This is not good news for Pearson, whose stock recently took a tumble. The Chicago Teachers Union is supporting parents who boycott the obsolete ISAT:
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
February 3, 2014 312/329-6250
CTU SUPPORTS PARENT BOYCOTT OF LOW-STAKES ISAT
Illinois State Achievement Test is costly, obsolete and steals learning time
CHICAGO—In advance of the Illinois State Achievement Test (ISAT) to be issued to Chicago Public School students March 3-14, 2014, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) today announced support for parents choosing to opt their children out of testing and renewed a call for the Chicago Board of Education to cease administration of the ISAT.
The ‘low stakes’ test is administered over the course of eight days in all elementary schools. Formerly used to help qualify 7th grade students for selective enrollment high schools. The district recently issued a memorandum to teachers stressing the value of “rigorous, high-quality assessments,” in measuring student progress. The ISAT, however, is not aligned to any CPS curriculum, and in Chicago, it is no longer used to measure student progress, school performance, promotion, or for any other purpose.
“The ISAT is an obsolete test—it has no use to educators or administrators and the state is junking it next year,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “It is of no use in selective enrollment, and serves no purpose other than to give students another standardized test.”
Illinois paid over $18 million this year to Pearson Corporation for the ISAT. The portion attributed to CPS is roughly $3.4 million, impacting over 171,000 students. The total cost of administering the tests are the untold hours of preparation for the exam, and the loss of valuable instructional hours that could be spent on real learning.
For the last decade, since the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ISAT test has been the primary lever used by CPS for its destructive, destabilizing policies of closures and turnarounds. System-wide, the ISAT has infected the vigor and breadth of curriculum as teachers and students became stymied by the requirements of a narrow test-based approach to learning. NCLB has now been panned as a broad failure, but with the transition into more new tests, CPS threatens to double-down on the failed policy of standardized-test based accountability.
The CTU believes that the letter teachers recently received was recognition of the fear that parents will opt out of the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) assessment, despite threats that students without MAP scores will not be eligible for selective enrollment, there will be no alternate instruction given during the days of testing and children who are not participating in the assessment will be left to fend for themselves in “self-guided activity.” The CPS letter to parents also created an additional hurdle for parents, who oppose the excessive class time devoted to test prep and test administration, to opt their children out of testing.
Last year, the CTU joined teachers, students, parents and education advocates nationwide standing in solidarity with Garfield High School in Seattle and all Seattle public schools refusing to administer the MAP.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Too bad that this announcement will be viewed by state law makers and the Mayor as just one more example of unions avoidance of accountability. What researchers say about the test is ignored: a bad test given for all the wrong reasons. Educators now live in an alternative universe where professional knowledge—especially if it originates from unions—is held up to ridicule, and amateur hour beliefs and practices (e.g. TFA; M. Rhee; Arnie Dunan) has become the gold standard.Just reading the standard error of measurement in the ISTAT test manual should be show stopper. And of course, all that wasted instructional time.
“amateur hour”
That sums up the summative-testing-based standards-and-testing education deform movement as precisely as any characterization I’ve ever read.
Can’t wait for the UFT and AFT to join in.
The most effective think any major union can do right now is to convince the non-unionized public about how the plutocrats are stealing from under their noses and pulling the wool right over their eyes.
In our case, it is the AFT, NEA, etc, that should try and win over parents by investing in more ad campaigns in print and in film. Let us union members embrace the public and join in with them, for them, and identify us as them and they as us.
After all, human need is universal. It withstands time and innovation, changes and trends.
Why not, in this endeavor, fight dung with fire?
Yet, if this were to take itself up as a national movement, imagine how our anemic unions across the United States could start to generate memberships again, restore unions and grow them in private and public sectors to the kind of normalized levels that would restore balance to the population in terms of labor, fiscal, and social rights.
Unions, when they behave like real unions, are essential to any real democracy and middle class.
Imagine reversing this horrible trend of income distribution since Ronald Reagan . . . .
If we don’t, we will become a nation of Neiman Marcus and Walmart, of cold water flats and opulent mansions, of the toothless and the crowned, capped, snow white invisaligned . . . .
It is almost the worst of times, but we stand to become the better of times . . . . .
Agree 100%. It’s about time unions take a more active role to do the job we pay them for. What are they waiting for?
Superb news!!!
The unions could be a great force to stop the standards-and-testing juggernaut that is rolling over our nation’s children.
Here, here! UTLA, any comment?
The summative testing regime has been a colossal failure, and it has dramatically distorted and narrowed curricula and pedagogy nationwide. It is my fervent hope that this opt-out movement will grow, that unions will increasingly back it, and that the testing companies will get the message, sooner rather than later, that complicity with the standards-and-testing regime is bad business–the kind of business that poisons a brand.
It should bother companies when large numbers of teachers and parents start using their name with the same emotional affect that they show when referring to, say, colorectal cancer.
The opt-out movement is growing at the same time that the education deformers are preparing the roll-out of the national not-Smarter im-Balanced and PARCC on Students’ Throats exams.
There’s a policy supernova coming.
“doubling down on a failed policy”
That’s just what CC$$ and the new tests are–a doubling down on a failed policy: Son of NCLB. NCLB II: The Nightmare Is Nationalized.
It’s the height of idiocy to look at a completely failed policy and say, “Gee, I think the problem was that we didn’t do ENOUGH of that.”
But that’s just what’s happening.
Enough.
Do your part to end the madness. Opt out.
It’s about time! I hope the spineless NEA can learn something. As I’ve said repeatedly, the system will come crashing down when enough parents refuse to allow their children to be turned into data points. This movement should be led by teachers with their own children. The only issue I have is with the phrase “opt out”. Sounds too much like “drop out” and to me has the suggestion of kids being kept home (out) of school on testing days in order to avoid having to take the test. This is what our district’s superintendent and officials at our state DOE told me to do with our daughter last year. But my daughter went to school anyway and sat there at her desk and refused to test. The kids should go to school and not stay home.
Yes. There is this problem of what to do for the children to facilitate the opt-out. How about community groups make packets for the students filled with art supplies, books, word games, etc? Things students can do quietly while sitting at a desk or table. I have often thought of how one could hold an opt-out school but the logistics would be tremendous. I would, however, volunteer to put together care packages and I would donate $ towards them. I can’t be the only one who would be willing to participate in such a way to make opting-out more feasible for students and parents.
Love it, Emmy! Wonderful wonderful wonderful.
There’s no need for an opt-out school. We should not be intimidated or coerced into keeping our kids home. The state says that if a child shows up in school on a test day, they are obligated to put a test in front of them. But they can’t force a kid to take the test. The kids have to show up and refuse to pick up a pencil. All they have to do is read through the booklet, and the make-up is invalidated. It’s simple. It is totally feasible. It costs no money. We need to force the schools to implement their policy for it to be exposed for the charade it really is.
So we are asking children to show up to school and just put their heads down for the testing period? If it were me, I would probably answer some of the test questions out of sheer boredom. Or maybe make a design with the bubbles.
Yes. My daughter drew pictures in the booklet. But it’s important that the tests be voided and not sent off to be scored. I learned this the hard way. Children throughout the world and throughout history have done much more courageous things in the fight against injustice than show up at school and sit at their desks for a few hours doing nothing. I think we need to ratchet up the expectations for our kids. They can do this.
Excellent idea Joe Schwartz!
The connect-the-bubbles-to-create-a-work-of-art approach is lovely to imagine, but the thought police will come down hard on kids who do that, alas.
Aren’t these 7th Graders? Reading a book sounds like a far simpler solution.
Bernie has the best answer here, by far! 🙂
In states like MO one can’t opt out. I say homeschool your kids throughout the testing window. Take em out the day before and re-enroll them the day after. The administration then can’t harass the students about not taking the test as they weren’t students at the school at that point in time.
It’s not that simple. You would have to keep your child out for (essentially) two weeks; because if they show up during the make-up window they get pulled for testing. Then they miss actual instruction. That’s not OK. Again, i believe they need to go to school and refuse to test. It’s a school day and they have every right to be there.
I sure wish every state in this nation under the yoke of RTTT and common core were shouting loud and clear for students to OPT OUT of the high stakes testing in PROTEST and in the hope of restoring some semblance of learning in education! In Maryland… there is a fight to stop the “go ahead” with the former high stakes test this year (MSA) despite the fact that students are learning under common core this year. I don’t know how much of a fight it truly is as it seems more of a “request”. There has been no mention of a parental “OPT OUT” for the students in MD. Just wondering if anyone knows about this. Second issue is that the MD State Education Association is requesting that teachers contact legislators to protest the rolling out of this expensive MSA test. The reason given bothers me… the reason – because it is taking away time for teachers to implement common core …. Hmmmmm… I think there should be a moratorium on common core and a complete cessation of both the MSA and the PARCC tests! The latter is a complete waste of time in that common core has not be thought out before it was “rolled out” and this is becoming painfully obvious to teachers, students, parents despite the PR spin of Duncan and “ed reform” company! And I cannot understand how teachers can be evaluated on the former (MSA) because the curriculum is common core and does not cover a good amount of what students are expected to know under MSA… and teachers are going to be evaluated based on this???
There is so much else that these companies could be doing for purposes of tracking progress, and this work could be equally lucrative.
For example, the companies could be creating very fine-grained diagnostics–e.g., separate oral language diagnostics that would tell teachers and administrators what portion of the syntax of English and of high-frequency vocabulary a student has internalized before beginning his or her schooling. These could identify students with a need for immersive compensatory oral language work.
For example, the companies could be creating alternative assessments that teachers and students could use to demonstrate proficiency in very particular aspects of world knowledge and procedural knowledge–writing a press release in proper form, constructing a basic webpage using HTML, prosody, the American Transcendentalists, archetypes of the folktale, blog administration, etc. Students could put together unique portfolios of their accomplishments using these alternative assessments. They could be chosen by the student and his or her advisory group as part of an individualized plan for every student.
For example, they could be building formative cognitive and affective assessments THAT DISAPPEAR INTO INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS and provide immediate feedback and branching possibilities for students to pursue paths they are interested in–thus fueling intrinsic motivation to learn.
For example, they could be building engines for initial diagnostics for placement within online learning modules.
There is much, much that a company like Pearson or McGraw Hill, with its legions of talented editors and writers, could be doing that would NOT BE DAMAGING AND DISTORTING as these general summative assessments are.
There was a time in the United States when educational publishing companies led. Now, they only follow. This is partially a result of their having been so consolidated. Big, bureaucratic organizations doing national products tend to be overly conservative. They become about profit EXCLUSIVELY rather than about profit AND fulfillment of their mission to educate kids.
I can tell you from personal experience that these companies are full of bright, hard-working people who are in the business because they care about teaching and learning but whose innovative ideas are continually shot down because doing the same old thing in the same old way is SAFE. It keeps the dollars rolling in. Education, which should be about striving for excellence and identifying and nurturing the unique capabilities and interests of kids becomes about delivering whatever the masses are used to seeing and will pay for, whatever it’s consequences.
The kids, the teachers, are forgotten. The companies forget what business they are in. They will put ANYTHING between the covers of a text as long as it accords with whatever is fashionable on the Education Midway this Carnival Season.
cx: its consequences, not it’s, of course
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Years ago, I worked for McDougal, Littell when it was run by McDougal and Littell. We did a health text for Texas. It was not adopted. Fundamentalists nutcases there objected to the line, “Humans and other mammals lactate.” They hated the reference to lactation, but they were REALLY disturbed that humans were referred to as mammals.”
Fred McDougal called a companywide meeting. He said, “We did, in that text, what was right for kids and teachers. As long as I am running this company, that’s what we’ll continue to do. We can’t take hits like that every time, but we have to remember what business we are in. We are in the business of educating kids as best we know how.”
That’s how a true leader sounds.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
Does the CTU support students and families who opt out of the MWEA MAP? That appears to be the high stakes test. http://windycityteachers.blogspot.com/2014/01/gettin-testy.html
BTW, Diane – did you see your review and profile on The Nation? http://www.thenation.com/article/178134/tested
A wonderful piece on Dr. Ravitch! Highly recommended!
That article still has a lot of edudeformer memeness* to it-underlying hostility to public education.
*Too lazy to point out all the anti-public education bits.
GO CHICAGO! Finally some good news out of the windy city (I’m sure the powers that be will put their own evil spin on this for the press but for now I’ll enjoy this positive moment!)
So when will Weingarten/Mulgrew do the same! And Van Roekel too! Not holding my breath. It would be great if the readers of this blog would encourage a more aggressive attack on leaders of the NEA and AFT/UFT for failing to forcefully defend teachers against VAM and CC.
BTW, it’s a pain to have to refer, separately, to not-Smarter im-Balanced and PARCC on Kids’ Throats when referring to the new national summative tests. So, here’s a suggestion, an acronym:
C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
Common Core College and Career Readiness Assessment Program
It’s pithy, easy to remember, and so very appropriate.
Or that could be
C.C.C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
The Common Core Curriculum Commissariat College and Career Readiness Assessment Program
That’s funny.
You have to imagine Max Headroom saying it, Joanna. 🙂
Parcc = redrum.
So the ISATs will not be used as part of the criteria for entrance into the elite selective enrollment high schools in chicago? For years these tests were used to determine if kids were eligible to take the Selective Enrollment test, or eligible to apply for a lottery into certain magnet high schools. The system of sorting kids out into high schools has been going on for years in Chicago. As the Chicago mother of two kids with special needs, this system has long seemed immoral. You would not believe the hysteria that occured leading up to the 7th grade ISAT testing week, as those scores were used as part of the final score to determine if a child could get into the limited number of selective enrollment schools that were considered to be “good” schools. Most families buy into the selective enrollment system.
J:
This is a real problem when you have schools where more folks want to attend than there are places. Some means of selection that reflect the mission and focus of the schools are needed. Do you have an alternative approach in mind?
Yes, create programs within neighborhood schools that are equivalent to the selective enrollment programs. Or at the very least, create more selective enrollment programs.
Dienne:
How long do you think it will take to set up these alternatives? Why haven’t the CPS already done this ? What should be done in the mean time?
This is no improvement – they’re merely replacing the ISAT with the MWEA MAP as the selective enrollment test. I agree with your assessment of the system. It’s just sad to see seventh graders freaking out like high school seniors trying to get into college. Why can’t every CPS school have a range of good programs, from vocational to arts to honors? My po-dunk high school in nowhere, Indiana managed it.
Reblogged this on Roy F. McCampbell's Blog.
What exactly is the NWEA? My kids’ schools are using it as part of our state APPR mandate to evaluate teachers. When I first heard about it, I was OK with it. Yes, another test, but it sounded like the test was designed in such a way as to really point out my child’s strengths and weaknesses so we and their teachers would know where to focus. However, this is the second year of NWEA testing in my district. I have yet to see any results, and when I asked about it was told that the teachers are still trying to figure out how to read and analyze the results. Are any of you teacher who have worked with NWEA. Do the results tell you anything, especially at the beginning of the year when you haven’t had time to work with your students? Do they help you figure out how to direct lessons?