Politicians these days just can’t spend enough on testing. They will starve the schools of money for the arts, librarians, and nurses, while throwing millions and millions for more tests. They seem to be under the delusion that kids will learn more if they take more tests but there’s no evidence for that. (My wish: the people who commission these tests should be required to take the tests and post their scores.)
Case in point: Georgia.
In this superb article, journalist Myra Blackmon writes in OnlineAthens about the testing madness that has caused the state to shell out more than $100 million to McGraw-Hill for five years of tests. At the end of five years, state officials won’t know anything different from what they know now. And then they will buy more tests.
She writes:
“More insanity came largely from the Georgia General Assembly and an unelected Georgia State Board of Education. I’ve lost track of how many education bills have been passed the last few years, many of them mandating testing for teacher evaluation or school “grades.” Other legislation has piled on the paperwork that eats up instructional time. The testing and textbook companies have made out like bandits here, though.
“Everyone professes to hate testing, with the exception, perhaps, of the billionaires and their companies who make more money the more we test.
“Oh, yes, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sees high-stakes testing as fundamental, and President Obama — whose daughters are exempt from the nightmare — doesn’t seem to care.
“If high-stakes testing is so great, why do the Obama children, as well as the children of Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation funds education “reform” initiatives, and the children of other wealthy elites go to private schools that don’t use such tests? If it’s so great for evaluating school performance, why aren’t private schools all over the country adopting the same practice and touting their test scores?”
And she adds:
“Testing has become absurd. Clarke County teachers have had to spend hours developing tests based on Student Learning Objectives that are not covered by the limited state Milestone and Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. According to Clarke County Schools Superintendent Philip Lanoue, district teachers have been required to develop, administer (often several times a year), score and enter the data for some 60 tests beyond what the state provides. But the state doesn’t look at the data beyond the summary data in the cover sheet.
“Contemplating the costs of staff time, lost instruction and implementation is mind-boggling. Little data from the required testing is practically useful to teachers, parents or administrators…..
“High-stakes testing is not about measuring “student growth” or helping teachers do a better job. It is actually a new blunt instrument, used to bludgeon schools to spend limited funds for no good reason, to beat teachers until they are ready to quit and to abuse millions of school children who have little choice.
“We must contain this lunacy before it cripples our nation for generations.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From Dr. Phil’s website; very little editing required. The 10 SIGNS of ADDICTION:
1) A recurrent failure to resist impulses to test.
2) Frequently engaging in testing behaviors to a greater extent or over a longer period of time than intended.
3) Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to stop, reduce or control those testing behaviors.
4) Inordinate amount of time spent in obtaining tests, engaging in or recovering from the testing behavior.
5) Preoccupation with the testing or test-prep activities.
6) Frequently engaging in testing behavior when expected to fulfill more important educational goals.
7) Continuation of the testing behavior despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent academic problem that is caused or exacerbated by the behavior.
8) Need to increase the intensity, frequency, or number of testing behaviors to achieve the desired effect. Or diminished effect with continued behaviors at the same level of intensity, frequency, or number.
9) Giving up or limiting social studies, science, the arts, music, or play (recreational activities) because of the behavior.
10) Resorting to distress, anxiety, restlessness or violence if unable to engage in the testing behavior at times.
Do you think Arne (and company) could use a good 12-step program?
LikeLike
In NC we see it. . .we accepted the Race to the Top money (which is almost all gone now), signed all kinds of contracts for testing and “accountability” to get the money, then we elected a wildly outrageous general assembly, who cut education spending unbelievably AND mandated even higher stakes for our third graders. . .so it’s a mix of what we signed up for when we did have Democrats running the show, and then trying to implement it all without money because of what Republicans did once they took control.
I think there will be more cuts to arts. That said, I’m wrestling with the notion that many LEA administrators use (still trying to make up my mind about this mindset) which is if they go ahead and pull arts people into tutoring core subjects during the day, it will make a better case for not cutting arts teachers later because afterall we are college educated, which not all TAs are.
But I don’t know. Is that really the best way to keep arts in the school? That yes you can teach arts IF you also work with kids in other subjects. And furthermore, would that really convince them not to cut arts?
Maybe. Not sure.
LikeLike
“Contemplating the costs of staff time, lost instruction and implementation is mind-boggling.”
You can bet that that “data” of those costs will never be determined. Too damning.
LikeLike
Cross posted at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Myra-Blackmon-Testing-Ins-in-General_News-Delusion_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Evaluation-141015-872.html
with this comment:
DON’T MISS: Journalist Myra Blackmon writes in OnlineAthens about the testing madness that has caused Georgia to shell out more than $100 million to McGraw-Hill for five years of tests. Politicians these days just can’t spend enough on testing. They will starve the schools of money for the arts, librarians, and nurses, while throwing millions and millions for more tests. They seem to be under the delusion that kids will learn more if they take more tests, and are planning test for kindergarteners. At the end of five years, state officials won’t know anything different from what they know now. And then they will buy more tests. She writes: “More insanity came largely from the Georgia General Assembly and an unelected Georgia State Board of Education. Education bills have have MANDATED testing for teacher evaluation, while testing and textbook companies have made out like bandits here.
my comment: Here is my takeaway, because I was a teacher from 1963 to 2000, and I saw the moment top-down mandates ended the RIGHT of the classroom PRACTITIONER TO PLAN to meet the state objectives for that age level in that content area… OBJECTIVES FOR LEARNING, were the guide, not standards for teacher evaluation, which is what these tests are used to do.
I planned the most engaging lessons to enable and facilitate learning… those words are the words of the National Standards research by Pew, for which my practice was A COHORT.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
This is important for you to know: in the real National Standards (the Principles of learning)
Click to access polv3_3.pdf
TESTS were no where to be seen. The PRINCIPLE FOR GENUINE EVALUATION AND AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT was for the CLASSROOM TEACHER, so that each child’s progress could be known and plans to meet the needs of each child could be made.
I used performance assessments (portfolio of written work) to know if my students could write, not merely spell or use vocabulary, and to see if they grasped the concepts in the books we read.
Today, I would not have the time to read their work, let alone keep records and plan new lessons.
Now, as Blackmon explains, “teachers have had to spend hours developing tests based on Student Learning Objectives that are not covered by the limited state Milestone and Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests & teachers have been required to develop, administer (often several times a year), score and enter the data for some 60 tests beyond what the state provides. But the state doesn’t look at the data beyond the summary data in the cover sheet.
“Contemplating the costs of staff time, lost instruction and implementation is mind-boggling. Little data from the required testing is practically useful to teachers, parents or administrators…..
“High-stakes testing is not about measuring “student growth” or helping teachers do a better job. It is actually a new blunt instrument, used to bludgeon schools to spend limited funds for no good reason, to beat teachers until they are ready to quit and to abuse millions of school children who have little choice.
“We must contain this lunacy before it cripples our nation for generations.”
LikeLike
This exact thing is happening in Utah right now. ALL subjects have to have SLOs and standardized tests by 2017, according to Utah law. I now have to give EIGHT standardized constructed response question essay tests a year now for history and geography. Each takes 45 minutes or so. Between that and the ACT-based Explore test I have to give to my 9th graders means that of the 90 periods I have with my students (we’re a school with a block schedule), NINE of them, or TEN PERCENT, are for standardized testing.
LikeLike