FairTest: The Latest News on Test Resistance and Reform

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1. Noelle Green says:

   December 30, 2015 at 5:17 pm

   Beyond Measure Films released this youtube video about how performance-based testing, instead of standardized testing, improved a school in Kentucky: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9g79UH7pn38&feature=youtu.be

   Reply
2. Laura H. Chapman says:

   December 31, 2015 at 1:48 am

   Thanks for this opportunity to contribute to FairTest Perhaps the can be a booster shot for a good cause.

   Several days ago I found over 600 explicit references to assessments and related terms (tests, measures, metrics, ratings, evaluations) in the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

   I also found many implicit references to tests, especially in the 262 references to “effective” and “ineffective” teachers, programs, schools, etc. I could not find a definition of “effective” other than improving academic achievement and with “growth” part of that. Growth is the euphemism for an increase in test scores—pretest to posttest or year to year.

   Then I spent the better of today looking into ESSA’s Title I, Part B ‘‘SEC. 1204.
   INNOVATIVE ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY DEMONSTRATION AUTHORITY.‘‘

   “INNOVATIVE ASSESSMENT” is a misleading term, but needed to justify big federal investments in testing. How big?

   $1,504,000,0000 ($378,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2017 through 2020).
   This humongous sum is in addition to $330 million invested about five years ago in the deeply flawed and glitchy computer tests known as SBAC and PARCC.

   The apparent aim of this section of ESSA is to jumpstart a new “innovative” testing regime and scheme to replace the statewide tests required under NCLB and still in place for ESSA.

   That means new tests in mathematics and reading or language arts in grades 3 through 8; and at least once in grades 9 through 12. Science is tested not less than one time during grades 3 through 5, and during grades 6 through 9, and grades 10 through 12, States may choose tests for other subjects and grades. ESSA requires “ “the participation in such assessment of all students“ then provides an exception for 1% of students with the most severe cognitive impairments.

   So new tests are a big deal. They have to be field tested. That means students serving as the guinea pigs for tests, again.

   So what is an innovative assessment system? (Here is a direct quote from ESSA Sec 1204)

   “An innovative assessment system means a system of assessments that may include—
   ‘‘(1) competency-based assessments, instructionally embedded assessments, interim assessments, cumulative year end assessments, or performance-based assessments that combine into an annual summative determination for a student, which may be administered through computer adaptive assessments; and
   ‘‘(2) assessments that validate when students are ready to demonstrate mastery or proficiency and allow for differentiated student support based on individual learning needs.‘‘

   In order to get these tests developed, the Secretary of Education will (unilaterally) set up a “Demonstration Authority.” This is an empty “entity” until the Secretary: (a) enlists State educational agencies and consortia to participate in test development aided by the promise of grant money; (b) directs funds to promising proposals for three years; then (c) evaluates the progress of work on these “innovative systems;” and (d) decides if the systems are meeting criteria “comparable” to those for current state tests used for accountability-.

   In other words the new system must produce scores for individual students, and other metrics based on those scores—for teachers, schools, and the whole state, with scores desegregated for subgroups, full accommodations for special education and so on. Not my idea of “personalized” anything.

   If these “innovative assessment systems” get a passing grade from the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (in consultation with the Secretary) then the Secretary can expand the number of states participating in this scheme by using the consortium structure and then move on to a planned transition from existing state tests to this new “innovative system.”

   The end game (if the players cooperate and meet criteria) is scaling up to a national system of online tests delivered by a computer interface and available for nearly non-stop testing. This “field tested” system is offered to all states in the hope that it will be selected as the preferred way to meet ESSA testing requirements.

   I am still working through details of how the “Demonstration Authority” nurtures this scheme. So far, I have found nothing to recommend this investment. It is a surefire moneymaker for the testing industry. Perhaps Congress thinks that is reason enough.

   I would not be surprised if the winning applicants: (a) help USDE salvage the SBAC/PARCC consortium concept; (b) rehabilitate and expand versions of those tests incorporating a deep reservoir of ready-to-use test items; and (c) feast on money for tweaking other “innovative systems of assessment” that are well-developed and ready for marketing.

   In fact, among other details in this section are strategies for marketing the new tests to parents, teachers, and so on under the banner of seeking feedback and developing a commitment to the “new testing system.”

   Not visible in this legislation is the fact $330 million has already been invested in much of this “innovative work,”delivering PARCC/SBAC tests online. Add huge investments from foundations in tandem with for-profit operations. For example, since 2000 the Gates foundation has awarded 187 grants millions of dollars for “personalized learning” initiatives. Promoters/developers of “modules” for competency-based adaptive tests have clearly done their work as lobbyists.

   It is important to remember that a computer adaptive test means that students are faced with items that keep getting more difficult if they answer each one correctly. If they answer incorrectly they are presented with items that are supposed to be easier and lead them to succeed on more difficult items. That process is endless but it can be rigged to give the grade-level measures that ESSA requires while touting the testing process as if “personalized” and essential for “individualized learning.”

   Our students and nation deserve far more than an educational program organized around test-prep, tests, endless analyses of data from tests, and more tests. Students are not served well by algorithms that determine “competency” as if face-to-face discussion with living breathing humans—parents, peers, teachers—should be passé.

   After these mental exercises I am making an end-of-year donation to FairTest. I send it along with a prayer that parents and teachers and students and a wider public will continue to protest and opt-out of current tests, stop this trillion dollar scheme to automate and standardize teaching and learning “at scale” meaning national tests of this ilk, certainly not personalized for 50 million public school students.
   ,

   Reply
   • RageAgainstTheTestocracy says:

     December 31, 2015 at 8:38 am

     From Lani Guinier, nearly one year ago:

     “This is the testocracy in action, an aristocracy determined by testing that wants to maintain its position even if it has to resort to fabrication.”

     Just compare those who support annual standardized testing to those who don’t.

     For testing:
     Gates, Broad, Kochs, Waltons, WSJ, NYT, et. al.

     Against testing:
     Teachers and informed parents

     Reply
   • SomeDAM Poet says:

     December 31, 2015 at 11:34 am

     “Assessment Winnowvation” (also spelled “Win ovation”)

     Assessment winnowvation
     To single out “The Best”
     The ones who bore
     The highest score
     On every single test

     Assessment Winnowvation is related to Chetty picking

     .

     Reply

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