This statement appeared on the blog of the Ohio Equity and Adequacy Coalition. I gladly add Tom Dunn to the honor roll for speaking out when the state is going in the wrong direction.
Another superintendent distressed by Ohio’s testing rage
Tom Dunn’s column in the February 22 The Troy Daily News should be requires reading for state officials.
How much of a bad thing is a good thing?
by Tom Dunn
Contributing Columnist
I have long contended that there hasn’t been an intelligent discussion held about public education in the Ohio legislature in years, and I have written more than fifty articles highlighting the many indefensible mandates lawmakers have enacted proving that to be true.
The recent hearings held by the Senate Education Committee on whether or not schools are testing their students too much (we are) and what to do about it is a perfect illustration of just how worthless political dialogue is. If their discussions weren’t so tragic they would be comical.
Before I go any further, let me say that there is no debating that properly used student assessments, otherwise known as tests, are a staple in an excellent classroom. Assessments, particularly those implemented in a way that provides immediate feedback, can help drive instruction, because the results can clearly show the teacher what his or her students know and don’t know. That teacher can then use this information to develop follow-up lessons to address those weaknesses … and kids actually learn what they didn’t know before.
There is also no debating that there are too many state-mandated tests, that the results from these tests are constantly used inappropriately, that the results, even if meaningful, are so long in coming back to schools that they lose their worth, and that this inappropriate use is dictated by lawmakers who apparently don’t know the first thing about how students are educated or how to use test data appropriately. Worse, they apparently don’t want to learn given the fact that there is plenty of scientific research that refutes their claim that student test results should be used to evaluate teachers, schools, and districts.
But something interesting has happened over the last few weeks that has given some lawmakers reason to reconsider their position on the testing epidemic, and I suspect it was the growing outcry they were hearing from parents who have finally had enough of their children being treated like human guinea pigs to satisfy political agendas. As a result of this push-back against excessive testing, State Superintendent Richard Ross was charged with researching if, indeed, we are testing students too much. Dr. Ross, after hours and hours of research, discovered what he should have known without doing any research at all; that being that, by golly, we are testing students too much. Nowhere in his report does he even so much as acknowledge the misuse of test data, which should be the crux of the discussion. But, true to their superficial view on education, politicians were focused on testing time, not testing effectiveness. So, instead of trying to engage them in meaningful dialogue, that is exactly what Dr. Ross gave them. God forbid he would try to engage them in meaningful dialogue about teaching and learning.
His stunning discovery resulted in legislative hearings where the folks who have created this mess listened with furrowed brows as superintendents from around the state trekked to Columbus to provide input on just how this dastardly problem could be properly addressed. And, this is where it gets really good.
Instead of focusing on something meaningful like the hours and hours of instructional time lost to testing, the unnecessary stress these tests place upon students, the fact that performance on a single test does not necessarily equate to future success or lack thereof, the narrow view of education these tests provide, and the rampant misuse of the data gathered from them, lawmakers focused on how we can reduce the time we spend assessing students and how much is too much.
In other words, they apparently feel that spending less time doing a bad thing rather than eliminating the bad thing altogether is real progress. As a result of this superficial view of life, they ignore the real issues that need addressed.
Isn’t it amazing that in the eyes of our policy makers that doing something that is wrong less often than we did it before is the blueprint for excellence? Do we need any more proof that they must be removed from all discussions on education if we ever hope to have meaningful conversations about what is best for our children?
Tom Dunn is the superintendent of the Miami County Educational Service Center.
William Phillis
Ohio E & A
Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent report.
I read the “study” prepared by the Ohio State Superintendednt of Public Instruction. It was clear that he and any collaborators on the language were missing the point, misconstruing the purposes of testing, and making recommendations to fix the wrongly diagnosed problem.
The recommendations will do nothing but cause more administrative havoc in schools and exacerbate all of the present abuses tests and scores. Ohio continues to use VAM to rate teachers based on student test scores. It continues to have no credible way to evaluate the majority of teachers for whom there are not state-wide tests.
Thank you for monitoring and reporting on the endless fiascos in Ohio.
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It is long past time for the citizens of this country to realize the public education system has been hijacked by the corporate community. To call it a community is a disservice. We need to stage a national rally to end this madness and it includes the push from Washington and Arnie Duncan.
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Hear! Hear!
His last sentence summarizes the entire mess.
The folks we are mandated to bow to should be made to take all these tests and their scores made public.
They are hiding behind their $$ & legislative bullying power. Once we know their scores, that insane & absurd playing field may look a bit different. What the h*** do they know?
We have worked tirelessly to make sense, explained, presented experts, written papers & books, tweeted our fingers bloody, responded to millions of endless dumb accusations, opted our children out, refused the test, rebuffed attacks and sneered at the juvenile skits and fern talks by the Fordham Institutes’ neophytes….etc,etc,etc.
Now, we must DARE, TRIPLE DARE these folks to take these tests or ‘Sit Down & Shut Up!’ to quote CC of NJ.
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If they were to take these tests, I’d make sure they are very closely monitored…and tests scored by someone greatly removed from the testing industry (or a $12/hour worker off Craig’s List).
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Ohio Algebra II Teacher,
Great idea – I’d be willing to drive the open-bed trucks, round up & hire the day laborers looking for work at Home Depot, pay them well & give them the task to score our BRILLIANT legislators’ tests.
Win : Win!
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Wonderful letter.
Of course, the writer fails to grasp how difficult it is to thread the needle of mollifying parent concerns (teachers and school districts are too hopelessly powerless and discredited to care about their opinions) while at the same time meeting the dictates of Gates, Koch, Walton (and secondarily Duncan, Kasich, and Obama…who similarly must bow to the billionaire Reformers). Were he to consider such difficulties, he’d understand why 90% of those who testify before Ohio’s legislature have been representatives of Student First.
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“Pay the trolls”
When public serves the pols
Instead of other way
The public pays the trolls
For passing every day
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It is a good letter. One can just FEEL his frustration at being completely ignored.
Meanwhile, they’re celebrating that 70k Ohio public school students “completed” Common Core tests yesterday. As usual, the tests gobble up whole schools while the adults continue to insist that testing is just one small piece of ed reform. Is there a public school kid in the country who believes these tests aren’t HUGELY important to adults?
Really, they’d have to be absolute idiots to believe that. I suspect they’re catching on!
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“Before I go any further, let me say that there is no debating that properly used student assessments, otherwise known as tests, are a staple in an excellent classroom. Assessments, particularly those implemented in a way that provides immediate feedback, can help drive instruction, because the results can clearly show the teacher what his or her students know and don’t know.”
Overall a good letter. I’m glad that these supes are finally standing up and saying, writing, and then hopefully following through and doing something, e.g., having the the district not administer the tests since they so “strongly” believe that there is much harm caused to innocents, the children in the process. Do they have “cojones suficiente grandes” TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE??
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And NO! The “results do not clearly show what his or her students know and don’t know.
The assessments, even if teacher made, still suffer many of the errors identified by Wilson that are then compounded by combining them into a name, category, grade in sorting and separating the students. Assessment of student learning should ONLY be done in consultation with the student and his/her parents/guardian. Oh, but that would take time and resources so that each teacher could have a tolerable work load and a complete mindset/discourse change as to the nature of the teaching and learning process.
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Duane – ultimately the test is a snapshot in time which may or may not represent a child’s ability on a certain topic, depending on numerous factors including external ones such as how much sleep they got the night before or the temperature in the room where they are taking the exam.
Ellen
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I do not view tests, as “a staple in an excellent classroom.” Perhaps this is because I work in the visual arts–a subject that can be made academic, but is too often victimized by the relentless pursuit of immediate evidence of mastery, or a preoccupation with what students do know or do not know.
When you look at the evidence driving policy, and relentless testing, almost all of it comes from math and ELA, then science, then less often social studies. In spite of some math and reading wars, teaching in these subjects has become standardized, not just by the Common Core, but by widely circulated guidelines for instruction, expectations for a “progression of learning,” and methods for testing “progress.”
For many reasons, there is no comparable tradition of test-checks for learning in the visual arts. Learning progressions can be constructed, but these function as guides, are not widely standardized or if so, are too often god-awful “follow-the-pattern” exercises with visual stereotypes and inflated verbiage about everything students are learning.
Of course, art teachers can comply with the testing regime and demand for strictly academic learning; but in doing so they put students at risk of making a passing grade on the test and learning to hate the subject. That is a terrible outcome.
The visual art prototypes for learning in an academic tradition go back to the 18th and 19th century, with imprints that call for early sorting of kids to determine who is talented or not based on their performance on tasks.
The most important initial task was learning to draw without the aid of a ruler–lines of even length, covering a page, and replicating the arrangement of lines on a poster or another example.
If you could not draw those straight lines without the aid of a ruler–with tasks of increasing complexity– (“rigorous and challenging” examples) — then you could never move up the line to learn more skills. Those advanced skills, including free-hand drawing, were valued as a path that might lead to a “career” in fine art and to the perks of patronage.
Efforts to create standardized tests in the visual arts during the 1920s and 1930s are pathetically dated. Some brief experiments in the 60s were presented in handbooks for testing, but these would have been expensive. The most enduring tests are those from E. Paul Torrence on creative thinking, not strictly tests in the visual arts and used primarily for “talented/gifted” identificaation.
I worked on the exercises for the first and second NAEP tests in the visual arts, and have long been involved in judging studio projects and coaching teachers on the virtues of honoring what I call “affinities in art.” These affinities may include so-called hands-on work but for many students, the major affinities are more aligned with curatorial engagement, studies of imagery, gathering impressions, perhaps writing.
Among the main concerns in teaching the visual arts, are that students love to keep learning, are still surprised at their ability to do that, and choose to do so on their own–well beyond the arbitrary task-driven structures and tests that are so widely marketed as if “best practices.”
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What amazes me is that such a common sense letter is considered extraordinary. Why aren’t our elected leaders nodding their heads in agreement. Are they ignorant or is it the lemming mentality? Unfortunately, instead of their “asses” being thrown off the cliff, it is our children’s mental well being which is in danger.
How do you fight stupid?
Ellen T Klock
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“How do you fight stupid?”
With a stuporhero?
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Governor Kasich did his state of the state. Public schools got another stern, scolding lecture about belt-tightening and how they aren’t up to snuff. The usual ed reform approach.
This is what he said about charter schools:
“Kasich promised to crack down on bad ones but then defended many with poor results saying that doesn’t mean they’re failing.
“Let’s not judge someone as not doing their job because they’ve inherited a group of students who are just struggling,” he said.”
I love “inherited”. The difference in language and tone among ed reformers when they speak of public schools and when they speak of their (preferred) charter schools is really striking. I don’t think they hear it themselves.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2015/02/25/gov-john-kasich-talks-charters-school-funding-in-state-of-the-state-speech/#more-29050
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Again, how great it would be if we could test, grade, our elected officials.
BUT
that would not work.
They already know what education is all about. Just ask them.
When know nots, know not they know not but are absolutely certain they know and are in a position of authority, WATCH OUT. The results “ain’t” good.
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Proud to report that our superintendent at Sycamore Community Schools, Dr. Adrienne James, is also speaking out. Our district is in the suburbs of Cincinnati.
As described in the Cincinnati Enquirer (“New school tests spur anger, absences” February 26): “Earlier this week, Sycamore Schools Superintendent Adrienne James sent a stinging letter to Ohio Schools Superintendent Richard Ross detailing her complaints about the state’s efforts so far in addressing problems surrounding the new and more frequent student testing.
“The changes (in testing) have been staggering,” James wrote Ross Monday, sharing the letter with parents in the 5,244-student Hamilton County school system and copying local state legislators.
“The public school system has been jerked from one notion to another, requiring so much time and attention that districts are left with no time to address internal needs. And sadly, bearing the brunt of it all are our children,” said James.:
For the full letter, see:
Click to access doc_23_5_5033.pdf
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The Mason City School superintendent, recently, also opposed excessive testing in a letter, published by the Dayton Daily News, in their Warren County edition.
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I wonder what kind of districts, socio-economic wise, are that the supes that are speaking out these days come from. Upper SES??? Shit’s hitting the fan for all finally and not just the poor districts.
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