The heroes of the movement to reduce standardized testing in Texas is a group called TAMSA. The unwieldy title is Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment. They are better known as Moms Ahainst Drunk Testing.
They realized that Pearson had a lock on the Texas legislature as that body passed more and more testing requirements. The legislature cut $5 Billion from the schools’ budget yet managed to find nearly $500 million for a contract with Pearson. Give credit where it is due: Pearson hired Sandy Kress, architect of NCLB, as its lobbyist. Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does NOT give standardized tests.
So, I hereby honor the Moms of Texas, who beat Pearson.
Here is a letter about their activities:
“TAMSA deserves the credit for HB5 that reduced end of course testing by Pearson from 15 tests to 5.
Students in grades 3-8 take 17 of Pearson’s tests.
The TAMSA slideshow provides important facts about how the Pearson lobbyists were unmasked by the moms.
http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/2013_December/texan-of-the-year/tamsa/”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now that they have reduced the number it is time to focus on the content and quality.
The quality and level of the test are not reasonable for most students.
http://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/if-half-of-your-students-failed-a-test/
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“. . . it is time to focus on the content and quality.”
Horse manure!
There is no such thing as “content” with “quality” when it comes to standardized testing. There may be some content, who decides what it is is another question. But “quality”. Ha, ha, ha, he, he, ha, eh, je, eh, je, je.ha, ha, ¡al infinito y más allá!
There is no “quality” in illogical, irrational, unethical and invalid conclusions drawn from these tests!
IT AIN’T THERE.
Is it really that hard for people to understand the complete invalidities involved in this whole process?????
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What is the “box” you refer to? Is this test taken on the computer?
I sympathize – I’m from Buffalo, NY where the students have to pass 5 Regents exams to graduate, resulting in only half the kids in the city being able to graduate on time, if ever.
And in NYS the Grade 3 to 8 assessments have been designed to fail 70% – now that’s an invalid test!
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In Texas, when they taken an English End of Course Test they are given an answer document with a page that is a “box” with lines on it. If they write outside the lines of then their test is graded down. Pearson is so smart.
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I suppose there must be penmanship lessons to encourage writing in tiny letters.
How unreal!
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Wonderful! We need a group like this for Florida as well!
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As distorting as they are, the Texas high-stakes tests are far less ridiculous than are the national ones being cooked up by the two Common Core consortia. Those take summative testing lunacy to levels of convolution never dreamed of before.
Arne Duncan says about the new PARCC (spell that backward) and not-Smarter, imBalanced tests, “I am convinced that this new generation of state [sic] assessments will be an absolute game-changer in public education.”
For the first time in his sad tenure as Secretary of Education, Duncan is right about something. These national tests WILL be a game-changer. When the new tests are rolled out around the country, the villagers will grab their pitchforks and shovels and track the education deform monster to its lair.
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I say “the education deform monster.” The CC$$ tests are Grendel. NCLB was Grendel’s mother. Same beast, new day.
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same sort of beast, new day
this one, however, is clearly even worse
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You are probably right. I am actually looking forward to the backlash because I do believe that our country is reaching their “popeye” moment.
“That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands n’more!” – Popeye
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Not sure what you mean by “Popeye moment”. Please explain.
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Dwayne, that would be the moment when Popeye downs his spinach and then wipes the floor with the bad guys.
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It’s David. I’m waiting for teachers as group to have their Popeye moment. 650,000 teachers working as a group will cause some significant changes. We can start by electing Wendy Davis.
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Sorry, Don Duane, about the misspelling of your name!!!
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“the Texas high-stakes tests are far less ridiculous than are the national ones being cooked up by the two Common Core consortia.”
Bullshit is bullshit, crap crap. Oh, I have better crap than you.
Yep, that’s what I want to base just educational policy on.
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In fact, Duane, there are different depths of CCRAP.
NCLB buried students under crappy state standardized tests for ten years, but that was NOTHING compared to the deluge that’s coming. The old tests were awful, agreed, but PARCC/CRAPP and notSmarter imBalanced are demonstrably worse than anything I’ve seen with the possible exception of some of the tests I reviewed from the state of Michigan about ten years go, which were comically awful, as though the tests themselves had been written by remedial ninth graders.
But I agree that it is long past time to clean up the whole NCLB and son-of-NCLB (CC$$) mess and disinfect and ban high-stakes standardized testing for good and get back to the business of teaching (as opposed to test prep).
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“In fact, Duane, there are different depths of CCRAP.”
And quite frankly I feel no need to do an “archaeological” dig on that CCRAP! It’s all much too recent.
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cx: that would be PARCC/CCRAP
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There is a typo, Diane I think you meant:
Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does give standardized tests.
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trying again:
Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does “NOT” give standardized tests.
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Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does give standardized tests…
What tests would these be, or is there a missing word here?
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“Pearson hired Sandy Kress, architect of NCLB, as its lobbyist. Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does give standardized tests. ”
Was this supposed to be
“Pearson hired Sandy Kress, architect of NCLB, as its lobbyist. Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does *NOT* give standardized tests.” ?
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My mistake! Proof that I have no assistant and also that I write too fast and did not proofread carefully.
The sentence should read: “Pearson hired Sandy Kress, architect of NCLB, as its lobbyist. Kress sends his own children to a wonderful school that does NOT give standardized tests.”
NOT! NOT! NOT! IT DOES NOT GIVE STANDARDIZED TESTS! I feel I should write that 25 times as penance!
Diane
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We, thoroughly understand and appreciate all you do!!!
Now, don’t go all Catholic on us with that last thought!!
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Or as one of my Catholic school students used to say,
“O my God, I am hardly sorry for having offended Thee.”
I don’t think she had that Act of Contrition quite right. You may know that other classic,
“May the good Mrs. Murphy follow you all the days of your life.”
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Testing will NEVER beat teaching. I am at a public school, where we spend so much money on tutorials, testing materials, testing software, etc., that I could scream. Meanwhile, it seems that there is never enough money for us to go on field trips of do cool stuff with the kids who have already proven that they can pass that *&^^*& test!
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Chris Hedges on education reform:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410
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That’s a good one!
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agreed
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Reblogged this on Nathan Merz's PLN.
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I’m not understanding the new test design for English I that my son took today. It’s a combination of reading and writing within a 5 hour limit. It’s seems TEA provided a blueprint of the test but that doesn’t match what he tells me he took or any of the information that I’ve seen posted on the website. Seems like a set up for failure…
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