This mom in Chicago opted her child out of the state tests. She remembered that when she was in school, there were a few standardized tests, and they were about her growth. Now the tests are pervasive, and constantly comparing her child to other children. She decided to opt out.
“When I look at my kids’ progress reports and academic records, the picture is a bit more murky. Which is surprising. It should be more clear than something that happened 30-20 years ago. And yet, my childrens’ academic records are numerical to the extreme. ISAT score: number. NWEA score: number ranges. STEP level: number. Selective Enrollment score: number. These numbers can be useful. But they are, for the most part, comparative.
“They tell me less about how my kids are doing as they do about how my kids are doing compared to everyone else. Do my children know more than the average American 6th, 4th, and 2nd graders? Yes. But what does this mean for them and their future success? I cannot answer that. And neither, really, as far as I can see, do the test results.
“If test results in 3rd grade are prescriptive of future life success, why not just sort them all out then and be done with it immediately? “O brave new world, That has such people in’t!”
“Yeah, no. That is, fortunately, not yet how it works in this world.
“Instead, (two of) my children will take the PARCC assessment this year. I took the sample assessment for ELA for 3rd grade. It is hard. I remember taking the ACT in 1991 as a high school junior, and I think the types of reading comprehension questions I answered then were easier than the exercises that the PARCC asks 8- and 9-year-olds to complete. If my conclusion, based on this exercise, is that I am dumber than the average 8-year-old, I can only imagine the effect such tests will have on the average 8-year-old. And I’m not the only adult struggling with the PARCC practice exam. And we’re only parents. At least one school board is also struggling with the validity and need for administering the PARCC.”
Will she subject her children to nine hours of PARCC testing?
Let’s hope not.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have recently been reminded that there have been cutbacks in the routine use of routine tests to monitor health. General practice physicians used these to spot changes that might warrant a second look for problems.
These changes in practice are the result of cost-cutting mandates with insurers. The cuts are publicized as a “best practice,” with research citations designed to focus on outcomes.
Physicians who refuse to have insurers tell them what a best practice is are setting up boutique operations.
The trend in education is to test everything possible, generate multiple reports, radically simplify the results ( they are overkill to begin with) and ASAP label a kid “at risk” of failing to be on track for college or workforce entry. There is also a rush to some intervention often marketed by a vender and so on. Some of the parallels and differences are striking, including the role of billionaires.
I remember the days when testing was about how you were doing, not raising scores for the school. It was completely stress-free. You took a test once a year, knowing that the results didn’t matter.
The “growth” measures that the author remembers from when she was a child were norm referenced tests, just like NWEA MAP. She was being compared then to other students nationally as well. I guess it just makes a better sound bite to talk about kids being stacked and ranked as being some new evil.
The NWEA MAP more deliberately tracks growth than those tests did. The author mentions the observation that 3rd grade tests determine future results. They do if average or below average growth continues after a low score in 3rd grade.
MAP predicts growth for an individual student based on the growth achieved by students nationally with the score. Looking at student growth vs. predicted growth can be valuable in determining whether a student is on track to get to a particular ACT score, and yes, it can be valuable (in aggregate) to see how a particular teacher or school is doing with growth for students in different quartiles.
I’m not arguing about whether the test is testing the right stuff, etc., but that measurement is valuable if you value the eventual score on the ACT or want to look at progress towards that goal in earlier years, it can be a valuable tool. It can also show whether a school or teacher is getting growth with low students, high students, or both.
Yes, there’s probably too much testing right now as schools add growth measure in on top of existing criterion referenced tests. But I’d argue that the growth measures are more valuable. So, parents who are arguing against the “rank ordering” of kids are really protesting the very tools that they also say are needed (those that can be used to inform instruction). I think nobody is pointing out that inconsistency because they’re just happy to have them on the anti-testing bandwagon, helping to keep accountability out of education.
The value you talk about (looking at 3rd grade scores as a predictor of 11th/12th grade scores ) is exactly why I wrote this piece. As a parent, I’ve yet to hear an explanation from an educator or a teacher (and I’ve asked!) that adequately explains how the PARCC can help my kids or inform instruction to the point that they should take another test.
Don’t be duped by this kind of shillery (not that it sounds like you are). No one has yet been able to define what a year’s worth of “growth” would look like, let alone how to “measure” it (nor what it means if a student shows “negative growth” (i.e., I guess that teacher must have caused that student to forget what s/he once knew)).
I dont’ think that PARCC serves that purpose. I was talking specifically about MAP. I think PARCC is more about measuring schools and teachers than kids. I’d be in favor of less criterion-referenced (e.g. like state) testing and more norm-referenced testing (like MAP) to inform instruction.
“MAP predicts growth for an individual student based on the growth achieved by students nationally with the score. Looking at student growth vs. predicted growth can be valuable in determining whether a student is on track to get to a particular ACT score, and yes, it can be valuable (in aggregate) to see how a particular teacher or school is doing with growth for students in different quartiles.”
Dear John,
I’m sorry to say that it’s all over. You keep saying the same bullshit over and over and over. Not once have you backed up any of your bullshit with any thing of substance. We can’t take it anymore. It’s all over! Goodbye, dear john, goodbye and good riddance to you and your testing!
Signed:
Rational, logical thinker.
“Dear” Duane,
You’re an ass. Make a point about something I said or perhaps save yourself some typing and make yourself look better at the same time. Or perhaps you’ve promoted yourself to moderator?
I guess my attempt at a little humour failed, eh. Please don’t take such obviously piss poor attempts at humour so personally.
When it takes six months or more to receive the test scores back, these tests do no good. When hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on testing, meaning that class sizes skyrocket and course offerings are cut, these tests do no good. When weeks of instruction time are cut in order to make room for standardized testing, these tests do no good. When students cannot use the library or computer labs for weeks on end because those areas are taken for standardized testing, then these tests do no good. When the testing is so pervasive that science, the arts, history, geography, civics, and other important subjects are cut, then these tests do no good.
“Student growth means the change in student achievement for an individual student between two or more points in time” (Fed. Reg., 2009, p. 59806). Achievement means a score on a standardized test.
You are conflating an increase in test scores with ” growth.” You have not learned much about the difference in human growth and development and a test score.
No, I was speaking specifically about test score growth, not implying that that equates with anything beyond test scores.
Let me try this again.
“No, I was speaking specifically about test score growth, not implying that that equates with anything beyond test scores.”
Dear John,
It’s beyond over. Your constant bickering about test scores has been driving me insane. I can’t believe I got involved with someone who opines that a proper goal of the teaching and learning process is raising test scores. You’re love of test scores has driven me to leave you.
Signed,
Rational Logical Free Thinker
I tell you what… If you’re able to get rid of high school graduation tests, college admittance tests, etc., then it might be worth having a discussion about whether k-8 scores are worth looking at. Meanwhile, it would be educationally irresponsible not to see how well prepared kids are and whether they’re on track to graduate from high school.
While high school graduation correlates with staying out of jail, avoiding teen pregnancies, etc, I’ll pay attention to it.
I find these theoretical arguments infuriating because we’re talking about real children here and some measure of visibility into how they’re doing. Evaluations by teachers are notoriously inaccurate. What are you proposing to use for assessment? Much of public education attacks every initiative by comparing vs. some ideal. In the real world, we compare things against current practice and if it’s better, we do it. Continuous improvement is much better than inaction in search of perfection.
I’m also curious about which tests you find meaningless. Are tests given by a teacher to check for understanding meaningless? tests covering spiraled material later in the year? Final exams in a class? I suspect it’s any testing done to curriculum standards that you object to. Would you be concerned enough to look into it if your own child did poorly on them? Poor attendance and not doing homework equate with poor test scores. Do you see no causation there? Do you think teaching the curriculum doesn’t or can’t raise test scores? Do you really think a test score is meaningless as a measure of understanding of curriculum topics?
State tests definitely need improvement, and the pressure to improve them is the only value I see in opt out. Unfortunately, I think those who want to avoid any test-based accountability at all are driving this effort, preferring to keep measuring inputs and outputs instead of outcomes.
I’ll mention that my own kids are doing very well in school, and I don’t lose any sleep over whether they get a 3 or a 4 on state tests (though I don’t consider the difference meaningless). But I damn sure would care if they got a 1 or a 2.
Fyi, Jpr=john
Duane, I agree with you.
A Tweet you may copy and paste into Twitter—the link leads right back to this post
Why This Chicago Mom Opted Out
Will you subject your child to 9 hrs of PARCC testing
To rank them as endless numbers
http://wp.me/p2odLa-8QJ
While testing can yield important, useful information, most standardized testing is not very useful to parents or teachers. It is mostly used to rate and rank, and it can be misleading. My daughter, an excellent reader, came home with comprehension scores of 11.6 on her 5th grade reading test at the end of 5th grade She was under the impression that she was reading like an junior in high school. I told her it meant she read as well and an 11th grader that had taken the 5th grade test, not the 11th grade test. It’s still great news, but let’s put it in perspective.. To the untrained eye, this is misleading. Furthermore, testing is being misused as a club against teachers by trying to use these snapshots of students’ performance to determine how effective a teacher is. There are too many variables in students’ lives to pin a score on a teacher like a scarlet letter. This is nonsense!
retired teacher: understated but you hit it out of the ballpark.
While bothersome to some—perhaps many—definitions make a huge difference. The “11.6” you reference is just as you stated, although most (myself included until a few years ago) would have interpreted it just as your daughter did. Other examples would include the way that self-styled “education reformers” use terms like “statistically significant” to drive home their points—and except for their accountabully bean counters who tactfully keep their mouths shut when their employers open their mouths, they themselves [mis]understand the phrase as meaning nothing more than “it’s rheeally rheeally rheally true.” Also a part of what’s been labeled “mathematical intimidation and obfuscation.”
One of the few common elements in all this is that numerical precision—Wow! 11.6! They’ve got that ranking and measurement down to a tenth! Ya gotta believe it!—is routinely used by edupreneurs and edufrauds and edubullies as a way to imply that the numbers are accurate, i.e., that they are trustworthy and reliable and sound ways of determining how “good” or “bad” someone has done something. Or as happens increasingly, how “superior” or “inferior” the person with a score is…
In truth, standardized tests measure very little, are inherently imprecise, and deflect attention away from the very difficult but necessary task of developing the kinds of human judgment needed to properly assess genuine teaching and learning.
In any case, just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
Tests such as the ISATs & PARCC actually do NOT “yield important, useful information.” They are NOT “standardized” (neither valid nor reliable), &–there’s a good rea$on that Pear$on doe$n’t want u$ to read their faulty, flawed te$t$. (Duane, post your Wilson diatribe!) There is one rea$on & ONE rea$on only for all of thi$ CCRAP–money going to Pear$on.
Wait–let me amend this–there IS another rea$on–it’$ called the ALEC plan, & the rise of the oligarchy, putting our public schools out of business (not that they’re IN business, although the leadership is–one only has to look at the recently reported antics of David Vitale & company), privatizing everything, dumbing down education & revising history curriculum &, ultimately, preparing our kids not to be “college & career
ready,” but to be non-questioning, minimum wage, WalMart widgets (or those happy campers on all of the Koch Industries commercials–what a great place to work!!).
People, there is NO good, educationally sound reason for our kids to be taking these tests. Chicago Mom, continue to opt out–and the rest of you do the same.
Because of the ranking of students and schools by these standardized tests and the fact that this is all that legislators and school boards care about, a colleague that teaches 4th grade in a struggling district has been told to teach NOTHING but math and reading.