Archives for the month of: August, 2015
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Arthur Goldstein: Frank Bruni Bemoans Teacher Shortage, But Why Is He Surprised?

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
22

Frank Bruni is worried about the teacher shortage. Over the few years in which he has been a regular on the Néw York Times opinion page, Bruni has written column after column demeaning teachers and teachers’ unions and asserting that American kids are “coddled” (like the 51% who live in low-income families and the 23% who live in poverty, and the rest who spend their days in test-prep drudgery, competing to stay in the shrinking middle class). He praised the film “Won’t Back Down,” which demonizes teachers and unions and celebrates charters. The same producer was behind the fact-challenged “Wating for ‘Superman,'” which launched the privatization movement.

Now Frank Bruni frets about the teacher shortage. Veteran teacher Arthur Goldstein says Bruni doesn’t have to search far for the causes. He could begin by looking in the mirror. Bruni, he says, is part of the problem:

“As it happens, Bruni himself is a prominent teacher basher. He believes passionately in junk science rating of teachers and can’t be bothered to do the most fundamental research. Who cares if the American Statistical Association says teachers change test scores by a factor of 1-14%? What’s the big deal if they say use of high stakes evaluation is counter-productive? He knows some guy who likes it and that should be good enough for anyone. Bruni does other important work, like spitting out press releases for Joel Klein’s latest book.

“But now he’s amazed no one wants to be a teacher. Naturally, being a New York Times reporter who has access to pretty much anyone, he goes right to the source, the very best representative of teachers he can muster:

“Teachers crave better opportunities for career growth. Evan Stone, one of the chief executives of Educators 4 Excellence, which represents about 17,000 teachers nationwide, called for “career ladders for teachers to move into specialist roles, master-teacher roles.”

“They’re worried that they’re going to be doing the same thing on Day 1 as they’ll be doing 30 years in,” he told me.

“This is what Frank Bruni interprets as vision. Let’s make one thing clear–Evan Stone is not a teacher. He was for a few excruciating and miserable years, but he learned all he could from that dead end job, and started this big old E4E thing with Gates money. Now he gets to make pronouncements to distinguished NY Times reporters like Bruni. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck actually teaching children. Naturally Bruni doesn’t ask us what we think. After all, given our obvious lack of ambition, what could we possibly know?

“Bruni has gala luncheons to attend, fois gras to critique, and he can’t be bothered. Still just because Evan Stone’s E4E got 17, 000 people to sign papers in exchange for free drinks doesn’t mean they actually represent those people. I happen to know, for example, a UFT official who signed the paper just to see what was going on at one of those meetings.

“In fact, there’s no evidence to indicate anything E4E says is based on anything beyond Bill Gates’s druthers. Their support for junk science and calls to actually worsen already tough working conditions border on lunacy. Their acceptance of reformy money and embrace of a reformy agenda mean they do NOT represent working teachers….

“Yes, Frank Bruni, there is a teacher shortage. And yes, there are reasons for it. Some reasons are your BFFs like Joel Klein, Campbell Brown, and Gates-funded astroturf groups like E4E. They spout nonsense-based corporate ideas designed to destroy public education and union. You talk to them and can’t be bothered with us.

“Another big reason is mainstream media, which hires people like you. When people read nonsense like the stuff you write, they may not know that fundamental research is something you consider beyond the pale. They may not be aware that you have no intent or interest in talking to working teachers. They may think we don’t love our jobs and we don’t love working with and helping children. They may not know that merit pay has been around for 100 years and has never worked, and they may think that Evan Stone knows what he’s talking about. “

Categories Teachers

Jack Covey: Teacher Jail is an Outrage

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
10

Reader Jack Covey explains the injustice of “teacher jail” in Los Angeles.”

“Wow, the article from THE NATION
about teacher jail and Dr. Stevenson
is devastating. It was published in
April 2014, when Dr. Stevenson was
still languishing in teacher jails,
and written by one JoAnn Wypijewski.

“It deals with Deasy’s exploiting the “sex” and “child molestation” angles as a dishonest way to crush innocent veteranteachers—the highest paid naturally—and simultaneously destroy teacher unions’ ability to protect innocent teachers unjustly accused of something

http://www.thenation.com/article/179605/where-shame-policy-inside-las-teacher-jail

“Here’s the opening paragraphs:

————————————————————————-

JoAnn Wypijewski of THE NATION:

“Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as ‘teacher jail’: she doesn’t belong there.

“And she doesn’t.

“Days before being removed from her music classes in December and ordered to spend her workdays isolated on a floor of the LA Unified School District (LAUSD)HQ with other suspect teachers, Stevenson, a legend in South LA and beyond, was at the White House directing the renowned Crenshaw Elite Choir as it sang for President Obama.

“She has not been officially informed of the charges against her. Unofficially, Stevenson is said to have swept off the choir to perform first in Paris and then in Washington without permission—an absurd claim, since parents had to consent, and Stevenson has conducted such foundation-supported field trips untroubled for decades. District authorities say only that Stevenson is under investigation.

“If she were a de facto kidnapper, police should have been called long ago. But, no, this is not about criminality or even misconduct; it is about a larger game of control being played by School Superintendent John Deasy. That game owes quite a lot to sex, because a few years ago a scandal tripped the panic button, which Deasy has kept his finger on ever since, exploiting justified public anger over a classroom pervert to pursue a war on teachers.

“The political question, then, is not just whether Stevenson belongs in teacher jail, but what this institutionalized containment regimen, this sub-bureaucracy of punishment, exists for in the first place, and how the specter of sex is the cowing excuse to go after anyone.”
———————————–

And it goes on from there… Read the whole thing at:

http://www.thenation.com/article/179605/where-shame-policy-inside-las-teacher-jail

Categories Los Angeles, Teachers

Jeb and Obama: Partners in Education “Reform”

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
32

Stanley Kurtz has a very interesting article at the conservative National Review, calling out Jeb Bush for pretending that he does not really support the Common Core standards and that he is in favor of local control. At the Republican debate last week, Jeb was questioned about his strong support for Common Core, and he equivocated, trying to leave the impression that he had no particular allegiance to Common Core. He said, “I don’t believe the federal government should be involved in the creation of standards, directly or indirectly, the creation of curriculum content. That is clearly a state responsibility.”

As Kurtz documents, Jeb has been one of the loudest cheerleaders for Common Core, even though federal involvement in its creation (requiring its adoption as a condition of eligibility for Race to the Top funding) and in directly subsidizing Common Core testing (PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment) arguably violates federal law. Federal law explicitly bans any federal interference in curriculum and instruction, and no one can say with a straight face that CCSS has no connection to or influence on curriculum and instruction.

Kurtz is particularly good in describing the Orwellian language of “education reform,” in which reformers say the opposite of what they mean. Readers of this blog have long seen the way that “reformers” twist words to pretend that their corporate-model names and policies are “for the children” (like Students First, Students Matter, Children First, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform Now, Stand for Children, and other poll-tested obfuscations of reality).

Kurtz writes:

The story of the profoundly undemocratic process by which Common Core was adopted by the states doesn’t end there. A devastating account by The Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton (hardly a Geroge Will-style conservative) lays it out. Federal carrots and sticks, along with massive infusions of Gates Foundation money, at a moment when state budgets were stressed to the breaking point by the financial crisis, stampeded more than forty states into adopting a completely untested reform, often sight unseen or before the standards themselves had been finalized.

A deliberative process that ought to have taken years was telescoped into months. In nearly every case, the change was made without a single vote by an elected lawmaker, much less a statewide public debate. And all the while, the Obama administration intentionally obscured the full extent of its pressure on the states.

Common Core proponents have concocted a fiction according to which this travesty of federalism and democracy was “state led,” using the fig leaf of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA), which helped to develop the plan. CCSSO is a private group, with no known grant of authority from any state. Likewise, NGA is a private group, and seems not to include all governors (the list of dues-paying members has not been made public, at least in previous years). None of this can begin to substitute for a truly “state led” process, which would change education standards via legislatures and governors, after full consultation with the public. The Obama administration has dismissed legitimate complaints about this process as a kind of conspiracy theory, yet its own liberal supporters have praised its tactics as a clever ruse to circumvent the constitutional, legal, and political barriers to a national curriculum.

I am sorry to say that Jeb Bush has been a leading supporter and cheerleader of this process from the start, often portraying what was in fact an illegitimate federal power-grab as a sterling example of local control.

In a co-authored 2011 opinion piece making “The Case for Common Educational Standards,” Bush and New York educator Joel Klein deny federal overreach and present the states as voluntarily enrolling in Common Core. They speak of two testing consortia “of the states,” without noting federal financing of these national consortia. Bush and Klein portray a program explicitly designed to create uniform national standards as embodying “the beauty of our federal system.” Day is night.

Kurtz goes on to show how Jeb worked with Obama and Duncan to maintain the fiction that Common Core was “state-led” and was the answer to our problems:

The Washington Post recently reported on Jeb’s appearance with Obama in March of 2011 to push the president’s education agenda. Bush’s alliance with the Obama administration on education policy was in fact broad and deep. They differed on school choice, yet were aligned on much else, Common Core above all.

Consider the following 2010 video of an appearance by Obama education secretary Arne Duncan at Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. Duncan goes on about how many states have adopted Common Core (between 7:10 and 9:50), while repeatedly denying federal responsibility for the change. The secretary doth protest too much, methinks.

After Duncan’s talk, he and Jeb jointly take questions from the audience. Here it becomes obvious that on education policy, Jeb sees himself as allied with Duncan and Obama — in opposition to local-control-loving conservatives (as well as liberal teachers’ unions). Jeb’s political solution to attacks on the Common Core is to “push the two groups who are not reform-minded further away from what I think is the mainstream.” (See video between 27:30 and 29:30.)

There are two errors in the account above. First, Jeb and Obama do not differ on school choice except for vouchers. It may be awkward for an author to admit in a conservative publication that the Obama administration has been all-in for charters and private management of schools. Duncan has been a cheerleader for privately-managed charters and Common Core. Indeed, the administration has not fought vouchers, even as they spread from state to state. Duncan has been strangely silent on the subject of vouchers. Nor has the Obama administration done anything to defend collective bargaining, other than lip service. On March 11, 2011, Jeb Bush, President Obama and Secretary Duncan were in Miami celebrating the successful turnaround of Miami Central High School, ignoring the thousands of protestors encircling the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker was enacting legislation to cripple the public sector unions (but not fire and police unions!).

The second error in Kurtz’s account is to assert that the teachers’ unions were against Common Core. Both the NEA and the AFT were early supporters of Common Core; neither has renounced the standards.

And there is another error in this claim: Bush touts his education accomplishments as Florida governor, and they were real. But Jeb raised a bottom-performing state to average, which is easier than moving from the middle of the pack to the top.

Many critics think that Jeb Bush’s education accomplishments are a sham. His A-F school grading system punishes the schools with the neediest children. His dramatic expansion of charters has created a corrupt industry of hucksters who open and close charters and take the money to the bank. He fought for vouchers, tried to amend the state constitution, but was rebuked at the polls on vouchers by a vote of 58-42. Florida has a lower graduation rate than Alabama. With “accomplishments” like this, he could destroy public education and ruin the nation.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Obama, Testing, Vouchers

Testing in Kindergarten: Too Much, Too Soon

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
37

This post was written by Phyliss Doerr, an experienced kindergarten teacher in Néw Jersey.

As we wind down a year of tremendous controversy in the realm of education in the United States, I thought I would share some of my input given in January to a New Jersey Board of Education panel on testing led by Education Commissioner David Hespe.

As a kindergarten teacher, I find the trend to bring more testing into kindergarten not only alarming, but counter-productive and even harmful.

In the kindergarten at my school, we do not administer standardized tests; however, hours of testing are included in our math and language arts curriculum. In order to paint a realistic picture of the stress, damaging effects and colossal waste of time caused by testing in kindergarten, allow me to bring you to my classroom for our first test prep session in late September for 5-year-old children.

The test for which I was preparing my students was vocabulary. I say a word that we had learned in our “nursery rhyme” unit. Then, I read a sentence containing that word. If the sentence made sense, using the word correctly, the student would circle the smiley face. If the word were used incorrectly, they would circle the frown. This task requires abstract thinking, a skill that kindergartners have not yet developed — a foundational problem for this type of test.

My first sample vocabulary challenge as we began our practice test was the word “market,” from the nursery rhyme “To Market, To Market.” After explaining the setup of the test, I begin. “The word is market,” I announced. “Who can tell me what a market is?” One boy answered, “I like oranges.” “Okay, Luke is on the right track. Who can add to that?” “I like apples. I get them at the store.” We’re moving in, closer and closer. A third child says, “It’s where you go and get lots of things.” Yes! What kinds of things? “Different stuff.” Another student chimes in: “We can get oranges and apples and lots of other types of food at the market.” “Excellent! Everyone understands market?” A few nod.

“Now, I will give you a sentence with the word ‘market’ in it. If the sentence makes sense, you will circle the smiley face, but if it is a silly sentence and doesn’t make sense, you circle the frown.” A hand goes up. “Mrs. Doerr, what’s a frown?” I explain what a frown is.

Next, I read the sentence: “‘I like to play basketball at the market.’ Now, does that sentence make sense?”

The students who are not twisting around backward in their chairs or staring at a thread they’ve picked off their uniforms nod their heads. “Please, class, listen carefully. I’ll tell you the sentence again: ‘I like to play basketball at the market.’ That makes sense? Remember we said a market is where we shop for food.”

A hand goes up. Terrell says, “I like soccer.” “Okay, Terrell, that’s great! But did I use the word ‘market’ correctly in that sentence?” “I don’t know.”

Another hand. “Yes? Ariana? What do you think?” “My dad took me to a soccer game! He plays soccer!” “Thank you for sharing that, Ariana.” The students picked up on something from the sentence and made what seems to be, but is not, a random connection. “Girls and boys, look at me and listen. I want you to really think about this. Would you go to a market and play basketball?” At this point everyone seemed to wake up. Finally! I was getting somewhere! “YES!” they cried out in unison.

Of course! It would be a total blast to play basketball in the market!

So here we find another huge problem with this vocabulary test: a 5-year-old’s imagination. A statement that uses a word incorrectly sounds OK to a child whose imagination is not limited by reality. It is the same reason Santa and the Tooth Fairy are so real to kindergartners — unencumbered imagination.

After explaining why we might not play basketball in the market, I called on a volunteer to come up and circle the frowning face. She went straight to number 3 on my giant test replica, skipping 1 and 2, and circled the frown. Why? She’s 5 and has never seen anything like this. Give the same student a floor puzzle of ocean life and she and her friend will knock it out in 10 minutes, strategizing, problem-solving and taking turns with intense concentration.

The rest of my “test prep” for the 5-year-olds went about the same.

Then came the real thing. As testing must be done in small groups since the children cannot read instructions and need assistance every step of way, I split the class into two or more groups to test.

The results of the administration of the test on the first group were mixed. Despite being the higher level students, their very first test was definitely not an easy task. Instructions for anything new in kindergarten are painstaking, but for a developmentally inappropriate task, it is nearly impossible. For example, making sure my little test-takers have found their place on the page requires constant teacher supervision. I cannot just say, “Number 2” and read the question. I must say, “Put your finger on the number 2.” Then I repeat, “Your finger should be on number 2.” Then repeat it. And repeat again, since some have difficulty identifying numbers 1 through 10. “Let me see your pencil ON number 2. No, Justin, not on number 3. On number 2.” I walk around and make sure that each child is on the right number – or on a number at all. If you’re not watchful as a kindergarten teacher, it is common to have a 5-year-old just sit there, and do nothing test-related — just look around, or think, or doodle.

Next, I tested a second group. During testing, I walked around to see that a few students had nothing written on their papers, one had circled every face — regardless of expression — on the whole page, another just circled all the smileys and one, a very bright little girl, had her head down on her arms. I tapped her and said, “Come on, you need to circle one of the faces for number 5.” She lifted her head and looked up at me. Tears streamed down her face. I crouched down next to her. “What’s wrong, honey?” “Mrs. Doerr, I’m tired,” she cried. “I want my mommy.” It was a moment I will never forget. I took her test and said, “Would you like a nice comfy pillow so you can take a rest?” She nodded. I exchanged her paper for a pillow.

So this is kindergarten.

We force children to take tests that their brains cannot grasp.

We ignore research that proves that children who are 5-6 learn best experientially.

We rob them of precious free play that teaches them how to be good citizens, good friends and good thinkers.

We waste precious teaching and learning time that could be spent experientially learning the foundations of math, reading and writing, as well as valuable lessons in social studies, science and health.

I support and enjoy teaching much of our math and language arts curriculum. Teaching vocabulary is a valuable practice. However, I contend that testing in these areas at this age is not only meaningless, since it does not accurately measure a child’s academic ability, but it is actually counter-productive and even damaging.

Further, I contend that my students are no further along at the end of the year than they would be if we eliminated most of the testing. In fact, they might be further along if we eliminated testing because of the time we could spend engaging in meaningful teaching and learning. Finally, I believe that a child’s first experience with formal education should be fun and exciting, and give them confidence to look forward to their education, not full of stress and fear because they did not measure up.

Parents and educators must speak out against harmful trends in education so that they can be reversed immediately.

Phyllis Doerr of South Orange is a kindergarten teacher.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, New Jersey, Testing

Albany, NY: The Sheri Lederman Case Will Be Heard in Court Tomorrow

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2015 //
26

The Lederman challenge to Néw York’s teacher evaluation system will be heard tomorrow morning at 10 am in the court of Judge McDonough at 16 Eagle Street in Albany. If you are within shouting distance, show up to give Sheri moral support. But mind your manners and respect the decorum of the courtroom.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

The Latest Polls for 2016

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2015 //
25

I follow realclearpolitics during campaigns.

They run the latest polls from across the countries. Check in to learn the latest.

Categories Democrats, Republicans

Leonie Haimson: Another Talking Pineapple?

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2015 //
2

Leonie Haimson, writing on the NYC Parents Blog, wonders whether the New York state tests contain questions as embarrassing as the infamous “Pineapple and the Hare” story, which caused a great national controversy in 2012. Haimson broke the story, and it was covered by almost every national media outlet.

Stay tuned. When Pearson asks a third-grade question about a reading passage that even the author can’t answer, there is a problem. Ya think?

Categories New York, Pearson, Testing

Third Grade Test Questions: Not Even the Author of the Passage Got It Right

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2015 //
50

The state of New York released some of the questions that were used on its tests for grades 3-8. Kate Taylor and Elizabeth Harris of the New York Times wrote about a question on the third grade test that more than half of the children got wrong. When the author of the passage was asked the same question, he got it wrong. After he heard the “right answer,” it made sense to him.

The East African fable goes like this: A man frees a snake that is trapped between two rocks, and as a reward the snake gives him a charm that will allow him to hear what animals say, but only if the man keeps it a secret. The man betrays his new power by giggling at the things he hears, arousing his wife’s curiosity. He eventually tells her about the charm, and it stops working.

This story, which was included on this year’s New York State third-grade reading test, is easy to read. But a couple of the questions that went along with it on the test were trickier, stumping many third graders and, perhaps, even a few much older readers.

Some of the questions were relatively easy, others were “hard.” But “hard” seems to mean that they were confusing, poorly written, and made no sense, neither to children nor to many adults.

Peter Afflerbach, a professor of education at the University of Maryland and an expert in reading assessments and comprehension, said he considered the questions to be a mix. While some of the simpler questions seemed acceptable, he said, the more complex ones could sometimes be confusing.

“A really important guideline for item-writing is you never want the prompt to be more complex than the text the child actually read,” Dr. Afflerbach said.

Dr. Afflerbach was troubled by the third question: “How does Niel add to the problem in this story?” The correct answer is B, that “he laughs at what the animals say.” But the entire premise of the question might not make sense to a child, he said.

“As a third grader, I’d be thinking, ‘How is a magical charm a problem?’ ” Dr. Afflerbach said.

The reporter tracked down the writer of the passage. “He was initially stumped by the same question Dr. Afflerbach took issue with, but when told the answer, he said it made sense.” 

Probably the third graders had the same response. When confronted with the question, they were stumped. And they picked the wrong answer. If they had been told the right answer as the author was, then it would make sense. If the author of the passage can’t understand the question or the answer, on first hearing it, why should third grade children? This is a “gotcha” question, unfair on its face.

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Categories New York, Standardized Testing

New York: Will State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia Change the State’s Direction?

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2015 //
29

Soon after MaryEllen Elia was selected unanimously by the New York Board of Regents to be the State Education Commissioner, she gave me a call to introduce herself. We had a very pleasant exchange, and I made one request of her: Would she be willing to meet with the board of New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)? I explained to her that NYSAPE was the primary organizer of the historic opt out from state testing last spring, leading to about 200,000 students refusing to take the mandated tests. That’s 20% of the children who were supposed to take the tests. I told her that I thought it was important for her to meet them and hear their concerns. She readily assented.

Commissioner Elia took office on July 6, and she met with the leaders of NYSAPE (a few were away on vacation) on August 4. I joined the meeting to hear the discussion. From the outset, it was clear that Commissioner Elia intended to listen and that she is warm and personable. She may have heard that parents had a serious problem with her predecessor John King, who lectured them and seemed never to listen. Commissioner Elia asserted that there would be no teacher-bashing from her office; she was a teacher, and she wants the public to respect teachers.

That was a good start. Then the parents and educators expressed their views candidly. They do not like high-stakes testing; they do not like teachers’ evaluations tied to test scores, because that distorts the educational process. They are not opposed to testing, so long as testing is used only within the school for diagnostic purposes. The parents of children with disabilities complained that the tests were too long (three hours a day for six days), and in some cases, meaningless to their children. There were complaints about the State Education Department’s failure to answer FOILS (freedom of information requests) in a timely manner (or at all!) and complaints that the SED had failed to appoint a chief privacy officer, as a state law required.

What was striking was that this group of leaders are very well-informed. They have testified at hearings in Albany and in their towns. They are active in their communities and interact with elected officials. They are determined and they are not going away. One promised that if there were no policy changes from the Regents or the Legislature, the number of opt outs would grow.

Commissioner Elia was very cordial, but she hinted that there might be some kind of sanctions for opting out. It is hard to see how the state could withhold funds from school districts without incurring the wrath of some powerful state legislators. She also said that although Pearson had been replaced by Questar, Pearson’s tests would be used again this coming year. The new tests would be used for the first time in 2016-17. I am not sure if the change of vendor breaks the trend line, nor do I know anything about the record of Questar.

Commissioner Elia calmly but clearly stated her support for evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. She did it in Florida and says that the teachers supported the practice. She is also a fan of online testing and raised the question of “embedding” online testing into instruction.

Carol Burris, the recently retired principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center (and new executive director of the Network for Public Education Fund, of which I am chair), participated in the meeting. She read off the ratings of teachers at very low-performing schools in Buffalo; many of the teachers in those schools received high ratings. Then she read the ratings of teachers at the high-performing Scarsdale public school, and an extraordinary proportion were rated “ineffective.” Commissioner Elia agreed that these results made no sense. Carol Burris wrote about this same meeting here. She suggested that New Yorkers hoping for a change in direction should not hold their breath waiting.

Of course, Commissioner Elia has to deal with the political realities. New York has a governor, Andrew Cuomo, who loves high-stakes standardized tests and wants to find and fire teachers who don’t “produce” them. Elia can’t write her own laws. But the story isn’t over. The leadership of the Board of Regents might change next spring when new members are appointed. There is already a strong bloc of retired educators on the Board who don’t like the current regime of high-stakes testing and don’t think the tests are either valid or reliable. That bloc might become the majority, and the realities would change.

It was a friendly and cordial meeting, but the differences in opinion were large. If NYSAPE was hoping for a change of direction, it seems unlikely to happen soon. Commissioner Elia agreed to meet again, and NYSAPE will no doubt continue to try to change her views. If nothing changes, the number of opt outs could increase in a big way next spring.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Standardized Testing

Mercedes Schneider Fact-Checks EdNext Claim that Public Rejects Opt Outs

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2015 //
7

Mercedes Schneider reviewed a poll conducted by the conservative publication Education Next, claiming that the public supports high-stakes standardized testing and opposes parents’ rights to opt out of testing. Clearly the intent of the authors, Paul Peterson and Martin West, is to influence the Congressional conference committee that merges the differences between the House and Senate bills reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka NCLB). Respected public polls about standardized testing, such as the PDK-Gallup poll show majorities of the public and public school parents opposing the current regime of high-stakes testing. The 2014 poll reported that 54% of the public say that standardized tests are “not helpful,” as do 68% of public school parents.

Schneider challengesthe EdNext poll’s claim about opting out. She looks closely at their survey results and the limitations of the poll as well as the way questions were posed.

Schneider makes an interesting point:

There is yet another issue about the Peterson and West survey finding of “little public sympathy” for opt-out. In its opt-out provision in SSA, the House is not telling parents that they must opt out. It is simply allowing parents to make the decision for themselves. Though 52 percent of parents opposed allowing other parents to opt out, one might easily say that it is the parent’s decision, and if 32 percent of parents favor opting out, then 32 percent of parents should be able to choose to opt out. (Note: Not sure the exact number of “parents.”)

The 52 percent who opposed it could “opt in”– if they even have children who test. Again, not sure about this since Peterson and West do not clarify exactly how many parents this is or whether the parents in the study were even asked if they have children attending public school in the grades that are tested.

That makes sense. If 52% do not want to opt out, that should be their choice. If 32% do want to opt out, that should be their choice. Of course, it is not clear if these numbers represent parents with children in the public schools, the ones who are best informed about opting out.

Schneider concludes:

Education Next promotes school choice, yet it would snuff a federal government possibility to honor parental choice in the form of opting out.

Think about it: Opting out might be the only “parental choice” not riddled with scandal. (And here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. I’ll stop now.)

A final thought:

Even if resulting ESEA compromise bill ditches the SSA’s federal opt-out provision, that does not mean that parents will not choose to opt out. It only means that the federal government would have chosen to make no blanket provision for it at the federal level.

Peterson and West reported it themselves: One in three parents supports a federal-level, blanket opt-out provision.

I consider that noteworthy. The House and Senate should, too.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing
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