This post was written by David Hursh, Professor at the University of Rochester. It ably summarizes the critiques of President Obama’s proposal to reform testing and reduce the burden on students and teachers. It also contains excellent links.
Obama’s Testing Action Plan: A real change or more of the same?
David Hursh (dhursh@warner.rochester.edu)
On October 24, 2015, the U.S. Department of Education released their Testing Action Plan as a response to the increasing concern of parents, teachers, and students that standardized testing is, in their words, “unnecessary,” consumes “too much instructional time” and creates “undue stress for educators and students.” On first reading, Obama and Duncan seem to be saying that they want to decrease both the amount to time spent on testing and the high-stakes nature of tests in evaluating students, teachers, and schools. However, a closer reading suggests that they are only calling for the federal government to provide “clear assistance…for how to thoughtfully approach testing and assessment,” that is, more federal control. So, the actual goal is more of the same, implemented more carefully, so as to blunt resistance.
The rest of the action plan’s goals are worded to suggest more than they deliver. For example, they assert that “no standardized test should be given solely for educator evaluation,” which makes it acceptable, as in New York, to use the Common Core exam to count as 50% of teachers’ evaluations and to determine whether a school is failing and should be placed in receivership.
It seems that the federal Testing Action Plan, like Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force, is not meant to respond to the concerns of parents that led to 220,000 students opting out of the Common Core exams in April 2015 but, rather, to convince the media that they are going to fine tune it to make it more palatable to the public. However, what is needed is not fine-tuning but a decrease in standardized testing. The Council of the Great City Schools reported earlier this month that students in their 66 membership districts take, from pre-K to grade 12, an average of 112 standardized tests, most of which are required under NCLB and Race to the Top.
In sum, the Obama administration, outgoing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and incoming secretary John King—who single-handedly made high-stakes testing the single most important educational issue in New York— want to do more of the same, only sell it better.
The Department of Education press release:
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-testing-action-plan
Response by the NYS Allies for Public Education
http://www.nysape.org/nysape-pr-response-to-obama.html
A smart and snarky response from Peter Green, a teacher
curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/obamas-testing-action-plan-sucks-and.html?m=1
Anthony Cody (co-founder of the Network for Public Education): Obama (Again) blasts all the tests his administration has sponsored
http://www.livingindialogue.com/president-obama-again-blasts-all-the-tests-his-administration-has-sponsored/
Council of the Great City Schools
Click to access Testing%20Report.pdf
David Hursh, PhD
Professor
Teaching and Curriculum
Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development
452 LeChase Hall
RC Box 270425
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627-0425
New book: The End of Public Schools: The Corporate Reform Agenda to Privatize Education. Routledge. November 23.
Associate Region Editor- Americas- Journal of Education Policy.
Associate Editor- Policy Futures in Education
Keynote address: New York State as a cautionary tale. New Zealand union of primary teachers and administrators.
UR Meliora Address: High-stakes testing and the decline of teaching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIQu2Hh_YkI
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You are absolutely correct. The policies are not changed, however, it does leave an opening as It does signal a diminishing of the importance of the test.
If we sit on our hands and just complain, nothing will happen. However, if we offer a viable alternative and plan for its implementation in September, there will be change.
It is not on POTUS or DOE, it’s on you and me and all educators. Either take action now or perish!
Imagine if US students are deemed physically unfit in comparison to other nations. Then imagine the USDOE required ALL8th graders to run the mile in under 6 minutes, disregarding any physical disabilities. And imagine if teachers spent most of the school day training in preparation for their run. April arrives and only a small percent succeed. The majority are branded failures. Parents become enraged and teachers complain that too much time is being wasted in trying to meet a nearly impossible physical demand. A groundswell of opposition arises and the USDOE has the gall to ask teachers what should replace their ridiculous policy? Caplee, you can’t be serious. Its on us?
It’s on us to sabotage the system like I did in ’95. We just stop giving a damn about what DOE wants and take it on our selves. When they cry about test scores, we give them this. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
We just ignore them, stand up and become the change. If, as you say, the demands are unrealistic, and I agree, we make our own that are realistic. The only way it is ridiculous is if we are too weak to stand up to their insane policies. If we are too weak to become the change
What they are doing is immoral. If we follow what they are demanding, we are also immoral. At what point do we take a stand instead of giving it lip service. At what point do we ignore their policies and come up with our own.
We can rage all we want, but to take action is not for the meek.
I reread your statement and it doesn’t make any sense. No the USDOE isn’t asking anything, However, are you saying we just whine? Doesn’t it make sense that if a policy stinks we not only offer, but we implement, behind their back, policies that work? I understand those who want to whine and then cower in fear? Get some back bone!
Nicely put! #CrazyThink
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
“Testing Action Plan.” Right. How about an actual teaching action plan, a school improvement action plan, an appropriate funding for schools action plan, a community improvement action plan, a help for those in poverty action plan?
Another eerie parallel – when Eli- came to NY she sought to get the DOE to be her bad guy to implement her testing scheme and they declined. Now they appear to be granting her wish to be the bad guy by issuing more “clear” edicts that she can grouse about and grudgingly implement.
Whatever Elia does seems to come direct from King so it appears NY will become a bellwether for national policy. Expect receiver ship next and 50% educator test score evaluations next.
So at first, the problem was one of poor implementation, and when that straw man burned to the ground, the reformers sock puppet aka. the DOE decided that it was really an issue of messaging, that they had simply used the wrong color of lipstick on the pig. I’m not particularly upset that the hopes of many were falsely raised in the short term by a message designed to trick them into thinking they had been heard and understood and that the correct adjustment was under way, indeed this kind of cluelessly obvious manipulation will do what all of the other reformy efforts at retrenchment marketing have done, piss off more parents and tax payers and cause a greater number of them to get active and fight this nonsense.
Ask any parent who has an 8 year old child in 3rd grade if they are willing to wait 10 years to see if this grand experiment in education reform will actually work.
This ongoing experiment is precisely why my kids are in their 3rd year of homeschool.
So we offer a better plan and implement it under the radar. Let’s piss them off!
Under the RADAR? Didn’t you mean LAW? All of the damaging reform has been accomplished through the FORCE of federal/state LAW. So pissing them (USDOE) off will get us a better ESEA re-write? Amazing how little you seem to understand about how states were coerced into RTTT and DINCLBW.
You better check your “whine” detector.
The real meaning of OB’s latest school testing declaration