Yesterday I heard from a teacher in New Jersey, who read my blog about giving tests in the arts and physical education. I said in no uncertain terms that giving state tests in the arts is wrong. It diminishes teacher professionalism. It has nothing to do with improving education. It’s just the mindless need to test everyone and create data so that teachers can be evaluated by numbers.
This teacher described the nightmare of testing that is descending on her state under the leadership of Chris Cerf. Not only will students be constantly pre-tested, tested, test-prepped, and post-tested, they will be tested in everything to measure their “growth.” They will be tested in dance, physical education, art, etc.
This teacher knows that what is happening is wrong. Other teachers know it is wrong too, but they are afraid to speak up. As the movement accelerates to strip teachers of tenure and any job protections, the climate of fear takes hold. Who will risk their job to do what is right? Who has the courage to stand up to the powerful? Who will defend the defenseless children who are the victims of all this obsessive measurement?
She will. Who will stand with her?
| It is funny that you say that because my school is piloting the new teacher evaluation in NJ. NJ has chosen to go with the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) model in the teacher evaluation. So, with SGP, students are given pre-midterms, midterms, pre-final, and final to measure the growth of our students.Here is the breakdown of how it is calculatedQ: How does New Jersey measure student growth? A: New Jersey measures growth for an individual student by comparing the change in his or her NJ ASK achievement from one year to the next to that of all other students in the state who had similar historical results (the student’s “academic peers”). This change in achievement is reported as a student growth percentile (abbreviated SGP) and indicates how high or low that student’s growth was as compared to that of his/her academic peers. For a school or district, the growth percentiles for all students are aggregated to create a median SGP for the school or district. The median SGP is a representation of “typical” growth for students in the school or district.However, since we do not have longitudinal tests in the high school, our district/school chose to create their own tests for every content area. I’m talking dance, physical education, art, musical theatre, graphic arts, sculpture, play-writing etc. This week, our students are taking multiple choice tests mixed with open ended responses in dance and all those other areas I mentioned, and I found myself think, “this is absurd” yet I’m the only one saying anything. Am I the only one who thinks this is DEAD WRONG! No I am not, but I found out yesterday everyone else in our school is afraid to say anything. They are afraid to take a stand because they are not willing to suffer any repercussions from the administration. However we are doing our children a disservice by keeping silent.So, I’ll stand alone and take the stand with one or two other teachers. It may not make a big impact, but I will make a point. We owe this to our children and future generations. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can proudly say that this teacher is a friend of mine, and I commend her honesty, integrity, and grit. In fact, I taught Theatre in that very school and was lucky enough to be granted a transfer late last summer, which I requested because of the very “guinea-pigging” of the school to which she refers. Being known as one who is not afraid to speak out, I was also just elected to the Executive Board of our teacher’s union. Sadly — and this is my point — I don’t really believe that it will matter. We’ve come to THAT in this district, this state, this profession.
I have trouble not feeling discouraged about all this. I started teaching in 1976…retired in 2010…and have seen things go from bad to worse. In 2008 I blogged about teachers who showed the same courage that this NJ teacher has shown…Doug Ward in North Carolina, Carl Chew in Seattle (email me if you would like the links). For years we’ve been fighting this testing monster and it just seems to be growing. The people in power just seem to get bolder and bolder in their quest to damage public education. Tony Bennett in Indiana…Scott Walker in Wisconsin…Rick Scott in Florida…Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey…the list of those who are against us grows and state legislatures continue to go after teachers, their unions and the public schools while giving economic and academic preference to private schools and privately run charter schools.
I go from feeling enthused and inspired by people like the teacher in this post, to exhausted and defeated by the massive amount of money groups like Walton, Broad and Gates are throwing into the mix.
The general public is being misled by NBC, Waiting for Superman, and the [false] “common knowledge” that our schools are failing. The voices of reason and experience (Ravitch, Krashen, Cody, etc) aren’t being heard. Why are former minor league basketball players, computer entrepreneurs, TV talk show hosts, and career politicians the ones making the educational policy for the nation?
I worry about my grandchildren…what’s going to be left of the public school system by the time they are ready to graduate? My son had to camp out on the sidewalk for a week to get my granddaughter into a preferred pre-school…so she would be eligible to go to the elementary school affiliated with it…
I know…we can’t give up, but it’s emotionally exhausting…not to mention infuriating!
Don’t forget about Ohio and our arrogant governor John Kasich who made the mistake of taking on police, firefighters and teachers with his infamous union busting SB5. This was defeated in 2011, only find bits and pieces of it sneaking in the back door with other legislation!
And let me add the BobbyJindal Reich in Louisiana that easily passed Acts 1, 2, and 25 during their just ended 2012 Legislative Carnage Session. Their list of ALEC-approved initiatives includes
1) Vouchers (now called “scholarships” and, therefore, more palatable for the unwitting public)
2) The use of MFP dollars (Minimum Foundation Program is LA’s state formula for allocating dollars to public education) to pay for ill-termed scholarships. A suit has already been filed against the LA Dept of Ed for their intended use of public dollars to pay for “scholarships” that will go to several parochial schools.
3) “Value Added Performance” which will tie a portion of teachers’ salaries to student performanec scores.
4) A new formula for tenure wherein teachers must rate as “high performing” i.e. perform in the top 10%, for 5 out of 6 years to attain tenure. Teachers are subject to losing tenure if they do not maintain their high performing status. The formula for determining if a teacher is high performing is based on another formula thatis tied to student growth. The student growth formula is this: Yijk = π0jk + Σ(πpjk)apijk + eijk where Yijk is the achievement of student i in class j at school k in the target subject. π0jk is the mean achievement for classroom j at school k πpjk are the p coefficients that weight the contribution of the student level data in the prediction of Y for p = 1 to the total number of coefficients. apijk are the student level data (prior achievement, demographic variables, and attendance) that predict achievement for p = 1 to the total number of data points. eijk the student level random effect, the deviation of the predicted score of student i in classroom j in school k from the obtained score. Got that? Me neither, and neither, evidently, does the gentleman who devised the formula for the LDOE, Dr. George Noell, as he is no longer working with the LDOE and can’t be found to explain his formula.
5) State tax rebates to individuals and corporations who donate to the “scholarship” funds. Interestingly, a bill that was passed by the legislature that would have also granted tax rebates to individuals and corporations who donated to public schools was VETOED by the illustrious Governor Jindal.
Don’t forget that LOCAL tax dollars will also be used to pay for Louisiana vouchers and may even go to out-of-district private schools. That is the case in St. Bernard Parish (a grade “B” system) which receives only minimal MFP funds because we are a “wealthy district” with only one local Roman Catholic school and no other private schools.
Dr. Noell has returned to LSU. You can contact him at gnoell@lsu.edu, if you’d like to.
As some of my people say, “You go, Girl!”
We have to believe that the majority will wake up . . .