It turns out that Pearson is not alone in monitoring students’ social media accounts at testing time.
The California Department of Education does it too, to determine whether students are photographing test questions and sharing them online.
What’s the lesson? I think we must teach our children (and remember ourselves) that anything online is public information. There is no privacy on the Internet. If you have a secret, whisper it in someone’s ear. Don’t write it in an email or on social media; don’t say it on the telephone. Save it for personal conversations. Or consider it public.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
LAUSD also monitors social media. Especially of employees.
I think Diane that if you do post such information on the Internet, you should consider yourself engaging in civil disobedience and when you do engage in such disobedience, you have to accept certain consequences if you to prove a certain point. I learned all this from my Vietnam protest days back in the early 70s.
But what about kids? Is an 11 year old protesting or just being an 11 year old?
All of this “let the speaker beware!” assumes they understand all the “consequences” and made a conscious decision to protest.
Today’s civil disobedience is tomorrow’s justice. Free speech should not be criminalized or we will become North Korea. Students should be allowed to discuss the tests. So should teachers and parents. Transparency is preferred to secrecy. Rather than borrowing from Orwell’s 1984 and using strong armed tactics, it is the responsibility of the testing companies to design the tests such that such disturbing tactics are unnecessary. Besides, if the tests were for diagnostic purposes and not punishment, the whole testing regime would be more effective and not resemble a James Bond film.
I think we all know that, and sometimes post in order to make sure Big Brother realizes how many points of resistance exist. If a million Lilliputians can work together, they can control Gulliver. If they work alone, they won’t even be noticed.
One other thing we can do is to make sure that our students know the names of all the Pearson company executives and the names of the California state officials who authorized monitoring student’s social media.Out young people should be encouraged to use social media to hold those people up to unceasing scorn and derision. If they want to snoop of student’s social media, let them take the consequences!
Perhaps students should write debriefing tweets directly to Pearson and other entities that monitor them. We could call it “applied learning.”
I don’t know how they can stop them from revealing an answer. If the test question is based on “analysis” of a reading selection that is published and available elsewhere (outside Pearson’s test) and they discuss that poem or excerpt or document online, is that a violation? They’re revealing what they were asked, if indirectly. What if they say “we’re just talking about this poem/book excerpt/government document that is widely available- no relation to your test or question content at all”
I think the students should absolutely post anything they wish about these bogus “tests”. The various doe’s and the testing conglomerates have ZERO authority to engage in this type of monitoring. Just as mildew and fungus cannot stand exposure to light and oxygen, so this type of abusive, bullying behavior cannot stand up to public display and scrutiny. The students are not contractually bound as teachers are in these matters, and so are free to speak out, and should do so. This is how abuse is stopped.
children are under no obligation to not talk about the tests…. IF they have had to sign confidentiality forms, THEN there’s the legal issue of whether or not the law would agree that minors are competent to sign them and if they haven’t signed anything, then Pearsons and the various school administrations have no right to harass them about what they do and do not talk about in any forum – kids’ work is their own intellectual property and they have freedom of speech rights…
All tests given in the public schools should be considered public property and as public property there should be no reason not to take photos of them and share on-line. If all tests were given on the same day at the same time across the state, by the time the questions hit social media, there would be no reason not to share them.
Every year the tests should offer different questions anyway and even in the same year there should be a variety of tests for each subject and grade level even if the same questions were used, they could be in a different order and on different pages for different versions of the test.
Transparency should be 100% and the TOTAL results of these tests must be returned to the schools ASAP so teachers could use them to improve curriculum and instruction.
Yes, the tests paid for by the public should be open for review and scrutiny by any member of the public several weeks after they are given. Theoretically in a democracy.
Lloyd, in NYS we have the Regent’s Exams – starewide finals for various high school subjects. These are kept secure (we have a specific protocol in place), locked up, tape, wrapped, and not open until the start of the exam. No student is allowed any electronic device and is not allowed to leave until an hour and a half after the exam begins. There must be at least two teachers in the room to prevent “cheating”. After the exam is over, everyone is free to discuss and copies are available – online and in stores (Baron’s Review Books), plus those paper copies the schools purchased.
My point is that the current Regent’s Exams are in the process of being eliminated and replaced by the Common Core Regent’s Exams. Currently the student can take either or both. In January (these exams are given in January, June, and August), the CC Algebra Regents contained a large percentage of advanced algebra questions (a course not taken until Junior year with Trigonometry). It was ridiculous to ask kids to answer questions on items not in the curriculum, but, hey, this is CC.
Ellen T Klock
What you describe is simliar to the process used in California to administer standardized tests. The process was rigid and regimented step-by-step, and if one test booklet, for instance, came up missing after testing ended and all the testing materiel was turned in, a teacher could lose their job and credential and never teach again.
It was stressful.
Lloyd – Except that previously in NYS, the test booklets were not secured after the exam and teachers could keep a copy to help with test prep the following year. (Students didn’t get them).
With CC, everything is so secure that you’d think this was Fort Knox. All we need now is a secret service escort.
Ellen
In California, we had to even collect the scrap paper students were allowed to use during the math portion of the test and turn that in too.
We did, too.
I seem to remember having to sign a “Pledge” after taking a NYS Regents exam (a long time ago) along the lines of:
“I have neither given nor received aid in taking this exam”
Nobody thought much about it back then. Anyone who did either infraction were the first to sigh.
That isn’t how contracting works. Instead we’ll get a whole new cohort of people who work in “test security”, and a new set of contractors.
The security grunts will be low wage temps, with a thin (but creamy!) layer of well-compensated executives and managers on top.
But Lloyd, this is too ethical and makes much too much sense.
LOL
The cheating program can be easily resolved. Many states now test on the same day. Every district has to follow the same protocols. Phones should be collected before testing and returned after.
But the social media problem goes beyond cheating. It’s looking for criticism. Look at what’s going on in some states where teachers are being suspended for criticizing Common Core or other district mandates on Facebook. They want teachers silenced, and that’s not right. Look at what happened in NM where a student was suspended for sharing opt out info.
Most proctors do collect phones during things like AP and SAT exams– but with these, the students taking them are doing so voluntarily and have skin in the game. Oh, this is all going to be interesting.
Do they have any idea how many teenagers use snapchat? pinterest? It seems ludicrous that fed and state money indirectly goes to fight this dragon. Have they never been around teenagers- I can think of few things that will drive them to do this unwanted behavior enmass now.Social media is their baby and they are very comfortable sticking their thumb to’ the man’ in their own unique style
Well-put. Yes, the more we tell them they cannot take screen shots, the more this will become the behaviour de jour. True enough!
What do we expect, the federal government has been monitoring our calls and other communications for years.
We are living in a perpetual “1984”.
I would like to know more about what the definition of “monitoring” is , as well as the justification for squashing dissent and free speech.
“What’s the lesson? I think we must teach our children… that anything online is public information. There is no privacy on the Internet. If you have a secret, whisper it in someone’s ear. Don’t write it in an email or on social media; don’t say it on the telephone. Save it for personal conversations. Or consider it public”
Here’s an awful lesson — how do you teach it without context? Is this all to teach? I shudder for today’s parents, who cannot expect their own assumptions about freedom of speech and right to privacy and civil rights to be supported– even to the slightest degree– outside their homes. Theirs looks to be an uphill battle. They’ll be like my 1950’s friend’s beatnik/artist parents who refused to own a TV set.
Here’s an excerpt from a comment by Michelle Hoffman at Bob Braun’s Ledger:
“…IF parents do not take a stand, future generations will learn to accept a way of life that previous generations did not face. When I say learn to accept, realize this – our children are being spoon-fed on the idea of and are living with a lack of privacy and much government interference. The problem with this is that they will be apathetic to the increasing infringements of civil rights and will generally come to accept that this is a way of life…”
Check out the MI-5 series: tech has been around for plenty long enough to not only read and listen to what people say– but to locate their lat&long instantly & WATCH them say it! (they’ve been doing it in London for years…) Does this mean in a few years parents will have to teach their children that their every act outside of a private residence is “public” in the sense of ‘verifiable evidence’? How long will it be before the cameras can watch inside the house– and will there be anyone left who thinks that’s not normal & acceptable???
One can only fight on so many fronts. My feeling is the main push needs to be: get money out of politics– fight lobbying– dump Citizens’ United– dump privatization– no more quasi public quasi private organizations using taxpayer money to perform anything! I believe that is what’s at the root of so many similar problems. There’s no way for the law– the government– to keep up with technological change, and we can’t let technological change & its corporate agents determine our rights by default.
Of course, the larger issue here is why are there “secret tests”? I have never given my students a test whose content they did not know about in advance. Now, they may have chosen not to pay any attention to that info, not to do the preparation, and subsequently do poorly on the test, but they didn’t do poorly because its content was a secret!
Aside from that, I can pretty much guarantee that the content of the SBAC test is a very low priority when it comes to social media topics for 16-year-olds,
Diane, please post this. The ENTIRE CONSORTIUM is monitoring social media. Not only that, they are giving advice to districts on how to spy on children. These kids are actually being forced to take a test and surrender their civil rights at the same time. This is advice given for the field test on how to “follow” and “friend” your students. I would bet they are doing the same for the actual test:
Click to access Guidance%20for%20Social%20Media%20Field%20Test%20Monitoring.pdf
California and Pearson may not realize it yet, but they just informed adolescents how to squash their test like a bug.
If enough of them post photos of test questions and answers online, the “Alarm” system will not only be overloaded, but their entire test will be rendered useless because they will have no way of knowing who got the questions and possibly answers.
Note to the clueless: Telling adolescents not to do something is like daring them to do it.
I wonder how much taxpayer money is going into this monitoring? It’s got to be a pretty penny for some (most likely private) monitoring businesses.
California state secrecy law for giant testing corporations? No way.
All this security is bogus…no one cares that much about the TESTS except PEARSON, because they are making big bucks.
Many states are having budget constraints, do away with the expense of tests and watch budget issues clear up….
Staff personnel sign privacy /security forms, not the students. Let them tweet / FB away to screw with the system !!