went for the bait and for almost zero $$ our district superintendent went public to say that our teachers were just “afraid of the ramped up evaluation system”. Think how this sounds to the members of the public!!!! The union backed down!!! We have been forced into this untenable situation by all, even those fellow union members who couldn’t afford to risk their employment. And so it continues. Our district has continued to remain at the top of area and state schools, but the administration seems to believe we need constant supervision in order to do so. We have done as well as we can in spite of their offensive intrusion into our jobs. For me, this is disgusting, especially when we have a hateful, condescending lying principal. It is just ridiculous.
” I was considered to lack a forward thinking viewpoint. No, I was and am realistic. Can people not look at their own personal limitations without being viewed as negative or unmotivated?”
Depends: is the emperor wearing any clothes or not? Only the little boy had the courage to say what he saw. Tis a good example for the rest of us. Good luck with your emperor / principal!
“Our district has continued to remain at the top of area and state schools, but the administration seems to believe we need constant supervision in order to do so. We have done as well as we can in spite of their offensive intrusion into our jobs.”
Very well said, deb. Teachers are doing an incredible job under trying circumstances every single day! They do not even expect a thank you but only ask that the “obstructionist-reformers” get out of their way.
When we opt our kids out of testing, we know that we are doing the right thing. Parents need to step it up, even if it means having to confront a “hateful, condescending lying principal”.
Diane, I agree with your quote: “Testing is not teaching.”
That pretty much sums up the issue with Common Core testing.
PARCC and SmarterBalanced, are the biggies, but we also have mini tests throughout the year. SO MANY, I can’t keep up, MAPS, CMAS, STAR…it goes on and on and feels like the kids are tested all the time. All on computers…so we can collect and share that data.
We teach our kids how to take a test now. Instead, why can’t we go back to teaching the basics and have teachers, not standardized tests, gauge what the students know?
Smarter Balance is the only test I am aware of that is directly aligned with CCSS. Smarter Balance and Track my Progress are the only tests our school (here in VT) will be administering (the latter is often done in conjunction with classroom “tech time”). Schools and districts that opt to add-on extra tests do so by their own will. If CCSS is being used properly, it means teachers are spending more time with students on going deep into content, and less time on testing surface facts. If your school is associating CCSS with multiple tests, be aware that they’re doing it wrong.
These people are child abusers. Just how extreme does this have to get before someone carts these legislators off to asylums for the criminally insane?
Totally agree! This is child abuse FOR PROFIT and control. Think, Hunger Games.
Ditto.. Wise Robert always speaks with such wisdom!
There was a report on CNN this afternoon that featured a teacher’s book, Priority List, by David Menasche. It chronicles his trips to visit former students. He has glioblastoma and stopped teaching due to various vision and memory problems. He decided to make use of whatever time he had left and used Facebook to locate former students and traveled via Amtrak to visit them. He has written about his times spent with those students and their memories of his 11th grade classes. He was pleased to find that the most important thing they carried with them from his class had to do with the real moments of “connection” rather than the specific lessons. Of course he wanted them to remember the books and subjects studied with him. But what they cherished most were thevmomenrs when they could talk about things that mattered to them, knowing that he cared about and listened to them.
Well let’s see how many will look back at their past testing culture fondly and who will have gained anything from having a computer for a teacher?
Doubtless millions of kids, in the future, will look back upon and treasure the time they spent bubbling in bubbles dealing with CC$$.ELA.RI.8.4a under their pimply TFA teacherling.
Touché
Can I just say that I LOVE that you referred to it as CC$$
Coz it’s alllllllll about the money.
#truth
Tackling the tests or “test-tackles”? Certainly some of these people have a superabundance of something to promote the exorbitant fixation on their “test”e”s. I guest it is up to us to try to “fix” the situation.
Thanks to Salia for this outstanding video based on a Harry Chapin song, “Flowers Are Read.” The vid says, I think, everything that needs to be said about the current education deforms:
http://sahilachangebringer.blogspot.com/2011/09/flowers-are-red.html
Stop the abuse. Opt out of the inane tests. Demand the ability to adapt (and where necessary scrap) the invariant, totalitarian, and, in ELA, backward and amateurish new “standards.”
yikes. That would be “Flowers are Red.” Forgive the typo.
I do believe “Flowers can be read”!
Even without language!
wonderful, Duane! 🙂
You will have to scroll down a bit to get to the vid, but it’s well worth your time. I found it extraordinarily moving.
I agree worth watching!
That’s what education does – takes the child’s creativity and puts it in a box, shuts the lid, and sits on top of it. Only a few survive unscathed and only via a double life or split personality.
As a person living in NC let me let you know how insane this is. The tests start in Kindergarten before many children can read. (DIBEL’s if you are interested). The first and most prevalent experience many children are getting with reading is frustration and failure. Then these diagnostic tests continue to inform the teacher what skills the student needs to improve. The problem is some of the issues are developmental and knowing the deficits cannot speed the process along and trying to force it often just backfires. Young children have reading for a good portion of their class time ( when not testing), reading homework and if they do poorly they are now missing other curriculum areas to do even more reading. If I could design a program to make sure a whole generation of children hates reading I think this would be it. My favorite parts (sarcasm) is that these formative assessments only have a .60 to .70 correlation to the 3rd grade End of Year test. So we are testing kids up and down and sideways and still can only predict how well about a third of them will do on the high stakes test that determines if they get promoted to 4th grade. If the do not pass they get summer school if the still do not pass they go into a 3/4 combination class. If they still do not pass . . .Actually no one knows. I guess we will have a lot of growing third grade classes. My other favorite part (again sarcasm) is that retention has been found to be correlated with a lot of variables but learning to read is not one of them. Retention is highly correlated to dropping out of school. So our legislature has guaranteed a whole generation of dropouts. We are conducting research on parts of this but if you see it in practice it is painful.
The part of Dibels that bothers me is the section where children are scored on how many words they read in a minute. What message does that send? The message it sends to me is that speed is more important than comprehension.
The rationale for that part is that increased fluency and automatically is correlated with increased comprehension. But correlation is not cause and effect. Reading faster does not make you comprehend more. It is just that people who comprehend more tend to read faster. The point is not to read fast. The point is to understand what is read. But we lose the forest for the trees.
Exactly. I understand the point about fluency but the subtle messages we are sending in education reveal a real lack of understanding of what is truly important. As an adult when I choose a book to read, I have different purposes – gain knowledge, personal enjoyment, stretching my thinking, enjoying a favorite author or topic, exploring a particular genre….yet the message we are sending is that the level, test scores, etc matter most. Of course we have to teach children to read but we also have to help them see you read to learn along with many other reasons. I once took a class where there was a discussion about phonics instruction. The professor said very simply, a child needs enough phonics instruction to learn to read and that is very different for different child. If a child is reading independently and has cracked the code – they they need a different type of instruction than a struggling reader. In my opinion that struggling reader will need more/different phonetic instruction but they also need to be read to more than anyone so they see the joy reading brings and will stay motivated. Children can work on comprehension when someone else reads to them while they are learning to read fluently themselves. This one size fits all mentality is so simplistic. I taught in a multi-aged classroom where we had grades 1-3 together. Our test scores were tip/top but more importantly our students were thinkers, readers, writers and problem solvers. They learned from each other and the teacher in a multitude of ways. We used authentic literature and thematic units which our team of teachers developed – not some published generic series.
You are so Right!!!! It hurt to read your response but the truth hurts doesn’t it. Thank you for being so honest.
You are welcomed but in defense of all elementary school teachers in NC, most are doing their best to do quality reading activities when they can. I have been encouraged that most teachers still know what good teaching is and they still try to have creative and interesting activities in their classes. I just know that there are others who are less experienced and are overly influences by the test data.
There is no such thing as a third grade reading level. Reading levels are determined by what the average 3rd grade child can read. Average mean half are above half are below. Then we legislate that the bottom half has to move up. Because you know you can legislate reading ability.
Thank you, Janna! The deformers really have to have this sort of thing spelled out to them. Basic stuff.
That’s right, Robert. They have no idea what mean, median, or mode mean. Let alone standard deviation and bell curve. So of course, they believe that all children need to learn the same thing at the same time at the same rate in the same way, otherwise the teacher is not effective.
It’s now 2014, and under the deformer theory, introduced with NCLB, all our students are now proficient in reading and mathematics. What we are getting from the deformers, today, is just the sequel, Son of NCLB: The Horror Is Nationalized. They didn’t learn that simply legislating this stuff doesn’t make it so. But worse than that, they didn’t learn how absurd the whole standards-and-summative-testing approach is, how it misconceives education at–dare I say it?–at its core.
And before some wiseguy remarks on this, yes, I did understand that you were using “average” colloquially.
The obsession with Lexiles because of their inclusion in the CC$$ for ELA has gotten really extreme. A teacher friend of mine recently brought me an assignment she was given by her district–she was to write a Common Core-style lesson on “Paul Revere’s Ride,” and the instructions told her to begin by doing a Lexile for the piece to show that it was at the fifth-grade level. Of course, the Lexile showed it to be at a college level. Ridiculous. Lexiles are useful tools. But they have to be taken with a grain of salt. Consider this phrase from Dylan Thomas:
“the twelve triangles of the cherub wind”
Now what on earth does THAT mean? It’s pretty simple by Lexile-style measures. It contains only one word of low frequency–cherub–and that could be handled with a footnote or a marginal annotation. The phrase has a low measured “readability,” but how readable is it? Do you have a clue what it means?
Well, you won’t unless you think of an old map map with a stylized representation of winds as cherubs blowing, their breath inscribing triangles. Or think of Emily Dickinson’s “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died.” Extremely simple language. Extremely complex thought.
Lexiles, again, can be very useful. But they are very, very rough measures.
Robert – I once had to create a reading list for K-12 based purely on lexiles. It was a real eye opener. I would select a book I felt would be excellent for a certain age, only to discover that the lexile was either higher or lower than I expected. It was a real challenge to meld the two – books the children would enjoy with the matching lexile. I could only do this because I was an expert in literature. Although my fellow school librarians appreciated my effort, the downtown administrators in the BPS always fiddled around with my suggestions (after they requested them) and recreated their own lists based on their own personal biases and not on what was appropriate for the kids. I took creating book lists very seriously, including diversity and genre in my selections, and, although I was always proud of my results, I was also dismayed at the finished edited product.
“Listen my parents, and you shall hear..
How teaching in NC will disappear….
Two thousand fourteen…. after 36 Tests…
Across NC …from East to the West..
Testing -Prepping – everyday of the year..”
Continuing neanderthal’s poem, I hope you don’t mind:
Listen my parents and you shall hear
How teaching in NC will disappear
Two thousand fourteen, after 36 tests
Across NC, from east to west
Test prepping every day of the year
Will lead to smarter kids, don’t you fear.
Because ed reformers know what is best,
Be sure that we act on the people’s bequest,
For teacher’s don’t know what the hell they are doing,
Just look at the test scores, which down have been moving.
By testing we’ll know which ones must be removed,
Tenure tracking, at last, will have been disapproved.
TFA, we feel, is the best way to go.
Those crappy old teachers, throw out in the snow.
With the old teachers gone, our job will be done.
Your children, oh them, they’re your problem, have fun.
Awesome, Neatherthal. ROFLMAO!
Yikes. I meant Neanderthal. Wonderful.
Janna,
BINGO!
Once upon a time Garrison Keller wittingly spoke of a place called (woe be gone) where all the children “were above average”.
Now, we have the Dunce and other Educational idiots taking about all students performing at high/rigorous levels!
Too bad that no matter what the content (reading, running, reacting, …) some people greatly exceed other people. THAT IS NORMAL. Any bar that all can clear CANNOT, BY DEFINITION, BE CHALLENGING!
Schools need to be on a constant path of improvement and most are. More importantly, this country needs to face up to the poverty and economic segregation that are the true injustices many students face.
High standards is code talk ( for we, the wealthy, have given enough)
Arne is a below average intellect even in the educational circles he lives in. His dimwitted understand of elementary statistics is o stunningly cruel.
Race to the Top. The dummies always go with the sports metaphors.
Not to be mean, but Duncan is in over his head. His intellect doesn’t match the job requirements and he is being lead by the nose by the individuals who are destroying education, not improving it. Plus his arrogance and ego has resulted in him plowing ahead on this path, despite the public outcry against it.
If there is no such thing as a third grade reading level, does that mean that there is no such thing as something developmentally inappropriate for third graders? It seems to me that arguments in favor of one support the other, arguments against one are arguments against the other.
There are a lot of materials developmentally appropriate or inappropriate for a child but when we generalize to developmentally appropriate for any group I personally have always disagreed with that. I work with gifted, and special needs children for whom what was considered developmentally appropriate was never usually appropriate for the children I worked with. Learning is individual. The grouping of people by chronological age and assuming homogeneous development is silly. There are ranges that may be ok to use as guidelines. In fact I enjoy having standards when they are used a general guides for what the average person at a certain age can do. But I am well aware that the range is huge and to penalize people when they are a outside of the majority in terms of norms is inappropriate and harmful. I can teach most any to read at a “third grade” level. Just not always by 3rd grade. I teach adult literacy too, even someone with significant mental retardation can learn to read. But maybe not until they are an adult.
I asked the question because the CCSS are often criticized here for being obviously developmentally inappropriate, but it has never been clear to me what that means in terms of the percentage of students that define something as developmentally inappropriate for a given grade.
The arguments in CCSS is that they sometimes put the cart before the horse. What is developmentally inappropriate is they do not make sure children know some prerequisites skills before learning other skills. I have no good specific examples to give you in the standards right now since in most cases the examples given are not the standards as much as the materials developed from the standards.
TE,
Is there a third grade running speed? And if effort is put into making third graders faster, the average speed can be increased. Agreed?
Can all third graders learn to run at some mythical rate that is ” challengeing?” (Can all children learn to become highly proficient speediness?)
I am not sure that anyone can run a mythical speed.
Mine was a much more down to earth question. When posters here say that the CCSS are “developmentally inappropriate”, do they mean that no third grader in the country could achieve those standards or that only a fraction of third graders can achieve that standard? If it is the second, what is that fraction?
Here is a little overview of developmentally appropriate practice and the early childhood professional’s organization’s position on it. http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSDAP.pdf
Thanks for the link. After a quick read, the article seems to me to be arguing that something might well be developmentally inappropriate for individual students, but calling something developmentally inappropriate (or appropriate) for all students of a given age is, well, inappropriate. Is that too far off?
From the test results in NYS, it looks like about 30% of third graders can achieve mastery.
Presumably that percentage would grow a bit as the curriculum became more aligned with the knowledge and skills on the test. Should I understand that what people mean by developmentally inappropriate standards is that less than half of students in a grade can achieve those standards?
The problem with the assessment scoring is that the line for passing is allusive, as more students do better, the passing score goes up, so more children fail. Not very fair.
Unfortunately life is unfair, and changing the labels of exam scores will not change that.
TE,
Is it really that difficult to understand the fallacy of rigorous grade level standards that all students are expected to achieve?
Do you earnestly think those who say some of the new grade level standards are developmentally inappropriate believe that NO CHILD at the given grade could perform up to the new standards?
Let’s see if you can follow this: what percentage of schools will always fall in the bottom 5% of schools?
Let’s approach the problem from the other end. Is there a set off standards that the federal government, state government, district school board or building administrator could articulate that would be developmentally appropriate for the students in the building? Would that mean the standards would have to be appropriate for every student in the building or could they be appropriate for most students in the building with a group for which they are inappropriately challenging or inappropriately trivial?
The standards need to be a guideline and not an absolute complete with lesson plans. As teachers, we have been taught to individualize instruction. Now, script in hand, we must follow a guide that does not allow for variation for the higher and lower achievers. As an “educated” guess, the CCSS are written for the middle third of the class ( in third grade). My deductions after looking at the standards and listening to EC teachers (plus my own experiences), that number drops to less than 10% for the kindergarteners.
I have spent more time looking at the math standards. Those standards, at least, don’t seem to be highly scripted.
TE – there is curriculum that goes with the standards which provides the scripts. I’ve seen videos of the process. Perhaps this new technique in math will work – we will see and discuss in ten years or so.
The scripts are not the standards, however. It seems to me that the two can easily be separated in practice, and if it is the scripts that you are really against, criticizing the standards makes enemies out of potential allies.
We had perfectly good standards already in place in NYS. The new standards are flawed. The suggested reading assignments inappropriate. The educational techniques promoted flawed. It’s easy to say – separate them out – but that is not what is happening. In order to pass the test, you need to get the curriculum from Pearson. It’s a scary way to teach.
You don’t fatten a cow by weighing it.
exactly
I so love that quote…..Same as the one by Diane above…except she used Pig……
Economic thinking and associated methods of statistical research have helped to narrow the aims of education to easily tested content and to exaggerated attention to scores on standardized tests as measures of student achievement and teacher effectiveness. Example: Bill Gates seriously flawed $64 million “Measures of Effective Teaching” project was directed by economists at Harvard and Dartmouth. The student survey in that project was designed by an economist. Dr. Ravitch is aware of this strong influence.
It is worth repeating that economists and statisticians have played a major role in persuading legislators and other policy-makers that data-driven decisions are inevitably “valid,” “reliable,” and so on.
This “econometric turn in education” is evident when you look at the academic literature and federal policies that are calling for unparalleled surveillance of teachers and students. Consider another Gates-funded project to put “galvanic skin response sensors” on the wrists of students as if the real-time metrics from the electric impulses were valid and reliable indicators of student attention. In some black box theory of teaching, an algorithm will alert the teacher and also link to a “recommendation system” for actions needed for the teacher to recapture attention. Biometric research is not new in education, but the gismos and gadgets for such monitoring, and the use of that data for teacher evaluation, is one of the latest trends. (Spinoffs: Imagine student and teacher headbands worn to produce metrics on the firing of neural networks tied to a system of corrective actions/interventions (OZ in the black box).
I found the following caveat in a recent best-selling book on “Big Data.”
“We are more susceptible than we may think to the “dictatorship of data”—that is, letting the data govern us in ways that may do as much harm as good. The threat is that we will let our-selves be mindlessly bound by the output of our analyses even when we have reasonable grounds for suspecting something is amiss. Or that we will attribute a degree of truth to data which it does not deserve.”
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger & Kenneth Cukier. (2013). Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 166.
I will actively discourage my future daughter in law from doing a surgical residency in such a god-forsaken state. North Carolina’s loss. And then I will tell every current and former student to avoid NC at all costs. Duke, UNC, Wake forest! where stand you in this debacle.
Bravo,
I know of three talented professionals who walked away from great job opportunities because of the NC schools.
Same thing is starting in NJ. A boom for the expensive private schools here though.
Wake Forest has a program known as Problem Based Learning. I could write a Chapter on this excellent method of teaching…In fact..I wrote 3 pages yesterday and decided not to post…
It is one of two of the best workshops and programs ever offered to any child at any level….You would think that NC would mandate all teachers to learn this extremely effective and fun way of solving Real-World Problems…but no….Guess the $$$ would not go into the right pockets…
Wake Forest does offer so very much….but there are no takers as it does not fit the Political aspirations of the “Suits on the Hill”
The college located in Raleigh….is the place you go to write items for the ridiculous tests they give in NC…Not one of the PHD’s has ever taught in a K-12 classroom but they TELL you what you , the trained professional, should do…Dictate is a better word..
Problem Based Learning is the method of teaching that so excites me..I would go in any classroom tomorrow and have the children all so excited about learning and restore my motivation to teach…which has diminished to an empty set..totally void of emotion or the enthusiasm which once was…………….
Problem Based learning is used all over the country in many disciplines. It began in medical schools. It was use in all teacher education programs in Tennessee. It is a common practice in universities and it is also used in some K-12 schools. It is a wonderful active learning constructivist approach that I have found effective if my students already have the skills but are now ready to learn how to apply them to cases. But the cases are still hypothetical and contrived so I prefer using PBL to real life cases in real time whenever possible. But it did not start in Wake Forest and it is used many places in NC. I am glad you are a fan of it!
Thanks Janna..Good to Know……
Well said, Laura! I think of another fellow driven by his data–oh-so-scientific Robert Mcnamara. Many years ago, during the Vietnam War, Robert Bly came to my school and read us this poem:
Let’s count the bodies over again.
If we could only make the bodies smaller,
The size of skulls,
We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight!
If we could only make the bodies smaller,
Maybe we could get
A whole year’s kill in front of us on a desk!
If we could only make the bodies smaller,
We could fit
A body into a finger-ring, for a keepsake forever.
How does one begin to count the damage that Mcnamara did? Do we count the tears of the survivors?
North Carolina isn’t going to have any proficient readers by the time all this testing is done because none of the students are going to read anymore because of their hatred of it thanks to the inadequate and uninspiring way it is being forced upon them.
Third grade was my favorite grade in elementary school 50+ years ago. We did so many interesting things and I still remember them well. All these children will have to remember is test anxiety and parents and teachers “cheering” them on to do their best on yet another test. It is sickening.
I love to read, love, love, love to read. I always have. Our students take Accelerated Reader quizzes after each book. If I had had to take a test after every book I read, I would have stopped reading. Read a book and get rewarded by having to take a test on it – yuck!
My third grade teacher, Mrs. Coleman, read to us every day . I especially loved The Enormous Egg, and remember the class writing letters to Disney trying to convince them to make the book into a movie. I remember our excitement, our joy, even today.
Mrs. Coleman made us feel that third graders were capable of making changes in the world. She gave us hope, she gave us power. She instilled a love of reading in each of us. She certainly didn’t give us a test after the book or make us do a close read. I weep for third graders today.
Mrs Cartwheel – I remember taking a couple of literature courses in library school, one for children and the other for young adult. We had to read 100 books for each – I loved revisiting old favorites and discovering new authors. Ironically, I was a young adult at the time. However, writing up the little index cards for each title was a chore which I hated. (We each were supposed to create a file box full of these cards for future reference – I threw mine out). I easily fulfilled the reading aspect, but my best friend and I stayed up all night finishing up filling out those cards the night before they were due. I always hated the busy work of education courses and library school. (And this was pre-computer).
Wordsmatter, your Mrs. Coleman was my Mrs. Bean, tightly corseted with laced up little old lady shoes. She read to us too, most notably Charlotte’s Web. She taught us to play the Tonette and we had a recital. She brought her parakeet to school. We made Kachina dolls out of papier mache. She was also a no nonsense teacher. I loved her and tried my best for her.
Ellen T Clock, I remember that assignment well from a children’s lit course for my BA in Elementary Ed. way back in 1972. I hated that card task as well. I know of someone as late as ten years ago doing the same assignment. Just crank it out! Personally, an author study would have been a better way to go.
If I were teaching a children’s lit class, I would have each student do a read aloud presentation. Really get their hands dirty. Not just passive readers, but active participants demonstrating a love of literature.
Oops! Klock.
It’s not a matter of IF but a matter of WHEN we shall see the day when this whole standards-and-testing deform movement is universally acknowledged to have been a dark, dark period in the history of our schools, a time when philistine ideas swept the land and kids were crushed under a juggernaut of legislation passed by idiots.
I just hope that “when” is soon.
Eloquent remark..
The sooner the better!
But what will have happend to the children that were educated during that period. Mine are some of them.
I know, Jen. It’s awful. These deforms are doing, will do, such damage!
Why not mandate children be above proficient readers in Pre-K?
Testing for Tots!
I see that coming Robert….and after…
“Writing in the Womb”!!
With regard to the “standards,” it’s this simple:
Consider anything one might want to teach to kids and to have kids learn. Consider, for example, vocabulary. There are many, many notions about how to teach vocabulary. Many, many thousands of papers and proposals have been made on this subject. And there is actually a lot that is known about the relevant science–about how vocabulary is acquired.
So, why would it make sense to adopt and set in stone standards that call for particular approaches to teaching vocabulary, especially when these approaches are demonstrably ineffective (teach kids the meanings of lists of affixes and roots; teach them techniques for using context clues)? Wouldn’t it make a LOT more sense to have scholars and curriculum developers continue to develop new approaches to vocabulary instruction based on ongoing research and to have teachers and administrators evaluate these and make their own decisions about which approaches to take? The standards proponents say, all the time, that the standards are not a curriculum, but when a standard says that kids will learn Greek and Latin roots in order to build their vocabularies, that standard occurs in a context in which, unfortunately, there have been a lot of teachers giving kids lists of these roots to memorize, and the standard encourages the continuance of this extraordinarily ineffective practice–a practice that has opportunity cost because it takes time that might be given to a more effective approach.
Almost none of the vocabulary that an adult knows was acquired through explicit instruction. Vocabulary is learned in semantic groupings in meaningful contexts. If your goal is to increase kids’ vocabularies, having them learn lists of Greek and Latin roots is not going to be effective.
Now, teaching Greek and Latin roots can be effective, can be really interesting and valuable to kids, if this is done for other reasons and not routinely. For example, it’s valuable for kids to learn that words have histories and that one of the tools in the kit of a careful writer is to attend to the historical weight that a word carries. For example, the word idiot derives from the Greek idios, meaning “one’s own.” It suggests, etymologically, that an idiot is someone who doesn’t learn from others, who thinks that only he or she has access to the truth, who doesn’t think his or her ideas subject to public verification. A little archaeology done on that word is quite revealing in the right context–in a lesson on thinking and evidence, for example, or in an explication of a passage making that point about verification.
Here’s the more general point: It’s a completely terrible idea to set in stone what we are going to consider important enough to be measured in the English language arts because we are continually learning about these matters, and there is extraordinarily fruitful disagreement and debate about most of them.
Achieve had no right to appoint David Coleman and Susan Pimentel absolute monarchs of the English language arts in the United States. They have no divine right to overrule every scholar, every teacher, every curriculum coordinator, every curriculum developer in the country. There is nothing special about THEIR thinking. In fact, a lot of it seems, to me, really amateurish.
And the makers of these standards have done the idiotic thing (if one uses the word with BOTH its etymological and its current meaning)–they have foisted their amateurish bullet list on the rest of us. We’re supposed to wait to revise this list until they hold court again in five years (or whatever) and issue a new set of decrees.
Again, these standards are a LOT more than general principles (e.g., students will read closely). They are a particular bullet list of what’s to be considered important at each grade level. And that list makes a LOT of unexamined assumptions.
Teaching and learning is about challenging unexamined assumptions, and so this whole business of setting standards in stone directly contradicts our prime directive, as teachers, to produce intrinsically motivated thinkers and creators.
Here’s how people actually acquire the vocabularies they have: They engage in a meaningful activity in the course of which they encounter a lot of new words. You take an yoga class. In the course of a few weeks, you learn (or begin to learn) the meanings of prana, ahimsa, bhakti, moksha, kundalini, tadasana, chaturanga, mindfulness. You take an art class offered by your local Parks department. In the course of a few weeks learn about stippling and chiaroscuro and gesso and filbert brushes and titanium white. And this learning sticks with you because it is all connected and is a context that is significant to you and, and the terms are being actively used, around you, in all their inflected and derivational forms.
In such a manner–in semantic groupings encountered in extended meaningful context, or knowledge domains–people learn well over 90% of their adult vocabularies. And all those specific “standards” in the CC$$ in ELA that deal with vocabulary strategies are distractions from the actual process.
It’s a good thing, if you own a boat, to polish the brightwork. But if you are at sea and there is a hole in the hull, you attend to that. You attend to the thing that really makes a difference.
A good place to start learning about this: George Miller. The Science of Words. Scientific American Library. New York: Freeman, 1991.
There are a few typos in the post above. My apologies for that. Rushing here.
For example, I meant to write, “In such a manner–in semantic groupings encountered in extended, meaningful contexts, or knowledge domains–people learn well over 99 percent of their adult vocabularies.” In other words, that’s how ALMOST ALL vocabulary is acquired. See the Miller book, which explains the actual science very well. Miller was one of the great cognitive psychologists of the twentieth century–the fellow who wrote “The Magical Number 7, Plus or Minus 2,” a paper that every teacher should know. And one of his particular areas of study and interest was vocabulary acquisition.
TE, I just wanted you to know you are getting a variety of comments that are not all talking about the same thing. Some people who criticize CCSS are early childhood people who are supporters of DAP which is an actual practice based on child development. Others just are generally discussing appropriateness of certain skills are certain levels. I know you have read the discussion here about Lexiles vs appropriate literature. Just because the reading level of a book my be third grade, I may not want my third grader reading about sex. So some people object to certain sophisticated content being expected at early ages, others make a more cogent argument that there is some order to learning and you need some prerequisite understanding before you can get deeper understanding. I am more familiar with the standards for high school level than early childhood so I personally do not want to give specific examples from an early childhood point of view. But I do know that my own children were slowed down in math to accommodate the Common core and has not give them a deeper understanding so far. It just slowed them down. My children were on track to learn Calculus 1 and 2 in high school if they had been allowed to take Algebra in 7th grade. But because of common core implementation they were delayed to taking Algebra in 8th grade. Now if they take one math a year they will not be done with Math 1,2,3,4 until 11th grade only allowing one more year for Calculus. So here is a case where the core trumped individual ability in an effort to standardize education.
You are so right, Janna. By teaching to the average child, the accelerated student is slowed down, while the remedial student is left behind. It’s a step backwards, not forwards.
And I also agree with your comment on lexiles. Just because a child can read it, doesn’t mean they should. I was appalled when my fourth grade daughter’s friend was reading Judy Blume’s Forever (which includes graphic descriptions of oral sex). Her mom just assumed it was a typical Judy Blume children’s book, not realizing this one was written for young adults. Thank goodness she didn’t pick up Wifey, too. Lexile and age appropriateness do not necessarily match. Teachers and librarians realize this, outsiders making reading choices don’t have a clue.
Very sad that all that energy spent on testing didn’t leave time for teachers to really pay attention to the students, thus realizing in our case that my child wasn’t proficient because he had a learning disability and dyslexia….not caught at school where reading and writing take place everyday, or by a test!!!!
There will never be a perfect solution but it seems to me that if there is a continuum of skills and standards that teachers truly understand, they can assess students periodically to see where they are and use that information to plan instruction. In my multi-age classroom that is what we did. We had an in depth awareness of the first-third grade curriculum and our students all fell at different places on that continuum – as well as outside it. Progress might happen in bursts or methodically – every child is unique. There were times first grades were the role models or emerged as leaders in a discussion and other times second and third graders were. No different than if as an adult you went to a social event – different people will be the leaders and followers in different discussions and in groups of different compositions. As adults we don’t put people in groups based on age, why do we feel the need to do that with students? I had many late bloomers who were allowed to learn as they were developmentally ready who were National Merit Scholars in high school. If those same students were in the first grade classrooms of today the red flags would be rising and there would be an intervention, an IEP or a label. If a teacher has a strong background in the continuum of standards they will help the student move along that continuum as they are ready and good teachers recognize those students who aren’t making progress and need more support or interventions. We need to remind the powers that be that teachers want students to succeed, too! In my experience as a teacher and college student teacher supervisor I consistently see teachers that will do whatever it takes to help students succeed. People making decisions in education need to start giving them the credit to make more decisions about their students because they know them best. There will always need to be standardized tests but this testing is out of control.
OMG…look at my nephew’s exam schedule…NC
Day Date Period Time Afternoon Review Time
Monday January 13 1st Exam 9:00-1:00 3rd Exam 1:00-3:45
Tuesday January 14 3rd Exam 9:00-1:00 2nd Exam 1:00-3:45
Wednesday January 15 2nd Exam 9:00-1:00 4th Exam 1:00-3:45
Thursday January 16 4th Exam 9:00-1:00 1st-Class 1:00-3:45
4 hours for exams..then over 2 hours for an afternoon review……..
Is there an adult anywhere that can sit for a 4 hour long or more exam….then review for over 2 hours in the afternoon?????
Nephew’s mom asked if her son had to attend the pm session……..I advised.”no”..there is no brain power left after sitting for a 4 hour exam(or more…depending upon if all finishes)
Asked why not just let the kids out at 1…after exam….Said the Testing People downtown want the students to review in the afternoon……So sad….
Most schools let the students go home after the exam..Is this the new Test Cramming Schedule?????????
I hope there is a break for lunch and even a snack. There is an art to proctoring exams for young children, including plenty of breaks for stretching, using the lav, and even having a little snack to break the monotony. Proctors also need to maintain a light, encouraging tone, while still following test protocol. It is indeed an art form.
Asked me about the afternoon….not the school…
After reading philosophies about education from twenty years ago, it is sad to see that reasonable assumptions have turned into unreasonable policies corrupted by politicians and “phony” experts to meet predetermined financial outcomes not in the best interests of the children. They have twisted these ideas from the past into something ugly.
If this is happening in education, our expertise, we can only imagine what is happening in other facets of our lives where our knowledge is limited.
We also demand teachers be ‘highly qualified’, but then don’t bother to get their opinion. I propose police departments stop all crime by the end of 2014. If unsuccessful, they should be made to take a serious of tests…..
Jasonsoroski, if crime isn’t eliminated by a year certain, strip the police of their badges, and hand the badges over to untrained recruits. Also, close the police stations. That’s sure to end crime.
What are the new State Standards for TN.? For entering 6th grade.
Reblogged this on Same Deep Water As You and commented:
This is ridiculous and another reason I am thrilled we started homeschooling.
This state policy of overtesting may be designed to drive kids and families out of public schools. A not very subtle tactic.
I don’t understand why they would want to drive families out of public schools, it seems to run counter to the control other measures in Common Core seem intent on taking, but it does seem to be having that effect.
I think parents need to get onto this by backing the teachers. NCLB was a catchy political “slogan” that was repeated and repeated and meant nothing. So much in our current society is cosmetic or Madison Avenue–words without substance or point. Our children deserve better. How about parents starting petitions to back up their teachers and stop this nonsense.
If you could please stop spreading lies, that would be really awesome.
These “tests” are not tests at all. What this IS, is a classroom tool to assist teachers in bringing struggling readers up to grade level. It is also a tool for teachers to use to see if their overall classes are having issues with any one particular standard.
The teachers are NOT required to use this with every student. Students are NOT required to “pass” these “tests” in order to advance to 4th grade. This is something designed to HELP kids who are showing problems early on, to reduce the number of kids who continue to advance through school without being able to read with solid foundational skills.
Some counties have CHOSEN to use this as a global tool with each student, Wake being one of them. But the original purpose of this was to assist students who fail the Grade 3 reading EOG to become proficient in reading.
Please get your facts straight before yelling “Fire” in a movie theater. You’re part of the problem here, not the solution.
(And if you’d like to know how I know the FACTS about the Portfolio, as opposed to the load of crap you’re spewing, it’s because I helped to create it.)
Well, knowing that you created this mandate to give 36 tests to third graders explains a lot. Testing is not teaching.
I created no mandate. That’s the state board. I was on the team that created the portfolio itself.
And they are not tests. They are classroom tools, much like any other reading comprehension exercise that a teacher could use. The difference is that these are produced by the state to guarantee that they align to Common Core. They can help the teacher with the teaching of standards, and help struggling readers get on track.
Your own words say that ALL 3rd graders have to use the portfolio; and that simply isn’t true.
Are samples of the rta tests available somewhere?
Here are the formative assessments being used. https://www.mclasshome.com/wgenhelp/reporting/Reporting_By_Assessment/mCLASS_Reading_3D_with_mCLASS_DIBELS_Next.htm
“These “tests” are not tests at all. What this IS, is a classroom tool to assist teachers in bringing struggling readers up to grade level. It is also a tool for teachers to use to see if their overall classes are having issues with any one particular standard.”
True (kind of)- these are formative assessments (so they are still called tests). All assessments take time away from instruction. Also the idea that knowing exactly what a child does not understand over and over does not mean you can necessarily teach those skills through explicit instruction. Some literacy skills are developmental and cannot be forced. Children need the content and language skill prerequisites before learning some reading skills. Some reading skills are beyond individual students. For example, I have worked with many students who were unable to master phonics, so we used other methods of instruction.
“The teachers are NOT required to use this with every student. Students are NOT required to “pass” these “tests” in order to advance to 4th grade. This is something designed to HELP kids who are showing problems early on, to reduce the number of kids who continue to advance through school without being able to read with solid foundational skills.”
True- in some cases some teachers are not told they are optional. I was told they were not optional when a child scores below a certain level. But in some cases this is when the test becomes abusive since a child who is frustrated by reading on a regular basis will become resistant to reading at all.
“Some counties have CHOSEN to use this as a global tool with each student, Wake being one of them. But the original purpose of this was to assist students who fail the Grade 3 reading EOG to become proficient in reading.”
True- But I am concerned that the correlation between the DIBELs and the 3rd grade EOG is not as high as I like for good predictive validity (.90 or higher). I have found it is only .60 or .70. I did find one study a little higher ( I will have to search for it but it was still below .80). We are still researching this.
“(And if you’d like to know how I know the FACTS about the Portfolio, as opposed to the load of crap you’re spewing, it’s because I helped to create it.)”
I am sorry that we do not all appreciate your efforts. You chose a pretty good formative assessment and I doubt I could think of a better one available right now. But you are trying to achieve the impossible by thinking we can make all children average or above average readers. There is always a percentage of children who will not read on a 3rd grade level by 3rd grade since people are not all born the same nor do they develop at the same rates. The overuse of testing will not help these children. For the children who are on the borderline formative assessment may help. I am a fan of performance assessments to help teachers see the progress of children. But to keep giving tests to the lowest level of readers can be abusive. I hope you make sure no one gives this many tests since the amount of time take from instruction would not be worth the data.
3rd & 1/2 – what is your background in producing the EOG tests or assessments? I’m concerned with the number 36, that’s about one a week. Does the teacher really need to do that much assessment? When will they have time to actually teach the content? In schools with a large number of below level children, this would require constant assessing. The teachers in my school do dibels, but not so often. It takes quite a while to do a one on one “test”, even if each test is only five or ten minutes, especially if the class size is thirty. Or do you have support personnel giving the assessments throughout the day.
You can see why we are concerned. Please explain your reasoning and the percentage of students this is expected to reach.
It is not so much the idea of dibels or EOG, it is the sheer number of assessments that we find distressing.
So true. The assessment itself is one issue but the time taken to give them is an even bigger issue. My last year of teaching I had 27 primary aged children and between Dibels, DRA’s and math assessments I was constantly testing. In the 2 years I have been retired things have only gotten worse. Yes, of course we need to assess children but this is out of control.
My background is that I am on the team that produces ALL of the state tests for NC. I make NO policy decisions, and I do not work for NCDPI. I am part of the team that they contract to actually construct the tests themselves. So, the answer is: 8 years’ worth, which cam on the heels of several years of being a classroom teacher for EC and ESL.
*I* had no reasoning. *I* did not make the decisions. But it irritates me to no end when blatant lies are publicized about my work. LEAs and Superintendents received new TNNs over the past several days from Carolyn Guthrie, etc, explaining the details.
But I do know that, if your own school instructs you to administer this as some sort of required assessment to every student, that’s on your admins.
I am sorry for you, Athirdandahalf.
You can feel sorry for me. But when a sudden disability forced me to give up full time teaching, my own kids still needed to be taken care of, and bills need to be paid. I now have 3 college tuitions I’m paying for, and this job helps to do that.
The way I see my job is this: if I cannot change the testing decisions being made, I can at least do my absolute best to see that whatever tests DO come out of my hands are fair, accessible for EC/ESL, and matches what content is being assessed.
And I think you chose fairly well under the circumstances. But you just admitted they were tests.
Uh, no I didn’t. They are a portfolio style assessment package to help kids prove proficiency if they fail the tests. It can also be used as a preventative measure to help kids catch up if they tank the B.O.G., which *is* a test, but it is only scored, not graded.
In this way, a kid who struggles with one aspect of reading, or multiple aspects of reading, does fall through the cracks and wander through the rest of his or her school years with a reading aptitude that never rises. This can also help a kid who has severe test anxiety and freaks out on the EOG. These kids may be able to read and comprehend, but will still fail the EOG. This can be used to prove proficiency without that test score.
Teachers can use this in their everyday instruction to reinforce the different aspects of comprehension (different CCSS standards, etc), and to identify if kids are having trouble with one of them.
These are not “tests” that every 3rd grader has to pass in order to get to 4th grade. That simply isn’t true.
3rd & 1/2 – I think part of the problem is our interpretation of the word test. It’s not that the assessments are used as a tool for advancing to the next grade, it’s the fact that they are sucking up the teachers time in preparing the children for these “tests” as well as the time it takes in administering them. On top of that, these same assessments are used, in many states, to rate whether the teachers retain their jobs. That’s what I call high stakes.
And there is a call to use the exams as a benchmark for passing from one grade to the next, plus some states already retain students in danger of failing even prior to the third ir fourth grade exam.
Also, a teacher should not need a dibels test to determine if a child has a reading problem. They are paid professionals who can recognize and deal with these issues without weekly assessments. In fact, the assessments take time away from doing their real jobs of teaching. A quarterly or biquarterly assessment check to confirm their personal analysis of a child’s deficiencies, should be adequate. Of course, you just create the assessments, you aren’t in charge of the implementation policies.
Perhaps, as the specialist, you could help us (as teachers and parents) by giving your personal recommendations on this implementation, unless you fear it would endanger your job status. Think about what you would want for your own children.
I absolutely understand the frustration!
I can offer my opinion as a parent/former teacher, yes. =) For me, if my child took the BOG, which is given to every 3rd grader, and there was a problem, as a parent, I would try to supplement at home. But I realize this isn’t for everyone. As far as the school goes, I would hope that whatever issues my kid was having — maybe he can answer comprehension questions, but doesn’t “get” the concept of “main idea” or how to support it, for example — I would want something that he could use during his regular day to help him to become proficient with it. I would want a tool that could be used throughout the year such that, when it came time for the EOG, he would take that test with a much stronger aptitude for what he needs to do.
The portfolio selections are about 1.5 pages long with only 5 questions. Let’s just say that 12 students out of the 28 that are in the class need to use the portfolio. The rest of the class could benefit from a reading comprehension activity as well – what student wouldn’t? The maximum number of times this is supposed to be presented is 3 per week. Let’s say that it takes a full half hour for the kids to read this little passage and answer the questions. Is 1.5hrs out of a given week’s time too much to spend on reading comprehension strategies for a 3rd grade class? I don’t think so.
I will also say this: teacher attitude DOES play a part, here. If the teacher is resentful and snarky about the portfolio, instead of seeing it as the tool it can be, that will be reflected in her demeanor. Kids pick up on this stuff. If she simply uses it along with her usual instruction, acting like it’s just another activity that her class will use to help them read better, there is no reason for kids to be stressed about it. Kids are not pulled out for administration; there is no stressful “testing environment” to be found here. The only way kids will trip out about this is if the teacher instigates it.
I have a few reflections:
Has this program been vetted in a sample study prior to being assigned to the entire state?
Is the entire program the portfolio component, or is there more? You are assuming that each section takes half an hour, but the slower kids might need longer. Even if the total time used is 2 hours for the portfolio, that’s 20% of the weekly reading block. Perhaps the teacher would have wished to address other skill sets that week.
No, they didn’t do any sort of vetting process; it was based on the program being used in Florida right now.
After the meeting that was just held with June Atkinson today, there should hopefully be some clarification coming to the schools. It never ceases to amaze me just how much the individual districts are messing this up. The stuff we’re hearing is so, so far off from the intended purpose and use of this. There is a task force that will be convened, along with an advisory board. Perhaps some of the advocates for change should volunteer to participate?
3rd and 1/2 – it’s good to hear that the individual districts will be getting clarification on the program. Hopefully common sense will reign.
Unfortunately, basing a program on what happens in Florida, does not recommend itself. Florida is not known for having an exemplary school system. Better to look at what they are doing in Massachusetts.
One of the issues which hasn’t been discussed is the micromanaging of curriculum. With scripted instruction and detailed curriculum, there is no room for real teaching, let alone individualizing instruction. Dictating all third graders in the state to follow the same reading program, is unfair to both the teachers and the students. Whether a specific program is adopted should be based on the needs of an individual class, not for mass production. It should be offered and selected by individual districts, principals, and teachers – not mandated. Another reason for teacher push back.
One last thing – if the teacher is snarky about the new mandate, it might be because it is another item to add to their already full plate. Read the comments about the way the program is being implemented – in addition to other programs already in place.
And you do realize that the best way to improve reading ability is via free reading choice, not canned passages (no offense meant). Visiting the library, selecting a book, and actually reading it, then repeating the process, is what motivates children to read, not a reading comprehension passage. Whether it’s Junie B Jones, a picture book about the Titanic, The Magic Treehouse series, or a Redwall book, a child’s fascination with literature is a legacy which goes beyond the classroom and stays with them forever.
Please note – I am a school librarian who spent a career working with all age groups from PreK through College.
Dear 3rd & 1/2 – I can understand your ire when your intentions wrre pure but the implementation was tainted.
It appears you are a professional test writer. I wish that Peason had hired such a team as their exams were full of flaws.
Does your background include any education or child development coursework? Do you have any teaching experience with the age groups which your tests target? If not, how do you determine what is age appropriate on your assessments? And who is your boss?
I am asking these questions out of curiosity on the testing/assessment process and how one gets involved in such a career.
Hi Ellen. Yes, I was a classroom teacher in middle school for EC and ESL students at all levels. I taught all four core classes, and I hold a masters in secondary education with a concentration in reading/ELA.
We also receive training and professional development in the Common Core, along with attending professional conferences on assessment to share information among other states. In North Carolina, it has always been mandated that at least 50% of the test items that appear on a state level test *must* be written by NC teachers who are currently teaching in a classroom. We train teachers how to be item writers and reviewers for us, and we *always* welcome new teachers who are interested in being part of the construction and quality control process.
Age appropriateness is determined by several points. We run readability programs on selections, we following DPI Curriculum guidelines with regard to grade level expectations for the standards at each grade level. Each selection goes through an extensive review process, as does each test item. Every test item, for example, must be reviewed by two certified NC teachers, and DPI Curriculum. No item every hits a test if it has been rejected at any point for being too difficult, or worded in a “tricky” way, etc.
I work for NC State University. When I was told I had to leave full time teaching because of a disability, I wanted to stay in education. I found this position and went for it. There are many aspects of my job that are frustrating, both as an employee AND as a parent. I have no apologies or shame in the fact that I home schooled two of my kids for high school, and would’ve done so with the third, had he not balked at the idea.
But for now, while we DO exist in a very flawed system, there need to be people within that system who give a crap enough for kids to do their absolute best to make what we have to do fair and accessible. I cannot change the state board decisions, and I can’t change the decision by NC to adopt the Common Core. But what I CAN do is bust tail to try to help these 3rd graders who struggle have an option that gets them around a failing EOG score, and also helps them to increase their reading aptitude. I can also make sure that whatever actual tests (EOG/NCFE) that I *am* responsible for are as fair, accessible, accurate, and measurable as possible.
Dear 3rd & 1/2 – you seem well qualified for your job and sincere in your intentions. It’s tough being between a rock and a hard place. You are trying to do your best in a difficult situation. However, you are still aligned with the testing, so you need to develop some tough skin, since you will be lumped in with the pushback against the high stakes assessments. Even if the exams are fair (which they weren’t in NYS), the grading policies were definitely skewed which adversely affected both students and teachers. There is also a lot of concern over the CCSS which is flawed in many ways. So when you attempt to defend these policies, you have been placed in the status of enemy.
Obviously, you have concerns over public education if you home schooled your children. I hope your third child is having a positive experience, but I bet he’s going through the same difficulties children face throughout the US at public schools which have embraced the common core. People like Diane Ravitch have studied the issues and made recommendations which are being ignored. The true specialists in the field back her up.
If you are determined to stand your ground and be offended, I suggest you look for another blog to read. If you want to keep an open mind and participate in a robust discussion of the issues, then welcome aboard.
I am not offended in the least that people don’t like testing, or even that they revile me for being part of it – not at all.
What bothers me is when misinformation is spread around, making what could be a decent solution to a problem such as kids being promoted without reading proficiency, into a persecution. When the portfolio project is compared, as it was in one such news article, to the “torture” of children, it irritates me, not because I’m a fan of the system, but because I’m not a fan of kneejerk overreactions without having all of the facts.
My son isn’t in the public system anymore, as he’s now a junior in college. But you’re absolutely right, as I freely admitted, I find the public education extremely flawed. However, I simply choose not to vilify every attempt at a solution that’s given to schools, simply because it comes from that flawed system.
3rd and a half – you have not been listening. Have you read the comments on this blog by third grade teachers, some from North Carolina? They are chronicling their experiences with the program you helped write and it is not pretty.
I can’t speak for other states (I can only extrapolate), but in NYS, where the CCSS and the assessments have already been adopted, both teachers and students are struggling. I ran into a fourth grade teacher I once worked with, and, although guarded with her comments, she did admit that it was a lot to take in. This from a master teacher. Now, what about her students.
Parents in NYS are reacting to the amount and type of homework their children have, from kindergarten on. Their children, who once loved school, now are apathetic, at best. Education has become all about test prep. The reading assignments and curriculum are often not age appropriate. Due to the emphasis on CCSS, many of the specials, such as music, art, gym, library, instrumental, etc., have been cut back or discontinued in order to pay for the new assessments. For example, in Buffalo, to meet the physical education requirements, the elementary students have to exercise with a 30 minute video in the classroom. Also, there is not a lot of time for those enrichment activities which make school exciting. The Common Core is boring and repetitive. Thirty six reading assessments (and that’s just for reading) is cumbersome, at the least, and, some would argue, abusive to both teacher and student.
So, please understand when we call this child abuse, we are responding to the angst of our children. To many, it is not an exaggeration.
I reread Diane’s above post, and I didn’t find any lies or exaggerations. She is calling out the powers in charge to re examine their policies. It doesn’t help that these same people send their own children to private schools which provide the educational opportunities which they are denying to the children in the public schools.
If you can’t see and/or respect where and why so many feel angry, then I don’t know what else to say.
athirdandahalf,
It is extraordinarily refreshing to read these comments. Most of this work is done in complete secrecy, under contracts that muzzle the folks producing the work, and so we don’t usually get this sort of frank public discussion, which is just what we do, in fact, need. Thanks for your willingness to engage here.
Thank you, Robert. I appreciate that. There are aspects that I cannot discuss, of course, but much of what I can share is actually public knowledge. The downside is that many LEAs choose not to share everything, or they share selective parts, or they change what they want to convey. (Such as Wake county deciding to use the portfolio for every student, and mandating 3 selections per week, etc!)
I just gave the first week of these “mini-assessments” today. We have to give three a week, so our school decided the best way to give these assessments was to do it all in one day. It took an hour and a half and also requires pull outs for mod groups. It’s ridiculous. We will spend all our guided reading time and part of social studies time one day a week giving these tests. All while we are jn the midst of end of quarter testing and during the middle of the year Dibels/TRC/Daze testing. I will do practically nothing else this week but test. And what should I do with all this data? There’s no time to reflect and reteach! Absolutely ridiculous and sad.
I thought that maybe a third grade teacher in NC should weigh in on this. I can only speak for what is occurring in my county, but here is what I am up against: I have to complete all reading 3D data within an approximate 2 week period. This involves a three minute fill in the blank test (whole class), three one minute timed reads with three one minute retells of each read, and a diagnosis of a students independent reading level by testing their reading, writing, and oral comprehension of leveled passages. The writing consists of two questions which are scored against a rubric and you must take the LOWER of the two scores. This must be completed on every student in my class.
In addition, our school opted to give EVERY child the portfolio assessment. Why? Because there are many reasons why a child might fail an EOG test. Some may not be good test takers, some may be sick, some may misalign the test, others may have something happen to them or their family but their parents decide to send them to school anyway because of the test. I cannot tell you how many children have been sent into my room feverish, throwing up, having little to no sleep due to a family emergency, etc. Therefore, every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, our students will take an assessment based on whatever standard the county has stated we are testing on that particular week at least until we get to a review week where students will be retesting on the tests they failed.
Janna, I read your post. I analyze the data and look at which students need remediation but honestly, right now, all I see is testing with this: portfolio assessments; benchmark testing, Reading 3D testing and AR testing. Let’s not forget these are children. Little people with strengths and weaknesses. Children who have dreams and aspirations. Children who develop at a highly individualized rate that cannot be changed by any state test or legal mandate. Children who want to have FUN. Children who should be having fun while they are learning. What areas do you excel at-the ones who are fun to you or laborious?
At some point I am still supposed to TEACH literacy. Whole and small group-with rigor and engaging activities. In small groups I should be spiraling back to the necessary weak skills that my students may need extra help with and challenge those students who need the challenge. Do not forget that I have to make sure that all students are staying on task while the small group and independent testing is occurring. ALL of this is to occur within a two hour block of literacy. Our school also uses accelerated reader so the students then test on the books they read independently because they need to meet their AR goal. I am also held accountable if that goal is not met by the majority of my class.
Afterwards, I need to continue to teach math, science and social studies lessons, make sure students have opportunities to interact with technology (I have 3 outdated computers in the classroom), lunch, recess (which is mandated as well let’s not forget), and usually fine arts taught by a specialist. During that time, I am supposed to plan with colleagues, grade the portfolio assessments, grade, meet with parents, make phone calls, and if I am lucky, use the bathroom.
You want to talk about the test? The test is skewed to white upper/middle class students who have had certain experiences. My students have never seen the ocean. They have never touched a seashell before my class. These students don’t have gardens, haven’t seen deer in the wild and many of them don’t ride in cars because their parents don’t have one. Their parents don’t talk to them. Not because they don’t care, but because they are working two and three jobs just to try to survive. These babies are being watched by slightly older babies who use Disney and Nick as babysitters. My students need to be immersed into museums and places in our state. They need to feel the sand between their toes at a beach and feel the cold mountain air blow in their face. They need to visit a real farm, not a pumpkin patch and smell the earth when it has been freshly turned by a plow. They need to see works of fine art and go to the symphony. They need to go to a fine dining restaurant and learn the proper etiquette for eating out. You want to equalize the gap? THAT is how to do it. NOT through testing. They need experiences.
I have two important questions. Where is the student accountability in this? Also where is parent accountability? When you have students who flat refuse to do what you ask them, how is that MY fault? I have had classes where the majority of my students were labeled oppositional defiant, autistic, ADHD, bi-polar, etc. I have had students in my class who couldn’t speak English or even read in their native language, but I am supposed to get them ON grade level? Did I teach them? YES. Did they grow? YES. However, try as I might, they did not get on grade level. I never quit teaching them, but what happens when teachers no longer want little Johnny or Susie because it affects their salary? What about the parents who make excuses for their children’s lack of performance? Explain to me how it is my fault that they have not raised their child in a manner that would allow them to succeed. How is it my fault they argue and scream at the teacher instead of doing their work. How is it my fault that they refuse to complete assignments? Parents blame the teacher because obviously it is their fault-the legislature says so. When teachers can no longer teach, when they no longer have the respect of society, how long do you think they will stay in their job? I guess we will see soon.
I LOVE my students, I LOVE teaching, but what I am doing now is a pale comparison to what I used to do and I would not classify it as teaching. I spend hundreds of dollars a month on my class. Money as a single mom that I really don’t have, but if I don’t spend that money, my students don’t have pencils, paper, or tissues or other supplies. Parents feel it is MY responsibility to provide these supplies. Schools cannot give out what they do not have, budgets have been cut and schools have to make choices between staff and supplies. I love North Carolina. This is the only state that I have ever lived in and I cannot imagine leaving but I will be hard pressed to continue to do what I love because I cannot pay my bills. I had to tell my high school senior that I have no money to help her with college. Not even for her textbooks. She doesn’t have her driver’s license because I have been unable to afford to put her on my insurance. I will very soon be faced with the choice of moving to another state or choosing a new career. I never thought that my own state would force me into that kind of decision.
Kudos to you! You are exactly correct in everything you said. I hope you do not leave NC since you are the type of teacher we should be fighting to keep. I do not mind you having data so you know where your students are at but enough is enough! It is not your fault when a child is constantly absent or has a reading disability. And the way we are overtesting is just going to makes sure our students hate reading and refuse to do it.
The recipe for teaching reading is not to keep testing. It is to make sure students have at least 90% success and get a lot of support. I could get students even with significant delays to learn to read by making sure I kept it fun and relevant. I always kept it challenging but not frustrating. The second I see frustration I usually change gears since too much of it just shuts children down. I give students a lot of feedback on what they are doing correct so they see their successes. Then they are will to hear suggestions and corrections since they know I know they can I believe they can improve. But I may alter this depending on the child.(There are exceptions- some children thrive when challenged).
I have taught children with significant reading delays by having them read material that suited their interests and choosing reading methods that matched their strengths. I had great success with Language Experience Approaches when working with students who had limited backgrounds since I needed to make sure I only judged their reading on topics I knew were in their listening and speaking vocabularies. I also had great success with some very basic skills approaches like VAKT, Slingerlund, even some SRA. Even Starfall.com was a life saver for a few young readers. Even some packages like Wilson or Failure Free Reading worked for some older children. Writing to Read program work well for some and I could go on and on.
We do not diagnose a lot of language delays and they only manifest themselves as reading problems. So we spend a lot of time working on phonics when the issue is that the child does not have the conceptual understanding so they do not comprehend the word even if they can learn to sound it out.
Sorry to go off topic- As to your question to accountability- here is an answer I gave to a previous post:
“Learning does not occur on an interval basis. Children do not necessarily learn the same amount in one year as another due to multiple factors. But even if one did, the teacher is just one variable in the mix. Right now, experts are arguing that poverty is the issue, other experts blame the teachers. I know that the truth is much muddier than that. Hattie’s work shows over 100 variables that impact achievement. Approximately, student characteristics impacts 50% and schools approximately 30% of student achievement. According to Haertal, the teacher impact on student achievement is only 10%. But regardless of the research, common sense dictates that blaming all of an achievement score on any one cause is irrational. And for each child it is probably different.”
Sorry to ramble here but I just want you to know that you need to ignore the EOG and just teach reading to the best of your ability for each child. And teach them all subjects and teach them to think well of themselves and to be kind to others. Teach critical inquiry and discovery. I want a teacher who loves my children like you and will make sure they are safe, secure and thriving. See their strengths and let them use them. I am so sorry that you will be judged on criteria you have very little control over but in the meantime realize they still cannot turn you into a lousy teacher unless you let them.
I am not religious but this quote has helped me in times like this:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
I think we accept this for the short run and work around it for the students we have now, but fight it so it will be changed in the future. I am so sorry you and all the teachers have been thrown into such an impossible situation.
Janna – my son, with a reading disability, went to an elementary school where you could request the teacher. My request was for a loving teacher who actually wanted my child. I did not want him in a situation where the teacher resented the extra work required to teach him. He also came with a teacher’s aide (which some teachers don’t like). I must say, that all his teachers were very fond of him and gave him a good experience, in spite of his personal issues. I have no regrets.
Ellen, that sounds wonderful. I hope your son thrived and is doing well.Even though I have been an educator for over 30 years all I want for my children is that the schools do no harm to them. I am fine if my children do not learn everything the standards say they should learn. But I do not want them to learn that they are deficient or unable to learn.I do not want them to think they are “bad” as something. I do not want limits put on them. And I want them to know all people are valuable regardless of their abilities. In almost all cases my children have teachers who sincerely care about them. And I am eternally grateful to those teachers for caring for the children I love. I am also grateful that they try to shield my children from excessive testing when they can and do their best to still keep learning fun, relevant and engaging. I know it is not easy these days.
Janna, he did well through eighth grade, even learned how to read and write, but he melted down in high school. We pulled him out when he was seventeen and had him get his GED – which we treated like a graduation. He tried community college, but it was too much for him to handle. He was hired as a dishwasher and ended up as assistant manager at a high end bistro. Then, recently, after four years, they changed management, so he is taking a break. The future is to be determined.
It is important for the child, his parents, and the school to work together. It really helps to know your rights and be able to navigate the system. There are many children out there who are not getting the proper services due to the ignorance of the parents and/or the overwhelming need/neglect of the student population.
Ellen,
I am very glad to hear your son was successful working and able to work his way into management. I have admiration for anyone who manages other people. It sounds like he and your granddaughter are bright, talented people that have gifts that do not always manifest well within school. I was one of them myself. Even though I tested well, I was considered an underachiever. So I left high school and started college at 16. It was not all smooth sailing, but when I decided to do well I had my Ph. D. by the time I was 30.
What I want for my children and your son and granddaughter is for them to be happy. I want them to find things to feel passionately about and skills they love to do. And I do not want anyone making them think they are less worthy than others just because of school. I enjoy teaching all subjects and I find the enjoyment in almost all learning. I am fortunate that I have been able to pass that on to students for over 30 years. But learning is not a contest or a race. There should be no winners or losers. If we learn and we grow, we all win. 🙂
I want the same for my family and my students.
I was fortunate enough to be twelve years in one school as the school librarian and watch my students grow from elementary age to high school graduation. One I knew from the time he was three. Many of them are my Facebook friends and I am having fun following them in their college years. Their feedback is positive and it feels natural to remain a part of their lives – and they feel the same way.
My mom, a music teacher who touched many lives, at 86, has many of her former students on Facebook. They seek her out. When she meets them on the street, they hug her. She was my role model in my career. That is what education should be all about.
Wow- what a legacy Ellen. I am sure your mom has touched so many lives. I am sure you have too. When people ask me what I do for a living I say I teach But let me tell you a secret since I know you and your mom understand . . . I think we all are undercover fairy godmothers since our goal is to make other people’s dreams come true. 🙂
Ellen…This is where the CCSS fails students like your son…They do not provide for all students.. They have all students on the same track thinking that a fish can climb a tree….and if the fish fails…he is stupid….
How sad….Education should be for everyone and intelligence should not be judged by “One Size Fits All” .
Every person has a purpose in life but the CCSS Testing Maniacs disregard this fact completely and keeps pushing all of our wonderful diverse children on the same path!!
It honestly makes me sick when I think about what is happening…
A former teacher and I were looking over the standards a couple of days ago…for Math -8……and we said at the same time..”Why would every child need to know how to write a recursive formula…or some Now-Next..and all of the other garbage that requires the use of the $100 plus calculator??????????
Both of us have taught all Math from 7-12 and beyond and find the standards so chaotic, cluttered, and scripted that it provides for not one bit of creativity…..
You work 18 hours a day trying to put it all together until you realize you are Teaching to a Test …..you are not anymore trying to teach and guide each child to learn about the real world and where they will fit into society and be successful…….you are only teaching a test. NC …in my opinion….tests more than any state in the Union and they appear to be a Data Factory and Hell bent on the “One Size Fits All”
Einstein had it Spot on with his quote which I have modified ….
OK Fish…You can no longer swim…It is not in the CCSS standards……You fail if you can not climb the tree..and because you fail..you are stupid…..
PS….we both quit…now in Private Schools where creativity still exists…
I can’t blame CCSS or even the high school (we tried every school model they had to offer), I do blame Commissioner Mills for requiring every child to get a Regents Diploma. Ultimately, it was my son’s choice to stop engaging in the education process.
However, my bright, creative grand daughter is caught up in this new paradigm and I am worried for her. She’s only in 6th grade, but I fear we won’t untangle this mess before she graduates. She has a high IQ, but only got ones on her assessments. She attends one of the best middle schools in the county. We shall see what happens.
To clarify: A NC 3rd grade student who takes only 36 of these tests passed them all. Most will take much more than 36. Each failed one means a retest later. 72 is (I believe) the maximum.
Oh my……and this is what Einstein said after only one exam..
“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not.
This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”
― Albert Einstein
Goodreads.com
This is a RIP OFF…pure and simple.
When I started working as a Teacher’s Aide (as we were called in 1978) I worked with children. Helping them if they didn’t understand something or in correcting mistakes. The teacher and I both had reading groups, according to their level, with the idea to move them up to a higher group. We also did math as a class, explaining if they didn’t understand, giving examples of what they would be doing later. Sometimes working in small groups on projects. When I retired in 2003 the only thing I had time to do was ‘run off test’ and then grade them, and if the children were lucky, we might get to go over mistakes and show them how to get the right answer. This was math and reading. Little time was spent on History and Science. Read a chapter, take a test, and on to the next. Now I understand there is even less teaching and more testing. The ‘powers’ need to understand that all children do not learn at the same pace, some need more than one work sheet or story to understand what they are doing or looking for. Also there are more interesting ways to teach/learn than just read and do. All fun learning has been taken out of our schools. Now id they have a science project, they don’t get to do their own thing, the teacher tells them what to do. No individual instruction, little one on one, and little real learning. I could go on and on, but this is my side of the story.
Betsy…you are so right!!!
That is precisely the way I feel !!!!
Run off tests then grade them….So many tests their is no time to give relevant feedback..It is all testing…..The students never get to see exactly what they missed on any end of the year exam….just some general goal they missed that could easily be one of 100,000 questions…..or even more…
You said “Children do not learn at the same pace”…That is History in this new curriculum……Teachers are not arguing about the standards themselves…..it is the over testing and….there are too many standards to teach….way too many…It is pure and simple Cram…Cram..Cram…No learning…It is a total burn-out for teachers (testers in 2014) and students(robots in 2014)
It is untrue that all NC 3rd grade students will have to take 36 new reading assessments.. While changes need to be made in the General Assembly’s Read to Achieve law. and there are better ways for students to read well rather than retention, the law allows teachers to decide whether to use a portfolio rather than another option to determine whether a student is to be promoted to 4th grade.
So not all, but some. I believe the issue at hand is that NO 3rd grader should be having to take these additional tests. Portfolios, used and designed correctly would be a more accurate way to assess students from the start. Nix the additional testing and go straight to portfolio. Don’t continue to subject our future to multiple choice options.
This was a massive contributing factor behind my leaving my career as a public school teacher in NC. In my ten years, under your helm, I received national board certification and a MA in teaching curriculum. This opened my eyes to “best practices” and this testing in not that. It is time for Raleigh to reeducate themselves.
Thank you for posting about this. I am the parent of a 3rd grader in NC. I discovered your wonderful blog while searching for answers about Read to Achieve. The more I find out, the more concerned I become. I posted about my worries and tried to round up articles about school systems’ concerns here: http://www.ncparentsforlearning.blogspot.com/
Angie – thank you for your link.
It amazes me that anyone thinks that children will magically learn to read by taking more tests/assessments? That is probably why they cut the funding for the staffing which could have provided the small group or individual instruction that might have made a true difference.
I live in an affluent school district and my dyslexic son was able to take advantage of the proper instruction and thus learned to read by the end of middle school (not third grade) with the help of a small class (6) and a specialized reading program (Wilson). The school also provided activities to foster self worth, including an overnight team building field trip (he’s still friends with the other boys from that group).
They treated my child as a valued human being, not a statistic. (Now the same school is fighting the pressures of NYS politics to maintain a quality program.)
I want the same treatment for all children. Obviously, many of the legislatures in North Carolina (and, unfortunately, also in NYS) do not believe in the humanity of our children.
Keep fighting for quality education. Trust the teachers – they have your child’s best interests at heart. Beware of wolves in sheeps clothing who claim a new and improved education. They are either clueless, deluded, or just plain evil.
This article explains very well why private schools succeed. Private schools do not have the government telling them how and what to teach. No bureaucratic paperwork and reports.