Levi Cavener, a teacher of special education in Idaho, learned that Idaho will give the Common Core test SBAC) to tenth graders even though it includes eleventh grade content.
“However, I was shocked during this exchange when the Director told me that the decision was due to the fact the state was worried students wouldn’t take the test seriously, and they didn’t want their data set tainted…because, you know, then the results wouldn’t be valid.
“Here is the Director’s response to my question of the logic in giving 10th graders the SBAC instead of 11th graders:
[The director said “Grade 11 is optional this year as your juniors have already met graduation requirements with the old ISATs and might not take the new tests seriously if they were used for accountability.”
Well, that’s convenient. I’m glad the State Department can cherry-pick the students who take the SBAC “seriously” and which students will not; I’m sure they will give that same privilege to teachers…oh..err…I guess not.]
See, here’s why my jaw was left open: The Director of Assessment admitted, rightfully and logically, that if students won’t take the test seriously, then there is no point in assessing them because the data will be invalid. And, if that’s true, let’s not assess those kidos because it would be a total waste of time and resources, not to mention the fact that the data would be completely invalid.
Thus, it would be logical to conclude that if the data is not accurate, then the SDE surely wouldn’t want to tie those scores to something as significant as a teacher’s livelihood.
Oh wait…they want to do exactly that? Shucks!
According to the the Idaho State Department of Education’s recent Tiered Licensure recommendations, SBAC data will be tied directly to a teacher’s certification, employment, and compensation.
Yet, If the Dept. of Ed admits SBAC data isn’t accurate, then what in the world are they doing on insisting that the data be tied to a teacher’s certification, employment, and compensation?
The insistence of tying data that is admittedly invalid is synonymous to tying a fortune cookie to real-world events. I don’t know about you, but my lucky numbers haven’t hit the lottery; what a scam!”
The test is more than eight hours long.
Writes Levi, “Isn’t it logical to conclude that at some point that kidos decide they would rather go outside to recess rather than reading closely on a difficult text passage or spending more time editing a written response? When the kido makes that decision, do we hold the teacher responsible for the invalid data?”
And what about special education kids? “Let’s compound that scenario for special education teachers who work with a population of students qualifying for a special education eligibility under categories of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders, Emotional Disturbances, and Autism Spectrum diagnosis.
“Yup, I’m sure these students will always take the multi-day SBAC with the utmost earnestness; it’s not like the very behaviors they demonstrated to qualify for special education services to begin with would impede their ability to complete the SBAC with total validity of the results?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Speechless
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I can cherry pick which high school kids will take these tests seriously.
None of them.
Unless these are tied to high school graduation and / or college admissions, the kids won’t care. Then, add in the difficulty (conveniently called rigor by reformers) and they’ll wonder why they have to work so much for no real reward or consequence.
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I have made this point many many times here, yet these exams are still called “high stakes” and blamed for increased stress among all students for whom the exams have absolutely no stakes attached.
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This is the essence of the dilemma “Reformers” have with evaluating teachers with the tests. Many students won’t take them seriously unless it means something to them. But parents (rightly, imo) get activated once tests (let’s leave to the side whether they are at an appropriate level for the moment) mean something and hurt their children. The “Reformers” can do whatever they want without the support of teachers, but they can’t get away with anything that doesn’t have the support of parents.
But they’re still trying to thread the needle…
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I am a principal at an elementary school in Florida. We just got an email stating that, if a parent asks us about opting their child out of the Florida Standards Assessment (the Common Core test), we are to tell them that, by state law, it is illegal for a parent to do that. State law states that all children enrolled in a public school must take the FSA. Are they going to start putting parents in jail for opting their child out of a high stakes developmentally inappropriate test?
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I would contact the sender and ask, “In case a parent asks, could you direct me to the relevant statute(s)?”
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These folks (SDE, Gates, etc) are livin’ in their own private Idaho (with the emphasis on “private”)
PS No slight to Idahoans intended. Just those in the private communities with Gates.
the lyrics to Private Idaho even say that
Keep off the path, beware the gate[s]
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The tiered licensure system recently proposed by Idaho’s SBOE ties licensure to student growth as measured by SBAC or other means. Is there any other profession where license to practice is tied to employment factors? Tiered licensure is a bad idea. Given that the Idaho proposal includes student test scores makes it even worse. Some teachers will be held accountable for growth on SBAC scores while students are not accountable. Some teachers will have licensure based on SBAC scores while teachers in other courses are measured how???? Add to this that in order to measure growth, one needs a pretest. Digging deeper, the whole concept of VAM is based on bad science. But never mind as Idaho likes to rush headlong into repeating known mistakes.
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Debbie
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Here’s a question that I hope some one can answer for me: Because it is well-established that factors such as parental discord, hidden health issues, household financial problems, and myriad behavioral factors can heavily influence a student’s achievement in school and performance on standardized tests, then in accord with the Due Process rights that teachers have, can a teacher whose job is on the line because of students’ poor test scores request detailed information about students’ home life, parental relations, family finances, and other pertinent information? If so, that would raise such a political backlash against using test scores to evaluate teachers that use of test scores to evaluate teachers would be swiftly dumped.
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None of this stuff makes sense. It is like they want use to fail. There is a two year moratorium on test scores for the kids. Teachers are being told their state and local measures don’t matter because there is a moratorium. Yet, parents can find out an individual’s teacher state and local measures (and a principal’s APPR) because “each school district/BOCES is required to provide conspicuous notice to parents and legal guardians of the right to obtain such information.” Okay, but if they don’t matter for the kids, why do they matter for us? Administrators and UFT representative at my school are encouraging teachers not to appeal their scores because “they don’t matter.” Yes, they do matter. Anyone from NY, appeal, appeal, appeal. You have nothing to lose.
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Here in CT we have not even received our scores from the pilot SBAC. Has anyone else? How could we possibly use it as a data point when we know nothing about how scores are calculated or even reported?
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