The popular rising against high-stakes testing grows larger every day.
In Texas, more than 500 school boards have endorsed a resolution opposing high-stakes testing.
A coalition of organizations and individuals prepared a national resolution against high-stakes testing. Hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals have signed it. (Please add your name.)
Florida parents are up in arms against the FCAT. Even editorial boards are beginning to see the sham perpetrated on students using tests of dubious quality.
Parent groups around the country are organizing to resist, as they see the unnecessary pressure applied to their children. The issue is personal, not theoretical. They may not have read the policy briefs, but they see their own children spending weeks preparing for the state tests, weeks in which there is no instruction, just test prep. Parents know this is wrong.
In New York City, parents are planning a public protest on June 7 at the headquarters of testing behemoth Pearson. Their immediate grievance is the field tests in June, which Pearson needs for its R&D but which steals away yet another day of instruction. But their underlying grievance is with the whole lockstep top-down regime of high-stakes testing, which distorts the meaning of education.
All of this is happening because our elected and appointed leaders are in love with accountability. For accountability, they need data. They will use the data to rank students, to rate teachers, to grade schools, and then to apply sanctions and–in rare circumstances–rewards (but there is little or no money for the rewards). Based on test scores, some teachers will be fired. Some principals will be fired. Some schools will be closed. Students will learn that they are not as good as other students. Schools will get a letter grade. Everyone will be ranked, rated, graded.
And this whole structure rests on the standardized tests.
Folks, the tests were not designed for high-stakes purposes. And they are not good enough to bear the weight now placed upon them.
The basic rule of psychometrics is this: Tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed.
That rule is violated every time a student is flunked, a teacher is fired, a principal is fired, or a school is closed, based on test scores.
Tests should be used to help, not to punish or reward.
So, as the title of my blog promises, I have a solution.
All of this will end if we do this one simple thing.
Insist that all policymakers, think tank gurus, academic experts, and politicians who believe so passionately in standardized tests do this:
Take the tests in reading and mathematics and publish your scores.
Do not demand for other people’s children what you are not willing to do yourself.
Take the tests and publish your scores.
Say that. Say it whenever they praise the tests. Say it whenever they impose them on your children.
And watch what happens.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, once again you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head! I would love to see these so-called education experts attempt to take these racially and culturally biased tests that even people with PhD’s (myself included!) may not be terribly successful at. Oh, I may pass the tests assuming I have had enough rest, food, and know enough strategies to eliminate possibly wrong answers, but that is a major assumption! As a classroom teacher, I still, after 10 years in the classroom teaching the same curriculum, have to look at the answers from time to time. So, if after 10 years of teaching the parts of speech, etc., I have to “check for understanding” on my own knowledge, I would be shocked if the policy makers could do any better.
I think I would do well on the reading test, but I doubt I could pass the math tests. I have seen them. The public has no idea how high the expectations are for children today.
I could probably do well on the reading tests also, but like you, I am no math wizard (I didn’t even understand Algebra until college) and would probably be deemed to be an underperforming student. Additionally, the expectations on our students are enormously high and you are right, the public has simply no idea what is expected for both learners and for educators.
[…] We just got backed by Diane Ravitch. […]
I would have trouble sitting for as long as is expected, let alone answering enough questions correctly. I’d also want some kind of feedback.
There is no feedback….so WHAT do these test do to help the children OR the teachers? HOW can they EVER help ANYONE when there is no feedback. All they do is test endurance!
“Tests should be used to help, not to punish or reward.”
This is my favorite line of the entire post Diane! In the craziness that now takes place in public schools all over America, we have forgotten that tests should be used to HELP. Tests should be used to HELP teachers learn if what they think they’ve taught has indeed been learned with depth and thoughtfulness. Tests should be used to HELP students discover their own learning gaps and work on the areas in which they need to improve. Tests should be used to HELP parents see what is being presented in class, and how their child is doing as compared to that content.
Now, tests are secret and teachers cannot even look at an item analysis for their students. Without that bit of DATA, all these tests have become is punishment for teachers and students. Students are stressed and pressured. They sit for much longer than is developmentally appropriate. Teachers are punished if they don’t add enough “value” based on some magical secret formula that State Education Departments contrive.
I agree with you Diane – every elected or appointed official should take the tests and publish their scores!
I firmly believe that standardized testing can be useful if the results are used properly. For example, my district uses benchmarks based upon our scope and sequence, to monitor classroom learning. We then USE that data in collaborative teams to decide what skills need more work (re-teaching), what skills the students are doing well on, and to individualize learning for struggling learners. The data we get back on standardized testing is nothing more than numbers that mean little and are not used in any substantive way to help our struggling, or conversely, proficient, learners.
I am strongly in favor of assessments, be they formative or summative, but the data must be used appropriately and it must be accurate!
Another question is: are the tests really standardized? To answer, in part, read Todd Farley’s book Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry (2009, PoliPointPress, 242 pages-paperback, $16.95) This book only confirmed what my colleagues & I already had figured out after looking at sample scored
writing tests–the STANDARDIZATION & VALIDITY is derived from appropriate,questions which have–1. ONE (not 2 or not any) CORRECT answer; 2. contain questions which CAN, logically, be answered, & 3. are correctly & uniformly scored by COMPETENT
scorers (RE; writing portions), utilizing a standardized rubric & not
doctoring, erasing or changing any part of that rubric or scores already given (see pages 94-96 of the Farley book).
The tests are used to level/track the students in the next year. As teachers, by the time we get the results, we already know where the students are in re. to their abilities. Plus, THE SCORES ARE A BASED ON ONE TEST. Another silly thing is that they love to put “leveled” questions in the test…Why? To have our students’ confidence go down because they didn’t understand the questions? It’s truly a sad game being played on our students, with no winners except for those that create the tests.
A bunch of terrible, soulless political robots could perform well on the tests and thereby satisfy your criteria, while still condemning children to take the tests. This solution would only work in the short run. If we’re going to take a principled stand against the idea that multiple choice tests = education, we shouldn’t leave open the possibility that random luck, tampered scores, or worse–trivia regurgitators–could do well on the tests and make all the objections appear invalid.
When I began teaching back in the 70’s, the diagnostic-perscriptive model was the rage in special ed. we were strongly encouraged to implement Pre-post testing for every unit we planned and taught. Each teacher designed their own tests…for their students…based upon what would be taught in the coming weeks. The thinking was…1) PRE-test the students prior to instructions to see what they DO and DO NOT know about the concept content. 2) Teach, then ….3) POST-test to compare the result to the PRE-test to see the degree of change in knowledge base and competencies.
We did this with K to 5th grade students. Of course, it wasn’t the standardized computer scored bubble test the kids take now…nor were the tests solely multiple tests. The point of testing was to establish a baseline on each child’s performance and compare the baseline to any measured change…it measured improved mastery/performance following exposure to /interaction with ‘skilled’ instruction. I know I used the results to not only measure growth of each students following each instructional unit , but I also charted each student’s perfomance throughout the school year. I wanted to see if the same kids did consistently well test to test all year, and/or did the same kids do poorly test to test all year. Needless to say, I learned alot about testing as a measure of achievement. I learned that achievement can be measured in many ways. My favorite measure was the Draw and Lable tests. Ex; Draw a box turtle in its natural habitat and lable the turtle and important parts of its habitat. The detail in the POST tests was astounding! Of course we had a pet box turtle in the room as our class pet for 6 weeks while we studied reptiles. They new very little before…and very much afterwards. Not everyone is an artist , I know. But even the weaker artisans demonstrated improved knowledge!
When it came time for my teacher evaluation conference, I always made sure I brought my “Progress Measures” file with me. I realize now, the Pre-Post test model demonstrated my effective teaching as much as they demonstrated my students’ growth. They provided the ‘ Accountability Proof’ that is being demanded today….and (chucle) they really were more in line with current public school ‘austerity’ measures we are facing nationwide. Perhaps this testing format could be implemented by teachers in public schools across the nation to provide our value and effectiveness….it certainly is more relevant and specific than the sterile, multiple choice questions promoted by politicians. We could save billions of dollars a year by eliminating the “standardized test and implementing Pre-post measures…homegrown…victory assessments. Tried and true…old time methods…they worked!
I think it would work!
I started teaching special ed. in the 70s as well, & we used the same methods which did, indeed, work! (And MUCH better!)
My typo’s are awful..and I do apologize. It’s been a long humid day and my laptop keys are sticking. But I do hope you get the idea and can read past my typo’s. .
JoJoFox, typos aside, a lovely post, and a reminder that organic, teacher-produced assessments trumps canned tests any day.
They are not in love with accountability. This version of accountability is a complete sham whose only point is to justify the privatization of education. The decision makers are bought and paid for. That’s all. It’s about guaranteed profits to the test makers and the for-profit ed market.
Accountability! Ha! What a laugh.
There is an observation regarding these high stakes tests that has been nagging me as I witnessed, another year of my 3rd through 8th grade students painfully struggle through the hours, days and weeks of these insane and brutal standardized tests. All the while wondering what my future will be based on the quality of their performance. Now, perhaps someone reading this, can add their discussion on the topic. Here goes:
The legally mandated student school year in PA is set at 180 instructional days covering from Sept to June. That computes to be the equivalent of 180 instructional days times 6.5 hrs/day or, approximately 1170 instructional hours per school year. These are hours for which I am financially compensated. These are hours for which I am also expected to be accountable for the achievement effect my instruction has on my students during the 11-12 school year. A test administered to each of my students regardless of their variations in strengths, weaknesses, tolerances and language proficiencies will determine my very professional survival, let alone my personal survival, quality of life as well as that of my family. I understand that. These are the life changing stakes. What I realized this year is that this test was administered on day # 125 of my district’s school calendar.
My students are being tested on their recall of content and on their literacy proficiencies assumed to have been ‘acquired’ from their instructional time in my charge during the duration of the 11-12 school year. This, by law, is supposed to be 180 calendar days. However, the actual truth is, my students are being assessed and scored based upon only 125 days of my instruction, or 812.5 instructional hours. What happened to the rest of the legal school year? What happened to those other valuable and precious instructional hours/days of lessons? What happened to the measurement of the other 56 days X 6.5 hours that equal 364 hours? My students, my district and I are facing the potential for major disastrous consequences of these test scores, because it is deemed by the funding powers to be the ONLY recognized accountability measure of our professional worth. When in fact, the state is not permitting the public schools a full legal school year to engage in instruction. This year we were permitted only 2/3 of the instructional time mandated by law before the state imposed its accountability gauge on our practices. Perhaps, the Dept of Ed feels that the balance of that instructional time (April to June) will be assessed the during via the next year’s 12-13 tests. Well, hold on there! That means I was assessed THIS year for 56 days of last year teacher’s instructional time with my students. One third of my students’ instructional time was with another teacher (s), yet my salary, my retention /dismissal, and my certification are to be determined based on the productivity of someone other than myself for 56 instructional days! My students’ 56 days duration with another teacher or teachers from a previous year is an crucial variable which the state has put beyond my control. And yet, I am being held responsible for it as if it were instructional time for which I indeed, had controI!
Logically that makes any assumption regarding my teaching skill, based on the score of test, a faulty premise. Statistically, it invalidates the score as a measure of my functioning during ‘11-12. The truth is: the test score can only assume to measure 125 days of my instruction time, not a full 180 days. At best , the score can only be deemed to represent 2/3’s of my teacher quality, not 100%
I am being held accountable for 180 days of instruction, despite the fact that I have only been allowed to engage with my students for 125 days. This is no petty matter. I can be fired based on this score. I can be denied salary based on this score, or (hah) merit pay. My district can lose funding for the arts, science, music, athletics, counseling and its very existence. This, I do believe, is a scandalous injustice, one which has the potential to cause hundreds of thousands of teachers and school employees to be unemployed.
For those who interpret all of existence from a business model perspective. Let me use corporate jargon…
Would a financial entity allow one of their investment instruments be evaluated for dividends gained derived from only 2/3 of its fiscal investment period? And furthermore, would they see as fair, if the other 1/3 of fiscal investment period assumes the dividend performance of an unknown investment instrument managed by an unknown competitive financial entity?
Certainly not. They would be in a court room faster than you can say, RIP OFF!
We should not stand for it either. Any thoughts?
Yes–read Joanna Bujes comments. Like the hokey-pokey, that’s what it’s all about. Education is the new cash cow, & public schools/public school teachers are in the way, so must be gotten rid of.
“Do not demand for other people’s children what you are not willing to do yourself.” I would add, do not expect other people’s children to endure high-stakes testing and the Common Core unless YOUR kids have to go through the same educational experiences. Which means that their kids’ private schools would also have to align to the latest standardized curricula, assign the same battery of tests which lead to said schools getting graded (I’m looking at you, Sidwell Friends!), and also why not bring in some Teach for America recruits, and increase class size from 12 to 34, while you’re at it.? Why should exceptions be made for pricey private schools? If Obama and Romney are so supportive of Duncan’s programs, surely they feel they are good enough for their own children?
I think we should “follow the money.” These testing companies, whether for profit or non profit are making huge amounts of (our tax) money by convincing legislators that high stakes testing is the only way to really “assess” schools, teachers and students. Pearson, ETS, Princeton Review, et al are in it for the money and they’ve done one heck of a job selling their products to the government in the name of “educational reform.” These companies spend millions lobbying on the local, state and national level and once they convince our elected officials to buy their products our tax money starts rolling their way. These companies aren’t concerned about students and schools, they’re in it to make money.
[…] Diane Ravitch (and Kate Nowak and Ben Blum-Smith): Insist that all policymakers, think tank gurus, academic experts, and politicians who believe so passionately in standardized tests do this: Take the tests in reading and mathematics and publish your scores. […]
[…] https://dianeravitch.net/2012/06/01/a-solution-to-the-testing-mania/ […]
[…] f(t) – function of time, Kate Nowak comments on Diane Ravitch’s call to ask policy makers to take standardized test (see also the summary and discussion by Dan Meyer at […]