As you probably know, No Child Left Behind saddled the schools with a heavy dose of annual testing from grades 3-8, and Race to the Top required states to use those test scores to evaluate teachers. Testing is out of control. The curriculum is narrowed, especially in schools that enroll low-income students, where the scores are lowest. Educators have cheated to save their jobs, and some lost their jobs, their reputations, and their freedom because they cheated.
No high-performing nation in the world has annual testing or evaluates teachers by test scores. The current revision of NCLB retains annual testing unfortunately. However, Senator Tester (ironic name) has written an amendment to change annual testing to grade span testing: once in elementary school, once in middle school, once in high school. My preference would be to have no federally-mandated testing at all, given how abusive this policy has proven to be. But grade-span testing is far preferable to annual testing.
Learn here how to support his sensible proposal. Write your Senator now. There is no time to waste.
Those who say that annual tests are needed to protect children of color, children with special needs, and English language learners have not looked at the racist history of standardized tests. These are the children most likely to be on the bottom half of the normal curve that governs standardized tests. They are the very children most likely to be labeled and stigmatized by the tests. What children need most are reduced class sizes, a rich curriculum, experienced teachers, fully resourced schools, and the opportunity to learn. This is what they need, not more testing. A test is a measure, not the goal or purpose of education. And it is a flawed measure.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I do not support standardized testing.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
“Senator Tester (ironic name) has written an amendment to change annual testing to grade span testing: once in elementary school, once in middle school, once in high school. Learn here how to support his sensible proposal.”
Even grade span testing is COMPLETELY INVALID as proven by Noels Wilson.
” A test is a measure, not the goal or purpose of education. And it is a flawed measure.”
No those tests are not “measures”. They are assessments and really bad ones at that as you suggest with “is a flawed measure”. The flaws are so grievous as to render the whole process COMPLETELY INVALID, again as proven by Noel Wilson.
OOPS!! Forgot to add the Wilson study summary: “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.
Ms Diane Ravitch,
You state “Educators have cheated to save their jobs, and some lost their jobs, their reputations, and their freedom for cheating.”
Is “freedom for cheating” a new constitutional right?
C’mon, Raj, you’re smarter than that. Try rephrasing it like this: “Educators have cheated to save their jobs, and some lost their jobs, their reputations, and their freedom because they cheated.”
If we did not have high stakes testing with dire consequences for teachers, they would not feel desperate and cheat to save their jobs or income.
No wonder such a dumb question comes out of cynicism.
cynic |ˈsinik|
noun
1. a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons: some cynics thought that the controversy was all a publicity stunt.
• a person who questions whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile: the cynics were silenced when the factory opened.
2. (Cynic) a member of a school of ancient Greek philosophers founded by Antisthenes, marked by an ostentatious contempt for ease and pleasure. The movement flourished in the 3rd century BC and revived in the 1st century AD.
I do not think I qualify as a cynic as per your comment.
Not if you simply rely on dictionary definition. Glad you know your place.
BTY, did you change your name? Interesting.
Did you see the CC contractor is offering a 90 minute reduction in testing and one rather than two sessions?
Good job, anti-testing advocates. You forced a debate and made them improve the test in order to keep the contract.
That’s effective advocacy and much, much better for kids than CC testing cheer leading and rubber stamping contractors’ assertions on what they can and can’t do
They work for us, not the other way around
Youngsters will have 8-1/2 hours rather than 10 hours of an invalid crummy PARCC test … more to be done by anti-testing advocates.
They condensed PARCC test, didn’t “improve” it.
Love that last paragraph, so very true!
Is there some point where the VAM faction of the ed reform movement will admit the teacher rankings drove increased testing?
How are they credible on anything else until they admit what is obvious to everyone?
Why isn’t Duncan held accountable for this? The Obama Administration did it.
I’ve never seen anything in my career so demoralizing to teachers than VAM and teacher rankings. My students and I earned a point for the school district on the Ohio grade card last spring on our passage rate. I looked at my VAM report, and my heart sunk. My value added was only considered “average” even with a 92% passage rate. I’ve never seen my career more discouraging and more depressing than it is right now. The new common core, which is two grade levels ahead of where it should be, and the crazy PARCC monster have made sure the rest of my teaching career will be extremely difficult. My heart goes out to all of the young teachers. I don’t know what you are going to do under these present toxic circumstances.
Thanks for posting. I sent my letters. This is a really good way to stop the madness. Let us know what the chances are of passage.
I would support this if teachers, childhood development specialists, parents and professors of education are involved in the writing process. Otherwise it will be just more of the same old same old. I would like to see a bill written which would require all of the parties mentioned to be a part of the writing process. I would like to see a law instituted which will guarantee transparency of all new public education initiatives and reform. I would also like to see a law which limits influence of non profits over K-12 education policy. I’m amazed that these laws have not been put into place already. I’m astounded at how easy it is for non profits with targeted agendas to come in like cowboys and shoot up existing educational structures in order to institute their shoot from the hip experimental ones. It is just crazy and wrong. Come gather lawyers and legislators! Our children need your help!
I think this is my favorite of all your blogs to date! I have experience teaching in an urban setting with many disadvantaged children. That was in North Carolina. At the time any child who failed either the reading or that end of grade test would automatically fail the grade (3rd grade) because it was considered to be a “gateway” year. I taught a child one year who was doing 3rd grade for the 3rd time due to that regulation. She came from an impoverished family and they moved around quite a bit, which of course affected her chances of passing that test each year.
When the NAACP made a statement that the tests help our children who are the most in need, they had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. In my 15 years of teaching I have seen more damage done to the very children they represent due to NCLB legislation. I was very disappointed to read their statements. We need to spend money helping these communities rather than pouring billions into corporate tests that measure very little and provide nothing. That money could make such a difference in communities throughout our country if we had people in office who knew how to do it.
I’m also grateful to the testing activists because it has opened up this great debate on what we SHOULD be doing in public schools and parents are a part of it.
I think it ends up much broader than which test or how often, and that’s all to the good.
I THINK I sent my letters through the NPE site. I found the interface strange and confusing.