Doug Garrett, regular reader, wrote the following about the U.S. Department of Education’s new stance on testing:
“So… Arne Duncan seems to think STATES do too much testing. Therefore he thinks the FEDERAL government needs to add more rules on top of bad rules and laws… And that will fix things?
“Classic bureaucracy out of control. Every district will have to eliminate teaching positions in order to afford the test reporting administrators need to prove to Arne that they aren’t violating this new rule by implementing Arne’s tests imposed in a different rule.
“Duncan needs to see the movie Brazil or read 1984. Perhaps a close reading?”
2% of time on testing is 18 HOURS. So now we get the privilege of ONLY wasting 3 1/2 days of school on tests that do not even inform us where our students are struggling. This whole thing is a canard. You should all be pulling for the US DOE to get neutered. The President is NOT going to salvage his education reputation with lame pronouncements like this.
Education in this country is WARPED. And John King to replace Duncan …. OY!
And WHY FOCUS on what students don’t know? Could it be a smokescreen for more privatization of public schools?
Follow the $$$$$$.
Obama’s Testing Action Plan is not “progress”. Stand up and fight it.
“TAP Says:
“This review process must respond to changes in the field, such as accounting for the increased prevalence of the use of technology-based assessments as well as techniques for demonstrating their technical quality … This could include competency-based assessments, innovative item types (and) … using technology to administer and score assessments …”
“What This Means: Computers will determine what children should learn, how they learn, why they should learn, and who they are as learners.
Scratch away all of the other words used for window dressing. Distill the document down to its essence (i.e how many times is something repeated or rephrased).
“Hold it up against Alexander’s ESEA language and you get a clear picture: WE WILL GET RID OF UNNECESSARY FEDERAL TESTING (not to actually re empower teachers and recreate meaningful learning) BUT TO MAKE WAY FOR THE INFUSION OF ONLINE AND TECHNOLOGY BASED LEARNING OUTSOURCED BY STATES TO PROFIT-DRIVEN COMPANIES. WE CALL IT OUTCOMES –BASED. WE CALL IT INNOVATION.”
“using technology to administer and score assessments …”
Why do they believe children will be fooled into thinking it isn’t a test if they take it on a computer?They’re not idiots. They know they’re being scored and evaluated on the tests that are disguised as games. My son and his friends know and they’re not particularly sophisticated or brilliant.
Maybe they should just stick to calling them tests. There’s enough marketing and spin directed at children as it is. The least we could do is tell them the truth- testing is hugely important to and for the adults.
The problem with Arne now taking this position is that there’s too big of a track record of him making sweeping and bat-sh#%-crazy statements about how massive testing — and federal control of standardized testing — is needed ensure “equity” and “the civil rights” of public school children, particularly those who are poor and minority.
WTF???!!!
Read this article:
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/4189/education-secretary-arne-duncan-praises-senates-effort-to-reimagine-no-child-left-behind.html
In this article we get these gems from Arne:
(quotes that are quite infuriating when you consider where he sends his own children — the Chicago Lab School, which has no Common Core curriculum / test prep / testing… and where, at the time, he sent his children… a Virginia public school in an upscale neighborhood… a state where, once again, there is no Common Core curriculum / test prep / testing):
———————————————–
DESERET NEWS:
“In a wide-ranging conversation sparked by questions submitted by the audience, Duncan also addressed the testing controversies that hampered the Common Core roll-out in several states.
“Duncan, who sent his own children to public schools, said his family has not been stressed by tests …
ARNE DUNCAN:
“We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about (his own children’s testing). They do OK. It is not a traumatic event. It’s just part of kids’ education growing up.”
———————–
Really, you, your wife, and your kids “don’t spend a lot of time worrying about” standardized tests?
Well that’s because the Virginia public schools where — at the time he gave this interview, and, until recently Duncan, sent his children, DOES NOT FOLLOW THE COMMON CORE, OR GIVE COMMON CORE TESTS.
Therefore, his other comment that his kids’ testing “is not a traumatic event. It’s just part of kids’ education growing up” is completely bogus and misleading.
There’s more ridiculous pro-testing blather:
——————————————–
ARNE DUNCAN:
“When we fail to measure and let parents know how their children are doing, we do our kids a tremendous disservice.”
“This is really an issue about equity,” Duncan said of testing.
“This is not just about assessment. This is about a civil rights issue. We need to know where students are and whether those gaps are closing, or not closing.”
When they use this kind of language, they usually mean something along the lines of “we just want schools to do away with all the BAD assessments (which aren’t the ones we make them take).
Look at it through another lens – what if schools were forced to remove all testing that wasn’t of the High Stakes standardized variety (you know the stuff that actually tells teachers something about kids).
If they declare the wrong tests to be too much – then teachers will have LESS information, be ham strung to correct it, and things will get even WORSE while it will be directly because of this “program” (how can you even tell/measure this kind of thing on a broad scale below the state required level as a minimum?)
By now taking up the mantle of “test taking time regulator” – could this still yet be ANOTHER intrusion by the Obama administration claiming to be shocked by testing reqs?
Look at it another way – they are now claiming a domain they haven’t before – direct control of what happens during school hours – measured and controlled by them.
Duncan needs to leave and never open his great yawning yap again about education lest he reopen the equally stubborn and closed-minded Gates of Hell.
Over-testing will be the focus of his last two weeks of work so obviously it’s a huge priority for him 🙂
Must be something coming out next week that is damaging to the ed reform “movement” cause. A Saturday statement is usually used to preempt bad news coming out the following week.
” A Saturday statement is usually used to preempt bad news coming out the following week.”
Kremlin watching anew!
All I can say is “omg” and I don’t use that regularly and especially not here. But honestly, it is mind-boggling. Though almost numbing. Thank you for continually providing so much important information. The public needs to prevail. They are trying to feed us cake to make us feel better about testing…..”we’ll fix this part, shorten the tests, sort of and then they’ll give up and shut up since their mouths will be stuffed with cake.” I can just hear it.
It is time to join forces with conservatives to eliminate the US Department of Education. It sounded like a good idea, but it has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. One would think that it would be good for special education… it is not. One would think it would be good for combating nonsense like Creationism… it has not. The only thing it has succeeded in has been to drive up the costs of education to pay for testing.
If the Obama administration attempts to gain even more control of the public schools through the White House, then this might very well doom any chance the Democrats have of keeping the White House and taking back one or both Houses of Congress.
Instead of voting for GOP candidates, interdependent voters who usually vote Democratic will not vote and that will doom the Democrats across the board in the next election because a small voter turnout will favor the GOP, and its rabid far right that turns out faithfully to vote for their false gods.
“GOP, and its rabid far right that turns out faithfully to vote for their false gods.” This is funny. Democrats are the ones who NEVER turn on their own. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are living proof of that maxim. It’s not conservatives who have an unhealthy trust of government. Your continued belief that the Democrats are any better than the Republicans is delusional.
“Your continued belief that the Democrats are any better than the Republicans is delusional.”
Where did I say the Democrats were better than the Republicans? There’s a reason why I have been an independent voter for decades. I don’t trust politicians no matter what party they belong to.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Republicans lie about twice as much as the Democratic do, but how do we measure, for instance, one 100 lies to 200 hundred and then claim that one party is better than the other just because they didn’t tell as many lies?
The two major political parties in the U.S. are one coin—the GOP on one side and the Democrats on the other and the difference between them is measured in the thickness of a dime. They are both corrupt and can’t be trusted. Anyone who trusts one party or the other is a fool.
“Instead of voting for GOP candidates, interdependent voters who usually vote Democratic will not vote and that will doom the Democrats across the board in the next election because a small voter turnout will favor the GOP, and its rabid far right that turns out faithfully to vote for their false gods.”
This paragraph clearly favors the Democrats, and your response also reveals your greater disdain for the Republicans. Your belief that Republicans lie more often than Democrats has no basis in reality. I guess it is hard to recognize your own biases. You are getting close to realizing that both parties deserve equal disdain. Are heroine addicts morally superior to crack addicts? Are white collar criminals better than shop lifters?
Fl Teacher
If you compare fact checking sites of presidential debates going back years, you will discover that Republican candidates do lie more than the Democrats do but not by much. I’ve been doing that for some time now and even wrote a blog post about it a few years ago.
In fact, you might want to read this post that offers a comparison of Democrats and Republicans.
And here’s a post I researched and wrote that compered Romney and Obama in the 2012 presidential debate.
“Further reading revealed that President Obama lost because he wasn’t as aggressive as Romney or should I say he only exaggerated and made half as many false claims as Romney did and many of Romney’s exaggerations were WHOPPERS.
“For example: inflating the unemployment numbers from 12.5 million to 23 million compared to Obama inflating the number of jobs created to 5 million from the actual number of 4.63 million.”