Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, here describes the decision by the Gates Foundation to delay the high-stakes consequences of the tests promoted by—-the Gates Foundation.
Hagopian writes:
“How do you know the United States is currently experiencing the largest revolt against high-stakes standardized testing in history?
“Because even the alchemists responsible for concocting the horrific education policies designed to turn teaching and learning into a test score have been shaken hard enough to awaken from the nightmare scenario of fast-tracking high-stakes Common Core testing across the nation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation issued a stunning announcement on Tuesday, saying that it supports a two-year moratorium on attaching high-stakes to teacher evaluations or student promotion on tests associated with the new Common Core State Standards.
“Labor journalist Lee Sustar put it perfectly when he said of the Gates Foundation’s statement, “Dr. Frankenstein thought things got out of hand, too.”
“The mad-pseudoscientists at the Gates Foundation have been the primary perpetrators of bizarre high-stakes test experiments in teacher evaluations, even as a growing body of research—including a report from the American Statistical Association—has debunked the validity of “value added method” testing models. The Gates Foundation has used its immense wealth to circumvent the democratic process to create the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with very little input from educators.”
After dissecting this surprising and welcome retreat, Hagopian calls on resisters to join a demonstration on June 26 and continue the mass civil resistance to the Gates Foundation’s undemocratic takeover of American education:
“This latest backtrack by the Gates Foundation shows they are vulnerable to pressure. But the question remains, will the Gates Foundation pursue its call for constraining the testing creature it created with the same zeal as it showed in creating the Common Core? Will the Foundation use its undue influence and wealth to pressure states to drop the use of high stakes testing attached to Common Core tests? On June 26th, public education advocates from around the country will arrive in Seattle to protest at the global headquarters of the Gates Foundation. You should join them and find out if the Gates Foundation is brave enough to answer these questions.
“While the Gates Foundation may be bending to the will of a popular revolt, it will take nothing short of mass civil rights movement to defeat its grotesque monster of high-stakes testing that is menacing our schools.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Fixin’ To Test Rag
Gimme a T . . .”T”
gimme an E . . . “E”
gimme an S . . .”S”
gimme another T . . .”T”
What’s that spell?
School!
What’s that spell?
School!
What’s that spell?
School!
Yeah come on all of you teachin’ folks
Billy Gates wants your hearts and souls
He got himself a brave new plan
Gonna make him the big money man
So put down your books and pick up a test!
We’re gonna rate ‘em from worst to best
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin’ in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
Well come on Pearson you’d better move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Gotta go out and write that test
Only trick items a white hot mess
You know that kids should never have fun
Let’s test ‘em all to Kingdom come
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
Well come on Wall Street, don’t move slow,
Its school deform lets go, go, go
There’s plenty good money on the way
By supplying schools with tests today
Just hope and pray that when the students bomb,
They drag all their teachers along.
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
Now Soccer moms throughout the land
Pack your kids off to test again
Come on fathers, don’t hesitate,
Send em off before it’s too late.
Be the first one on your block
To know your kids as dumb as a rock
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we testing for?
Don’t tell me, I don’t give a damn!
Common Core’s just a testing scam!
And it’s five, six, seven, cashin in with Mister Gates!
Ah, they don’t know poems, they don’t know math!
Whoopee! They all better pass
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TAGO!
😎
P.S. “Laughter is poison to the pompous.”
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This is awesome!
Country Joe MacDonald is still around, as is Barry “The Fish” Melton. Sure would be great to have them record this!
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One of our blog members has a band and is the process of makinh a music video for youtube. May it go viral.
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AWESOME!
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LOVE IT, NYS!
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Quite amusing nys! No doubt tis a good one! tago!
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But our district, in sw Ohio decided to use the MAP tests as well as the current state tests to evaluate teachers ahead if the demand. I guess it makes it easier to get rid of teachers. I am certain that there are only 3 full time teachers and 1 half day teacher are over 50 now. One is art, one is sped, and one is 4th grade. The half is remedial kindergarten pullout.
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To NYS Teacher: Love your rag!
Question: Who’s the multinational giant making the biggest KILLING delivering and scoring high stakes tests and teacher assessments online.
1. Educational Testing Service (US)
2. Riverside Publishing (US)
3. College Board (US)
4. Pearson PLC (UK)
5. Microsoft (US)
6. ACT Inc.(US)
PBS has the correct answer: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/testing/companies.html
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The market and market share have changed quite a bit since this piece was done. Pearson has a lot more market share now. Another big player now is American Institutes for Research (AIR).
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Bob: AIR ran a tight ship when they were primarily a research/evaluation shop; i.e. before IES took control of GOV sponsored R&D.
I’m not up to speed on what’s happened to the quality of AIR’s work since they bought out LPA. What’s AIR cooking up in the way of standardized testing?
Personally, I’d like to see American R&D outfits get more of the work, and Pearson PLC get MUCH LESS.
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They’ve taken on the contracts for state testing in several states. Florida is one of them.
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Though I agree with you.
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AIR also wrote the tests for Utah that began this year. The tests took NINE periods of 70 minutes each. For some kids, it took much longer. AIR said that one essay would take 30 minutes and the other 60. I can’t figure out where that number came from, because kids had to read three articles for each essay, then formulate and write an essay. Utah is selling our test to Florida for 2014-2015, while Florida waits for its own tests.
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New York parents stood up to Murdoch and Gates by saying no to inBloom. High-stakes testing and Common Core nonsense are next on the list. Billionaires cannot buy public education. Parents will keep registering complaints with state legislators until the monster is defeated and local education is restored.
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I suspect that political operatives in the coming election cycles will discover that the groundswell of anti CCSS testing sentiment around the country is an enormously rich vein to tap.
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Gates very much needs a delay in high stakes attached to the new national tests.
These tests are so ridiculous that they will lead to precisely the sort of outcome that we had with the CCSS tests in New York last year, and when that happens, there will be hell to pay, and Gates and Co. know this.
If they want to keep Lord Coleman’s List alive so that they can have a single national list to tag their monopolistic software and assessments to, then they have to have a moratorium in which to fix (and get people used to) these insanely formulated, invalid exams.
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The data is out, on the overuse of data driven decision making. Computer says, g i v e i t u p
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The Sacrifice
dolce et decorum est. . . .
Row on row, row on row,
Row on row stationed
Sick at their monitors
Sat the six hundred.
“You may now type your Username”
Said the test proctor.
Set up for failure
Sat the six hundred.
“Enter your password key!
“Mercy upon you!
“During the testing
“No one help you.”
Someone had blundered.
Surely, he had.
But theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do or die,
Theirs was but to try and cry.
Set up for failure
Sat the six hundred.
Text to the right of them
Complex, out of context,
Bubbles in front of them,
Plausible answers,
Tricky and tortured,
Boldly they bubbled and well
Though smack in the mouth of hell
Sat the six hundred.
This is what reading means,
Now that Gates/Pearson
Has reified testing
So far beyond reason.
Pearson not persons.
Plutocrats plundering,
Taxpayer dollars
Spent to abuse.
The children are used
They bubble and squirm
To reveal their stack ranking
And never again
Will know joy in learning
Never again
Humane joy in reading
And writing, no never again,
Not the six hundred.
Text to the right of them
Complex, out of context,
Bubbles in front of them,
Plausible answers,
Tricky and tortured,
Boldly they bubbled and well.
Gritfully slogging through hell
Sat the six hundred.
When shall their innocence,
Innate curiosity,
Joy in their learning
Ever return?
Alas this is not to be.
Theirs is to gritfully
Show the obedience
Proper for proles,
Their rightful roles
In the new feudal order.
Standardized children
With standardized minds,
Common, not great,
Though sufficient to serve
The ends of the state,
Lost to themselves
And the fruits of their labors.
Honor this children’s crusade.
Honor the price they paid.
Remember when they played.
Our once-young six hundred.
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cx: Line 12: No one may help you.
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Bob Shepherd: you and NYS Teacher cleared the bases!
But let me offer a bit of a counterpoint in the form of “what would genuine education feel like?”
Just a couple of highly personal offerings…
Walt Whitman, LEAVES OF GRASS (INSCRIPTIONS), “Shut Not Your Doors.”
Shut not your door to me proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet
needed most, I bring,
Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,
A book separate, not link’d with the rest nor felt by the intellect,
But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND, “I AM WAITING”—first verse:
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic wester frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
😉
I have no stats & numbers about just where on the college-and-career readiness index these two snippets should go—and I don’t care. I don’t exactly agree or disagree with them. They just move me and provoke thought…
That’s the wonder of it…
😎
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The Memoirs of Jessie James, by Richard Brautigan
I remember all those thousands of hours
I spent in grade school watching the clock
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jessie James
for all the time they stole from me.
Not sure which of his collections this one is from–it’s either The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster or Rommel Drives Deep into Egypt.
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what would genuine education feel like?
That, Krazy, is THE question. Those of us who are teachers know the answers to that. We know how that feels. That’s why we do this, isn’t it. Thanks, Krazy, for the beautiful words.
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Absolutely wonderful snippets of poetry Krazy…thank You for sharing!!!!
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I find it painfully interesting that the Gates announcement uses the same words and time-frame as Randi Weingarten’s and the AFT’s calling for a two-year moratorium on “evaluating” teachers using the results of the CCSS testing — and, therefore, full implementation — of a program that just should not be. Period. So who’s the tail and who’s the dog here . . .
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“here describes the decision by the Gates Foundation to delay the high-stakes consequences of the tests promoted by—-the Gates Foundation.”
Diane, the Gates Foundation can’t make a decision to delay anything, nor can they enforce it.
It’s state law. States will use the Common Core tests in any manner they see fit, including high stakes that affect teachers, high stakes that affect schools, and high stakes that affect children.
The assurances from Common Core supporters that “these won’t be like those other tests we pushed” are completely hollow. They’re based on absolutely nothing. The people pushing the Common Core have no earthly idea how the national tests will be used, and neither does anyone else.
For them to make these bland assurances is outright deceptive.
I know we’ve all but handed the keys of the federal and state governments to lobbying groups and foundations, but the fact is The Gates Foundation can’t assure anyone that Kansas or South Carolina or New York will or will not use these tests in any particular way. They don’t have any control over that. None of them do.
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Here’s Bill Gates making another promise about standardized tests taken by children and then used to punish teachers:
“In one Midwestern state, for example, a 166-pagePhysical Education Evaluation Instrument holds teachers accountable for ensuring that students meet state-defined targets for physical education, such as consistently demonstrating “correct skipping technique with a smooth and effortless rhythm” and “strike consistently a ball with a paddle to a target area with accuracy and good technique.” I’m not making this up!
The state he’s talking about here is Ohio. Ohio passed laws to use Mr. Gates standardized tests in ludicrous ways, in every public school in the state, and boy, they weren’t the only ones!
Gates apparently did not foresee the results of his passionate advocacy for stupid tests to measure our kids and their teachers, but his bold denunciation has had zero effect.
That’s because he doesn’t write law in Ohio.
He can’t protect public schools from the effects of the reckless and ill-considered national policy he pushes. He doesn’t have that power.
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Woe! I would be in bad shape if forced to skip rhythmically. Or throw a ball in a certain way.
And my lack of skill is inborn…genetic. So what? No teacher is to blame for my clumsiness. I could have never been a ballerina, a dancer, a gymnast, or a soccer player. I not quick or coordinated. So what?
No teacher is to blame for my difficulty understanding some of the complexities of certain subjects. I am not a genius. I don’t know everything. Nor do I want or need to!!
This whole fiasco is nauseating. I am disgusted with NCLB, RttT, Gates, Pesrsin, blind insertion of CCSS, the use of VAM.
Sometimes it feels like the purpose of all this is to make every person question whethervthey have any valid reasons to have felt successful or that they made a contribution to society in any way.
I must say that Edison, the Wright Brothers, Einstein, to name a few…would not have fit the mold that they are creating as essential for good education in the USA of the 21st century.
I am living in Ohio…Lord help me.
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Deb, shat you say of Edison and Einstein is particularly true of them. Edison spent a total of three months in school and was declared incapable of learning by his teacher. Einstein HATED his schooling and rebelled against its strictures all his life and wrote movingly in many essays, collected in his Ideas and Opinions, about this. The rigid, invariant, accountability model that he rebelled against–the Prussian model–was adopted by American industrialists and educrats as a model for U.S. schools. Einstein’s opinions are well summarized in this:
“I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.”
—— Albert Einstein, Saturday Evening Post interview, 10/26/1929
One can imagine what HE would have to say about the attempt to standardize and regiment U.S. education via the Common [sic] Core [sic] and the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat College and Career Ready Assessment Program, or C.C.C.C.C.C.R.A.P.
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cx: what you say, of course. sorry about the typo! (a pretty funny typo at that!)
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Ah, yes. Whoa not woe…but woe is me.
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It’s pretty slick. His dumb ideas are adopted by state legislatures after billions in bribes and huge gangs of lobbyists but he’s accountable for none of the reality.
It’s those yokels at the local level, who are too stupid to put his ideas in correctly. Michelle Rhee did the same thing with her testing op ed. There was nothing wrong with her IDEA, it was just the APPLICATION!
It’s the opposite of “accountability”, ed reform. They take responsibility for nothing.
How will Common Core be any different? They’ll dump it on districts and teachers and any problem will be attributed to public schools.
You know, everyone has had a boss like this. There is not one person in this country who is not familiar with this blame-shifting from people in charge.
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Jesse – bob murphy, HERE, in Seattle – working with a contract which has the phrase “student growth” in it 88 times, according to the advanced search function. Instead of mass civil rights think ins, teach ins, yak ins, talk ins, hug ins and blather ins, how about WE teachers get rid of some of the pols who passed SB5895 in March 2012?
It is primary season, a great time to make legislators FEAR us … if we’re out on the street holding signs for their primary opponents, or phone banking for their primary opponents, or doorbelling or leafleting for their primary opponents… this year, and every year. ALWAYS.
I’m fed up with “let’s-have-a-million-unity-march!!” yawn. aside from it don’t happen – how about let’s work to unemploy people who use us for photo ops? Ta da!
Tues. Aug. 5 ballots are due, and they’ll be in the mail 20 days before the election.
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Just a thought…who will then pay restitution to those who lost their jobs because of the invalidity of these measures?
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