A watchdog website has blown the whistle on a study of the cost of new testing in Colorado. Critics say the study far understates the cost of testing.
Joshua Scharf of Watchdogwire writes:
A $74,000 commissioned report by Augenblick Palaich and Associates (APA), detailing the costs and time of statewide school assessments is coming under scrutiny for data analysis, key omissions, and potential conflicts of interest….
The APA Assessment Study Report analyzing the cost and time of Colorado assessments, was formally presented to Colorado’s HB14-1202 Standards and Assessments Task Force on Nov. 17, but critics charge it omitted outlying data, failed to account for necessary capital expenses, and is unclear in its calculation of student- and district-level averages.
Of 179 districts in Colorado, APA surveyed only 5 and excluded capital costs associated with new assessments. Here was one big omission: APA’s HB1202 report does not include costs incurred by schools for computers, infrastructure, and bandwidth necessary to take the state-mandated online PARCC and CMAS tests. Ah! So the contractor calculated the cost of testing but did not include the cost of computers, infrastructure, and bandwidth! Parents–and even some members of the state’s Task Force are calling for an investigation.
Scharf writes:
Technology costs associated with online testing are steep. This Pioneer Institute report shows average testing costs $1.24 billion pale in comparison to technology costs $6.27 billion, nationally. Many Colorado districts have already spent millions just to meet the technological demands, and although the HB1202 APA survey did collect “some information” on technology costs to schools, again, they refused to show it. Task force members have repeatedly asked to see the quantitative data collected by the APA survey both on reported testing time and cost.
APA’s private Draft report records significantly different numbers from its public report. The “Private Draft” reports testing costs for state, federal, and local tests to range from $55 million to $130 million while the study that the public sees reports the weighted average cost of testing as $61 million, and doesn’t explain that the range was double that….
Despite the competition placed by the CDE for study, APA’s was the sole proposal received. While 109 other bidders expressed interest, some demurred, commenting that the $74,000 budget was too small for a study of proper scope.
In addition, according to this CDE document, the task force itself expressed many concerns on APA’s proposal, including conflict of interests stemming from APA’s previous work with the Bill Gates-funded Colorado Education Initiative (CEI). CEI paid APA to do a similar assessment study just two years ago. The task force worried this prior work with CEI “could slant the focus and, consequently, the results of the HB1202 study”. They also cited APA’s tendency to not use quantitative data, resulting in reports based mostly on “perceptions and opinions, rather than actual school and district budgets and expenditures.”
Even more fascinating than the report were the public comments, most of which expressed strong opposition to the time and costs of new testing. Read them here.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here is a cost I bet was not factored in…
At one school a principal is ahead of the game and knows that students will be taking PARCC via computer. Meanwhile there is an essay component. Students at the elementary level do not learn how to type!!! So, thinking ahead and wanting his students to do their best, he has hired someone to teach typing. He knows that the essay component without adequate typing skills will become a “hunting and pecking” action which will certainly interfere with ability to get thoughts across. Typing lessons cost money and take valuable learning time away from elementary school students. This is JUST ONE cost I am sure the Colorado “experts” failed to factor in.
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The staunch proponents of hard data points keep getting the numbers wrong over and over and over again.
For example, from the blog of Jersey Jazzman, “Why Is Michelle Rhee Wrong About Everything?” he begins:
[start quote]
Michelle Rhee is consistently wrong about everything.
She was wrong about teaching to the test. She was wrong about her grading of state education policies. She was wrong about truancy. She was wrong about student surveys and VAM. She was wrong about the effectiveness of her “reforms” while leading the Washington, D.C. schools.
Michelle Rhee was even wrong about her own record as a teacher.
And now America’s #1 corporate reformer is wrong about the amount of classroom time taken up by standardized testing.
Those test-crazed districts need to be reeled in. But a new study by Teach Plus, an organization that advocates for students in urban schools, found that on average, in grades three and seven, just 1.7 percent of classroom time is devoted to preparing for and taking standardized tests. That’s not outrageous at all. Most people spend a larger percentage of their waking day choosing an outfit to wear or watching TV.
[end quote]
(the last paragraph consists of Michelle Rhee’s own words)
So what is the problem? As Jersey Jazzman succinctly puts it, “Let’s be very clear: in direct contradiction to Rhee, the Teach Plus report specifically says the 1.7 percent figure does not include test preparation time.”
Here are two excerpts from the report:
1), “More than 35 percent of instructional time is spent on these assessments per year. That includes initial instruction, review, scoring, planning, preparation of additional assessment materials, and reassessments.” [third grade teacher]
2), “I would say overall we lose about 15-20 days of instruction to testing to statewide testing. Another 20 days we are instructing, but it is focused on test prep.” [seventh grade teacher]
For the entire blog posting that includes many links and much valuable contextual information, go to—
Link: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/04/why-is-michelle-rhee-wrong-about.html
And as artseagal points out above, the obvious opportunity costs are not factored in.
For those promoting, benefitting from and enabling the self-styled “education reform” movement, though, it’s just part of pushing the product, expanding the customer base, building brand loyalty and making sure that the metrics of the bottom line are met or surpassed.
Massaged figures? Numbers subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques? Quaint notions about the ethnical and transparent use of data?
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than for illumination.” [Andrew Lang]
Remember always, that for them, $tudent $ucce$$ is the only thing that makes ₵ent¢…
😎
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It costs the taxpayers roughly $10/hr to put a kid’s butt in a seat. Count up the hours, that should convert time into money for any school activity.
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Cost estimates have to include the capital costs, which are enormous, and the cost of faculty and facilities for doing the ungodly amount of test prep and test-focused instruction that’s going on, as well as the time spent doing proctoring and test data analysis and trainings and data chats related to the tests. But the biggest costs are not in dollars. One cannot put a dollar figure on the educational opportunity costs of this standardized test mania–on all that is stolen from kids by turning their educations into test prep exercises.
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Reblogged this on We Are More.
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