Chicago Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett wants to delay the adoption of the PARCC test for Common Core.
“”At present, too many questions remain about PARCC to know how this new test provides more for teachers, students, parents and principals than we are already providing through our current assessment strategies,” Byrd-Bennett said.
“Her request comes amid rising concerns over new tests based on more rigorous Common Core standards. Critics have questioned the cost of the new exams, the quantity and time involved in testing, and the loss of local power over standards and testing.”
States and districts in PARCC are expected to set aside 9-11 hours for PARCC testing, which must be done online (the same for the other federal testing consortium), with costs that are expected into the billions across the nation.
Stephanie Simon of Politico sees Chicago’s step back from PARCC as part of a growing national revolt that is now reaching into districts, even the one most closely associated with Arne Duncan. Defenders of the tests express concern that the revolt could catch fire (note: it already has).
Valerie Strauss writes on The Answer Sheet blog in the Washington Post that the federally-funded PARCC consortium might be in big trouble. It initially had 26 states signed up. The number has dwindled to 12 plus DC.
These tests, Arne a Duncan predicted in 2010, when he paid $360 million for them, would be “an absolute game-changer.” What he calls a “game-changer” looks more and more every day like a card game of 52 Pick-Up or an amusement park ride called “Wreck-EM cars.” Unfortunately, it is not a card game or an amusement park that he is toying with, it is our nation’s system of public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/isbe-acquire-a-waiver-1
Please sign the petition to delay PARCC implementation in IL. Thanks!
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Actually BBB asked for this AND it was rejected back in July….see catalyst-chicago oct 22 article by Sarah karp
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This is a bald-faced PR gambit by CEO BBB – she (quietly) requested this PARCC waiver from the IL State Board of Education edarlier this year and that request was denied. Now that election is heating up and there is clear grass-roots percolation in the anti-testing movement, she wants to be portrayed by the MSM as being progressive when it comes to “over-testing.”
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/cps-wants-delay-new-test-even-though-state-already-said-no/wed-10222014-345pm
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I just a new outsider and y’all know so much more about this than I, however, doesn’t the fact that only a handful of states are still “in the game” of testing and using common core make the common core and the testing go away? What is going to happen to Pearson when the money stops coming in? Isn’t it going to go bankrupt or at the least lose cachet on the stock market? Isn’t that going to be the end of Pearson PARCC? I thought there there was a number certain of states being involved, or the deal was off. Input anyone?
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Donna, a few states have rebranded the Common Core and given it a new name. Some have pulled out of PARCC. Public action continues to be crucial to build the resistance. It is far from over.
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If you are an Illinois resident please sign and share Raise Your Hand’s petition to Park the PARCC: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/isbe-acquire-a-waiver-1
(If you aren’t an Illinois resident, please share it with anyone you know in Illinois!)
Totally agree with Mike above that BBB’s revealing of their failed request for a waiver is a political move to deflect criticism from the Mayor who is up for re-election in February.
Not sure how they thought IL State Board of Education could grant them a waiver in any case. Clearly, it is the federal government that needs to grant the waiver. CPS should have been asking ISBE to work with them to request a waiver.
We also have a recorded webinar on why and how we can Park the PARCC in IL: http://vimeo.com/109984324
With enough people mobilized against this, we can get this moratorium. The moratorium is the first step in making sure that we are not following up a decade+ of failed high-stakes testing based accountability in Illinois with more of the same bad policies.
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It was probably a bad idea to continue to trash public schools and try to replace them and cut their funding while also putting in a huge new and expensive program in every public school in the country.
Ed reformers could have made some choices, identified priorities. They could have, for example, decided not to put in BOTH the CC and the teacher rankings. They could have decided not to balance state budgets by cutting public ed and then roll out a huge program. One or the other! That might have been wise. It’s really not smart to alienate and enrage people and then give them a huge new task.
Everyone in the ed reform political caucus seems to get everything they want, and the resulting “reforms” is then dumped on local public schools. They should have told someone “no”. I’m not sure all of the adults in ed reform can every single item on their personal wish list. Trying to appease the “accountability hawks” and the “choice” folks, and the VAM people and the Common Core people all at the same time might have been a mistake.
It’ll be a miracle if my public school manages to put in Common Core and do it WELL. I think they have 5 different ed reform initiatives they are juggling just this year. It doesn’t stop either. Now our ed reformers in government are putting in an entirely new high school graduation metric. I don’t know which faction of the ed reform lobby wanted that, or who decided to pile it on top of the other reforms.
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Chiara, You said, “They could have, for example, decided not to put in BOTH the CCSS and the teacher rankings.” Yep.
This concurrent rollout is actually a major concern of USDE. What to do?
USDE hired spin doctors to create the Reform Support Network–a PR operation for dealing with evaluations required in Race to the Top and other competitions. The spin doctors are trying to ensure that the CCSS are hardwired into teacher evaluation. A major contractor for the spin worked for Gates, helping get their RttT grants in order and promoting the CCSS.
This coordinated spin work on teacher evaluation and the CCSS is viewed as urgent by the reformers who love these policies. One of the reformy groups, known as the Aspen Institute, wants the Reform Support Network to make sure that states do stack ratings of teachers based on the “multiple measures” from the Gates-funded Measures of Effective Teaching Project: (a) student scores on state and forthcoming consortium tests (VAM with SLOs a proxy for VAM), (b) classroom observations, and (c) student surveys. The report by R. Weiner, (2013, March) is “Teaching to the core: Integrating implementation of common core and teacher effectiveness policies.” Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute. No big surprise: The Joyce and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation paid for this spin.
The spin doctors working for RSN not only support these three methods of teacher evaluation but also add an astonishing and totally unsupported claim that: “An evaluation with multiple measures (student growth on State tests, classroom observations and student surveys) can accurately predict a teacher’s effectiveness” (p. 8). The writers offer no evidence. There is none.
These three measures do not predict anything. They are simply used to define teacher “effectiveness” and by insular and circular reasoning. This totally unsupported claim is part of the propaganda on p. 8 in Engaging Educators, A Reform Support Network Guide for States and Districts: Toward a New Grammar and Framework for Educator Engagement Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/engaging-educators.pdf
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Donna,
Do not downgrade yourself. You post intelligent comments.
Has Rahm lost control over his superintendent?
Mercy, mercy me!
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Awww thanks NJ Teacher. I really am not as knowledgeable as the rest; I am just passionately revolted by the whole fiasco, and too close to it being in NJ, working in Newark, with kid who is a new teacher and all the obstacles she encountered getting employed.
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No, Rahm has not lost control of anyone. As noted above, this is all a phony gambit so that BBB, and, by extension Rahm, can say that they are anti-testing – see, look, we tried to reduce the testing, but it’s the big, bad state telling us what we have to do. It’s also a quiet dig against Governor Quinn, whom Rahm is technically supporting since they’re in the same party, but Republican billionaire Rauner is Rahm’s bestie, so that’s where his heart truly lies.
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” A Sad and Hopefully Wrong Crystal Ball”
My guess is that in a last attempt “hail Mary”… Pearson is busy “redoing” the tests for those 12 states that are under the thumb of Arne Duncan. They don’t have any oversight at all so they can do what they want. Suddenly instead of the incredible failure rate that has been evidenced in NYC… these 12 states will have an “incredible” success rate. And after two years of increasing improvement on this PARCC test and such, suddenly it will be found that Pearson added easier questions within the PARCC to get “the desired results” (NYC memories anyone?). “Ed reformers” will have to slow down their firing of teachers during this time period. Strategists will decide that keeping common core and high stakes testing is more important for long term goals (of firing veteran teachers and destroying unions and public education) than continuing firing masses of veteran teachers in the short term based on scores. They will want to hang onto those 12 states enslaved by PARCC and common core. Meanwhile, “corporate ed reformers” will be strategizing how to reinstitute a national policy which will once again enable them to continue mass firings of veteran teachers nationally so that the goal of eradicating public education can continue. Let us hope that corporate control of education IS RUN OUT OF NATIONAL TOWN before any futuristic scenario as described above can take hold.
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I don’t understand that part of it either. I read that the remaining states (one of which is my state) are getting together to set the cut scores.
I thought the whole point of this was to compare states. Don’t they all have to adopt the same cut scores? How is it valid if states have different cut scores?
We have so many ed reforms in Ohio it is inevitable that most of them will be done poorly and carelessly. No one could do all these things at once, and well.
They set the schools up to fail. They’re bad managers.
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artsegal,
The plan is alive and well in Newark. Employees are dropping like flies with all due apologies to the flies.
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NJ Teacher… What states are still following the PARCC or Smart Balance tests… New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, California, Florida (I think they are back in)… ???
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NJ is in. I don’t know about the other states. I am very provincial. We do not even have enough computers. I have no clue how they can pull this off. It looks to me like schools that performed poorly on the NJASK will fare worse on the PARCC. That way they will be able to target more failing schools and eliminate more veteran teachers. How will the cut scores
be determined? Will they wait to get the results and then play around with the numbers?
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Unless it’s happened recently, Florida is buying Utah’s AIR-written CC tests until AIR writes CC tests for Florida.
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NY is out – for now. We use Pearson CC aligned paper tests.
NY did field test PARCC last spring in selected districts
MA – made PARRC optional (with incentives) – 54% of districts on board
PARCC does offer paper tests for schools short on computers
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Please do not refer to the Common Core standards as” rigorous”. They are not. The 42 Common Core Standards for English Language Arts are not rigorous. In fact, they present a content and demand a pedagogy which have been rejected by the teaching profession and researchers of cognitive development for more than 40 years. That content and pedagogy are bankrupt and not worthy of our children. I have ample experience in the field of English language arts curriculum design and the professional development of teachers to know when standards are rigorous or not. Most importantly, I am a teacher and know how students learn.
Sent from my iPad
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Thank you.
CC standards present a de-facto curriculum and prescribe some methodologies that have been disproven and others that are fabricated from the minds of know-nothing, know-it-alls. The CC standards force students to try to learn in very unnatural ways. Ways that simply do not work for many. This is a sham on a scale that boggle the mind. History will not look kindly for all of those who stood firm on the wrong side of this issue.
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We are trying in Eugene! Here is a link to an article in our local paper: http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/32300130-75/some-parents-students-leery-of-new-statewide-common-core-tests.html.csp?sp-tk=9171CE8D1C56AB62E5B49648563F516871A076460C679F61CF9F85501AB47EBCAA7615BD1F752026AE73EF87160925ADA4D7ADEE37CAB66ED7A9204F43268AE160E29873A73C5360C27F529D709AA58030E4AD9BE9C2390E1831FF21200A09C5D5712805FE299961F30EDF8BC1913BAD40DA95BB6238F997F4BF89FCD381E867F500F2205169F6366E9C22E0B66E2AE6D0465F7AA9279251E9002E79132A526C22A05D3F
Thank you for helping inform us! Heather
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Wow! I was reading the comments after the article to which you linked. Keep reading, tutunibasket. to many people have no idea what is going on. Too many people seem to think that educators led the CCSS effort. Hah!
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cx: Too many… Argh!
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