Kenneth Chang, who writes about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects realized that his child in a Jersey City charter school would be taking the Common Core test called PARCC this year. He noted that while 42 states have signed on for Common Core, the federally-funded testing has “fractured.”
He writes:
“Supposedly, the economies of scale were to lead to better tests at lower costs, and initially, almost all states signed up with one of two federally financed organizations developing Common Core tests: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or Parcc, and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. (Some states belonged to both groups.)
“Parcc has dwindled to 12 states plus the District of Columbia. New York, a member of Parcc, will continue to use its own Common Core-inspired test. Smarter Balanced has 21 states participating, but four members will not use the tests, at least not this school year. A survey by Education Week found that less than half of public school students would take either test this year.”
Nonetheless, millions of students will take one of them this spring.
Chang took a practice version of PARCC, the test chosen by New Jersey.
He writes:
“In many ways, it is a better test than the fill-in-the-bubble multiple-choice exams of my youth. With a computer-based test, the questions can be more complicated but still easily graded. Both consortiums also offer paper versions for the time being, because not all schools have enough computers and Internet connectivity.
“Some questions require several calculations to come up with the answer, testing a deeper level of understanding. For example: “Hayley has 272 beads. She buys 38 more beads. She will use 89 beads to make bracelets and the rest to make necklaces. She will use 9 beads for each necklace. What is the greatest number of necklaces Hayley can make?”
This is a multi-step problem but not that difficult (but then, I have a Ph.D.). I will wait to hear from fourth grade teachers whether it is a good question.
What struck me about Chang’s comment was that he said the PARCC test was better than “the fill-in-the-bubble multiple-choice exams” of his youth. As a student in the 1950s, I never took multiple-choice tests. Why does he assume that is the natural order of things? Did he think about the cost to his charter chain of the technology to administer the tests? Did he wonder who (or what) would grade any written answers? Does he know that his daughter will get a grade but the teacher will not be allowed to see her answers on the test and will get no diagnostic information from the test to help her? What is the value of the test if the teacher learns nothing from it other than a score? Is the grade all the father expects from this expensive investment? Did it occur to him that the real purpose of the test is to derive data to evaluate the teacher, not to provide information to help his daughter?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Does he really expect us to believe that he remembers anything from fourth grade? Ridiculous.
My immediate feeling was that he is a pro CCRAP proponent. The only thing missing is A few of the buzz word talking point verbiage such as a rigorous and critical thinking. My second thought was that perhaps he is funded or his employment is back by a Gates foundation. Follow the money.
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““In many ways, it is a better test than the fill-in-the-bubble multiple-choice exams of my youth. With a computer-based test, the questions can be more complicated but still easily graded.”
Am I missing something? How is this different or better than using Scantrons, except that the system is more expensive, more likely to need expensive upgrades, more likely to break down, and more likely to send data where it doesn’t belong?
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“A keyboard and mouse is not a natural way of doing math, and I wondered whether these questions would be more a test of computer interface.” So math calculations are more difficult with the interface, but still this test is better because…?
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I don’t know about the PARCC, but in the Utah CC tests, there is a LOT of dragging and dropping of symbols and numbers in the CC math tests. From everything I’ve heard from students and teachers, it’s a real pain and very time consuming to do this for every test question. I don’t think that making a question harder to answer is really increasing the level of the questions. Harder does NOT necessarily mean better.
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What makes a question better just because it is multi-step? These tests are timed, so it just means kids have to do more in a short period of time just to get one question right (or they could guess and hope for the best, which is probably what I would have done). And anyway, although that question may appear to be applicable to the real world, it’s full of [something Diane doesn’t appreciate being printed on her blog]. In real life Hayley doesn’t care about the maximum number of necklaces she can make and she’s sure the heck not going to set aside a set number of beads for bracelets vs. necklaces. She’s just going to keep happily stringing beads of various lengths based on what pleases her at the time until she runs out of beads.
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And regarding multi-step questions on a standardized test….exactly how diagnostic and informative will this test be? If a student gets it wrong, how is a teacher to determine what they did wrong? How informative will these state-by-state comparisons actually be? We won’t know if they got the calculation wrong, or used the wrong logic in coming up with the answer.
And one thing that is interesting and has not really been addressed is why do we have two consortiums, two types of tests (one adaptive, one not) yet we are going to make state-to-state comparisons. What do these reports actually show? How does one “drill down” into the results?
It seems like we are part of a national experiment to compare the two tests. A national product development effort, and our kids are the unsuspecting subjects.
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Yes, exactly, billions of dollars to standardize, and not be very standardized and end up with the same old mish mash. What a waste.
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In this scientific age we know a great deal about neurodiversity. Neurodiversity recognizes the strengths of biological learning differences just as we recognize the effects of diversity in nature. Force-feeding all children a standardized test & curriculum suppresses neurodiverse students opportunities to excel in their unique areas. There are many examples of neurodiverse adults who excel (and excelled) in their fields long before the PARCC or Common Core.
He ignores the fact that this test fails to identify the unique learning styles of a large population of students with disabilities. PARCC cannot assist teachers & parents on how best to accommodate individual learning needs and design strength-based educational programs. PARCC for children with disabilites sets up many diverse learners to fail.
Many children with physical and perceptual disabilities have difficulty using a computer. The PARCC marketeers falsely claim PARCC is universally designed when it is not a real example of universally accessible. It’s disturbing that DoEd would endorse such testing discrimination and embrace this shameless failure model for vulnerable children.
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“Some questions require several calculations to come up with the answer, testing a deeper level of understanding. For example: “Hayley has 272 beads. She buys 38 more beads. She will use 89 beads to make bracelets and the rest to make necklaces. She will use 9 beads for each necklace. What is the greatest number of necklaces Hayley can make?”
This is a multi-step problem but not that difficult, but then, I have a Ph.D.
Glad to know that convoluted questions like these, written with quasi-rigor, wll let teachers know if their 9 year olds are PHD ready.
This test item seems designed to test that which mostly cannot be taught.
This type of item is downright cruel for speds and ELLs; a dyslexics nightmare.
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A little anecdote: years back in the 80s and 90s my school gave the Stanford Achievement Test in math and reading in the spring of each year. I got the math scores which were broken down into Concepts, Computation and Word Problems. For my entering 5th graders I would make a chart with all “data” ie test scores and some comments. (This included reading comp scores and the Otis-Lenon test if available.) For the math I would put the percentiles in a row say 56 33 42 and a little line that in this case would dip down in the center. Another might get 94 82 97, again with a dip in the center. Some would do this: 75 90 81 and there would be a rise for the computation score. I started to see patterns here. Kids with lower computation scores were the ones I should watch, especially relative to their conceptual and word problem results. After seeing the kids in action I could use the “data” (I called it information back then) to see if there actually were patterns that could help me reach each child more effectively and efficiently. Often kids who had lower computation scores were the ones who did not complete assignments or rushed through things or did not know their facts. I did not dwell on this data, but I used it to get a picture of my class in advance. I also would look at item analysis data during the year or for the previous class to see if there was something useful across the board for the class. IE did a large number miss a question on perimeter? Did I rush over this perhaps? Now, maybe not every teacher did this, but this is how tests have the potential to help teachers teach better. Now? Not so much. I shudder when I see how some of the tests are presented and graded and the rubrics. That is where people need to see what gets the points especially on writing responses. If the explanations about this being a nefarious plot to totally end public education, bust unions and get rid of high-paid, qualified teachers, then the above is probably a moot point. When all the hours in the day are spent teaching or on minutiae, when time for reading, reflecting and learning new methods or research is severely limited, pay is low, working conditions are not good, I fear for our children. Thank goodness for the schools that are thriving at this point. I just heard about a friend’s kindergarten aged granddaughter who is in school in California. She is in a class of 32 kids and the teacher “lectures” for 2 hours at a time. The kids at least get 3 recesses during the day. The child has come home with holes in her pants. She cuts them with her scissors during the lectures…….beyond sad. The parents like the teacher and do not hold her at fault. I am sure there must be more to the day, but what are we doing?
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I think kids are supposed to think it’s new and cage-busting because it’s 37 steps for each word problem and it’s online.
Mine remains stoic, but unimpressed. It’s a math test. He’s in sixth grade. His entire time in public school has been under NCLB. If there’s anything he recognizes, it’s standardized testing.
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On adding and subtracting, an easy skill, for repitition the spreadsheet was invented, which no doubt, saved endless manhours of tallying on adding machine.
“Hayley has 272 beads. She buys 38 more beads. She will use 89 beads to make bracelets and the rest to make necklaces”
So the 21st century skill is translating word probems to numbers, 272+38-89=?
Seems a little esoteric, but I guess it teaches patience. Word problems, what’s old is new.
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[(272 + 38) – 89] / 9 = ?
Every math teacher knows that multi-step word problems will trip up the majority of students. They are testing reading comprehension, life experiences, logic, brain development, concentration, patience, and test taking stamina. Oh yeah, and addition, subtratcion and multiplication facts.
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The art teacher wants to know if the beads are all the same size, color, same texture, and same material, and of the same equal actual cost or perceived value. Are the holes in the beads the same size? are some beads easier to thread than others? Is there sufficient string, yarn, or thick thread for the project? Is it precut or must it be cut? Are scissors available? Is a ruler needed? Is it likely that the ends of string, yarn, or thick thread will fray? How might that be addressed? Is there a time certain when these items must be make? Why are the bracelets and necklaces being made? Are they gifts or being made for sale? And so on.
I wonder if the test-makers considered whether this item is biased– giving a gendered and social-class advantage to students who have, for example, been financially able to feast on the abundant do-it-yourself fare available for creating necklaces and bracelets a crafts project-line heavily marketed to girls and women.
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“As a student in the 1950s, I never took multiple-choice tests.”
Well, slap me silly!
It never occurred to me that I never took one multiple-choice test while I was attending K to 12 public schools. But as a teacher for thirty years (1975 – 2005), I administered many mandated, standardized bubble tests to my students starting with President Reagan and that flawed and misleading report called A Nation at Risk in 1983. By the 1990s,mandated testing had become an obsession.
Imagine that, in 1965, I was a 6′ 4″ HS graduate who weighed 125 pounds at graduation who seldom studied and scraped through with a 0.95 GPA. I admit it, I was a passive-aggressive, undisciplined lousy student with severe dyslexia and life threatening health challenges in addition to an alcoholic grandfather, father, uncle and older brother.
And there were no standardized tests to motivate me to become college ready.
How did it happen that today I have nine years of college education behind me and three degrees, have published three books—-two that have won multiple literary awards—with enough sales to label me as a mid-list author—-and that all happened without the help of standardized tests to motivate me to be college ready?
Could the answer be that I was an avid reader during my youth who could plow through two paperbacks a day while avoiding homework and most of the classwork? Could it be that I made it through college, because I visited the library on a regular basis? I even worked as a student assistant in the high school library for all four years, and I read hundreds if not thousands of books.
Maybe my mother and father should have been tossed prison for being roll models at home by reading books and making sure I learned to read and then taking me to the library until it became a habit when they should have been demanding more standardized tests that would lead to college readiness.
Is there any evidence that mandated, standardized bubble tests encourage kids to become avid book readers?
My parents, both high school dropouts and loaded with faults of their own, were avid readers and that made all the difference in my life.
Can anyone prove that when parents aren’t avid reading roll models that standardized bubble tests will act as a replacement and turn children into avid readers?
In fact, a high level of literacy is the most powerful skill that leads to college readiness, and I don’t think all the bubble tests in the world will change that if a child isn’t an avid reader.
A solution that has helped achieve higher literacy rates and lower poverty rates in other countries has not been standardized bubble tests. The solution has been national early childhood education programs that are run by the public schools and not by cost-cutting, profit-driven, greedy, drooling, sociopathic, narcissistic, corporate CEOs. For instance, Bill Gates, the Koch brothers or the Waltons and their billionaire allies.
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I wonder if he took any of the ELA tests. They are terrible, terrible tests. The tasks are vague, confusing, and in some cases the “correct answers” are not just arguably wrong, they are wrong. The writers of many questions do not actually seem to have a particularly strong grasp on the use of the English language; or at least, the answers certainly don’t show that they do.
The interface makes reading long passages (and even for the 3rd grade test the passages are really long) extremely difficult. One of the reading passages for *8th* grade was an excerpt from the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/12/5116.full?sid=752d7fed-5353-4b40-8f43-54f16b2c388a)
I highly, highly encourage anyone in a state planning to spend money on this ridiculous test to take and then share widely the practice tests: http://practice.parcc.testnav.com
In Illinois, we are campaigning for a minimum one-year moratorium on administering this as a mandatory, statewide test. Please get in touch with us if you want to join our effort: info@morethanascorechicago.org
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Lloyd, I think examining our own educations, as you have done here, is one rich avenue for discrediting the Franken-curriclua that Common Core is spawning. I did little to no close reading in K-12, yet I remember getting an A on a paper based on a close reading of two pages of “The Odyssey” in my freshman English class at a highly-selective liberal arts college. What made me college-ready? A traditional liberal arts curriculum.
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Exactly, how did so many Americans become college educated and propel America to become the innovative country that put the U.S. on the moon starting in the 1960s long before “A Nation at Risk” in 1983, and all of this was achieved without Common Core and its agenda to rank and yank teachers based on the results of standardized student bubble tests.
I think that it is arguably that where this is a will, there is a way, and we can look at the GI Bill—-for this innovation and success that eventually made America the world’s only super power—that sent millions of World War II, Korean, and Vietnam Veterans to college until today we have almost 3 college graduates for every job in the U.S. that requires a college degree.
No other nation has sent anyone to the moon and as I write this Space X, a U.S. based corporation, has an agenda to colonize the Moon and then Mars.
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Yes, when my colleagues and I took the sample SBAC ELA tests, we all took voluminous notes on the myriad problems: confusing wording, ambiguous answer choices, and the $64,000 question: what the heck is this supposed to be testing? And can it be taught? It is a scandal that such a terrible test is going to drive everything we do; and it’s scandalous that NCTE, education professors, English department heads, and other supposed stewards of the profession can’t see the fraud and don’t condemn these tests.
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Oops, meant to post this as a reply to Cassie above.
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