Parents Across America issued a statement opposing Common Core, PARCC, and SBAC.
1) PAA is NOT opposed to learning standards or assessment. We believe it
is important for school communities to have a shared vision and goals
for student learning, and effective tools for monitoring student
progress.
2) PAA is NOT opposed to federal involvement in public education. We
believe that the federal government and the U.S. Department of Education
have an important role monitoring and addressing issues of school
resource equity and student civil rights, and researching and promoting
best practices in education.
3) PAA recognizes that the push for national standards and tests did not
start with CCSS/PARCC/SBAC. We acknowledge the real desire of many who support CCSS/PARCC/SBAC to improve the quality of education, especially for some of the nation’s neediest children. However, we believe such efforts are based on a faulty analysis of the challenges facing public
schools and a disregard for the harmful and ineffective results of
standardized test-based accountability.
We oppose the CCSS because they are not derived from any community’s
shared vision of a quality education. We oppose the PARCC/SBAC
assessments because they are products of the same companies whose tests are being rejected daily as time-wasting intrusions on real learning by growing numbers of parents, teachers, students, and administrators
across the nation.
We oppose CCSS/PARCC/SBAC because we believe that they were designed to allow corporate interests easier access to the “educational marketplace”
and to private student and family data. CCSS/PARCC/SBAC will provide new
ammunition for the attack on teachers and the teaching profession when
scores show even more “failing” students and schools. Ultimately, this
new, even more coercive version of top-down, test-focused education will
deprive too many of our most vulnerable children – children of color,
children living in poverty, special needs students, English-language
learners – of the empowerment and opportunity that deep learning and
strong schools can offer them.
PAA calls for an immediate nationwide moratorium on implementation of
CCSS/PARCC/SBAC. This moratorium will provide states and local districts
the opportunity to step back from CCSS/PARCC/SBAC, allow for extensive
public review and input on these programs, and decide for themselves,
without federal intrusion, if or how these materials will be used.
We believe that, if used at all, CCSS should be considered as
recommendations only in the development or revision of local standards,
and that, if used at all, PARCC/SBAC tests should be voluntary for
schools, teachers and students, and have no high stakes.
For more information, please see our fact sheet, “Common Core Basics,”
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/CCSSfactsfinal5-4-15.pdf and “Annotated References,”
Click to access CCSSbibliofinal5-4-15.pdf
which provides extensive background information on our CCSS/PARCC/SBAC
position.
PAA has very different ideas about what’s needed in education than those
embodied in CCSS/PARCC/SBAC. Please see our position paper, “What is a Quality Education?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you Diane for posting this thorough summary–
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good summary.
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In Illinois, there is a proposal call “Vision 20/20.” The local news articles, while designed to gain local support, are unclear. Could you or someone explain what “Vision 20/20” is? What does “Vision 20/20” envision?
Thank you, Fred Drake
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Parents, teachers, and students are driving a national refuse-the-test movement. Many are opting out of new computer-based Common Core tests developed with the help of $380 million in federal funds.
The biggest threat to the Common Core and these tests lies ahead, in late summer and early autumn of 2015, when officials in about 29 states will know the scores from these tests
The federally funded Common Core tests are named for the two consortiums created to produce them. The SBAC tests are from The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium now comprised of 18 states. The PARCC tests are from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers comprised of 11 states and the District of Columbia.
Both tests produce comparable scores and both are taken by using a computer loaded with “adaptive” software along with Internet access to a lot of questions. The questions are field-tested in order to place them on a scale indicating how difficult they are for students to answer correctly. The adaptive software produces a summery score for each student based on both the number of correct answers recorded and the difficulty of the items they completed.
These tests, just like Common Core standards, assume that every test-taker should have mastered all of the content and skills taught in prior grades. Mastery means perfect command, a fluent, flexible, and appropriate use of knowledge and skill in unrehearsed contexts. As an expectation for every student at every grade level that degree of perfection defies reason. The standards and tests are based on mistaken ideas about student learning and achievement. Further, none of the students taking these tests has endured a complete grade-by-grade program of Common Core instruction. In most states, the start date for instruction based on these standards was 2012 or 2013.
Common Core supporters are feeling some angst about the publication of SBAC and PARCC test scores. Producers of the SBAC tests have their set “cut scores” to report four levels of performance.
Level 1 signals failure. Level 2 indicates “at risk of failure.” Level 3 implies “safe harbor or doing well.” Level 4 means “proficient.” For students in grade 11, only a Level 4 score indicates readiness for entry-level, credit-bearing courses in college–the target for all students at high school graduation.
Here is the sourse of angst for supporters of the Common Core tests. The SBAC cut scores in math are estimated to assign 67% of grade 11 students to Level 1 or Level 2, with most (40%) at Level 1. In many states, students who score at these levels will also place teachers and administrators at risk of being fired, perhaps with the whole school in line for closure. Many schools will assign students even more test prep in math, at the risk of harming students’ love for learning and affinities for inquiries that are not driven by tests.
The cut scores for English Language Arts are estimated to place about 59% of students at Level 1 and Level 2, with about 32% at Level 1. Students with these scores are certain to be in the same boat, receiving more test prep. In states like Ohio that guarantee proficiency in reading by grade three, 62% of students are likely to fall short, up to 82% if the criterion for reading matches SBAC’s Level 4 definition of “proficiency.”
Proponents of the Common Core and tests are worried about the political fall-out when the test scores are released. They should be worried. Gurus of spin at the American Enterprise Institute suggest that news about the scores should avoid crisis rhetoric about poor performance. They recommend framing the testing outcomes as just another step on a path “to continuous improvement” in student learning.
That soft “slow-and-steady-as-we-go message” provides cover for policy makers who want to delay high stakes decisions based on these test scores but who still want to use the scores as a baseline for judging gains in performance for the following year. This delaying tactic may buy time “to reset expectations for learning,” but it will not stop the obsessive use of test scores and relentless test prep than now dominates life in many schools.
For advocates of the “one size fits all” standards and tests, the comparability in scores from SBAC and PARCC tests means this: Every state that signed up for this grand and nearly maniacal experiment in standardized education will be rated as winners or losers by these supposedly “objective tests.”
The governors and the state education officials who signed adoption papers for this grand experiment in standardized education may be out of office, but current officials will be questioned about the results. Handling the political fall-out will be tricky, especially with an election season heating up, budget problems in many states, and the dueling minds and messages of politicians (notably Republicans) who support or condemn the Common Core and tests, and those of both parties who have no mindful views but can spout one liners from spin provided to them.
A reduced federal role in policies is sure to be ushered in with the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but tests are still a prominent feature of the new version. In addition, state legislation for “accountability” based on test scores, together with big investments in tech for online tests, point to “staying the course” policies in many states, especially with foundations pouring money into messaging campaigns to keep this grand experiment from tanking (e.g., April 15, 2015, as Why Colleges Should Care About the Common Core, EdWeek Commentary).
The release of the test scores should be of help to the opt-out-of-testing movement. About 22 of the states that signed up for the Common Core and tests between 2009 and 2011 have already opted out. Others are ignoring or modifying the Common Core and choosing different tests. Some are relying on tests already in use.
These defections and the growing opt out movement from SBAC and PARCC tests, have caused alarm among those who have developed and supported the Common Core.
Who were these “visionaries?” From the beginning in 1999, the agenda for standardized education came from corporate CEOs, governors, representatives from major testing companies, and a few foundations. These few self-appointed experts, many with limited or no credentials in education, created as an organization called Achieve to take action on the following agenda:
1. establish alternative paths to teaching, recruit the most “talented,” raise standards for certification, and target professional development to higher standards
2. align curriculum to rigorous state standards and tests
3. provide extra learning time and help for low achieving students,
4. train school leaders to improve instruction, manage organizational change, reward the best teachers with pay for performance, hold schools accountable for results
5. intervene in chronically failing schools and expand public school choice and charter schools
6. benchmark and compare standards, tests scores and other data state by state and with other nations
7. align college admission standards with high school standards and expand the number of companies that will use student academic records in hires. Achieve’s history
published by Achieve (http://www.achieve.org)
It is no accident than many features of this agenda were placed into The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, signed into law by President George W. Bush on Jan. 8, 2002. Meanwhile, Achieve and like-minded groups continued to work on action steps 5 and 6– creating reports that were rarely peer-reviewed but useful to constructed a narrative for the Common Core, tests, and the rest.
A collapse of this sixteen-year campaign to standardize so much of public education—pre-k to higher education, including teacher education—may not happen overnight, but I think the odds do favor a reversal..
I think the dismantling will be accomplished incrementally, state-by-state. It is being aided by the great work of FairTest in tracking absurdities and glitches in testing, and by scholars affiliated with the National Education Policy Center (currently housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education). The NEPC experts not only deconstruct the misrepresentations in think tank reports marketed as “research,” they have conjured “Bunkum Awards” for “nonsensical, confusing, and disingenuous education reports produced by think tanks.”
The social media and informed political satirists are helping–most recently John Oliver’s over the top and clearly fact-checked demolition derby on the Common Core and excessive testing.
Last, but not least, are independent activists who are opting out with shouts and posters and sit-ins and banners and social media blasts. And bless the bloggers and citizen journalists who are well informed and who will not shut up, many gathered by the Network for Public Education and the history maker who hosts this blog.
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This is good information. Thank you.
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Nice summary. The 2016 primaries start in February. It will be interesting to see if the negative reaction to the grand reform experiment affects early campaigning. The timing is about right. Many purple state politicians are eyeing tough fights. Education usually takes a back seat to appropriations, military, and taxes, but maybe all those angry white suburban moms, black rural dads, white rural moms, etc… will rouse from their slumber when those test scores say their kids aren’t as good anymore according to some official in Washington. Angry parents can be a force to be reckoned with. Especially when both left, moderate, and right are looking for who is responsible. If I was a Reformer, I would be very nervous.
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Laura Chapman, great response! Loved Oliver’s piece too! My fear is that the “ed reform” strategists will be gaming and working the testing system to ensure that this year’s testing results in various states (whether PARCC or SBAC show better results than the reality (in anticipation of quieting the growing opposition to testing). Remember when NYC (under Bloomberg and Klein) showed gains year after year on testing until it came out that scores were getting higher because of a few additional but easy questions put into the tests each year? Bloomberg needed to “prove” how wonderful his education policies were to put his “reforms” into place. I only hope that the dismantling of “ed reform” will flow like an avalanche. Many higher up heads need to be held accountable for this mass destruction of the educational lives of our nation’s children. Now there is a use of the term “accountability” I can stand to hear.
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Funding for the consortium activities may come to a screeching halt. Both have subcontracted for much of the test development. In other words, there are opportunities for some modification of state testing “preferences” as the current contracts expire.
The current focus among promoters of this agenda is higher eduction, especially admission policies. The idea is to have the highest administrators approve SBAC and PARCC tests as guarantors of college readiness, by-passing ACT and SAT and the academic freedom of faculty to set admission policies. This appears to be an easy sell to the CEOs of public institutions and networks of these. About 200 have signed on. I will wager that these are token agreements, much like the agreements of states to the Common Core, because the CEOs have neither the time or interest in learning anything about the tests.
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“. . . strategists will be gaming and working the testing system to ensure that this year’s testing results in various states (whether PARCC or SBAC SHOW BETTER RESULTS THAN THE REALITY than the reality (in anticipation of quieting the growing opposition to testing).”
The results SHOW NOTHING in regards to “reality”. Those “results” are the result of faulty logic, false conceptual basis (epistemological and ontological) and complete disregard for logico-rational thought. When one starts with irreality one ends up with “results” that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WITH REAL REALITY.
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Finally went to the EPAA archives and downloaded the full Wilson paper in its 255 page entirety for my reading list. Thank you, Senor Swacker!
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I have been told by the Missouri DESE office that there is a ten day turn around between the time a teacher “signs off” on his/her class’ testing. This means that when a teacher says her class has finished testing, scores will be available to the teacher in ten days. Those scores should be in before the last day of school. Missouri does the SBAC.
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“Missouri does the SBAC”
Are you sure about that!?
Were there some districts/schools that “previewed” or were there some that were the guinea pigs??
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You can call DESE and ask them when test results will be in and that’s the answer you will get.
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Are you sure? Tests are farmed out to third parties for grading, then states or districts must cobble together a report from the multiple choice and written portions. The logistics alone will take more than ten days. In Oregon test results won’t be back until September – only a score, not a profile of weaknesses and strengths.
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“Level 1 signals failure. Level 2 indicates “at risk of failure.” Level 3 implies “safe harbor or doing well.” Level 4 means “proficient.”
And the 1-4 rankings are all 90% of parents are going to pay attention to, because that’s what people do with simple numerical rankings- they use them as a proxy for the whole picture.
If there’s nothing in place to prevent “she’s a 1” then that’s what’s going to happen. They’re handing people an easy, reductive label and then mumbling something vague about how they really shouldn’t use it as a label. Yeah, that’ll work.
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“Level 1 signals failure”
Gotta luv the “F” word usage. I thought we were supposed to be civil in our tone in these discussions. Oh well, FƱ<k being civil with the students!! Little Johnie and Janie are effin FAILURES!
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Laura, I’m curious what your source is for this. In Wisconsin, the descriptors for the four performance level are:
The summative assessment provides information about what students know and can do in relation to Wisconsin’s College and Career Ready Standards. Each score will fall into one of four levels:
• Advanced– Student demonstrates thorough understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills for their grade level that are associated with college content readiness.
• Proficient– Student demonstrates adequate understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills for their grade level that are associated with college content readiness.
• Basic– Student demonstrates partial understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills for their grade level that are associated with college content-readiness.
• Below Basic– Student demonstrates minimal understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills for their grade level that are associated with college content readiness.
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My source is the SBAC website with some color coded bar graphs and discussion of the process of setting cut scores based on 2014 field trials in 21 states.
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Perhaps the member states are taking the agreed upon for levels and applying their own descriptors.
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It doesn’t matter what names/labels they put on the various levels. It’s all a bunch of hoooey!
And those names harm many students. We might as well just honestly (in the logic of educational standards and standardized testing thinking) say to the student “You are an effin FAILURE. Now get over it, get some grit and pick yourself up by your bootstraps”
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amen.
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I have not heard this said before, & it sounds spot-on to me: “These tests, just like Common Core standards, assume that every test-taker should have mastered all of the content and skills taught in prior grades. Mastery means perfect command, a fluent, flexible, and appropriate use of knowledge and skill in unrehearsed contexts. As an expectation for every student at every grade level that degree of perfection defies reason.”
I had begun myself to wonder if ‘mastery of everything’ was the goal, just based on cut scores set at NAEP-proficient. The casually-informed might accept ‘mastery” of math & eng standards (fits ‘back- to- the- basic- 3R’s ideas). But standards are in the works for other subjects. Whatever happened to B’s & C’s? Whatever happened to some people are great in one area, mediocre in others?
Are there cites that spell this out in the CCSS/testing lit somewhere, or is this more your conclusion that ‘mastery’ is baked in?
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That is the ignorant absolutism of Reformers. Like the 100% proficiency standard of NCLB. A student could enter my 11th grade classroom at a 6th grade skill level. I could go beyond Avenger-level superpowered teacher, devote time and money and bring this student up several grade levels, yet the “objective” standardized test will not even recognize this success because the student has not reached the skill range measured by the test. To Reformers, this student and teacher are failures.
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MathVale: you have just demolished the foundational ideology [should that “e” be an “i”?] of the entire corporate education reform movement.
Of course, when it comes to the zealots of charters and vouchers and privatization, reality is an unwelcome guest.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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KrazyTA, thanks for your comment! My experience so far is that for all the Reformer proclamations about objective, science based measurement, logic and rational thought that challenges the testing regime is ignored. To Reformers, “fact” is a four lettered word (but apparently not “test”)..
Another issue that bothers me occurs often with disadvantaged students which I have yet to hear a sound explanation. If a student scores lower on a post test compared to a pre test, what does that mean? Logically, the student has somehow lost knowledge the teacher never taught them. It makes no sense.
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It’s an “i” KTA.
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Today, the educational meaning of the word “mastery” is defined by a student’s ability to answer questions on a test or pass muster on some rubrics devised to rate more complex challenges such as writing a persuasive essay. The skills and content demanded by the questions are usually conventional, rule- bound and in little chunks. Example. Effortless use of proper punction to end a sentence. effortless addition, subtraction, and so on.
The definition of mastery is rarely explicit but is one of the most common and “automatically” used signals for expected grade level performance. Grade-level performance, in turn, is a concept not often defined but based on thinking that a normal curve exists for every dimension of every subject taught to a cohort of students who are grouped by a narrow range in ages.
My definition comes from work in arts education. It owes much to a discussion of the concept of mastery by Harry Broudy in an anthology called Language and Thought in Education. The proviso that mastery is demonstrated in unrehearsed contexts means that test prep will compromise a demonstration of mastery.
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“Whatever happened to B’s & C’s?”
Unfortunately that abomination of a method of assessing student learning is still around.
“Whatever happened to some people are great in one area, mediocre in others? ”
Oh, there still there, nothing has changed in that regard, tis human nature that some like some things and others prefer other things.
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You gotta read Jersey Jazzman’s latest. The cunning of Peter Cunningham: Jersey Jazzman blows away the fog:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/05/education-reform-wrong-conversation.html
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I wonder if the vilification of big bad Pearson in this PAA statement plays into the teacher union stereo-type of being anti-market forces and so not mainstream thinking.
Another concern about this PAA statement is that it does not offer an alternative to CCSS and so again it will fall on deaf ears.
Should states return to some kind of inspection system where schools are visited? The idea is that if the school has good disciplines, good teachers, etc. then results will follow. This is how Finland and some other countries achieve good results without standardized testing.
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“Should states return to some kind of inspection system where schools are visited?”
I think that would be better than far-off decision makers just looking at numbers.
Alternative to CCSS doesn’t matter for states who have dropped it.
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“Another concern about this PAA statement is that it does not offer an alternative to CCSS and so again it will fall on deaf ears.”
It’s a state-by-state issue, can’t be answered for 50 states– the CCSS attempt to do so landed us in this mess.
My easy solution as a rank amateur (just a parent & educator 😉 … Here in NJ, where by average state stats we have ranked high for many decades, bring back the excellent NJ Core Curriculum of the early ’90’s. Continue to update them via teacher team as in days of yore., Find better ways to implement the Abbott decision in bringing $ & effort to lower-performing schools. Other states whose supposedly needed better standards, just copy ours. They’re still online 🙂
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I am sorry to ask who is behind the organization PAA (Parents Across America).
Would that be lawyers, hedge fund leaders, political lobbyists homemakers with millionaire/corporate spouse or acquaintances…?
Please some readers in this website or Math Vale can find the BIO of the founder and its members and share with me.
Have any organisations issued MORATORIUM in the past few years regarding STOP or BOYCOTT strenuous and INVALID testing scheme on children K-2, 3-8, 9-12?
Their writing and meaning sound suspicious as per the quote:
“”The great mass of people…will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”
I hope that NPE is “”THE SMALL ONE””.
GOOD GRIEF! Back2basic
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m4potw: It is very easy to find out “who is behind the organization PAA?”–you can Google Parents Across America & go to their website–they’re as transparent as clean glass! The short answer, though, is this group is totally legit–one of its founders is a former Chicago parent (she just moved, but she was at the N.P.E. Conference in Chicago a few weeks back) who started the grassroots organization P.URE=Parents United for Responsible Education, which advocated & did much for CPS students (& spawned other parent activist groups).The other founders are also the real deal, parents we’ve known & trusted (but their names escape me, & if I leave to look it up, I’ll have to rewrite the whole comment). Anyway, I subscribe to their newsletter, & regularly receive e-mails from PAA. Diane, perhaps you can name some of the founders for m4potw here.
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Thank you rbmtk. Yes, I google PAA. Surprisingly, members’ profiles did not match to their expression in this thread.
IMHO, if you agree with the quote: “The great mass of people…will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.” then, I would be sorry to say that PAA will fall in the “”great mass of people, who more easily fall victim to a big lie””
It is very simple to express NO to invalid and strenuous TESTS that terrorize or threat the SELF-ESTEEM of students, teachers, and community with label “”FAILURE”””.
I do not like to repeat any assumption or what if situation when the transparent protocol and procedure is hidden from public. Especially, we now learn and acknowledge that all “”INTENTIONAL”””groups are created and bought out with “”DONATION”” from business corporations who want to privatize TRADITIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION for PROFIT.
PAA, please be firm with corruption and any tactful strategies to privatize AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION, because working people run out of time to play game and to dance around with all delayed strategies from big corporate. We opt out and we demand LOCAL CONTROL with reasonable resources that nurture PUBLIC EDUCATION from local tax money. Back2basic
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I read the PAA statement. It’s full of mushy, feel good nonsense. Nothing about standards, nothing about STEM proficiency. I love to read but loving to read is not nearly enough to get a job.
I’m no fan of the private testing agencies, but our students, even those in wealthy enclaves, do not compare well to students in other countries which do have standard curriculums and testing.
We don’t need to start from scratch: there are any number of countries, such as Norway, from which we could copy. If Common Core, a multi-state, not a Federal, system has flaws, fix them.
Re testing: I was tested regularly throughout K-12, college, graduate school, credential programs. If there are too many tests, or they measure the wrong things, fix them. “Teaching to the test” implies a disconnect between the curriculum and the tests. So fix one or the other or both. No special or extra time is needed to prepare for tests (other than test-taking strategies) if they measure what is supposed to have been taught.
Our public schools, especially in poor neighborhoods, have many problems that can be solved only with more money (yes, taxes) to fix the physical environments and deal with the special problems of teaching hungry children growing up in violent or dysfunctional neighborhoods, but those children need to learn the same skills as their wealthier neighbors.
Children in small rural schools deserve to be taught the same subjects, should be expected to learn the same skills as those in elite private schools. They should have the same opportunity to thrive as adults in any city or state or country, limited only by their innate abilities or interests. That cannot be accomplished without standardised curriculums.
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Dd9000,
Our students who are not in poverty score as well as the best in the world. The new tests require 8-11 hours to test reading and math. When you were in elementary school, did you ever take 8 hours of tests over a six-day period? I didn’t.
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see my reply to you below
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If I believed there was going to be any focus and support on the standards from the people promoting the tests, I might meet you halfway.
Except I don’t believe that. Can Common Core supporters offer parents some promise or guarantee that “The Common Core” won’t become “The Common Core Tests”?
Given how standardized testing has exploded in public schools as a result of earlier reforms, are there safeguards in place to prevent that from happening with this reform?
Can you point to dedicated (additional) funding by states on the standards? Not the tests. The standards. “Small rural public schools” will fail on the new standards without additional support. They don’t have the tax base to raise additional funding and MOST of them have lost funding in the last decade.
If “the Common Core” becomes solely focused on the 1-4 or 1-5 student measure, and there are unintended negative consequences of that for students, will there be a decade of denial before anyone takes action like there was with earlier standardized testing regimes?
We’re 17 years into ed reform in Ohio. There’s a track record. Public schools get the mandates but they don’t get the tools or support. How has that changed with THIS reform?
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Glad you implicitly admit CCSS is a curriculum. I believe you mean Finland, as last I checked, Norway is having similar problems as ours with a system like ours.
Tests only measure what is on the test. Nothing more. You have to try to establish a causality between test data and learning – after you define learning, of course. This can be a leap of faith and far from the exact science Reformers lead people to believe. It remains a primary reason high stakes tests will always remain a diagnostic tool requiring human interpretation and judgment. To do otherwise, is to hurt children. In that sense you cannot “fix” a test. It is like saying you can “fix” a stopwatch so all kids can run a 4 minute mile.
I agree children need to be taught skills, though not always the same way or same set. Children are different. A student considering engineering needs a different background in mathematics than a student considering jazz studies. Would you require the engineer to be an expert at advanced musical improve on multiple instruments? Why?
Your argument “we all took tests” is the tired, nonsensical reasoning of we can’t stop doing the wrong thing just because what we have been doing is wrong. I, too, took many tests and have found them useless annoyances rather than meaningful. The Bar exam has never prevented bad lawyers, but has most certainly denied good lawyers.
As far as a national curriculum like CCSS useful as a test prep tool, I encourage you to really read the standards. Then create the mental image of lemmings going over a cliff.
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dd9000,
If you don’t mind answering my questions:
Are you a parent, teacher, student or otherwise connected to public education? If so, How long have you been affiliated with public education and what subjects/grade level do you teach or deal with?
TIA,
Duane
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“That cannot be accomplished without standardised curriculums.”
That can’t???
Please enlighten me how “that” can be accomplished with standardized curriculums?
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The majority of parents and other citizens are still not aware of the misuse of these tests. When the information spreads, we’ll see an end to this insanity.
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m4potw: Apologies to Diane–you are soo busy–I looked up other founders–co-founder–Leonie Haimson, President of NY grassroots/public school advocacy group Class Size Matters–group that successfully fought InBloom’s gathering of their children’s data, chasing them out of NY. C.S.M. also marched on Pear$on’$ Manhattan campus in protest, after “The Pineapple & Hare Question”–w/their kids, some dressed as pineapples & hares! Also, Karran Harper Royal, New Orleans parent & outspoken defender of public education. As aforementioned, though, you can look up everything you need to know about PAA. As I said–the REAL deal–NO hedge funders, NOT CCRAP or corporatist defenders, NOT NCLB/RT3 apologists.
Exactly the opposite, & thank goodness for them.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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Your post is full of common-sense thought which in brief suggests – if the current CCSS/testing scheme has practical problems and is not appropriately geared to excellent educational goals/outcomes, fix it.
The American educational community does not lack for a body of excellent standards, curriculum schemes, and pedagogical means to accomplish same. In best-performing states (whose most affluent areas, as Diane notes, rank tops in the world)– prior to NCLB et al reforms generated in DC– you can observe political/ legislative systems which worked to gather the best educational input by forming teams of educators from around the state, complete with feedback loops from local districts. This would include NJ & several New England states. Once upon a time, New York & California, too.
The ‘problem’ has never been a lack of good standards and practices, as evidenced by the high-performing areas of the country. The problems have always been: state funding formulas which favor an elite already positioned to succeed– not just by background but also by ample job market, strong communities, and all the other things which come with prosperity. And (b)dysfunctional social services/ safety net in the needy areas.
The PAA statement addresses only the issues with the current CCSS/assessment scheme. Those issues are entirely due to reinventing the wheel from the top down. New standards created under the guidance of a panel of politicians, think-tankers, tech & ed-corp reps/ consultants without reference to successful state stds, nor ed research, nor input from teachers on the ground, nor consultation with any local community nor feedback loop for revisions. Assessment handed off to select ed-testing companies via drafts of the standards as they were being created. Political paths devised to impose rather than solicit buy-in by communties. School districts with a fait accompli that fails to address improving public ed in poor areas– rank with a host of new problems including most of the ones you mention.
The exhortation to “fix it”: who? and how? Taxpayers and educators find themselves at the mercy of a new ed politics in which they have no voice at all.
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Above a reply to dd9000
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Well said. Thank you.
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“The ‘problem’ has never been a lack of good standards ”
OH Hell ya it has been. Standards are the “problem”. There is no such thing as an educational standard, never has been and never will be. They are a false belief and bad word usage as a standard implies “measurement” of some physical reality. The teaching and learning process involves physical realities–billions of neuronal firings/second, multitudinous hormonal/electro-chemical processes, thousands of prior genetic and environmental factors, concurrent physical and attitudinal surroundings to name just a few.
And yet most insist that a “standard” can be formulated to define and address this multi-multivariate physical reality. Such simplistic reductive inferential thinking belies rationo-logical comprehension.
To those who believe in the duendes that are educational standards I say, “I’ve got some great ocean front property for sale cheaply over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri.”
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Ed reform corruption inquiry in Chicago could get more complicated. There are “ties” to City Hall.
It could be systemic corruption or it could just be that they’re an incredibly tight-knit group and they only hire/contract within their group, which is horrible, but not illegal.
When people in Chicago hired Emanual did they understand they were really getting Rauner? They seem to to be a team, these two, and this is BEFORE Rauner was governor.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-school-contract-investigation-swanson-20150507-story.html#page=1
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Tests
“The United States has a long history of using intelligence tests to support white supremacy and class stratification. Standardized tests first entered the public schools in the 1920s, pushed by eugenicists whose pseudoscience promoted the “natural superiority” of wealthy, white, U.S.-born males. High-stakes standardized tests have disguised class and race privilege as merit ever since. The consistent use of test scores to demonstrate first a “mental ability” gap and now an “achievement” gap exposes the intrinsic nature of these tests: They are built to maintain inequality, not to serve as an antidote to educational disparities.” May 5, 2015 Network for Public Education…
Tests
The basis for “credentials”, degrees…
Tests
Useful to “prove” a point: “Our students who are not in poverty score as well as the best in the world.”
Tests
Bullshit …Standards by Noel Wilson
Tests
A component, of the technology of culture production, established by autocrats, pretending to share “power” with broader segements of the population, whose goals they
do NOT share.
Tests
Used as an illusion to obscure the evident contradiction between words and deeds,
ideologies and outcomes.
A real measure of purpose: Does “it” produce or enhance the society we want?
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Thank you Guru NoBrick.
Yes, the foundation of education is not based on test, BUT the input of knowledge from teachers like inspiration, compassion, fairness, motivation and teaching style and the yielding output shown through students’ action of career choice at their best INTEREST, innate talent, and perfectly being considerate for all sentient being (= living harmoniously and peacefully with surrounding wherever they choose to live.)
According to Guru NoBrick, I have completely lived and learned in my past 60 years from both occidental and oriental world through all of those definitions of TESTS.
In short, I love to partially repeat the post from señor Swacker, about Noel Wilson’s accurate analysis of tests:
1) : http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”
2) “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.”
That is the bottom line of everything about TESTS.
In this website, I am sure that no VETERAN educators can be fooled with any TWISTED mind or TACTFUL strategy from GREEDY and MANIPULATIVE BUSINESS CORPORATIONS.
I accept the dichotomy that exists on the Earth with certain balance of appreciation and respect for the joy of learning and growing individually.
All bullying tactics IN PARTICULAR PUBLIC EDUCATION shall be defeated with people power movement from its initial stage WITHOUT A DELAY. Back2basic
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Up to fddrake comment from yesterday. I, too, would like to know about this ILL-Annoy “Vision 20/20,” as I’ve heard/read nothing about this. Sounds bad, though–like Chicago’s “Renaissance 2000,” or an ILL-Annoy version of RTTT. Surely, it’s politically based…& that CAN’T be good for ILL-Annoy children, parents, communities, educators & public schools. (If we have any left by the year 2020–oh, wait, THAT’s the plan!! No public school Left {not Behind} at ALL.)
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