Take Action and Click Here to Demand the Release of the 3-8 Grade NYS Tests, Only 30 Seconds of Your Time
Dear Allies,
New York parents and teachers are outraged that they are not allowed to see the NYS Standardized 3-8 grades tests.
Before 2011, all tests were posted on the New York State Education Department (NYSED) website. That changed after the State Education Department signed a contract with Pearson in 2011 that doubled annual spending on NY State tests. Now, despite the already substantial increase in spending on testing, Commissioner King and Chancellor Tisch say an additional $8 million is required to restore full transparency. According to the contract, Pearson must produce unique test questions each year. This further raises legitimate questions about the need for additional funds.
Parents and educators are denied access to the information they need to determine what their child got wrong and what is needed to improve learning. Just as important, any flaws in the tests and scoring are not subject to public scrutiny and correction.
Beneath it all remains research that refutes the validity of these tests not just in their accuracy and legitimacy for measuring student growth, but in measuring teacher performance as well. Failing to be fully transparent only escalates those concerns.
As was the case with NYSED’s refusal to act within its own authority to address parent data privacy concerns with inBloom, we call on the legislature to act now!
We are asking all parents, educators and community members to join us in demanding that elected and appointed officials in Albany RELEASE THE TESTS!
Again, Please Take Action and Click Here to Demand the Release of the 3-8 Grade NYS Tests.
Thank you,
NYS Allies for Public Education
http://www.nysape.org
.
__,_._,___
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you NYS Allies for Public Education. You are continuing to inspire those of us in Texas who see Pearson as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
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From Alfie Kohn posted on Texas Parents Opt Out:
“Those of us who are disturbed, even outraged, by what’s being done to our schools in the name of “reform” — imposing ramped-up, uniform, prescriptive standards; high-stakes testing; and pressure that’s both vertical (with kindergartens now resembling really bad first-grade classrooms) and horizontal (with little time for music and the arts, recess, student-designed projects, or any subjects not being tested) — ought to consider how this agenda is quietly supported by research that relies on test scores as the primary, or even the sole, dependent variable.
Then, too, there’s the way such research is described by journalists. Most articles in Education Week, for example, ought to include this caveat:
Please keep in mind that phrases such as “effective policies,” “higher achievement,” “better results,” or “improved outcomes” refer only to scores on standardized tests. These tests are not only poor indicators of meaningful intellectual accomplishment but tend to measure the socioeconomic status of the students or the amount of time they have been trained in test-taking skills.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/05/the-education-question-we-should-be-asking/?wpisrc=nl_headlines
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And here is another wrinkle in the goal of ALEC to have us all military ready, even in kindergarten. Be sure to watch the video. It will curl your hair.
=======================================
Mission: Readiness
Tags militarization of schools | militarization of youth | Mission:
Readiness
High-Quality Early Childhood Education Saves Billions While
Strengthening Our Military and Our Nation
Mission: Readiness – Military Leaders for Kids
Tuesday three retired Maine generals read books to preschoolers in the
library at the Downeast Elementary School in Bangor. Currently a funding
request in the Obama Administration Proposed Budget for 2014. Mission:
Readiness is a private, nonprofit organization, with a board and staff
associated with the Department of Defense, proposing a child
indoctrination program with four year old, pre-kindergarden children in
target schools. The non governmental, government program seeks to
inculcate corporate, military, and religious values to two million
American youth. The claimed goal is to raise the potential of “youth at
risk,” reduce youth obesity, and to create a budget surplus based on
offsetting the negative costs of youth who are repeating classes and
costs associated to prison. The implied goal is to ensure the continued
development of available military forces for projected wars into the
future targeting low-income and youth at risk. …
http://nnomy.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=285&id=587&Itemid=956&lang=en
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We shouldn’t just demand this in NYC, we should do it nation wide with both testing platforms! We took field tests here in IL, in my district, we should be able to see how our students did. One special ed teacher said she had a class where, maybe, one student got one answer correct. One of our best 5th grade classes’ teacher said the question were so badly worded and the student look VERY frustrated over all. How fair is any of this? They get the data on how to make the test harder to make public ed look worse but we get nothing to help us, supposedly, help our students. As a nation of teachers we need to BOYCOTT the TESTS and as parents and tax payers DEMAND to SEE the RESULTS!
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Just pretend for a moment that these tests actually measured academic performance. How does a student improve performance if they are not allowed to see their tests? How are teachers supposed to improve instruction if they are not allowed to see the tests? Are the students and teachers supposed to guess at where they need to focus?
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They cannot do this.
They have spent a third of a billion dollars developing these crappy tests. Pearson just won a contract for administering them worth more than a billion dollars in the first three years.
If they release the tests, the game is over.
Scholars and researchers and classroom teachers and parents will rip them completely to shreds. They will reveal them for what they are–an utter farce, completely invalid, misconceived at their most fundamental levels.
Too much money at stake.
They cannot risk that.
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Crappy is an understatement!
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Pearson is using false claims of test SECURITY
as cover to prevent test SCRUTINY.
These are TRAPS not TESTS. Designed to trick, confuse, frustrate, wear down, and to break the will of young test takers. Tests intentionally designed to produce widespread failure in order to support the false claim that the majority of America’s public schools are “failure factories”
PARCC and SBAC may be even worse due to required keyboarding skills and scrolling stamina.
Wondering if the tests can be FOIL’ed?
Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)
New York State’s Freedom of Information Law (Public Officers Law §87 et. seq. ) allows members of the public to access records of governmental agencies. FOIL provides a process for the review and copying of an agency’s records. More information about the Freedom of Information Law can be found at:
http://www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/foil2.html
Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) Requests
Freedom of Information Law requests for State Education Department records may be made by:
Mail:
Records Access Officer
New York State Education Department
89 Washington Ave, Room 121 EB
Albany, NY 12234
Phone: 518-408-1818
Fax: 518-473-2827
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signed
I urge all readers of this blog to do the same. Just takes a moment to do.
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Done.
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Signed
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Posted on Texas Parents Opt Out:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-Parents-Opt-Out-of-State-Tests/121316371311714
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Yes! We, the citizens of NYS, should demand to see the tests for which our taxes have paid, money that should have been used to restore the massive cuts in state aid to our schools.
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Signed. Parents and teachers in NYS can look at high school Regents exams and their answers on the state ed website, but parents and teachers of elementary and middle school students cannot see anything or even talk about what was on the tests. Is this what the governor meant when he said he was an advocate for students, because this sure looks like he meant he was an advocate of Pearson’s right to intellectual property.
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Signed
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I can hear him applauding.
¿?
From the last two paragraphs of Todd Farley, MAKING THE GRADES: MY MISADVENTURES IN THE STANDARDIZED TESTING INDUSTRY (2009, p. 242):
[start quote]
If I had to take any standardized test today that was important to my future and would be assessed by the scoring processes I have long been a part of, I promise you I would protest; I would fight; I would sue; I would go on a hunger strike or march on Washington. I might even punch someone in the nose, but I would never allow that massive and ridiculous business to have any say in my future without battling it to the bitter, hard end.
Do what you want, America, but at least you have been warned.
[end quote]
Google “pineapple” and “hare” and “Daniel Pinkwater.” Many hits; below just a sample.
Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/04/20/daniel-pinkwater-on-pineapple-exam-nonsense-on-top-of-nonsense/
Glad to see that instead of agonizing, people are organizing.
😎
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“Glad to see that instead of agonizing, people are organizing.” 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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We are required to take an hour long test about protocols and confidentiality before we administer the tests. Students agree not to discuss the test. Is it legal for testing companies to enter into agreements with minors?
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I would think not. And, even if it is, how would that be enforced? The tests do not affect the kids whatsoever.
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We in the CCSS Resistance are training a number of select groups for a covert operation to expose Pearson.
We are organizing to train teachers and kids to work undercover. They will have designated questions to target during the test. They will be equipped with the tiny cameras that can be hidden in the erasers of # 2 pencils. Pearson will not be able to maintain secrecy, nor withstand the humiliation of their fraudulent exposure after the Special Ops Kids Unit gets in place next year.
Pearson will be a laughing stock !
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Do you have a Hacker Kids Unit for PARCC and SBAC?
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Releasing the items to learn from them is critical.
But there are still far too many tests overall:
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/
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Insanity re-defined, courtesy of NYSED:
The new CC aligned algebra 1 test (from Pearson) administered on June 3, will use cut scores that produce the same passing rate as the old integrated algebra Regents test.
This policy will continue for several years, as the algebra test is a graduation requirement.
Setting the cut scores to match a Regents test that assigns a passing score for any student who answers 34% of the test items correct (30/85 pts.) will be require some serious mathematical high jinx.
So we’ve upended the K-12 math standards in NY order to produce the same passing
rate as the math test it replaced. Seriously?
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LOL.
They just make this stuff up for political purposes.
The tests are useless instructionally.
And if they were valid, which they aren’t, as measures of what they are supposed to be measuring, they would be useless for the purposes for which they were created because of shenanigans like this.
What an utter travesty.
At a cost of billions of dollars and god only knows how much lost time in school.
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Get out and give talks about this stuff. Speak at your church or temple or mosque. Start a group on Meetup.
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Reblogged this on seldurio.
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