New York passed a law to limit test prep, but it won’t make any difference.
Because high-stakes are attached to the tests, who will dare to limit test prep? Teachers and principals will be evaluated and possibly fired based on the scores. Schools may be closed based on the scores. The test prep will go on, as frenzied as ever.
Only the NY legislature would be so naive as to believe that passing a law against too much test prep will negate the high stakes they have attached to it.
Oddly enough, the law exempts charter schools from its limits. They can engage in test prep 100% of the time, and that’s okay.
“This month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state legislators passed a law, intended to take effect by the next school year, setting a 2 percent limit on the amount of classroom time that could be spent on test preparation, or about three and a half days in a school year. Charter schools, some of which are known for an almost religious devotion to test preparation, are not obligated to comply, officials said.”
Makes sense, right?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sorry to be irreverent and profane, but this comes to mind:
And also irrelevant.
Harlan, you are always a ray of sunshine. I think my point was clear. This law is among the craziest things I’ve ever heard, and that includes a tree growing inside a man’s lung!
Is this from Alice in Wonderland? Is the Red Queen at work? Really? Unbelievable.
This will surely do the trick! Pick me off the floor. I’m there laughing and just having had minor surgery am not supposed to strain myself, but this, this—well don’t it just beat all?
exactly. just when you think the legislature has reached the heights of cluelessness, they outperform their previous personal best
“To infinity and beyond!”
B. Lightyear
I’m trying to think of a way they can tie some part of teacher evaluation into how little test prep is done. Maybe good test scores could trigger an automatic investigation of test prep hours.
So let’s think of what this means. Charter schools’ scores will rise due to the test prep and public schools will be made to look like they are doing poorly. Just part of the ed deform plot. But look at the other side. Public schools might be offering more to parents who are sick of the test prep.
Who will enforce this part of education law? Like they’ve so rigorously (not) enforced the requirements for certified librarians, or equitable funding, or providing digital citizenship education…
We can tack this onto the list of laws that not only can’t they enforce, but they wouldn’t even if they could…
But hey, it feels good, we all agree, too much test prep.
This clearly shows that the NY state legislature has no clue how any schools work. When I was teaching in California (1975 – 2005), the state curriculum guide and the standardized tests were joined at the hip, and that means when teachers were teaching to the curriculum they were teaching to the test.
In fact, teachers met in grade level groupings by department to plan together so every teacher was teaching the same elements of the state curriculum at the same time that was linked to the test. In addition, thanks to the district’s analysis of the previous year’s standardized test results, we focused heavily on improving areas of weakness while not sliding in areas of strength.
The reason we all taught the same units at the same time was to insure that if a kid transferred from one teacher to another in the same department, they wouldn’t miss out on any of that test driven curriculum.
When everything was said and done, the annual standardized tests in California drove what we taught every day. The only difference between that and Common Core is we could achieve this by using what material and methods we wanted—no lock-step dictated by Washington DC with material from one provider: the Pearson, Bill Gate consortium.
And some of the best material was teacher generated and didn’t come out of textbooks, because most of the textbooks were grade level and teachers were working with kids in the same class who read from 2nd grade to college literacy levels.
So what can we do?
Are the “ed reformy” crowd stupid enough to see this as “good pr” as if they are trying to rectify the horrors of tested ucation they have created??? They cannot be that stupid. But then again, yes they can and are! Anyone with a brain knows that failure to “test prep” students will result in even larger failure because the tests plain and simple just do not measure real learning! So in effect, this is yet another strategy for scapegoating teachers and throwing them overboard. On the “test prep” note… all teachers who are “testing coordinators” should REDEFINE this new “test prep” policy and refuse to spend the untold hours they have to endure on prepping the materials for testing… you know sharpening pencils, preparing snacks, wading through the ridiculous rules for unpacking and sorting and storing the test materials.. and of course repacking them to send by to the testing companies. How much TEST PREP TIME do these “coordinators” pulled away from teaching spend away from the classroom when their salary that could be spent a lot more wisely… like on their actually returning to teaching. And if the enormous amount of prep time cannot be done.. WELL THEN THE HIGH STAKES TESTS CANNOT BE TAKEN. And now what about all the test prep that tech personal must do to get computers ready for the high stakes tests??? I say… FOLLOW THEIR NEW LAW AND DO NOT ALLOW TEST PREP… just not by their terms and make it administrative test prep too !
“. . . the tests plain and simple just do not measure real learning!”
They don’t “measure” anything. They numerize (falsely assign a number/count) the assessment nothing more nothing less. And that numerization is completely invalid. To understand why see Noel Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted “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.
This is an excellent article–well worth the read. I would add, however, that I learned the same information from the two introduction to statistics classes I took in graduate school. Again, the entire race to the top policy agenda is based on a neo-liberal ideology. And as with all ideologies, facts on the ground and facts in research/science will be ignored for the “greater good” of the policy.
What exactly is considered or not considered “test prep” when the whole darn curriculum comes from the same company that publishes the test and is guaranteed to be “Common Core aligned”?
yep
Listen, ed deformers manipulate language and use it all the time to mean the exact opposite of what they are saying. We should start calling it “evidence-based reading” or “teaching the standards” or a “learning opportunity.” Two sides can play this game. Do the test prep and call it something else, especially when teachers’ livelihoods DEPEND on test scores. It’s time to take Patrick Henry (“they tell us, sir, we are weak…but when will we be stronger?”) and Henry David Thoreau (civil disobedience) to heart. And vote those legislators out in November! They are trying to appease parents and gain votes without understanding the implications of their laws.
Brilliant! A re-branding of the phrase “test prep”!
Since the high stakes have happened all our school does is test prep. Maybe 2% of the time for real things.
Cuomo brings Google top man for his education committee: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gov-cuomo-criticized-seeking-tech-advice-googles-eric/story?id=23527935
Who will define “test prep?” Every time I do multiple choice, is that test prep? When we practice multiplication facts, is that test prep? When students are encouraged to check over answers, is that test prep? Another crazy law!
These people really are the equivalent of the robber barons — or the mafia.
“Put the chalk down Ma’am, this is the test prep police and you’ve exceeded the 2 percent limit. You’ll have to come down to the station for booking…” These people have NO CLUE. Lawmakers are wasting our time and money making these silly laws? Here’s a novel idea, stay out of our purview and let us teach! OMG
This isn’t naive; this is purposely done to stack the deck against public school teachers. Charters are exempt because they own the legislators and the governor, not the people of NY. This is yet another disgrace of the so called democracy that is our elected government. You know there is something to be said about hanging around gangsters, at least you know who and what they are.
Are you serious? I thought democracy, especially elections for local school boards was THE holy thing among public school defenders.
And do I now hear non-ironic calls for an end to democracy just because your jobs are threatened?
And end to democracy????? Do you want to be a dictator?
Gritting my teeth and not feeding the troll…
Threatened Out West,
You’re right. The troll is never satiated, and he makes Archie Bunker look enlightened . . . .
But don’t grit your teeth. Mr. Underhill is not worth a trip to the dentist.
Harlan,
Butt out. You don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about !
Please stop trying to censor me. It’s not YOUR living room.
Actually, Harlan, freedom of expression is a two-way street and it allows anyone to tell you what they think about you and what you are saying. After all, you do it all the time.
So, why are you telling those who disagree with your far-out fringe way of thinking that they don’t have the right to tell you to butt out?
Rant all you want. Insult people all you want. Call them all kinds of names and make lots of accusations but when it comes back at you, remember, they are only exercising their rights to express what they think—as long as it’s within the rules of discourse that Diane sets for her site.
After all, censorship as defined by the US Constitution only protects us from the US government. The private sector doesn’t count, and this site doesn’t belong to the government.
For instance, if Diane Ravtich decides she doesn’t approve of your accusing someone of being a Communist, a liberal or whatever, she may censor and block your voice anytime she wants to. That’s her choice. I’ve done it on my Blogs and even warn those who leave comments that I’ll do it.
On my iLookChina.net Blog, for instance, there’s this WARNING before the empty comment box:
“Comments are welcome — pro or con. However, comments must focus on the topic of the post, be civil and avoid ad hominem attacks”.
And if you are eventually censored from this site or other sites where the hosts get tired of your bias, prejudice and name calling, you may launch your own Blog and rant all you want. Plenty of people are doing it and you can even do it for free. I don’t know about Google’s Blogger platform but I do know that WordPress offers a free Blog to anyone who wants one.
What happens when a giant old-growth tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it. Does it make any noise?
You are right about free speech. I actually do endorse all kinds and encourage all kinds without reservation. And, “censor” was definitely the wrong word, because it does apply only to government preapproval of utterances, and that’s the last thing I want, and I would hope everyone else here would want.
Perhaps I should have simply said, “I don’t plan to butt out” because I don’t think I’m butting in.
Your exception to my mordancy, however, is well taken. I’ll try to do what I want others to do, i.e. stick to the issues. Even so gentle a questioner as teaching economist incurs emotionally hostile abuse, so I guess I just assumed that restraint was not respected here and slipped into emulating the name calling attacks to which I have been subjected. I’m not really sure that my own polemics were the cause of nastiness in others. I shouldn’t take it personally.
By the way I don’t consider identifying someone as a “marxist” is name calling. I mean it literally. Same with socialist, communist, statist and other terms I sometimes use. I am trying to use the right names for people’s implied assumptions.
“I am trying to use the right names for people’s implied assumptions.” But even that is based on your judgement that’s shadowed by your (ignorant–my thought) biases.
I’ve been called a Communist before by someone who doesn’t know my history, and I’m not a Communist. In fact, I fought the Communists in South Vietnam in 1966, bought stocks on the NY stock exchange and made a nice profit from that. And socialism is not the same thing as communism by a long shot.
Do you know what a Communist is other than from some textbook definition or biased view?
I doubt it. Few do.
For instance, in China there are 1.3+ billion people but only 80 million are CCP members and even then there are factions within the party that vary as widely as political factions in the United States.
If we assigned far right and left labels to the political factions inside the CCP, to the right we’d find Maoists (yearning for a return to the Cultural Revolution) and on the left we’d find progressives who want more freedoms, democracy and capitalism and sometimes the debates between these factions leak out of the CCP’s firewall that has nothing to do with communism but everything to do with cultural differences that go back centuries before communism was a theory.
But at the same time, most Chinese who do not belong to the CCP still want socialized medical care and some form of Social Security because everyone can’t be blessed with commercial success leading to wealth and that holds true for the United States—or any country for that matter.
In fact, few actually benefit from the capitalist system without a socialist safety net for all those who don’t succeed. I think the best system is one that is balanced between a market economy and a socialist safety net. For instance, in the US that socialist safety net is unemployment, Social Security and Medicare. Every developed country has these social programs that offer a safety net for the majority who don’t win the capitalist lottery and become millionaires (about 3.5 million) and billionaires (less than 500).
But these socialist programs clash with capitalism’s elite who seem to want to have total control over every penny they amass.
Without those socialist programs as a safety net for 99% of Americans, the economic structure of the United States would be 1% controlling 90% of the money while the other 99% survived off the 10% left to them and I think I”m being generous with the 99%. But with a few socialist programs, we take some of that 90% from the 1% to alleviate suffering among the 99%.
And that does not lead to Communism where the state own everything. In the US, even with those few social safety net programs, people may still compete in the consumer market, own business and homes that do not belong to the government.
What are the odds of joining the elite who won the market economy capitalist lottery of competition?
There are about 316 million people in the United States but only 3.5 million millionaires and less than 500 billionaires. Do the math and you will discover that 1.26% won the capitalist competition lottery leaving 98.74% out of the winner circle. What happens to these people who are usually a paycheck from poverty?
Folks,
Gotta defend HU here (not that he can’t do that for himself and does) but trying to shoo a poster away smacks of a lack of confidence in one’s own point of view. Or the bully’s “If you won’t let me win I’m taking my ball and going home.” I think what he brings up in this post is relevant to the post in the sense of saying what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I think readers here support democracy… but abhor plutocracy, which is where our government is devolving since the recent Supreme Court decisions…
Happy May Day, Harlan!
You should ask that question to reform-minded persons elsewhere. I bet they might give you an answer that caters your whim. Thank you.
Yes, Bob, Happy May Day, Day of worldwide solidarity in anti-capitalist revolution and support for dictatorship of the Lenin minded of the globe.
Maybe Communism’s tyranny was actually more a manifestation of Russian culture than a true implementation of Marx.
Perhaps Germany under Hitler is a better exemplification of national socialism, of statism.
Or Cambodia. Or China.
I suspect that democratic freedom is compatible with a certain amount of plutocracy, but I’m sure democratic freedom is NOT compatible with socialist statism.
Not the most scientific poll from a New York local tv news site, but I couldn’t disagree with the numbers:
Do you approve of Governor Cuomo’s handling of Common Core?
Yes (0)
0%
No (1308)
100%
View All Polls
Texas did pass such a law prohibiting benchmark tests, so my district simply divided out the released STAAR test into three tests. Three district tests times three content tests equal nine days for test prep — not counting the common assessments we give.
Does it include test prep for Regents and/or AP tests?
High school teachers routinely exceed 10% (18+ days).
Wish someone in the NY Legislature would read just a little bit of W. Edwards Deming, the founder of total quality management (although he disavowed the term after seeing how the public and private sector was abusing the term). He repeatedly says in his writings that systems built on fear and blame is a spiral downward. The entire premise of Race to the Top is built on the belief that: if you humiliate people in public they will remember it longer. This dubious motivational technique will result in the kind of crazy train legislation we now have—what I call the Race to the Top arms race: we add a test, schools add test prep, legislature outlaws test prep, schools narrow the curriculum, legislature passes new course requirements, you get the picture—of course the answer to this arms race is simple–eliminate the test –but no, no, no, then the entire infrastructure of race to the top collapses. Like the Soviet Union, during the cold war, the end will come when states and school districts just run out of money to fund this entire mess —Mr. Duncan, let those tests fall.
Love your insights Alan. How long do you give this until the money runs out ? We are growing very impatient.
Ah, but you forget, with tyrannies there is always a tendency to resurrection. Putin harbored his resources and is not applying them against Ukraine and NATO. Although I hardly suspect you are saying that public education is like the USSR, or RUSSIA, or whatever, i.e. an authoritarian regime.
But if the “arms race” does end, it will be by uniform voucherization, i.e. nuclear vaporization of the public school systems.
Not sure the metaphor is comforting.
From Alan C. Jones
This is the central problem (tragedy) with treating education as a production/manufacturing industry instead of a coping organization (what organizational theorists call education). The goal of a production industry is to reduce variation in processes in order to manufacture a product that customers are certain will perform according to expectations/specifications. In a coping organization you are confronted with uncertain inputs, uncertain processes, and uncertain outcomes. Added to the inability to control inputs, processes, and outcomes, what parents are looking for in schools are instructional programs that increase variation in outcomes—further develop the unique abilities, talents, and interests of their children. For this reason, as Deming attempted to point out, but which our school leadership and political class still don’t understand, is that managing a production industry and managing a school require entirely different set of intellectual and organizational tools. Not understanding the fundamental differences between manufacturing and educating is the reason that all the intellectual and organizational tools—merit base, standards, standardized testing, curriculum alignment—that the Duncan’s, Rhee’s, are implementing will fail, and in fact will result in the dysfunctional outcomes Deming describes in his books—cheating, drop outs, early exiting of teachers, etc. I would add, that the set of intellectual and organizational tools that school leaders require to lead a coping organization—schools—are not taught at all in administrative certification programs. I do provide a full description of these skills in my book: Becoming A Strong Instructional Leaders: Saying No to Business as Usual (Teachers College Press; Amazon and Kindle books).
From a Management 101 text on TQM:
“Organizations adopting TQM value people as their most important resource” (teachers, parents, and students are not faceless metrics or pawns in a game)
“Teamwork is important” (stack ranking is not)
“The people involved with the product or service are in the best position to detect opportunities” (teachers and parents in the classroom make decisions together, not plutocrats and politicians)
“Employees are given more decision-making power” (not a boot on their throat)
“Continuous improvement is defined as ongoing small, incremental improvements” (not untested, reckless standards and tests lacking precedent and foundation)
TQM does use benchmarks, but not as a punishment. Rather everyone participates in setting standards and using benchmarks for incremental improvement. A very collaborative approach. Not the scorched earth approach of The Reformers.
Our leaders like to say “run the schools like a business”. I wonder if they even understand what they are saying.
Think about the punitive nature of the garbage reforms in Race To The Top. Remember Duncan vocally backing the firing of an entire staff of teachers? Isn’t it funny how teachers have been attacked and demonized and fired yet, the Obama administration didn’t do a da$% thing to the crooks on Wall Street? No, instead the crooks got more money and more freedom to continue to rip off the American people. Disgusting. They must be so proud of attacking regular Middle class people. Wow what leadership.
Exactly. There is a large and consistent literature on quality control. And the consensus of that literature is that you do not get quality via extrinsic punishment and reward systems and top-down mandates–those are demotivating and actually lead to quality DECREASES. You get quality by making it the business of the line worker, by putting him or her in charge of it, by giving him or her the autonomy to do that, and by creating the structures that enable line workers to do that work collaboratively and without external management interference. When you do those things, people rise to the occasion, and amazing things result.
Read Deming and Juran. Read about the Toyota Way that led to Japanese auto makers CRUSHING U.S. auto makers. Interestingly, Japan has traditionally had a very hierarchical, stratified, and in many ways top-down, hierarchical and authoritarian culture. But the Japanese were wise enough to unlearn that when it came to achieving continuous improvement in manufacturing and other business, to the lasting credit of the visionary business leaders in Japan who did that unlearning and re-envisioning. And after you have looked at that quality control literature, read about Japanese Lesson Study and how that works. Teachers have the time built into their schedules to meet together to plan their lessons, and, importantly, to subject their practice to ongoing revision and critique, and they have the autonomy to put their decisions into action.
Again, external punishment and reward systems like standardized testing, VAM, and letter grading of schools–are inherently demotivating for cognitive tasks. And because they are imposed by a distant authority, they tend to be inflexible and STUPID–they tend not to take into account the relevant local factors that the people on the line understand.
Here’s probably the best, most comprehensive book ever written on quality: Joseph M. Juran and A. Blanton Godfrey. Juran’s Quality Handbook.5th ed. McGraw Hill, 2000. Some relevant items from Demings’s famous “14 points”:
3.”Cease dependence on inspection.”
8.”Drive out fear.”
10.”Eliminate slogans.”
11.”Eliminate management by objectives.”
12.”Remove barriers to pride of workmanship.”
13.”Institute education and self-improvement.”
What amazes me, is that all these privatizers have MBA’s or some background in business and yet carry around with them primitive Taylorists concepts on motivation, work design, and vision–maybe they missed some classes along the way.
#10-Ah, the irony of that list!
Duane, Demings’s original was not a simple list of slogans. Far from it. I saved everyone the elaboration by putting this into a simple list.
There’s no doubt, whatsoever, that the consistent quality of the cars manufactured by the Japanese was (and still is) the main reason that people bought them at such a rapid pace in the ’70s and on.
But, please correct me if I’m wrong, Bob: I remember that the Toyotas and Hondas were so inexpensive and well built that you just couldn’t pass one up. Then I’d read and hear about how the Japanese government was subsidizing the manufacturer’s losses when they would sell at such ridiculously low prices. That it was a deliberate move to take over the automobile industry.
Was that just propaganda at the time? Besides the quality control, the pricing definitely put the Japanese at an advantage.
Again I have to think, “You can’t make this **** up!” 9th and 10th grade social studies teachers PREPARE students to take the Global Studies Regents. So I spend 100% of my time getting them ready for the test whether I want to or not!
Just when my tired, jaded, workout mind tells me that nothing could surprise me, NY legislators get on the crazy train and demonstrate a new level of ignorance heretofore thought unachievable. What is next, people are over weight so we will outlaw sugary drinks?…… Oh I guess I need a better example.
I think all NYS school sport teams should now only practice for 2% of their overall time playing their sport. This must include, of course, cheerleading. That is what I love about our Board of Regents. They are really listening to the public and taking bold measures to reform education. I really think this cheerleading issue is a big win for the students of New York State.
“Oddly enough, the law exempts charter schools from its limits. They can engage in test prep 100% of the time, and that’s okay.”
Says it all, clear as a bell.
Is there really anyone out there who doesn’t get it yet?
So now we can be fired if our kids don’t meet the standards and arrested if we try to hard to get them there.
Don’t be surprised if we’re required to post a “test prep percentile” within our “Flow of the Day” charts.
I wonder what the sentence would be for the principal who canceled the Kindergarten spring play in favor of college and career readiness test prep?
Further evidence of how completely clueless these people are.
Like a cancer, the standards-and-testing regime has metastasized throughout our curricula and pedagogy, infecting the whole, narrowing and distorting it. These days, almost every lesson and exercise being produced is, for good or ill, highly influenced by what is going to be on the test–by what is tested and how. Our basal programs are being judged by whether kids can meet the proficiency cut as measured by the standardized test, and so every program has become, to some extent–often to a large extent–a test prep program.
It’s still test prep if you don’t use the term, and that’s the only effect that such legislation has.
I find most of the reaction here to the test-prep cap law to be bewildering. It was the only bright spot amid the rubble of de Blasio’s Pyrrhic universal pre-K victory, which cost New York City control of its own school facilities and a lot of money that will now go to pay rent for charter schools.
How many pages of “Death and Live” and “Reign” are devoted to the evils of test prep, and to championing instead a rich, deep, broad curriculum with room for history, science, art, movement, music, and so on? How many New York City DOE schools–traditional, progressive, wealthy, poor, unzoned, selective–have been overtaken by test prep? How in the world is a cap on the amount of time schools can engage in this destructive and largely ineffective practice a “joke”?
I look forward to hearing NYSED’s and the DOE’s plans for eliminating test prep and enforcing the new law, and I trust that most teachers and principals will find it a cause for celebration.
At a minimum, the limitation on “test prep” will require the DOE to begin to define what “test prep” is. That’s definitely better than nothing.
How can a law eliminate test prep, and yet not eliminate the test, or the fact that your student, you, and/or your school will be evaluated by said test? It is not possible, nor enforceable. However, many will be harassed by the law. It’s amazing how the deformers take anything that we recommend, and turn it around against us.
All of the $40,000+/year John Dewey-approved private schools in New York City administer standardized tests to their grade 3-8 students, often annually. They don’t prep.
When a lot of us were kids, we took Iowa tests or other standardized assessment tests. We weren’t prepped.
Test prep has become so thoroughly embedded into educational practice in New York City that it will indeed be a tough transition. I’m not disputing that. But let’s not confuse a tough transition with impossibility. It’s clearly possible, and I have a pretty good hunch parents are going to help out a lot with making sure schools comply.
John Dewwey’s teachers are not evaluated on the scores. Niether was your 4th grade teacher when she administered the IOWA test of basic skills. They were diagnostic tests (in theory).
Regents course high school teachers run their entire programs as a year-long test prep. Five tests are required for graduation. Old tests are routinely used for preparation in May and June.
They just can’t put down their shovels.
The simple solution for ending test-prep mania is to change the evaluation system. This proposal is like putting fingers in dikes.
Ohio Algebra II teacher, if you can come up with a system that attempts to measure outcomes and otherwise isn’t an exercise in “I’m great, you’re great, we’re all great,” I am all ears. I will point out though that test scores might be a teacher’s best friend if they’ve got a vindictive, clueless, or incompetent principal.
Well, as you know, it’s a very complicated issue. You favor the testing regime that puts teachers’ jobs and reputations on the line but then complain (justifiably to some extent) when teachers follow behavior that naturally follows what that policy is pushing. I contend that the status quo (kumbaya though it may be…and undeniably in need of improvement) is significantly less destructive than the reformist changes. I think the burden for coming up with a better plan lies with the side representing the weaker system. Btw, I don’t know about you, but I had almost entirely wonderful teachers as a student, and I teach on a staff that really is outstanding (validated anecdotally as well as by state and U.S. News rankings — to the extent we want to give credence to these).
In reality, I think you’ll find that your final point is rhetorical. I can’t imagine a teacher getting good test scores and receiving a poor evaluation from a principal. Aside from the fact that principals and schools are dependent on getting good test scores from teachers, those capable of getting high scores on the tests (especially the over-the-top PARCC tests) are all but de facto good teachers (assuming the scores are achieved legitimately). What I’m really curious to see is whether a teacher getting high test scores gets hit for too much test prep. I can’t see that happening.
Most of the teachers I know are hard-working, intelligent, and effective. I get the impression that you don’t feel the same way about the teachers you’ve come in contact with. Regardless, as you’re seeing, the most recent changes are not improving education in our country. Like you, I’m open to changes leading to legitimate improvement. Hopefully, we can come up with a better process than what has led us to this point.
Ohio Teacher,
Thanks for your comment. No, my lifelong experiences with teachers have been mostly positive. Here’s my thing, I guess: I strongly believe that districts and schools should always strive to do the best thing for kids. Sure, that’s a bit of a sentimental bromide, but I truly think it should inform every action that districts, schools, and teachers take.
This does need to be balanced with treating the people who work in schools fairly. Unlike many parent advocacy groups, at least in my neck of the woods, I am simply willing to point out where I think there is tension between those two goals, and I think any ties should go to the kids.
I don’t expect any NYC teachers to come to my defense here, but there are absolutely circumstances where a principal would target a teacher whose children get higher than average test scores. The relationship between the administration and staff is dysfunctional and unhealthy at a distressingly high number of NYC schools.
@Tim, much respect for your positions, and it shows me how difference in perspective affects how reasonable people see things differently. Personally, I foresee the PARCC tests battering good teachers almost as much as struggling teachers, and I’m not sure what that’s going to lead to. But I do agree that — at least personally — it’s not worth your job to make kids miserable while teaching incorrectly, so I’ll be working to see how attack the test while maintaining teaching integrity. Wishing the best to you and your children.
Tim, this legislation simply shows that these people do not understand the dramatic extent to which almost all curricular materials now being produced are test prep products. Every basal, for example, is absolutely infested with test-related activities, activities formulated in imitation or anticipation of what will be on the test. That’s the reason for the reaction.
Bob, I don’t doubt that the curricula have a lot of test prep built in, but even if that’s the case, NYC DOE schools, for example, are eschewing them for stuff that is 100 proof test prep: worksheets and workbooks from other providers, practice tests, and so on. Getting rid of it is a necessary step.
The State Department of Education passed a regulation years ago banning test prep. The consequence? All the test prep providers simply took the words “Test Prep” out of their programs and sold, in California, as remedial materials or whatever the same stuff they were selling as test prep elsewhere.
What sickens me about this law is that people do not understand that simply having the standards-and-standardized-testing approach leads people to teach InstaWriting for the Test instead of writing; InstaReading for the Test instead of reading. And, of course, all these people need to get the hell out of people’s schools and classrooms and let them make their own decisions about materials and approaches. After, of course, scrapping the invalid tests and the rest of the demotivating, abusive extrinsic punishment and reward system based on those tests.
Sorry, that should have been either “100 percent” or “200 proof,” take your pick.
Oops. I meant to write,
In California, the State Department of Education passed a regulation years ago banning test prep. The consequence? All the test prep providers simply took the words “Test Prep” out of their programs and sold, in California, as remedial materials or whatever the same stuff they were selling as test prep elsewhere
I have seen many of these programs–identical to ones sold specifically as test prep in other states–sold in those states where test prep has been outlawed as remedial programs, after-school programs, programs for challenged students, standards-based supplemental instruction, whatever. For the most part, publishers have stopped using the test prep label anyway.
So, how, exactly, are the Thought Police going to decide what is test prep and what is not? Are teachers not under any circumstances to give students experience with activities and exercises in the formats of the tests that they will taking? Wouldn’t that be INSANE? What responsible teacher would do that? Would you allow your child to take the SAT without having done sample SAT questions? Of course not. That would be entirely irresponsible because familiarity with the test format is important to success on the exam.
These legislators haven’t a clue what they are doing.
“I trust that most teachers and principals will find it a cause for celebration.”
More likely they will find the new law cause to be unemployed.
Well, I was in clear violation of the law. Send the police to my classroom right away.
So what does this mean for AP courses?
LOL. Exactly.
Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
How do you outlaw “test prep” in a state that bases student grades on Regent’s tests, teacher evaluations on CCSS tests. and school “grades” on passing rates on tests? And what do you do about AP courses? This is insanity….
I hope you have seen Louis CK’s post About the tests, with sample questions
Almost funny but insteAd tragic
Matt Ellen Levin
Sent from my iPhone
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I’m surprised that we’re not discussing one of the more obvious points to this post:
If VAMs continue to be implemented as they are today, then being given a limit to the amount of time allowed for test prep puts public school teachers at a significant disadvantage to the “little test taking machines” in the charter schools.
I wonder that this is just another means of insuring our “failure” as teachers.
By Peter Greene. Getting Stupical in New York: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/04/getting-stupical-in-ny.html