Charles Sampson, superintendent of the Freehold Regional High School District in New Jersy, sent out a bulletin about the ridiculous number of tests his students are required to take.
For speaking out against stupidity, I add him to the Honor Roll of the blog.
He writes:
“Our testing requirements under the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) extend far beyond federal requirements. With the introduction this year of the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment-Science (NJSLA-S) we have jumped the proverbial shark. With the NJSLA-S, a junior in a New Jersey Public High School will sit for approximately 13 hours of testing between mid-April and mid-June. This does not include Advanced Placement or College Admissions Exams (e.g. SAT, ACT) also commonly taken in the junior year. In fact, current juniors who have already taken the New Jersey Biology Competency Test (NJBCT) as ninth graders, will now take a four-hour field test in the sciences even though they have already taken the federally required assessment!
“The NJSLA-S will have teeth-in fact, it will be comprehensive and there are plans to include it as a graduation assessment requirement. Students that follow interests or passions in the sciences and not prescribed course sequences may be at a disadvantage in meeting assessment benchmarks. These consequences will be compounded by the reverberations of PARCC. If current requirements hold, additional gates barring graduation will be raised, hundreds of students may be required to take a “refresher” course based on standardized assessment performance, equity issues for poor students will become more pronounced and test preparation far worse than what we experienced under No Child Left Behind will be the answer.
“Sound frightening? It should.
“As a superintendent, I am gravely concerned. As a parent, I am outraged.
“We need to stop adding to our standardized assessment load and give back time and energy to teaching and learning. We have a responsibility to speak up for the children we serve, for our own children and for children who have no one to speak for them. I want to see New Jersey lead the nation in educational experiences for children, not seat time for standardized assessments.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m still looking for the “and therefore, my district will no longer….”
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YEP!
Can’t be getting too uppity up now can he? Wouldn’t want to jeopardize his income, would he?
“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.”—Andre Comte-Sponville in “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” [my additions]
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Not sure he can do much of anything. Our state BOE has mandated all of this. This is the regional high school district into which my district feeds. These kids were my students at one point.
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Yes, he could do lots of things. The first thing sending all the testing materials back to the state unopened.
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Far too few superintendents willing to speak up.
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Most have a fear of losing federal funding that is needed for special programs. They don’t have a plan to replace 15-25%of their operating budget that comes from federal funds.
If they did then they would probably be more willing to be more vocal and defiant.
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Speaking up is easy. Actually doing something, well. . . .
(see Comte-Sponville quote above)
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For as easy as it might be, very few do it…at least publicly.
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And you are correct OAIIT.
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Some great lines there.
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I honestly think they continue to add measurement mandates to public schools because it is the ONLY thing ed reform offers to public schools.
They say it themselves- choice and accountability. If you’re a public school the only part of ed reform that applies is standardized testing.
I see it in the Ohio legislature. It is the ONLY thing they do down there re:public schools- screw with testing mandates. I think there have been ten different testing schemes in the last ten years.
All they have is a hammer….and they have to act like they’re adding something.
Hence- tests.
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Accountability has to be gradually removed so that by the time public schools are gone, no accountability measures will remain to make chosen schools look bad.
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“measurement mandates”
There is no “measuring” in the standards and testing malpractice regime. NONE!
Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. By proximity is a very weak rhetorical device.
Now since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable” which is what all this standardized testing insanity, truly insanity if you think about it, is about???
So much harm to so many students is caused by the educational malpractices that are standards and testing or as Phelps contends in “measuring the nonobservable”.
How insane is this all???
Utterly beyond my comprehension!!!
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Glad he is speaking up! Someone has to. He is right !!!!
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To which “he” do you refer?
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