I am very glad that I attended public school during a time when we seldom, if ever, took a standardized test. On the rare occasion when we did, there were no consequences attached to our test scores. Our teachers saw our scores, but we did not. She or he learned something about how we were progressing or not. There was no time devoted to test prep, because the tests didn’t matter. Practicing for a test would have been like “practicing” for a visit with the doctor. It makes no sense.
Today, standardized testing has become so ubiquitous that students in public schools are tested every year from grades 3 through 8, a reminder of the No Child Left Behind law, which left many children behind. For some reason, the policymakers in D.C. thought they knew more than professional educators about how to improve education. Test every child every year. Threaten teachers and principals with stiff penalties, including being fired or having their school closed. If scores went up, and sometimes they did, it didn’t mean that children were better educated. It may have meant that they were worse educated because their school sacrificed the arts, history, civics, and other activities for the sake of prepping for the all-important tests.
Nevertheless, state leaders became persuaded that tests were good; the more tests the better. Most states are now giving tests that their own legislators would not be able to pass. There ought to be a law that no legislator may impose any test that he or she can’t pass. If they took the tests and released their own scores, the testing mania would disappear.
Since that won’t happen, the next best thing is civil disobedience. Opt out. Don’t let your child take the tests. This a legitimate way of expressing your voice, which is otherwise ignored.
The single most important thing you need to know about the state tests is that they are utterly useless and without any value. The results come back in the summer or fall, when the student has a different teacher. Neither students nor teachers are allowed to discuss the questions on the test, so no one learns anything from them. Teachers are not given a diagnostic report for each student, just rankings. Why do you need to know that your child is a 38 or 48 or 68? How does that help her? What information can you glean from a ranking? None.
Testing today is like visiting the doctor for a regular check-up and learning that your results will be ready in four months, not next week. When the results come in, you are told you are a 12 on a scale of 15. You anxiously ask the doctor, what does that mean? He says, “I am not allowed to tell you.” He gives you a few other numbers to show how you rate as compared to others of your height and weight, but he prescribes nothing because he is not able to learn anything from the scores and ratings.
A genuinely diagnostic test would be one where students and teachers could discuss the questions and answers. They would learn what the student got right and wrong. They would discuss whether the “right answer” was reasonable. If the student could make a better case for his answer, then his score could be changed. The teacher would learn where the students needed extra help. The teacher would learn which topics she had not given enough attention to.
But that is not the way standardized testing works today. Their contents are copyrighted. The testing corporations fiercely protect the secrecy of their questions and answers.
Their defenders think that the tests produce something that teachers need to know. They are not. They are producing numerical ratings and rankings that have no value. They are generating profits for the testing companies.
They are useless.
The best way to get this point across to the policymakers in your state and in Washington, D.C., is to refuse the tests. Do not take them. Send a message. This is the only way you can liberate your children from tests that have no value and that steal time from instruction and play. Defend your child. Defend the joy of learning.
Opt out.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Teachers know morea about their students than a test.
Tests make $$$$$ for the FEW.
It isn’t just EOY exams. It is also the beginning of the school year where less than 3 weeks into the school year we test kindergarten students (as well as the rest of the school). Nothing like a 7 year old wetting their pants because they don’t know how to use a mouse. But we need to rank and sort this kid right off the bat.
Then of course there is the middle of the school year exams. Need to check growth and all. That is followed by the EOY exams.
The sad part is we waste millons on the test prep books, the test and not days but weeks of testing window each session. Then they base the science teachers evaluation on the math test. The art teacher on the reading test and so on. Makes perfect sense.
The really hard part is telling parents the test means NOTHING. “We’ll how will I know if my child is progressing?” Well there are these things, we call them teachers. They know if your child is progessing or having issues. They knew before your child sat down in front of that computer monitor. Yet, because the teacher doesn’t whip out some magical number on a piece of paper, we would rather trust the computer. Why? because computers don’t lie. Only the people who program them. OPT OUT
Thank you for this, Diane. NJ is in the throws of PARCC testing. Districts and NJDOE are approaching Opt Outs (“refusals”) with over the top claims about PARCC’s worthiness and threatening (in some cases doing) punitive action. Parents and students are afraid of the threats. They are afraid of not graduating high school or being admitted into advanced classes.
It is astonishing the lengths that are gone to in order to “force” students to take the test. I cringe at what our education system looks like after we defeat PARCC. Trust is already lost. How on earth will NJDOE and those administrators (unfortunately, the occasional teacher too) ever gain it back?
I recall taking standardized tests as a child in Philly, but the results were not high stakes. My own children took annual standardized tests, but again no high stakes were attached to them. They were not particularly useful then either, more like a litmus test. Grade equivalent results can be misleading to parents. My daughter was a strong reader. When she was in third grade, her reading score was 5.3 which, of course, made he feel superior. However, as someone certified as a reading teacher, I knew the scores did not imply she read like a fifth grader. It meant she read as well as 5th grader would have performed on the 3rd grade test.
The most compelling reason to opt out of tests today is because the system is rigged with movable cut scores or some other scheme designed to offer a continuous supply of public schools to privateers. This is a game in which states shamelessly collude with privateers so that private entities may receive more corporate welfare and provide a return for investors. Needy students are pawns in a game in which the deck is stacked against them and public schools.
YES. To most effectively opt out of testing, parents may need to organize an OPT OUR OF SCREENTIME form; more and more districts are pretending to get rid of big tests while simply buying into the endless computer testing being built into modern-day computer curricula.
I am 70 years old and I do recall tests being important in my life – two in particular. The Stanford Binet and the usual reading test. I was told that in fifth grade I read at an 11th grade level. Thank you for clarifying what that really meant. These two tests actually wrecked my education Based on one, I skipped grades (not a good idea in my case) and based on the other I was stigmatized for not having a high enough score, and I knew it. Constantly moved in and out of classes that were for the gifted. I wasn’t. Testing has always been a part of our culture. What is happening now it seems to me has more to do with the profit motive than anything (and firing teachers so to destroy their unions).
I relate to this well in that my son was told in early years that he tested very high; over time, though, he felt that he was smarter (more informed) than he was and so didn’t try to relax and LEARN. Telling young children about their “standardized” test scores is abusive, plain and simple.
Some of the older reading tests like WRAT (wide range achievement tests) had students decoding single words in a list which often yielded very high scores for good decoders, but it is not reading! I agree that decoding is necessary for reading, but I like Frank Smith’s definition. “Reading is thinking.”
Joan,
The tests have no value unless they are diagnostic and they are not
You’re right, Diane! A teacher can find out more from a simple I.R.I (informal reading inventory) than any standardized test. Teachers will get diagnostic information that will help the teacher to design appropriate instruction for the student. No bells and whistles, no high costs, and it is informative and useful!
While I somewhat agree with your statement there is a flaw that needs to be fixed first. In NYS Focus Schools (those that have not made AYP) are solely determined by the scores on the state exams. Until the state changes how this is done, if a school is a focus school and students don’t take the exam then that school runs the risk of never being able to get off of focus status because that school will not have scores or show growth. So in a round about sort of way opt outs potentially hurt schools. That is why the accountability system for schools needs to be fixed first.
“. . . if a school is a focus school and students don’t take the exam then that school runs the risk of never being able to get off of focus status because that school will not have scores or show growth. So in a round about sort of way opt outs potentially hurt schools. ”
Yes, it’s called extortion by the state. How do you feel as an adminimal who promotes the god forsaken test about being extorted by the state. Just as sure as you are extorting the students with threats of negative consequences for non-compliance. Can you say “Good German”? (Yeah I’m a prick when it comes to adminimals and their bloviations about “having to implement these malpractices”, so feel free to “take the high ground” and feel sorry for my obstinance, or just call me a prick, I can handle it).
If I may bring it to a different level, then and offer this commentary by a, heaven forbid, contemporary French philosopher about personal expediency (what the vast majority of GAGA Good German educators prefer) taking priority over justice for the most innocent in society, the students:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
I’ve opted my children out of testing for several years. However, some parents and teachers in my district say tests are needed because grades (i.e. Teachers) can be biased and/or since grading policies differ across teachers, the tests are needed to have a standard assessment of students. As such, I remain one of few that are willing to push back on this absolute waste of time/money. Also, many groups in our community use our low test scores to apply for grants to supposedly help our kids or justify charter schools. So the lower the scores, the more money they can obtain or siphon away from our district for charters. Any thoughts on how to enlighten our community/state (CA)?
Deborah,
Grades tell more than standardized tests esp when no one is allowed to know what was on the test
“. . . because grades (i.e. Teachers) can be biased and/or since grading policies differ across teachers, the tests are needed to have a standard assessment of students.”
First those supposed standardized tests are not objective in any sense of the meaning of the word. They are as subjective as any other assessment that one human does of another. That supposed objectivity is a falsehood.
And yes, each teacher should have their own assessment system in place, preferably without “grades” as, yes, those are as subjective as any other human generated assessment. Can’t get around that fact.
Right on Diane! Are the parents legally able to opt out of all testing? See me at Twitter: @estormzap
Barclay, depends on the state. If enough people refuse the test, the laws change
Thanks for all you do for all of us.
I have counted eight tests that students have to take yearly in my district. I have estimated that this consumes around 2 months of instructional time. It is even worse for Special Education students who take longer and feel worse about the outcome.
Please keep in mind that in NY State, the standardized test known as the NYSESLAT, which all ELLs must take until they pass, has a legal component that specifically articulates that parents are NOT allowed to opt their child out.
This is the only standardized test K though 8th grade that parents are NOT permitted to have the kids opt out of. Of course, it’s immigrant parents mostly, so NYSED does not see them or their children as really having the same rights as Americans or of parents of non-ELL children. This is a little known secret, and it accounts for about 202,000 families in NY State.
No, civil rights are not for everyone. They just aren’t.
I can recall weekly spelling, vocabulary, and grammar tests at almost every grade, three to eight, with content drawn from subjects we studied and/or widely circulated grade-level tests. These were not standardized tests.They did influence grades on out report cards.
I remember taking a few standardized tests. Only one of these came close to being a “high stakes” test.
The first was a no-longer used Wechsler Bellevue test of general intelligence, verbal and performance (e.g.,pegs in holes, rotations of 3-d objects to match a 2-D diagram). My parents got the results and did not make a big hoopla about the results. I learned of the results much later. The whole context is long gone from memory. The test is no longer used.
In high school, everyone took the Kudler Occupational Interest Test. I have no recall of the profile that was supposed to point me toward an occupation. It was for our information, if we had no idea about what our occupational interests and options. I think of it as short survey in the spirit of “What color is your parachute?
I know I had to take the Graduate Record Exam. I remember little other than relief that I passed muster for admission to graduate school.
I learned more than I wanted to know about standardized tests in graduate school and while working with collegues in music and the visual arts educstion on the first NAEP tests in those subjects, and interpreting the results–vintage tests, early 1970s.
Lately, I have been looking at the data systems spawned by the runup to the No Child Left Behind Act, and the current wish lists of the ed-tech and testing fanatics. Those wish-lists include a total elimination of restrictions on using the SS number for every student in longitutinal records to be kept from cradle to “career,” well into the years of workforce participation (or not). Scores on standarized tests are essential to keep and expand this “national educational data infrastructure” system.
The preoccupation with data makes more money for computer and testing companies. Young people are not the sum of their scores, and scores are sometimes use to pigeonhole students and to deny them access to programs. What matters in life is what you do with your life, not the scores you get!
As a student that grew up during the No Child Left Behind era, I was tortured by the STAR test every year. I had horrible test anxiety, and especially in elementary school because my teachers would always stress how important these tests were. The elementary school I went to prided themselves on having the best test scores in the district. While I was in fourth grade my school as a whole got a perfect score on the STAR test, which I am not even entirely sure how that works. I remember the local news channel came to our school and interviewed some of the students and teachers, while praising them on how well they did with the STAR test. I was under the impression that these tests were going to make or break me. It wasn’t until I got to middle school where teachers openly admitted that these tests meant nothing. However, I couldn’t help myself but freak out every time I had to take one. I really enjoyed your comparison to going to a doctors appointment and not knowing what your results mean. These tests are not helpful for students or teachers. They put pressure on the teachers to make sure their students preform well, but they also cause unneeded stress on the students. These test also waste valuable learning time, the only thing these tests teach is how to fill in a bubble. In a way it is as though this time is being stolen from the teachers and the students. As a future teacher I am against standardized testing and will never “teach for the test,” I want my students to learn from experience and engaging pedagogy rather than stressing for a week over pointless testing.
May I apologize to you Zoe for my generations abuse of you through standardized testing! I hope that as a teacher you lead the way in refusing to teach to the test. My thoughts and support are with you!!
Commissioner Elia has lied over and over again to the parents. As a veteran teacher, recently retired, I have walked the walk. These tests are ridiculous! Parents take heed in what Ms Ravitch is saying. Civil Disobedience is the only way! Opt your children out of New York State Tests!
Go to http://www.nysape.org for the Rebuttal to Elia’s Toolkit! NYSAPE knows the truth!
“They are COMPLETELY INVALID AND THEREFORE useless.”
There, completed your thought, Diane.
Now the question becomes how and why are standards and the accompanying tests COMPLETELY INVALID. Noel Wilson in 1997 proved that all of the foundational concepts (onto-epistemological basis) of the standards and testing regime are so full of error and falsehoods, along with psychometric “fudges” that any results can only be viewed as invalid, and if I may add ludicrous and risible. I ask all to please read and comprehend what Wilson has proven in his never refuted nor rebutted (and I’ve been futily looking for almost two decades for any and haven’t come across anything, other than a comment or two like “that’s just post modern claptrap”) See:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
I don’t know how to speak with a president … but I can speak well enough with any father.
So, let us speak as fathers … and of the dreams we dream for our own children.
Then we should imagine that we are dreaming for all sorts of children … because that is your new job … and that was my old job for a long, long while.
I should say straight away that my own children are grown and flown … like most of yours. But, as you know, families grow … and new stars join the troupe and steal the spotlight. Like your Barron … and my young Aidan.
I’ve seen you lose yourself in that boy’s face. I have. It’s the sort of thing I pay attention to because … because I do the same. All the time. That “circle of life” stuff gets extra-real in people our age. And finally … we learn to pay attention to what really matters. The sweet, small stuff … like a child’s face.
You are a busy man. I am not so busy at all.
You are the president of a great country … and I am the chief of a very small tribe. You were once a business man … and I was once a history teacher.
And what busies you hardly busies me.
My responsibilities are now sweet and simple … I only have to be on time for baseball games and perhaps explain old civilizations now and then.
You have only to worry about a country … and perhaps the rest of the world.
See? We do have things in common. So … now we can talk.
Children teach us to keep our promises. Nothing winces a father more than the face of a disappointed child. Break a promise … break a heart. I’ve sinned that sin … I’m sure you have, too.
And now … now everything about your life is suddenly larger than ever before. Your challenges. Your promises. And perhaps even your disappointments.
But for a moment, let’s shrink your world so it looks more like mine … and the folks who placed their hopes and dreams in you. The people who believed your promises. Not-so-famous people … except to the children who look up to them, and hang on their every promise.
Childhood is a quick moment. It’s the maker of first memories … and we make big deals of firsts. First words. First steps. First everything.
We should never forget that school is life’s first great adventure. That break-free moment that puts the first crack in every parent’s heart. That anxious adios … even if it lasts for just a few hours.
We fanny-pat them and cup their tiny faces for one last boost … and send them off to the first brave solo-moment of their brand new lives.
We are both joyed and jittered by this daring episode.
But for many parents … things are not as we remember.
Schools have been nightmared. Children guinea-pigged … poisoned by imposter-reformers and their pedagogical idiocy.
So many seem intent on reinventing childhood … swapping out sandboxes and monkey bars for hypnotizing iPads and abusive testing circumstances. Many classroom reforms are simply ludicrous … and harming.
There’s so much wrong with this reform, it’s a miracle schools haven’t been pitchforked by parent-mobs.
They’re calling out school leaders for odd-ball curriculum changes. Even demanding legislation for … are you ready, Mr. President? … for recess. For play time. For six year olds.
It’s that sick, sir.
They’re frustrated by politicians-turned-Socrates who dismiss their concerns … and permit creepy-freaky social engineers to bend the lives of their children.
Master-teachers … once the most trusted regents of our children … have been exiled to the edges of every reform discussion. Their common sense expertise suddenly dismissed as Dark Age know-how.
These spring months turn children into school-loathing messes because fraudy-gurus insist that “grit and rigor” are imperative antidotes to wasteful childhoods of discovery and play.
These hoaxers demand that hyper-dramatized assessments be homaged as the new tools of educational excellence. Real-deal teachers are threatened into silent compliance. And so … hundreds of thousands of enraged parents are refusing abusive testing in state after state … Georgia … Texas … New York … Michigan … Florida.
The outrage is exploding.
This is what happens when schools are hijacked by an interfering government and bungling bureaucrats.
It’s what happens when disconnected theoreticians pretend to understand children … and dare to claim parental regency over them.
It’s what happens when self-anointed wizards decided that only government can wrench us out of the educational Middle Ages … and make us as advantaged as … as Sweden. And Singapore. Or Switzerland.
And caught in this cyclone of nonsense are small people. Young children … like your Barron … and my Aidan. But not as well protected.
So … millions of innocents are anguished … and their parents agonized.
Never has there been a more toxic reform effort than Common Core … and all that churns around it. It is a harmful failure. A disturbing, national mess.
Mothers and fathers across America witnessed your promise to end Common Core … and they signed that contract in the ballot booth.
Never was the “art of the deal” so serious for so many.
They asked for their schools back … and for childhood to be restored.
They asked that childhood education be balanced again … in challenge and joy … so they, too, can dream dreams for their children.
So they signed on the dotted line.
Now you are the president of great people. And I am still the chief of a small tribe.
And one day, Barron and Aidan will read of this … and know if we both kept our promise.
Let’s not disappoint anyone.
Denis Ian
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
I don’t know how to speak with a president … but I can speak well enough with any father.
So, let us speak as fathers … and of the dreams we dream for our own children.
Then we should imagine that we are dreaming for all sorts of children … because that is your new job … and that was my old job for a long, long while.
I should say straight away that my own children are grown and flown … like most of yours. But, as you know, families grow … and new stars join the troupe and steal the spotlight. Like your Barron … and my young Aidan.
I’ve seen you lose yourself in that boy’s face. I have. It’s the sort of thing I pay attention to because … because I do the same. All the time. That “circle of life” stuff gets extra-real in people our age. And finally … we learn to pay attention to what really matters. The sweet, small stuff … like a child’s face.
You are a busy man. I am not so busy at all.
You are the president of a great country … and I am the chief of a very small tribe. You were once a business man … and I was once a history teacher.
And what busies you hardly busies me.
My responsibilities are now sweet and simple … I only have to be on time for baseball games and perhaps explain old civilizations now and then.
You have only to worry about a country … and perhaps the rest of the world.
See? We do have things in common. So … now we can talk.
Children teach us to keep our promises. Nothing winces a father more than the face of a disappointed child. Break a promise … break a heart. I’ve sinned that sin … I’m sure you have, too.
And now … now everything about your life is suddenly larger than ever before. Your challenges. Your promises. And perhaps even your disappointments.
But for a moment, let’s shrink your world so it looks more like mine … and the folks who placed their hopes and dreams in you. The people who believed your promises. Not-so-famous people … except to the children who look up to them, and hang on their every promise.
Childhood is a quick moment. It’s the maker of first memories … and we make big deals of firsts. First words. First steps. First everything.
We should never forget that school is life’s first great adventure. That break-free moment that puts the first crack in every parent’s heart. That anxious adios … even if it lasts for just a few hours.
We fanny-pat them and cup their tiny faces for one last boost … and send them off to the first brave solo-moment of their brand new lives.
We are both joyed and jittered by this daring episode.
But for many parents … things are not as we remember.
Schools have been nightmared. Children guinea-pigged … poisoned by imposter-reformers and their pedagogical idiocy.
So many seem intent on reinventing childhood … swapping out sandboxes and monkey bars for hypnotizing iPads and abusive testing circumstances. Many classroom reforms are simply ludicrous … and harming.
There’s so much wrong with this reform, it’s a miracle schools haven’t been pitchforked by parent-mobs.
They’re calling out school leaders for odd-ball curriculum changes. Even demanding legislation for … are you ready, Mr. President? … for recess. For play time. For six year olds.
It’s that sick, sir.
They’re frustrated by politicians-turned-Socrates who dismiss their concerns … and permit creepy-freaky social engineers to bend the lives of their children.
Master-teachers … once the most trusted regents of our children … have been exiled to the edges of every reform discussion. Their common sense expertise suddenly dismissed as Dark Age know-how.
These spring months turn children into school-loathing messes because fraudy-gurus insist that “grit and rigor” are imperative antidotes to wasteful childhoods of discovery and play.
These hoaxers demand that hyper-dramatized assessments be homaged as the new tools of educational excellence. Real-deal teachers are threatened into silent compliance. And so … hundreds of thousands of enraged parents are refusing abusive testing in state after state … Georgia … Texas … New York … Michigan … Florida.
The outrage is exploding.
This is what happens when schools are hijacked by an interfering government and bungling bureaucrats.
It’s what happens when disconnected theoreticians pretend to understand children … and dare to claim parental regency over them.
It’s what happens when self-anointed wizards decided that only government can wrench us out of the educational Middle Ages … and make us as advantaged as … as Sweden. And Singapore. Or Switzerland.
And caught in this cyclone of nonsense are small people. Young children … like your Barron … and my Aidan. But not as well protected.
So … millions of innocents are anguished … and their parents agonized.
Never has there been a more toxic reform effort than Common Core … and all that churns around it. It is a harmful failure. A disturbing, national mess.
Mothers and fathers across America witnessed your promise to end Common Core … and they signed that contract in the ballot booth.
Never was the “art of the deal” so serious for so many.
They asked for their schools back … and for childhood to be restored.
They asked that childhood education be balanced again … in challenge and joy … so they, too, can dream dreams for their children.
So they signed on the dotted line.
Now you are the president of great people. And I am still the chief of a small tribe.
And one day, Barron and Aidan will read of this … and know if we both kept our promise.
Let’s not disappoint anyone.
Denis Ian
Being that I was once a student who endured the ever so popular standardized test, I really wished my parents chose to Opt. I remember how stressed and worried I’d get during test taking and having this overwhelming feeling of, ” I need to get this right”. I also recall constantly being in fear that I could not keep up with my classmates. Today I feel as though they are not needed and shouldn’t be mandatory obligation for young students. Who are we to assume that the only brain they have is from what a test tells us, when in fact their young minds can offer way more. It is up to us future educators to help guide, give knowledge and allow for experience for out students to blossom.
I strongly agree with the position that Ravitch takes on standardized testing. As a young student I quickly picked up on the fact that the state required tests being given in school had absolutely nothing to do with a class grade. The disconnect felt by students becomes more exacerbated considering the minimal preparation time any teacher would provide for the tests. It also didn’t end for me once I got into high school. The public high school I attended in northern California had two tests that were given each year, the STAR Test and the California High School Exit Exam. The star test had absolutely nothing to do with anything that was being taught by the teachers at the time the test showed up. The STAR Test perfectly fits with Ravitchs’ assertion that these tests aren’t taken seriously, I remember scoring extremely low on my first test as a freshmen and my parents became extremely worried! I my parents how the test had nothing to do with my high school career and it was really just a test for the state and they instantly dropped it, why grill me over a test that doesn’t matter?
The California Exit Exam was an even bigger joke accept it’s not funny at all. It was required for each student to pass the exam prior to graduating. Each student was allowed to take it up to three different times once a year, beginning as a sophomore. The test is supposed to assure that each graduate is leaving with a baseline knowledge that is acceptable for completing high school. The issues with this exam were all over the place. Many students simply refused to take it until they were juniors or seniors. Every year there was a rumor about a handful of students that didn’t pass the exit exam and they were forced to take it again in some obscure location days before graduation. There was no access to a study guide and the ONLY class that offered students the opportunity to prepare for the CHSEE required that each student had failed the test before, necessitating their enrollment in the study course. I was so unmotivated to take the CHSEE seriously the first time that I failed miserably by simply filling in the A bubble for every single answer. When my parents asked me why I had scored so poorly I told them the truth: I think it’s a stupid test that takes too long and proves absolutely nothing; I’ll take it seriously next year. When a test is so flippantly isolated from all of the courses and the curriculum that a student has been exposed to all year long, it’s almost impossible to justify to them why they should stress over a test that they can potentially take three time over.
Standardized testing has long been a running joke to me. The state can’t create a better system of measuring student growth so they are forced to take these isolated tests. All this testing is done for the students but the majority of educators would argue that standardized testing directly harms the students as it takes away time from their classes that have shaped their learning each year for a test that offers the students very little in return for their efforts.
Growing up, standardized testing was a headache. I saw the results as comparing me to my peers and I could easily feel the intense pressure from my teachers despite their claims, “Not to worry about it.” When I was younger I didn’t even comprehend that my teachers were “sacrificing” other subjects like the arts, history, or other activities that may further students’ education. Producing numbers after numbers and eliminating discussion about conflicts or questions defeats the purpose of a test. How do students learn from this type of testing?
As I continue developing my teaching toolkit and study various philosophies from my school readings, I value the concept of holistic learning more and more. John Dewey’s thoughts on holistic education through experience is much more practical in the eyes of a future educator. Standardized testing creates an establishment filled with pressure and force to learn material. With a concentration of holistic learning and an elimination of testing in an education system I think students are more likely to enjoy school and participate more. Therefore, students will enjoy learning as well.
Parents should be opting out of standardized testing since the tests don’t directly affect their kids. Teachers know their students better and can gauge on a holistic level versus a standardized test.
As a tax payer I am paying without transparency and private companies are making money on copyrighted material! I know tax paying jobs are open to the public because the taxes pay for the jobs. So why is the teachers/staff pay open to the public but copyright tests aren’t???