The computer server crashed in Montana, where students were taking the SBAC Common Core test.
People in Missoula were not happy about it.
“It’s been three years in the making to get kids to test, but network issues have caused a delay.
“It’s frustrating. Testing, in general, is something that does change the instructional day and it changes the environment of what students are doing,” said Director of Technology and Communication with Missoula County Public Schools Hatton Littman.
“Littman said that with an interruption like this, schools have to reorganize the schedule for the day, talk with students and tell parents what happened.
“The preparations for testing don’t come cheap either. Here’s a break down from the state of Montana — just to hire enough math teachers to teach the new curriculum cost over $2 million. The curriculum, textbooks and materials cost another $2 million. Professional development is another $1 million and costs to administer the test itself are around $1 million.
“I think it’s kind of a waste of money in the sense that I think we should trust teachers to teach,” said Missoula resident Erik Kappelman.
“Other residents say there are pros and cons to state testing. It’s good to see what students are learning but with unexpected inturruptions like this, it’s not worth it.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” said Missoula resident Siri Wieringa.
“I think we should just test people the old way, with paper and a pencil,” said Clinton resident Kris Ritchart.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, “why not trust the teachers”? Why not trust that the grades one gives in a quarter and valid, meaningful and reliable? Why the need to retest concepts at the end of the year, when they were thoroughly taught and tested during the year? 10 years from now will students retain more because they were forced to take EOC exams, versus just the tests throughout the year? Are these “summative of a summative” end of year exams creating better long-term memory and more prepared “productive citizens”, or are they useless and redundant instruments that prove nothing, that was not already demonstrated during the learning that occurred throughout the year? Should we demand and require students to come back 2 years after high school and retest them to see what they remembered?
They aren’t even really end of year exams, they are more like 3/4 year exams, at least that’s the case here in NYS.
” Why not trust that the grades one gives in a quarter and valid, meaningful and reliable?”
Because those “grades” contain all the errors and falsehoods at the epistemological and ontological conceptual base as any standardized test that render them as COMPLETELY INVALID as said tests.
To understand why read and understand Noel Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted treatise which logically destroys the foundations of these educational malpractices “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.”
The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Great Stuff Duane, agreed! I always appreciate Foucault and Didier’s analysis of how those with power define the rules of the game; that a score is somehow an indicator of the future “value” one will be (as the proverbial “good and productive contributor to GDP”, whatever that is?). So, after one gets a PhD and decides to “drop out”, buy a farm and live off the land, they are now a “loser”, a phantom, an anomaly, a negative contributor to GDP, an outlier that our tests never predicted, someone the corporate capitalists can never make money off of, a_____? Or, did they become the most fulfilled and happy person on the planet, refusing to be conditioned and defined by our quantitative means and ends (they are the Neo, breaking free from the Matrix)!!!
“I think we should just test people the old way, with an apple” said Eve
LOL.
You better believe that it is a waste of time and a waste of money. It is sickening. It sure makes a lot of sense…Let’s make a teacher’s curriculum much harder with the new common core and then let’s make sure that teacher has a lot less time to teach because each state will unleash “The PARCC Monster” in February and April. The PARCC Monster will greedily eat up every bit of your instructional time that you need to teach a much more difficult curriculum. I am positive that everyone can see that I am weary, exhausted, and extremely frustrated. The “PARCC Monster” is being unleashed in my school tomorrow for the next three weeks. It was just here five weeks ago!!!!!!! I have had so much less time to teach this school year. I mourn for my students. I mourn for my lost career.
Not only does the test waste time and money, the results are useless. It’s not just the computer glitches that cause the problem. As has been stated before, the tests are written above the grade level it purports to measure, and it is a poorly written test. It serves no diagnostic purpose.
Sad Teacher: I humbly ask pardon to disagree a bit with you…
You mourn because you have a heart and a soul and brain. Your students are lucky to have a caring and compassionate person as a teacher. These are painfully difficult times but your students need to have people like you with them.
They would be so much worse off if they were left stranded in the darkness without someone like you to shine a little light.
Perhaps you are feeling a little like Mother Teresa who once said:
“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”
But don’t doubt that even under trying circumstances you are making a difference:
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” [Mother Teresa]
Keep making ripples. Others will make ripples too. And ripples plus ripples plus ripples add up.
For example, until very recently the very idea of opt out was ridiculed.
I don’t think the naysayers are laughing now.
For a little pick-me-up, google “Sam Cooke” and “a change gonna come” and “youtube.”
😎
I would have thought that the tests would be criterion-based assessments of concepts taught during the semester and worded at grade level as defined by a scientifically/cognitively developed readability measure.
I had been teaching for five years before I realized that developers of many curriculum materials were teachers without any expertise in reading and language. It was amusing when the author of a short story contained in a major company’s text book disagreed with the answers provided in the teacher’s addition to the publisher’s questions at the end of the story. I can only imagine what goes on today.
It’s always about finding ways to milk education, to use it as a way to raise revenue by adding requirements like new testing, computerized testing, new teacher certification requirements. In the end there is very little research and empirical evidence but a lot of courting of businesses to fufill these “new” needs in education. Very sad that this is what those of us who can’t afford private educations are subjected to.
OMG…those sad kids in Montana. Facists are in charge.
Computers, typical.
Dave: Open the testing system, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
That was sooo long ago, year 2001???
Never forget what happened to Montana Power and Light.
Why not trust the teachers? The questions is “who doesn’t trust the teachers?”
It’s clear as day that those who push increased testing and testing hours care not for education, (that includes murdoch and gates for that matter) and they are only pushing an agenda that serves non-righteous purposes (purposes which are still being met even when they apparently lose money or hhave a glitch in the system) for when a school, teacher and student misses even one chance to truly educate and truly be educated by a “glitch in the system” or “recalls in technology” or “server crashes” etc these poor, selfish, ignorant, self-tormented, love-less behemoths and their agendas are fulfilled. They can’t just come out and say “hey, we’re gonna control education institutions, teaching and content!” they can’t just come out and say “we don’t want empowered, creative, inspiring teachers who we can’t trust to do our bidding without question” but rather they couch their ideas and actions in pc terms (“frustrated that their philanthropy hasn’t done more to improve student achievement”) and philanthropy, and philanthropy is EXACTLY, exactly the opposite of what they are doing.
Increased and Unnecessary testing and excessive focus on Technology in education are both an expression of distrust, Distrust in the teachers by TPTB(the powers that be)
Teaching is one of the most sacred professions of mankind. It’s power lies in the power of individuality, basic human love, experience, skill, knowledge, creativity, self-expression and wisdom that the teacher develops and through the kindness and basic human love of their hearts transmits to the next person. This power though requires conditions of creative space and license, room to grow, and those conditions this day in age are being smothered out by distrusting forces, that distract with excessive focus on edu tech, cookie cutter core content and edu standards and mind-numbing sedating testing.
For a teacher to be a powerful educator they need creative license vis a vis curriculum, content and assessment in their classroom AND they need to understand the psychological makeup of the kids and transmit their content accordingly. Without empowered teachers how can we have empowered students who can go out and make a great life for themselves and others?
For those looking to return the art back to teaching, for those devoted deeply responsible artists of teaching check out T1 and T2 at http://tajatajataja.com/
For those with their eyes on tech in edu, on the future, check out T3 at http://tajatajataja.com/
wishing you all Peace, Harmony and Prosperity
Alan W Abrams