[Reposting because I forgot to add the link!!! A hazard of age.]
Peter DeWitt, principal of an elementary school in upstate New York, surveys the landscape and sees an educational system that is crushing principals, teachers and children with unreasonable mandates.
At the center of the mandates is the endless demands for test scores. Higher and higher…or die.
Complaints are rising. They are coming from all directions. The current course of “reform” is not sustainable when the object of the reforms reacts with sullen and suppressed rage. There is no joy in this Mudville.
Peter concludes:
“High stakes testing has gotten out of control. Policymakers, state and federal education departments aren’t on the sidelines. They are making decisions from remote locations. These decisions are coming from people who care more about money and shame than they care about children. Unfortunately, children are the collateral damage in this new test-taking era.
“Education should be about learning, educational resources and building relationships with students and families. It should not be about testing. So many stakeholders do not understand the amount of money that is given privately to companies creating high stakes tests. They hear about money coming from the lottery or from Race to the Top and truly believe that each school district shares in that pot when that is just not true. It takes millions of dollars to pay for tests made by companies and that money could be better invested where it is needed most, which is in our students.
“It’s time for policymakers, politicians and state education departments to wake up and see that the complaints about high stakes testing is not part of an implementation dip, it’s just bad practice. Many states have been giving high stakes testing for almost fifteen years and it has done little to help public education. To keep moving forward with so much collateral damage is educational malpractice on the part of those in charge.
We need to keep spreading the word. Many of my Collegues are just as uninformed as people not in the profession. Between this and charter schools, we have a lot of educating to do.
Thank you Diane for furthering the message of my blog. It’s sad that we have come to a point where state education departments and the federal education department have gotten so far away from good practice.
Not only are they testing too much, they are using student data for the wrong reasons. Student test scores are being used to evaluate teachers & stimulate the economy (stimulus money, RTTT, CCSS). ‘They’ will continue to say it’s for children.
Talking to lawmakers is a waste of time. Parents need to know their children are being exploited.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Thanks for this! (by the way — don’t forget to include a link. I’m glad Mr. DeWitt commented — I found his blog that way).
I appreciate your hard work! (As does my wife, a teacher in Austin ISD who saw you last week).
and testing is beginning earlier and earlier…. they’re bubble testing fetuses now
http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-tiniest-test-takers.html #satire
SL,
Which category won your poll?
I wanted to post the testing calendar for our district but I can’t get it to paste. At any rate, there is a test every month of some kind or another for my students. Most of them are 2 or 3 days worth, a couple are only a few hours. Stop the insanity!
I teach in a public elementary school. Starting this year, our kindergartners must take the NWEA test three times, using a computer and a mouse. In order to begin the test, the child must find his or her name on a roster, click on it, and then enter a password. If the child cannot read, they must find the volume button, click on it, and listen to the questions being read out loud. To answer, they must click and drag the correct answer across the screen.
Five-year-olds are not adept at using a mouse. Children who have the same first or last name as another child will inevitably click on the wrong one and sign in as the other person. Children who don’t know how to find the volume buttons will either sit there doing nothing, or they will play around by clicking and dragging random answers around the screen, just for fun.
The rules state that there can only be a proctor in the room with the students (not the teacher). In our school, that means one adult with up to 36 children, all confused and clicking on this and that. It takes the poor proctor 45 minutes just to get them all signed in under the correct name.
The results of these tests will be a portion of our annual teacher evaluation this year. The results won’t mean a thing, except maybe to tell us which students know how to use a computer and a mouse.
We are in the process of testing now, and when the whole school is done, students in grades 2-8 will head right back to the computer lab to take a Common Core assessment. In the spring, we will take two weeks out of our instruction to administer our state test.
All I want to do is teach! But this constant testing is getting in the way of getting through a single unit. Every time we need to test, we have to put everything else on hold. Even after our testing is done, students who were absent need to be pulled out for makeup testing. Then those students need to make up what they missed in class. It is driving me crazy!
“It takes the poor proctor 45 minutes just to get them all signed in under the correct name.”
And anyone who knows anything about five-year-olds knows that after 45 minutes, at least half of them will need to use the bathroom, thus necessitating starting the whole mess all over again!
A new IEP computer program was being introduced several years ago and we were required to go to training sessions. I went. I had at the time little if no knowledge on how to even turn on a computer. I remember sitting there trying to get the mouse to go where it was suppose to go. I couldn’t do it. I became so frustrated that I had to get
up and leave the training in tears. I waited in the car until my
passenger completed the training. I can’t imagine a 4 or 5 year old being put through such an ordeal. I felt sorry for those trying to help us. There was more than 1 walking around the room. To think only 1 proctor with a group of wiggly worms…Lordy be! BTW, I still have trouble sometimes getting the mouse to go where I want it to go. But I’ve learned at my own pace and on my own time.
In which state? Are parents made aware of what is going on? How long before it this insanity gets to NY?
New York
Diane
Michele,
It has already hit New York in full force. Check out the new teacher evaluation system that Gov. Cuomo,the Board of Regents (and sad to say…NYSUT)has approved. Your New York State Public School child K-12 has already taken SLO assessments in all content areas (math, reading) as well as music, physical education,band, library, art and any other class they may be enrolled in. All this so they can be tested once again throughout the year to show “growth.” Why you ask… becasue teachers are being evaulated and ranked/judged on how much “growth” your child has made. It sounds like a good concept until you really look into what is being measured and how the state is measuring it. Of course, if you have a 3-8 student, they are still taking state tests which are blind, timed, given over 3 days and we were told this year are not rigorous enough… so, your 3rd grader will be given reading passages as high as 5th grade (2 years above the tested grade). Then let’s rememeber that there are many students sitting in classrooms (not coded or special ed) who are currently reading or performing math at 1-3 grade levels below the grade they are enrolled. They are expected to pass and make “growth” on the exact same test of a higher or grade level peer. Oh yeah. what do the test scores mean for the kids… nothing. They aren’t retained if they don’t pass… they don’t get extra support. They are just used against the classroom teacher b/c of course he/she must be lazy and ineffective. I hope some lawyer is suiting up…b/c I am waiting for a class action lawsuit to be filed!
Today’s Wall St. Journal reported that Pearson is probably ditching its Financial Times News paper and Penguin Books so that they can “use the capital to advance the higher growth educational businesses…” Isn’t that great? Now our favorite company will have plants and offices wherever in the world we go on vacation,
We’ll be able to picket in forty languages. I’m getting a book of swear words in forty languages so that I can talk to their employees myself..Can’t wait to take a trip.
Good Morning — what do you think about also sending a letter to Mrs. Obama on October 17th??
Marge
Seconded. In fact, we should add as many names to the list as possible. Duncan for sure. Your Senators, Representatives, governor, mayor, local school board/superintendent, etc.
Can anyone help us out by providing all of the necessary email addresses??
Marge
Will do.
Email address will be posted October 15, 16 and 17.
Diane
I love the idea. It would be a huge victory to get thousands of emails to the President, your senators, and House member.
Diane
Dear Diane,
High stakes testing is ridiculous, and a major issue. My school district uses NWEA’s measures of academic growth three times a year. In addition, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, and 10th grades take a Criterion Referenced Test in the late spring. The writing test for 5th grade is now on the computer, and takes one day instead of three days. Our high school students must take and pass competency tests in order to earn a regular diploma.
I teach 2nd grade, so I can’t speak to tests given at other grades. I can, however, talk about conversations in the teachers’ lounge/workroom. We are all familiar with the fact that our students tend to lose some of what they’ve learned when they don’t use it over the summer. We also know they will get it back in short order once they get back into the school routine.
Here comes the sad part: We actually hope our students do poorly on their first NWEA tests each year! Why? Because when they get back into school routines, and reopen those neural pathways which allow them to access their prior knowledge, and take their second round of NWEA tests mid-year, we, the current year teachers, get ‘credit’ for the student’s academic growth! Not fair, but true.
Evaluating teachers based heavily on student scores is absurd! No single teacher. can control the emotional, psychological, or developmental status of the students who walk into our classrooms each year. My current crop of students have birthdays which spread over a two year span. They range in height as much as 16 inches. They range from students who can’t register a score on a STAR test to some who score a 5.6. Their handwriting ranges from incorrect formation and not legible to extremely legible cursive. Their reading levels score from DRA 8 to DRA 40+. A test to evaluate their prior Math knowledge shows a similar spread. I differentiate everything I do in the classroom, and I hope it is enough to enable them to acquire and retain the information they need to score well on the 3rd grade CRT.
I think we do need to evaluate our students’ growth from year to year, but basing the value of any single teacher on student test scores is just dumb!
Who are the supposed educators that allow and acquiesce to this standardized testing insanity?
Duane, we don’t acquiesce or allow it. This absurd testing is top down, mandated by federal law and state policy, and deeply entrenched in the system. I want to teach, and in order to do that I have to have a teaching position. I will lose my teaching position if I don’t do it, or if I violate testing policies and procedures. Teachers constantly assess their students, informally and formally, formative and cumulative. If any of the big companies selling expensive testing materials to school districts were to walk into my classroom and ASK me, I, or any other teacher, could tell them about my students, – which ones have difficulty reading, which cannot comprehend what they read, which have trouble with numbers, which need extra support to write. But if they did ask me, they couldn’t make a profit selling their wares.
I was just thinking about this after your post, Judith. I left my preschoolers more than two months ago, but I can still tell you how every single one of them did on a variety of cognitive, physical, emotional, social, and yes, academic levels. Teachers know their kids! I’m currently back in grad school so I can get back to teaching, but this time in the public schools. I’ll know my kids then too, in spite of the standardized for-profit examinations I’m forced to give them.
Is there a link to this? Is this an article or was it a letter?
I FORGOT THE LINK! I just reposted with the link added. Thanks for pointing this out
Oh my! I remember when my son was in first grade. (He is now a 12th grader.) He had received SPED in pre-school, but of course in k-12 that designation is not recognized! He was a champion decoder, though I was very aware he was not comprehending what he read. His great teacher assumed he was like his older sister and tested him at a high DRA level… and, of course, found out that he did not comprehend it. She didn’t know how low to go and couldn’t spend time doing so because these standardized assessments take so long. My first insight to the problems with the (arguably better vs. DIBELS) DRA.
The Oregon Department of Education refers to “link below titled AERA Position Statement on High-Stakes Testing in Pre-K-12 Education”
http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=490
That is a non-working link, but you can find the paper here:
http://www.aera.net/AboutAERA/AERARulesPolicies/AERAPolicyStatements/PositionStatementonHighStakesTesting/tabid/11083/Default.aspx
Think about the following when waivers demand ANNUAL MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES.
Think about it when states (like Oregon) have adopted the common core state standards WHICH ARE CLEARLY NOT ALIGNED. I wrote about this is in an Oregonian column…
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/10/telling_oregon_schools_to_aim.html
Alignment Between the Test and the Curriculum
Both the content of the test and the cognitive processes engaged in taking the test should adequately represent the curriculum. High-stakes tests should not be limited to that portion of the relevant curriculum that is easiest to measure. When testing is for school accountability or to influence the curriculum, the test should be aligned with the curriculum as set forth in standards documents representing intended goals of instruction. Because high-stakes testing inevitably creates incentives for inappropriate methods of test preparation, multiple test forms should be used or new test forms should be introduced on a regular basis, to avoid a narrowing of the curriculum toward just the content sampled on a particular form.
This is in response to Peg— I became infuriated when I read that the Libyan dictatorship made billions of dollars by investing in Pearson. What is wrong with this picture?? We have people right here in Buffalo , New York who live in poverty. Yet our state, awards a contract of millions of dollars for standardized testing which are neither reliable or valid and assign a growth score that is supposed to be attached to teachers’ evaluations. Why are those millions of dollars going towards helping to end poverty in our city, our state and our country.
I hear children walking down the hall of my school saying:”I’m a 2.” That is just WRONG!!! I don’t ever want to think of a child as a number. My husband and I are preparing a little video that I hope will go viral. Parents are approaching me wanting to sign a petition to have their child Opt Out of testing with no punishment to the school. They are furious with what is happening.
My colleagues do not want their children to be thought of as a 2 or a low 3. This is just so ridiculous. I type this as people after a parent who is a teacher in Buffalo told me that they have backpack weekend. I inquired as to what that was– he told me, we back their backpacks with dry cereal that we gathered over the week so they will have something to eat over the weekend. Their only meals are in school.
We need to stop the madness and get after the real issues.
Marge