There is no link for this story, but ipt out leaders are buzzing with the news that children with cognitive disabilities will be tested online this spring. In the past, these children were give performance assessments in line with their IEPS. One parent called this “cruel and unusual punishment” for these vulnerable children. A personal call to a high-ranking state official confirmed that this decision was made by State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, without consulting the Board of Regents.
No, it is not “all about the kids.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And out goes any common sense. I feel for the kids, I’m speechless, and I’ll end it right there before posting something I might come to regret in the future.
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Never regret speaking truth to power Mark. Teachers are mandated reporters of abuse. This is getting close.
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I feel for the kids — AND FOR THEIR TEACHERS who will be treated horribly in this process. It’s like making them kick the puppy in the name of blind “progress.”
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I guess they’re trying to catch with Florida in blatant disregard for either the needs of the child or the validity of test results.
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There’s a special hot place in Hell for those who use children for their own personal gain.
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If this is correct, then name of the contractor needs to be publicized along with the value of the contract and evidence that complies with IDEA etc.
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The test is from Dynamic Learning Maps. Their website is http://dynamiclearningmaps.org/
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Click to access DLM_Newsletter_October_2012_401538_7.pdf
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I spend my days in the service of these kids, and I can confidently affirm that this is indeed cruel and unusual punishment. Shame on you, Mary Ellen Elia: are you certain you even understand the responsibilities with which New York State has charged you?
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This is about putting the ciztizenry IN ITS PLACE, and USING US for the oligarchy’s own ends … money and control.
History is repeating itself once more. And to think this nation was founded on the principles of self-governance … With liberty and justice for all, not just the rich who buy off greedy, arrogant, self-absorbed politicians.
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Elia needs to be forcefully removed from her Gates appointed and supported position, handcuffs need to be slapped onto her wrists, and she must be taken to central booking for her signing off on criminal activity against our most vulnerable children.
Enough is enough already.
This disciple from hell must be kept far away from our children…far away from executing harmful policies.
it is past time that monsters such as Elia be destroyed, before they can inflict any further damage on our children.
The citizens of New York have bent over backwards in using civic actions against the likes of those including Elia, but the question on many minds that is pondered but rarely spoken, is when and how do we take our actions to the next level?
These are our children…not Elia’s, not Cuomo’s, and certainly not Gates. We are their parents, their providers, their stewards, and their defenders.
If the state of New York fails to protect and respect their rights, and continues to harmfully serve criminally negligent and fraudulent policies, then the obligation, the responsibility, and the civic duty….become ours.
Not tomorrow…or months from now.
The time is now…
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I teach special education, and I can confirm that these tests are ridiculous. I was recently informed that my students will be tested on area of polygons among other topics that I have not covered in class. This test is in no way an accurate portrayal of my students’ skills. In addition, the “accommodations” make the test nearly impossible for our students with the most significant needs. If you turn on the magnification (for students with visual impairments) you have to scroll side to side and up and down in order to see all of the answer choices.
If you would like more details about the test, you can go to http://dynamiclearningmaps.org/. If you want to take a practice test with magnification turned on, download the kite client at http://dynamiclearningmaps.org/content/kite and login with the username demo.lisa.4 and the password heal2 or username demo.lisa.6 and password raft5.
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Thanks to all who have directed attention to the website and the boastful claims that the tests offer a complete mapping of all of the prerequisites skills and concepts for the Common Core, something like 4000 this and 5000 of that with interconnections as complex as in a human genome. The tests are from a USDE funded project, your tax dollars and mine at work, deskilling teachers and relying on computer algorithms for testing the Gates-funded Common Core, but excluding the ELA literacy standards for grades 6-12. The computer tests seem to exclude content from history/social studies, science, and the so-called “technical subjects” where the master minds of the Common Core dumped the arts.
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when your only goal is to create statistics on ax experimental test , then you have to capture/catch every KID and use them in your giant experiment. If you don’t have a representatives population in your test experiment then you will never be able to say your test results have any reliability.
That is why they insist on getting the largest number of kid to represent “ALL” in the population. This is placing the test building above the needs of students, curriculum, program which is what we have always known it was about and it turns every child into a guinea pig.
These problems of technical reliability and technical adequacy do not go away… When they administer the test in STAR and ETS loses that number of tests (that got erased) you cannot have the kids just “do over” the test — you have lost your ethnical reliability and a do-over is not going to fix it.
When you get different results on the (a) computer version and the (b) paper and pencil version then your TEST is no reliable. They have had years now and they insist they want 5 more years (or 10) to get an adequate instrument.
None of these points I mention deal with the Threats to VALIDITY that we have maintained are inherent in this experimental approach. Despite these serious flaws the commissioners are pushing the experiment. That is a “horse race” or “gambling” because they are spending huge amounts of precious R&D dollars on gambling —
I have not seen a recent link but there were many complaints about this last year. IES also has a major group of people who are supposedly developing/devising “tests” or the children with severe impairment — it was one of the R&D programs fund under Duncan. TOO much for testing and not enough for development of resources; The priorities are messed up.
“There is no link for this story, but ipt out leaders are buzzing with the news that children with cognitive disabilities will be tested online this spring. In the past, these children were give performance assessments in line with their IEPS.”
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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these are the claims that Commissioner Mitchell Chester is making . He is no longer the chief at PARRC (Skandera is) but his staff were in attendance at the sessions held with Skandera’s staff two weeks ago. It is a big GAMBLE/experiment. I put my comments into the California OPT OUT page run by Harold Capnter (rather than print them all here).
A Message from Commissioner Chester about Statewide Assessments
April 2016
Background
The landmark 1993 Massachusetts education reform law directed the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to develop and administer a statewide assessment system to measure the academic achievement and progress of districts, schools, and individual students. Under the Board’s direction, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education developed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), which has been administered annually since 1998.
In 2011 Massachusetts joined the Partnership for Advancement of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a multi-state consortium formed to develop a new set of assessments for English language arts and mathematics. In November 2013, the Board voted to conduct a two-year “test drive” of the PARCC assessments, in order to decide whether we should adopt PARCC in place of our existing MCAS assessments in those two subjects. In the spring of 2014, PARCC was field tested in a randomized sample of schools in Massachusetts and in the other consortium states. In the spring of 2015, PARCC was administered in full operational mode. In Massachusetts, districts were given the choice of administering either the computer-based version of PARCC, the paper-based version of PARCC, or MCAS.
On November 17, 2015, the Board voted to adopt a path to a next-generation MCAS. That test will be used by all students in grades 3-8 in spring 2017. It will eventually be given on a computer and will incorporate elements of the existing MCAS and PARCC assessments along with questions unique to the new assessment. For spring 2016, districts again have the choice of administering either the computer-based version of PARCC, the paper-based version of PARCC, or MCAS.
Why Do We Need a Statewide Assessment?
The 1993 education reform law directed the Board to institute an annual statewide assessment program. This was part of the “grand bargain” incorporated in that landmark statute – clear standards, a significant increase in state funding and other resources, and accountability for results. A lively debate is currently underway, here in Massachusetts and across the nation, on the subject of standardized testing. It is entirely appropriate for us to examine the content and methods of assessment, the time we spend on testing, how test results best can help to improve instruction, and whether test preparation activities are crowding out more effective uses of classroom time.
But I disagree with those who would eliminate or suspend our annual statewide assessments. I know of no high performing system that fails to benchmark its performance and hold itself responsible for results. MCAS results have supported our education efforts in a number of ways:
The Commonwealth has a constitutional obligation to ensure that all students have the opportunity to receive an adequate education. MCAS results are one of several sources of information the Department and the Board use to identify schools and districts that require some additional assistance or intervention from the state.
At the same time, test results allow us to identify higher performing schools and districts and spotlight effective practices.
High quality assessments send important signals about the kinds of curriculum and instruction, teaching and learning that are reflected in the standards.
Teachers and administrators are provided with detailed analyses of student test results, offering useful information on what parts of their curriculum are effective and where instruction needs to be strengthened.
Parents deserve objective feedback on their children’s progress through elementary and secondary school grades. When students are performing below their grade-level expectations, we hope that their MCAS score reports will prompt constructive conversations among parents, teachers, and guidance counselors.
Passing the tenth grade MCAS tests is one of the requirements for a student to receive a Massachusetts high school diploma. Before education reform, too many students, especially in our larger and poorer cities, were receiving diplomas without having mastered even a baseline foundation of skills and knowledge.
Finally, test scores help us to demonstrate our achievements and our progress to the Legislature and to the public at large. We spend more than $16 billion a year on K-12 public education in the Commonwealth. We have an obligation to demonstrate to the taxpayers that we are spending that money effectively.
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statistical error is entered when they do not have a representative sample of students (who are just like the U.S. in all the different categories). That is why they are FORCING the tests inappropriately with the special needs students. It is to be able to market the test as “reliable” and representative. It is the same problem when a firm does a poll and they have a skewed population and then the results at the primary election don’t match with their poll.
The whole question revolves around the MARKETING — you cannot market a test in the future if you have never proven reliability… and that is why children are forced to be guinea pigs in this neo-liberal view that the computer is the answer to every problem of mankind (this relates to Thomas Frank’s “Listen Liberal” because the educational philosophy they have is wrong as well as their implementation and constructing experimental tests. FLAWED logic design.
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Our Partners
» The Arc
» Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at KU
» Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill
» McREL International
each one gets IES/OSEP funding; another “cartel”
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This is true-how profoundly impaired students can be assessed is beyond me. Evidently the teacher enters parameters based on abilities and it customizes the tasks. The teacher is able to enter a response for a child.
Quite frankly we do tests every 3 years in the form of a triennial. This is totally inappropriate. It replaces the previous alternate assessments. Only 3 parents showed up for the informational meetings (from a school of over 250 students).
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