The Network for Public Educstion has called for Congressional hearings to investigate the misuse, overuse, and multiple costs of standardized testing.
A panel about accountability st Austin’s SXSW, Randi Weingarten and Duncan’s former Assistant Secretary for Communications Peter Cunningham, discussed the issue. Then NPE’s peerless leader Anthony Cody asked the first question. “Will you support our resolution for Congressional hearings?”
Randi immediately said “Yes!”
Even Cunningham said yes.
Who is the man behind the curtain who is wasting billions on testing, forcing severely ill children to take tests, making little children hate school ?
No one knows.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
awesome
Long overdue! I want to testify at these!!!
I would be happy to show the congress critters just how invalid educational standards and standardized testing are. Not to mention explaining why what is demanded is UNETHICAL.
Not holding my breath though.
A parent posted a video of her 9 year old taking a PARCC online sample test.
Why is the testing format, the data entry, so difficult for children to use?
Is this another rushed, cheap ed reform product they’re foisting on kids?
http://parentingthecore.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/parcc-online/
What a nightmare for this kid in the video. And this is just ONE problem! Imagine the child struggling through the entire test in one sitting, attempting to do this data entry AND think it through.
These people are completely out of touch. Clueless.
I have administered math and ELA since the inception of NCLB.
The new CCSS Pearson tests we saw last April in NY are the tip of the testing nightmare.
My test writing experience under NCLB has provided all the perspective I need to claim with certainty, that CCSS assessments, be they Pearson, PARCC, or SBAC are
TRAPS not TESTS
designed to
TRICK,
CONFUSE,
and
WEAR DOWN
8 to 14 year old
test takers
into
FAILING
Parents, do not let these corporate reformers use your child’s bogus tests score to dismantle public education in America
OPT OUT
Starve the data beast
Civil disobedience works
@Chira Duggan… and this child in the video has not even experienced the enormous slow down of a computer due to the strain on the system when a county has all students testing at once… or the challenge in working with a computer that is outdated and slowed down, or a partially broken computer (how many computers have a sticky key or mouse or other issues)… and so on! Let us not forget when the internet goes down too… oh the possibilities for challenges. I can envision this too.. ” a new way to game” the test in the internet test age will be “strategic” seating… sticky key… “you sit here” knowing it is a fast computer and the student needs more time… you sit here knowing the student will do alright and the computer has a stick key…
My heart breaks for children today. Where is the sanity? Watching this video and imagining this frustration for an entire class of 9 years olds, fills me with great anger and sadness. Corporate greed = Child abuse.
One out of five students sufferms from some degree of dyslexia; many are undiagnosed. This is one of the dirty little secrets of public education.
We all share some guilt that the issue of dyslexia has largely been ignored. Now imagine being a 9 year old undiagnosed dyslexic and taking this online test with the unending need to read, scroll, re-read, re-scroll . . .
I’v seen the testing and the damage done
alittle part of it in eveyone.
And here’s an editorial from one of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs For Jeb, or whatever they call themselves, defending standardized testing:
http://www.abqjournal.com/362198/opinion/face-it-testing-is-a-fact-of-life.html
Ignore the editorial, which is the usual ed reform recitation of how we’re all dishonest slackers who don’t want to work hard or be accountable, and read the comments.
People in New Mexico are NOT HAPPY with Jeb Bush’s testing regime 🙂
Sounds like a savvy first step, But, you can bet Rheeformers, Gates, and their friends at USDE will try to control the structure, timing, participants, and PR that may emerge including a lunch presentation at the Press Club in DC.
As you know (and better than most from direct experience) strategic thinking on this matter is not a job for amateurs. Presenters must be in command of their claims and whatever supports the claims (low on stats, high on indellible imagery). They must observe social niceties, and have skills in artfully contrived persuasion.
In a rather long analysis if the last international PISA test (that I mentioned in another comment for another post here and included a link then), it was mentioned near the end that in the US, a large ratio of PISA tests were given to kids in schools that had an inordinate number of children living in poverty. Instead of balancing the number of tests given to different socioeconomic groups, the test was weighted toward the lowest group by testing more students compared to the middle and top.
Was this deliberate to skew the results so the US would look worse when compared to other developed countries that spread their tests more evenly?
The same logic applies to testing kids who are severely ill. An ill child will not perform as well on any kind of test. The more kids who will perform poorly on standardized tests, the lower the average will be when it’s reported in the media along with claims of failing schools that need to be closed.
Lloyd Lofthouse: if what you wrote is true, another way to distort the inferences based on standardized test scores without “technically” lying.
As is so often the case with the charterites/privatizers, just rig the system so that you get the results you want. Then claim that “that’s what the numbers say.”
Even when they’re squishy after having been tortured into submission.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
From the Wizard of Oz:
Dorothy: Oh, Toto – come back! Toto! Toto! Oh, don’t go without me! I’ll be right back! Toto!
Tin Man: Stop that dog!
Wizard: This is a highy irregular procedure! This is absolutely unprecedented!
Tin Man: Help! Help! The balloon’s going up!!
Wizard: Ruined…..my exit!!
Dorothy: Oh! Come back! I don’t know how it works! Goodbye, folks!
People of Oz: Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye
!
Dorothy: Oh, now I’ll never get home!
Lion: Stay with us, then, Dorothy. We all love you. We don’t want you to go.
Excessive testing: I don’t know how it works! This is a highly irregular procedure! This is absolutely unprecedented!
The image that immediately came to mind was the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and team are cowering in front of the huge and terrifying wizard head, presenting the burned broom of the Wicked Witch of the West. Toto runs off and pulls back a curtain to reveal the true “wizard,” a very unimposing man in need of an eyebrow trim.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” the gauzy image of the wizard head exclaims. The man, seeing he’s been discovered, stops turning the cranks and the scary face dissolves.
The scary face of excessive testing?
There’s no place like charters . . .
There’s no place like charters . . .
There’s no place like charters . . .
I’m waiting for the house – any house – to plop down on Michelle Rhee, who has many a time declared to Carol Burris, “I’ll get you my little pretty . . . . and your little public school system too!”
LOL
The “man” behind the curtain wasting billions of dollars in testing can be personified by the radical GOP and the now corrupt Democrats (most of both) who want to please their ALEC lovers in order to maintain their positions high up in government.
Just look at Andrew Cuomo and the National Governor’s Assocation, two prime examples.
This has been going on since Roosevelt and Reagan, and has gained far more traction and acceleration with Bush Junior and Obama.
There is no mystery here, Diane and readers.
Obama and Duncan by no means act alone . . . . . . They both politically fornicate with many partners and have spread more educational and psycho-societal disease than a colony of bonobos . . . . .
I suppose that’s a horrible insult to bonobos . . . . .
From NYT (3/4/14)
re: Charter rally in Albany
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, standing shoulder to shoulder in Albany with thousands of parents and students who rallied in support of charter schools, vowed on Tuesday to defend the movement and offered a sharply different vision for their place in the educational system than Mayor Bill de Blasio’s.
“We are here today to tell you that we stand with you,” Mr. Cuomo said. “You are not alone. We will save charter schools.”
The governor said people were hungry for new ideas and more choices, which explains why so many parents are on the waiting list for charter schools. (Roughly 70,000 children are educated in 183 charter schools across the city, many in poor neighborhoods.)
“Parents deserve a choice,” he said.
Mr. Cuomo promised to ensure that charter schools have the “financial capacity and physical space and government support to thrive and to grow.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo deliberately singled out the Success Academy in his remarks, saying the goal was to change the culture of the schools, even if that meant bucking the teachers’ unions.
“We know that too many public schools are failing,” he said. “We need new ideas.”
Mr. Cuomo promised to ensure that charter schools have the “financial capacity and physical space and government support to thrive and to grow.”
Would have been nice if he felt the same way about the public schools and the nearly 3 million public school students that are under his care as governor. Cuomo didn’t think twice about throwing public education under very bus he was driving.
Andrew Cuomo is a career politician. His father, Mario Cuomo, was also once the governor of New York state, and according to the New York Daily news, Andrew’s net worth is between $1.75 million and $2 million—that’s not enough to run for governor in any state so he had to have heavy outside financial support.
The bulk of Cuomo’s assets, according to the filing, are controlled in a blind trust at AMG National Trust Bank. He also receives between $5,000 and $20,000 in deferred compensation from his stint as federal Housing Secretary.
There may be a connection to one or more of the robber barons and wolves of Sesame Street:
Cuomo’s statement also revealed he received a “gift” from his former boss, financier Andrew Farkas, of round trip plane for a one-day trip he took last year. The trip was valued at between $5,000 and $20,000.
He plans to run again in November 2014 for a second term as governor.
And here’s another link in the chain as the robber barons and wolves build their national political machine:
On September 18, 2009, advisors to President Barack Obama informed Governor David Paterson that the President believed he should withdraw his 2010 gubernatorial candidacy, stepping aside for “popular Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.”
According to Follow the Money.org, the campaign for governor of NY State cost about $26.4 million. Where did the money come from? Scroll down for the list. Maybe someone will recognize a name as you scroll down through the contributors.
Also go to table 3. More than half of the contributions came from the Real Estate and Securities & Investment Industries.
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/uniquecandidate.phtml?uc=13066&gclid=CJ2krd7e-7wCFbQWMgod7WgAeQ
Another interesting fact is that the Republican, Carl Paladino, who ran against Cuomo in 2010 has a history of contributing to Democrats running for office.
“In some instances, the Democrats he donated to were cross-endorsed by the Republican Party or ran unopposed. But in many other cases, Paladino gave to Democrats, like Poloncarz and Dyster, who are major party figures and compete in elections against candidates backed by the Republican and Conservative parties.”
http://www.investigativepost.org/2014/02/12/carl-paladino-is-a-rino/
It would seem that there is really only one political machine in New York State and it represents both the Democrats and the Republicans. If true, then that means elections are rigged before they start. The machine wins and the people will lose everytime.
According to Follow the money, Paladino only spent $9.7 million on his campaign to become governor of New York State—36.4% of what Cuomo spent.
Mr. reptilian faced Cuomo and the state owe my district between $36 and $44 million dollars in reduced funding based on flawed and illegally formlated foundation aid over the last 6 years. We are redressing this through the law.
Granted, Reptile Man inherited some of this owing when he become governor, but he and the state assembly have done nothing to resolve the situation thus far despite decrees from very high courts in NY state.
Reptile man was busy coopeerating and lobbying with crocodile- framed Michael Bloomberg to keep the inequitable tax structure in NY state alive and well. . . .
We will remember that at the polls . . . .
Andrew Cuomo is a political lowlife with no chance of ever becoming president. However is willing to ruin the public school system of this once proud state in order to fullfill his wild-eyed ambitions.
The Gods of kharmic retribution will not be kind to him. Payback’s a . . .
Yes, that is a horrible insult to bonobos.
For your penance you have to write “I will not insult bonobos anymore.” legibly on unlined paper 1,000 times.
Get to work!!
I’ll use Microsoft Word and cut and paste, Mr. Punitive . . . . And I’ll produce the SVO sentence 3,000 times. So there.
I’m also telling my mommy and daddy on you.
I’m going to tell my local legislature about this bad pedagogical approach, and you will be labeled a bad teacher . . . .
🙂
https://barrylane.bandcamp.com/track/i-write-the-tests-i-write-the-tests
Thank you for the link, Bob. My eyes filled listening to Barry’s sweet voice and heartbreaking truths. Reminds me of growing up in the 70’s and the days of Free to Be You and Me. Anyone know any celebrities (Maybe Matt Damon can help) who would be willing to sing Barry’s songs and support public schools? Seriously. I think creative people supporting saving childhood and creativity is a message that would push through the media walls. That is what the arts do.
from Barry’s song:
I write the tests and there’s no time for play,
you will sit down, and you will do what I say.
For half the year it will be judgment day.
Just watch your childhood melt away.
Half the year. Given all the test-prep, all the practice tests, all the activities in the regular curriculum modeled on the test questions, all the test-oriented lesson designs, I would say that that’s pretty accurate.
What WOULD MR. Manilow think?
How will he advocate for public education?
Hanna has beautiful eyes, too bad that beauty doesn’t lay behind them but lies behind them.
The success of a Congressional hearing depends on the independence of the members of the committee that run the investigation. If the robber barons and wolves of Sesame Street own the majority of the committee through campaign contributions, the committee’s report will find nothing wrong.
The “man behind the curtain” is the negative judgmental voice of authority that is now “hard wired” into almost every man, woman, and child in America. It is the voice that has resulted from people living in fear and insecurity from chronic stress. It is the voice of people who have been functioning in a survival mode for a long time, and they have become self-absorbed, callous, and dishonest. That is the hallmark of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is pervasive not only in the school system, but in government, business, and all phases of American society. It is a psychological plague.
We have become a society that is destroying our children. Our children cannot survive in an environment that is punitive and critical, and creates chronic stress from fear and insecurity. They are withering on the vines from lack of nurturing. Parents own fears have allowed them to become “indoctrinated” into this test obsessed data system that causes them be punitive and focus on their children’s performance, while in denial about their children’s emotional distress. They are not connecting to their children’s greatest needs. Teachers’ fear of their own job performance ratings has allowed them to become indoctrinated into a system that uses them to bully and punish children with boring mind numbing work and no creative freedom to grow independently and develop their own identity. Teachers are not connecting to children’s emotional needs. School boards and community leaders have become fearful of challenging the status quo and are impotent and in denial. They are not connecting to children’s most basic developmental needs. Government and business leaders have become enmeshed and greedy, and more concerned with their self interests. They are not connecting to children’s needs. We are a country living in fear, and the greatest price is being paid by our children.
The “man behind the curtain” represents the “weak, impotent, callous, greedy immature leaders” who lust for power and control. They are not connecting to the children’s distress, nor do they understand children’s basic developmental needs. They are using their wealth and power to gain control over all the “brainless”, “heartless”, “courage-less” submissive people in our country of OZ. These submissive parents and community members were conditioned as children to be “good and obedient and never question authority”. They were taught not to think for themselves, but only to take orders from domineering parents and teachers. Most of our leaders today are products of this oppressive dysfunctional environment that has resulted from chronic stress in the US since the 80’s. We cannot trust our leaders, but we are obedient to their abusive authority. We are struggling financially and morally, and living in chronic fear of survival because we feel insecure and threatened. Our children are endangered. We have lost our spirit.
But, we cannot afford to be idle bystanders any longer and listen to the “man behind the curtain”. We cannot continue listening to our internal judgmental voice saying “What will people think”. We cannot continue to feel depressed and helpless like most victims of bullying. It is time to step out of that helpless submissive obedient role of a victim and take action. Do not participate in bullying your children! Do not allow this psychological abuse to damage them for life. Do not let them participate in high stakes testing and obsessive test drill! Refuse the test! Demand a nurturing environment for your children. Civil Disobedience is the only immediate way to stop this insanity that is causing the US to become a pied-piper dictatorship that is stealing our children.
I have been an educational social worker for years. As others in my profession, I recognize that children’s mental and physical health cannot survive this current punitive school environment. Just like any living organism, children need a safe and nurturing place to grow. If you as a parent will not advocate for your child, who will?
What you say is true about the “man behind the curtain” and these narcissists and sociopaths mostly came from parents obsessed with boosting a false sense of self-esteem in their children—a popular,politically correct method of parenting that had its start in the late 1970s and went viral in the 1980s (and continues to this date). There have been studies and books written about this topic.
But that doesn’t mean everyone in America fits the profile of the “man behind the curtain”.
For instance, Amy Chua, the mother and author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was not a selfesteem obsessed parent but was a tiger mother who practiced tough love as her parents raised her and she’s not alone as evidenced by the show of support in the reviews of her memoir on Amazon and the forum threads for the debate that raged there for months.
I’ve done a lot of research on this issue and I think that about a third of American parents and their children, mostly white, fit the profile of the narcissist, sociopath (the collective man behind the curtain).
In addition, about 20 – 25% of parents are neglectful and abusive (most may live in poverty) while at the other extreme, about 20 – 25% are closer to Amy Chua, a tough love tiger parent.
Therefore, all is not lost because at least a quarter of the US population may be supportive of public education and teachers in general and they are the ones we have to educate about what’s going on because there are enough of them to influence national and most local and state elections. In fact, most of them are probably better educated and more literate than those that fit the ” (collective) Man behind the Curtain” profile and surveys indicate that the more educated and literate an adult is, the more they vote in elections.
It is harder to fool a highly literate and educated adult. If this segment of the population is exposed to the facts/truth of this issue, it could be a deciding factor.
Discover how to reach this demographic with the facts and the war is all but won—they represent about 65 million Americans.
Posted by Ohio Ed Association.
http://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fblogs%2Fanswer-sheet%2Fwp%2F2014%2F03%2F03%2Fwhy-school-isnt-for-children-anymore-teacher%2F&h=cAQG5Q6R_&s=1&enc=AZN80JNlssisZZoqMqa2wK-RPPkbbO-x7o6tZS4gq0Pys5Hy2UT_QBMrahi81KUq4_wO5jDNycObCp6cDkvjvj-W
Perhaps, before too long, those in charge will realize that all this testing doesn’t benefit the students. The money spent on tests could be utilized for art, music, drama, counselors and after school programs.