Here is Fairtest’s weekly report on the anti-testing movement, which grows daily. Major national organizations recognized the resistance and proclaimed they want to reduce the overdose of testing. Hmmm.
Bob Schaeffer of Fairtest writes:
Top national policy-makers finally took notice of the growing testing resistance and reform movement this week. The Council of Chief State School Officers (aka state superintendents) and the Council of the Great City Schools (urban supers) published a report admitting that standardized exam overkill was rampant across the country. In response, both U.S. Secretary of Arne Duncan and President Barack Obama issued statements of concern.
But none of these long-time defenders of test misuse and overuse has spelled out how to address what they concede are serious problems. That’s why grassroots activists — parents, students, teachers, administrators, community leaders, school board members, etc. — need to keep ratcheting up the pressure !
School Standardized Testing Is Under Growing Attack: Leaders Pledge Changes
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
As Over-Testing Outcry Grows, Exam Promoters Pull Back Slightly
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2014/1016/As-overtesting-outcry-grows-education-leaders-pull-back-on-standardized-tests
Poll Finds Coloradans Concerned About Too Much Testing
http://co.chalkbeat.org/2014/10/20/union-poll-finds-negative-public-attitudes-on-testing/#.VEZxCnvvdBw
Pearson Scoring Error Delays Release of New Test Results
http://www.9news.com/story/news/education/2014/10/16/state-delays-release-new-tests/17356299/
Delaware School Board Will Support Families Who Opt Out of Tests
http://delaware.newszap.com/centraldelaware/135877-70/standardized-test-opt-out-gets-show-of-support-from-capital-board
Florida Teachers Fed Up With Volume of Testing
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/marion-county-teachers-fed-amount-testing-kinderga/nhjHs/
Revolt Against Testing Spreads Across Florida
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/10/15/kathleen-oropeza-revolt-testing-begun/17326837/
Florida Fights With Feds Over Testing English Language Learners
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/testing/state-federal-government-wrestle-over-testing-for-students-learning-english/2202760
Time for Georgians to Rise Up Against Student Testing Regime
http://onlineathens.com/opinion/2014-10-18/blackmon-time-rise-against-student-testing-regimen
Indiana School Grade Gaming Earns Failing Results
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20141017/EDIT07/310179995/1147/EDIT07
Maryland Educators Seek Delay in Common Core Testing Requirements
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/blog/bs-md-graduation-requirements-20141016-story.html#page=1
Mississippi School Grading Change Leaves Schools Confused, Frustrated
http://www.sunherald.com/2014/10/16/5859825/districts-caught-in-transition.html
Suspend New Jersey Exit Exam Requirement During Transition to PARCC
http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/10/14/commentary-make-exit-exam-optional-parcc-changes/17247379/
New Mexico State Senator Seeks Moratorium on Test Score Consequences
http://www.abqjournal.com/480653/news/nm-senator-calls-for-moratorium-on-using-test-scores.html
Testing Policy A Contentious Issue in New Mexico Race for Governor
http://www.abqjournal.com/482493/news/gov-candidates-offer-different-policy-visions.html
New York Rethinks Rush to Computerized Testing: Plans Multi-Year Phase-In
http://www.nyssba.org/news/2014/10/10/on-board-online-october-13-2014/sed-rethinks-computerized-testing-plans-phase-in-over-several-years/
Opt-Out Movement Builds Across New York State
http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141019/NEWS/141019385
Ohio School Superintendents Label Added Common Core Testing an “Abomination”
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/10/test_mania_local_superintenden.html
Grades From Spring 2015 Ohio Common Core Tests May Not Be Available Until 2016
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/10/grades_from_spring_common_core_tests_may_not_be_available_until_2016.html
Ohio School Board Candidate: Test-Centric Education Cannot Replace for Effective Learning
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2014/10/14/column-test-centric-education-replacement-effective-learning/17278543/
Oklahoma Plays Test Vendor “Musical Chairs” Firing One Company and Hiring Another
http://oklahomawatch.org/2014/10/17/oklahoma-to-consider-new-testing-contract-replacing-mcgraw-hill/
Portland Oregon Schools Refuse to Be Judged By Common Core Tests
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/10/portland_public_schools_wont_f.html
Too Much Testing in Texas Schools
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20141017-failing-grade-for-testing.ece
Former Utah Teacher of the Year, Now NEA President, Says Don’t Punish Educators With Test Scores
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58530434-78/eskelsen-utah-garcia-education.html.csp
Powerful Video Short: “Refuse the Tests”
Testing Mania and Uncle Sam’s Clumsy (Over)Reach
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2014/10/testing_mania_and_uncle_sams_clumsy_reach.html
New Research: Grade Retention, Even in Kindergarten, Is Harmful to Children
http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/new-research-failing-students_2034/
Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
office- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779
mobile- (239) 699-0468
web- http://www.fairtest.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Got keep up the pressure on these failed policies of test-em-till-they drop.
Fair test is doing a great job of tracking this, and this post needs to be recycled on many blogs.
A central clearing house for charter fraud is also needed. If you know of one please post it so the cumulative and national scope of this problem can be made visible, posted, and reposted.
Laura,
Sharon Higgins, a parent in Oakland, has maintained a website called “Charter School Scandals.” She has no funding and no staff. It is a Herculean task to keep up with the scams and frauds, new ones reported daily while the U.S. Department of Education, the Gates Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, the Broad Foundation, etc keep pumping hundreds of millions yearly into opening more charters.
Can’t we get Mark Zuckerberg to throw us some money? There must be some billionaire who is on our side?
Zuckerberg founded the Start-up: Education foundation.[94][95] On September 22, 2010, it was reported that Zuckerberg had donated $100million to Newark Public Schools, the public school system of Newark, New Jersey.[96][97] Critics noted the timing of the donation as being close to the release of The Social Network, which painted a somewhat negative portrait of Zuckerberg.[98] Zuckerberg responded to the criticism, saying, “The thing that I was most sensitive about with the movie timing was, I didn’t want the press about The Social Network movie to get conflated with the Newark project. I was thinking about doing this anonymously just so that the two things could be kept separate.”[99] Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker stated that he and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had to convince Zuckerberg’s team not to make the donation anonymously
“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”
Abraham Lincoln
The 2015 Common Core test scores won’t come put until 2016?
“The multi-state consortium running the new tests, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), won’t make a key and potentially controversial decision until next fall – what test scores will count as good ones and what scores count as bad ones.”
All the states will get together and decide what are good scores and what are bad scores, but not until the year after the kids take the tests? So what is it pegged to?
I guess they’ll be coming in, oh, I don’t know, around 39% passing since it looks like that’s already the number they came up with….
“If your state tests are telling you your kids are proficient above 39% …you may want to look more,” Holliday said at a conference this May for education reporters.”
Why isn’t this a national scandal?
A multi-trillion dollar overhaul of the public school system affecting 75 million students annually (P to 20) just so they can play games with numbers.
Well, that, and it also means that this, from Arne Duncan, was complete BS:
“States will have the opportunity to request a delay in when test results matter for teacher evaluation during this transition. As we always have, we’ll work with them in a spirit of flexibility to develop a plan that works, but typically I’d expect this to mean that states that request this delay will push back by one year (to 2015-16) the time when student growth measures based on new state assessments become part of their evaluation systems – and we will work with states seeking other areas of flexibility as well.”
States won’t even have the Common Core test scores to rank teachers prior to 2015-2016, which the US Department of Education must have known because the people who set the cut scores don’t even meet until fall of 2015, so Duncan’s “offer” of a one year reprieve was complete baloney.
Duncan will HAVE to give states one year reprieve. States in the PARCC consortium won’t have the test scores until 2016.
He made a fake offer – a bluff concession.
Interestingly PARCC is down to just 9 participating states. I remember reading that if the number dropped below 15 that they would lose their slice of the $325 million that Arne shelled out. Originally they had 22 states, so now they have less than half the states for which all that taxpayer money was given. Got scruples?
So did Duncan know this when he made the offer to delay using the tests to rank teachers until 2016? :
“We’re not going to get the report cards until 2016,” Gunlock said. “That’s if everything goes off according to plan, which it never does.”
Did he know states can’t possibly rank teachers on the CC tests until 2016, because states won’t have the scores?
The PARRC and SBAC rollouts will be like watching a slow motion train wreck. No one who has any understanding of how schools actually operate on a day to day basis give computer based tests taking a snowball’s chance. Just not a scalable idea for 25 million 8 to 14 year olds in often run down and underfunded buildings. The glitches that schools will encounter will make the timing of 2015 test scores a moot point. Just my dos centavos as my hero would say.
So the state school board is hesitant to send out students’ test scores from the new CC testing. They are concerned that parents “won’t understand” the new reports, which are two pages for each test for each child.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/1704533-155/report-sage-state-students-parents-student
And we’ve been stuck with additional testing by our districts this year. I have to give EIGHT essays standardized tests to my social studies students every year now. Ten percent of my class time with my students is now taken up with the testing–not the preparation or debriefing of the tests, just the tests themselves.
What an incredible tidbit from the item, “New York Rethinks Rush to Computerized Testing: Plans Multi-Year Phase-In” . NYS Deputy Commissioner of Education Ken Wagner is quoted in the New York State School Board Association piece.
“Asked about accusations that corporations are benefitting disproportionately from education reform, Wagner said, ‘it’s absolutely not about making money for anyone’.”
Did I read this correctly? I went back and looked at it four or five more times.
Is Ken implying that all those corporations are just doing this out of the goodness of their Supreme Court-certified hearts?
What???
“Also, schools need to have enough devices on which students can take the computer-based tests (CBTs), such as recently purchased computers or tablets. “It is strongly recommended that CBT-compatible devices be less than five years old at the time they will be used for CBT and other classroom purposes,”
It is STRONGLY recommended that CBT technology be LESS than 5 YEARS OLD?
And “it’s absolutely not about making money for anyone’.” Seriously?
Just how stupid do they think we are?
Smart Schools Bond referendum’s 13 days away . . . .
$2,000,000 of taxpayer money wasted for PARRC testing?
OOPS! Decimal error.
Make that $2,000,000,000
It’s probably the most consequential, direct, education-related vote that voters anywhere will have an opportunity to cast this year, maybe even in any year in recent memory. No big whoop.
Vandykel@michigan.gov