Steve Duin is an excellent writer for The Oregonian.
In this column, he tries to wade through the semantics and mathematical formulae of the state accountability system.
He can’t make sense of it. No one can.
Is it fair to compare these two schools on “growth” measures?
Crane Union and Lincoln are considered demographically comparable high schools, even though Crane is a rural, Title 1 boarding school with 69 students, and Lincoln a sprawling urban high school with a student body of 1,471.
State officials twist and turn and do somersaults but the bottom line is the nation’s obsession with “accountability” is insane.
Schools are not in the business of manufacturing widgets or toothbrushes or tennis balls or chewing gum.
Every child is different.
The tests do not define what matters most in school or in life.
Someday, sanity will return to education policy.
It will come when parents get angry, because they boo and hiss and make noise when state officials tell them their child is failing and their school will be closed.
It will come when parents–the sleeping giant–wake up and burst the bubbles of the data-obsessed robots now running our state education departments and school districts.
Demand that they visit the schools. Demand that they look every child in their eyes and tell them they are failures.
Make the leaders accountable for the damage they are doing to our children and our schools and our society.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Watch Deputy Superintendent Ron Saxton display his intolerance for anyone who questions the inane policies Duin is describing in his article:
LikeLike
His failed leadership reminds me of those who created inhuman, totalitarian states. Will his ilk kill to get their way? Yes, I fear them. He sends chills down my spine. Please keep him away from children.
LikeLike
Thanks for posting this, Sue.
I’m an elementary school special ed. teacher.
None of my students are “toast.”
LikeLike
In reading about the creation of VAM in Mismeasure of Education, it is almost unbelievable that such a flimsily tested measurement system could have survived. And yet it lives and breathes.
LikeLike
Oregon is waking up. A large group of parents peppered Rob Saxton with questions last night when he spoke at Dallas high school. It appeared he did not enjoy answering questions about the federal role in Oregon schools, the near $20 million Oregon has received for it’s longitudinal database, prenatal- 20 workforce tracking, the new kindergarten readiness assessment secrecy, early learning inter-governmental agency data collaboration, federal FERPA/HIPPA waivers, Smarter Balanced assessment questions, and as one parent put it magic math stupidity. He was not happy to be asked about his SOB speech either. Not everyone in Oregon is drinking the reform kool-aid.
LikeLike
Quagmire is the best word for it, for sure. And those of us working with the children have to do our best not to get pulled down by this quagmire. I agree. . .sanity will return. But we have to stay strong until it does, and help enable it to return.
(just a little cheer leading for myself and others)
LikeLike
Amen!!!!!
LikeLike
Oh MY! What Saxton said is TOTALLY WRONG! I have had students for whom reading “kicked in” at grade 5, and they have never stopped reading since. THEY WEREN’T LABELLED. What a pundit. He must love FACTORIES. Does SAXTON have kids? Are they different? How would he want his own children to be treated?
LikeLike