A reader with knowledge of testing says:
“If the opt-out movement wants to stop the testing they should focus on getting people to boycott the field tests. If the field tests don’t get enough student responses then there will be no questions for the operational tests.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes. However, here in NY, some of the filed test items are embedded in the actual tests….
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Exactly. At my daughter’s middle school three different versions of the seventh grade math test were given. Kids were aware of this fact and some felt that their version was the harder one. Difficult to say, but ask any 7th grader if they know what fair means. And don’t forget, these exams are crucial for admissions into the top high schools.
Pearson will only embed more field test questions, making the exams even longer.
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Here’s a parody of New York State Ed.
Commissioner’s pushing of excessive
high stakes testing and the dubious
and unproven Common Core
standards:
This video never gets old!
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This is what John King really thinks
of parents who “opt out”, or even
complain about his “education
reform.”
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2013/10/fine-dining-with-new-york-state.html
King draws an asinine analogy
between parents bitching about
Common Core, or excessive or
inappropriate-for-grade-level
testing or whatever…
to…
the lack of restraint to a customer
would show at a restaurant when
that customer has a problem with
the wine or food served to him:
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2013/10/fine-dining-with-new-york-state.html
He puts himself in a higher order
of class than those belly-aching
parents because when a waiter
brings him substandard food or
wine… well… in such a situation,
he doesn’t complain, or send it
back. He sits there and eats it
whether he likes it or not…
(*** actual quote… no joke***)
JOHN KING: “When I’m in a
restaurant, and the waiter opens
the bottle of wine for me to taste,
I never say ‘No,’ send it back,
even if it’s horrible. The same with
my meal; if I don’t like it I’ll eat it
anyway.”
AND DAMN IT!!! THAT’S WHAT
THE PARENTS AND STUDENTS
IN NEW YORK STATE SHOULD
DO AS WELL WITH MY
COMMON CORE TESTING
AND CURRICULUM!!!
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In New York most of the field tests are standalone and not embedded in operational tests.
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/fieldtest/
If nobody takes the field tests then the operational tests will grind to a halt. This is especially true now that the conversion to common core is happening. They need new questions, because the curriculum is changing.
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“field”, pardon
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http://www.parcconline.org/field-test
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Why be discriminating? I suggest that parents opt out of ALL the tests, because these are group administered standardized tests and, traditionally, the only purpose such tests serve is to rank and yank students, and now teachers. Such tests don’t provide enough insights on student strengths and needs to be useful for guiding instruction, because that kind of detailed information about item responses has never been provided to teachers –who are often not permitted to see the questions and answers. Even general scores often don’t arrive until long after students have left that classroom.
The only exception I can think of is in Special Ed, where standardized tests are administered one on one by teachers and specialists and provide detailed information about item responses that can be used for diagnostic purposes, to guide instruction and detect even the smallest gains. (By law, parents must give written permission before such tests can be administered for Special Ed, too. This is for good reason: so that children are not misclassified as disabled and yanked from general education willynilly.)
In Head Start, standardized tests became required not long after NCLB was enacted and they are administered one on one as well, periodically throughout the year. This is very cumbersome to do with classes of 20+ children and can still result in unnecessary pressures on children. Capable Early Childhood Educators can obtain the same information using more informal methods, so I see those standardized tests as unnecessary as well.
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To clarify, I think we need to return to the days when teachers were trusted to create and score their own tests, based on what they taught their students.
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Cosmic,
Agreed. Teachers should write and score their own tests. Standardized testing is based in distrust of teachers, which sows distrust of teachers and fattens testing industry.
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Here is what we got today in NC:
“In two weeks, North Carolina’s 2012-13 assessment results will be available for the first time, and we anticipate that the scores will be lower than in the past because the content standards are more rigorous and the assessments are more challenging. We have seen this pattern before in years when content and performance standards changed. For the 2012-13 school year, because the standards were new, these assessment and accountability data are presented for information without any direct impact to students or schools. As you speak with parents about their children’s assessment information, I encourage you to remind them that these scores reflect a much higher bar than students have had to clear in the past. The reason is that the world in which these young people will compete and contribute requires more skill and knowledge. We want to make sure we set our standards accordingly.”
I assume our leadership is already trying to figure out how to avoid the bad situation in NY with test scores. If the scores are presented for information without any direct impact, then are they pilot tests? I’m confused.
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Unless those involved in creating the assessments planned in advance to make revisions to the tests based on information gleaned from piloting, they’re probably not pilot tests.
As you said, it sounds like your state is trying to avert the kind of fiasco that occurred in NY by not attached high stakes to them right now.
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We at United Opt Out encourage refusal of ALL of the tests – so no worries – we’ve been encouraging opt out of field tests from day one! In addition they are the easiest ones to refuse. Best, Peg http://www.unitedoptout.com, http://www.pegwithpen.com
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What is the website that explains opting out in detail? I’ve seen several posts about it, but need to fully understand how it would be applied in Florida.
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Contact Opt Out United or Fairtest
Google them
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Sorry, the correct ne is United Opt Out
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Trickier though, is when a district has chosen curricular materials (a pre-packaged program) that “align with the core” which include both weekly and unit assessments that are obviously designed to be in state test prep format. My kids are opted out of state tests but still will be subjected to these tests and lose days worth of instruction time taking them.
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Yes, the MClass assessment stuff is ongoing. That is the tricky part in NC too, that I’ve thought about when considering schooling for my son. Teachers I know say that a higher functioning child is unphased—they know the answers and they move on (to some type of work they can do while the teacher is assessing everyone else). That’s the part I don’t know how to opt out of.
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We may not be talking about the same core-aligned curriculum ( my district uses one of many company’s headed by Pearson) but I used to be of the same opinion as the teachers who said that the higher-functioning child knows the answers and moves on. Not anymore. As both a parent and a teacher, I am increasingly frustrated by the materials and many assessments teachers are required to give. Some districts still give their teachers some freedom here, but others are requiring the assessments be given, online. These are weekly and unit tests. The test items are often vague and misleading, and even higher-functioning students are struggling with them.
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You make a lot of sense. My 5th grader talks about assessment tests going on now at school, and I thought those came at the end of the year. Now I realize those are the pre-packaged program type that you can’t opt out of. So much class time is wasted on these tests.
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It’s all on the I-Pad in NC (all K-4 classroom teachers have an I=Pad). Those students who do not pass on a certain level are reassessed every 12 days, I believe. They color code the kids (or have other ways to know who is in what group) and then collaborate during what they call acceleration block (to tag team those who are stuck on a level).
Some teachers like all the data, but not all the work that goes into getting it. Others wish it would all go away. And many recognize that the top is then neglected because so much time is spent re-assessing (so no child is left behind, so to speak). I see the strengths, I suppose. And NC’s Read to Achieve program looks good on paper (it’s modeled after a Florida program, I think)—but it’s too new to know what to say about it (it includes holding any 3rd grader back, with summer school type offerings, if they are not at a certain level by the end of 3rd grade; it does allow for exceptions). I do believe the intent is genuine in getting kids to read, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I know there has to be a balance between the desired outcomes leaders want to see and the approaches teachers would prefer to use (so long as each is genuine in their focus on children–and we all know there has been some question about that and/or deception there as of late). I have also been seeing something called PEPs (I think), which are almost like IEPS for every kid, whereby the teacher states exactly what actions they will take to get the kid to the next level.
When I first started reading this blog (about a year ago) I was hoping I would find encouragement that a happy middle ground on implementing some of the new methods would be found—and in fact I think that is what teachers are trying to do. But knowing a lot of the politics behind what is driving the actions mandated for teachers in the classroom (micromanaged, really, IMHO) keeps me skeptical. I mostly just watch and observe and take it all in, wondering what I should do for my son’s best interest and really having no clue when it comes to what I think about the day to day in the public schools right now in regards to what I want for my children. One thing I do know. . .teachers are working very hard. And in fact, I’ve never known that to not be the case.
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Good old Idaho…here’s the Albertson Foundation Ed News with their one-sided discussion on testing, “from the expert.”
http://www.idahoednews.org/news/testing-1-2-3-from-the-expert/
Luckily, there is a group now working on opting out in Idaho. But, we have a LONG way to go! Parents, we have more power than you think. Take back our schools and make them stop teaching to the test. Deny data used to close schools and fire teachers. Help our kids love learning again. PLEASE opt your kids out of testing.
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Here’s the problem: Testers just need a statistically significant sample size to provide enough data to yield a high enough confidence level in the results. Even if half of the kids opt out, they may still have enough data to provide a high enough confidence level. Although, if some of the numbers get small, they may have a hard time drilling down into various ethnic and other demographic sub-sets to ensure the test results are fair or whatever politically motivated results they want to see. Opting out seems like a great message to send and may achieve generating higher awareness (my kid will be opting out), but not sure it will have enough impact on the stats unless the opt-out numbers get very large.
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I took the ‘practice’ Smarter Balance test . I took the same one 3 different times . I noticed it ‘learned’ or adjusted depending on my success/failure. I failed deliberately to see how it responded. Has anyone noticed this ? A ‘standardized test’ does not ‘adjust’ like this in my opinion if indeed that was what I had noticed. off topic a bit but this seems an important piece to this discussion.
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Debbie, I do know that the GRE on a computer (15 years ago) adjusted according to your answer. You were given more challenging (and thus higher weighted, I suppose) questions if you answered challenging ones correctly. Whereas, a paper one is certainly more “standardized.” So that question might have been answered somewhere, as I imagine it has come up before.
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Joanna,
I took that GRE 13-4 yrs ago. Do you know anywhere where I can find out what percentiles a given score is in?
Thanks in advance,
Duane
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And if your state does not allow for opting out the next best option is to “home school” your student for the testing window. Go in and withdraw them with the reason being that you are going to home-school them. Take them on “educational” trips where they can learn something other than how to take a standardized test. Then when the testing window closes re-enroll them.
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We always opt our son out of district-mandated benchmark tests. These junky assessments are made by central office personnel and teachers are specifically told NOT to send these tests home with students (because they are so poorly written).
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I remember years ago when IQ was the big thing. A test was devised and used to measure it. In the test the test makers put in deliberately two questions they considered unanswerable. One child figured out the correct answer.
1 How far can one run into a forest? Answer: halfway, after that one is going out of the forest.
At this moment the other question eludes me but the point is that – as has been repeated pointed out – the test makers are not so hep either.
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