On the new website testingtalk.org, educators are venting their rage at tests that are developmentally inappropriate and overly technical in their approach to reading. Go to the website to read more comments.
Here is one principal: http://testingtalk.org/response/day-3-grades-3-5
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is absurd. The third grade test includes an excerpt from a book that, according to Scholastic, is written at a Grade Level Equivalent of 5.2. Its Lexile Measure is 650L, and it’s categorized as a Level X Guided Reading selection. Yet, it appears on a test that has been written for third grade students.
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is incongruous with Common Core Learning Standards. The same third grade test asks students to identify how specific paragraphs support the organizational structure of a selected piece of literature. The Reading Standards for Literature in Grade 3, with respect to Craft and Structure, state that Grade 3 students should be able to: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. It is not until Grade 5, according to The Reading Standards for Literature, that students should be able to: Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem.
Day 3 of the Common Core NYS ELA is ill-conceived. A short- answer question that appears on the Grade 4 exam calls upon students to explain why a specific piece of text is effectively written. Regardless of what the Reading Standards say, or don’t, about evaluating text, how in the world can a test be created around such an entirely subjective question?
An administrator of a suburban public school, I take seriously my responsibility to students and teachers. It seems to me that the most responsible thing that I could have done this morning would have been to excuse teachers and students from being bullied by an absurd, incongruous and ill-conceived test.
Here is another: Kate Mathews, principal: Day 3 exam, esp for 3rd Grade poorly written, developmentally inappropriate & soul crushing- http://go.shr.lc/1mFdECB
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Teacher after teacher, principal after principal–the comments run like this:
“For the first time in my many years of teaching do I feel like I am embarrassed to be in this profession. Embarrassed to think For three days I allowed the kids to take a test that would hurt them! Embarrassed to think as educators we allowed this to happen! We need to remember this as a symbol for what is wrong with education and what is wrong with compliance. We have to fight back and say no to curriculum that doesn’t teach, to programs that do not work, to assessments that can destroy children.”
This teacher is right. It’s time to start saying no.
Opt out.
So now teachers and administrators are put in the position of “crushing souls”……how sad is that?
Stop the tests. It is the right thing to do. They will not be used for promotion decisions. They will not be included on transcripts. Teachers are not allowed to use them for any actual assessment of what skills a child has or does not have. They don’t actually assess any real skills anyway. So why are we putting our students through this time wasting soul crushing ordeal? To create data? For accountability? Because it is too embarrassing to say it has all been a big mistake? The sooner the emperor realizes he is naked, the sooner the children will stop pointing at him and laughing….John King, Governor Cuomo, Merryl Tisch……
Just dealing with the Practice Test has been a nightmare. Is it testing their ability to comprehend and respond or is it testing their ability to highlight, click, drag and type? As for the math,…. one question has them click and drag digits to write a three digit answer, while another has them type the number — pick one format and stick with it. I truly dread the portion where they have to type a multiparagraph essay. WPM ranges from 5 to 17, most don’t have computer access at home and when they do …. they use it for games not for keyboarding. Our class gets 25 minutes of computer lab time a week, just how much practice keyboarding do the PTB think that provides. Plus the proposed schedule for testing is insane… scheduling classes back to back, overlapping regularly scheduled recesses and lunchtimes…. upset their routines and you have a bunch of disorientated, unfocused students…. I have never been happier that I am only 5 years from retirement.
It is the legal and moral obligation of every adult who is aware of the abuse of a child to report that abuse.
These tests are child abuse.
Reblogged this on McBlog.
An April 2 post titled “For the love of reading” by an anonymous NY teacher positively nails the disservice and punishment standardized testing is inflicting on our children.
TRAPS not tests; designed to TRICK, CONFUSE, FRUSTRATE, TIRE OUT, and WEAR DOWN young test takers into FAILING.
I rest my case.
Test-prep-proof too!
YES
After 36 years of a very successful, positive and rewarding career in the classroom, I think it’s time to pack it in. I no longer have the energy to fight the “new and improved” standards, the tests, the government and CS. My fifth graders were devastated after Day 3. The ELA test was a joke and didn’t measure anything except how many fifth graders could fall apart within 90 minutes. This is child abuse.
The stories are compelling.
We may soon have a place to present the evidence we’re gathering to “our” elected representatives. Politico ran two paragraphs yesterday about newly-appointed House Education & the Workforce committee member Mark Takano. He told them he’s “homing in on several areas with his new committee appointment: overtesting in K-12 public schools, making college affordable and keeping for-profit schools in check.”
http://www.politico.com/morningeducation/0414/morningeducation13501.html#.Uz4AlvBdAyU.twitter
This is exciting. Takano is that Rep who staged an “intervention” for House Republicans recently, and I think we’re going to see a cat with catnip when he looks into this mess.
By the way, he says he’s “agnostic” on charters, but he’s going after for-profits in higher ed, so that might catch his attention for K12 charters, too. He knows the public schools serve all students. His first task is to review a charter school bill introduced Tuesday by Chairman John Kline and ranking member George Miller.
I happened to catch Randi’s congratulatory tweet on his appointment last night while I was checking Takano out. Make sure other people are talking to him, please. This could be a good guy, and we don’t want Wormtongue dumbing him down. We have to expose how this was done to actual children, with Randi’s complicity, under force of law! Our goal is to end the Common Core exams, and break the power of the corporate special interests that inflicted them.
I think the goal of delaying them will be met by the absolutely incandescent opt-out movement, and by websites like this.
How typically normal according to American culture in especially the last 15 years.
Big business screws up big time. Big business consumers become casualties as they feed and grow big busness. Big business grows even bigger and profits. Weakened and deadened consumers are tossed aside and replenished with new consumers, this time even less critically thinking than the last chewed up and spat out batch.
Meantime big business belches and burps while reading its tax refund check from bIg diconnected-from-consumer government.
This is all so labyrinthal and bureaucratic.
Would it not be more efficient to revert back to a system of simple serfdom or slavery?
I read many excerpts of frustrated teachers from testingtalk and feel for the students taking these nonsensical tests that teachers and administrators are forced to give them. But Krashen’s posting at this site makes the most sense in that we all should be loudly and clearly protesting against THE REAL ISSUE that is being “smoked screened” by the roll out of common core… We are so busy addressing common core issues that the real issue of poverty has become barely a sidebar. Clearly real educators are putting out so many fires started by “ed reformers” who are controlling us. How do we take an offensive and not a defensive position???? Here is Krashen’s post:
“Testing Talk: A Weapon of Mass Distraction”
Author: Stephen Krashen, Parent | State: CA | Test: All Tests | Date: April 2 at 9:59 pm ET
“We are invited to give our opinions about the content of common core tests. We are not invited to discuss whether we need the tests or for that matter whether we should have the common core. For those who haven’t been paying attention, the common core will impose more testing than has ever been seen on this planet, far more than is helpful or necessary. There is no research shwoing that increasing testing improves achievement, and the amount of money involved is staggering, especially the cost of technology, as the tests will be delivered online.
Those who accept the invitation to discuss the content of the tests will have the impression they have a seat at the table. In reality, invitations to discuss the standards and tests are a means of control, diverting attention from the real issues:
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum … That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate” (N. Chomsky, The Common Good, p. 42, 2002)
The problem in American education is not a matter of getting the right tests. The problem is poverty. Our students from middle-class families who attend well-funded schools score at the top of the world on international tests. The US has the highest level of child poverty among all industrialized countries. If all our children were protected from the effects of poverty our overall international test scores would be spectacular.
Poverty means little health care, poor nutrition and little access to books and has a devastating effect on school achievement. The best teaching is ineffective when children are hungry, ill, and have nothing to read. The impact of poverty could be profoundly reduced if we invested more on food programs, health care, and libraries, instead of on useless standards and tests.
We have been told not to worry about these things but instead to debate about the details of the tests. We can be sure that PARCC et al will repair the minor problems (e.g. boring passages, not enough time), but presuppositions of the system will be reinforced, as Chomsky predicts.
Testing talk is a weapon of mass distraction.”
Parsing and debating the appropriateness of the tests may be a distraction; fighting them is not.
On the macro level, Krashen is correct, but students, parents and teachers facing these tests in real time are confronted with a heedless, sadistic system that is using the tests as a profit center and weapon.
In a situation like that, the first thing you have to do is keep the assailant from harming you. That’s what opposition to the tests is about, a desperate attempt to keep students from being brutalized while their test data is being mined, parents from helplessly watching school being ruined for their kids, and teachers from having their livelihoods destroyed.
Yes, we must keep pointing out the big picture, but we also have to save ourselves today.
I agree.
It is true that US whites outscore whites in nearly all other white dominated countries but it is also true that US “Hispanics” outscore all Latin American countries while “Asian-Americans” outscored Japan and South Korea and were not far below Shanghai. Since “Asian-Americans” are not exclusively East Asian it is likely that American students of East Asian descent probably do as good or better than most student populations in East Asia.
In short the US public education system is clearly the best in the world in terms of student performance. On the other hand the US school system may be excessively expensive. This is suggested by the fact that Slovakia gets pretty decent results although per student spending there is only a little higher than in Mexico. Mexico might well benefit from an increase in it’s current very low level of investment in education but the US and many European countries are probably long past the point of diminishing returns from investment in education.
In his book “The Collapse of Complex Cultures”, Joseph Tainter stated that over-investment in once productive activities is characteristic of declining cultures. He gave educational investment in the US as an example. In the 19th century there was a relatively modest amount of investment in education with a high ROI. In more recent time US investment in education has greatly increased but ROI seems low.
Reblogged this on Middletown Voice.
Allowing poverty to flourish is tatamount to child abuse. When someone with billions of dollars virtually forces cash strapped schools to waste money on buying “special” laptops just for testing when schools cannot afford to hire a full time nurse… this is child abuse. The enormous amount of money spent for testing could be used a lot more wisely to address the very raw and very real poverty-related problems that make it extremely challenging and often nearly impossible for students to overcome… and do not get me started on “GRIT”… the common core test is the biggest colossal smokescreen deflecting the poverty issue WHILE INCREASING THE GOLDEN LINING OF CORPORATE POCKETS WHICH ARE GETTING BIGGER AND BIGGER AND ARE HOLDING MORE AND MORE GOLD.
Let us reflect on how we argue against common core and FRAME IT AROUND POVERTY… Money for all things related to common core?? Or Money to set up programs designed to erradicate poverty??? I VOTE THE LATTER!
Money for common core or money for quality enrichment based after school programming?
Money for common core or money for increased dental van visits at schools?
Money for common core or money for more social workers for home visits?
There are so many “either or questions” to be added to this list. We can continue arguing about the problems of common core (and there are too many to believe) or we can take the offense and argue about poverty and HOW THE MONEY IS BEING WASTED ON COMMON CORE.
Poverty is abusive to anyone and we see how it abuses the young we work with. Common core is one more abuse under this umbrella that is even a more insidious abuse as it is also a “reverse robin hood” and takes NEEDED MONEY FOR THE IMPOVERISHED and KEEPS RECIRCULATING IT AMONG THE RICH.
I say let’s discuss common core but ALWAYS FRAMED AROUND POVERTY. Clear out the smoke and the hideous truth will appear. Right now we are hopping up and down so our feet do not get burned by the common core fires.
Not exactly a follow-up to other comments but I had an epiphany while reading the account from the principal in New York. Note: I am a high school history tacher who specializes in AP classes.
Is this how Common Core is teaching kids to read? By breaking down reading into components rather than, you know, simply reading it?
Because if that’s the case, then more kids than ever will be turned off of reading. And as a teacher of nearly twenty years, kids read less than ever (unless it’s 140 characters or less). I read dozens of books annually with a great variety. I love reading but this approach is so dry and mechanical that kids will see only the technical aspects. Don’t read for pleasure but only for purpose apparently. (Which, of course, dampens enthusiasm about reading entirely.)
What happened to teaching our kids HOW to read? How can we expect students to carry out close reading before learning basic reading skills?
Indeed, by getting young people to enjoy reading, we can then get them to take the next step, which is to develop awareness of why they liked something and what the author did to bring about that enjoyment.
By focusing solely on the the components of reading and writing, we are guaranteed to drive students even further into the arms of Twitter.
Oh, wait, maybe that’s the idea…
It is precisely the case that if these tests are given and are high stakes, then people will be forced, for the benefit of their students, to teach them to do “reading for the test” and “writing for the test,” as opposed to teaching them reading and writing.
These tests are not only extraordinarily expensive and abusive, but they are also INVALID as rests of real reading and writing and distort both curricula and pedagogy.
End the tests.
Tell the educrats and the politicans supporting these:
If you support giving these tests, then ipso facto, you do not know what you are doing and should be removed from office.
The PARCC Twitter account is alight with glowing reports of happy children, ecstatic teachers and administrators, and smooth rollouts. Perhaps their feed would benefit from a little balance, non? Seriously, I had to stop reading it this morning; the saccharine was too much for my coffee to counteract. https://twitter.com/PARCCPlace
These people are not only idiots but, also, clearly, liars.
We should boycott Pearson. I’m a principal and I could very easily decide to no longer buy anything from Pearson. I think it’s time for a Pearson boycott because they are not even trying to make a decent test.
Sent from my iPad
>
How about teachers opting out of grading Pearson’s tests?
E. Teacher, the tests are delivered online. The teachers don’t score them. Machines and minimum-wage workers hired from Craig’s List score them.
greta information. This is the specific I requested. It is developmentally inappropriate and the test is not aligned with the standards. Both of these are red flags that the outcome of the exams will not be a valid measure of student achievement. One has to ask, given their monopoly on developing the standards, the materials for instruction, and the exams, how do they mess this up?
“. . . the exams will not be a valid measure of student achievement.”
Ahhh! “Student Acheivement”, nice edudeformer talk,eh!! I couldn’t care less about “student achievement” much less “measuring” this supposed holy grail of educational malpractice-a standardized test.
Noel Wilson has proven the complete epistemological and ontological invalidity of the whole processes that are educational standards and standardized testing. Read and learn why this is so in his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Not sure if this comment is relevant, but from the small number of PARCC questions released, and from the Common Core textbooks I’ve studied, the level of expectation for high school Algebra II students is at a level that (with some extra work on trigonometry and the actual Calculus class) would assure a 5 on the AP Calculus test (AB). Is it right to expect this level of performance from all students? Is it wrong to believe that many (or really most typical) students can’t perform at A (or really A+) level? I’m reading much about how the PARCC expectations for the youngest are inappropriate, and yet there’s not much thought given towards the other end of K-12 where kids are expected to have mastered all material from prior grades. Our PARCC tests start next year, and I really don’t know what to expect. Based on what I’m seeing, I find it hard to foresee many of my students passing (whatever passing is).
I’ve said the same thing. Secondary I in Utah for 9th graders has elements that are in AP BC Calculus. It’s nearly impossible for struggling students to pass, and special education referrals are WAY up in my district because of Common Core.
If PARCC extrapolates the level of difficulty we are seeing in the lower grades, which I expect it will, and students are unable to graduate HS because of it, that’s when the serious lawyers will step in and the CCSS walls will come tumbling down.
I did a little research on the site, and I have not been able to figure out what their agenda is. If you go to the site and select “Meet the Committee” button, the members read like a “Who’s Who” of Common Core book authors. The registered owner of the site is confidential. It is a new site. I don’t trust them. They may be an agency for discredit.
People can also post positive comments. So who exactly will be discredited besides Pearson and the testing companies. There was once a time when teachers were allowed to look at these tests, There was once a time when these tests were published after being administered. But after Pearson got caught with reading and math questions that were incorrect, it all turned secret. How much money did Pearson pay government leaders to make sure the content of their tests wasn’t scrutinized for errors.
Ralph, Anthony Cody and Julian Heileg-Vasquez (sp?) are on the board. I would trust either one with my life, if we were in Paris in 1944. You can post on the site.
I would encourage everybody to post their experiences, and let a real discussion begin. The CCSS hangers-on who are on the board might be trying to let go, and need evidence.
I wish teachers in my kids school district would speak up! I’ve seen my sons happy little soul get crushed when he started the ” new math”. Had a meeting with principal and his teacher because of the change we had seen in ours sons behavior. Crying doing homework and now hates school. We were told it had nothing to do with the math and that it must be something going on at home!! Really??
And don’t forget, the people who will be scoring these super-important very crucial tests which everything to do with your school depends on are people they are finding via Craig’s List Ads hired as temps for $12 an hour.
Thank you Jen for reminding us of that fact as well. Your job is now being determined by Joe the retired plumber instead of a certified teacher in the field.
Well that right there is how we can get them. I’m sure if we get the jobs filled by anti common core people and pass on the info about the absurd questions and passages ,and also grade every test with the highest grade, we can stop it!!! I’m sure if all teachers and students choose to have a good old-fashioned “sit in” in the schools, eventually someone will listen.
Heather, teachers don’t score the tests.
The Pearson tests in NY are scored by ELA teachers. They can only look/score one small section, never being allowed to see the entire exam. They also have to sign non-disclosure agreeements.
This is true! I will be out of my classroom (in NYS) for two days to score the assessments I did not deliver to students. Although I will not see my students, I as an ELA teacher am required to be trained to grade and grade these ridiculous tests.
As I said, can teachers opt out of grading?
Well then… maybe if you do your job “bad enough” you will be “fired” from scoring. Just give everyone top points for each question for each section you’re given and when they “scold you” for scoring incorrectly, just respond, “I did my best…”!
Read Todd Farley’s, “Making the Grades” to get a sense of the bull SH behind the testing industry. I and fellow teachers were forced to score English language learner tests several years ago. We got anchors to look at and boy was that a load of “sh”… A student who barely new a stitch of English would get points just for writing words in the prompt while a student who knew English pretty well and answered the question in a roundabout way would get zero points.
Refuse to sign the non-disclosure agreement on the grounds of being a conscientious objector. Tell them that if the test is as unfairly constructed as you’ve been led to believe that you will have no choice but to reveal the details. Who is your priority after all, the students? or reformers? Then see what they say. With any luck they will relieve you of your assignment.
Scoring accuracy and reliability are an absolute joke. To appreciate just how bad it becomes, take a look at the scoring rubric from Pearson. Now factor in the the reality of one hundred teachers, thousands of student written responses, and two days to finnish.
Retired teachers are also paid to help, but not necessarily certified in ELA. Scoring speed becomes the priority.
Here are some scoring guidelines from Pearson:
They use student samples to demonstrate 4, 3, 2, or 1 point responses to each specific writing prompt.
This is the instruction to scorers for identifying a 3 point (out of 4) response; note it is specific to the prompt. I am unable to copy and paste the handwritten student sample tha comes with it. Scorers must read similar samples for every propmt and for every possible score, that is on the test. Ready, set, GO!
This not an April Fool’s joke. Picture the conference room with one hundred teachers and boxes upon boxes containg thousands of exams.
>This response clearly introduces a topic in a manner that follows from the task and purpose (Gustahote
believed that he wasn’t strong and that he wanted to be something stronger and mightier. The two young
fireflies believed that seeing the world is much more important than respecting their elders). The response
demonstrates grade-appropriate comprehension and analysis of the texts (Gustahote learned his lesson at
the end and when a voice whispered to be content). The use of relevant evidence is sustained throughout
(The two young fireflies learned their lessons at the end and They learned that two yound fireflys are not
so important and to be happy, they must keep the firefly laws). The response exhibits clear organization,
and links ideas using grade-appropriate words and phrases (In the beginning, So, if ). The language is
grade-appropriate with domain-specific vocabulary (Gustahote listened and now he still guards the valley).
The response provides a concluding statement that follows from the topic and information presented (So
those are the lessons that those to animals learned and if they want to be happy they must follow the laws).
The response demonstrates grade-appropriate command of conventions, with occasional errors (yound and
fireflys) that do not hinder comprehension.
I reposted this eloquent article on another post, but I think another rerun is appropriate here. Testing companies are strictly a profit making machine.
https://dianeravitch.net/2012/12/27/11990/ How anyone has been manipulated into believing a test score is a reflection any reality is beyond me.
“How anyone has been manipulated into believing a test score is a reflection (of) any reality is beyond me.”
Way beyond me also!! TAGO!
Thanks for the edit Duane. 🙂
Indiana is now in the ed reform doghouse. Just last year they were “winners” what with all the choice and the vouchers and the undermining public schools, and now they’re “losers”, I guess:
“While I won’t say I’m glad that Indiana (or any other state) is reversing its earlier embrace and spitting in the eye of the Common Core, it grieves me not at all that they now seem to be exiting.
Well, it grieves me that they may be consigning Hoosier schools and teachers and kids to a worse fate—the state’s draft alternative standards aren’t just educationally inferior to the Common Core, they’re also worse than Indiana’s own previous K–12 academic expectations—but it doesn’t upset me one bit that legislators are now pulling this plug. For it’s been abundantly clear for months that their heart wasn’t in the Common Core standards, which means they would have done a lame job of implementing and assessing performance in relation to them. ”
They’ve also set this up that the Common Core can’t fail, it can only BE failed by local schools, which is how they approach every one of their initiatives. It’s protective and eg-driven.
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/common-core-watch/good-riddance-indiana
The idea that simply putting standards (aspirationally) on paper means they will be magically understood by all students is bewildering to me. The issue is not so much that CCSS is massively different than old standards. CCSS didn’t invent critical thinking or deep understanding (though the founders would seemingly have us believe that). The biggest issue is that they are testing kids, teachers, schools, and districts in ways that have never been done before…and penalizing what they consider failure.
Extra Extra Read All about It:
Open Source Textbooks, Big Data, and the Origins of the Common Core:
The amazing true story of how some educational publishers PLAYED (gamers would say pwned) a whole lotta educrats and politicians
The elephant in the room is being ignored by mainstream media. Why isn’t this newsworthy on all prime-time networks or on major or local news networks?? The responses from teachers and educators, alone, should call for reform of the reform! Parents and students are standing arm in arm fighting this monster, yet schools remain loyal to the mandated standards (FedEd). School districts are only concerned about their bottom line, not the students welfare. I’M SICK AND TIRED OF NOTHING BEING DONE BY OUR LEGISLATORS!!
Another POV: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/confusing-math-homework-don-t-blame-the-common-core/360064/
Confusing Math Homework? Don’t Blame the Common Core
SO STANDARDS LIKE THIS DRIVEL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH CONFUSING MATH HW?
CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.A.1
Interpret products of whole numbers, e.g., interpret 5 × 7 as the total number of objects in 5 groups of 7 objects each. For example, describe a context in which a total number of objects can be expressed as 5 × 7.
CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.A.2
Interpret whole-number quotients of whole numbers, e.g., interpret 56 ÷ 8 as the number of objects in each share when 56 objects are partitioned equally into 8 shares, or as a number of shares when 56 objects are partitioned into equal shares of 8 objects each. For example, describe a context in which a number of shares or a number of groups can be expressed as 56 ÷ 8.
CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.A.3
Use multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups, arrays, and measurement quantities, e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.1
Forgot to mention that the set of 3 standards I below listed are
for 8 year olds (grade 3).
Weapons of math destruction!
Last year, I was paid $30 per hour to score the NYS 8th grade ELA and Math tests (lunches were paid for). This was organized through my area BOCES to score area tests at two local motels. When I scored, I sat in a room with approximately 20 certified educators. Do the math. Consider that there were similar scoring rooms for grades 3-8 ELA and Math tests. There were three 7-hour days put in to score each test. A huge chunk of change was spent just to score tests in my area of New York State!
Hiring people to score tests at $12 per hour is slave labor – are they certified? I grossed over $1200 correcting the two tests over six days. I thought about scoring again this year, but feel I would be further feeding the ‘Test Demon’.
If this were happening to children in any other “Western” nation of the world, we would hold a G-7 meeting to discus the application of economic sanctions; condemn that country at the U.N.; go on national TV to proclaim it an outrage; expel several of their lower-ranking diplomats; refuse to allow some of their most visible plutocrats travel visas to this country – in other words – we would do the same thing we do in most humanitarian crises that do not immediately and supposedly threaten our national security: promote a great sound and fury, signifying nothing. What is worse – we have met the enemy and it is us. OK, a little harsh, but FCS I can’t for the life of me believe this is happening here. How did the U. S. Department of Education become the center for fascism in these United States? Does the Southern Poverty Law Center know about this? Why isn’t the DOE on their list of extremist organizations?
Yes, the makers of these tests are an organized ring of child abusers.
They must be stopped.
Protest by Principals and Teachers at PS 321:
http://www.ny1.com/content/news/206411/brooklyn-teachers-say-latest-ela-test-too-hard-to-comprehend
The tests will kill ed deform.
They are laughably bad. That will become–is becoming–abundantly clear to EVERYONE EXCEPT THE DEFORMERS–to parents, principals, teachers, kids.
As these new tests begin to be administered around the country, this experience in New York will be repeated and repeated.
And that’s when the villagers grab their pitchforks and shovels and track the Ed Deform monster to its lair.
It’s time for teachers and principals to take back their schools.
The Vichy government of the ed deformers is about to fall.
So, what are teachers, principals, and parents saying about these tests on TestingTalk.org?
The titles of their posts speak loudly and clearly:
Authentic literature?
Test Designers should be ashamed
Parents – Sleeping Giant
When the tests don’t help kids
The Emotionall Fallout
Show Us the Tests!
Time to say No
Totally Disheartened
Horrendous
No educationally sound purpose
What is truly being tested?
What are you assessing
Proud of my kids, sick over their stress
Pearson has done it again
Pilot tests were not appropriate for students’ age levels
Who is this for???
Sending my child to private school until the dust settles
Stop the Madness
Disheartened and disgusted
Why did I come home and find my son beating a bush with a stick?
Students in tears
Assessment or hazing?
Developmentally inappropriate tests!
Trouble with testing
I am broken-hearted and angrey
No time for close reading.
The real cost of PARCC/Common Core
Follow the money
Opt out
At a loss
Opt out of SBAC test
Awful multiple-choice questions
MC Questions Tough
Difficult tools
Confusing Long Response Question
Directions are confusing
A travesty: Anxiety, not education
Smart Kid Hates Curriculum
Not a fan
The teacher did not misspell “angry,” above. That was my typo. My apologies.
And of course the educators will be evaluated on the scores. More evidence that the purpose of these assessments is to further deprofessionalize teachers. The students are nothing but collateral damage in the process of breaking the teachers unions and dismantling the public school system in favor of corporate run charter schools.
How can we test a child throughout the school year at his/her educational level, modify the curriculum for him/her, reduce and/or modify quizzes and tests, etc. THEN test children at their grade level without any adaptations? In addition, let’s test them at the 3/4 year mark – such a valid instrument measuring what they learned during the school year…
This is a great site. Been reading it all week. I was questioning my decision to opt my children out. Thought for sure they must have fixed last years test to be better his year. I am now thrilled with my decision. Diane ravitch response to Michelle Rhee was my favorite today. Lucy caukins has even piped in.
Sent from my iPhone
This is the feedback that I just left on TestingTalk.org:
Testing should be of the curriculum, not of abstracted skills.
It should disappear into learning and doing. As an embedded, integral part of a learning process, it should be specific, brief, and formative. As doing, it should be concrete accomplishment. Don’t tell me how well this person did on the test on his or her knowledge of HTML and JAVA. Show me the web page she developed. Show me the code she wrote.
Isolated summative testing for testing’s sake belongs to an extrinsic punishment and reward approach to education that is inherently demotivating. It’s abusive and backward.
It is not by means of invariant standards and invariant standardized testing that we recognize the unique potentials of students and develop intrinsically motivated learners along unique pathways appropriate to their unique interests and abilities so that they can be prepared for the unique places that they will make for themselves in a complex, diverse, pluralistic society.
The last thing we need is factory schools attempting to mill students to spec in accordance with an invariant bullet list of hackneyed, backward, pedestrian, unimaginative, puerile “standards,” like the CC$$, prepared by amateurs.
In my list of adjectives describing the Common [sic] Core [sic], I left out “prescientific.” The ELA standards are often prescientific. And, one could drive whole curricula through their lacunae.
Do not collaborate with the Vichy regime that has taken over our schools. Push back against the CC$$, Son of NCLB, NCLB Fright Night II: The Nightmare Is Nationalized. Push back against the establishment of a Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth. Push back against the Powerpointing of U.S. education via bullet lists of invariant standards. Demand open-sourced, voluntary, competing standards, frameworks, guidelines, lesson templates, and learning progressions put forward by independent scholars, researchers, curriculum developers, and practitioners on an open wiki. Allow teachers to take back education from the plutocrats and the politicians and the sycophants and toadies among educrats who serve them. Demand time for teachers to submit their own practice to continual reflection and refinement via Lesson Study. Real continuous improvement in education will come from the bottom up, from empowered, autonomous teachers. Real improvement flows from the bottom up. You know what flows from the top down. You are seeing that in the responses on these pages. Stop the testing. It is child abuse.
I’m wondering if anyone has written or thought about the student data that Pearson now has access to. I am certainly not an expert, but I have many questions about the amount of information a private company now has about all of the children in my state. If they have the student i.d. numbers, do they have all of the personal information of the families as well? How well protected are their databases? Are they able to use any of this information for their own purposes? Has anyone researched this in an unbiased manner?