Audrey Amrein-Beardsley looks closely at the AERA statement on the use of value added modeling (VAM).
She reviews the complex statistical requirements for proper implementation. No state or school district today could meet these standards.
Archives for the year of: 2015
Rick Ayers, a professor of teacher education at the University of San Francisco, reviews the controversy over EdTPA, the Pearson-owned assessment tool for future teachers. In the past, educational professionals decided whether teachers were prepared for their job. Now, in 35 states, teachers must take the Pearson EdTPA to win certification.
He writes:
The Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) is the new set of evaluations of teacher candidates that is spreading across the country. Packaged as government-mandated test that assures the quality of teaching, it in fact colonizes the curriculum of teacher education programs and narrows the focus on teaching as pre-determined and top down delivery of lessons.
If you ask advocates about edTPA, they’ll tell you it’s a teacher performance assessment developed through a partnership between Stanford University’s Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE) and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). They describe it as being designed “by the profession, for the profession” and “transformative for prospective teachers because [it] requires candidates to actually demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to help all students learn in real classrooms.” And policy makers are listening: as of November 2015, 647 educator preparation programs in 35 states are using edTPA, and it’s required for teacher licensure in 4 states.
Critics, however, tell a radically different story. In articles published in an increasing number of academic journals, blogs, and trade magazines, they question the validity of the assessment, its ideological stance, and its function as yet another tool of privatized, neoliberal reform. Barbara Madeloni, now president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, was an early resistor. After the New York Times published a 2012 article about her students’ refusal to participate in an edTPA pilot, Madeloni lost her job at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Later, she, with Julie Gorlewski of SUNY New Paltz, published a series of critiques under headlines like “Wrong Answer to the Wrong Question” that describe edTPA as reductive and poorly aligned with the goals of social justice education….
Many scholars and activists are especially concerned about the role of Pearson Education, who is the exclusive administrator of edTPA and charges $300 per candidate per submission. $75 of this goes back to a “calibrated scorer”–a teacher or teacher educator who, with just 19-23 hours of computer-based training by Pearson was magically transformed from unqualified to evaluate their own teacher candidates to a national expert in evidence-based assessment. The other $225, presumably, goes to Pearson, SCALE and AACTE, who are surely celebrating their resounding success: 18,463 candidates were required to take edTPA in 2014. At $300 each, that’s $5,538,900. It is true that Pearson offers some vouchers to offset the cost for candidates. But in 2014, there were a whopping 600 vouchers available for the entire state of New York.
I have learned from a high-level official in New York that EdTPA has caused numerous problems. The future teachers are supposed to submit videos that show them teaching but parents are reluctant to give permission to film their children. The pass rates of African-American and Hispanic candidates is disproportionately low.
To many observers, both inside and outside the teacher education profession, EdTPA seems to be just one more piece of the “reform” effort to break the teaching profession and make it easier to turn teaching into a scripted performance.
If anyone wants to defend EdTPA, go for it. I’m all ears.
The first cyber charter school in Pennsylvania was founded by former superintendent Nicholas Trombetta. It was called the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. It became a booming business, enrolling 10,000 students and collecting about $10,000 for each of them in state tuition. Now there are more than a dozen cyber charters operating in the state. The state, under former Governor Tom Corbett, drafted a very generous payment to these virtual schools, and they are big money-makers. Studies have shown that their academic results are worse than traditional public schools or brick-and-mortar charter schools.
In 2012, the FBI raided Trombetta’s offices, and in 2013, he was indicted for alleged embezzlement of millions of dollars. It seems he set up numerous for-profit and nonprofit businesses to provide goods and services to the cyber charter.
While Trombetta awaits trial, the school continues to do business. The state’s Auditor General announced that he will audit the business to learn where the state’s money is going.
Another cyber charter founder, June Brown, was also indicted for theft of millions of dollars. She too is awaiting trial. She ran the Agora Cyber Charter School, which was part of the K12 Inc. empire of virtual charters. The board voted to sever its relationship with K12 Inc.
Susan Ohanian has written a scorching article about the New York Times coverage of education.
She documents the newspaper’s lack of attention to big issues, its reliance on a small number of conservative commentators as experts, and its consistent editorial support for high-stakes testing, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and other failed policies.
“The Times Editorial Board, like the legendary Boston Brahmin Cabots, who spoke only to God, finds no need to communicate with education practitioners or researchers to reinforce their claim that the Common Core is necessary for the economic well-being of the country. The board is joined by staff op ed writers in insisting that the Common Core is heavily researched and jam-packed with critical thinking and problem-solving skills that workers need to keep the nation competitive in the Global Economy. Like people waiting for Senator McCarthy to open his briefcase at the House UnAmerican Activities Committee meetings, Times readers wait for even a snippet of a study by one education researcher providing evidence for all this phantasm.
“It just isn’t there.
“The New York Times education coverage has become quasi-governmental, promoting the corporate push for standardization of public schools. Not only are readers not informed that the Common Core was developed and heavily promoted with hundreds of millions from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the oft-repeated selling point that these “standards that have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia” fails to acknowledge that the states did it for the money, accepting the Common Core for the Race to the Top financial bribe handed out by the US Department of Education, most definitely not for the pedagogy. Savvy readers keep a count of how often the Times intones unproven key phrases right out of the press releases from Common Core headquarters: “the Common Core sets a national benchmark for what students should should learn”[10]; “a focus on critical thinking and primary investigation”[11]; “set more rigorous classroom goals for American students, with a focus on critical thinking skills, abstract reasoning in math and reading comprehension”[12]; “emphasize critical thinking”[13]; “emphasis on free-form thinking”[14]; “emphasize deep analysis and creative problem-solving”[15]; “written by a panel of experts … focus on critical thinking and analysis”[16]; “modeled on the teaching strategies of countries, especially in Asia, that perform better on international comparisons”[17] ; “a more rigorous set of standards”[18]; “heightened expectation of student progress. . . ideal of a rigorous national standard”[19]; “tougher learning standards taking root across the country”[20]; a set of rigorous academic standards”[21]; “the new, more rigorous academic standards”[22]; “a set of rigorous reading and math standards”[23]; “a tougher set of standards”[24]; “the standards were written by a panel of experts convened by a bipartisan group of governors and superintendents to emphasize critical thinking over memorization, to better prepare students for college and jobs”[25]; “new benchmarks for what students need to know and be able to do”[26]; “new and more rigorous set of academic standards”[27]; “more rigorous academic standards.”[28]
“As we read this over-the-top legerdemain about the Common Core—verified by absolutely no evidence from research or classroom practice—we have to wonder about the absence of those reportorial strategies so clearly outlined by the Pulitzer science reporter:
* Interviewing researchers
* Interviewing unconnected experts
* Talking with real people and relevant experiences”
FairTest writes that the past year was amazing for opponents of high-stakes testing for students and teachers.
Testing Reform Victories 2015: Growing Grassroots Movement Rolls Back Testing Overkill
for further information:
Lisa Guisbond (617) 959-2371
Dr. Monty Neill (617) 477-9792
or Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
NEW REPORT: “TESTING REFORM VICTORIES 2014-2015:
GROWING GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT ROLLS BACK TESTING OVERKILL”
Pressure from parents, students, teachers, school officials and community leaders began turning the tide against standardized exam overuse and misuse during the 2014-2015 school year, according to a new report released today. “Testing Reform Victories 2015: Growing Grassroots Movement Rolls Back Testing Overkill” shows that many states reduced testing mandates, eliminated score-based consequences, and implemented better assessments. The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), a leader of the U.S. assessment reform movement, released the study.
Lisa Guisbond, the report’s author, explained, “Public pressure has forced policy makers to respond to the many harms resulting from the fixation on high-stakes exams. Even President Obama now concedes that testing has gone too far. Opinion polls show a sharp shift against overreliance on test-and-punish policies in favor of assessments based on multiple measures.”
Among the concrete assessment reform victories documented in the new FairTest report:
– Policy-makers repealed California’s graduation test. Six other states recently overturned similar requirements, reversing a trend toward exit exams. California, Georgia, South Carolina and Arizona also granted diplomas retroactively to students denied them by test scores.
– Florida, Oklahoma, New York and North Carolina suspended or revised their test-based grade promotion policies. New Mexico legislators blocked their governor’s attempt to impose one.
– Several other states, including Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Colorado and Maryland rolled back testing mandates. So did many districts, led by Lee County, Florida.
– Opting out surged to record levels in New York, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado, Illinois and elsewhere. The national total approached 500,000.
– Polls show that large numbers of Americans agree that there is too much standardized testing and that it should not be used for high-stakes purposes.
– Three dozen colleges and universities eliminated or reduced admissions test requirements. The record test-optional growth means that more than 850 schools now offer such policies.
– Promising efforts to develop alternative systems of assessment and accountability are under way in California, New Hampshire and New York. All deemphasize standardized tests while incorporating multiple measures of school performance.
Ms. Guisbond concluded, “The movement’s growth and accomplishments are tremendously encouraging. But it’s far too early to declare victory and go home. Activists will use lessons learned from last year’s successes to expand and strengthen the testing resistance movement and ensure that policy makers go beyond lip service to implement meaningful assessment reforms.”
Bruce Dixon of the Black Agenda Report writes a scathing commentary on Arne Duncan and John King.
Unlike his underqualified predecessor, John King is highly qualified to nail down the gains of educational privatizers. For the last ten months, King has been Arne Duncan’s deputy, and before that he headed the New York State Department of Education. Like Duncan, he’s never taught in or administered a public school in his life. King started out as a charter school teacher and administrator, and eventually headed a chain of charter schools with exceptionally onerous disciplinary policies.
As commissioner of NY State Department of Education King was instrumental in forcing Common Core, a standard curriculum developed by non-educators and corporate consultants from the Gates Foundation, the testing industry and others, upon parents and schools while his own children attended a local Montessori school, which of course did not administer standardized testing. In New York King distinguished himself as a thin-skinned, tone-deaf bully, insisting in the face of widespread public opposition that cutting recreation, music, literature and real teaching in favor of Common Core’s “teach to the test” and other “run-the-school-like-a-business” practices were good for children and good for education.
There are two pieces of good news here. The first is that the $4 billion in stimulus funds the administration had under Duncan to coerce states and school districts into compliance is gone, and provisions of the successor to No Child Left Behind, which of course will institutionalize as much of the privatization regime as possible, are not yet finalized. The second is that like Arne Duncan, John King is no charmer, no persuader, and no salesman. He’s an arrogant autocrat in a highly public, highly visible position, committed to enforcing a set of massively unpopular policies. There’s a serious political opportunity here to galvanize and make visible a movement of national resistance to the juggernaut of school privatization. The Obama administration is well aware of this, and is transparently seeking to buy time with empty declarations of intent to reduce emphasis on standardized testing.
This is rich. The LA Times supported John Deasy’s every move when he was superintendent and ranked out his critics. Now the editorial board turns against him and says he had big visions but no follow through. It even calls Deasy’s $1.3 billion iPad plan a “fiasco.”
Says the editorial:
“What became apparent over time, though, was that setting high-profile goals was only one part of the job; where Deasy stumbled was in getting down to the unglamorous work of making those dreams come true through meticulous planning, accounting for contingencies and addressing valid concerns raised by others.
“As a result, Deasy left a legacy of big, bold plans but too few accomplishments. The iPads-for-all policy could reasonably be called a fiasco. The district was lambasted in independent investigations for buying problematic educational software and having little idea of how the new technology would even be used in classrooms. The college-prep graduation requirements had to be rolled back because they were imposed with little planning for how students would pass the necessary classes. Instead of fixing the district’s dysfunctional student scheduling system known as MISIS, he supported a lawsuit blaming the state for it.
“Too often, Deasy’s urgency meant that sweeping new policies were dumped in teachers’ laps without the support, explanation and assistance needed to make them work. Teachers’ concerns were too often dismissed as an unwillingness to change.”
Thank you for reading. Thank you for sending me links to stories in your local newspaper. Thank you for having my back, as I try to have yours.
Thank you for understanding, forgiving, and correcting my typos. Please know that most of my posts are written on my cell phone, often in a taxi, an elevator, or sitting on a park bench. I make mistakes. For those of you who are new to reading the blog, please know that I work alone; I have no assistants, no secretary. It is just me, the computer (or cell phone), and you. No advertising ever.
This blog practices a policy of free speech. Those who disagree are welcome to join in the conversation, but within certain limits. Be aware that you are in my virtual living room. If you become rude, crude, or uncivil, you will be asked to desist; if you do not desist, you will be kicked out. If you insult your host (me), you will be asked to leave, politely but firmly. If you habitually rant against teachers because you have a stereotyped image of them, out you go. It is a large living room, but there is no room for haters or conspiracy theorists.
Thank you for joining the Resistance. Thank you for fighting the Status Quo. Together we will prevail because the people financing the assault on public education have no successes; all their policies have failed. We fight for real education, where children can experience the joy of learning and the quest to know. We oppose the monetization and privatization of public education. We oppose high-stakes testing. We support the teaching profession. We support children’s right to learn without fear or labels or rankings or ratings.
We give one another courage and hope. We share the bad news and the good news. Be informed. Learn the language of doublethink so you don’t believe it.
What can you do to help? Join your local or state organization of parents and teachers supporting public education. Support the opt out movement. The best way to stop this monster consuming education is to take away its data. It is kind of like throwing water on the Wicked Witch. Don’t let your children become data points.
Come to the annual meeting of the Network for Public Education in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 16-17 and say hello. I have a selfie stick that was a gift from the Newark Students Union at the last annual meeting. We can take pictures together. Join us.
Jonathan Pelto notes the arrival of a new front group to promote charters in Connecticut. He also notes that the name is new, but the people are the same as the existing front groups.
“As Connecticut faces yet another massive state budget crisis, even more Pro-Charter School and Corporate Education Reform Industry money is flowing into Connecticut to help grease the charter school operators’ efforts to grab additional public funds courtesy of charter school aficionado and “education reform” groupie Governor Dannel Malloy.
“This time the corporate funded charter school lobbyists are calling themselves “Fight for Fairness CT” and are rallying in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford.
“Charter school organizers are using http://www.fightforfairnessct.org, a website that was created by a New York City advertising company on October 23 2015.
“Although they are calling themselves by a different name, the group is actually the same controversial New York based charter school lobby group known as “Families for Excellent Schools” http://www.familiesforexcellentschools.org/ except when they call themselves “Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy.”
“While their primary purpose has been to support Eva Moskowitz and the other New York Charter School operators, Families for Excellent Schools arrived in Connecticut from New York last year and registered both Families for Excellent Schools AND Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy as lobbying entities with Connecticut’s Office of State Ethics.
“However, Families for Excellent Schools immediately created a new front group called Coalition for Every Child, setting up a website named http://www.foreverychildct.org/
“When slapped for failing to register Coalition for Every Child with the Connecticut’s ethics office, the New Yorkers quickly changed their name to Families for Excellent Schools/Coalition for Every Child.
“This year Families for Excellent Schools has spent nearly $1.2 million lobbying in favor of Governor Malloy’s charter school and education reform initiatives.
“A quick glimpse at the newly formed http://www.fightforfairnessct.org will reveal the same logo as the old http://www.foreverychildct.org/, although they did change the color from Yellow to Blue to go along with the new t-shirts that Families for Excellent Schools are handing out to charter school parents and students in New York and Connecticut.”
The charter school kudzu.
Howard Blume writes in the LA Times that the LAUSD school board will make a decision on billionaire Eli Broad’s plan to put half the district’s children into privately managed charter schools, including national chains. You might say it is the Walmartization of public education in Los Angeles.
This is is not an easy decision because the state law was written when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger controlled the state board, filling it with charter advocates. The law gives a blank check to anyone who wants to open a charter.
“Until now, school board members have not been forced to take a position on the Broad proposal, though some have expressed concerns about charters draining money and higher-performing students from traditional schools. The union is hoping to lock in school board opposition early as it campaigns against the charter expansion.
“But officially joining the opposition also poses risks for school board members and the district. State law requires school systems to approve new charters regardless of the financial impact on the district. The Los Angeles Unified School District faces lawsuits if it rejects charters without cause. Moreover, a vote would force board members to take sides — and face the political consequences.
“At one level, the debate is a continuation of the last school board election, in which charters and unions, the major funders, battled to a split outcome. The result was not just about the candidates but about which approach to improving schools would lead the way in the nation’s second-largest system.
“Supporters see independently operated, publicly funded charters, most of which are nonunion, as a better alternative to regular schools. Unions and other charter critics would prefer to see more investment in existing campuses. L.A. has the most charter schools of any city.”
Would it it be just cause to say that the Broad plan is not in the public interest and that it would deny resources and equal opportunity to the other 50% in the public schools?
Can the school board approve a plan to destroy the system they were elected to support and improve? Should they neglect the needs of the other 50%? Isn’t it undemocratic on its face to allow a billionaire to buy as much as he wants of the public school system? Once it’s gone, it will be difficult if not impossible to restore.
Who who will hold Eli Broad accountable for his theft of a public institution?
Diane Ravitch's blog 