Thomas Ratliff was elected to the Texas State Board of Education in 2010. A Republican, he has emerged as one of the most eloquent and powerful voices for public education in the state. In this article, explains; Testing in Texas is out of control.
But wait: here is Sandy Kress, architect of the reviled NCLB, insisting that every child in Texas has the right to be tested with super frequency. Testing is the very foundation, it seems, of the state’s economy. without it, where would Texas be? Kress is now a lobbyist for Pearson, which won a five-year contract for almost $500 million from the state of Texas. The legislature found the testing money at the same time they cut the public schools’ budget by $5.4 Billion. That’s B for Billions.
Sara Stevenson, a librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, sent the following letter to the editor in response to Kress’s spirited defense of standardized testing:
“Surprise, surprise. Sandy Kress, a current lobbyist for Pearson, the
British testing company with a $468,000,000 five year contract with
Texas, argues in favor of the new tests. He believes that these new
tests will guarantee the state’s constitutional responsibilities for
“a general diffusion of knowledge” among the population. But Article 7
of the Texas constitution is more specific. It calls for the “support
and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
“Article 7 is about the state’s obligation to support public schools,
not to test them. Texas did not meet this standard when it cut 5.4
billion dollars for public education in the current biennium. Texas
successfully educated its citizens for over a century without these
increasingly onerous, standardized tests.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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Great little song. But, I think the last line should be “Till Arne blows his horn.”
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No, from what I hear, Arne never stops blowing his horn.
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Rather than spending all that money testing all those students, perhaps it would be simpler to test the teachers every five years or so.
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Oh that’s a wonderful idea! (sarcasm alert). Because my knowledge goes away if I don’t take a test about it. Standardized testing is awful for students, but it’s not a really great idea for anyone.
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Heck, why stop there? Let’s make all certified professionals take exams every five years to kep their jobs. Can you imagine the hue and cry if lawyers needed to take their bar exams that often?
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Or the docs?
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Been there, done that. The leadership in Texas prompted by Ross Perot who incidentally made millions of dollars along the way, required all teachers to take a test (the TECAT) in the late 80’s. It was a colossal disaster. No, Mr. Falstaff that is not a good idea.
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The teachers are tested daily – every day spent at work doing their very best to teach their hearts out.
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Kress: “The plaintiffs in the school finance lawsuit have argued that educators need the resources to succeed under HB 3. It is ironic that friends of the plaintiffs are trying to eviscerate the very law upon which the plaintiffs are pinning their case for more money.
“The courts should pay close attention to this drama. The Supreme Court has said that the presence of a strong state accountability system is fundamental to fulfilling the constitutional requirement of a general diffusion of knowledge for students across Texas.”
The executive and legislative branches answer to the judiciary on matters of constitutionality. If teachers and board members don’t like the testing, where’s the alternative accountability legislation?
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Eric, the so-called, “standardized” testing is like the Mike Myers “Linda Richman Coffee Talk” skit on Sat. Night Live. If you’ve never seen it, ask someone. When Linda can’t talk, she advises her audience to “Talk amongst yourselves,” introducing some ludicrous topic such as “The Trojan Wars were neither Trojan nor wars. Discuss!” The “standardized” tests have been shown to be neither valid nor reliable, therefore, not “standardized.” The inane, unanswerable “Pineapple” question of last year was NOT an anomaly: as a special ed. teacher who had access to reading the tests aloud (Math, and Science, for Grade 7), I can assure you that there were many, many erroneous questions–Math questions
with no correct answers or more than one correct answer; Science questions that were ridiculous, and on and on. Don’t get me started on those sample books, and how the sample Reading essays were scored: the L.A. teachers and my SpEd. colleagues could NOT figure out the inequitable scoring. Essays that we would have given the highest scores to received 2’s (low), and essays that deserved 1’s were scored 6! BUT–don’t take my word for it–read Todd Farley’s book,”Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry.” (Diane wrote a
post about him November 15th–read that, too!) Not only are the tests poorly designed, but the scoring of said tests (on essay portions)are juked (sometimes by State people who are paying for the tests!), and have been scored, often, by extremely unqualified people. I repeat: READ TODD’S BOOK! That having been said, HOW could states all over the U.S.A. dare waste OUR children’s money (& in the BILLIONS) on these tests worth no more than the
paper they’re printed on? (And thrown away, thus also wasting precious environmental resources.) Last but not least, how could these extremely faulty, NOT standardized, tests be used to GRADE our teachers and our schools? What would happen to a classroom teacher who wrote ridiculous tests and students’ passing depended upon them? What would happen to a teacher if he/she misgraded tests, and students did not pass their courses
due to such incompetency?
And yet, Pearson continues to drain billions of dollars from our public schools. Thomas Ratliff is another education hero. Would more please step forward?
And, parents, OPT OUT! These tests are the tumor of the cancer that has spread throughout our country, and is killing our public schools.
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I couldn’t agree more with this post! I am also recently retired and I miss the years of my early career (pre-crazytesting) when teachers enjoyed teaching and were allowed to do just that. I do not miss the last insanely crazy years of this testing craze at all!
Sometimes, parents, you have to stand up and say that you’re not going to continue to drink the “cool-aid” that the state’s “so-called” leaders insist you all drink!
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Well put.
I have had many similar experiences with the HS tests (I have read them to ESOL and Special Services students).
Wrong answers, misleading prompts, culturally and socio economically biased word use in questions, inappropriate level questions (9th grade level test questions cribbed form old AP exams).
And on and on.
These tests are POOR quality.
They are mysteriously graded.
They are nothing but money makers for the corporations that make them!
Parents: Demand to see your child’s test and the correct answers!
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
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Jon Awbrey, your little tune is brilliant.
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I’ve come to the (rather obvious) conclusion that the overreliance on standardized testing is to meet the needs of the adults, not the students.
Here in Delaware, we just completed building the first phase of the Education Insight system, which is based on and nearly identical to the Texas Student Data System. I’ve been blogging about the Delaware system for some time. Delaware built its system with its RTTT award funding.
The initial system was developed by a coalition of mostly Texas academics, foundations (Gates, Dell), and vendors who are now winning contracts to implement the system or provide corollary services.
The thing about these data systems is they must be fed by standardized tests. The main metrics that drive the student performance dashboards are attendance, discipline, marking period/course grades, and standardized test scores.
In other words, the data points that would trigger an academic intervention are too far apart. If a student is slipping, intervention needs to begin within weeks, not marking periods or years. There simply aren’t any metrics that capture day-to-day performance – the new system is obsolete on arrival.
And it’s not like we don’t collect day-to-day metrics. Our online gradebook captures a tremendous amount of information about student performance (and teacher performance) in class every day, but none of the new data systems take any of it into account for reporting and analysis.
I don’t mean using the A’s, B’s, and C’s directly, but to use derived data. For example, data analysis could be done to find out each student’s homework completion rate, which is a strong indicator of success. For that matter, homework completion rate could be calculated for each teacher, school, and district. That is just one example of derived metrics that we have raw data for, but aren’t doing the analysis.
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A fool and their money are soon parted. I suspect the state of Texas (by the way I am a resident of said state and spent 30+ years working to ensure Texas children learned) is the fool in this scenario and the taxpayers money was transferred to Pearson. In the meanwhile, Governor Perry (AKA Gov. Pointy Toes) has squandered billions. Oh, Jon Awbrey, I am a graduate of UT (BFA and PhD) and I think your little ditty is hilarious!
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Time spent testing from Kindergarten through grade 12 probably exceeds the time spent on any single topic in the curriculum. Question: what is the hidden curriculum of such policy?
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Setting the schools up to fail. Then privatize them.
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Diane, did you see the story in Michigan about the turnover in Muskegon Hieghts Schools since Mosaica took over this fall? 25% of the staff have already gone. NPR radio is going to take an in depth look at what is happening. The Detroit EAA should be next.
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This is ALL about profits, money and power, accomplished in the present and the future:
Present- Money-making charter schools; big bucks to Pearson for tests, and then more to Pearson from charter schools thanking Pearson by buying their ed. products.
Future-made-to-order-minimum-wage workers, as produced by privatized schools which hire inexperienced teachers and, having large turnover, hire more inexperienced
(and most likely non-certified) teachers (think TFA), as well as TFA inexperienced administrators, who have barely taught. Not to mention these made-to-order, instant
WalMart workers have only learned how to take meaningless tests and not been given a real education. Therefore, they lack critical thinking skills (are you happy,Texas?), and would NEVER question authority.
What does KIPP stand for? Knowledge is Power Program? I have another name for new charters: MIPP (Money is Power Program). MIPP’s credo: We (CEOs and administrators) TAKE all the money and have all the power.
Dystopia realized! Just the way 1%,corporate America likes it.
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I agree with you all. If these tests do such a great disservice to our educators and schools, and they definitely do, just think of the harm they do to our kids.
A non-school-related friend once asked me, “If you had more time to teach, couldn’t your kids pass the test better?”
From the mouths of babes . . .
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Sara, you go girl! I can all but bet that the 5.4 billion cut from public education took a big chunck out of your media program and yet you have been kind enough to research the Texas constitution and explain it to Mr. Kress.
Pearson is a British company? Now we are out sourcing our testing??? Talk about adding insult to injury.
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