The board of the Southold, Néw York, school district on the North Fork of Long Island voted not to participate in field testing for state tests as a protest against over testing.
Superintendent David Gamberg–a man of gentle demeanor–is a leader in the struggle to rescue genuine education from the mandates and data-driven decision-making. He is proud of his schools’ arts and music, as well as the garden where children grow produce for lunch.
Gamberg is so trusted by locals that when the superintendent retired in the neighboring district of Greenport, Gamberg was invited to lead both districts. The Greenport board is likely to pass a resolution not to give the field tests.
For their courage and integrity and their love of children, I add David Gamberg and the Southold school board to the honor roll as champions of American education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
May it inspire others!
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May they inspire others.
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The letter is interesting.
What they object to is a proposed new filed testing “mandate”. It seems NY had allowed schools to participate in field testing on a voluntary basis, but are now proposing mandatory participation. The other objection is their (apparent) belief that the testing schedule is dictated not by the needs of or benefit to students, but instead because the state needs data at certain points in the year to use in the elaborate teacher ranking system.
I don’t know why they need it for teacher ranking anyway. Didn’t the governor say yesterday that the teacher rankings are completely invalid because his guesstimate on how many bad teachers there is much higher than 9%? He should just announce the number he wants to hit and we can all skip the time and expense on VAM. “21.7”. Done.
Probably not a good sign for “collaboration” if they’re worried enough about voluntary participation in “field resting” to start putting in mandates 🙂
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I know I’m preaching to the choir, Chiara, but I’m sure Cuomo is perfectly happy with the tests and the score reflections on the teachers. His unhappiness is that the test scores don’t have a higher weight on the ultimate teacher rank label. He would like Ohio’s system with 50% evaluation from test scores…and ties essentially being broken by the test score results.
While discussing Ohio, I’ll re-note that with regards to my students, each student is an all or nothing proposition. If a student meets the end of course exam cut score, I get 1 point credit. If the student doesn’t, I get 0 points for that student. Then, you find the percentage.
90% or above: highly effective
80-89.9: effective
70-79.9: developing
<70: ineffective
Governor Cuomo would love this. With approximately 65-75% of students failing the PARCC Algebra II test, in Ohio he would have most Algebra II teachers as "developing" at best.
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I think they discredit their whole data-driven theory with the teacher rankings.
It is ridiculous to to give someone zero points unless a student passes a standardized test. Zero? No value? Come on. That’s just a made-up measure.
If they were smart they’d eat some crow and dump the teacher “scores”. The stubborn insistence on clinging to this theory will take their whole Common Core project down. I know we all paid a ton for it and a lot of very prestigious people backed it but they should cut their losses and move on.
Not that that will happen. The sunk cost here is their credibility. They can’t afford to back off.
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I think a big problem, Chiara, is that when push comes to shove, most reformers (like Cuomo) care more about test-score evaluations of teachers (and students) than they do about the Common Core. Without Gates, I really don’t think there’d be anywhere near the stubbornness with regards to CCSS. But the reformers want common standards and tests so that they can efficiently use the same tests as widely as possible…and so they can “fairly” (as if they care about fairness — probably more about trying to eliminate excuses) rank students and teachers against one another.
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Then you would have school districts, such as Syracuse, NY, who, for some reason I can’t discern, thought the assessments would be fair evaluations, so they made the results a major factor in the teacher “score” which resulted in low rated teachers. For example, 35% of the teachers were considered developing or ineffective. And in one high school, not one teacher was rated highly effective because they all received zero out of twenty points for the Regent Exams results. Even though the students showed improvement, their results were compared to the performance of the previous year’s students.
Needless to say, there is a lawsuit in the works.
Ellen T Klock
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Congrats also to Shoreham- Wading River School Board and Superintendent Steve Cohen who passed a similar resolution 2 weeks ago, and last spring refused to field test.
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I just wish the Superintendents for the 89 School Districts in New Mexico would have the intestinal fortitude to do the same as Superintendent Gamberg. They will not take on Secretary of Education Designee Skandera or her boss Governor Martinez. Congratulations to Superintendent Gamberg ands Board of Education.
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The guys ABSOLUTELY belong in the Hall of Fame, and they totally get it. The article links to a story from last year seeking a change in the teacher evaluation system — exactly the opposite of what Cuomo is seeking.
http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2013/08/41830/southold-school-board-calls-for-student-assessment-overhaul/
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I am an Ohio teacher…and it is an all or nothing system. For example, when it comes to value added – if I had a student on the OAA get a 470 the previous year and then get a 468 with me . . .I get no credit at all on my value added…even though that student got an Advanced score each time. I get no value added credit at all with that student even though I worked my heart out with that student! That advanced student counts against me. Can you believe that? It is the most discouraging feeling I’ve ever felt in my teaching career.
Again, it is all part of the process to “gut” the teaching profession in Ohio. John Kasich has done an awesome job in “gutting” the teaching profession here in Ohio. Of course, his daughters do not have to suffer with the horrible policies he has enacted. No one in their right mind would want to pay $100,000 for a bachelor’s degree to receive this abuse. Please remember that Kasich wishes to run for President. What a joke..
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So you are penalized if a student gets a 93% average in Trig, instead of the 95% average in Geometry!
Do the people coming up with these rules realize how stupid they are?
Teachers are the wrong people being targeted. Anyone who thinks this system is anything but ludicrous must be incompetent.
I’m sad, too.
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As a parent and public school educator in Nassau County, it is time for the Bellmore and Merrick school districts to march alongside Southold and Wading River…and proudly join the growing number of districts that are fighting against the vicious destruction of our cherished public education system…and our children.
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I, too, am an educator in Nassau County and parent of children in the Bellmore-Merrick CHSD. Very glad to see another Bellmore-Merrick parent agree with the issues and want to encourage our district to march along side others regarding education reform… Would love to connect…
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What does low participation in field test cause? Is there a law or requirement that potential tests are field tested in their entirety before the test is allowed to be released into the world?
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The actual state tests themselves have tons of field questions embedded in them, so I’ve never understood the need for stand-alone field tests.
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“tons” ? What percent of test items would be equivalent to “tons” of embedded field test questions?
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As much as 25%. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/education/to-sharpen-student-testing-another-round-of-tests.html
If it is more than a handful of questions, it’s excessive. 25% is criminal.
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Abusive. No wonder Pearson added a third day of testing for its math and ELA exams.
Nine hours of testing, two hours of which can be spent wasted on field test items. All the more reason to STOP the MADNESS!
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There is probably a middle ground somewhere between what we have now and not having any standardized testing at all. As the headmaster of Sidwell Friends has so eloquently put it:
“The ERB-CTP [note: a computer-administered test given in six parts over the course of three days] can help parents and teachers understand more clearly and completely a child’s balance of strengths and needs. Teachers may review the scores in detail, looking for patterns that emerge from one year to the next, and then use that information to be more effective in the classroom.”
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This article on how the environmentalists got Cuomo to stop fracking is instructive: http://thealbanyproject.kinja.com/how-smart-nys-fracktivists-beat-cuomo-and-won-the-frack-1672451297
If boards start taking this kind of action collectively and are prepared to defend their action in court things could get interesting… The “science” of VAM is NOT on the side of the “reformers” and the courts are likely to be on the side of local control…
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Hopefully common sense will prevail.
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