The Long Island Business News is all over Common Core. It published an article exploring the money trail that leads again and again to Pearson. Unlike Newsday, the major newspaper on Long Island, LIBN is attentive to the widespread parent revolt against Common Core and the testing associated with it.
In this editorial, Joe Dowd begins with a question:
How would you feel if your kids toiled in a factory run by a British company whose overlords were faceless bureaucrats in Albany?
LIBN’s Claude Solnik’s in-depth probe of British testing giant Pearson reveals that, over the past few weeks, your children – ages 8-14 – were asked to labor long hours during a six-day span without pay or tangible reward. In the process, they contributed to the testing factory’s windfall profits.
Meanwhile the state, which forced this down the throats of our children, took federal money to do the company’s bidding. Pearson not only produces the tests but the preparatory and remedial materials necessary to implement them. We pay for this through our taxes and parental angst.
Our kids received no pay, no timely results – merely the pain of mind-numbing test-taking for hours, answering questions with very questionable answers. Incredibly, this disgraceful form of mind management is designed as an evaluation of teachers, not actually their students.
Common Core: Think of it as forced child labor. Our nation fought for laws that made child labor illegal.
If you weren’t intimidated by a system that does not have your child’s best interest at heart, you’d opt out, right? “No thanks,” you’d say. “I think I’ll let my kids take a pass.”
Tens of thousands across Long Island and the state did just that. Their kids were required to go to school and sit in auditoriums for hours with little to do and no substantive instruction.
Where were our leaders at budget time? Why did they cave? If this system is so broken, why don’t we stand up and stop it?
Believe me: If my kids were of that age, I would have declared snow days in April and let them play and ponder the world from home. I’d tell them that when your government stops being responsive, it’s our duty to change it….
Opt out; demand representation: If this be treason, make the most of it.
Curious that some of the legislators who were strongest in supporting Governor Cuomo’s punitive and mindless teacher vengeance plan come from Long Island: Dean Skelos, the Republican leader of the State Senate, and John J. Flanagan, chair of the State Senate Education Committee. Why don’t they pay attention to the voices of the people they allegedly represent?
Read more: http://libn.com/2015/04/23/joe-dowd-casualties-of-common-core/#ixzz3YZovZtnX
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What an excellent editorial! I agree with you, Diane, fair educational reporting seems in short supply at that “other paper,” which made the following article a bit of a surprise to read today. Of course, it was buried deep in the political section, but still I was pleased to find this article. http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/charter-school-backers-are-state-s-top-spenders-on-lobbying-1.10350459
Great to hear this. Keep the momentum of truth rolling.
“I’ve heard it’s boring,” Antshel said. Many kids, including his, see the tests as an
unpleasant interruption in their routine. But they aren’t worrying about
failing or how a bad grade on one of the Common Core tests might impact their
ability to, say, get into college.
“Their teachers have done a nice job of framing the test,” Antshel said. His kids were
told the tests wouldn’t affect their grades and were just being used as another
way to get information about how kids were doing.”
Is that true? Can anyone promoting these tests say how they will be used ? They’re already being used to determine remediation in some colleges and there are plans in the works to use them for high school graduation. I don’t think it’s unimaginable they will be used in other ways, especially given how they’ve been promoted as determinative on “college and career ready”.
It’s strange to make this blanket guarantee given that there are obviously various plans in the works to use the tests for decisions about individual students. I think I’d hold off on making promises to these children, myself. This is, after all, an experiment.
http://www.syracuse.com/schools/index.ssf/2015/04/common_core_test_stress_the_grownups_need_to_chill_out_doctors_say.html
“Is that true?” I’m assuming the “this” is “just being used as another way to get information about how kids were doing”.
If so, HELL NO!
Any information gleaned from this process is COMPLETELY INVALID as proven by Noel Wilson in his never refuted nor rebutted treatise “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 Job !
..I am in Pa and they use use DRC for the testing material. I know they are a company based in Newfoundland. Do you know anything more about this Company?
“Stopping by schools on a doughy evening’ (with apologies to Robert Frost)
Whose schools these are I think I know
Their houses are in the village though
They will not see the Pearson test
And see their schools farmed out for dough
The classroom teacher thinks I jest
Reform without an expert guest
Between the test and Common Core
And iPads, VAMs and all the rest
She spots her pink slip on the door
And curses the value-added score
The only other sounds the sweep
Of janitor broom on hallway floor
The pockets are lovely, dark and deep
And I have promi$e$ to keep
And million$ to make before I sleep
And million$ to make before I sleep
Como siempre EEMB.
EEMB? I am AI (and we know that’s Acronym Impaired)
Eso es muy bien, the Spanish version of TAGO!
Arne Duncan claims it is about civil rights. Well in the process of preserving our civil rights they have let the fox in the hen house. Liberals are wonderfully compassionate but this would not be the first time they have done this. Time for the left to develop more skepticism. Think and think long and hard before acting.
“Liberals are sometimes compassionate just like conservatives. . . “
Comparing the exploitation of students taking the CCSS tests to child labor of the last century sends a powerful message that bears repeating to parents and school districts. It has already been stated so eloquently by the governor that these tests serve no purpose for the students. Why are we wasting so much time and money on something that clearly deserves to go in the “round file?” Someone with artistic skills should draw a political cartoon of children toiling in the Pearson data mines.
Ohio needs to shorten its new state tests and give students, teachers and schools a three year “safe harbor” on any negative consequences from bad scores, the state Senate Advisory Committee on Testing decided last night.
State Sen. Peggy Lehner, who created the committee, said the group of teachers, superintendents and legislators unanimously made several recommendations Wednesday.”
So I appreciate the students all got a last minute reprieve, especially because at least half of them were halfway thru school when this experiment started, but shouldn’t they have told parents there were going to be “negative consequences” from bad scores in the first place?
Don’t we need to back up and ask them what that’s all about? Is Common Core testing just about “finding out where they are”? When did the “negative consequences” debate happen?
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/04/ohio_needs_to_combine_and_shorten_its_new_tests_and_give_three-year_safe_harbor_state_testing_committee_decides.html
“. . . I would have declared snow days in April and let them play and ponder the world from home.”
Yep it’s called home schooling during the testing window. Withdraw your children before and then take them to where they can learn and explore in a truly hands on and not bubble in fashion. After the testing window closes and the districts ships out the tests re-enroll them. They’ll be a hell of a lot smarter and probably happier for doing that versus bubbling in.
Duane, do you think that’s a better idea than opting out, or just one in case opting out is not possible? (is it ever not possible?)
Either one and/or student refusal are all good ways to fight the BS Test. In a way homeschooling has the added effect of causing a little more paperwork and protecting the student from retaliatory actions by the adminimals.
“. . . I would have declared snow days in April and let them play and ponder the world from home.”
In southern California, it never snows but our kids do get snow day (actually a week) where their parents can take them to a ski resort for the snow day/week.
“Pearson Boardroom Banter”
We beat them with a test!
With not a bullet fired!
Completed is the quest
That King George once desired
“Curious that some of the legislators who were strongest in supporting Governor Cuomo’s punitive and mindless teacher vengeance plan come from Long Island: Dean Skelos, the Republican leader of the State Senate, and John J. Flanagan, chair of the State Senate Education Committee. Why don’t they pay attention to the voices of the people they allegedly represent?”
Curious that LI parents aren’t paying attention! LI parents haven’t YET caught on to the fact that the Republican Senate, led by THEIR legislators that THEY elect, are responsible for all these testing ills being visited on their children! Why aren’t tens of thousands of LI parents marching outside Skelos’ office demanding that HE lead the Senate to reverse its anti-child education legislation.
Also, while we’re on the topic of how LI parents who bravely opt-out their kids keep on electing Republicans to the State Senate, who do you think is spending hard-earned state tax dollars supporting privately run charter schools? Who do you think will soon be funding religious and private schools through state tax benefits?
Wake up, LI parents! You can bravely spout and fume and feel proud of yourselves, but until you GET ORGANIZED and throw out the bums who are DIRECTLY responsible for your children’s misery and the wasting of your tax dollars, you are just wasting your time, in my book. Eva Moskowitz is not a NYC problem. YOU are paying her 1/2 million dollar salary with state tax dollars. YOUR votes for Skelos, Flanagan et al are what make Eva’s misdeed possible.
From the posting:
“over the past few weeks, your children – ages 8-14 – were asked to labor long hours during a six-day span without pay or tangible reward. In the process, they contributed to the testing factory’s windfall profits.
Meanwhile the state, which forced this down the throats of our children, took federal money to do the company’s bidding. Pearson not only produces the tests but the preparatory and remedial materials necessary to implement them. We pay for this through our taxes and parental angst.
Our kids received no pay, no timely results – merely the pain of mind-numbing test-taking for hours, answering questions with very questionable answers. Incredibly, this disgraceful form of mind management is designed as an evaluation of teachers, not actually their students.
Common Core: Think of it as forced child labor. Our nation fought for laws that made child labor illegal.”
Parents aren’t supposed to complain? Teacher are ordered not to talk about it? Students will be punished if they don’t comply with the order to take the tests?
All brought to you by the “choice” crowd that denounces “government monopoly schools” (aka “factories of failure” and “dropout factories”) and due process for public school staff and the “soft bigotry of low expectations”—
But when it comes to ensuring $tudent $ucce$$ by all means fair or foul, they are in it to win it. No excuses.
What shameless self-serving hypocrites.
😎
Flanagan also voted against oversight in East Ramapo.
Joe, go one stop further where education is only for profits, how do you feel about charters?