FairTest has been fighting the overuse and misuse of standardized testing for more than 40 years. Recognizing that you can’t defeat a failed system by complaining, FairTest has designed a state system for assessment that does not rely on standardized testing.
The new system relies on student work and teacher judgment. It takes advantage of a provision in ESSA that allows seven states to create innovative approaches to sssessment.
This is a plan that is research-based, reasonable, and feasible.
Please read it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Whatever happened to “professionalism”. It used to be a principal’s job to monitor student growth under a teachers’ tutelage in his/her school. Teachers used to be able to use their knowledge of many theories in order to pull out the ones that will work best when teaching their students and make their professional determinations as to student progress. Now NCLB, RTTT, ESSA have all taken”professionalism away from principals and teachers and have handed it over to bureaucrats who often have never taught, who have never stepped foot in classrooms but have a supposed grasp of statistics and data and WHO ALWAYS head toward a standardization to make data collection more efficient (at the expense ironically of student learning). I find it ironic that Fair Test elaborates on a portfolio process that used to be a norm when teachers were not forced to “perform” in cookie cutter ways. The main difference is that teacher’s are being REQUIRED to create a portfolio and to follow specifications for presentation to a federal data collecting authority? I commend Fair Test for trying to find a win win solution to this horrific period of over-testing. But my thought would be to fight off any “new and improved” NCLB/RTTT now with a “new name”.. “ESSA”. Return teaching to teachers and overseeing teachers to principals. If this nation could just set policy that enables all its citizens to have basic needs met, just maybe we could even have an education system that trusts and honors teachers and students as is seen in the Finnish system.
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Be sure to also read the references in this document, which come from Pearson and the Gates, Nellie Mae and iNACOL funded “CompetencyWorks.” Fairtest’s model is a gateway assessment system for CBE. I have been raising questions about their proposals for the last year with no real response. Please read these posts alongside the document above from Fairtest:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/emilytalmage.com/2016/03/10/essa-are-the-innovative-assessment-zones-a-giant-trojan-horse/amp/?client=safari
https://emilytalmage.com/2016/01/27/great-schools-partnership-and-the-covert-agenda-of-assessment-reform/
and ….before anyone claims that Fairtests model has nothing to do with CBE or the corporate push for “personalized learning,” realize that Dan French of the Center for Collaborative Ed played a major role in the NH pilot described above, and now go here to see what CCE is doing in MA: http://cce.org/work/district-school-design/massachusetts-personalized-learning-network
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All you have to do to avoid CBE is take out a sheet of paper and a pen. I prefer blue or black ink. And keep the libraries open. As long as Congress doesn’t outlaw writing by hand and burn all the books, I should be able to challenge the tech heads in my district and use portfolios to keep my students’ work private.
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Not so easy when the assessment reforms mean you must enter all your portfolio data into a “learning management system”, as we are required to do here in Maine.
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Learning management system? Oh my. That’s not good.
OK, time to end the U.S. Department of Education.
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Those of us on the left may well deplore the fear of “government” (public) schools being perpetuated in far-right states but….look at what our government is doing.
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Why is the DOE only allowing seven states to pursue alternative assessment? It is because it suits the agenda of Big Data. They are also asking for states seeking the alternative route to consider “anchor” information based on a secretive test that has never been validated. Is there anyone left in the DOE with any background in testing and measurement?
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The Center for Collaborative Education Link has ALL the same verbiage we are hearing in Baltimore County Public Schools. Its all about the computer – for testing, and homework. Misery.
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Center for Collaborative Education is funded by all those who are promoting “personalized” digital, blended learning and online competency based ed. http://cce.org/about/funders
CCE Funders include IBM, The Boston Foundation, Massachusetts Networks Initiative, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, EDUCAUSE through the Next Generation Learning Challenges (**Educause alone has received over $87 Million from the Gates Foundation
U.S. Department of Education http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=educause )
It is no wonder the US Dept of Ed is listed as a supporter and funder, as the USDoE is promoting a data driven education and launched a nonprofit Digital Promise” to advance the education technology field.”
USDoE 2011 Launch of Digital Promise http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/digital-promise
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Emily, the links you provide does make one suspicious, but the evidence doesn’t appear to me direct enough: it says, if I understand it correctly, that supporters of Personalized Learning advocate the assessment scheme FairTest describes . Can you point out some sections directly in the FairTest proposal which should raise concern that we indeed have a proposal for a Trojan horse ?
I admit that the large number of (more than 100) “-based” constructs, such as performance-based or research-based, do make me feel uneasy.
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The lack of direct evidence can either be a source of hope or of suspicion. There is good reason to be suspicious and vigilant based on what we know all too well about the reformers modus operandi. I however choose hope, not just for its own sake, but because I see a greater potential for building & retaining the power to steer the future by residing there. I would also point out a historical fact that at this time, due to the power and influence of the testing industrial complex, is more an example than a prediction. In Finland, at the time when educators were given control of the education system, they had far more testing than they do now. This was imposed upon education by bureaucrats who had no trust or understanding of what was being done. The testing continued until the results proved that the system was working and the testing was a waste of time and money. I have no great faith that this dynamic can be reproduced in America or elsewhere in the G.E.R.M. / CBE sphere due to the pervasive croniyism we are burdened with.
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Brilliant catch on all the “-based” words. I found 58 and it does make one very suspicious.
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Emily, I disagree that Fairtest’s model is a defacto gateway, though I do see that it could be exploited as one, but only by edict, by the usual top down control. My reading of Fairtest’s proposal makes me define it as a set of circuit breakers and exit ramps that can and will interrupt the very real dangers of CBE by avoiding it’s comprehensive inadequacies and replacing them with fact based policies of actual value. This will be the result only as long as parents remain involved and enforce local control. This, though difficult, is less so than before since more and more people are aware of the many lies of reform and will not be fooled by them again. There was a time when we never would have imagined a major media figure like John Oliver doing a show on the fraudulent charter sector or the NAACP opposing charter expansion. Knowledge of the evils of CBE are lagging this, but the public awareness of the malevolent intent of reform has grown into a better networked parent base that can more quickly learn about and respond to it, especially the toxicity of it’s big data scheme.
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Competency-based is not synonymous with computer-based modules, even if Gates, etc. means the latter when they talk about the future of education. Look at the people Fairtest consulted with in developing this alternative form of assessment. Of those whose work I am familiar with – about half of them – all have a long history of developing and promoting performance-based assessments.
The idea is to move away from an age-graded lockstep model of schooling to one focused on each student’s interests, needs and competencies. If progressive educators don’t develop models to move in this direction, competency-based will be synonymous with computer-based algorithms “personalized” for each student.
Criticizing Dan French’s involvement in developing New Hampshire’s PACE system seems off base. How is an assessment system that places significant weight on a portfolio of learning not far more valid than a judgement based on just one standardized test, i.e. PARCC/SBAC? ESSA doesn’t offer the choice of no assessment system.
I don’t see anything in the description of the MA Personalized Learning Network that seems objectionable. Granted, if some of the same words were found on an ed reform website I would not trust their hidden agenda. But what hidden agenda do you detect in the CCE’s approach?
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Have you any idea who funds CCE??
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Also – find some teachers in MA and ask them what’s happening with this initiative. You’ll have your answers.
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Clearly, New Hampshire is developing a model that could work better than standardized testing. Teacher created, peer reviewed, portfolio assessment would thwart greedy Pearsons and William Gates the Thirds from their twisted drive to automate and subdue humanity. Corporate interest in Big Data would be put aside to save the institution of public education. Big thanks and well wishes to FairTest.
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I take it back. Unlike reformsters, I can admit when I’m wrong.
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It is imperative that people start to recognize the tools being used to move us into Ed Reform 2.0, learning eco-systems. New Hampshire is the leader in development and implementation of Extended/Enhanced Learning Opportunities or ELOs. This is one of the Ed Reform 2.0 tools. Like many ed reform proposals, it might look good at first glance, but there are HUGE structural problems built in.
Look at this page from a NH high school. http://elo.mansd.org/elos-in-your-school
According to this page students can earn school credit for:
1. Working at a job (I foresee child labor issues here)
2. Going to a rock-climbing gym
3. Summer travel
4. Working for your school district’s IT department (huge privacy issues)
5. Participating in community theater (not a school drama program)
In the learning eco-system model, students will earn badges by displaying their mastery of various competencies. Once the competency and badge system is set up, the “educational” experience can be moved outside of the school walls.
Of course there are situations where some limited use of ELOs could be useful (say over-age/under-credited students or for a LIMITED number of elective credits), BUT the reform community is aiming for unlimited ELOs and they want cyber education to be considered an ELO as well.
So therein lies the problem. We switch from Carnegie Units and seat time that require certified, human teachers in actual school buildings to an eco-system model that requires neither of these and opens the gates to full-on cyber education and unregulated community-based learning.
How will there ever be equity in a learning eco-system model? Affluent children get school credit for summer trips to Europe and rock-climbing outings while low-income children are forced to settle for apprenticing at low-wage jobs suitable to their workforce potential?
More on learning eco-systems here: https://wrenchinthegears.com/2016/09/23/from-neighborhood-schools-to-learning-eco-systems-a-dangerous-trade/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true
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Performance Task or End of Unit Project, what ever it is called, is a good replacement for those BS tests that is only given once a year. These tasks would be created by the teachers (either in grade level or school wide) adjusted to the ability of the students in that classroom. And it has to be adjusted for the special education and English language learning students.
Keep in mind the BS sets up the students to fail, where the teacher created PT would measure the students’ ability to show exactly what was learned and can apply it to the task.
The key word here is created by the teacher not bought and paid for by the school district who was bamboozled into it.
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The bamboozling is rampant. Pearson tests, end of unit tests from escoreny – its truly miserable. I don’t want every test my kids take to have to be on the computer. There is NO data that this is an effective way to learn or measure learning in children, and its just developmentally inappropriate in elementary and middle school.
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Click to access 071216%20RGA-107-15%20Modification%20-%20Periodic%20Assessments.pdf
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Please consider this for a future blog post. http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20161006/renee-hobbs-personalized-learning-is-not-future
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The idea that algorithms running on a servers can deliver personalized learning is a sales pitch that must be debunked. Only human interactions are personalized. Algorithms are written by humans and contain inherent bias as a result. They are neither objective nor comprehensive in their ability to reach conclusions. They do not constitute “artificial intelligence”, they are just processing power sold as such. There is nothing magical or omnipotent about them, and we must rip back the curtain of lies obfuscating this reality and expose it for what it is: a giant, convoluted con game that will make the dire yet baseless predictions of “A Nation At Risk” a reality.
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CBE is NOT about computers. It is being twisted that way, but that is not the theory. Ditto “personalized learning.” Let’s not toss the baby with the bathwater (apology for cliche), eh? Competency-based could be a great thing, just as standards-based can be–it’s the testing regimen that makes CCSS so problematic, not the standards themselves (well, ELA; I don’t know the math standards as well).
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Give me your sources on CBE “theory,” and I will follow the money for you.
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CBE is most definitely being promoted as computer-based learning, and as a pathway to digital competencies, micro-credentials/ k-12 workforce data badging.
Take for example this excerpt from a 2015 NGA letter to all states which explains the workforce-education competency based transformation and also mentions the NH Innovative testing model as an example of future CBE assessments:
“Communicating the Change (page 14) A policy change to a CBE system is unlikely to occur unless a governor who supports a move toward CBE can communicate the need for change, the potential value of CBE, and strategies to overcome the associated challenges. The basic message a governor can communicate is that a CBE system is responsive to the learning needs of individual students. CBE would benefit students and families, teachers, communities, and businesses. Well prepared individuals have a greater potential to be productive members of society who better use taxpayer money by staying in the education system only for as long as necessary to meet their professional goals.
Despite the appeal of CBE and its potential benefits, the structure does not fit within society’s current entrenched vision of education and existing policies.
State policymakers and the public at large habitually picture desks, a blackboard, and students facing a teacher at the front of the classroom when thinking of a typical K-12 educational environment. Higher education produces a similarly traditional vision of 18-year-olds in ivy-covered buildings. These systems do not work for enough of today’s students. CBE is one way to respond to the evolution in the demands of current students and offers a new way to overcome existing shortcomings.
Governors are well positioned to lead and encourage a discussion on the potential value of a move toward CBE.”
“K-12 Policy Environment – If governors want to discuss the benefits of CBE for K-12 students, they should emphasize the ability to provide more personalized instruction so that far more students can meet more rigorous and relevant standards, regardless of background, ability, or stage of development. CBE is designed to meet students where they are and get them the help they need when they need it so that they can master the defined standards of learning. In a CBE system, the support and incentives are in place to increase the likelihood that students have mastered content and are ready for the next step. Maine produced several communication resources to educate the public about its progress toward a CBE system. The Maine Department of Education home page prominently features the state’s plan, Education Evolving, for putting students first and a separate Web site devoted to CBE in the state. In addition to providing easy-to-navigate resources, the state created several informational videos that explain what CBE is and how it is benefiting Maine’s students. Governors in other states can use similar resources and work with their departments of education to develop plans and tools to publicize the benefits of CBE to students, families, educators, and state and local policymakers.”
Governors who seek to move their states toward a CBE system should consider several policy changes to overcome the barriers embedded in the current system.
In a CBE program, the role of the educator and how he or she delivers the content can look different from current practice. Educators must be able to guide learning in a variety of ways, not simply supply content. Changing the role of the teacher has significant implications for teacher-preparation programs, certification, professional development, labor contracts, and evaluation.
Computer-based learning is likely to be even more important in a CBE system than in the current time-based system. In addition, robust assessment is a key element of CBE, designed to facilitate more flexible and better testing of students’ learning. Assessment is frequently tied to accountability in K-12; therefore, policymakers might have to reconsider what they want their accountability systems to measure.
Finally, policymakers who want to implement CBE will need to figure out how to fund the transition to such a system and create the right incentives for educators and administrators.
If policymakers want to pay for student learning instead of seat time, they will have to fundamentally change the way they budget and allocate dollars to school districts and higher education institutions.”
“ To deliver high-quality instruction in a CBE model, educators require access to assessments that measure learning progress along the way so that they can modify their teaching based on each student’s progress toward mastering the desired content and skills. To draw on the power of those assessments in a CBE system, assessments should be offered on a flexible timeline instead of during one window at the end of the semester or school year. No state has yet figured out how to make the switch to such a model at the K-12 level, but New Hampshire is working toward that goal.
read more here: http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/2015/1510ExpandingStudentSuccess.pdf
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Ben, the way CBE is being hijacked and used as a Trojan Horse is a real problem. I know that what you say about the educator origins of the idea of CBE is true, but at present that has been co opted and is the sheepskin that the wolf is hiding in. It is not just the testing that is a problem, it’s the way that computer based CBE seeks to embed the testing in the curriculum along with the associated data collection and profiling. These components attenuate what you view as human to human CBE into a system that places data collection and analysis before student needs and authentic learning. They are also part of a cradle to grave scheme where all this information is used as the primary source for job qualification and placement. While true CBE does allow personalized learning (with small class sizes and sufficient wrap around services) on a human to human basis, the way it’s being structured and rolled out clearly shows that the human to human version will not be allowed to persist and is merely being used to create an opening for the computer based version. It absolutely is a case of follow the money AND the influence.
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So what will you do when the student portfolios show that students have weaknesses that are being ignored and that students are not making grade level progress nor closing gaps from year to year? Just curious…
Will you continue to ignore the struggles the students are battling?
Or will you be providing effective and targeted instructional methodologies that have been proven to help those students close the gaps using scientifically based research???
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M,
The current system is not about improving a child’s learning AT ALL! I get so sick of focusing on standards, accountability and assessments. Let’s just get back to quality instruction. And I also question the concept of struggling. We are labeling too many kids too early as failing when the real problem is the system that focuses on standards, standardized assessments and data collection.
And in regards to this quote from the blog.
“Recognizing that you can’t defeat a failed system by complaining”
I find this a sad quote as many many people are not only complaining about this horrible system but doing their best to destroy it. It’s those on the ground doing the most to stop this. It’s not a group providing guidelines or their demands from within this system. Standards don’t work and ESSA doesn’t work.
I have no interest in working within a system that is flawed. But please don’t label me as a complainer. . . doing my utmost to get rid of the failed system. . not to work within it.
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I didn’t once mention standards although each state education department has guidance provided for each grade level.
You also did not answer the question that was posed.
When you have a struggling student (be it I’m reading, writing or math) and their portfolio demonstrates these struggles, what is going to be your response to the students and their families?
Are you going to do anything different to close the gaps that their portfolio of work demonstrates?
And my family is only one out of thousands that’s experienced the same sort of failures every passing day, month and school year, while under the umbrella of Special Education that routinely allowed them to fall farther and farther behind when they obviously were not reading and writing at grade level while having the ability to cognitively benefit from appropriate instructional methods; which was proven once we are pushed out to the private sector to obtain the instruction which could and should have been provided to the students during their school day versus on their own time outside of school…
Because as it stands now in too many schools that does not happen.
These kids are left behind and continue to struggle needlessly because the schools are ignoring the problems!
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That was my point, M. We are so hyper focused on standards, accountability etc. that we aren’t meeting the needs of all students. We have enough information to know how to teach children how to read etc. But teachers and other experts can no longer research or understand how best to meet a child’s needs as everything has become prescriptive. Many things sold as “evidence” based really are financially motivated verses what’s exactly what’s best for kids. Is reading 100 words fluently really reading or is understanding what you are reading actually reading? The assessments or data we are now collecting provide us with a lot of false information about what a child can or cannot do. We can do better particularly when we realize that all children have strengths, but our system is not created to emphasize that.
But we can’t teach that way because we are too busy labeling kids as set by defined standards. Once they are labeled, we don’t expect improvement. And while there are kids who do have issues with certain learning skills, the system is what is hurting us verses the schools. If we have 5 year olds who can’t read we immediately label them as failures. . . and once labeled they will always be labeled.
But your issues are much more complex than an answer on a blog. With the amount of different learning styles, approaches etc., I would argue that pushing hard for strong teachers that know research and pedagogy will improve learning for all children verses top down mandates.
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October is Duslexia awareness month.
Did you know that struggling readers can be identified before 3rd grade?
Are you aware that there are proven methodologies to teach struggling readers to read by teaching deciding and the consistency inherently present in the English language?
And it’s not F&P or LLI or Whole Language.
But if Orton Gullingham methods were used instead of those methods it would drastically reduce the numbers of struggling readers by 3rd grade!
And there is nothing stopping teachers from using those alternative methods! Except for their lack of interest in doing so!
So blaming standards and standardized tests is smoke and mirrors and nothing but more excuses.
If schools were doing a better job then there wouldn’t have been any need for Common Core because the system would have been properly working. But since there was and remains a significant literacy problem throughout this nation, it gave rise to Common Core because the existing model was failing. Common Core will fail not because it’s a bad model but instead due to the fact that it is very Languge oriented and that is where the issues originate! When you increase the amount of printed language problems in math as well as the other classes that are intensively language based to begin with, it illuminates the struggles so many students live with. And if not remediated early, it will haunt them their entire adult life as well!
So please don’t say students are being labeled too early. If they are being identified early that is a good thing. Kids don’t grow out of Dyslexia but they can be instructed much more effectively than they historically have been and they can then start to close the gaps they’ve had to struggle needlessly through for years because nobody cared enough to help them by providing the proper instructional methods at school!
Parents are not the licensed educators, their teachers are, so parents look to teachers and schools to provide their children with the proper instruction and services during the school day.
Our children should never be forced to sit through even more lessons outside of their school day solely because schools refuse to offer them the proper instructional methods!during their school day! Which happens way too much for our kids! They miss out on extra curricular sand clubs and sports because they are forced to struggle twice as long or exponentially as long in comparison to those without learning struggles!
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You are wrong on so many many levels. I’ve read the research around your O-G claim and it’s false.
I’ll continue to refuse to have my children labeled. As proven with my 4th grader who could have been labeled a “struggling” reader all the way up until now as a 4th grader. She could have been labeled dyslexic, as her father was, But now she’s doing just fine. Yes, let’s work with kids who need the intervention but not all children.
Also, common core came about because corporations wanted the money our schools are getting.
I’m not going to respond to you any more as it’s pointless.
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No, you are wrong on so many levels! It is not false!
What is false is that LLI works which is doesn’t.
It doesn’t teach the foundational skills in an organized fashioned.
It says it uses phonics, but it doesn’t use a foundational approach to teach students the rules and the building blocks.
It doesn’t use a multisensory approach which helps those who learn differently as documented in functional MRI imaging scans which shows how they use a different pathway to learn how to read and that pathway is not as efficient as those that do not have identified learning differences!
Maybe your Dyslexic 4th grader is also gifted, and will hit the wall with language or math further down the line in middle or high school because she can no longer keep up with the amount of higher level processing demands of those courses.
Maybe you should read the response from the F& P post that states that LLI wasn’t designed for teaching Dyslexic students yet some students (but not explicitly Dyslexic students) with an IEP may benefit from F&P LLI as noted from their own website:
http://fountasandpinnell.com/forum/messages?TopicID=1431
Here’s a list of the different levels used in LLI (F&P):
Click to access Fountas-Pinnell%20Guided%20Reading%20Text%20Level%20Descriptions.pdf
And here is a post that clearly explains why LLI (F&P) will not work with the 30+% of students that need explicit instruction and a systematic method that teaches the foundational skills in a logical and meaningful manner which is what Orton Gillingham based methods utilize:
http://www.readinghorizons.com/blog/scaffolding-reading-instruction-using-fountas-and-pinnell-reading-horizons-and-other-techniques
You cannot expect those that are struggling learners to just automatically pick up reading or writing or math skills because their brains are not wired the same way as neuro-typical students!
Seriously, you all need to become better informed on what Dyslexia is- including the biological differences in the brain and what methods have been proven to work most effectively with these students!
PS- Orton GIllinham methods also work with students that do not even have learning struggles, and it will also help them become even stronger readers as well!
So why then do schools and people such as yourself continue to use LLI (F&P) when there are better proven methodologies with a better track record for helping these students who have been failed by LLI!
Do you enjoy watching students struggle needlessly year after year when you could be doing someting to improve those skill sets?
Because such struggles are the reality for millions of students and families daily… as well as past and at this rate future generations of families!!!
October is DYSLEXIA AWARENESS month.
Please get your heads out of the sand and become informed about Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia for your students and children’s sake! Their futures depend on it!
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And by the way, here’s the “Instructional Level Expectations for Reading chart that’s intended to provide general guidelines for grade-level goals, which should be adjusted based on school/district requirements and professional teacher judgement.”:
Click to access InstructionalLevelExpectationsForReading.pdf
Note the published color coded KEY and then determine if your students/children are meeting the published expectations for their grade level and marking period.
And if they are not, what are you planning to do about it to help them to close the gaps that have developed or already have been identified?
If they are not meeting these goals, what is the plan to help them to do so? How long do they need to continue using a method that is not designed to help them learn most effectively and efficiently?
Please enlighten me and the other parents across the nation as to what we can expect from teachers and schools when this example shows up in the classrooms across this country?
What should we expect? What should we be asking for, since our pleas for help currently fall on deaf ears or we are told that they will grow out of it.
Because that is not at all accurate or the reality for learning disabled students! They do not “outgrow it”!
They can be instructed effectively though to learn how to properly decode and encode which then frees up additional RAM in their exective functioning area of their brain that allows them to perform higher level processing because they are no longer using it up on decoding and encoding because it will become more automatic.
So please if you or anyone else can enlighten families regarding what they can ask for in order to ensure that their children will be taught how to read and write and be proficient in grade level skills in numeracy too, then maybe we can all put a significant dent in the illiteracy & innumeracy issues so many struggle needlessly with into their adulthoods.
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And this is a prime example of what we as parents have to go through to even attempt to get our children the education they are supposed to be provided under FAPE. :
http://www.wcvb.com/news/5-investigates-big-discrepancies-in-services-for-specialneeds-students/41905982
Families should not have to beg schools or be forced to hire lawyers and advocates to get services they are entitled to receive under Special Education, 504 and ADA when we are required to send our children to the schools based on our zip codes! They should be providing the foundational instruction to become proficient in their primary and native language of English as well as in math too!
Until there is some sort of accountability nothing is going to change for the most struggling learners!
Parents are not going to continue to be stonewalled and watch their children be left behind!!!! And if you push us out to the private sector to obtain the proper instruction, we learn that there is no need for us to continue to be pushed around and beg and have it fall on deaf ears and we will continue to leave public schools and your public schools will continue to hemorrhage students and your numbers will continue to drop and you will lose more and more funding sources for those that remain.
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Elect Trump and there will be no funding for special education
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Wow Diane. Is this really your response to the reality that so many families experience when their children are not provided with proper instruction from their public school?
And you wonder why so many families are frustrated with the public school bureaucracy?
PS- Neither of the top two candidates are going to be the saviors for public education. Plus I wouldn’t vote for “The Donald ” even if he was the single choice for the presidential candidate in the running …
Besides, Jill Stein is more to my liking as a presidential candidate.
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M,
The reality is that Trump will give special education funding to the state’s to convert to vouchers for schools, with no requirement that the money be dedicated to children with disabilities. He will, if he can, discontinue the funding of special education.
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Diane,
re: “dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 at 10:33 pm
M,
The reality is that Trump will give special education funding to the state’s to convert to vouchers for schools, with no requirement that the money be dedicated to children with disabilities. He will, if he can, discontinue the funding of special education.”
The funding doesn’t usually trickle down into effective instruction and supports and services in the classrooms, so really, will anyone even notice, outside of the business/finance office?
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M,
You’re going to love this even more! I have a 2nd grader who has some reading issues, but I’m not concerned as I trust the actual education experts over someone promoting programs. And I have plenty of info around the mri thinking that proves it to be questionable..
Do some readers have glitches? Sure? But I know many, when given solid instruction by an expert teacher, can lose those glitches. And those who don’t get rid of those glitches find other strategies to lead very successful lives. My husband being one of them.
Instead I’ll rely on the experts who write articles like this.
“In his doctoral thesis Suggate concludes that there is
no solid evidence showing long-term gains for children
who are taught to read in kindergarten.
14
In fact, by fourth grade and beyond, these children read at the
same level as those who were taught to read in the first
grade. Suggate has continued to study the question of
why children should learn to read at five when those
who learn at six or seven do just as well by age 11. He
also considers what harm is done by focusing so much
kindergarten time on reading instruction, leaving little
time for other much-needed activities.
15”
Click to access readinginkindergarten_online-1.pdf
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First of all, my child is not dyslexic and I believe there are few children that are. And don’t even get into the whole brain stuff with me. Labeling so many kids as such when for many it’s more of an issue of developmentally appropriate ages (children learn to read anywhere from 4 up to 7 or even later) and quality instruction which teachers are unable to provide due to top down mandates and this false accountability system. We are creating disabilities in many children that will stick with them for life.
Yes, if a child does have issues, work on it, like Finland does, but don’t hold them behind.
But your point is taken. What is best is that you take care of your children and I take care of mine. It is best when each parent, teacher, and child work together for children. Something we used to be able to do. I’m very glad you are not making instructional decisions for a school system. And my hubby has done quite well in this world. Probably because he grew up in a family that didn’t allow him to hold himself back. When I hear him read, I get the glitches that I do believe would have been fixed through quality instruction from an expert teacher – not a program.
I will continue to support quality instruction and not programs. So let’s leave it at that.
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I’ve never said to hold kids back but passing them through and never providing them with proper instruction and allowing them to struggle needlessly year after year is abusive and can negatively them into adulthood. Too many end up struggling needlessly through their 12+ yrs of school and for the rest of their life as adults if they do not get the proper remedial instruction!
It’s your choice to ignore the science behind functional MRI’s where you can see the changes in the brain when given printed texts to read and the repeated differences between neurotypical learners without learning differences versus those that are not neurotypical learners and that struggle with Dyslexia!
This is the reason that children end up falling through the cracks in schools, teachers and administrators that don’t want to believe that children really do learn differently and tell parents that they will grow out of it; yet they don’t!!!
Proper instructional methods are what will help them overcome their struggles, not aging. If aging was all that was involved in learning to read and write and to succeed in math then there would not be any adults struggling with illiteracy and there would not be any Dyslexic adults, yet there are 1 in 5 adults as well as children that struggle!
Dyslexia and others learning disabilities are REAL and you don’t “GROW OUT OF IT”!!!! You can be effectively INSTRUCTED and OVERCOME many of the symptoms if provided with proper instruction, but it doesn’t just magically happen once you hit 7 yrs old or older nor even in adulthood!
Seriously, it is scary that some of you are responsible for the education of children with learning differences. You do not have a clue as to the struggles they are facing daily and year after year because of beliefs by those in charge of students education that don’t believe in scientific research such as fMRI’s where they’ve proven how these students learn differently and that it’s not something they will “outgrow”!!!
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Dyslexia and LD are both founded in numerous mythologies and both have been shown to be nonexistent when all children have early access to high-quality, intensive reading instruction. As the nation’s top two dyslexia/LD researchers (Frank Vellutino and Jack Fletcher) pointed out recent intervention research clearly indicates that there is no neurological or other area intrinsic to the child that explains why some children fail to learn to read but there is an ever increasing amount of research demonstrating that almost no school system in the nation has any intensive and effective Kindergarten and first grade intervention to address the academic problem of kids who need access to more and better reading instruction. Instead of intensive, expert, and effective early reading lessons those kids get “help” from paraprofessionals or they get a computer controlled intervention, if anything.
Problem is there is no research indicating that having struggling readers work with parapros is effective, no research indicating computer controlled reading instruction is effective, and no research indicating that Orton-Gillingham approaches are effective! That so many folks succumb to the advertising and personal sales pitches of all three of these scams is almost unbelievable.
Pray for some sanity for those children who struggle with their initial acquisition of reading proficiency and send the scammers to another country.
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Dick –
Really? Dyslexia is myth? Not based in scientific research? Hmmm… Surely you’re joking.
If not then it’s “professionals” such as yourself that contributes to the problems with illiteracy and other academic struggles in the classrooms across this nation!
I’d love you to stand in a room of Decoding Dyslexia students and their families and medical professionals and neuropsychologists and the few professional educators that believe in Dyslexia and other LDS and tell them it’s a myth.
Keep preaching this BS to your bubble choir and deny students their 504, ADA civil rights and IDEA rights!
And please send me your peer reviewed journal articles with your evidence that Dyslexia is a myth! I’d love to share those with the DD peeps and the other educational and medical professionals that believe in the scientific research and fMRIs that shows beyond a doubt that dyslexics learn differently and use different pathways than non-dyslexics when they read, write and do math!
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I’m sorry if you were offended by my argument that dyslexia and LD are largely based on educational myths as opposed to research (science). However, I’ll stand by my argument if only because the research evidence, especially the large intervention studies published by Vellutino and Scanlon (1996) and by Mathes, Fletcher, et al, 2004, both demonstrate that looking at fMRI data is largely a waste of time when the value of what you learn in one case may suggest that “dyslexics” brains work differently than other kids brains (of course, even if a difference exists one can never be sure that the rigid, narrow, and unresearched reading instructional methods so commonly used with “dyslexic” kids isn’t the actual reason their brains seem to be working differently. I’ll continue my 45 year wait for a single study that demonstrates that there exist any children who cannot become good readers or any study demonstrating that the miracle cure of multi-sensory instructional methods actually improve reading achievement. Until such studies are published I will simply suggest that you not extol the virtues you appear to see in having a label (dyslexia) that indicts some children to a ritualistic scam that blocks then from receiving high-quality balanced reading instruction and, thus, condemns to a lifetime of “dyslexia” caused in large part by archaic instructional methods that have never been demonstrated effective.
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The comments in response to the posting about FairTest’s report, Assessment Matters, raise interesting points. I will respond here to just a few.
First, there is no doubt that corporations backed by some foundations and politicians are promoting a version of schooling that is built around computerized packaged programs that combine curriculum, curricular materials, instruction and testing. The tests are in most cases multiple-choice and short-answer with occasional write-to-a-prompt items, to be machine graded. They seriously narrow and diminish education and should be exposed and stopped.
But not one of the examples in FairTest’s report rely on these kinds of computerized packages. Each one is teacher controlled and very much teacher controlled. We clearly support and praise those that allow significant student voice and control over the learning and assessment processes. New Hampshire fought for a deal that has opened doors that have been nailed shut since the start of NCLB and thus deserve serious credit. As we point out, we can learn from and improve on what they have thus far done, and that ESSA makes it easier for that to happen. (As a sidebar, we have regularly opposed much of what is in ESSA concerning testing while noting the victories and gains the testing reform movement made and providing ideas on how to take advantage of the opportunities it does provide.)
People can choose to believe the fight is over because corporations are trying to seize control of terms such as personalized and competency-based. We believe that is a mistake. It is not over, and one part of the battle is the fight to own the terms. The more important fight is the one to determine the shape of education, whether it is built on human relations among teachers and students, with parents and other community people also engaged; or it is based on computer algorithms and subordinating human relations to the computer packages.
FairTest fights for the former. We think that is clear in what we call for and the programs we highlight. If people have questions about that, they should read what we actually write and then follow it up, looking at the programs themselves.
Monty Neill
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The suggestions by the Fair Test proponents are interesting and go in some good direction, but they lack clarity and depth. This will cause a lot of headaches in the classroom and continous criticism by even those educational researchers who are not defending high-stake testing.
Clarity: It should be clearly said what function tests and other forms of evaluation of students’ performance do or should have. Only then they can be checked for validity. Without any clear criterion, no validity checks can be made.
Depths: As I explained in my short paper published in this blog, it is wrong to fight “standardize tests” because to be fair tests must be standardized in some way. The problem is not standardization but the statistical model behind most, if not all, current tests, even of many “fair” tests, namely the model of designing and scoring tests prescribed by “Classical Test Theory” (see, e.g., Gulliksen 1950) and its offsprings. If we do not understand this, we cannot really change testing to the better. Moreover we should give equal weight to students’ and teachers’ self-evaluation as to their external evaluation. Self-evaluatipn, if done properly and objectively, brings back professionalism into to the school.
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