After the recent PARCC tests were administered, a number of teachers went to social media to air their complaints about the quality and grade-level inappropriateness of the questions.
I posted one such article, which was originally on Celia Oyler’s blog. She is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Yesterday I received an email from Laura Stover of PARCC, telling me that my post contained copyrighted material, and I must take it down. Actually, it didn’t contain any copyrighted material, only a description of a test item, not the item itself. She actually wanted me to remove the link to Oyler’s post. I didn’t because the link is not copyrighted. I removed the paragraph referring to the test item.
I subsequently learned that that the same person wrote to Professor Oyler and threatened her with legal action if she didn’t delete her post and reveal the name of the teacher who wrote the post. Mercedes Schneider posted the letter to Oyler here.
I decided to tweet an article complaining about the PARCC test questions, and today I received notice from Twitter that my tweet had been deleted. If I persisted, my account might be suspended.
Here is the odd thing. Some years back, State Senator Ken Lavalle got a law passed called the Truth in Testing law. This required the release of all test items. Test makers complained but they had to comply.
I don’t know what happened to that law, which seems to have disappeared. I think it is a good idea, because students can study hundreds or thousands of items and be well prepared. The more test questions are released, the less likely that students will see any that may be re-used on the actual test.
Full disclosure is the best answer.
Of course, even better would be to do away with the PARCC tests, which are designed to be so difficult that most students will fail. The passing mark is aligned with NAEP proficient, which only 35-40% of students ever reach, except in Massachusetts.
This is the email I just received:
@DianeRavitch
Hello,
The following material has been removed from your account in response to the DMCA takedown notice copied at
the bottom of this email:
Tweet:
https://twitter.com/dianeravitch/status/730964092341657600 – Test secrets revealed: https://t.co/CgIGWtJinl
If you believe the material has been removed as a result of mistake or misidentification,
you may send us a counter-notification of your objection pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3).
Please include the following in your counter-notification:
Your full name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and Twitter user name.
Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location
at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
The following statement: “I swear under penalty of perjury that I have a good faith belief that the material was
removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.”
A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district in which
your address is located, or if your address is outside of the United States, the Northern District of California,
and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notice under 17 U.S.C. 512 (c)(1)(C) or an
agent of such person.
Your physical or electronic signature
Please send your counter-notification to us as a response to this message, or as a new email to copyright@twitter.com.
We will forward a copy of your counter-notification, including the information required in item 1 above, to the
complainant and Chilling Effects. BY SENDING US A COUNTER-NOTIFICATION, YOU CONSENT TO THIS DISCLOSURE OF YOUR
PERSONAL INFORMATION.
Please note that repeat violations of this policy may result in suspension of your account. In order to avoid this,
do not post additional material in violation of our Copyright Policy and immediately remove any material from your
account for which you are not authorized to post.
******************************
DMCA Takedown Notice
== Copyright owner: Laura Slover
== Name: Kevin Michael Days
== Company: PARCC Inc.
== Job title: Associate Director, Operations
== Email address: kdays@parcconline.org
== Address: 1747 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, 6th Floor
== City: Washington
== State/Province: District of Columbia
== Postal code: 20006
== Country: United States
== Phone (optional): 2027488100
== Fax (optional): n/a
——-
== Description of original work: The user has posted a link to a blog that contains secured operational items from the computer-based PARCC Grade 4 English Language Arts/Literacy Assessment, including information about the reading passages and essay prompts.
== Links to original work: n/a
—
== Reported Tweet URL:
https://twitter.com/DianeRavitch/status/730964092341657600
== Description of infringement: The Infringing Material consists of questions and supporting material relating to the PARCC standardized assessments and no person has been authorized to post or disclose such material other than certain persons authorized to administer the PARCC Assessments in a secure environment. No public disclosure has been authorized for the subject material. In particular, Parcc Inc. has a good faith belief that the use of the material described above has not been authorized by Parcc, Inc. as the owner of the subject copyrights.
== 512(f) Acknowledgment: I understand that under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), I may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, if I knowingly materially misrepresent that reported material or activity is infringing.
== Good Faith Belief: I have good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
== Authority to Act: The information in this notification is accurate, and I state under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
== Signature: Kevin Michael Days
Reference #ref:00DA0000000K0A8.500G000000xnZiY:ref
Help
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
The First Rule Of PARCC Club …
I wonder whether specific people are targeted. A lot of people tweeted that link and nothing happened. Same on Facebook. The NJ Opt Out page got two auto-tagged notices about the post. We had to “review” and release the post…and it’s still there, although, of course, the original blog post has since been changed.
Anyway, PARCC has too much power, or assumes they do. Way past time for it to go.
I got an email from Twitter today & my tweet was deleted.
I find the idea that PARCC is able to retain “copyright” for a deployed exam that the federal government spent 100s of millions of dollars to develop and that states spend 10s of millions of dollars to use utterly absurd. If they really claim these tests are “good” because they tell us how our children are doing, then the whole dang test should be released as soon as it is deployed or no later than when results are reported. We’ve payed for them as taxpayers, but we have no real idea what the tests are because PARCC and Pearson got sweet contracts that allow them to maintain tight control of exam they were contracted to write.
Beyond that, I find their claims against Dr. Oyler – and by extension you – to be absurd. She did not sign any confidentiality agreement. Courts have ruled that blogging can be considered journalism. Her source provided her with material in the public interest – namely, the quality of the product we’ve spent 100s of millions of dollars on. Publishing that may be inconvenient for PARCC’s operations, but that should not be the concern of citizen journalists who are given information that is beneficial to the public.
Exactly!
I also got an email from Twitter deleting my Tweet of that blog post. 😦 Looks like we hit a nerve!
Wow. So when my kid comes home and I ask him about questions on the PARCC and I tweet or blog what he tells me, are we infringing copyright?
Wyatt–I do not believe a third party can enter into an agreement with a minor.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if kids have not been threatened with legal –to say nothing of school disciplinary action — if they tell anyone (including their parents) what was on exam questions. Ask me what I think of grown ups telling small children (2nd and 3rd graders, for example) that they are “not allowed” to share things with their parents. No, on second thought — don’t ask me that.
Actually, I know of students who have been warned that they may not tell even their parents anything about the test because that is already infringing copyright.
I received the same email. I tweeted it again, and tweeted it to you. My Twitter account was just compromised, and I had to change my password. Coincidence? Maybe.
Wake Up Parents !!!
Your Child May Already Be Some Corporation’s Intellectual Property …
(… and don’t think they haven’t thought of it already …)
I think everyone needs to repost Diane’s post. Can you resend it,please so we can spread the word
I hate to invoke Godwin’s Law here, but PARCC, if the jackboots fit, wear them.
And they do seem to fit.
There is no reason whatsoever that standardized test questions should not be released after the tests have been administered and scored. This will help students, teachers, and parents learn how to improve student performance on future tests. Also, how each individual student scored on the test, what they got right, and what they got wrong. How else to improve instruction in the future? (Yeh, yeh, I realize that this doesn’t seem to be the actual purpose of these tests.)
Taxpayers are paying a pretty penny for these tests, and PARCC and the other testing companies should be using some of these dollars to develop new tests every year. Which they probably don’t want to do, because it would eat into their profits.
Oh, hell, my actual preference would be to just get rid of these stupid, punitive tests altogether.
Never mind. I see the problem.
Try to imagine an article or book whose copyright was so restrictive that it did not permit the fair use of anyone discussing any part of it online or in public.
Q. What possible use could that text be in education?
A. None
Correct. But there is no legitimate educational use for the PARRC tests, or any of the other standardized tests being used to punish public schools and shovel public money to charter schools.
Are you saying PARCC is “fairly useless”?
Completely, not fairly, useless! And any usage of results COMPLETELY INVALID.
Duane
I was trying to be punny.
Poet, just spell it backwards.
Hi Diane, Your dialog with the operations manager serves only to reinforce my strategy for beating Parcc and Pearson. His correct title is most likely product manager because Parcc is a product pure and simple. And I assume that Parcc lives on because of negotiation that the public is not privy to. As long as education professionals attack Parcc from the viewpoint of education we will never prevail. I am a teacher in New Jersey but teaching is my second career. I’m retired from a Fortune 100 company after 25 years in, among other things, marketing. To stop Parcc parents (mostly) and school administrators have to dry up the cash flow from Parcc. The community has to make it unprofitable to keep Parcc in the portfolio. There are dozens of strategies to use to destroy a brand and parents and districts have to invest in doing this if indeed they want to stop Parcc testing in their children’s school.
Everyone should dump twitter.
Remember, copyright protects only words, not ideas. PARCC may be able to find DMCA complaints related to the question text, but DMCA cannot apply to the statement of facts.
For example:
The PARCC asked students to read texts far beyond any reasonable expectation of their abilities. These included the poem “The Mountains” by Margan Dutton, which draws on the philosophy of Plato, and an article for Scottish mountaineers about how dialing 999 for an ambulance in climbing accidents causes logistical problems. 4th grade students also read a selection from a book about sharks advertised by Scholastic as having a Lexile score appropriate for 7th grade and being of interest primarily to high school students.
And there’s not a blessed thing the DMCA can do for them, because they don’t own the copyright to those words. They also can’t hunt me down through my district, because I don’t teach in the US and never signed any confidentiality agreement.
I also got the same notice that my tweet was deleted for linking to the Curmudgucation blog post that included some of the same PARCC info. Today I tweeted this and just found out that this tweet has also been deleted: @RIDeptEd @ParentsAcrossRI Does Commissioner Wagner still insist PARCC ?? r appropriate? https://t.co/wgrgOg03xG
Let’s all collect all the PARCC questions we can (make them up if you want) and post them to every venue we can get access to. If they’re going to employ people to keep track of all this stuff, the least we can do is help them earn their keep.
I thought I read that Pearson claimed that PARCC test questions belong to the states who paid for them? Did I dream that? It would make sense to me, assuming the states are the ones who pay for the tests, then they should own them, not PARCC or Pearson.
Seems I read this lat year when Pearson was under fire for spying on kids social media in New Jersey.
I think you are right, they did claim that, because it was convenient for them at the time.
Slover has no legitimate legal complaint regardless of copyright anyway. This is saber-rattling, but dangerous nonetheless. And the social media servies like Twitter are rolling over because that is what they do.
This is war, and there are few rules.
Bill Michaelson,
A member of the NPE board who is a lawyer wrote to Slover to let her know that she should review the “fair use” doctrine with PARCC lawyers
What would Pearson do if every one started posting on FB and hash tagging? I paid for those tests via my tax dollars. I own them. Pearson works for ME, and has no right to silence me, does it?
I received the same notification for my tweet of Dr. Oyler’s blog. A few things that I found pretty ridiculous, having JUST GIVEN the 4th grade PARCC exam myself to my students with special needs in Chicago:
1) PARCC uses excerpts from REAL children’s literature. Literature which is old enough to not be copyrightable, btw. This means a certain percentage of kids will have already read the passages beforehand and will therefore have an advantage. Besides, given the 100s of millions invested in PARCC, Inc from taxpayers, PARCC seriously couldn’t write a few dozen essays specifically for this purpose? This copyright “infringement” was just talking about the horrible, confusing questions. The text is all free literature out of copyright.
2) PARCC is abusive. There is no other word for what I witnessed after administering this test. My kids had emotional breakdowns, tantrums, and seriously disrupted learning. I know for a fact some kids in my city were even hospitalized citing PARCC specifically as the trigger which sent them to an inpatient psychiatric unit. But PARCC, Inc wants all of us who saw the test to stay silent until after harm is done to kids. This feels like an abuser trying to hide the abuse.
3) I’m wondering about this CEO, Laura Slover, mentioned in the complaint. According to her LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-slover-42b1a324), she was at Achieve, Inc-the architect of Common Core-for 15 years before becoming CEO of PARCC. No surprise there, but it does mean she has invested over 15 years of her life to a sinking ship. (Let us never forget that PARCC was originally in 24 states and is now down to only 6.) This feels like a desperate attempt to save their @$$.
Bingo. At this stage, the animal is most dangerous.
Gather ’round with spears.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
One of the PARCC Empire’s Darth Vaders strikes back at Diane Ravitch.
You are a teacher. A final exam that you wrote at home is to be given to three separate classes over three days. After the first class takes it, a student in it gives an accurate version of the essay questions to a friend who attends a different school. The second student posts the questions to his blog and FB page and tweets the posts.
Do you ask him to delete the posts and tweets? Are you censoring him if you do?
My child boycotts the PARCC> I believe that all the PARCC questions should be released after administration is complete and that student’s responses and the scores by item should be released to students who want them at no charge. But I don’t know anyone who thinks that the questions should be released before all administration is complete.
What about when the test is harming kids? A final exam that is actually tied to the curriculum is nothing like the developmentally inappropriate abuse-and I don’t use that term lightly, PARCC hurt my 3rd & 4th grade students with disabilities-that is PARCC. This copyright issue seems to me like a way to mask the immense harm of this test in order to save the profit potential of its makers. Releasing the information many months after the abuse, lessens the impact. I see releasing this information while the test is still “live” as an important act of civil disobedience. Disrupting the profit stream for a truly evil test.
“But I don’t know anyone who thinks that the questions should be released before all administration is complete.”
Hello, CLB, may I introduce myself? I am Duane Swacker (yes I use my real name), pleased to meet you. Now you know someone who believes that all the questions should be available and read by teachers and adminimals (not that they would understand the issues). I consider PROFESSIONALLY UNETHICAL for a teacher to give a test without knowing the content and being able to help the student who might need any help in completing the standardized test mental masturbation.
If the teachers can’t then it’s time for civil disobedience.
Not that I expect any GAGA ‘Good German’ teachers (about 99%) to do so.
Thoreau had something to say about their type:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher
Hi Duane. There’s a difference between releasing test questions publicly before testing is complete and having teachers or administrators or (in the case of PA at least) parents able to review them ahead of time.
I wish someone would help me mask my surprise, but I think we all have open mouths.
I understand copyright agreements. But I don’t have to agree with them … and I certainly don’t have to agree with them when they espouse one thing, but actually produce something very different. In fact, if that is actually case, then the agreement is already breeched … and the agreement is invalid.b And the rules evaporate.
These are not appropriate tests … and for these test-makers to prance about and declare their exams sovereign and excludable from public scrutiny is stunning nonsense.
If classroom teachers and young learners are being measured and evaluated by these assessment instruments, then it stands to reason that these tests should also see a certain level of public sunlight as well. If not, it looks as those there are accusers in the dark … evaluating-phantoms that rule over the careers of thousand and thousands of public school educators … who will never have a chance to face those forces that are deciding their professional fate.
Parents will have to simply bow to this testing Goliath and accept the pronouncements about the performance of their children … even if the diagnosis is so warped and so fraught with errors that the evaluators will not even acquiesce to defend their own conclusions.
Does this sound like solid logic to anyone? Does this seem the work of educational professionals? Does this entity have the right to preside over career and educational decisions when they will not even preside over their own defense?
Why do we put up with these excursions in the world of nonsense?
One week were defending recess … as though play is a villain activity. The next week we’re arguing that it is unhealthy to test third graders as we would test would-be lawyers. And now … here, today … we are arguing that an enterprise that holds sway over the fates of careers, schools, and children should open their vault and show us all their professional instruments. And then they pursue the truth tellers … and threaten them with great violations. Violations of what? How can the truth violate? The truth validates … and that is what we all need now.
Denis Ian
So much for social media being the great equalizer. We still have our corporate gatekeepers.
The main solution to these threats — and this ridiculous attack on democracy — is for every state and school district to insist that all test materials (and scoring materials) be made available to the public following the administration of any test utilized in our public schools. They have the right to “copyright” their tests, and we, the citizens, have the right to enforce laws that protect democracy. If they want to continue having secret tests after the laws are changed to assure full transparency, they can sell them to private schools that agree to honor their alleged “copyrights.” As many of your readers know, we, at Substance news in Chicago, were sued by the Chicago Board of Education in 1999 for “copyright infringement” after we published (in our print edition; this was before we were on line) six of the 22 Chicago CASE exams — after they had been administered to 100,000 high school students. Using copyright to hide these monstrous testing atrocities was bad then, it’s bad now, and our job remains to insist on full transparency as we challenge these corporate testing monstrosities.
Sharon,
What was the result of that lawsuit? Did you or the CBE prevail?
You can get some flavor of the ins and outs here: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1423085.html
Note that they published it _after_ it was administered. PARCC is still being administered this year.
In Slover’s letter she challenges us to go and examine the over “800 released questions” from PARCC. As a third grade teacher I have looked at the third grade questions closely. One story they offer to the public is entitled “Johnny Chuck Finds the Best Thing in the World” The story ends with the line ““It is being happy with the things you have and not wanting things which some one else has. And it is called Con-tent-ment.” What a great message for inner city students across the country (sarcasm)! This seems to be the exact message PARCC wants to send to all their viewers: Just accept what is here and do not challenge it!
When looking at the math there are also questions where they are clearly challenging reading skills and not math. For example: “Lavina wants to place a fence around a rectangular play area for her rabbits. The play area will be 7 feet long and 4 feet wide.
What is the total length of fence, in feet, Lavina needs to place around the play area?” The word area is mentioned THREE times, but this has nothing to do with measuring area! My classroom of ELL students have mastered the standard of area and perimeter, but the other day when I gave this as a “do now” every single student got it wrong. They were enticed by the distracting language. Policy makers and tax payers are not looking are not examining the question’s language only the results.
More parents should take Slover’s advice and read those questions so they understand how this test purposefully manipulates their child’s thinking.
“this test purposefully manipulates [and misleads] a child’s thinking.”
Quite right Brendan. As a former consultant test writer I can assure you that this is intentional. There was a fundamental rule about writing item stems that never waivers: If an item can be misconstrued, it will be misconstrued. Test items must be worded with extreme care to avoid potential confusion. No one understands the viewpoint of children and just how readily they can misconstrue a test item better than experienced classroom teachers. This is why testing companies employ so many teachers as consultant writers. With that said, either Pearson (PARCC) employs absolute hacks with no teaching experience or items like this are written to purposefully confuse all but the most motivated, serious, and self-disciplined students. And all in the name of “rigor”.
This test item is attempting to test the skill of adding single digit numbers AND is testing the student’s understanding of the term rectangle AND the student’s concept of perimeter. Now that’s three different concepts embedded in one test item; it is essentially a poorly worded, multi-step word problem. And if the item failed to include a picture/graphic it is also testing an 8 year olds ability to visualize this rectangular play area.They also use a phrase that no human pet owner ever uttered in the history 10,000 year history of pet ownership: “a play area for rabbits” – rabbits are docile grazers and they really don’t play; and if they did you still wouldn’t use that stupid phrasing. Now Pearson might call this rigor, but for an 8 year old child, it is a ridiculous and inappropriate way to test those skills.
Shown below is a plan Pearsonia drew for her vegetable garden. Her plan includes a fence around her garden. The “x” represents a length of 7 feet on the long side and the “y” represents a width of 4 feet on the short side .
1) Which is the total length of fence that Personia will need to completely surround all four sides of her rectangular garden?
a) 7 feet
b) 4 feet
c) 11 feet
d) 22 feet
Ideally the graphic would show 7 feet and 4 feet instead of x and y however that was the best I could find on a quick Google image search. Requiring students to match my original wording to the graphic is an extra step that would make this very challenging for many third graders.
I also messed up the options, they should read
a) 4 feet
b) 7 feet
c) 11 feet
d) 22 feet
or
a) 11 feet
b) 22 feet
c) 28 feet
d) 56 feet
The devil is always in the details. Good test writers pay attention to any detail that could confuse a child. Pearson writers seem to put in details meant to confuse.
Here is a pretty good guideline to proper mc item writing. Note how many violations one finds in Pearson tests.
A Revised Taxonomy of Multiple-Choice (MC) Item-Writing Guidelines
Content concerns
1. Every item should reflect specific content and a single specific mental behavior, as called for in test specifications (two-way grid, test blueprint).
2. Base each item on important content to learn; avoid trivial content.
3. Use novel material to test higher level learning. Paraphrase textbook language or language used during instruction when used in a test item to avoid testing for simply recall.
4. Keep the content of each item independent from content of other items on the test.
5. Avoid over specific and over general content when writing MC items.
6. Avoid opinion-based items.
7. Avoid trick items.
8. Keep vocabulary simple for the group of students being tested.
Formatting concerns
9. Use the question, completion, and best answer versions of the conventional MC, the alternate
choice, true-false (TF), multiple true-false (MTF), matching, and the context-dependent item
and item set formats, but AVOID the complex MC (Type K) format.
10. Format the item vertically instead of horizontally.
Style concerns
11. Edit and proof items.
12. Use correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
13. Minimize the amount of reading in each item.
Writing the stem
14. Ensure that the directions in the stem are very clear.
15. Include the central idea in the stem instead of the choices.
16. Avoid window dressing (excessive verbiage).
17. Word the stem positively, avoid negatives such as NOT or EXCEPT. If negative words are used,
use the word cautiously and always ensure that the word appears capitalized and boldface.
Writing the choices
18. Develop as many effective choices as you can, but research suggests three is adequate.
19. Make sure that only one of these choices is the right answer.
20. Vary the location of the right answer according to the number of choices.
21. Place choices in logical or numerical order.
22. Keep choices independent; choices should not be overlapping.
23. Keep choices homogeneous in content and grammatical structure.
24. Keep the length of choices about equal.
25. None-of-the-above should be used carefully.
26. Avoid All-of-the-above.
27. Phrase choices positively; avoid negatives such as NOT.
28. Avoid giving clues to the right answer, such as
a. Specific determiners including always, never, completely, and absolutely.
b. Clang associations, choices identical to or resembling words in the stem.
c. Grammatical inconsistencies that cue the test-taker to the correct choice.
d. Conspicuous correct choice.
e. Pairs or triplets of options that clue the test-taker to the correct choice.
f. Blatantly absurd, ridiculous options.
29. Make all distractors plausible.
30. Use typical errors of students to write your distractors.
I think I’ll tell the IRS auditor to just accept the documents I decide to provide and not the ones demanded.
Real accountability for PARCC. Sure.
Here is my take on “the PARCC”… I think reading the test is an infringement of copyright THEREFORE ALL CHILDREN SHOULD BE SENT CEASE AND DESIST notification with regards to reading the questions on the test. Sounds about as sane as anything PARCC stands for to me :} :} :} !!! Every try to have a kindergarten student “keep a secret”? Hmmm will PARCC start arresting little ones who eventually will have to suffer the fate of taking these tests?
Sharon Schmidt is absolutely right. Without trying to defend the PARCC exams (which are, in my opinion, indefensible), the real problem here is the contracts under which states agreed to abide by abusive copyright restrictions. The reasons WHY states and schools districts should have refused have been amply discussed above. In each state using any exams where teachers and parents believe the exam questions are severely flawed and the test manufacturers hide behind copyright to avoid having to defend their product), you need one of three things:
1. Contract Administrators at state departments of education who simply will not sign these contracts. Those positions are often filled today with ed reform devotees only TOO HAPPY to enter into these deals. (In some states, the issue may be state ed workers who are incompetent, or who have incompetent counsel advising them).
2. Laws on state books that disallow the state (or school districts) from entering into testing contracts for mandatory high stakes testing where the test manufacturers will not make the scores (and the scoring rubrics) available once the test has been taken.
3. State initiative authority that gives citizen the opportunity to enact, through initiative power, limits on the state’s authority to enter into testing contracts where the test questions cannot be released (and answers — with scoring decisions cannot be released to students and parents) after the test has concluded.
In the meantime — we can all continue to Opt Out!
Thanks to Diane for posting the whole thing, including the Twitter take down and procedures for restoration. I do not Tweet, use Facebook or other social media, and am less likely to do so now.
It is clear that PARCC is more eager to sue a teacher and a bunch of other people who have criticized ONE leaked test item than simply take a financial hit on that item. I wonder if Laura Stover will attack Tweets that are critical of the 800 or so released test items, or for that matter the Common Core, which she helped to usher into existence.
Laura Stover is unable to sue for a breech of the PARCC test security agreement. She needs the name of the teacher and identity of the school personnel in charge of test security. Next best thing from her point of view is the threatening letter and the safe assumption that she helped to authorize the takedown of the Twitter accounts.
For Laura:
STOVER! Not Chapman.
So much for transparency. Things are getting nasty….
” Some years back, State Senator Ken Lavalle got a law passed called the Truth in Testing law.”
As far as I can find, the law was proposed but never passed.
It did pass. Test publishers were not happy.
Thank god/goodness/TheForce for you, Diane. We are in this with you. I was in the midst of posting a link to this very piece on my FB page when a friend texted me about your post here. Here below is the preface I wrote to that post. If they are attacking you, they are taking on all, all of us.
My post of that link starts with this:
There is something surreal about the last two-plus months of every school year. A piece of dystopia today, the poisons of which seep slowly/quickly backwards and disable/discolor the rest of the school year.
In Pennsylvania, teachers sign a binding document, acknowledging that we are forbidden to look at the tests our children in grades 3-8 take which determine how the state sums up our teaching year.
In PA, the PSSA is our equivalent of PARCC, and the other similar God-like instruments of VAM, which grade the children, us, and our school.
If a child raises his/her hand and whispers a question to us as we stand near, we have to stand in a position which ensures we can’t see the test in front of him/her. If the question is about the test, we have to answer, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that.”
We are closely monitored, and we know we could lose our teaching licenses and face criminal,charges if we look at the test. The children, of course, notice and feel the weird newness of their teachers.
This, along with the big changes in routine and schedule during the weeks of test, are phenomena from which we do not ever fully recover.
And we wonder, don’t we — perhaps there may be some flaws in The Test? The one which looms so heavily over us and determines so much of the future of each and all of us — maybe if we saw it, we would discover flaws?
This teacher did see part of her/his children’s test. This teacher courageously tells us some things perhaps we, too, might discover about ours.
Please, read this, share it, and let’s talk about what to do about this.
What about the non-tested subjects in PA? Can the middle school science teacher look at the test they are evaluated by? Can the HS history teacher? What about the art, music, and phys ed teachers?
I suspect that Pearson is so sensitive about the release of test items because they haven’t written very many of them. I noticed that this year’s PARCC ELA passages were the same as last year’s. So were the essay prompts. I don’t take notes on test items, but I do have a very good visual memory.
Hold on there, Diane. You said this:
“I decided to tweet an article complaining about the PARCC test questions, ”
Doesn’t sound to me like you tweeted any copyrighted material. If this is the case, it is important you send the counter-notification. I am the copyright offices for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and I have to be extremely careful to ensure my use of the DMCA is legitimate. Enough mistakes and I get taken to task.
They are trying to intimidate you. This should result in a tweet storm.
“A PARCCollapse”
The writing’s on the wall
The Common Core will fall
The standard test
Is under stress
The PARCC is in a stall
This episode should silence any and all proponents of Common Core testing who think that these fraudulent exams could possibly help to improve teaching and learning.
Serious business. Sinister, in some ways. Those who profit from and wish to expand PARCC and the rest of the program (a very big program) obviously have very strong influence.
Not surprising, though. Internet social media was founded by Mark Zuckerberg who has become a very deep pocketed cheerleader of the education reform. I’d think that he and other media based giants (Bloomberg, Murdoch, etc) have a lot of contacts.
I’m wondering if we’re beginning to see the “My house/my rules” flag unfurling in the larger scheme of the things in the Internet world. Whether that sort of declaration is valid or not is a whole nuther question. Easy for me to say, but I agree with Michael Lambert’s post above.
Oyler’s use of the material is fair use as part of a derivative work to criticize the test. Slover’s intimidation tactic could be prelude to a SLAPP action for which, unfortunately, New York State does not yet have robust protection. She could be bluffing, too, because surely she has access to counsel who will tell her that her complaint is without merit.
I just spoke with a friend who said that Twitter might be afraid of a potential lawsuit from PARCC. Thus the deletion of those posts. I don’t know whether this is true or not but he does have a point.
Sort of. They just respond automatically to any takedown request. One can fight that if so inclined. PARCC is gambling that they are more energetic and re$ourceful than their targets.
I’m curious: I’ve gotten a few “Likes” and comments of some of my posts in my email. One was today. But nothing shows up on this site when I check it out.
How do I do Likes and view/answer these comments?
The like buttons and extra levels of comments appear on some mobile formats of the blog but not on the desktop copy.
Thanks Jon
But how could PARCC and SBAC make money if they actually had to release questions and come up with new ones? I just gave SBAC and the Performance Task was the exact same one as last year. Anything to make a buck.
Hear, hear. This is the whole testing argument in a nutshell.