If you want to learn about the growing movement to opt students out of mandated state and federal testing, go to this meeting in Denver.
Parents, scholars, and educators will convene in one of the nation’s most test-driven, test-obsessed cities and states, where the fate of teachers, principals, and schools depends on standardized test scores, a law foolishly enacted without any evidence at all in 2010. Test scores in Colorado counts for 50% of educator evaluations due to SB191, one of the worst laws in the nation (though by no means unique). In typical “deform” style, the law promises that it will produce “great teachers and great schools” by firing educators whose students don’t get ever higher test scores.
Where is the evidence? Read this summary of the research by Professor Edward Haertel, emeritus, from Stanford University, in an address to the Educational Testing Service. Please note that he concludes that “value-added measures” (the rise or fall of test scores) should not count for a set percentage of any teacher’s evaluation because they are too inaccurate and unstable.
He is measured and polite.
Another way to describe test-based accountability is “junk science.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
For your Twitter Feed: Copy, paste and ReTweet as often as possible
Junk Science judges individual teachers
From results of standardized tests taken by children
A modern inquisition
http://bit.ly/1esi2jc
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If the tests in CO are scored like the tests in OH, the cut scores for each level of proficiency change each year. This is no way to calculate AYP or to determine VAM. It is absurd. Constantly absurd.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx From your mouth to God’s ears. NCLB came about because of the concern that hs diplomas were being dumbed down– that grades in classes were being skewed so as to produce a diploma. Common Core & RTTT came about because of a concern that state stds were being dumbed down & results skewed so as to avoid the school-closings mandated by NCLB. VAM was added to ensure teachers would teach to the test– & the VAM’s already contain w/n their methods (SGO’s) ways to skew their results. Bottom line: High-stakes testing will always produce skewed results. What we want is for our schools to stay open & our teachers to keep teaching.
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“Another way to describe test-based accountability is “junk science.”
And another: 100% USDOE Grade AA Bovine Excrement
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The problem with evidence as presented by Prof Haertel is that the arguments assume rational thought – a rare occurrence in Ohio anyways. We just finished a long debate whether schools get 2 or 4 snow days because the House said the teachers are getting too much of a break. Ohio can’t trust its salaried teachers to do their job but does want to send teachers packing concealed weapons into the classroom. The public is so blissfully unaware in Buckeye country.
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In Ohio we endure teacher disrespect by administrators on a scale that is unbelievable. Never mind that your school is rated Excellent with Distinction. Never mind that 100% of your students pass “the test”. Never mind that you work extra hours every day. Never mind that you work on weekends. Never mind that you volunteer for fundraisers for school or for the band or for students or families who have been killed or died of cancer. None of it matters to those ignorant legislators in Ohio. Never mind that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled our state funding to be inadequate 20 years ago.
And here we are.
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Someone named Carole Basile has been give a gigantic power in St. Louis regarding urban schools under siege..chairing .a ten member committee of lawyers and other big shots, meeting in private, to decide what will happen to the Normandy school district when it lapses into bankruptcy because of a transfer law which almost everyone agrees should be scrapped……but it is a great tool of leverage to demand new privatization schemes. I do not know much about Carole other than…..she came to St. Louis after…………. She was professor of education and chair of the Advanced Urban Education program at the University of Colorado Denver, and she was co-director of the Rocky Mountain Middle School Math and Science Partnership. Any information about her?
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If you want something to opt-out of, here is the link for the NY regents spring 2014 field test assignments:
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/fieldtest/regentsftassignments-14.xls
Without enough responses on the field tests, they won’t have questions for the operational tests.
Besides these tests don’t count, so the students just lose instructional time so they can be unpaid lab rats for the testing companies.
Howard
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Being that test scores count as 50% of educator evaluations, a huge problems occurs where educators teach to the test and ignore the needs of their students.
Teachers are forced to be more concerned with their students knowing the content of the test that they ignore the true progress of their students.
The article says this method creates “great schools, and great teachers” but what about great students? Are the students truly learning, or being taught to take a test?
What evidence supports that this method of evaluation actually works?
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JeanaCorradin,
This method of evaluating teachers is not supported by evidence. Most researchers say it is inaccurate and unstable. The law shoud be repealed.
Google Edward Haertel and ETS for a research review.
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