Legislation will be introduced to end annual testing and to replace it with grade span testing. This is a bipartisan bill. For those sick of the money and time wasted on annual testing, support this legislation.
FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY
January 20, 2015
Gibson and Sinema to Host Joint Press Call on Reintroduction of Grade Span Testing Bill
Washington, D.C. – Representative Chris Gibson (R-NY-19) and Representative Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ-9) will host a joint press call to announce reintroduction of their legislation, the Student Testing Improvement & Accountability Act. The bill will be reintroduced on the same day that the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee holds a hearing focused on federal testing requirements under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The Student Testing Improvement & Accountability Act amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), replacing current federal yearly testing requirements for math and language arts/reading with the exact same grade span testing requirements that are in current law for science. This returns federal requirements on testing frequency to pre-No Child Left Behind standards.
Date: Wednesday, January 21
Time: 11:30AM – noon
Location: Dial-in: (712) 775-7031, meeting ID 493-479-058
Speakers: Representative Chris Gibson and Representative Kyrsten Sinema
Media Note: Speakers will start promptly at 11:30AM. Media will have the opportunity to ask questions following remarks from the Representatives.
Matt Sheehey
Press Secretary
Congressman Chris Gibson (NY-19)
1708 Longworth House Office Building
Office: (202) 225-5614
Cell: (802) 598-1156
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Really encouraging!
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Sounds like a good start. However, as has been stated, the current NAEP serves the need to evaluate systems, compare States, etc. Why do we need tests that ignore sampling and focus on testing every child? Could it be to sell more tests? Or, could it be to label every child and teacher based on how well they can follow orders and take tests?
By now, I hope EVERYONE has read Stephen J. Gould’s most brilliant (IMO) work, “The Mismeasurement of Man”. It’s a bit of a slog, and you won’t see the connection to CommonCore at first. By the time you finish, though, you will begin to see the poverty of not only psycological tests or general tests of ‘readiness’ or ‘aptitude’, but all tests.
This was something I knew, in my heart, when I saw brilliant, creative students ‘bomb’ a test and suffer the resultant crush to their ego because they thought they were ‘stupid’. I knew many of these students were far more likely to offer the world a new insight, based on their quirky and penetrating questions in class. Many of my tests absolutely failed to measure (and give credit to) their creative worldview (I primarily taught Physics, not as dogmatic as you might think once you look beyond the standard textbooks). I did my best to improve the tests and encourage the most innovative students (and discredit those who wanted to ‘skate by’ using memorization skills).
These were classroom tests, of course. I never used tests written by the publisher of the text (I considered the text to be a reference, not a course guide. The ‘associated’ tests that the publisher gave in conjunction with the text were pretty awful). Apparently, the publishing companies assume High School teachers of Physics know nothing about natural science (neither it’s history nor the particular strand of inductive logic it seeks to illuminate) , but they (business people, salesmen) would enlighten us poor peasants from their cave of darkness.
Well, I’ve been harsh. Many of the textbooks were not that bad. But they all needed that ‘personal tweak’, something that made the students want to learn. That ‘something’ was the understanding that their teacher could help them not only understand the text, but look beyond it, see through it, and draw them out so they could imagine themselves creating a new and important wrinkle in our understanding of the world.
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NAEP gives the feds all the info they need. It doesn’t really matter that grade span testing is better. It is still unnecessary and useless to classroom teachers. It just gives politicians bogus talking points supposedly proving that the sky is falling.
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Great comments, and I don’t think you were harsh. Your phrase, “enlighten us poor peasants from their cave of darkness” made me laugh and made my day.
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The info how students were doing was always there. Collecting more data did not make them smarter.
The bipartisan legislation to roll back poor spending on overtesting and too much emphasis on data has just begun.
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Congress member Chris Gibson represents my corner of upstate New York. He’s a Republican I can vote for -and did. NYSUT has endorsed him more than once -which didn’t go over too well the first time around. (Give credit where credit is due…..NYSUT, in this case.)
Gibson is term limiting himself……he won’t run again in two years. Word is he might seek statewide office down the road. Perhaps he’ll take on King Andrew I ? That would be interesting, to say the least.
Gibson is everything feckless Andrew Cuomo is not: respectful of teachers, honest, genuinely curious as to what other people think and someone who has made a real sacrifice for our country.
I don’t agree with everything he stands for but I respect him.
I hope his bill to limit testing gets a fair hearing.
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If tests are still going to be used for teacher and school “accountability”, grade span testing is worse. Teachers are already (rightly) upset that they are being evaluated based on scores of kids/subjects they’ve never taught. If this bill means that VAM, etc. would be eliminated, I’m all for it, but I suspect that’s not the case because all the same “accountability” language is still there.
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This is definitely something to be fearful of. I think span testing makes VAM evaluations more difficult, but maybe I shouldn’t be naive about how these can be used. It’s hard to imagine having less testing than pre-NCLB (not that this would necessarily be a bad thing, but the Accountability Movement hasn’t dispersed).
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VAM is not possible with grade span testing. You need year to year assessment data for the model. Even when a state moves from fall to spring testing, that is a major technical challenge and increased the standard error around the estimate.
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VAM as it’s currently set up, no. But I’m sure the rephormers could find ways to tweak it to make it work. As Tim points out below, with grade span testing, the tested grades will represent the whole school, which, if we keep up this “accountability” nonsense, means that those grades would be even more pressured – for both students and teachers – than they are now.
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I agree that grade span testing wouldn’t remove the possibility of an accountability system that used assessment data. However, anything based on year to year gains on an assessment scale would be off the table. It would remove using VAM on a state assessment for teacher evaluation in my opinion. Student outcomes as presented in SLO’s or local assessments would still be available if a state or district wanted to use that as part of an evaluation system.
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You may recall that recently the AFT and the Center for American Progress reached an agreement to support annual testing–for informational purposes only–and grade span testing for accountability. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop the states from continuing to use the annual tests for accountability purposes if they choose to do so. Bad habits die hard.
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Other potential unintended consequences of grade-span testing: if you thought that the stakes were high before, they would become insanely high for the one grade (most of the time) in schools that’s the testing grade. They are representing the whole school. It isn’t inconceivable to think that teachers might do whatever it takes to avoid teaching in those grades.
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Good point.
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That’s already the case in middle school (6-8) science. The 8th grade science teachers in my district were “on the hook” for the test scores of their 8th graders on the 6-8 grade science standards. The entire 8th grade staff (minus ELA and math who had their own standards to cover for those annual tests) helped out with reviewing/test prep of 6th and 7th grade science standards. Teachers did indeed move grade levels or request other positions. ELA and math are stuck. Our building is losing 1/3 of its staff by the end of this school year, largely because of Common(senseless) Core and teacher evaluations that are 50% based on VAM and SLO results.
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This is more of the same and continues Congress’ gift the testing industry. Congress doesn’t need to mandate any testing. Those decisions should be left to the school systems.
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JC Grim, I agree: As you wrote: “Congress doesn’t need to mandate any testing. Those decisions should be left to the school systems.”
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I agree also. So, if you think that, Diane, then why do you appear to be endorsing this bill which says the exact opposite?
I’m too worn out at this moment, or I would be standing and shouting that the “public private partnership” must get NO law that mandates our accountability to them. We must never pass such a law again. We’re rejoicing over a negotiation to give children longer chains. Please stand all the way up and say it out loud. Accountability to whom?
Oh, it has bipartisan support. Well, that’s okay then, isn’t it?
There is a tidal wave of popular opposition to renewing this vile hostile bill, and yet nobody in a leadership position dares to lead it. I’m in despair, to tell you the truth. Is there no backbone anywhere with a byline?
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I tend to agree with you, chemtchr. Just who is it that is holding us accountable? I didn’t earn my degrees from “Charley’s Cheap Teach Academy.” I have been treated poorly enough without adding more layers of incompetent bureaucracy. How dare anyone presume to judge me on the basis of unreliable, invalid corporate created accountability practices. How many more careers are we going to allow them to destroy? I really loved teaching. Now, I am relieved that I was disposed of relatively early in the game.
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Sen. Alexander only gave two options: Option A and Option B. Obviously you have to pick one of them.
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Although actually, it’s not at all clear to me how this proposed bill stacks up against Alexander’s “option A.” I’d need to redline them both against the existing law. Frankly I don’t feel comfortable accepting anyone’s summary or analysis without seeing how it redlines, because I doubt that most people who are offering the summaries have actually read the whole documents.
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We need to be careful what we wish for… Lamar Alexander’s proposal puts those of us who oppose tests and favor equity in a double bind. If we support his notion of trading mandated federal tests for greater STATE latitude it’s possible that some states will use their assessment results to accelerate the use of vouchers. The voucher idea was one of GA’s work-arounds to Brown vs. Board of Education in the 1950s. This post describes the quandary I’m finding myself in:
Additionally, as much as I dislike the way the common core was developed, I am unsettled by the idea that STATES will develop their own standards. Will TX include global warming in their science standards? Will evolution be in KS standards?
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Wayne, the current law does not prevent vouchers’ expansion. Only the courts can do that. There have been more adoptions of voucher laws in the past five years (NEVER by popular vote) than any time in my memory. State standards are nothing new. We have had them for many years. There is no evidence of a linkage between standards and performance. If Mississippi had Massachusetts’ excellent standards, it would still have low scores because of very high poverty rate. Even the states with excellent standards and high scores have achievement gaps due to inequality, not standards.
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Diane, whatever happened to “NCLB should be repealed”?
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FLERP, it is not often that a federal law is “repealed.” In my view, the accountability portions of NCLB should be repealed and replaced by no-federally-mandated testing. Sadly, a dozen years of NCLB had embedded test-mania into our culture, and it will take a long time to get away from the idea that the standardized test is a necessity, and teachers are never to be trusted to grade their students based on a year of seeing their work. Of course, it won’t happen that the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Act will not require any testing. Our Congress and the Obama administration–right and left–still are locked into the idea that the federal government must mandate some testing. Frankly, given the restrictions on the U.S. Department of Education about interfering with curriculum and instruction, I am not sure that the current federal mandates are even legal, especially when the two Common Core consortia were funded by the U.S. Department of Education, an action I believe is illegal. I could keep shouting from the rooftops that the accountability portion of NCLB should be repealed, but I doubt that many in Congress would follow unless they get lots of pressure from their constituents.
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Diane, am I wrong in thinking that Jeb Bush believes in tests as much as Secretary Duncan and Governor Cuomo do? I know he’s the biggest Common Core cheerleader around, so I assume he also fully believes in the testing. Also wasn’t sure about Hillary Clinton, but I know she meets regularly with Bill Gates, so I feel pretty secure in knowing where she stands.
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Jeb Bush is a test ideologue. As governor, he graded schools A-F, based largely on test scores. He cheers every kind of testing. In a day or so, I will post a New Yorker article that points out that his own children attend private schools so they are immune from the high-stakes testing that now dominates Florida. The main use of testing is to label public schools as “failures,” so the school can be closed and the students given a choice of charters. Florida has more than 600 charters, many of them operated for-profit.
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Thank you, Diane. Unsurprising. When the time comes, I would love to have a grading scale for presidential candidates on educational issues.
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That’s a depressing view of things. Which is not to say that I disagree with you. There are federal laws, and then there are *big* federal laws, with sprawling regulatory schemes that worm their way into everyday life, create new industries, and change the way the world is. A huge amount of work (intellectual, political, and brute force) was done over decades to put build this massive thing and get it moving. And the smart money never bets against the First Law of Motion.
Where are we on the timeline toward the repeal of NCLB? Five years away? 15 years? Is the “option 1” compromise position as good as it’s going to get?
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In case anyone’s interested in the politics at play, Monty Neil of FairTest sent out the following e-mail recently. Bold emphasis added by me. If you’re writing letters to Sen. Alexander to demand an end to federally-mandated testing, you’re now officially on your own.
Source: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2015/01/reality-check-why-accept-what-feds-are.html
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Listen to yourself, Diane:
“Sadly, a dozen years of NCLB had embedded test-mania into our culture, and it will take a long time to get away from the idea that the standardized test is a necessity, and teachers are never to be trusted to grade their students based on a year of seeing their work. Of course, it won’t happen that the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Act will not require any testing. ”
That is the most anti-intellectual statement from you I’ve ever read. Massive disinformation and numbing media control have NOT “embedded testing mania” in the American people. We are sick of their tests, and their assault on little kids, and we are demonstrably revolted by it, whatever paid sock puppets try to tell you.
So, what you are claiming is that the American people don’t even deserve for you to take an honest position. You’ll advocate for something that you believe to be wrong, without even putting up a fight, because “the train has left the station”, “Accountability is not going away”, and other cowardly slogans that have been repeated so many times they sound like the law of gravity.
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Grade Span Testing is not the answer….but abolishing yearly standardized testing is a small step in the right direction. Any federally mandated testing of students is morally and ethically destructive to public education. I am afraid this legislation would do very little in reality.
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