Anthony Cody gives us an overview of the past 14 years, in which the common theme is that teachers cannot be trusted to grade or assess their students.
Having survived the onerous and intrusive NCLB and the teacher-bashing of Race to the Top, educators and a growing part of the public realize that it is not the schools that are failing, it is the “reforms” of Bush and Obama.
So with the failure of test-based accountability, the next wave of disruptive innovation is upon us. Led by former Gates executive Tom Vanderbilt Ark, the latest thing is competency based learning and competency based assessment. The idea is even embedded in the President’s “Testing Action Plan.”
Cody writes:
“We have been badgered for the past 14 years by reformers insisting on the fierce urgency of change, and they have had their way – twice! First, seven years of NCLB, followed by the past seven years of Race to the Top, and now the “next generation” of tests, which were promised to be “smarter,” computer-adapted, and deliver results more quickly. None of it worked. Scores on the independent NAEP tests are flat or down. The SBAC and PARCC tests are more difficult without being any “smarter” in telling us about what our students can do. The idea that these tests could somehow promote and measure creativity and critical thinking is debunked. The growing opt out movement poses a huge threat to the standardized testing “measure to manage” paradigm.
“So what is to be done?
“Reinvent the tests once again, using technology. And who better for the job than Tom Vander Ark, formerly of the Gates Foundation, and now associated with a long list of education technology companies. The latest package of solutions is being called “competency based learning,” and it was featured prominently in the Department of Education’s latest “Testing Action Plan.”
So here we go again, but this time with the technology leading the way. This is the breakthrough that equity investors have been waiting for.
Don’t fall for it. Empower teachers, not computers, to assess their students.
Stop the financialization and monetization of public education. Don’t be fooled.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another worn out idea from the 1970’s.
I would actually like to go back to the 70’s. I taught for many years as a reading teacher in Title 1 schools. We tested our students every year, using valid and vetted standardized tests. We were well-trained, experienced, and certified reading specialists. Eighty-five percent of our students showed significant gains every year. We didn’t teach to the test. It was not a time of high-stakes testing. Schools would not close, nor teachers lose their jobs. It was all about raising students’ reading levels and sharing those results with the students and their parents. The best part of the job!
Agreed. I remember what it was like before the fraud called A Nation at Risk report was released by another vile nest of charlatans, the Reagan administration in 1983. Most students turned in their homework and actually cooperated and paid attention in class. The failure rate was low, and I taught in a school with a childhood poverty rate that was more than 90% and the local streets were dominated by violent and dangerous street gangs (and still are).
But after 1983 when everything was always the teacher’s fault, that started to change. By the time I retired from teaching in 2005, less than 5% of the kids turned in the homework and they laughed at their teachers when the school’s annual Adequate Yearly Report (AYP) came out and the high school didn’t show much improvement from the previous years.
After all, what happens when children are told repeatedly for decades by the President on down through the traditional media that it is never their fault they aren’t learning when they don’t behave and cooperate in class, don’t read, don’t study, don’t ask questions, don’t do the class work and don’t do the homework—-it’s the fault of their lazy teachers, all 3.5 million of them across the country even the ones in the best schools with the highest AYP scores?
And it doesn’t help that a lot of parents today grew up hearing that same message so many of them tell their kids the same thing.
I concur. It has been a steady societal decline, and I fear we have not hit the nadir. Soon we will see students tethered to laptops by headphones working 8 hours a day with programs and being allowed a half hour for lunch along with two fifteen minute breaks. There may be one teacher or instructional aid for every 100 children. Dreadful thought
This is exactly what happens when autocrats are in charge and their survival is tethered to generating a profit. The CEOs will bring in the ‘bean counters’ who will cut corners everywhere possible to boost profits and in the process end up running their business into the ground until they go out of business. I worked in the private sector long enough to see this happening repeatedly—the penny wise and pound foolish mentality of VAM thinking.
I concur. There has been a steady decline in society for taking ownership for the things one does or chooses not to do. Everyone is quick to cast blame elsewhere. In pretty short order, students will be tethered to laptops via the headphones working on computerized learning programs for eight hours a day with a half hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. Everyone is so seduced by technology. It will be our ultimate downfall as a society if it will be used in this way. I am afraid; I am very afraid.
“Competency-based assessments” introduced by the incompetent (and often malicious)…
I’m sure every k12 public school enrollee will have a working iPad with Pearson curriculums and tests soon. I’m certain the curricula and tests will be far richer than human interactions have ever been. Life is simply a series of choices with clearly defined right and wrong answers. If you make a good choice, you get a sip of sugar water. If you make a bad choice, you get an electric shock. The iPads will deliver sugar water and electric shock emojis in a timely manner. No, Bills Gates and Clinton are not living in science fiction fantasy worlds. No, Obama is not part of the lost generation of tech drooling Trekkies. They are not the dumbest smart people in human history. Beam me up, Scotty. Please.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
As a public school teacher in California for thirty years (1975-2005), I suffered through top-down waves of change-for-the-better (always called reform—a dirty word today) that ALL turned out to be worse for everyone but the few who profited from the false promises that never worked. Here we go again, and again, and again! You can always tell the bad ideas because most teachers have to be forced to implement them (out-of-fear) against their better judgement as professional educators.
This garbage is coming to teacher education as well. http://chronicle.com/blogs/letters/compentency-based-teacher-education-is-the-future/
So Charlotte is opening a new market for her product. Combine her checklists with edTPA and we will be producing the bestest of the best teachers. I can hardly wait for them to come off the assembly line.
I also served as a high school reading specialist from 1975 to 1993. We used standardized tests as screening devices for students who may have reading needs. We then assessed their needs further using mostly informal diagnostic techniques. We did a standardized pre and post test, but did so in a non threatening half hour measure with no pressure on the kids other than we just asked that they tried their best. All we really need to know is a child’s reading level and range of levels at which they could be instructed. We were so professional about it. We taught to our children’s interests and needs as that is what motivated them best to learn to read better. The misuse and misunderstanding of standardized reading tests is apalling to me. It is like insititutionalized malpractice.
I could well argue that what the test makers, like Pearson, do, is commit intellectual fraud. The use of value added measurement, is alarming as it has no validity or reliability and is fraudulent.
Question:
Can we assume this policy will be the next step for every state? Or just those that have CCSS (because we can assume Gates Foundation is very well established and rooted in that state)?
Does CCSS exist in isolation anywhere? I mean, have any states just taken the standards (which might have been similar to what they would have written anyway) and just proceeded as they had before RttT (even with RttT)?
Does CCSS always have strings attached? What about for the states not in testing consortiums?
Also, does the NEA still get money for promoting CCSS?
I scares me to death for low and middle income students because I think state legislators will use it as an excuse to offer cheap, commercial garbage to replace (comparably) expensive human beings.
Ed reformers are either the most cynical people in the world or the most naive. They never, ever seem to consider unintended consequences of their actions. I find it amazing that they insist there are is only one possible result of these experiments and it’s “win!”
I don’t understand this level of recklessness. I’m unsuited to being led by people who think we have nothing to lose. Sure we do. We could lose a lot.
Competency-based education is alive and well in Florida and has been thriving for the last 2 school years.
A program called “iReady”, which is a cash cow for former teachers, principals, and superintendents, was HIGHLY recommended by the state DA (Differentiated Accountability) teams and was, therefore, purchased by many districts.
iReady now replaces much of core reading and math instruction in many schools because the mandate of any ‘below level’ student to complete at least 60 minutes of online iReady instruction per week can only be met by sending kids in groups all through the school day since computers, labs, and sufficient bandwidth are lacking in many, many places.
The iReady program also has small group lessons to supplement the online, adaptive (wait, I thought it was perfect and sufficient core and intervention instruction???) to small groups that iReady creates, not the teacher. The scripted lessons are mandatory now in my district.
The state legislated mandate that all new textbook purchases starting next year must be e-editions only was a cash bonanza to companies that produce competency-based learning software, like iReady.
The first year of iReady use showed no improvement so, of course, the reason was the tried-and-true ‘lack of fidelity’ in execution of the program.
This year it is technological snafus that are causing the sluggish scores to remain low and mostly unchanged.
Kids find it boring and hate having to do the same thing, day after day, until the achieve ‘mastery’ and I watched many a child purposely bomb the assessments just to get it over with. This, by the way, is what my district uses for the VAM scores of K-2 teachers now. Isn’t that special?
But the big, fat, juicy checks to iReady keep on coming so everyone, except the teachers and students, is happy!
Tom Vander Ark, flim-flam man extraordinaire. Can spend millions on nothing, then walk away scot-free. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/nyregion/tom-vander-arks-new-york-area-charter-schools-falter.html?_r=0
We thought we were rid of him when he left Federal Way School District for greener pa$ture$, but sadly, much like the failed ed policies he promotes, he returned again.
Maine already has a “proficiency-based education” high school diploma required as of 2018. What it means is open to debate since PBE has never, to the best of my knowledge, ever been used anywhere for any length of time to any advantage. Wasilla, Alaska (home of RISC [Reinventing Schools Coalition] … and Sarah Palin) seems to be the model. Seriously.
References: Maine DoE – http://www.maine.gov/doe/proficiency/index.html
Maine PBE dissent: http://emilytalmage.com/
Anyone that thinks CBE is a result of opt out has not been paying attention. This has been the end game from the start. No a response. Annual standardized tests were a stall tactic to allow time and resource for broadband and computer programs to embed SEL and be implemented. SLDS have the hardware as extensions built in for use later, recall we were told the data stayed in district, then later it was uploaded to State and then Nationally. They are designed to be interoperable. From the start. Once ESSA passed the foundations were set in place to implement. Those that supported ESSA as a means to be better than status quo were played.
People supported ESSA to get rid of NCLB and AYP, not because ESSA was great. Better than NCLB and supposed to strip Duncan of power to micromanage schools.