If you are on Facebook, express your views about standardized testing now:
The Today show is doing a survey on Facebook asking whether standardized testing is the best way for kids to learn. https://www.facebook.com/questions/10152328881051350/?qa_ref=pp
The latest tally–as of this writing–was 4,300+ against, 37 for.
Vote!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
done
LikeLike
Is this a campaign on the part of NBC to generate new Facebook users?
LikeLike
The number now stands at 4,592 against, 38 for.
Vote!!!
LikeLike
Check out Teachers’ Voice Radio at http://teachersvoiceradio.net for a download of our radio show featuring the Voice of Teachers, our VOICE.
LikeLike
The #optout movement in #waco is growing http://www.kcentv.com/story/25073761/waco-couple-takes-stand-against-standardized-testing
LikeLike
Is that really how the question is phrased? Maybe I’m being picky, but I thought testing was intended to measure whether and to what degree learning has occurred. Since when is teasing a way for students to learn?
LikeLike
teasing is a great way. 😛
But, more seriously, testing that disappears into instruction and takes the form of formative feedback is a SUPERB instructional tool, a way to learn. Summative testing isn’t. It’s typically a nasty diversion from and demotivater of learning, and only people with a bizarrely backward, antiquated, EXTRINSIC PUNISHMENT AND REWARD model of education would think it of much value, educationally.
So, the question, as worded, raises what I think is the most significant issue regarding ed deform. Certainly, summative testing is no way in which to learn. And that’s why we need to kill the Common Core College and Career Ready Assessment Program (C.C.C.R.A.P.) before the rough beast is unleashed upon our children. It will not increase learning.
From a Puritan-era alphabet for children:
Tell B for the Beast at the end of the wood
Who ate the children when they wouldn’t be good.
LikeLike
Shared on fb… and voted also, it was almost, almost 4900… to 39
LikeLike
So, eventually this governement will drop the import of standardized testing for students. . . . . students will be held far less accountable and they will no longer experience stakes that are high and extremist. That’s a critical thing!
But we teachers will still be held accountable for the scores either way, and nothing will change about our status with regard to the junk science of tying scores to employability.
This is exactly the kind of scenario we cannot allow because it makes no sense. Our working conditions will always and inevitably translate to student learning conditions . . . . and outcomes. . . .
I will add my vote to this TS poll . . . .. but let’s consider the whole picture.
And who is reporting on this? Matt Lauer? He’s little more than a candy coated life size plastic filled Ken doll. . . . more infotainment than anything. Still, if we get coverage on this, maybe it will add to the education spring . . . . . . .
I suppose we should not bite the mass media hand that feeds even a scrap.
LikeLike
We have a cartoon on the workroom:if we differentiate instruction, why do we standardize tests?
LikeLike
I love it! After the building based Enrichment Specialists were cut from our district, parents were told that the school district provides enrichment through differentiated instruction! Just like that. At the same time that we will be implementing the CCSS and the engageny curriculum, and testing up the ying yang….
LikeLike
Do not have a lot of confidence on Today Show as objective arbiter in this debate: http://www.pearsoned.com/educationnation/
LikeLike
Now it’s 5823 to 41…unbelievable. Clearly these 41 “ayes” are on the payroll of some Gates-funded thing.
LikeLike
I posted that they should invite you on their show, along with parents and teachers; and I posted a link to NPE’s call for congressional hearings on standardized testing. So… if The Today Show happens to call you, you’ll be ready!
LikeLike
Well, this is junk surveying. I did vote, but warn that any use of the results is junk science and worthless other than for “fun.” Today plans to use this for self-promotion/ entertainment value. Certainly this is not “journalism.”
LikeLike
PS-I worked in survey research. Polls like this appear in newspapers and online. But have no solid methodology to make results valid.
LikeLike
Why does it have to valid? I don’t think that the Today Show indicated they were going to use the results of the poll to lobby for passage of any laws or to determine the future of RTTT. They seem to want to generate a discussion point for their morning show. Can’t polls be used for that too?
If it gets a conversation going on the Today Show something like “Wow. A lot of people sure don’t like standardized testing!” then we are a step ahead of where we were yesterday when most of those watching Today only heard about how wonderful the reform movement is.
I’ll take that crumb.
LikeLike
indeed
LikeLike
Of course these aren’t valid. This is PR. It’s an opportunity to get someone in the national media to do something more than recycle a press release from Achieve or Students First [sic] or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
LikeLike