Walt Gardner is an experienced educator who writes a blog in Education Week. In a Memorial Day post, he warns that the anti-testing movement is going too far, too fast, and is likely to generate a backlash. He argues that the public is entitled to know how schools are doing, and standardized tests provide them with information they want and need. He concludes that the tests should be better, more carefully vetted, and serve diagnostic purposes.
His concern is reasonable, but I don’t think he is fully cognizant of the reasons that so many parents have decided to opt out.
Let me run through a few of them and invite you to add others.
- The current tests have no diagnostic value. No one is allowed to see how specific children answered, what they got right or wrong, where they need extra help.
- No one is allowed to see the questions and “right answers” other than the testing companies. So, unless there is a leak, no one can judge whether the questions are coherent and developmentally appropriate, or whether the answers are ambiguous or incorrect.
- Children sit for reading and math tests over six days that may last for many hours, more than the bar exams or the SAT. This is cruel and unusual punishment.
- Given the high stakes attached to test scores–the school may be stigmatized or closed, the staff may be fired or get a bonus–the pressure to raise scores is overwhelming. This pressure leads to predictable consequences: teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum, cheating.
- The heavy emphasis on testing warps education, distorts its meaning.
- The most vociferous fans of standardized testing send their own children to private schools. When will they give their children the medicine they prescribe for other people’s children.
- The tests themselves are heavily biased by socioeconomic status. Students from affluent families typically are in the top half of the normal curve, while those who do not have the advantages associated with affluence land in the bottom half. It is very hard to escape the bell curve.
- Instead of using a measure that is normed on a bell curve, why not judge students by a criterion-referenced measure, akin to a driver’s test? Every student should have a fair opportunity to succeed, not in comparison to others, but by measures that judge readiness for life.
- Few people will ever take a standardized test after they leave high school. Bubble guessing is not a useful skill.
- For most of our history, students were evaluated by their teachers, not by a bubble test. Then, in many states, students were tested in grades 4 and 8. Now all children in grades 3-8 are tested every year. This development has been a bonanza for testing companies but has had no positive effects for students, teachers, or schools.
I say, until we come up with better, more valuable, reliable, and effective ways of measuring student progress, let’s ditch the tests we have now. They accomplish nothing, at great cost.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These are my thoughts:
Pleas from educators, parents, and children to create tests that are “better, more carefully vetted, and serve diagnostic purpose” are ignored
No excuses philosophy – there’s a lot going on with some children ranging from terminal cancer diagnosis to trauma caused by losing a parent and many other difficult situations and the there are no “excuses” allowed (e.g. I had a friend who teaches in Boston who had an 8th grader who had a psychotic breakdown and was sedated in a locked ward and she was blamed for not going to the hospital to force him to take the test..)
children feel huge amounts of anxiety and fear about the fates of their school and teachers based on how well they do
Not better tests, better assessment
Mr. Gardner is also anti-bachelors degrees, according to this: http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2008/09/04/degrees-we-dont-need-no-stinkin-degrees/
“Assessment is not a spreadsheet — it’s a conversation.”
– Joe Bower, for the love of learning–http://www.joebower.org/
…says it all.
Agreed, let the conversation begin
Thanks.
It’s amazing how a single word like “conversation” can completely change the conversation.
“Assessing Assessment”
Assessment is a word
Equated with “The Test”
And if you haven’t heard
The highest score is best
But why is test the best
For doing an assessment?
When leaving out the rest
Is very poor investment?
Gardner hits all the reform points – accountability, global competition, American paranoia, “just wait, it will get better”, school spending is too high (probably measured in absolute dollars).
Even post graduate tests are often irrelevant to the realities of a profession. The Bar never stopped bad lawyers, but most certainly prevent some good lawyers.
If people want to know how their schools are doing, that takes interest and effort. Depending on a 30+ question standardized test and school letter grades may give communities a false sense of accountability, but only local control and an open, democratic process yields reasonably accurate information. My hope is Gardner and the test and punish crowd do not completely destroy our education system before some sense returns.
I find it also interesting people writing many of these opinions are no longer teaching, never likely experienced the current test insanity, or never stood in front of a classroom. Yet, they continue to talk past or at teachers rather than with them.
Walt’s concerns are reasonable but I fully agree with Ms. Ravitch concerns. My list of why the test is only second class assessment goes on forever.
However, you say “until we come up with better, more valuable, reliable, and effective ways of measuring student progress, let’s ditch the tests we have now.”
It is unethical and even immoral to put the horse before the cart. With the quality of readership here we could come up with a better plan in a nano second.
Why aren’t we advocating for a better assessment, NOW! Why wait.
Here is a jumping off point http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
Let’s see some responses to thIS. Let’s show the world the professionalism in the readership of this blog. RESPOND NOW WITH YOUR IDEAS AND LET’S GITTER DONE!
I address the “Well, what’s your solution?” question in the afterword of my forthcoming book.
The question is a trap to make the person being asked to appear to be an idiot for not having an instantaneous “solution”, (like your answer would satisfy the questioner anyway). The questioner is then allowed to walk away in all smugness believing that the respondent is “just a complainer and not a go-getter solution oriented type”. I’ve had many an adminimal and even regular folk use that question as a way to put an end to valid critiques which get at the heart of the problem and not some over simplified 3 minute “solution”.
From the afterword:
It takes an immense amount of ego, of hubris and gall to think that one person can solve long standing, seemingly intractable structural problems in the public education realm especially on such short notice. To attempt to do so guarantees failure. Not only that but who am I to propose solutions for everyone else? Our society doesn’t work that way. So I offer no specific answers but I do offer some general guidelines in struggling to lessen the many injustices that current educational malpractices entail:
Correctly identify malpractices that hinder the teaching and learning process and that cause harm to or do injustice to students. (see just a few identified above).
Immediately reject those malpractices, cease doing them as soon as is practically possible.
Maintain a “fidelity to truth” attitude in identifying those malpractices and instituting new practices.
Focus on inputs and resources. Are they adequate to provide that all children have access to a learning environment in which they can learn to “savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
Involve all, interested community members, parents, students, teachers, aides, other support personnel, administrators and the school board in revising and formulating new policies and practices so, paraphrasing the voice from the movie “Field of Dreams”:
IF WE PROVIDE IT, THEY WILL COME!
It being the proper resources implemented with a fidelity to truth attitude.
They being results in line with the fundamental purpose(s) of public education–to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.
“Maintain a “fidelity to truth” attitude in identifying those malpractices and instituting new practices.”
Of course, that is probably the hardest thing to do.
As Richard Feynman said “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool”
Your book sounds very interesting, Duane. I love how you cut through the obfuscating weeds with a machete to get to what is most important.
We know what’s freekin wrong with the test. We have been saying it for 6 years and more. But no one on this blog can come up with solutions?
There is a way to resolve the backlash that Mr. Gardner warns against: testing choice. If we are willing to provide parental choice of schools (which turns often to be school choice), why not permit parents to choose if they wish their students to participate in the assessments–and these are parents who wish to stay in their public school, but are not convinced that the tests benefit their child. Convincing them is the job of the people who mandate the tests in the first place. If parents don’t feel that they own the test, then they will continue to opt out. In fact, stakeholder engagement should be an integral part of the “publics” schools.
Good thoughts. However, use the term assessment not test
Caplee68
There is nothing wrong with the term “test”. And having students complete a teacher made classroom test can be a valuable part of the teaching and learning process. Assessment is a broader term that encompasses much more than the term “test”. Both are legitimate.
It seems what you’re hinting at is the misuse and abuse of terms in educational discourse. The misuse of “standard” and “measure” are two of the most egregious in the bastardization of the meanings of those terms in attempts to make “assessment” in the teaching and learning process supposedly “objective” lending a false “scientificity” to the process.
Agreed, Arnold. For years, I have thought that these standardized tests should be “opt in.”
The worst tests are chapter tests. Assessment allows for demonstrations of learning. Quoting Dr Angela Dye”traditional school outcomes as level “B” achievement (the test) can occur in the absence of learning how to work and learn independently A level (whole child) includes learning how to synthesize transfer and apply knowledge to the world of work beyond the classroom, [earning how to value self as subjects and not as objects; and learning how to engage in and share power in democratic spaces”
I disagree that parents use test scores to rate what schools are the best. The pdkpoll showed parents choose schools based on almost anything but standardized test scores. (http://pdkpoll2015.pdkintl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pdkpoll47_2015.pdf). Test scores, at least in Florida, are used more for bragging rights or for punitive measures rather than to inform about education quality. It is the way the scores are used rather than the tests themselves than most people are opposing.
I am a math teacher. One of the things I do — although this is not a required part of curriculum — is teach kids about the bell curve. What does it take, strictly speaking, to get the results of test to create a bell curve ? It’s a great question, and once kids understand how it works, they understand why the norm-referenced (bell curve) tests have such low predictive value. That is the key: evaluate kids by a CRITERION-referenced test (Diane uses the example of a driver’s test, which does not require each individual question to result in “half of test-takers get it right, and the other half get it wrong” and being field-tested to assure this result — rather, the driver’s test-makers ask questions to which they think drivers should know the answers, and if nearly everyone does know these answers, then that is a good thing, not “that is a thing that cannot be allowed”. Criterion-referenced is what most people THINK standardized tests are, but they are not, and this is what I teach people every chance I get.)
Criterion-referenced tests suffer from most (if not all) the same flaws as norm-referenced tests. And anyway, they sort of morph into norm-referenced tests in a way because you can always just monkey with the cut score to make sure the appropriate number of kids fail (not to mention how each individual question is designed to cull the wheat from the chaff so to speak and thereby create a bell-curve even on an allegedly norm-referenced test).
Good points.
To elaborate slightly on what Dienne said: no matter how difficult the subject matter, the rheephorm-minded will reflexively claim that if the vast majority pass a standardized test it is “too easy” and must perforce be made much harder so as—
As Dienne put it, “to make sure the appropriate number of kids fail.”
In other words, a NRT or CRT is never good enough unless there are few “winners” and many many “losers.”
It mirrors the absurd underpinnings of rheephorm thinking on pedagogy and management. Over and over and over again there is a tendency to look at anything as a zero-sum game where the very nature of any activity or practice necessarily involves a win-lose result. They ridicule the very notion of win-win as if it is antithetical to excellence.
That is why the heavyweights of corporate education reform and their favored enforcers and salespeople so often mandate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN the very opposite of what they ensure for THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
They want the few, them and theirs, to be on the “win” side and everyone else—
Trumped with the clarion call of “Loser! You’re fired!”
Thank you both for your comments.
😎
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” Thomas Jefferson
If they want opt-out to diminish, “reformers” have to stop the high stakes blame game, and return to a certain level of evidence based reason and respect.
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
Please read this article. And I’m specifically talking to Devon Hynson, Atnre Alleyne, PACE, Publius, the Delaware DOE, Governor Markell, Rodel, and the Delaware State Board of Education. And no, this does not mean I want you to break up the Smarter Balanced Assessment into little chunks at the end of units in a personalized learning/competency-based education digital environment geared to track students toward a pre-determined career based on these scores.
Diane, I think you left out one of most compelling arguments against high-stakes testing:
>>> It results in way, way too much teaching to the test.
This is the complaint of many parents who are otherwise sympathetic to the views of Mr. Gardner. Yes, the parents are curious how their kids and local schools are doing relative to their peers in the U.S. and around the world. But this has led to a curriculum—indeed a whole school experience—that is both narrowed and mind-numbing.
Instead of the rigor promised by Common Core, the unintended (but entirely predictable) consequence of the high stakes tests is a barrage of repetitive, dry, unstimulating lessons which are tendentiously serving as test prep. Many school principals and district administrators force such a curriculum on their teachers (and many teachers embrace it on their own, to save their skins). And if that’s not enough, they simultaneously free up more time each day for test prep by cutting out social studies, creative writing, art, music, PE and electives.
Anger at the tests, I think, is the outward manifestation of the dismay that many parents feel about their neighborhood schools—or, more accurately, the school experience they wanted their kids to have. This explains the ire toward Arne Duncan et al. The parents are not all saying, “my kids can’t handle the stress of a few days of testing”. In fact, most are saying, look at the consequences! Who cares, Mr. King or Mr. Obama, if you cut testing back to 2 or 3 days instead of 5 or 6. What about the 180 days of school that are now bereft of creativity, exploration and independent thinking? What about the great teachers, now gone, who once instilled a love of learning? (Answer: they grew tired of the constant drumbeat of data-driven instruction and better scores.) And why is there no time left in the day for playground activities, making friends, learning a musical instrument, acting in a school play, etc., etc.? The list of grievances is long.
So there you have it: opting out of the tests is like throwing tea into the Boston harbor. It’s not the tea that’s the problem. It’s the testing tyranny. The more parents who rebel against it, the better off we’ll be.
“I say, until we come up with better, more valuable, reliable, and effective ways of measuring student progress, let’s ditch the tests we have now. They accomplish nothing, at great cost.”
Well, that (bigger, better, stronger tests) can never happen because the teaching and learning process belongs to the realm of aesthetics where judgement rules, not in the realm of metrology in which measurement is the desired method.
There is no legitimate “measuring” in the teaching and learning process, never has and never will be.
“bigger, better, stronger tests”? Pleeeeeze Duane, Diane said assessment and yes authentic assessment can drive the curriculum, show needs of kids as well as strengths.
I don’t understand your comment as Diane’s quote that I am referencing uses “test” and not assessment.
And I can’t agree that “authentic assessment can drive the curriculum”. How about the curriculum should drive assessment. (one can leave out the loaded term “authentic”). Assessment driving curriculum is back asswards in my mind.
Authentic is a loaded term? OMG! My school used the science fair as an assessment. A tad bit different and so much better than #2 pencil be it the big test or artificial chapter tests
Yes, I find “authentic” to be a loaded term, often times used hardly ever explicated. Why are chapter tests “artificial”?
Student must give the answer the teacher wants. Example, who discovered America. Answer Columbus. Reality a lie. Instead ask “research and find who discovered America.” Answers will vary from Nordics to Asians to Africans. Because there is no right answer and because kids would actually think. It would be clear that those entering from the west coast came before Columbus.
If I ask the student 1 + 1 = ?? And he/she answers 3, I think there might be a problem. Answering a teacher’s questions correctly is not pedagogically unsound. Both methods have their place in the teaching and learning process. One does not necessarily exclude the other.
But getting the answer correct is not the learning goal. Knowing HOW and WHY the answer is correct and knowing how to apply it, is. Right?
Do we really want text book companies controlling our curriculum? That’s what chapter tests do.
Again it’s not an either/or situation. It’s a chicken/egg situation meaning that it is not possible to determine what comes first, the learning of facts (1+1=2) or understanding (how, why) that statement obtains. We don’t know so why not use all available methods of the teaching and learning process, including, heaven forbid, rote memorization.
Duane,
The way I see it, the whole standardized testing field has it’s roots in “meter envy”: the envy of “psychometricians” of real scientists (who do real measurements) for their meter sticks.
It’s just like penis envy but involves a longer stick.
My apologies, Diane. I see that you mentioned “teaching to the test” in your item 4. I hope my elaboration helps.
I agree, but what is needed is to break all if that down so parents can understand. Notice how quickly we delve into the jargon of psychometrics, rather then teaching and learning, opportunity and supports, democracy and engagement. The kids belong to the parents and they entrust our schools to do no harm. For many parents, they do not believe that the standardized tests add value to their child’s education. Legislated tests/assessments will not do your concerns good.
Exactly! examples?
“Bubble guessing is not a useful skill.”
Oh, On the contrary. It is a highly useful skill. It can get you into Harvard, which WILL almost certainly get you a high paying job and a successful, satisfying career and life.
I’d argue that it is one of the most useful skills in the known Universe.
It’s clear that humans evolved specifically so that they could fill in bubbles on standardized tests.
I bet if there are intelligent aliens on other planets, they too will possess this skill.
Are all of you ready for comprehensive grade level tests in all of the arts?
No one has brought up the thing that has already happened. Before students had to take tests made up remotely from the school, the teacher was the figure of authority. Students listened intently as the teacher described the experience of going from high school class to college class where, they knew, they might not make it. Then the tests came along.
Soon students reacted differently to a teacher who had to give a test at the end of the course. The test, not the teacher, became the thing to be respected. Teachers began to hear students say “you mean, if we do not do well on the test, you could get in trouble?” Right in their face. The test usurped the authority of the teacher.
Now, as has been documented here and elsewhere, we are having trouble retaining teachers. Small wonder. Used to be you at least got respect.
The number one reason private schools do not give the tests? They are smart enough to,want to keep Mr. Chips. All the alumni remember how inspiring he was, how he defined education. Public schools were once like this. Ante testing.
keep it local and make assessment reflect reality. Teach to the future of the child not an artificial test
The first line of Gardner’s article: “Until the Every Student Succeeds Act was passed, I understood why standardized tests provoked fierce opposition. But under the new law, most states will not use test results to evaluate teachers or schools.”
Is this true? The impression I get from reading here & elsewhere is that the evaluation of teachers and schools via test scores is already baked in, in quite a number of states. Has there been some wholesale turnaround since the passage of ESSA?
The majority of states still evaluate teachers by test scores, because they are doing it and they don’t know how to stop
Exactly. Is it time we tell them how to stop?
I agree with Diane. Even though everyone says that ESSA provides an opportunity for flexibility and change, most of the states will not take advantage. Around mandated testing, teacher evaluation, charter schools, high stakes–ESSA is NCLB on steroids.
there will be if we give them a viable alternative to the testing fiasco. Act now or forever hold your peace
The ESSA does not take effect until July 01, 2016. The use of test scores in teacher evaluations, as required by RTTT and NCLB waivers, cannot be ended until the 2016 – 2017 school year.
Teachers have been fairly evaluated by building principals for decades, prior to the interference of David Coleman, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan. No “other” alternative need be offered.
Don’t forget that teacher “accountability” is a bullshit concept, created by those who want to be in control and stay in control.
As a former principal, we had no time to do a fair teacher assessment that supports teachers by sharing thoughts and ideas. We usually left them to hang out their waving in the wind.
Nor does the test help in any way. However, this has at it’s heart, the fundamental purpose of assessment. It is only as good as the information gathered and it’s support of the teacher and the teaching profession. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
Diane– Thanks, exactly what I thought!!
Cap Lee– Let’s not just dance to the tune because it’s called by the piper.
Rage– Could we add NCLB accountability notions to your list? I think Danielson Marzano et al belong in the category of BS evaluations.
How do we know what to teach kids if we don’t know what they comprehend and what they can do? That’s the tune I dance to. And Arnold, the amendment allows for 5 states to initiate this project. If they do it right, every one will want it and it will spread like wild fire. Once that domino falls change becomes unstopable. Next they will realize that kids leqarn at different rates.
The tune I dance to is the needs of the kids. Enough with the excuses to do nothing and pretend that everything was ok back in the day. It wasn’t. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2015/08/public-education-change-or-perish.html
Enough of throwing education out for kids to catch in a bushel basket and if they miss? oh well, we move on to the next chapter anyway.
For those who support the do nothing approach, take a good and hard look and the number of public schools that are still closing.
I like this: “Instead of using a measure that is normed on a bell curve, why not judge students by a criterion-referenced measure, akin to a driver’s test? Every student should have a fair opportunity to succeed, not in comparison to others, but by measures that judge readiness for life…” Implicit in using criterion referenced test, though, is the notion that TIME is VARIABLE and LEARNING is CONSTANT… which means the longstanding practice of batching students by age cohorts would need to disappear. When we batch students by age we invariably confuse the rate of learning with the capacity to learn. To build on the driver’s test analogy: it doesn’t matter how many times I took the written test before I passed it or how many times you took the performance test before you passed it, we both end up with same driver’s license. Oh… and here’s another aphorism that is apt when it comes to criterion reference testing: what do you call the student who graduated at the bottom of the class in medical school? Doctor….
wgerson I like the way you think. One of the very few positive suggestions on this blog. Maybe your thoughts will become contagious. Keep them coming. For your reading pleasure http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-personal-map-to-success.html
I am intrigued by Diane’s thread about the Florida and now the Palo Alto parents opting out and Walt Gardner’s concern about a backlash concerning parents and students opting out. But this current controversy all starts with the passage of the Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA plays a game by requiring states to guarantee the 95 apercent of test takers take a mandated even as it declares that ESSA is not responsible for influencing state laws regarding opting out of the mandated testing. (Disclosure: I have been supportive of parents opting out ever since Michigan, New York and California were the lead states in requiring “competency tests back in the 70’s)
Baelow is the entire section, as taken from ESSA page 36:
(E) ANNUAL MEASUREMENT OF ACHIEVEMENT.—
(i) Annually measure the achievement of not less than 95 percent of all students, and 95 percent of all students in each subgroup of students, who are enrolled in public schools on the assessments described under subsection (b)(2)(v)(I).
(ii) For the purpose of measuring, calculating, and reporting on the indicator described in subparagraph (B)(i),
include in the denominator the greater of—
(I) 95 percent of all such students, or 95 percent of all such students in the subgroup, as the case may
be; or
(II) the number of students participating in the assessments.
(iii) Provide a clear and understandable explanation of how the State will factor the requirement of clause (i) of this subparagraph into the statewide accountability system.
But here is the stickler and Secretary King has virtually ignored it and has taken a hard line on parents opting out:
There is ESSA disclaimer that ‘‘nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as preempting a State or local law regarding the decision of a parent to not have the parent’s child participate in the academic assessments under this paragraph” (page 32).
So clearly what ESSA recognizes is the voice of parents and the impact of the opt out movement, while leaving it to the states to find ways of keeping parents in line so they states meet the 95 per cent. What is yet untested and Secretary King is taking a hard line against the opt out parents, is what is ED to do if a state(s) does not meet their 95 percent floor. As this person sees it, the backlash will not be against the parents, but against King and the states who decide that they want to make families a testing battleground. It must be frustrating to beleive in standardization, when one of the pieces–parents-do not fall in line. It’s like the Marine marching in the parade saying everyone is out of step except me.
They still don’t understand the fundamental purpose of education. ESSA is a warmed up version of NCLB. However, there are some tidbits we can grab hold of. Like this AMENDMENT
TO Every Student Succeeds Act
A significant but seldom noticed amendment to the Every Child Achieves Act is that made by Senator Susan Collins and Senator Bernie Sanders. The amendment passed with the final bill!. It says in part:
(a) “Innovative assessment system defined:
The term ‘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 adapted 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.
Not perfection but one step closer by allowing this alternative to the test
Indeed. And no small deal in getting the language inserted. Now let’s see how many states take advantage–maybe 10 or 12. And certainly not Florida.
Arne, the computer based assessments are not a step forward. More money for tech industry, more data mining.
Computer based is same ole. However, innovative assessment is the key “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”
“Assessments that validate when students are ready to demonstrate mastery or proficiency and allow for DIFFERENTIATED student support based on individual learning needs.”
Out of that whole thing we only see allowing the computer based?