Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA) [aka Moms Against Drunk Testing] needs your help to fight abusive testing. We learned recently that the state tests (STAAR) is set two grade levels above where children are. Third-graders are tested on fifth-grade material and vocabulary, fifth-graders on seventh-grade material and vocabulary, etc. The tests are rigged to fail the kids. This is madness with no purpose other than to make kids and schools look bad so that the state has a rationale for closing public schools and opening charter schools.
URGENT: TAMSA needs your voice!
The Texas Monthly article got the attention of the House Public Education Committee. The committee is meeting Tuesday, March 5, 2019 on issues related to STAAR. Several assessment bills are on the agenda.
If you have a child that has been adversely affected by the STAAR test and are willing to testify in Austin, please email boardmember@tamsatx.org.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These tests have always been rigged (in secret) to fail.
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That would be every parent in Texas. And every other state. There is no such thing as a non-rigged standardized test.
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BTW, the advanced material is intentional. It’s designed to generate a bell-curve, even on a supposedly “criterion-referenced” test. That way, 50% of kids will always be below average – in other words “failing”.
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No doubt there’s a mercenary motive but there’s also evil intent. America’s richest enjoy cruelty like Trump does. One of the new talking points Philanthro-world developed for the public is “a need for the donor class to rebuild trust”. The mouthpieces for the richest 0.1% spell out the way that will happen. It’s by measuring the success of the foundations’ impact. Starting with a benchmark of failure that they design (low test scores), they then can claim success for the solutions they implement, using the measurements they choose.
America’s wealthy made the deliberate decision to ignore the truth in their talking points…. fairness is the cornerstone of trust.
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I know an elderly woman who only works part-time … by choice. To make $$$$$ she has been a short answer grader for Pearson. She hates kids; and kids don’t like her, too. So the feeling is mutual.
When I found out she was a short answer grader for Pearson, I told this person, to stop doing this kind of work. Has she? I don’t know. But, I did inform her that what she was doing is plain wrong and affected the lives of our youth and their public school teachers.
We cannot stand by and say nothing when people don’t know they are doing BAD things to our young and our public school teachers.
Thank you, Diane. We all need to thank you.
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Thanks for sharing this, Diane! You rock!
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This is not the only time that Texas tests from ETS (Educational Testing Service) has been called into question. ETS has paid fines, and inspite of serious problems is ready to bid again for the right to send strudents, teachers, schools into the dumper. Who is responsibile for allowing ETS to win bids when they are known to have a history of screwups in delivery and have not responsd to the informed criticism.
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/05/24/texas-education-agency-penalizes-testing-vendor-over-staar-glitches/
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I forwarded this to my daughter who has a third grader facing the STARR Test.
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Correction: STAAR
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Get rid of your CC standards. The standards dictate test development. Just replace them with the pre-CC standards from NY or MA or CA. Demanding age appropriate tests is not possible with CC standards.
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To hell with all standards.
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But first, let’s send all the greedy SOBs behind the standards to hell.
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That’s the way everything worked before Gates and Company inserted themselves into policy to prove that public schools are inadequate through rigged testing. New York still had a standardized test, but it was not high stakes. It was more like a litmus test to show parents. There were no dire consequences from the results, and no teaching to the test. NCLB started the test obsession.
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Common Core tests are designed to test proficiency, not grade level. College readiness is their standard. In other words, to pass kids need at least a B, not a C.
This is perhaps the biggest change in the history of the American education system. Administrators, education departments and the public should bring this up every time state tests are discussed.
It violates international norms for standardized testing to give students questions as much as five years above grade level. Yet our state Common Core test, Smarter Balanced, overshoots not just the tasks, but even the instructions. Third graders are asked: “Which of the following sentences has an error in grammar usage?”, phrasing suitable only for eight graders. Eight year olds are confounded from the start, even if they otherwise know how to findicate and correct mistakes.
To judge the readability of test instructions or reading passages, search online for the tool used by publishers, media and military: Flesch Kinkaid.
If you haven’t already, I would argue your case using 5-10 concrete examples from practice tests or other test material. Then be sure to cite the sources, tools and professionals you consulted.
Make your case through letters to the editor, school board meetings, PTO’s and legislators. Make up speeches of varying length: one sentence, one minute, three minutes, ten, thirty, etc. Be smarter than the test: judge your audience.
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All the assumptions of the tests on which the CCSS are made are subjective. The tests have never been validated. Proficiency levels can change on whim depending on how many students they want to fail. This is not science; it’s politics!
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Exactly right!
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