Sheri Sobel, a mom in Chicago, writes:
“PARCC testing in Chicago!! My son is in 6th grade and was part of the 10% of CPS population scheduled to take the test; originally. As we are aware NOW, that CPS has to administer the test to 100% or lose IL funding to the tune of $1.6B, He suffers from an Anxiety Disorder and has been distraught, crying, literally freaking out about taking the test for the past 4 weeks.
“He was so distraught 3 weeks ago that I had to take him back to his dr. and therapist ASAP (he has been stable for the past 2 yrs. and seeing his dr. every 3 months and a therapist 1 or 2 times per month as needed). Now he has to go weekly.
“Yesterday was the last straw. No child has to take a standardized test and can opt out; however, this is not what my son was hearing from the teachers. I wrote a notice of refusal; sent it out to his teachers, counselors, and CPS testing director. When i picked him up from school yesterday and gave him a copy of the letter I sent out; it was like a wave of happiness and calm came over him.
“What are we doing to our kids that there is so much pressure on their performance for funding?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sheri,
I’m very sorry that your son was so distraught over the tests. Can you explain a bit about why it’s different this year than past? Who is delivering the messages that got him upset and what did they say?
Thanks.
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Or were there practice tests that upset him?
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Take a practice test for yourself.
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I can’t speak for Sheri, but John I can tell you what happened in the middle-school my kid attended in 6th grade when it was “testing season.”
We live in one of those well-funded suburban districts that always scores high on whatever is being rated, however it is being rated. Still, no chances were taken when it was time for the Ohio Achievement tests in math, ELA, science, and social studies (this was five years ago).
For the SIX weeks before the tests, the entire school scheduled was upended, with extended class bells in the tested subjects, and reduced time in the others. The halls were adorned with posters created by the student government, with messages like, “Eat a good breakfast the day of the test,” and “You first answer is usually the right one,” and other bits of testing lore.
You’d have to be in a coma not to sense the overall sense of growing anxiety permeating the usually happy and nurturing school. Of course kids with anxiety are going to react in that sort of environmental message!
My kid, who is on the autism spectrum, managed to bear up through it all but lost it the Friday after the tests. To let off all the steam that had built up over the tests, the day after was movie and party day. All Day. My kid was DESPERATE to get back to the regular, predictable schedule and could not bear this one last disruption.
You can’t tell tone on the internet, so I can’t tell the spirit in which you asked your question John. I can’t tell if you mean your question sincerely or if you are looking for a specific answer that you can use to write-off the example Sheri gives as an outlier of a case.
I can assure you that there isn’t one specific thing that one particular teacher said, that if only that teacher hadn’t said it, no kid would be so worried and distraught. It’s an entire gestalt.
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Thank you, Barbara. Just trying to understand how much has to do with the test itself and how much has to do with the accountability for students, teachers, administrators, and schools. It seems very much the latter, which is a shame.
Ideally, we could have criterion referenced tests each year without all of the drama. I honestly don’t know whether it’s justified in light of the current accountability atmosphere or overblown.
My children’s school (also suburban and doing very well) has certainly gotten more focused on the tests than they were before, but not to nearly the extent you describe. I guess it depends mostly on the consequences of accountability and how individuals and groups of adults react to it (not making a judgement call here, just observing).
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What I didn’t make clear is that I think what my kid’s middle school was trying to do was frame the Ohio Achievement tests as an fun, exciting challenge, and I imagine that for many kids, that worked. Whatever anxiety they felt, they interpreted as excitement, and the party day afterward was experienced as a fun break and reward. As I said, this all happened five years ago and I have no idea how the middle school is handling the PARCC/Smarter Balance exams (our district is using a combination).
There are lots of things in my life that are anxiety-producing — thinking here most recently of my first root canal, and driving through some snow storms last month — but I am able to cope, for all sorts of reasons. I can recognize and name my anxiety, for one, and talk myself through it, for another.
Your kids John may very well be in the group that can manage their anxiety about the tests, and as a result, your family does not experience the testing season and tests much differently than I experienced my dental work or drives through the snow. Or, maybe their school(s) used a framing device similar to that used by my middle school, and they were caught up in a school spirit-type feeling of “We’re going to crush this test!”
Just because your kids did not react negatively does not mean there weren’t kids in their schools who were overwhelmed. It doesn’t mean that your school did everything “right,” and that in turn, is a reflection that their is a “right” way to do these things.
Probably the single biggest issue I see with discussions on education is that an awful lot of people are not able to separate their experience from the larger picture. As they say, the plural of anecdote is not data!
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The testing situation is unfair and insane! The regimen equals child abuse, and our most fragile children with neurotic tendencies will crumble first. A friend sent me this from Rockland Pencils Down. https://lacetothetop.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/these-are-not-the-tests-we-took-as-children/
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Well, Jonah Edelman from Stand for Children, stated that parents on the left and the right who are against these assessments are ‘noise machines’. How do you like your concerns being dismissed by yet another ed reformer?
http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/if-you-oppose-common-core-testing-you-are-a-noise-machine/
I am suggesting a new rallying cry: BE THE NOISE.
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IMHO, this echoes the spirited—at times savage—claims made by those defending Jim Crow and “separate but equal”—
While there are inevitably problems anywhere, the real and main problem was all the noise and ruckus raised by outside agitators. Folks were getting along just fine—rare exceptions aside—until those with self-serving agendas came in and stirred the pot, with one of the worst things they did being tarring respectable people like elected officials and police departments and school districts and so many others with unfair accusations of base motives and racial prejudice. With the end result that business as usual couldn’t go on, which was ruining things for everyone. *Reminder: their POV, not mine.*
And just like the self-styled “education reformers” today they had open contempt for their critics.
Which is exactly why most of them don’t engage in honest, open and public dialogue with those for a “better education for all.” Such give-and-take is beneath them because the people that hold different opinions don’t count, literally not figuratively.
I know some will think this harsh, but even though the epithets have changed it’s the same old same old. Defend the status quo that advantages the advantaged, and that ensures that the disadvantaged will remain just that—disadvantaged.
Mr. Edelman’s stance is unworthy of those that fought, and are fighting, for a “better education for all.”
That’s the way I see it…
😎
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I think it;s dumb. It will be impossible to modify the assessments if they all dig in and defend the assessments blindly.
The fact is the testing organization already changed one of the security measures in response to parent concerns. There will be more changes. Are they going to dismiss/minimize every single criticism to defend this test? I thought it was experimental and we were all going to learn and grow and modify? Now the testing must be swallowed whole, as is?
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If you’re not in school on a daily basis you have no idea how amped up everyone is about this years testing season. Sure we have tests every year but never before has the person giving the test job depended on how the students do. Never before has the principal’s job depended on how the school does as a whole. Never before has SO VERY MUCH bad press been out there about the test and the jobs teachers do. I can only imagine how much pressure this kid is under. He is old enough to see what is going on in the press, to understand the conversation going on in the halls between teachers. We had so many kids feeling ill during out testing week, last week…no doubt (one school near us had 10% out with ‘flu’…good for them).
“They” claim our kids are behind (they’re not) so why not let them use all this time, we waste testing, to catch up?
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I am no fan of the PARCC test, but I do think some of the test anxiety that continues to be reported may be contributed to by teachers and parents. Some teachers are preparing their students but never mentioning the test, just knowing they are doing the best they can to prepare the students, then the test is taken and results will be whatever they will be. Some teachers and parents, however, are talking about the test so much that they are promoting anxiety in the students. I have grandchildren in CPS and have talked with my daughter about the test quite often. In the school my grands attend, their teachers have barely mentioned the test, they have just done their best to prepare the students and there seems to be much less crying, anxiety, etc., even among students who tend to be prone to anxiety. My daughter said the kids have not even mentioned having to take the test. Don’t get me wrong, I think there are some real concerns with the PARCC test, but the chatter about this test definitely carries over to the students and that does them no good whatsoever. So parents and teachers, while you have avenues for protesting these tests or how the test results may be used, please do not layer this protest and your own anxiety onto your children or students.
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Agree.
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It can be hard to know how much truth to tell, though. My son has a really good english teacher. They write a lot and she gives them a lot of feedback on what they write. She suggests books based on what they write, the whole works. He also likes her, personally.
He labors over essays. It takes him a long time to write one. I told him not to worry about the time limit (because I don’t care if he finishes and he’ll have plenty of time later to get faster) but I didn’t tell him no one he knows will be reading his CC work and he won’t get any feedback.
I think writers need readers, and the truth is you’re just throwing your work into a vast hole with standardized tests. He won’t be getting anything back for all that effort.
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Unavoidable. What did legislatures think was going to happen? Of course teachers are going to be forthright about the tests. It must be done in an age appropriate manner, but being honest about the high stakes is the best policy. Rather than more “blame the teacher”, perhaps the better solution is the question why the system has been so corrupted by flawed, senseless, and irrelevant tests. Teachers are already blamed for poverty, national security, and teen pregnancy. We don’t need more finger pointing.
But as has been mentioned in many posts, when the negative and destructive effects of this “accountability” regime are finally revealed, the Reformers themselves will not take responsibility but instead indict and further demonize the teachers.
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“Don’t get me wrong, I think there are some real concerns with the PARCC test, but the chatter about this test definitely carries over to the students and that does them no good whatsoever.”
Bullshit.
The students need to know that the whole process is COMPLETELY INVALID and that to opt out is the only ethical/moral thing to do.
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“When President Barack Obama called earlier this year for a new federal law to protect student privacy in an era when children increasingly learn online, he called the concept “pretty straightforward.”
But the bipartisan bill to be introduced Monday — which was drafted in close collaboration with the White House — has proved anything but.”
As much as DC is pushing ed tech product, one would think they could write some actual regulation instead of pushing this industry-written bill.
You know, this is NOT voluntary for kids. The testing is mandatory and the online learning is mandatory. One would think that fact would give lawmakers pause, and they would write some real regulations that actually protect students instead of pretending that students in a public school are opting to participate in some kind of laissez-faire “market” where they are choosing ANY of this. Why can’t we get real regulations?
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/privacy-bill-wouldnt-stop-data-mining-of-kids-116299.html#ixzz3VDcmAdAO
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Quick- Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker or the Obama Administration?
“Imagine embracing school choice as the civil rights issue of the next generation” – Ted Cruz
Oh, right. It’s all of them. It’s a “marketplace of ideas” except there’s only one store.
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Please forgive what seems like an odd point, but don’t let rheephorm numbers confuse and mislead.
People willing to put in the time and effort to opt out, and that have the determination to endure the aggravation [I am being polite here] that will be required, will not always—or even often—amount to a huge amount of people.
But they can have a big impact.
I remember as a youngster in the early ‘60s marching around with a few others, sign in hand, in front of a Woolworths. This was Detroit, back when it had a much bigger population and people took pride in it being called Motown. All across Detroit the hiring policy was the same: black janitors and maintenance people in the back of the stores, out of sight, and white sales ladies upfront. I can just hear the choice crowd now: “But sure, what would you have expected in the white suburbs that ringed Detroit where the vast majority of customers weren’t black. C’mon, haven’t you heard Eminem’s ‘Eight Mile Road’?” [8 Mile Road was the dividing line, in popular lore and in widely held stereotypical fashion, of the dividing line between black ghetto aka “bad” Detroit and lily white “good” suburbs.]
So let me make this clear: I’m talking about stores where the majority, and sometimes the vast majority, of customers were black. Now, generally speaking, the reception to the small informational picket line I was walking on was friendly: people in passing cars sometimes honked or smiled, some people walking by would pick up a leaflet and read it and nod a little in approval or even say they wouldn’t shop there anymore until they had fair employment practices, and those entering would sometimes explain that there was something they had to get inside that wasn’t easily obtainable elsewhere but that they agreed with our placards and fliers.
But that wasn’t the majority—nowhere near it—of the people passing and walking by and entering the store. In fact, I remember that occasionally folks would look in our direction, start to get a pleased look on their faces, but then resume a look of studied indifference so that [I am guessing] no one would think they were “taking sides.”
Sound like a lost cause? It didn’t take years. And it didn’t take every single last person in Detroit to change the hiring policies of Woolworths.
The handwriting was on the wall. Woolworths felt the heat. And it was slowly, inexorably, rising, with no end in sight.
Remember that the defenders of the status quo have proclaimed a lot of other movements “lost causes” too. And here’s a reminder from one of those losers:
“The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers.”
William Lloyd Garrison.
Right then. Right now.
And the tradition of those labeled by the establishment as losers but destined for success continues. As the owner of this blog has said, the good guys don’t always win, but we’re going to win this one.
😎
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The reformers use the threats of lost federal funding to get what they want, and what they want is a tool—this seriously flawed and rigged test—that falsely concludes that children, teachers and schools are failing in large numbers. Once they have that false data, they will use it like a wrecking ball. It is obviously all part of the corporate reformist agenda.
A reformation in reverse.
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Doing this to kids is legalized child abuse as far as I’m concerned. Those that brought the new Common core along with the PARCC . . . .will set our kids’ achievement back farther than we have ever seen before. Is that the true goal of all of this nonsense?
All I have done this year is practice test and test. I have to teach the rest of my very hard curriculum by April 13…and the PARCC monster begins again. I no longer recognize my job. No time to teach along with much harder common core objectives . . . . .with the new February and April PARCC tests…..is an impossible task for any student or teacher.
It is heartbreaking to me to know that I was able to TEACH SO MUCH MORE TO MY STUDENTS with the old Ohio curriculum with the traditional end of April – May Ohio Assessment. It hurts me to know that I am teaching my students so much less this year, and I have absolutely NO CONTROL over it at all. I feel awful as I still sit here at my desk. I plan to stay until 7PM tonight, hoping I can try to find a way to get these much harder objectives across to my students. I know it will be an impossible task, since my new objectives are developmentally inappropriate for my students.
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Several years ago, my then 10 year old son had to take the “big state writing test.” Utah has been doing computer testing for eight or nine years now, so this was all computer based. He was VERY stressed out about this test. He would get up in the middle of the night complaining that he couldn’t sleep because he was so worried about the test. So the day finally came and he took the test. A week later, he and several of his classmates were taken back to the computer lab and forced to do the writing test AGAIN, because their essays had been deleted by the program. Parents were never even told that this was about to happen. That’s when we began opting out. I will NOT put my sons through that again.
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Sheri – make sure you send those doctors bills to the mayor with carbon copies to the governor, Arne Duncan, and the President.
It’s time those in power realized that our children are flesh and blood, not automated machines.
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