Rebecca Steinitz is a literary consultant, writer, and editor in Massachusetts. She has a Ph. D. In English, coaches in urban districts, and has a daughter in seventh grade.
She wrote a letter to President Obama about the PARCC Tests, which her daughter must take, but the President’s will not.
Her daughter has always done well in school, but the PARCC test was a trial.
Here is a typical question:
“You have learned about electricity by reading two articles, “Energy Story” and “Conducting Solutions,” and viewing a video clip titled “Hands-On Science with Squishy Circuits.”In an essay, compare the purpose of the three sources. Then analyze how each source uses explanations, demonstrations, or descriptions of experiments to help accomplish its purpose. Be sure to discuss important differences and similarities between the information gained from the video and the information provided in the articles. Support your response with evidence from each source.
“Eva’s comment on this question: “It’s impossible, and there’s like 15 parts.” Just as I feared, she exaggerated. There are only four parts. But take a close look at those parts. Can you figure out what you’re supposed to be doing here, President Obama? And could you have done it in seventh grade?
“I know a lot of seventh graders. They know how to compare and contrast, and they know how to provide evidence, but I’m quite sure that unpacking this prompt, let alone accomplishing it, would feel pretty “impossible” to most of them.”
But that’s not all.
She writes:
“I have a Ph.D. in English, I’ve been in college and high school classrooms for over 20 years, and for much of that time I’ve trained and coached high school English teachers. I was shocked that the ninth grade test included an excerpt from Bleak House, a Dickens novel that is usually taught in college. I got seven out of 36 multiple choice questions wrong on the eleventh grade test. And I had no idea what to do with this essay prompt on the third grade test:
“Old Mother West Wind and the Sandwitch both try to teach important lessons to characters in the stories. Write an essay that explains how Old Mother West Wind’s and the Sandwitch’s words and actions are important to the plots of the stories. Use what you learned about the characters to support your essay.
“Would Sasha have been able to figure this out in third grade? And, more importantly, is there any reason a third grader should have to figure out an essay prompt this broad and abstract?”
If these questions are typical, expect massive failure rates and massive protests. These are not good tests of reading comprehension. They are traps and snares.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My daughter has many issues with school now – she is in second grade. She used to love learning and reading and now not so much.
I worry for her for next year when things will get even harder for her. Why no joy in learning anymore?
Is the answer to have her not take the tests? it seems that will sabotage her with the powers that be. The principal already puts such pressure on the kids to ‘Help the School’. Such as “Buy books at the book fair every day and it will help the school” or “Its ok to have a candy stand in the hallway after school – after all it’s a fund raiser!” or “get more pledges for your Fun run and it will help the school!”
I have had some run ins’ with the principal already and if I refuse to have my daughter sit for the test isn’t that opening her up to the principal’s wrath?
From what I have seen and read, those who don’t have a clue what a typical third grader (or any typical whatever grader) knows, can handle, can organize, is motivated to do, is interested in reading about, has developmental skills to do, has background knowledge to apply, has perseverence skills to see a situation through to the end without be distracted by others or nerves or insecurity about personal competence have designed these kinds of questions.
Yet, they don’t care. If we could trust them, why don’t these hot shots give the tests to their children to see how they do on them with their expensive education, even if they aren’t used at their schools. Maybe create a comparison group: how private elite school students perform v. how public school students perform. But, would there be honesty? Would they put their children’s scores out there, either cumulatively or individually? Why can’t this test be vetted and applied appropriately, or not at all?
Oh, everyone loves the new test, Diane. Why, just read the testing Twitter feed! You won’t find anything even vaguely critical. It’s all glowing testimonials:
https://twitter.com/PARCCPlace
Would one even petition the government on this test? They created a private entity to administer it, did they not? Looks like “relinquishment” to me. The USDOE site doesn’t even mention the testing that tens of millions of kids are taking.
I think she’d have to make her appeal to the PARCC board. I don’t even know what the public participation process would be in that, or if there is any process.
It doesn’t matter to me whether college bound students find the tests easy or difficult so much as the use of the test to punish kids who are not college bound or who are slow learners or who are just not interested. Furthermore, it bothers me that such a measure is used to “evaluate” teachers … as if they have control over the attitudes students bring to the whole testing process, depending on their learning culture as exemplified by their home and community life and needs.
If you criticize the PAARC test you are 1. afraid, and 2. not a good teacher 🙂
This is from the very open-minded and scientific PARCC test Twitter feed:
Fordham Institute OH @OhioGadfly · 19h
Good teachers don’t fear new #PARCC exams: “the kids will get there. It just won’t happen overnight.” Nice.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2014/05/08/testing-the-test-ohio-districts-try-out-the-common-core-assessment/ …
I thought they wanted honest feedback? Oh, well. So much for that. Better to not say anything than be preemptively labeled fearful and not a good teacher, right? Also, self-interested and reluctant to be evaluated on the score. That’s the other preemptive charge.
I am not afraid. My kids have always scored well. I have had 2 years with 100% passage rates. I have had some fairly low students. But, when you have a 4th grader who comes in from a nonpublic school who has difficulty speaking, communicating, and making friends, but is able to function as an A-B student no matter how slowly he works, getting him to pass the OAA was a goal. He passed. It was a lot of work. He didn’t have an IEP. He did have a Child Study Process going on after I talked to him exactly once!!! It is a huge accomplishment that he passed the test due to his difficulties. My happiest moment was knowing that he was able to make friends with some other students. At first he didn’t because he talked so slowly and mispronounced so many words that kids, being kids, just ran off to do something else. I got him to speak more clearly and to feel he was a part of the group (it is difficult enough for new students). How was that accomplished? Through Readers’ Theater. He enjoyed using the microphone, speaking with moderation and intonation, getting a laugh or two. Kids “helped” him. He felt a part of things. THAT, for me, was the reason I went into teaching. Will he go to college? Maybe. Will he be able to keep up the pace? Who knows. He works very slowly. He has small motor issues, not horrible, but they are there. He writes large letters. That takes a long time. He can’t write in cursive. He isn’t great with a computer. But, I am so glad he got to “fit in”. I had quite a few kids with issues that year, and 29 students to deal with. I taught because I cared about all the students. And, I care about THEM when they are faced with tests based on “magic curricula”.
I’m glad you have been able to get your 29 students to pass. I have 250 in a non tested subject, so when VAM arrives in my state, I will get scores of everyone in the building, even if I have never taught them.
I agree. I don’t think teachers who don’t teach in tested subjects should be evaluated by these tests. But, I don’t think ANY teachers should. It is not accurate. Students aren’t widgets.
I feel I can say what I want now that I am retired and can’t have my STRS pulled for my opinions. The others at my school know I am pulling for them. They are of the same attitude as I. There are a few who try to browbeat their students into success. It is too stressful to do that. It is unfair to students.
I just hope this falls of its own weight quickly just like inBloom did. It needs to go. If they want to do diagnostic and placement tests and address the students’ needs, I am all for it, but punitive tests and evaluations are for one reason … to get rid of expensive teachers and replace them with computers and a tech paraprofessional.
Good luck to you.
Perhaps the Twitter feed is like that because, at least in my state, teachers can be on the news praising CC and the testing to the heavens, but a teacher’s license is threatened if they speak ill of the tests or mention the dreaded words, “opt out,” even on his or her own time. I have even been told that my personal children should not talk about opting out to their friends, or my license could be in jeopardy.
Let us keep this simple
It is CONFUSING and ABSURD.
The experts are the teachers….We are the experts…It is CONFUSING and ABSURD!
I can make up any question at this very moment that is just as Confusing and just as Absurd and just as Tricky….
I would make up these questions if I worked for a Big Company whose profits were from Test Prep.
Easy to see.
True. I don’t see how a test that is deliberately worded poorly with ridiculous questions actually tests anything!!!
The manual given out to poll workers for the Ohio Board of Elections must have been designed by Pearson. It makes little sense, either.
It’s not just the ridiculous questions, either. The formatting is weird. The kids can’t tab in on essays, which drove them NUTS. There are not equal numbers of articles on both sides of an issue, and the articles come from weird sources. The time that the test writers expect the kids to use to write the essays is WAY too short, and the good writers, who want to do well, or the struggling writers who need more time, took HOURS more than was expected. Basically, these tests want the kids to slap together some cruddy essay in 30 or 60 minutes (that includes reading the articles and prewriting!). The writers WANT the essays to be garbage. What is that teaching kids?
I’ve started puzzling over those sample tests too. The 9th grade ELA starts out with a speech by Oppenheimer to other atomic physicists in 1945 that is 1370 Lexile (well the first 1000 words, that’s what you get for free…) according to the Lexile website. That’s the top of their “college and career ready” range. If you take into account “subjective” factors, it is beyond that.
One thing to keep in mind though is that including questions that are WAY over the grade level proficiency target is inevitable given the goals of the exam — accurate VAM including a high “ceiling” for advanced students — at least until they switch to adaptive tests.
I’m not saying it is ok, but that’s why those things are there and why there can be no easy fix that doesn’t change the goals or technology behind the exams in a fairly fundamental way.
Deb
May 9, 2014 at 8:32 am
I am not afraid. My kids have always scored well. I have had 2 years with 100% passage rates. I have had some fairly low students. But, when you have a 4th grader who comes in from a nonpublic school who has difficulty speaking, communicating, and making friends, but is able to function as an A-B student no matter how slowly he works, getting him to pass the OAA was a goal. ”
I don’t think you’re afraid 🙂
I think implying that everyone who criticizes the test is “afraid” or saying “good teachers” like the test is not a smart way to encourage honest feedback and an open exchange of ideas. One has to create that kind of open climate. People who feel they’ll be judged preemptively for criticism are less likely to speak up, particularly “good” employees, employees who try their best to follow policy and practice.
Oh, I didn’t take your comment personally. I knew there was sarcasm there with the presumptions made by those who make claims about anyone who objects to these tests. I taught 4th grade. I loved teaching. I am neither an ignorant teacher nor a Rhodes Scholar. I am very good at what I do, at my empathetic understanding of personal needs of students, at delivering lessons that children enjoy learning, in my own way, in my own terms. I am not a “follow the script” teacher. I find that stifling. I find that my best moments occurred during seredipitous moments. I love that feeling, that tingling thrill of reaching someone, of turning on the lightbulb. But every kid doesn’t reach that simulataneously or through a scripted lesson. I know my principal did not understand me, but she did speak with utter surprise when she did my last year’s evaluations. She couldn’t understand how I could get the kids to respond and participate at the end of the day with ease, trust, and respect. Gentle encouragement was my way. It was HER schedule that caused me to rearrange my class times to teach lessons at the end of the day, right after recess. I believe she was trying to see if I would fail. She said she became enchanted. Hahahahah. That is hilarious. She was always out to “get” anyone that didn’t bow down to her treachery. I just killed her with kindness. Anything she said to do, I did it times 10. But, my kids succeeded. I don’t know whether subsequent teachers saw what I did in my students. But, I tried to give them the skills to be successful. Mostly I loved all of them.
I have been retired 2 years. I miss the students. I don’t miss the work environment. I don’t need the stress.
Thanks for such a lovely response. I find it absolutely infuriating that none of these lawmakers are listening to their constituents.
It makes me sarcastic 🙂
The 4th grade PARCC Field test in AZ contained similar nonsense. Students were asked to compare the structure of paragraphs in two essays. One question had students use context to figure out what the word drift meant, but then asked which words helped them figure out drift and none of the choices made sense. In the practice test, which our whole staff saw, I collaborated with two other teachers (college grads obviously, this IS public school). We debated about which were the correct answers, because they were ambiguous.
I’m pretty sure, most of our kids got really poor scores, but we’ll never know. The test is impossibly difficult. Making a harder test, will not make smarter kids.
Yes. If you want me to fail, give me a test in French or Chinese. Give me a test on advanced calculus. Give me a test on any subject for which I have had little exposure and I will fail. Ask me to perform ballet, play a sonata, sing a solo, tap dance, rap, rock out, or even drive in heavy fast traffic. I will fail. Am I stupid? Am I unworthy? Am I a failure? No.
The sixth grade exam in NYS used the word impressed. The children needed to figure out that it once meant being forced into Naval Service during times of war.
The issue with the entire testing empire is the unquestioned belief by the public that somehow these tests emerge out of a Platonic cave from philosopher kings who have the unique quality of producing fair, objective, and informative tests. Sit in a test and measurement class for only a few hours and you would be quickly disabused of all these assumptions —tests are human constructs designed to achieve an institutional goal–the only “test” that would be meaningful in a classroom is the one to one interaction between teacher and student and the subsequent adjustments to instruction that would occur after these interactions — that is how learning/mastery occurs—the hours and money consumed with paper and pencil tests is a daily exercise in educational malpractice.
And then add in cut-off scores that change from year to year or use some kind of ridiculous formula to figure them out. The public, aided by the media, think these tests come from Mt. Sinai. And we can’t tell them otherwise because we could lose our licenses (that’s in my state, anyway. Your mileage may vary).
Here’s the “roadmap” for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee in Ohio. They call it different things in different states, but it was pushed by national ed reformers and they’re all the same statute.
Scroll past K, 1 and 2 and check out third grade. Just crazy:
https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Early-Learning/News/Third-Grade-Reading-Guarantee-Parent-Roadmaps
I love the way it merely says that if your child gets 400 or higher, he/she is ready to go to 4th grade. It doesn’t even deal with the advanced scores or the fact that they eliminated the accelerated scores. It doesn’t explain how the cut scores change from year to year so that VAM is NOT legit. They did make it very simply, but they left a lot out!!
What’s troublesome is that the teacher does not make the decision, the test does. When my twins were in the third grade, they had to take the Stanford 9 (I think it was). They had always been read to, had the same teachers all along, they lived in the same household with two teacher parents with advanced degrees and neither had exhibited any learning disabilities. When the results came back, our son’s score was dismal.
Investigating, it turned out that a child in the class had caused a disturbance during the testing and the teacher removed him from the room. He was a friend of my son’s and my kid was thoroughly entertained by the whole incident, paid little attention to what he was doing and spent a lot of time on this timed test wondering what kind of trouble his friend was going to get into. My daughter, on the other hand, was not the least interested in this diversion, because she had already decided that the behavior was “dumb”, so she got back to work.
When we talked to the teacher, she told us straight out the the test wasn’t a valid marker for our son, though it was for our daughter. Her judgement was that his ability was quite like his sister’s, due to the experiences they both brought to the classroom. Fortunately, my son attended elementary school in the peaceful time when teachers’ expetise still held sway.
Is this the new test being used in Ohio ?
Sent from my Galaxy S®III
If the purpose of writing to President Obama is to then use that letter as a platform for reaching and informing others, then it’s a useful thing to do.
If one is writing to him because you think he might actually read your words, consider them, and as a result go against the wishes of his patrons, then it’s a futile waste of effort.
This man was vetted and chosen by the Overclass precisely because of his talent at misleading, misdirecting and disarming the people who naively think they form his political base.
Obama’s entire political career is based on being a Judas to those who think he will represent them, and while the real brass ring – the privatization of Social Security – has eluded him, enabling the hostile takeover of the public schools is an adequate consolation prize.
… to what end? And how do you “know” these things about him? To whom do you listen?
I know these things about him in the same way anyone can come by them: by observing his actions as President, reading about his earlier career, and interpreting them within the context of neoliberal economic ideology and policies that relentlessly push for deregulation (TFA and other alternative certification programs), privatization (charter and voucher schools) and the reduction of everything to the level of a commodity (children as assets/products and monetized data sets).
As for the ends he seeks, re-read my comment and you’ll see that I refer to them.
President Obama has been mislead by the rhetorical of the reform movement. He is not the only one who has been fooled.
Michael is spot on in his assessment of President Obama. He truly is a Judas to the poor and working-class Americans who supported him. Obama is a tool of slumlord banker Penny Pritzker, our current Secretary of Commerce. Whether you were a protester in Madison, Ohio, a supporter of net neutrality, or thought Obama would make good on his promise to stop warrantless spying in the wake of 9-11, you were duped.
And don’t forget, Obama declared this week (Teacher Appreciation Week) to be National Charter School Week.)
The man is a fraud and plutocratic tool!
I think the point I that lessons during the school year are supposed to teach students how to respond to topics. Like this. I understood the first topic just fine. The second one referred to characters that, I imagine, are part of a story the students already read.
I teach English at a small rural public high school, usually grades 9-11, BTW.
But would a 7th grader be able to read the articles, watch the video, pre-write, and write an essay in 60 minutes with all of those multiple parts? That’s what’s required of third grade on up now in my state. Sure, kids may be able to do it, but these ridiculously low time limits make it nearly impossible to put together a GOOD writing sample. That seems to be the point of these tests: get them done, not get them done well.
I do agree with crazy time limits, and I have always thought that the kind of writing that has to be performed on SATs, AP Exams, etc. is a completely “unnatural” way of writing. You definitely have a point. But my impression of the SBAC, of which our freshmen took a field test, was not timed and did allow students to draft and revise. When I myself took the practice 11th grade literacy test, I took several hours (I gave myself the accommodation of taking several breaks as well). I don’t think there’s supposed to be a time limit with SBAC. I could be wrong.
There is a very bright and shiny lining to this gloomy looking cloud (PARCC).
Pearson has compltely misjudged the response that their PARCC tests (TWO rounds in 2015; @75% AND 95% course completeion) will ellicit. The more unreasonable, confusing, frustrating, lengthy, and difficult these tests are, the more volatile the pushback will be. Withot realizing it, they have doomed their test rollout next year to failure.
The Pearson NY tests gave us a preview of what’s in store for 20 million young test takers next spring. PARCC and SBAC have more than doubled down on the impossible goals of the NCLB testing regime. They are not only making the tests ridiculously inappropriate for all students, but they have included a technology nightmare that will compound the problem. Critics will argue that bandwidth and program glitches have disadvantaged tests takers. They will also rightly claim that PARCC and SBAC are tests of computer skills, not only ELA and math. A skills test that is biased against dyslexic, learning disabled, ELLs, and those raised in poverty.
As Bob Shepherd has so aptly dubbed it, the testing “supernova” that follows this rollout next spring will damage the CCSS reform movement irreparably. After which it should dissolves into a list of recomended standards tha can be ignored by most without fear of retribution.
Or so I hope.
We had a computer nightmare with the math SBAC at out school. And the training video for universal tools would not load. However, at least there ARE universal tools, and a pretty sensible method for making sure kids who need accommodations can get them. Better than the old NH NECAP.
I can’t wait to see what happens when all the children in NYC (there are a total of one million, one hundred thousand of them) are online taking the assessments. Granted, not everyone will be taking the test at once, but close to half the students will be online at some point during the time frame. Not to mention the rest of the state.
My God, they couldn’t even provide an accurate PRINT version for some of the third graders. Just think of the daily glitches found in technology.
I have a similar background in education (trained English teachers, taught h.s. English, etc.) and was asked to view a lesson by Perfection Learning and comment on it. I don’t think A.P. English students would have been able to handle the questions and said so. I probably won’t be asked to be a reviewer again. And what about our remedial readers and ELD students? I don’t think the test makers in many cases have any clue about developmental levels.
Coming from the perspective of a high school math class, I have the same report about the Algebra II PARCC test. The questions are both hard and confusing. Clearly, the priority in the question-making was to eliminate students getting the correct answer without using Algebra (a good thing), but to ensure this, they had to make the questions harder. An example (one of very many I could give) is the 1st question on the no-calculator portion of the test:
k is a real number. If f(x) = (k^2)(x^3) – 6kx + 9 is divisible by (x – 1), what is k?
For a non-honors Algebra II kid (i.e. a student not heading towards Calculus in high school), this one isn’t going to happen. Out of the 34 questions on the released practice test, well over half are like this. Even the ones that are more reasonable in terms of content are worded in ways that make it hard for less able math students to determine what is being asked. This is how some define “critical thinking” and “rigor.”
For those interested, the answer to the question above is k = 3. (Question was free response — not multiple choice). I would guess less than 10% of state legislators and/or Congressmen could get this.
They are TRAPS not tests. Purposefully designed to trick, confuse, frustrate, tire out and beat down young test takers into submission. Tests designed to ellicit failure in order to support the false claim that the majority of America’s schools are “failure factories”.
Can Arne Duncan spell b-a-c-k-f-i-r-e ?
The failed calculus of know-nothing, know-it-alls.
All I know is that I’m glad I don’t have to take this test. (And I was an English major in college and scored high on all my Regents Math Exams plus took Calculus).
Take off your blinders everyone. Pearson designed tests for the US are specifically designed to frustrate, intimidate, and drive kids crazy. The goal of the anti-US regime controlling Pearson has started by brainwashing the children, and then the takeover of US from will be done without firing a shot. Why do you think we have such a stupid guy like Arne Duncan with so much power ? He’s a puppet. Pearson is the REAL weapon of mass destruction that is now aimed on America’s children.
Please keep ta fierce beam of light on this. We are expecting children to be professors. We are asking too much at a very high cost.
Thanks for blogging my letter, Diane. For those of you who are interested in reading the whole thing, here is the original: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-steinitz/sasha-obama-my-daughter-a_b_5187830.html. (Diane, if you could put this link in the post, that would be great.)
1. So, in my “essay” I must first “compare the purposes of the three sources,” then “analyze how each source uses explanations, demonstrations, or descriptions… to accomplish its purpose,” while along the way I must be “sure to discuss important differences and similarities between… the video and… the articles.” I have been teaching high school English for about 15 years, and if a student handed me an “essay” based on this prompt, and I had not seen the prompt, I would probably be confused. This is not a prompt for a timed test essay, it is the prompt for a lengthy paper, which a student might work on over the course of a semester. Further, I teach my students that a good essay has a focused thesis and supports that thesis clearly in each body paragraph. This might be possible to do with this prompt, but considering all the zigs and the zags in the directions, some students will easily become confused as to what the point or purpose of their essay is supposed to be. Finally I ask the question, “To what end?” Why am I comparing these different sources? The prompt only gives me comparison for the sake of comparison. As a seventh grade student am I supposed to figure out for myself, on this timed test, why I am comparing them? Am I supposed to judge one “better,” more informative, easier to understand, what? For most seventh graders the answer will come down to, “I have to do this meaningless activity which in no way has relevance to my own life simply because it is on the test.” All of this is highly demotivational, confusing, and ensures poor performance.
2. “Write an essay that explains how Old Mother West Wind’s and the Sandwitch’s words and actions are important to the plots of the stories.” This ridiculous prompt does not require an essay response, does not even call for an essay response. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Character is plot, plot is character.” That answers this prompt. I don’t teach elementary school, and my children are not yet third graders, so I have little experience with third grader thinkers; but I would think a thoughtful third grader would echo Fitzgerald by saying simply, “If Old Mother West Wind and the Sandwitch don’t talk or do anything, then there is no story and no plot.” Besides, in high school I steer my students AWAY from talking about plot, because they often devolve into plot summary and leave out any real analysis. Oh, and why are we having third graders write “essays” on tests? This is another example of trying to backwards engineer “college readiness” at the expense of real learning, natural cognitive development, and the psychological well-being of the students.
I agree with Diane: these are nothing more than traps and snares. This is no way to treat our students. Learning should NEVER be a game of Gotcha.
Absolutely true, Rebecca Steinitz.
Reblogged this on Factionista Files and commented:
This post by Diane Ravitch is a good follow-up to my post called “Reality Strikes.” It also explains how the level of difficulty is outrageous and makes no sense. But, something else also occurred to me when reading this. Diane ends with, “These are not good tests of reading comprehension. They are traps and snares.” So what is her conclusion? Does she think that the tests need to be improved or does the icon of fighting education reformers think Common Core $tate $tandards and the high-stakes tests that are inextricably linked should be eradicated altogether? I wonder why this position wasn’t made clear at the end of her post.
Well, divide it up into all the component classifications, it’s 24 parts. But what do I know? I only teach college writing and publish essays, articles, and short stories.
Part of the issue facing students as they read the prompts found on PARCC’s performance tasks is their lack of practice developing organized comparison compositions on significant topics and or text structures. Much of that is due to the lack of instructional support given to teachers on how to organize and write a comparative essay. I address this issue in a recent blog: Common Core Writing Prompts Too Hard or Teaching & Learning a Step Behind? (http://partnerinedu.com/2014/05/13/common-core-writing-prompts-too-hard-or-teaching-learning-a-step-behind/)
Reblogged this on TN BATs BlOG.
Excellent letter, Rebecca. I hope the policy makers are listening.