Sarah Blaine*, a lawyer and mother in Néw Jersey, took the 4th grade PARCC sample test. She has a daughter in 4th grade. Blaine was outraged by the test questions. She wrote a letter to the members of Governor Christie’s PARCC Task Force and urged them to take the test before they make their recommendations.
She writes:
“I have a fourth grade daughter. She was first identified for our district’s gifted and talented program for English Language Arts in kindergarten, as she came into kindergarten reading chapter books. Her vocabulary and analysis skills remain quite advanced for a child of her age. And I can tell you that she retains the ability to imagine. Do you remember that, the ability to imagine with ease? Do you remember your childhood, when you could create imaginary worlds and people them with imaginary characters just by wishing them into existence? Do you remember building forts and castles that were as real to you as could be? For a moment, for just a moment, I ask you to call upon what is likely your long-stagnated power of imagination. Imagine yourself at nine or ten years old. Imagine your room, imagine your friends, and imagine your school work.
“Then sit down. Keep yourself in your nine or ten year old mindset. Boot up your desktop, or power up your laptop, or unlock your iPad. Navigate to the PARCC website, at parcconline.org. Navigate to the 4th grade English Language Arts PARCC practice test. Open it in front of you, right now, as you read this comment. If you refuse to sit down to take the sample tests yourself, then with all due respect I submit that farcical as this task force — with its 6 week window to issue recommendations — might be, you are not meeting you obligation as member of this task force. Remember as you work through the 4th grade PARCC practice test that you are not your current self — you are still your nine or ten year old self.”
Will they take the challenge? Will they take the test?
*Sarah Blaine was the writer of “Arne’s Worst Idea Yet,” cited on this blog.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There was an article about half of NY State teacher candidates failing a mandatory literacy test for licensing, and Commissioner King was outraged. Rather than challenge the teachers, and not the the legitimacy of the test, he should step forward and take it himself.
a sweet, heart felt letter. Will there be changes in the 4th grade PARRC test? ot on this planet and not in this universe.
I have noticed that children who move from elementary school to middle school seem to lose imagination. This may actually be the purpose of the school system, bells and all.
There is no room for imagination in “factory” education like Common Core and its computerized “evaluations”.
Among the many types of imagination the Common Core, and so-called education reform in general, are intended to stifle, is the kind that imagines that “another world is possible.”
Instead, teachers and children are forced to bow before TINA, or “There Is No Alternative.”
I took the grade 3 ELA test from PARCC–sort-of. I have been using a computer for decades but I was stymied by the split screen, literary or informational text on the right, test questions on the left.
I had to engage in constant scrolling in order to get the two parts of the test aligned. This is clearly graphic interface designed for right handedness (not a trivial matter) and a test of fluency in “mousing around”–scrolling to find the passage in the text that might (or not) be relevant to the test questions, a lot of left to right eye movement coordinated with mouse or touchpad skills.
I was so flummuxed by the interface (as techies call it) that I did not get around to responding to the content. I would love to see data on the dwell times in aligning text and test questions, and if there were any eye movement and left-hand/right hand coordination studies done just on the interface. I also wonder if there were field trials to compare students’ performances on a print version versus screen-based version/ also “mouse” versus touch-pad–especially in grade three. Also consider the demands on students who are dsylexic, and which format invites the best performance..
I don’t think the members of Governor Christie’s PARCC Task Force—-appointed by him for sure—-care if the test is appropriate or not because most or all of them know that the test is a tool designed to FAIL and DESTROY the public schools.
This task force is a battleship, and that ship is forging ahead at full steam. The PARCC test is their weapon of destruction designed to profit the private sector, billionaires, corporations, Wall Street and Hedge Funds.
The PARCC test is not a friend of democracy, parents, children, teachers or teachers’ unions.
I happen to know one of the to teacher-appointees very well. She is a good friend and also the president of my local association and a vice-president of my county association. She is a bulldog, and I can assure you that she cares. Will she be in the minority? Yes, but she will speak up.
A Tweet ready to copy and paste:
One parent challenges NJ Governor’s Task Force:
Take the 4th grade PARCC Test , I Did
http://wp.me/p4hdVv-3v via @parentingcore
Well I took it partly, and gave up in frustration. Really Maya Angelou for fourth graders are you kidding me. They are into Frozen and Disney characters and you actually put a huge poem on fear in life. As to the scrolling to find our where I got my answer who cares where I got my answer. And so ambiguous, I could have gone several ways is it imagination or is it something else. What is her Magic Charm, heck if I knew. Looking back on the fourth graders I taught writing an essay was a huge challenge for 60 percent of them. Let alone on a test like this one. And these were kids with amazing IQ’s very advanced. What I’d love to do is give them the test today and then ask them for their opinions afterwards. If you want the truth go to a very bright confident child who knows that something isn’t right about what you just asked them to do. My greatest fear is that those who can’t do this will just zone out and not even try anymore. Lordy, what a mess. Who wrote this abysmal thing? Way to advanced and confusing for that grade level. When all is said and done I remember JC Penny’s. Remember when the Apple Tech CEO took over the woman’s dept store and drove it into bankruptcy in less than a year. That’s what happens when someone who knows NOTHING about clothing, the customer, the industry etc. comes in to take over and make it all high tech and relevant. The same thing is being done to education. A man with no background in education is imposing testing, and curriculum on the students and teachers and parents and he is going to destroy and bankrupt our public schools as surely as that fool did it to Pennies. I understand intelligence. I have worked with very bright kids some with IQ’s off the chart. And I have to say that one sign of great intelligence is the ability to make the hard and difficult and confusing doable and understandable. Given that criteria I’d have to say Gates and his cronies have done the opposite of intelligent reform They have made the hard harder, the confusing more confusing the difficult more difficult. They are nor really very bright are they?
Sarah
You are a wonderful writer and a fantastic addition to what some members of this blog term, “The Resistance”. Your insights and experience in the legal system as it relates the Duncan “reform” movement have been extremely helpful. You write with a clarity that makes the legal issues easy to grasp and with a passion with which all truly concerned parents can relate. I cannot thank you enough for your recent contributions.
What you will discover as you continue to explore the netherworld of corporate education reform will feel much like Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. You will learn that the proposals and policies of the quasi-reformers defy all rules of logic and fairness.
This is indeed part of their scheme. Proposals and policies so outlandish, so incredulous, that when teachers attempt to explain what is really going on, that the average, well educated, professional adult (like yourself) simply cannot process them properly. Proposals and policies so ridiculous that they are simply too hard to believe.
Policies and proposals that produce enough cognitive dissonance to convince outsiders that we can’t really be telling the truth.
Enter the PARCC test. As a concerned parent and rational, intelligent, and well educated professional, you took the sample PARCC test with what should be the proper assumptions: that these tests were constructed with the best of intentions. That the PARCC tests were carefully crafted to accurately measure the proficiency of the new Common Core standards in math and ELA. That these tests were properly field tested, with questions vetted for reliability and validity. You rightfully expected the tests to be reasonably challenging and developmentally appropriate. You expected the technology to help, not hinder the efforts of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 year old children. You expected the kind of test that you had some experience with as a young student. Instead, you found yourself deep down into the rabbit hole. A land where teaching, learning, and testing are viewed in a fun-house mirror.
What you experienced in taking the PARCC test was the intentional efforts of corporate reformers to produce tests that are actually traps. Traps designed to trick, confuse, frustrate, wear down, and tire out young test takers into failing. Tests designed to produce an inflated failure rate of 70% (or so). Tests designed to support the false narrative that America’s public schools are not working. Tests that are insurmountable obstacles to success for the poor and disadvantaged, the learning disabled, the dyslexic, and second language learners. Tests that will be unfairly linked to teacher performance. Tests that become the de-facto curriculum and pedagogy. Tests that are subverting classroom climates and sucking the excitement and joy from teaching and learning for far too many. Tests that some claim are the cornerstone of the new civil rights movement. Tests that will instead cast a pall over the students, teachers, and parents of Paterson, Newark Camden, Jersey City, and countless other NJ districts. Tests designed to make giving up much more enticing than persevering. Tests designed shine a spotlight on the incompetence of the NJ public schools and their lazy, gravy train riding, unionized teachers. Tests that Chris Christie will cite as proof positive that the public schools of NJ are “failure factories”. Tests that will produce such low scores that the only possible solution will be to funnel taxpayer money away from the public schools into the coffers of private companies that will save the day. Charters, vouchers, and silver bullet technologies. Snake oil solutions for 75 million students, P -20. Vaporware for suckers. Never forget Sarah, we have been pulled into this rabbit hole by the force of federal (NCLB) law, and by the celebrity of Bill Gates and his 80 billion friends. The classroom in a fun-house mirror.
Welcome to “The Resistance” Sarah. And keep them far away from your kid.
“Traps designed to trick, confuse, frustrate, wear down, and tire out young test takers into failing.”
I believe the correct deformer terminology is “grit and perseverance.”
ACTING Commissioner Hespe is set to ditch his ACTING status on Thursday and become NJ’s Commissoner of Education.
Look out Mississippi and North Carolina, WE ARE JERSEY STRONG…,
And as we all know that is just a sample test…it’s not a full test and the questions used on it should all be their best questions (as these are the examples they are showing to the public)…REALLY! these are Pearson’s best questions!?
“Do you remember your childhood, when you could create imaginary worlds and people them with imaginary characters just by wishing them into existence? ”
Neverland is still “magic”.
Childhood turns into adulthood where we still create imaginary worlds staffed by
imaginary characters. The sum, of the imaginary worlds led by the imaginary characters, is revealed in the results.
Question the myth or amplify it, agent of power or agent of the people.
“Reformerland”
When falling into Reformerland
We hit our heads much harder
Than Alice did in Wonderland
And woke up in a Charter
“PARCCing”
PARCCing kids
Like parking cars
To fit in grids
With parallel bars
Fourth graders won’t be able to make sense of the first reading. It’s about Art. Fourth graders started school in 2009. They may NEVER have had an art class.
and during recess!
Some years ago, an essay question on the 4th grade MCAS exam here in Massachusetts had a prompt that went like this: Imagine that you have no school because of a snow day! Tell about how you would spend such a wonderful day!
Teachers spotted the problem immediately: A series of mild winters meant that no snow days had been called in several years, so this was not within the experience of any of the kids. Those of us with high numbers of ELL’s also knew that many of these kids had never seen snow in their lives, either. And finally, for many high poverty kids, a snow day! is not a wonderful experience, but a chaotic one because many parents need to go to work and have to make ad hoc arrangements to leave their children in the care of others, such as older siblings.
Fortunately, teachers were able to get the question rescinded so it did not count towards the students’ “scores”.
Maybe the opt out movement has a new weapon. Tell your kids to click outside the box!
Every school district should have a take the “PARCC” night for parents and the community at large.
The “NEW WORLD” doesn’t want us to have an imagination.