After loud and persistent complaints from parents and educators about the testing giant Pearson, the New York State Education Department announced that Pearson would be replaced by a new testing vendor, Questar. That was last year. The footnote was that Pearson would continue to be the testing contractor for 2016 and 2017. Then the state would switch to Questar for fully online assessments.
But lo! What’s this?
Questar just hired a Pearson testing expert–Katie McClarty– to be in charge of Questar assessments.
Katie may be a fine psychometrician, but what are the chances that the new assessments will be a change from the old assessments? Sounds like Pearson all over again.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Brand names accumulate bad baggage… new brand.
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Smoke and mirrors. They must think we’re stupid.
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“The Test Star”
The test star
For Questar
Is Pearson
McClarty
Is hardly
Nonpartisan
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Meet the new boss…Same as the old boss.
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Did the New York State Education Department hire Quester to design tests where most of the students would fail, or to design tests where most of them would pass?
I’m sure Katie McClarty is perfectly capable of doing whatever bidding they want. Is it time for “reform” to start working yet? Katie McClarty will design the appropriate test (and place cut scores) for exactly that result. Do we need to say public schools are getting worse? Katie McClarty is certain to have the skills to design a test to show that as well.
As long as the test is ONLY for public school students, while the privately educated children get to “opt out”, Katie McClarty’s job will be to do exactly what she is told to do. And history shows that she is very good at doing exactly that.
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^^Questar
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Setting the cut scores AFTER tests were “graded” maked her job a whole lot easier.
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If too many students pass, it is always because the test is too easy (bad) and not because the teaching is good.
If too many students fail, it is always because the teaching is bad, and not the test.
It’s a win-win for the reformers if you have the billionaires to set your own standards for reform. And you make sure that the children of privileged are exempt from testing.
Funny, when the children of the billionaires are forced to take the same tests as public school students (SATs), the test is designed to be EASIER to get a good score. Or, the private schools decide that the AP exams are no longer “worthwhile” because too many high scoring public school kids means too many of their own students scores don’t look very good anymore.
But when it comes to the tests that are ONLY for public school kids, they need to be carefully designed to demonstrate failure.
In my opinion, the focus of the opt-out movement should be that if you insist every student should take the test, than EVERY student should take the test. The SAME test. And if not, the opt out movement should design their own test that they can claim is just as valid.
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Exactly NYCP. Remember the year when NYC math scores were too high for their liking, so they raised the cut score, post-facto, in order to lower the pass rate. The entire NCLB/RTTT/CCSS/Charter School era is all about the powers that be, gaming the system to their benefit (ROI).
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I remind viewers to this blog that the designers, makers, pre-testers and producers of standardized tests have many decades of experience under their belts and are quite good at what they do.
“Good” as in meeting client specifications. The results, especially pertinent when discussing high-stakes standardized tests, are set within very narrow margins of error long before they are administered on a mass scale. Translation: the arrow is shot into the wall and the bullseye is painted around it, with the only difference from arrow to arrow being that they are at slightly varying distances from the center or edge of the bullseye.
There is no hyperbole in the above. No over- or under-statement. This is simply a commonplace among psychometricians.
For those wishing to investigate the matter more fully, a good place to start is Daniel Koretz, MEASURING UP: WHAT EDUCATIONAL TESTING REALLY TELLS US (2009, paperback, inexpensive).
And that doesn’t even cover what Señor Swacker would assert—with much justification—whether or not the darn things measure anything meaningful and useful at all.
😎
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Krazy TA
Your bullseye analogy hits the bullseye.
These people are indeed good at archerry (why pick cherries when you can plant them?)
Of course, the other thing that they Rheally excel at is switching jobs when they fail in the first (or second [or third {or fourth}]) job.
Pearson has clearly lost it’s glamor for Ms. McTesty and she is looking for a fresh, unsoiled environment.
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Quite correct KTA in that I assert that any test, whether teacher made or standardized, MEASURES ABOSLUTELY NOTHING. Except of course in the minds of psychometricians and those caught in the psychometrice pseudo-scientificity spell. “Oh, look there are numbers, it must be scientific.”
Ignorant GAGA idiologists* who lack any spine, cojones and/or brains to break that psychometric mental spell under which they live.
Idiology (n.) Belief in false ideologies, belief in error filled semi-reality, the belief system of idiots.
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The Pearson credo:
“If we torture the data hard enough and long enough, it will admit to anything we want!”
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“The Metriloquist”
Katie McClarty
Like Charlie MaCarthy
Will say for her master
Whatever they ask her
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No more and no less
When dummy’s addressed
The things that we hear
Are master, it’s clear
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Here in Massachusetts, where the state commissioner of education, until this spring, was also chairman of PARCC (no conflict of interest, move along!), we are going to have MCAS 2.0.
The MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System), which was neither comprehensive, nor systemic and dubious in its assessment of anything but your zip code, is the home-grown standardized test that was imposed as a result of our early ed reform foray in 1993. In its heyday, along with our MA standards, it was hailed as “the best”.
The next generation MCAS will largely be PARCC dressed up in a new costume, which helpfully will cloak the lack of any educational undergarments.
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Off topic (sorry) but breaking news: Utah has insisted that all grades from 3-11 take the CC “SAGE” test. Yesterday, the state school board voted to remove ALL SAGE testing from high school. It should be taken from elementary first, but I guess it’s a start.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865654201/School-Board-to-review-standards-remove-SAGE-from-high-school-with-Legislative-action.html
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Political pressure + the new ESSA at work!
Any governor and/or state legislature that elects to keep the Common Core standards and high stakes Common Core testing will now own that decision. They can longer say. “The feds made us do it”.
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Exactly. The Governor is in a primary battle with a real hard-core (crazy) conservative. BUT, this opponent does oppose CC. So suddenly, the Governor who signed the CC for the state of Utah, literally over a weekend in the summer with no public comment, wants to give up the core. But, regardless of the reason, YAY!
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Not only that, but given that Questar (the new NYS grades 3-8 testing company) is contractually obligated to use Pearson questions for the 2017 NYS tests, and given that Pearson holds the PARCC test development contract, and that Questar has contractual permission from SED to use field-tested PARCC/Pearson and/or SBAC questions in post-2017 tests, it is HIGHLY LIKELY that we’ll continue to see Pearson (PARCC?) questions on upcoming NYS grades 3-8 tests. See SED/Questar contract page 589 of 826 (I tried to post that page here but couldn’t).
AND, of course, there’s the heart and soul of the tests — the questions and answers and passages themselves. What do we know about the very writers who write these questions and answers? Many of them are freelancers who float among the various testing companies. We have NO IDEA who these people are, their backgrounds, their qualifications, etc. And we have no idea whether questions/answers are recycled and/or shared among the various testing companies/consortia. And query: is Questar directly hiring and controlling these writers, or is Questar simply subbing its content work, as per its contract with SED, to approved third-party vendors such as Victory Productions???? The lack of transparency and, potentially accountability, is astounding. So many unanswered questions.
As I said in a recent interview about Questar’s new head: There is no doubt in my mind that there is quite a bit of cross-pollination among the various testing companies. It’s incestuous, in a corporate sense.
Questar is simply the same pig, different lipstick. (No offense to the pig.)
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From the Pearson website:
Test Development Job Opportunities
Item Writers
Item writers construct passages and/or develop test questions for educational assessments. A bachelor’s degree is preferred with experience in item writing, teaching, or developing state standards, curriculum, or tests or test-preparation activities. Opportunities exist in the following content areas:
•English Language Arts (Reading, Writing)
•Mathematics
•Science
•Social Studies
Here is the Pearson item writer application, sans check boxes:
1)Personal Contact Information
2. Employment Contact Information
3. Which languages do you read, write, and/or speak fluently? Please select all that apply.
4. Using the matrix below, indicate the primary major for each degree attained and the institution from which they were issued. Secondary majors may be listed in the Additional Comments box.
5. Which employment positions/types of work have you performed? Please select all that apply.
6. Which educational levels are you certified to teach? Please select all that apply.
7. In which states/countries are you certified to teach? For states, please use abbreviations only (e.g., IL; CA; FL) and for National Certification, please use NBCT. Please use semi-colons to separate entries.
8. Which grade levels have you taught in a scholastic setting? Please select all that apply.
9. How many years have you taught in a scholastic setting?
10. Which content areas have you taught in a scholastic setting? Please select all that apply.
11. In what areas of assessment development have you worked? Please check all that apply.
12. What is your work availability?
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Northeast editing out of PA. They write the content for all the test cos. AIR, pearson, questar, blue ribbon… Check out their clients, their careers….
http://ne-edit.com/?page_id=39
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“Katie may be a fine psychometrician.”
There is an oxymoron in that statement. Can you find it?
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Much like our now much promoted philanthrocapitalist.
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I think it depends on how you read it.
If you put the emphasis on psycho, there is probably no contradiction
a “fine psycho metrician”: a fine student of poetic meter who also happens to be a psycho
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I know I am relieved to be retiring next year. My students were allowed to use scratch paper on our online Math assessment. I collected all of the scratch paper and gave it to my principal to be shredded. Imagine my horror when I saw many of my students did very little computation on the paper…..and the problems required computation! I got a knot in my gut and felt a whole year of hard work go down the drain! You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the horse drink. When the VAMpire comes lookin for me next year, thank goodness I’ll be running out the door!!! I will never look back!!!
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After having first heard of the annual Portland Assessment conference (ATII), I was thrilled to have an opportunity to attend. So disappointed to find that it was a Pearson production. Disingenuous, like a fox guarding the hen house, to say that this conference has an unbiased interest in improving students’ education.
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Amoco became BP then after BP Oil soiled the Gulf Coast, they rebranded! Now it’s Valero⚠️ Questar didn’t really exist before NY State said “no” to Pearson. Now that I look at this Pearson & BP have much in common!
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The Brits will get their colonies back in one way or another, eh!
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