Governor Andrew Cuomo doesn’t understand why students should opt out of state testing, because the tests won’t count against students. Instead, they will be used to rank and evaluate teachers. So, he wonders, why should students opt out?
But the governor is not recognizing the consequences of his statement. As one blogger asked, why should students take the tests if they are meaningless?
That is a good reason to opt out. Why should students waste their time on tests that are meaningless?
But more important, if the students are not motivated to do their best, if they know the tests don’t count, why should teachers be evaluated by their students’ lack of effort? Taking a test is not like stepping on a scale. The scores vary depending on many factors, not least of which is motivation. If students go into the tests knowing they don’t matter, why should they try?
How will Governor Cuomo feel if his plan fails most teachers? Maybe happy. But will he be responsible for harming the state’s entire public education system? He should be.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The politicizing of education is counterproductive as we all know.
May this be added also.
If you can get your hands on a copy of “The Nation”, May 11th, do so and read the article: Incarceration vs. Education. It adds still another vitally important dimension to this whole political mess and verifies so much of what Dr. Ravitch and these bloggers have been saying for a long time. I HIGHLY recommend it.
I would like to get a copy of the article mentioned above. Is there anyway to post a link to the article? Thanks!
“No one expects the Vamish Inquisition”
The Duncan Stool is not meaningless — its purpose is to maintain the teaching population in constant terror of losing their livelihoods to any witch way the gavel falls.
To this purpose, it is actually something of a disadvantage if the scores correlate with any objective value in the individuals scored. That would allow the population a measure of security and a winning strategy. It is necessary to prevent this from happening, all so the Vamish Inquisitor can dole out rewards and punishments with a perfectly free hand.
Well….if teachers can be declared as racketeers why can’t students be declared as evaluators? It seems that state lawmakers and courts can do all sorts of trickery with laws these day.
We should have assumed this all along. The tests are just a vehicle for the corrupted curriculum.
Cuomo is so hellbent on harming teachers and pleasing his puppet masters that he cannot get his rhetoric straight anymore. Isn’t is something how, when they get caught in their lies, its a real eye opener. Let him keep coming with his gaffes, and let the parents see/hear with their own eyes/ears how this man is nothing but power hungry and beholden to his donators. Every time he speaks like the moron that he is, we get some positive traction.
I opted my kids out of the tests exactly because they were tied to teacher evaluations. He is taking away local control of MY school district.
This blog is spot on. In trying to persuade parents that the test results won’t count against their children, he has highlighted the randomness of test results that are indeed high stakes for everyone else.
You have to wonder what the way out of this is. Is there an argument for some kind of school inspection system to replace these awful tests?
My eighth grader refused the state tests and used the time to study for the NYS Regents exams that DO matter and are NOT meaningless to her! A much better use of her time and a more accurate of the effectiveness of her teachers.
Tests for students are NOT an accurate “measurement” of the effectiveness of teachers.
Regarding Governor Cuomo…Or should we call him the Wizard of Albany?
“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” spoke the Beast, in a voice that was one great roar.
the-wizard-of-oz-44297“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
https://dcgmentor.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/the-wizard-of-albany/
It has been said that Cuomo was not exactly a star student in law school. He even had difficulties passing the bar. I would guess that his reasoning skills were not exactly stellar then and it is quite evident in this article that his reasoning skills are lacking now!
Perhaps they “raised the bar” so that he could slither under it . . .
Tennyson said, “Let us hush This cry of progress until ten thousand years have passed.”. ..I would add, let us finally recognize that the arrogant politicians and corporate/business leaders with all their convictions are really the least qualified people in society to inform educational reform.
It seems Cuomo is hell bent on the false notion that it was the teachers unions that put parents up to opting out. So now he’s trying to drive a wedge between teachers and parents. First Merryl Tisch claims on national television that parents are caught in a labor dispute, without admitting that it was Cuomo who put them there by using their children as pawns. Now Cuomo claims the tests don’t matter, so take them anyway, as if parents were only worried about their precious little ones being labeled failures (a la Duncan’s white suburban mom quote).
Every step of the way, these guys demonstrate how utterly out of touch they are with families and schools.
Holy crap that Cuomo is dumb as bricks.
Yes I just learned from the bald piano guy that Cuomo had to take the bar exam at least four times (failed four times ?) and did he ever pass ? Most takers that are graduates of accredited law schools do pass.
This is amazing — the son of an enormously powerful politician couldn’t pass the bar exam….perhaps he is blaming his law school professors (or even his previous teachers) and taking his anger out on teachers in general ?
Somehow those teachers did fail to reach Cuomo, and still are….could be he’s too dense, or maybe he has been ruined by the money-men who rule over him.
According to this blogger, the “Cuomo failed the Bar a bunch of times” story is a myth:
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/05/its-good-to-hear-andrew-cuomo-passed.html
Under the Cuomo plan, a group of spiteful students can now almost guarantee a teacher they don’t like will be fired: all they have to do is conspire to bomb the tests Do we want to give morally-undeveloped teens who are experimenting with their bullying power this much power over their teachers? I teach six groups of students a day; with most of them I have good rapport. But I cannot imagine putting my career in the hands of my Period 3 class where a couple of socially-powerful mean kids have drawn many other kids into their sphere of influence.
Already happening in Utah, where part of a teacher’s evaluation is now based on student and parent evaluations. I’ve had several students admit to me that they gave really low ratings to teachers they didn’t like.
One of the teachers joked that he should bring donuts to all of the kids the day before the evaluations are done. He’s not completely wrong.
You’re just reminding me of twin adolescent boys to whom I taught French II & III when a babe myself– a more flippant & obnoxious pair could not be found; I taught them despite themselves. Perhaps, had we had such a thing as student evaluations, they would have given me F’s. Some years later I received a longhand letter on fancy stationery from one of them, informing me that their family tour of Paris had been a success, led by the two precocious French-speakers; it was a thank-you note!
The point being (sorry for stating the obvious): it is hard indeed for a teacher to self-evaluate, given the lack of credible feedback (And we mostly all agree that scores on state-mandated tests are not credible feedback). It is much harder for a student to understand the value of what he has (or has not() learned until he’s had a chance to put the learning into real-life context.
I know many students who have said they would like to get their teacher “in trouble” or fired by bombing tests. The tests mean nothing to them. Will there be a punishment for students & parents who willfully bomb tests and brag about it to their friends? It’s a sickening and disgusting turn of events in this profession. Teachers are pawns of billionaires, hedge fund managers, students, parents, administrators. The whole thing is sick. The best advice I have for young people who want to be teachers is RUN THE OTHER WAY!
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
My concern is for the children. Suppose their teacher does get fired. Will they blame themselves for not doing better on the exam? Why place such a guilt trip on young children.
Of course, there’s the other side of the coin. Say a child isn’t doing well in a class and blames their teacher for low grades (instead of taking responsibility for their lack of effort). Should that child be given the power to “take down” a teacher by purposely doing badly on the exam?
And finally, there are children who will never pass a test which is developmentally inappropriate – such as those with learning disabilities, testing anxiety, language or cultural disparities, etc. Why should their scores determine a teacher’s effectiveness? How will they fare with a never ending line up of teachers who cannot achieve the expected miracles. And who will the Districts get to volunteer for this career ending suicude mission?
ESEA requires annual teacher-evaluating tests in 3-8 + h.s. Taking your point, I am particularly concerned for the kids in primary [3rd, 4th, 5th], and possibly 6th. For these kids, teachers are parent-figures. It is a time of life when kids– even those whose own parents are not good role-models— are searching for parental-type role-models. To give this-age kid the idea that his performance on tests carries power over those folks is a harmful perversion of normal child development. This is most particularly true for a poor kid, perhaps homeless, who desperately needs a sense of security. A solid public school with a caring teacher may provide that. To inject the idea to this needy kid that his test score could cause his teacher to be fired? It turns his world upside-down
In those few words, Cuomo has told New York the real purpose of the tests. The tests are meaningless to students, but very meaningful to the teachers. The purpose of these tests is to find a way to fire a certain percentage of teachers every year so pensions become a meaningless, fake promise. No teacher will be able to last long enough to collect any type of defined benefits pension. Eventually teaching will no longer be a career, but a revolving door. He does not understand that if his plan succeeds, very few will want to be teachers. Who would invest in a career that gives one no monetary benefits. Idealism dies once one can no longer pay the bills.
You’ll have more job security working at Macy’s.
liberalteacher,
I agree with your prediction that “teaching will no longer be a career, but a revolving door.”
When that happens, the TFA model of what it is to teach will have become the norm. How sad.
I’m not so sure that he doesn’t understand the implications. Whereas idealism can not be measured, the financial savings from not needing pensions can be (ac)counted. Not all that counts can be counted, so why bother concerning one’s self with idealism.
The tests are meaningless to both students and teachers. Additionally, they are “mean” to both in every possible way.
To disruptively innovate teaching into temporary, at-will employment is a major focus of so-called education reformers; aside from grooming privatization leadership cadre, it’s one of the main purposes of TFA.
They are not meaningless if they evaluate teachers and let me tell you why. We recently left our public school and enrolled in a charter because the instruction at our public school became increasingly negative. If teachers jobs are on the line inevitably they will place greater emphasis on testing and place pressure on children who struggle with the material. They are not meaningless because they are destroying the relationships between teachers and their students. It is a pressure cooker waiting to blow.
This is either a deliberate attempt to scew the scores so he can fire more teachers or he is stupid. Either way it seems the teachers have a reason for a law suit. There will be monetary losses when students deliberately relax or decide to deliberately fail and their teacher is fired.
He reminds me of principals for whom I have worked who could not fire teachers without being overruled by the courts. These particular principals were incompetent at evaluating, providing remediation, and then following through (It isn’t rocket science).
Actually, he will wind up with the teachers he wants. Those who will work at a school long enough to start their other businesses. But they won’t have to do anything but take attendance. (I saw this in NYC 46 years ago when the city was desperate for warm bodies to cover the classrooms.) After all, who really cares?
Something to think about.
In my school district students were given baseline and summative tests and the their test scores were used EXCLUSIVELY to measure teacher effectiveness in delivery of curriculum. The scores had absolutely NO impact on individual student grades. Guess what? As soon as the “cat was let out of the bag” about these meaningless tests for kids, students INTENTIONALLY bombed on them. A few students simply wrote “FAIL” acrioss their bubble sheets. Sadly, teachers were held accountable when this happened and there were grievances up the ying-yang over the unreliable practice. Then administration and the school board floated the idea of ANONYMOUS teacher surveys!!! Can you imagine this crap? So, either Cuomo is a complete moron and hell bent on ruining teacher careers using meaningless tests or, he’s just playing games to see how far he can stick a knife in the backs of hard-working New York public school educators. Either way, just wait until the MASS EXODUS of Tier 3 and 4 retirements in the next 3-5 years. Then, watch how folks BOLT out of NYS. Talk about unintended consequences. This subversive governor is wrecking public school education and NYS public schools. He thinks that it will be a “positive” legacy. Guess, again! What is happening in NY is disgusting. No wonder folks are leaving NYS in droves.
I think it’s interesting politically because by “meaningless” he meant “not high stakes for students”.
They’re marketing these tests as NOT high stakes for students and that comes very close to a lie.
The tests are clearly intended to be high stakes for students, once the various “safe harbor” provisions run. They’re not honestly explaining these tests to parents and they’re making promises they can’t keep.
The marketing campaign has been so manipulative. They’re dribbling out information in careful stages so parents won’t have the full picture until the national testing is fully in place and impossible to get rid of.
It goes back to trust. They don’t trust the public with public schools.
Zeitgest?
China Announces It Is Scoring Its Citizens Using Big Data
Big Brother Loves Big Data …
“Government and big internet companies in China can exploit ‘Big Data’ together in a way that is unimaginable in the West”
Yeah, right. It’s “unimaginable” that governments in the west would ally with big private sector actors in ways that harm citizens.
That NEVER happens 🙂
I think I could find at least 5 examples from last week’s news.
The professor needs to get out more.
There are even more examples–not just from now, but history. When corporations work along with government to harm citizens, it is called FASCISM.
Maybe John Oliver can explain the test & punish problem to Andrew & Merryl as he did to the world on Last Week Tonight: Standardized Testing.
I was a very bright kid – TAG, great GPA – and while I tried, I really didn’t care how well I did on standardized. I am sure I would have put forth more effort if the tests would have had any bearing on my academic future.
* standardized tests
John Oliver rocked it last night on his segment on testing. Thank you Florida parents who helped with the Florida part of the story. Unfortunately the Pineapple story was the only thing he can legally show with the new coverup laws protecting Pearson.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=J6lyURyVz7k
So:
> The students are subjected to months of test prep to the exclusion of art, music, PE, etc.
> Then the students are subjected to many hours of many days spent taking the actual tests.
> The test passages and questions are 2 grades above the student’s grade level. More than one answer for separate questions can be correct, as well.
> The cut scores are questionable.
> Teacher evaluations will be closely tied to test scores.
> The tests are meaningless to the students.
This is as transparent as a newly cleaned window. The game is rigged and the kids are being used to further the agenda.
“Meaningless Governor”
Governor says he’s meaningless
So no one should be mad
No reason for misbelieving this
So “good” is really “bad”
Yet another dumb governor…does this never end?
How are people in such high positions so completely clueless?