A blogger who is a middle-school teacher with 30 years of experience writes here about how tests are the entry point for privatization. The privatized schools won’t get better schools but once they get their clutches on public schools, they don’t let go. The rewards of privatization are considerable. The private sector gets to seize the assets and resources of the public sector at no cost. What a deal. Entire communities have been gobbled up and disappeared.
“How can parents and communities end the insanity? Be informed. Click on the links to supporting materials if you want to know more. Go to nysape.org run by and for parents. Have your children opt out. Refuse consequential use of scores… including evaluating your child’s teacher, impacting your child’s access to gifted programs or remediation, your school’s report card. Demand that tests be used diagnostically not as a tool for stack ranking or predatory take over of public institutions. And, like all important things, remember that involvement is the key. The best school is not the creation of an external entity, but the product of the living partnership of a community. Instead of investing in high stakes testing, invest in a relationship with your child’s teachers. Partner with them and with the other stakeholders in the community. Together, we are responsible for the education of our children and for protecting a future in which they can participate fully. Be part of a thriving real community.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Test-making pseudoscience, like running any other cult, is extraordinarily lucrative. There’s a great benefit package that comes with running an outfit that foists this sloppy hoodoo on an unsuspecting nation. Valid? Reliable? Sure. Take our word for it. Well, what’s on that test, can we see it? Uh, no. I’m buying a product, but I can’t even see it? No, that would compromise security.
LOL. Ofc, the testing racket is the one thing that’s keeping the big educational publishing houses afloat. It’s like having the government spending billions on phrenology or astrology or to fund projects to square the circle or to build perpetual motion machines.
Where’s our legal guy? FLERP–isn’t there a way to close these guys down for fraud?
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And fraud it is.
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From freedictionary.com, legal definitions:
Fraud: “A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.”
Wilson has proven the false representations (yes, plural) of the makers of standardized tests, has shown the many false and misleading allegations and the concealment of many aspects of the test that are not disclosed. And yes those false, deceptive proclamations deceive many, far too many.
Now we need someone to act upon the harms involved for the individual that come from all the falsehoods and deceptions of the test makers.
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Perhaps the question we should be asking is why so many black and brown children in major cities across the country have been shuffled into so many for profit schools while white students often get to remain in authentic public schools with trained and certified teachers? Is this not a continuation of the separate and unequal policy of the Jim Crow era? I believe this is the “civil rights issue of our times.”
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The tests are a tool to impose de facto segregation on poor minority students.
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Exactly. I’m glad to see that the NAACP recognizes the game that is being played to gentrify neighborhoods and displace black and brown children.
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Yes, the most appropriate uses of testing are diagnostic and formative. But the ELA exams test standards that are themselves so puerile and vague that they can’t be operationalized–turned into a series of operations that, if carried out, show mastery. So it’s impossible, given these “standards” to end up with a test that is, in fact, valid. The test makers have always known this. So they have entire departments devoted to obfuscation, which is easy enough to carry off because the customers (state departments of education) are innumerate. They listen to the mumbo-jumbo from the test manufacturer and nod in agreement like bobble-head dolls (until, of course, it all blows up and they decide that they are going to replace their test with the new, improved magic elixir from the latest snake-oil vendor. And no matter how many times this happens, it seems, they never learn.
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I should clarify. The ELA “standards” are so vague that they can’t be RATIONALLY operationalized. Ofc, any actual test is SOME operationalization of the standards. In practice, what all this means is that the manufacturer can design the test to get the results that are wanted because a test question can be written at almost any level of difficulty. However, the test-makers are so sloppy at what they do that they don’t even do that. LOL. But the billions in revenues keep rolling in.
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“. . . what all this means is that the manufacturer can design the test to get the results that are wanted because a test question can be written at almost any level of difficulty.”
What Wilson has to say about that fact:
“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.”
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Sadly, Bob, in my interactions with Very Busy People, whether legislators, state officials, or others who make consequential decisions that affect millions of children and adults, Bobbleheads are more common than people who listen, think, and act.
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That’s “clutches,” not “couches.”
I think this is the second time I have noticed a typo in your post. >
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Dr. Ravitch is a very busy person. I am an editor for a living. I have NEVER read ANY book, nor ANY manuscript by a public intellectual (and I’ve read many) that did not contain numerous typos and minor errors in grammar, usage, mechanics, capitalization, or punctuation. To err in these small matters is human. Might as well complain about grass being green.
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Agree with Bob. Diane runs this incredibly prolific blog, she’s writing a book, she’s doing a massive amount of reading and research that staggers the mind and she’s traveling all over the country making speeches in defense of teachers and public education. Talk about multi-tasking and she often does this on the fly, literally. I don’t know how she does it.
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And she does this all herself. She runs a blog that has had over 20 million views, writes breathtakingly incisive books, and single-handedly spearheads the war against education deform, all without any staff. I suppose that you’ve never before seen any typos on social media. LOL. I am reminded of a favorite cartoon. A wife is standing, annoyed, at a doorway. The husband is at a computer. “”Ill be there in a moment,” he says. “There’s someone wrong on the Internet.” People make little errors in GUMS. Get used to it.
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Over 31 million views!
I don’t pay attention to the numbers anymore. I play ”Words with Friends” and I don’t pay attention to digital badges.
Do what’s right. It will astound some and confuse others.
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LOL
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Fixed the autocorrect typo. It was not the first, I promise it won’t be the last. I write posts often on my cellphone. In a taxi, an elevator, an airport, early in the morning, late at night. You can be my proofreader. I correct errors.
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Such a great post! Such a well composed post linked! Such great comments!
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