Never have the stakes attached to testing been higher. If a student doesn’t reach proficient on a Common Core test where most students will not reach proficient (a passing mark set artificially high), the student is a failure, her teacher is ineffective, and the school is stigmatized. How to counter this madness?
Consider the following comments by teachers, posted on this blog:
“I would encourage all of my students to post pics of the questions or tweet the questions as they remember them. I did this several years ago when Indiana had just one graduation qualifying exam. I got reprimanded and transferred to a terrible inner city school, but the action did have some impact because the state had to admit that a great deal of the exam questions were wrong or too poorly worded to make sense. I realize that in today’s testing-mania culture I would probably have been fired, lost my license or maybe even jailed, but this stuff is so terrible we need to start some civil disobedience.”
And another:
“Two years ago, a teen in NJ committed suicide after learning that he failed to get a passing grade on the standardized test that would allow him to graduate. He tweeted his despair over the test. I wonder if his Twitter account was monitored by the NJ DOE.”
I wonder if the test had absurd questions and wrong answers. Who was accountable?
Is the time right for civil disobedience to defend the civil and human rights of public school staffs, students, parents and their communities?
Google “pineapple” and “hare” and “Daniel Pinkwater.”
The question then becomes: why did we wait so long?
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Ask the professional organizaitons to which you belong? WHY? Also ask your politican as well. They have the answers and not telling.
Good question, Diane. Hypothetical question here, but what would a teacher do if during the test, three of her top students raised their hand and told their trusted and beloved teacher that the correct answer was not one of the choices? Teachers sign an agreement written by PARCC not to discuss or read any of the questions. “Do your best,” is a lame, spineless answer to those students’ questions, but that contract has been signed. Looks like PARCC has all bases covered.
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
― Howard Zinn
Nice timing. I’m about to start reading “On Civil Disobedience” with my 11th Grade English class.
Good for YOU!
In some ways the civil disobedience is already happening. In every school there are quite a few students just recording the same answer over and over. Many are writing nonsense answers in for the essay portions. All that is really needed to make these exams of no value to the bullying data collectors is organization. Students could lead it nationwide.Since it has already been predetermined that 70% will fail anyway, a bit of social networking between students would very quickly cripple the tests. Students win. Oligarchs lose. There is still a month and a half of testing remaining. They may just do precisely this especially when they find out that their accounts are being stalked.
oh for crying out loud…. stop asking and expecting children to do our (adults) work for us….
seriously – we adults, in REFUSING TO PUT A STOP TO IT, are as bad as the plutocrats using our kids as profit centres….
Don’t you love that KIDS are protesting. Kids are opting themselves out. Kids. The kids get it. The teachers and some of the parents get it. Starve the beast. There should be no gag orders. These tests are not voluntary so there is no “pact” or “contract” or even “agreement” to keep the tests private. Maybe many more kids will tweet. Maybe many more kids will fill in the “a” circle for every answer.
Here is the thing: If so many people are up in arms over these tests, the heavy handed way they were imposed, etc., it becomes harder to ignore, and even harder to spin and continue to blame the teachers unions.
I know teachers who are afraid to speak up; that is why we are doing the speaking for them. People know now. They know.
We all have the summer off for the most part. Wouldn’t it be great for every single teacher to show up in DC, or at their state capitol on at least one day and have one speech after another about what’s going on across the country regarding privatization, charters, union busting, testing (that’s used to create an artificial crisis), etc. How many of us are there in the country, in each state. They’re going to keep having their way until we do something dramatic, the equivalent of the marches we saw in the past regarding Civil Rights. NEA and AFT should join together, put aside any differences, and make this happen.
We need groups for any protest to gather attention. Parents and teachers that constantly picketed Congress on a rotating basis would be effective in pointing out that we are sick of legislation that is partial to charter schools. We expect legislators to support schools for all, public schools! Small groups making appointments in states or Washington, DC, meeting with representatives might give them pause to consider before they keep selling out. They should feel the heat we are watching.
If one out of three could make it, we would have a Million Teacher March!
Is Your Superintendent College and Career Ready?
Imagine the reaction from the public if every household in a school district received a letter in the mail asking that question. It would be union dues well spent.
In Portland the union challenged administrators and board members to take the Smarter Balanced test and publish their scores. If they believe proficiency on the test accurately assesses college and career readiness they should have no problem doing this.
If they refuse it would seem they are uncertain if they have the cognitive skills to show proficiency or that they don’t really believe this test accurately measures career readiness. Either way our students deserve leadership, not hypocrisy.
Predictably they refused but what if we as teachers voluntarily took the tests and invited administrators and policy makers to take it as well? We could publish their scores or their refusal to take the test along side our own. If a teacher doesn’t do well we can blame it on the test but those promoting these assessments don’t have that option.
Since teachers already have had their VAM scores published, why not face this publicity on our terms while exposing testing advocates for what they are?
I totally agree with you. Take for example, Campbell Brown who thinks she knows what it takes for students to be successful in education. She blames the teachers for the ills of the educational system. Failing to see that society has changed drastically and many students come from broken homes, single family homes, domestic violence,parents who are illiterate, poverty, or simply cannot speak the English language to help support their children’s academics. Did she forget that teachers can only do so much, They also have children whose educations they support. Where is parent accountability? Where is the government’s accountability? Why should we keep giving government support to people whose children are failing not because of teachers but because of their home environment. If she thinks that its the teachers fault for students’ academic failure, why doesn’t she take a teaching job to see how long she can stay before her views on blaming teachers will remain the same. Enough of these so called education reformers acting like they know how to fix it when they really don’t!
It’s certainly time for a conversation about civil disobedience against what’s happening in public education. That the possibility of massive civil disobedience is raised at all, especially on the part of students and parents, gets the attention of many legislators.
Someone suggested attaching hashtags #PARCC and #Pearson, or just using those words, in all tweets. Sharing your Aunt Celia’s mac and cheese recipe? #Pearson. Tweeting about the next big storm coming? #PARCC Congratulating your cousin on his promotion? “Great job, Cousin Joe! You worked hard for this. PARCC!”
Their monitoring system would be overloaded with hits.
“I would encourage all of my students to post pics of the questions or tweet the questions as they remember them… the action did have some impact because the state had to admit that a great deal of the exam questions were wrong or too poorly worded to make sense.”
More critically, posting specific information about the test destroys any and all validity.
There is simply no way to make a valid statistical “adjustment” to counteract the effect of information posted online when you don’t know how many (and precisely who) got the information.
And there is no way you can validly use a test for high stakes when some students got test questions and possibly answers ahead of time.
The students have the power and the means to squash the test and the fact that Pearson just got caught spying on them is not going to help things for Pearson one bit.
I’m usually pretty pessimistic about these things, but I’d say the test is teetoring on the edge of the cliff.
Once students realize this (which I suspect they now do), it’s over..
SomeDAM Poet:
Exactly so.
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Spoke to a high school senior yesterday. He told me the PARCC is really dumb and that his parents OPTED OUT his sister from taking the test. He decided to take the tests to protest, and said he completed each test in less than 2 1/2 minutes. BTW, he has already been accepted by a great college and will be studying alternatives to fossil fuel.
I have a senior who is orchestrating similar protests, which he did last year as well.
This type of student “protest” is only contributing to the artificially high, super-failure rate desired by the edufakers. It only supports the false narrative that America’s schools are “failure factories” and that most public school teachers are inept.
On the student committing suicide.
Over half a century ago at the university a professor informed us of a question asked by a European, I believe it was France. Our professor was appalled by the question, the European professor appalled by the answer.
The question, after exams how many suicides do you have after finals are given.
When the American professor said none, the European professor was stunned. They had many.
It seems we are headed in that direction now.
A very close acquaintance, a middle school principal said that his best students are giving up, no longer interested in school.
The same thing happened in Japan at the time we were supposed to emulate the great Japanese schools and they were pushing their children so very hard.
To their chagrin they found out that on graduating the students had learned two things:
1. how to pass the tests – they had not learned the material, only how to pass the tests.
2. To hate school and learning.
How long has it been since Japan’s economy has stagnated have we been told to emulate the great Japanese schools?
Oh will we ever learn, oh will we ever learn?
“[I]f I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?”
Henry David Thoreau in Walden
I am very encouraged by a few of these comments because they begin to present students as critical to changing the current situation. Too often the discussion involves only the roles of administrators, politicians, outside “reformers,” and teachers. As one commentator says, “The students have the power and the means to squash the test.” They also have the power to take other positive actions directed at change. If I may suggest a very useful and encouraging book based on the Baltimore Algebra Project: Jay Gillen’s “Educating for Insurgency: The Roles of Young People in Schools of Poverty.”
and i say again….. what a cop out…. so far, we parents and teachers have not made much of a dent in stopping this ed reform machine because we been too flipping scared of using our power and then dealing with the consequences…. and now you all want our kids to do the work for us?!…. shame on us all….
We have been doing the work. I am the one who made the comment on Diane’s blog about civil disobedience. For years many of my colleagues along with me have been engaging in actions to combat the education reformers. But the kids have a voice too and they are the ones that are impacted the most and they are the ones that can impact the validity of the test. There is nothing wrong with bringing them into this fight.
There’s a statistic that we need – has the suicide rate of teenagers increased due to the pressures of these exams, especially if it prevents them from graduating HS and attending college (the one which has probably already admitted them)?
So much for career and college ready!
(And what happens in NYS where 70% of the kids are set up to fail?)
Ellen T Klock
The new Common Core algebra I and the Common Core ELA tests administered to HS students in NY this spring will have NO negative impact on graduation rates. The NYSED has decided to set cut score that will result in the same passing rates as the old Regents exams (about 75%). So much for rigorous new standards. Yet they will continue to punish our 8 to 14 year old children with a near 70% failure rate.
Ok NY Teacher – I’m glad the high school kids in NYS have a chance of passing the common core regents exams (you can even find it online, unlike the grade 3-8 CC assessments), yet many still can’t pass all five regents exams required to graduate. How does that affect their attitudes towards life?
Plus, Other states have different rules. Some states won’t let the students pass on to the next grade level if they can’t pass the assessments. Luckily we don’t do that in NY since most kids would never make it out of grade school.
Ellen
Your preaching to the choir. Richard Mills inflicted untold damage to the students of NY with his 1995, All Regents policy. Virtually all safety nets removed since for struggling learners. My real fear is that the 3 to 8 Common Core tests will internalize failure in a generation of NY students. Chronic institutional failure that will mar them for life. All in the name of . . . ?
Have things really come to this?
Just remember that high-stakes standardized tests are being used and misused for purposes for which they are grossly inappropriate and misleading, wielded most vigorously by those in positions of authority for no other purposes than to swell their egos and fatten their bank accounts.
Testing Scam. Scores Sham. All used to measure and punish public school staffs, students, parents, and their communities. And for all their bluster and bullying, the leaders and enforcers of self-styled “education reform” fear pushback.
They instinctively fear that a very old and very dead and very Greek guy will expose what is in the deepest recesses of their hearts:
“Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.” [Sophocles]
Yes, their $tudent $ucce$$ is beginning to look insecure. And it should, because the harm done by great wealth and great power in the service of ever-greater wealth and power provokes a justifiable counter force by the general population.
Not on the CCSS standardized testing regimen: an excerpt from Mario Savio’s speech before the start of the sit-in by the Free Speech Movement at the UC Berkeley campus, 12-3-1964—
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
The power of human beings, fueled by facts, logic and decency:
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” [Frederick Doublass]
Let’s all get unfit! Opt-Out!
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So sad. Insanity. Crazytown.
I wonder if the world realizes that this system is humiliating teachers, children, and parents in this era of high stakes testing? Eventually, who would want to teach in this climate? Have politician’s considered this collateral damage yet? Do they have a long term plan to combat the demise of our current system of education? There is little talk of how to accommodate student’s emotional and social educational needs in light of our educational system. This leaves our priorities in question, and the overall health of our youngsters. Is there a plan for happiness and curiosity in education yet?
So right Brenda
My granddaughter didn’t want to go to school today. The drains are clogged (her mom is waiting for the plumber) so she couldn’t take a shower and feels scuzzy (even though she took a bath yesterday). A boy called her ugly on Friday (she’s gorgeous) and nobody can convince her he’s just being an obnoxious seventh grader. Sans shower, she feels uglier than ever and her mom won’t let her stay home. She was crying when I dropped her off at school this morning (she missed the bus, again).
Where does reading and math fit in this scenario.
Ellen T Klock, grandmother to an angst filled preteen
Deb – I think this is the biggest insult, the idea that teachers are easily replaced (see the rise of TFA). Experienced, inexperienced, veteran, novice – they are all interchangeable (remember the cry for “new blood” or young teachers with fresh ideas vs those elders, burnt out and tired – expected to go off into the sunset, preferable without those costly pensions).
So, any port in a storm! Teachers will eventually be hired off the streets with no backgrounds in education. Who needs a degree when the lessons are scripted and the tests are predetermined? Education will resemble Alice in Wonderland’s Tea Party where you just discard the old and move on to the new with no regard for the future.
Ellen T Klock
#nonsense noted
The time is now–before it’s irreversible.
Scott-Foresman in Glenview, Illinois is now Pearson Publishing. It’s on a very busy street. A great place for many, many people to line up on the public sidewalks with many, many signs lining the street for blocks. The main police department in Glenview is right down the street so it would draw much attention and hopefully, media–I’ve mentioned this to several IRTA members.