Brace yourself for a flurry of statements about how testing is out of hand, and we have to be careful. We need more transparency. We need accountability about accountability. That’s more or less what the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Council of Great City Schools said. Add the allegedly progressive Center for American Progress. What they did not say is that the testing mania is out of control. That the need to pump billions into the coffers of Pearson and McGraw-Hill is insatiable. That parents and educators are sick of the testing overload. That it is time to say, “Enough is enough.”
Behind both statements is a desire to protect the Common Core assessments. All of these organizations are funded by the Gates Foundation, and they are not about to align with Fairtest.
What the “leaders” refuse to see is that their followers are way ahead of them. Parents and educators don’t want higher-quality tests (that unicorn, that elusive mermaid). They want a moratorium on testing. They want the beatings to stop.
CCSSO and the other members of the Beltway establishment refuse to see that we are the over tested nation in the world; that a dozen years of testing have left educators demoralized, children graded like cuts of meat, thousands of schools closed, and urban communities devastated, their public schools closed and privatized by test scores.
There is a revolution brewing on the ground against this testing madness. It is time for the leaders to get outside DC and talk to teachers and parents. Or get out of the way.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Seems the Post marches to the same tune.
School standardized testing is under growing attack, leaders pledge changes
Quote of the day:
“Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who said in August that testing was “sucking the oxygen out of the room” and promised to do something about it, applauded the education leaders.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/school-standardized-testing-is-under-growing-attack-leaders-pledge-changes/2014/10/15/bd1201b8-549b-11e4-ba4b-f6333e2c0453_story.html
The same pasta tossing strategy applies to charter schools. The current climate allows anyone to throw a bunch of schools at the ceiling to see what sticks. While a few charter schools sponsored by institutions of higher education might actually have a vision or plan, too many schools are plagued by “beginning driver syndrome.” They’re lost, can’t find their way back, and they’ve made too many wrong turns. The worst of the charters have no vision at all! They are run by Bernie Madoff type creatures that are in the game to defraud and swindle taxpayers. The lack of oversight and accountability has created a “wild west” feeding frenzy of gamblers and crooks. Everyone keeps thinking that the magic bullet to solve the problems of urban education is just around the corner, These “edupreneurs” are not just losing taxpayers’ dollars; they are disrupting and damaging children’s lives. What is going on is an insult to those of us that are professional educators that have worked hard for the opportunity to guide America’s children. Students are not products on an assembly line. America needs to wake up before more harm is done to children and public education, where, I believe, we can find some real solutions.
Wow, great statement against testing, stop the beatings!, do not invent a more humane kind of torture…Exactly right, Gates and Co. have bought up all the organized groups in education and society–the two unions, the PTA, the Ed Week journal, PBS, foundations and think tanks–leaving the vast majority of us—parents, teachers, students, paras, taxpayers–with no organized form to throw our great weight into the war. Opt-Out United is an emerging answer to this private war on public education. So are the activist education networks–FAIRTEST, Rethinking Schools, etc. Gates and fellow billionaires are in league with the Democratic party so this Nov. make the treacherous Dems pay for their love of Pearson and Wall st., don’t vote for them. Until the Dems have to beg for our votes, that party will never pay attention to any of its liberals or progressives.
In NY at least, this could relate to the push to eliminate “redundant” local assessments.
Yes. Don’t be surprised if Cuomo wants to reduce the amount of testing under APPR by tieing all teacher evaluations to CC math and ELA scores. This would prove to be even more disasterous than the current policy, but would certainly open the door for litigation due to the inherent unfairness. Time will tell . . .
From the CCSSO statement that accompanied the announcement:
FLERP,
John King loves high-stakes testing. That is why Néw York hasa large and growing number of students who opt out
Where to begin FLERP?
John King is a king-sized liar.
““High quality assessments are an integral part of teaching and learning,” Here he infers that Pearson/CC are High quality. As a former test writer let me tell you that they would be invalidated by any objective test developer – they are that BAD.
“They provide useful feedback to teachers, parents and students.”
This is outright BS! We can’t even see the tests and are forbidden to discuss them. Teachers who score the exams must sign a waiver promising to never divulge the contents.
“In New York, we haven’t increased the number of tests the state administers, and virtually all of the tests we give are required by federal law.” This is true but King purposefully omits the fact APPR teacher evaluations REQUIRE the use of LOCAL (teacher created) exams to show student growth through our SLOs.
“Unfortunately, due to various pressures at the federal, state and local level, local testing has increased in many districts in New York, and this additional local testing does not always support good instruction and sometimes even crowds out time for student learning.” The “various pressures” came in the form of Cuomo’s relentless pursuit of Race to the Top money – $700 million that doesn’t begin to pay for the costs of implementing CC standards and Pearson (now) and PARCC (future) testing. In fact Cuomo has called the APPR teacher evaluation deals he struck with NYSUT one of his crowning achievements. It is this deal that has turned public schools into test-prep and high-stakes testing centers. The opportunity costs of this are staggering.
None of this testing drives instruction, it drives teachers and principals out. When you get results after students have moved on it looses any potential of adjusting instruction to make it more meaningful for the students. It does however give testing companies a lot of money. This testing is borderline, no it is over the line ridiculous and the instructional time it wastes is not going to be tolerated in districts where parents understand what is going on and are vocal about what is going on. How is it that we allow people that are so out of touch with our schools, principals, teachers and students to make the rules we must follow. I always wonder if they follow those same rules for their own children.
“Testing Education Leaders”
Not sure if that is an oxymoron or if it is just an impossibility. Perhaps both!?!?!
Teachers do not need Pearson test writers policing our profession!
Parents do not want Pearson test writers stigmatizing their children
Common Core is LIMITING OPPORTUNITIES for the growth and development of our students by constraining what and how we teach.
Common Core is a ONE SIZE fits FEW policy that is trying to force all students through one very, very narrow academic keyhole.
Should we assume the shareholders of Pearson (the 3rd largest is the government of Libya-Mother Jones Sept./Oct. 2014) trump parents, students and teachers?
Supporters of the CCSS have made themselves heard today in Westchester County, home of Governor Andrew Cuomo and his opponent, Rob Astorino. The article is riddled with boldfaced lies about CCSS. They are also up to the same bait and switch tactics that they’ve used elsewhere: article appears in newspaper, supposedly authored by 2 people; web-search lists the authors as co-founders of the group they identify; later in the day the authors’ names disappear from the website and the website has been rewritten.
http://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/10/16/view-common-core-best-new-york/17191793/
Who IS this Jonathan Schleifer and Amanda Barney? According to the article, he is the “Executive Director” of a group called “Educators 4 Excellence – New York”, and is a member of “High Achievement New York”, a coalition supporting high standards for New York. “Amanda Barney is a nationally recognized English teacher and a Long Island resident.”
I did an internet search this morning which brought me to the E4E website. Then I saw that he was a Yale graduate teaching in the Bronx, and she launched her teaching career with Teach for America. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time this a.m. to do anything with it, and now I wish I had saved it. Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 pm, someone rewrote the E4E website and removed Mr. Schleifer’s and Ms. Barney’s names as “Co-Founders” of E4E. Evan Stone and Sydney Morris now take the spotlight.
http://www.educators4excellence.org/about-us/how-we-started
Old Dog,
Educators 4 Excellence is a Gates-funded AstroTurf group of young people paid handsomely to criticize unions, tenure, pensions, etc and to advocate for CCSS
Thank you. I’m in the process of writing a letter to the editor and
How can I prove that? What do I search?
From the article, here is one of the biggest lies I’ve heard about CC:
“First, local educators – from Westchester to Buffalo and Long Island to Albany – played a critical role in developing the Common Core standards. The process relied on teachers and standards experts from across the country. Teachers from New York and states from around the country gave regular feedback on drafts of the standards, brought together by leading teachers groups, including the NEA, AFT, and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.”
I meant to include that this article appeared in The Journal News in the “Community View” section of the Op-Ed pages.
I recently retired after 23 years teaching here in Westchester. I also live here in Westchester and have 2 children: one a high school student, the other a college freshman who attended the local public schools since kindergarten. I never heard of these groups, and I know a lot of teachers here in Westchester and not one of them supports CCSS.
I just read an article from NEA yesterday which commented on how students are over tested in one sentence then in the next it seemed to infer that teachers are to blame for problems by then commenting that “the public” overwhelmingly supports more selective teacher education programs. They went on with survey results from “who knows where” and all roads seem to be about “improving teachers”. This is a huge problem. The NEA creates a false narrative in such an understated way. There needs to be a lot of IMPROVEMENT aka GETTING CORPORATE BILLIONAIRES OUT OF EDUCATION, DEALING WITH CHRONIC POVERTY, HEALTH, LIVING CONDITIONS… and EXTRICATING THE ENTIRE HIGH STAKES TESTING INDUSTRY along with all the idiotic reforms that go with it AKA RTTT/NCLB/COMMON CORE. There would be a lot of money that could go toward solving real problems. All teachers know how the quality of learning improves when class sizes are kept small. It is amazing how even a 5 student difference effects classroom dynamics. So imagine if class sizes were the same as in Sidwell Friends and Lakewood etc.. with a 15 to 1 ratio. Money should be put toward paying for more teachers. Even adding additions and improving the school buildings or adding new schools so class size can be scaled down. Instead… money goes to Pearson and all the companies and consultants involved in “ed reform”!
The NEA article infers that teachers are to blame for poor student achievement.
Once again the entire reform movement, the “Test-and-Punish Party” of the plutocracy, and all those it has bought out, have abdicated the students themselves for any responsibility for their own learning.
As if we can make the truants attend school, as if we make the distracted pay attention, as if we can force feed them knowledge if they are unwilling or unable to learn, as if we can magically erase the debilitating effects of generational poverty and hopelessness, as if we can cure family dysfunction form afar, as if we can control the thoughts and actions of every single child in the country.
Educators for Excellence is a front for the privatization movement. If you go to the “Issues” link on their website, all of the hot-button issues pop up. I went to the link “Teacher Tenure”, scrolled down to find a link to an article “Ringing the Bell for K-12 Teacher Reform” that cites the Center for American Progress. http://www.air.org/page/board-directors
This entire website is propaganda for the uninformed public.
I just watched a Cuomo commercial in which he stated, “Not to use [disregard] Common Core scores for at least five years, and only if our children are ready.”
He also called for “real teacher and school evaluations” AND “an end to over-testing”
What’s up with this??????????????
regretting he has his named welded to the most TOXIC BRAND in America.
Like a RAT jumping from a sinking ship.
NY Teacher, don’t believe political commercials.
I don’t believe anything that comes out of Cuomo’s mouth. He is a proven liar.
Just ask the WFP. It is telling that he is continues to back off his CC cheerleading. Its all for show, for sure. Once elected all NY Teachers expect to feel the full wrath of our very angry governor. You would never guess that he single-handedly lead the push for NY to adopt CC ahead of all (except KY) other states.
4,580 letters and emails sent to Obama and Congress. That’s just me and my keyboard with no affiliations. Check out the map on the ‘activity report’ and you’ll see that vast majority of signers are from NY. That’s because we have experienced the big CC smack down for two straight years. Feel free to sign the petition and spread the word. Political pressure matters!
http://www.petition2congress.com/15080/stop-common-core-testing/?m=5265435
I met with one of Senator Diane Fenstein’s representatives yesterday for an hour and discussed at length what’s wrong in education today and how to fix it. The rep took copious notes that she will share with the senator as well as the senator’s education office in D.C. She was extremely receptive as her sister is a public school teacher. I had articles baking up my research as well as my 16 years experience in K-12 education. I also told the rep the premier expert on the state of education in America is Diane Ravitch. She agreed to read your blog Diane!
My main points were how standardized testing has hurt the children of America, naming the billionaires who have damaged American education with NCLB, Race to the Top, and Common Core. I told her that teachers need to be supported rather than blamed for the state of education. I explained that class sizes are too high, our students need more support in the form of counselors, and libraries must be re-opened with highly-qualified teacher librarians. I told her that fewer college students are going into education because of the way teachers are treated and the low pay. I explained that this is leading to a shortage of credentialed teachers, leaving students with substitutes rather than teachers. I told her this would only get worse unless standardized testing is removed, teachers are trusted as the education experts they are, teachers are supported and encouraged, and more money is poured into education. Money that is well spent: to attract and retain teachers, to lower class sizes, to support school libraries, to add counselors, repair broken schools, and the list goes on.
I stressed that if they want to know what needs to be done in education, ask the experts, the ones who are in the classrooms day by day with our students- teachers. Not bureaucrats, billionaires, or anyone with a self-serving agenda and especially no one who’s never been in the classroom! I explained that schools cannot be run like businesses. I also shared that America is waking up and there is a movement across the nation supporting all of these points. I explained that if we continue in the trend we’ve been in since NCLB was enacted, then our children will continue to suffer. I told her that poverty and parental involvement are the main indicators of student achievement, that even the best teacher can only do so much. Teachers, let’s continue to band together and get the word out! I have spoken to state senators, U.S. senators, school board members, and Arne Duncan’s office. Although, we know some are not as receptive as others, you would be surprised at how open they are and willing to hear from us. No one else can truly tell politicians what is going on in the classroom. I am encouraged by the thousands of people who are supporting teachers in getting the word out and am encouraged by the strides being made in this nation for education. It is only a matter of time before we will win this fight and make American education strong again!!
Thank you, Heather. The message is getting out and they can’t ignore us any longer. That is why they are now saying “there is too much testing,” and “we need a new conversation.” Their narrative is sinking.