Peter Greene carefully reviewed the Obama administration’s “Testing Action Plan” and concluded it is phony, a duplicitous confirmation of the status quo.
Did you think the administration realizes that the billions of dollars spent on 13 years of standardized testing was a waste? Think again.
Did you think the administration really wants to reduce time spent on testing? Think again.
Did you think the administration understands that it is not fair to give exactly the same test to children who can’t read English, children with disabilities, and others of their age? Think again.
Have they lost faith in standardized testing? Not a bit.
Here is what they see as the problem that needs fixing, Greene writes:
“Before you get excited about the administration taking “some” blame for the testing mess, please notice what they think their mistake was– not telling states specifically enough what they were supposed to do. They provided states with flexibility when they should have provided hard and fast crystal clear commands directions for what they were supposed to do.
“Because yes– the problem with education reform has been not enough federal control of state education departments.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Looks to me like they want to keep the standardized tests and act like it’s teachers who give too many tests- you know, the kind that give immediate feedback about whether students have learned the material.
There has been discussion about this among the TFA types who run things in our state department of education. Know. Nothings.
Robert Tellman: well stated.
And like Yogi Berra put it:
“It’s like déjà vu, all over again.”
Arne Duncan. April 30, 2013. His speech to the annual AERA meeting.
The current rebranding is no major shift. This is no minor shift. The words were already out there 2 1/2 years ago. And then, as now, the current administration takes very little responsibility for the consequences of its own policies, mandates and advocacy.
The main problem according to rheephormsters? Somebody, anybody, everybody else.
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[start excerpt]
… I’d like to discuss the challenges I’ve highlighted about asking hard comparative questions and heeding those counterintuitive outcomes, but with special attention to standardized testing and assessment.
I think we can generally agree that standardized tests don’t have a good reputation today—and that some of the criticism is merited. Policymakers and researchers have to listen very carefully—and take very seriously the concerns of educators, parents, and students about assessment.
At its heart, the argument of the most zealous anti-testing advocates boils down to an argument for abandoning assessment with consequences for students, teachers, or schools.
The critics contend that today’s tests fail to measure students’ abilities to analyze and apply knowledge, that they narrow the curriculum, and that they create too many perverse incentives to cheat or teach to the test. These critics want students and teachers to opt out of all high-stakes testing.
The critics make a number of good points—and they express a lot of the frustration that many teachers feel about today’s standardized tests.
State assessments in mathematics and English often fail to capture the full spectrum of what students know and can do. Students, parents, and educators know there is much more to a sound education than picking the right answer on a multiple choice question.
Many current state assessments tend to focus on easy-to-measure concepts and fill-in-the-bubble answers. Results come back months later, usually after the end of the school year, when their instructional usefulness has expired.
And today’s assessments certainly don’t measures qualities of great teaching that we know make a difference—things like classroom management, teamwork, collaboration, and individualized instruction. They don’t measure the invaluable ability to inspire a love of learning.
Most of the assessment done in schools today is after the fact. Some schools have an almost obsessive culture around testing, and that hurts their most vulnerable learners and narrows the curriculum. It’s heartbreaking to hear a child identify himself as “below basic” or “I’m a one out of four.”
Not enough is being done at scale to assess students’ thinking as they learn to boost and enrich learning, and to track student growth. Not enough is being done to use high-quality formative assessments to inform instruction in the classroom on a daily basis.
Too often, teachers have been on their own to pull these tools together—and we’ve seen in the data that the quality of formative tools has been all over the place.
Schools today give lots of tests, sometimes too many. It’s a serious problem if students’ formative experiences and precious time are spent on assessments that aren’t supporting their journey to authentic college- and career-readiness.
[end excerpt]
Read the rest. It’s simply been recycled to serve the political needs du jour.
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
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*AERA: American Educational Research Association.
The problem with Arne now taking this position is that there’s too big of a track record of him making sweeping and bat-sh#%-crazy statements about how massive testing — and federal control of standardized testing — is needed ensure “equity” and “the civil rights” of public school children, particularly those who are poor and minority.
WTF???!!!
Read this article:
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/4189/education-secretary-arne-duncan-praises-senates-effort-to-reimagine-no-child-left-behind.html
In this article we get these gems from Arne:
(quotes that are quite infuriating when you consider where he sends his own children — the Chicago Lab School, which has no Common Core curriculum / test prep / testing… and where, at the time, he sent his children… a Virginia public school in an upscale neighborhood… a state where, once again, there is no Common Core curriculum / test prep / testing):
———————————————–
DESERET NEWS:
“In a wide-ranging conversation sparked by questions submitted by the audience, Duncan also addressed the testing controversies that hampered the Common Core roll-out in several states.
“Duncan, who sent his own children to public schools, said his family has not been stressed by tests …
ARNE DUNCAN:
“We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about (his own children’s testing). They do OK. It is not a traumatic event. It’s just part of kids’ education growing up.”
———————–
Really, you, your wife, and your kids “don’t spend a lot of time worrying about” standardized tests?
Well that’s because the Virginia public schools where — at the time he gave this interview, and, until recently Duncan, sent his children, DOES NOT FOLLOW THE COMMON CORE, OR GIVE COMMON CORE TESTS.
Therefore, his other comment that his kids’ testing “is not a traumatic event. It’s just part of kids’ education growing up” is completely bogus and misleading.
There’s more ridiculous pro-testing blather:
——————————————–
ARNE DUNCAN:
“When we fail to measure and let parents know how their children are doing, we do our kids a tremendous disservice.”
“This is really an issue about equity,” Duncan said of testing.
“This is not just about assessment. This is about a civil rights issue. We need to know where students are and whether those gaps are closing, or not closing.”
The whole federal involvement in testing started with Title 1 funds that were supposed to dispensed to districts for services for poor students. Then, we had NCLB. At that point the federal government required annual testing for all students along with punitive outcomes for districts with failing schools. Now the feds are ready to turn Every Child Achieves into a slush fund for charters, even though the money still should go to poor students to provide for compensatory services. Whether the testing recommendation is 2% or whatever number they spin, how much testing students should have to endure is another example of federal overreach. The feds should not be dictating terms to states as it is the states’ responsibility to decide on the education of the its children.
“The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures”…
“As highly evolved monkeys, we instinctively identify with our monkey troop of people with similar appearance, existential outlook, language, culture, place of origin, the economic neighborhood we imagine we deserve a place in, and the socio-political fantasy we have been imprinted with and trained to take as the thread of history that expresses us.” Manuel Garcia
No word on the “Testing Not Plan” for Malia, Sasha, Clair, Ryan, Phoeb, Jennifer, Rory, Amina, and Mareya?
I recognize those first two names, who are the rest? Children of politicians and/or plutocrats, presumably.
Malia and Sasha: Obama kids
Claire and Ryan: Duncan kids
Phoebe, Jennifer, and Rory: Gates kids
Amina and Mareya: King kids
And not one of them is allowed to go anywhere near the Common Core test-and-punish policies that their father’s promote. Melinda Gates is the only mother who qualifies as a snake oil salesparent. Michelle’s silence may qualify her as well.
The President didn’t accept responsibility for his administration’s pushing teacher ranking systems which created a lot of bad testing policy. He hired these people and he chose to pack his administration with “movement” leaders like Duncan and the rest. He’s responsible for what they do.
It’s just the same old, same old. The only people who are ever held accountable in ed reform are front line working people. The leaders of the “movement” that has apparently completely captured DC never accept responsibility for anything.
Obama’s statement attempts to placate the parents that have chosen to opt out and wreck his data mining scheme. He is trying to give the appearance of caring about public education. Parents and teachers will not be fooled. His actions speak much louder than words. All his testing has done is alienate parents and teachers. He along with complicit governors have used testing to destroy neighborhood public schools and unfairly punish teachers. Obama has not used any of his data to improve schools; instead, leaders just sell them off without public input. Also, every decision from Washington keeps throwing more public money at charters with little or no oversight.
Arne and others at USDE think teachers are idiots.
There is no change in the basic policy thrust of testing all students and teachers until they drop.
USDE will probably do a follow-up “guidance letter” in order to tweak the meaning of 2%, as if that will make a difference.
Peter is correct that multiple measures means you just add to student test scores the scores of teachers on student surveys and dreadful observation protocols, both contrived to forward one-size-fits all instruction.
Another reason nothing will really change: The data systems jointly funded by USDE and Gates since 2005 are in place and these have coding systems that eliminate all possibility of any nuance in evaluation.
If you want to know about the status of education in the US, you can learn more from the Fast Response Surveys from the National Center for Education Statistics and their routine data-gathering and from NAEP scores than from USDE’s pathological fixation on testing.
Do you see any way out of this mess? Have they dug a hole so deep that we will never be able to climb out?
One way out of this mess: OPT OUT. Let them know you are mad as hell and you won’t take it anymore!
I think that is the only way out. Unfortunately here in NYC they have threatened and bullied teachers, students and parents. NYC DOE uses the scores of state tests for admissions to “select” middle and high schools. Just a more efficient way to rank and sort children which is something public schools have historically been very good at.
See also http://educationalchemy.com/2015/10/25/reading-between-the-lines-obamas-testing-action-plan/
Opt Out in the big cities.
And tell Lamar Alexander that grade span testing is the only solution.
Opt out in the rural towns and small schools!!
Opt Out in America. No Child Left Behind in the testing lab.
The test is the tip of the iceberg. It’s the prep for the test that consumes vast amounts of time during the school year to the detriment of the arts, science and social studies (not to mention recess). Shortening the test will not shorten the test prep. As I science educator who works with K-8 teachers, I have seen the amount of time devoted to that subject practically eliminated.
Right on, Peter Greene: “This is, once again, worse than nothing because it not only doesn’t really address the problem, but it encourages everyone to throw a victory party, put down their angry signs, and go home. Don’t go to the party, and don’t put down your signs.”
Obviously, the Obama administration does not want this news examined. I knew something was odd when this was announced on a Saturday (when journalists are away from their desks where they do their actual jobs of examining the contents of news releases). This particular Saturday is interesting, too. The news media will be absorbed with Hillary Clinton’s Bengazi hearing marathon and Biden’s announcement that he’s not running. Thank goodness for Peter Greene, Diane Ravitch and all the bloggers who will report what this actually means and does not mean.
From Peter’s article:
“Start with the first three sentences:
‘One essential part of educating students successfully is assessing their progress in learning to high standards. Done well and thoughtfully, assessments are tools for learning and promoting equity. They provide necessary information for educators, families, the public, and students themselves to measure progress and improve outcomes for all learners.'”
I’m sure that the USDA didn’t realize that they needed to grade all the bovine excrement coming out of the SoEd’s office and office of the President.
“Done well and thoughtfully, assessments are tools for learning and promoting equity.”
Hmmmm, I always thought assessing student’s work was a tool to help the student understand where they are in the learning process of whatever subject, grade, etc. . . .
Now student assessment is to be used for “promoting equity”. That’s a mighty damn high bar.
I have never known a test that “promotes equity,” unless it is a test everyone can pass, like the test for a driver’s license. If the test is “rigorous,” it promotes inequity.
The best magicians use misdirection at its highest level. Assessments once promoted learning. Now they are tools to solve all of society’s ills, with those pesky, incompetent teachers just not smart enough to do it right. We teachers have become part of the problem to Reformers. But politicians do a bit of hocus pocus so THEY are not held accountable for creating good jobs and neighborhoods.
I taught in a public school totally populated by students that are severely multiply handicapped. We had to give these idiotic tests to students on their levels they would have been on if not handicapped. These students for the most part have IQ scores in the 20 range. So what sort of useful info could the D of Ed possibly obtain? Ludicrous waste of time and rescources.