Mercedes Scheider notes that NPR produced a segment about PARCC that glossed over its woeful situation and promoted it as a way to compare students across state lines, ignoring the fact that NAEP has been doing since 1992.
The story gushes over PARCC, but never mentions the number of states that have dropped out or the protests against its validity.
The NPR piece states that PARCC tests are “considered harder than many of the tests they replaced.”
“Harder” is not the same as “better.” Since I wrote a ten-chapter book in ten weeks, I could require my sophomore English students to do the same, and that would indeed be harder than what they are used to, but it is not necessarily better.
It sure would make me look like a “rigorous” teacher. And if anyone complained, I could just brush it off as their not being willing to challenge students to r a i s e t h e b a r.
I could even set a passing cut score, say, if they produced even half of a book. Forget any side effects of such pressure, any self-esteem issues, any loss of the joy of learning, any loss in developing a spectrum of interests and pursuits.
If it cannot be measured, it does not matter. End of story.
Those pushing Common Core have made a lot of airy promises about Common Core being the bar-raising solution to all that ails American public education. And since Common Core has been set up to justify itself, no matter the outcome– no matter if test scores rise or fall– no matter if state education reputations rise or fall in the PARCC-comparison rankings– Common Core as that K12 education center will be absolved of any fault. Its ideologues will still be able to deflect any unseemly results as “poor implementation” and any test-score-founded improvement as “good implementation” and proof that Common Core was what lower- and middle-class America needed all along.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NPR is also referred to as “National Pentagon Radio.” I used to listen to NPR until I realized this is accurate as NPR has run stories on how common core has been relevant and beneficial to schools, teachers, and students as well as stories and ads about online schools, courses, etc.
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NPR is beholden to Gates’ money; “Public radio journalists find themselves navigating an ethical gray area as they receive funds for reporting on education from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has become an influential and controversial force in steering national education policy.
The foundation has supported public radio and TV journalism for years, backing coverage of global health, another priority for its philanthropy, as well as education. Within the past year, it has extended that commitment with $1.8 million in support to NPR for expanded education reporting. It also gave $639,000 to American Public Media for multiplatform coverage of education technology, to be featured on Marketplace’s broadcasts and website. In previous years, the Gates Foundation has also supported Frontline, PBS NewsHour and Teaching Channel, a nonprofit producer of public TV programming.”http://current.org/2014/09/gates-funding-spurs-doubts-over-pubmedias-impartiality-in-education-reporting/
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Public media also take a lot of Walton money. It was shocking to hear Ira Glass criticize Arne Duncan on this week’s program of This American Life, so rare compared to the usual total support of RTTT, etc.
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NPR = National Public Relations… for corporate America.
I listened to this piece of propaganda sludge yesterday in my car. I won’t expound upon my response in Diane’s living room.
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Diane, since the NAEP only samples a few students from each state, how does a given school know how its educators are performing? How does an individual teacher know how he/she is performing? How does each student and their parents know how each student is performing? If students fall short in 8th grade but not in 4th, how will we know which grade is causing the issue if we don’t test annually?
We understand why principals, teachers and administrators want to blame any issues on the nebulous “system” instead of bearing accountability. We know there are many great educators. If all of our teachers were highly effective (we know many are), then we clearly would have better outcomes. If you cannot demonstrate that all of our educators are of equal skill and it’s just outside factors that are causing the issues, then you cannot rationally argue that annual testing should be eliminated. That would be tantamount to saying that Michael Jordan was just as responsible for the 1985 Chicago Bulls’ abysmal results as his inferior teammates. The Bulls won because they improved their roster. That is all we want in education. We need to improve our roster, across all states and districts, period.
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“…how does a given school know how its educators are performing? How does an individual teacher know how he/she is performing? How does each student and their parents know how each student is performing? If students fall short in 8th grade but not in 4th, how will we know which grade is causing the issue if we don’t test annually?”
You assume that standardized testing will provide the answers to all of your questions. That is a faulty assumption to begin with. When you start with a faulty assumption, not only will you not find the answers that you are looking for, you will never even figure out the right questions.
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“The Bulls won because they improved their roster.” Sure. By jettisoning the under-performers and bringing in talent to surround Jordan. WE CAN’T DO THAT IN EDUCATION. Can I get that through your skull, Virginia????? Students come to us as they are. We can’t remove them in order to find “better” students. Charters do that all the time. Public schools can’t, and shouldn’t. What do you propose we do with the “failing students?” We can’t shunt them aside, or it would be a permanent underclass, which is NOT what we should want in a democracy. You refuse to acknowledge that.
Now, do you mean “under-performing” teachers? Where do you suppose we are going to get the Dennis Rodmans and Scottie Pippens of teaching to support these mythical Jordans of teaching? The Bulls could offer all kinds of money for players. No one is willing to offer that kind of money for teachers. Furthermore, not only are teacher salaries taking a nosedive, but, simultaneously, teachers are constantly threatened with losing their jobs for specious reasons, laid off in favor of fly-by-night teachers who only stay a year or two, being evaluated on the actions of other people, and denigrated by people like yourself. That is NOT the way to attract teachers.
So you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. A society can’t “fire under-performing students,” and isn’t willing to do what it takes to truly support teachers. So, LAY OFF.
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Not to feed the troll, TOW, but Virginia has previously held up Tom Deflate-gate Brady as an exemplar, too. I guess VASGP thinks teaching is like this:
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Threatened Out West, of course I’m talking about the teachers. Not that most of teachers are bad but some are. And since we compensate teachers way more than anybody realizes ($64K/yr for starting masters and $130K/yr for top teachers isn’t chump change), we just need to advertise private sector equivalent pay to get more and better teachers.
Betsy Marshall, standardized tests are but one means to verify the teachers’ performance. The fact that you dismiss objective data says a lot about your view of the world. Opinion over facts, eh?
Christine Langhoff, nobody should be silenced. Arizona was wrong for trying to remove a critic. In fact, more transparency would serve everyone well.
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Sometimes I can’t stand it. I have to respond to these trolls. I try to ignore them, but I also don’t want their crap unchallenged.
Love the video, by the way.
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Since when are teachers compensated 68 K a year? Most of us make between 30 and 50 K, except in some of the more expensive states.
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Funny that NPR gets public tax dollars (CBP) but doesn’t represent the public…it only represents it’s biggest outside investor…the bill and melinda foundation (or BM foundation as I now call it). No teacher with a ounce of ‘grit’ should ever donate to NPR.
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We need a petition… To remind NPR that they were once am affiliation of journalists… Anyone know how to get those started?
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I looked at quite a few of the comments. Many were not about the tests at all. They were about the Common Core or the general idea of having national standards. People who were not obviously engaged in education seemed to think national standards were OK, People who were dealing with the standards in classrooms were sharply divided along lines that seemed to be related to the level of instruction–high school teachers favoring them and lower grades less than enthusiastic, with special ed teachers really off the walls angry at the “one size fits all” thing.
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“People who were dealing with the standards in classrooms were sharply divided along lines that seemed to be related to the level of instruction–high school teachers favoring them and lower grades less than enthusiastic, with special ed teachers really off the walls angry at the “one size fits all” thing.”
This is exactly the dynamic in my large suburban district here in NY.
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Rhetorically, do those teachers who favor the standards understand they pave the way to schools in a box, like Bridge International Academies?
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High schools as institutions are more insulated from scripted instruction required across entire grade levels. Potential negative effects of excessive standardization are less immediate and less acute. Some high school teachers are sensitive to variations in curriculum in the lower grades rolling up to their level with students having gaps depending on who their teachers were previously, but that is a local issue not a Common Core issue.
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I think that another reason that high schools are not as upset with CC is because of the way it’s set up. The writers decided what graduating seniors “needed” and then worked backwards from there. So the standards are a lot less developmentally inappropriate in high schools, fairly inappropriate for middle school, and wildly inappropriate for elementary school.
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NPR will say anything to insure the Democrats and the current administration looks good. It is a sign of the times. Neutral journalism is fading.
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NPR just goes where the money leads them. How can you explain the heavy contributions from the Walton Family Foundation?
Neutral journalism is strong and under attack, because the [rich and] powerful don’t want to have the facts perpetuated and the rest of us can’t handle the message — say, a hard line piece from Amy Goodman — because it prompts us to choose to take action or not. The only reason it is fading is because we tune out or turn it off.
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On July 8, NPR aired a story about how standardized tests are scored. It was incomplete and only hinted at what is really going on. I wrote to them and asked where the rest of the story was and why they weren’t reporting on a multitude of important issues such as VAM, failing education reform, lack of accountability for charter schools, etc. I have yet to receive a response from Mr. Sanchez who reported the offending story. Here is the link:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/07/08/420559529/unveiling-how-standardized-tests-are-scored
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Too often even the better journalism outlets get sold a “bill of goods” that simply isn’t true. When you take the devil’s money, you dance to his tune. I am saddened that such a good, quality radio station would allow itself to be influenced by the “pretty words” and spin, and money, of course, that the Gates Foundation uses to get support. Perhaps it would be a very good idea if these comments were forwarded to NPR……
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NPR has been LOST to GATES WORLD.
We are NOW the UNITED GATES OF AMERICA.
Thought MUST be controlled, and $B are not an object.
Folks, this will get worse.
Gates has endles $Zill, endless time and endless bottom feeders swarming to get his droppings.
Scary times!
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You hit the nail on the head. Bingo.
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I agree. Send our comments to NPR.
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Follow the money trail! NPR can not be trusted to report independently. They have been bought by Bill and Melinda Gates. What a shame.
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Correct, they are not a voice of the people rather a voice for those by which they are underwritten.
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Common Core is going all out to protect and promote its brand. See what happened to an Arizona teacher who had the temerity to submit an op-ed to his local paper registering his objections to CCSS:
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2014/06/30/az-dept-of-education-to-anti-common-core-teacher-what-a-fcktard/
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What happened to Brad McQueen is utterly shameful.
No question, it has happened multiple times before Common Core (I’m thinking in particular about a certain central Virginia school district which bills itself as “innovative” while its central office “leaders” are all engaged in Groupthink and label those who question as troublemakers). And it will continue to happen anytime and anywhere there are small minds in position of authority.
Still, the Brad McQueen story illustrates how the “powers that be” can muster their forces against any criticism they don’t like.
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You’ve summarized the situation well.
Unfortunately this fiasco is one more top-down diktat that is doomed to fail in its advertised objectives, while yet being acclaimed as succeeding–until the next destructive top-down directive is forced upon the schools.
What we are seeing is a sort of “reduction to the absurd” proof that top-down diktats do not work and only add to the damage done by past diktats.
This is especially true of educational mandates that:
(a) fail to get sustained, honest input from experienced working teachers during policy-formulation;
and also
(b) ignore and suppress attempts to provide meaningful feedback that could be used to correct and modify policies during their implementation.
Imagine a situation where surgeons were ordered to operate in ways decided by people who had never spent much time (or any time) in the operating theaters.
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I think I heard this and they did mention how many states had dropped out. I forget what they said it started with but I remember they said it was down to 7. The implication was that it was down to 7 because it was a more difficult test. That may BE the reason for many of the states that dropped out.
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You are correct. The report said that half of the states signed up, but now only seven remain. The reporter did not then go back and say, “I guess that we can’t compare across state lines with only seven states participating. He did say that politicians are having a difficult time staying the course because, “who wants to preside over a state when test scores plummet.”
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Yup. That is the report I heard. It was factual and it
bought into the standards and testing philosophy.
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Ruth, to my knowledge, both PARCC and Smarter Balanced have the same wildly unrealistic passing mark (cut score). Both cause a huge drop in passing rates.
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Hey Diane, what happened to my comment on this story? It had two good links to NPR funding articles. Posted yesterday and disappeared. —DLP
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I think any reply with more than one link requires moderator approval before appearing. So sometimes they take longer to show up.
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Repost them please!
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Or, you could blame the students for not having enough “grit” when they underperform.
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