At the meeting of Jackson Heights Parents for Public Schools on March 16, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes said that she took a high-stakes standardized test, and her teacher told her she was in the 99th percentile. I thought she must have taken an Iowa Test of Basic Skills since NCLB test scores are not reported as percentiles but as 1-4 or “below basic, basic, proficient, advanced.”
That sent the far-right blogosphere into a frenzy of self-righteousness, claiming (falsely) that she was lying about her scores.
But testing expert Fred Smith explained to me that AOC was right, and I was wrong. She was tested before NCLB.
Take that, trolls!
Fred, who worked as a testing expert at the NYC Board of Education for many years, wrote:
“Dear Diane,
“I was at that thrilling meeting in Jackson Heights too. AOC was tremendous and you spoke so persuasively about the legitimacy of opting out.
“Full disclosure: I’m guilty of asking someone in the crowd to take a picture of AOC and me on my cell phone. I tell the people (I can’t wait to share it with) that the shot was taken at her insistence.
“But to your point about the veracity of AOC’s percentile score. New York State tested children in grades 4 and 8 in the years prior to 2006 when the SED under NCLB required English Language Arts and math testing to be done in grades 3 through 8. McGraw-Hill was the publisher.
“On the state’s website you’ll find archived technical reports going back to 1999, pertaining to the New York State Grade 4 ELA Assessment. See:
“AOC is 29 years old. She would have been in the 4th grade when she was nine–and likely took the statewide ELA in 2000.
“Table 1 in both reports presents frequency distributions that allow raw scores to be converted to cumulative percentiles–otherwise known as percentiles. Thus, her teacher or a guidance counselor easily could have seen how well AOC did on the ELA and informed her that she achieved better than 99 percent of her peers. In fact, to reach that peak she had to answer almost all questions correctly.
“Here is an example where the test did some good, although AOL’s brightness should have been obvious. Why do those who want to build walls up also want to tear people down?
“Fred”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There’s no particular reason to assume this was a state test anyway. Many schools use a variety of tests for placement purposes – and if they are used for placement, they are by definition high-stake tests. I don’t think she was talking about the fourth grade state exam but a test she was given in an earlier grade.
I don’t remember what tests I took in elementary school. I don’t remember if I was tested in kindergarten, first, second, third, or fourth grade or fifth or sixth grades. Under NCLB, annual testing starts in third grade. I predate that era. Do you remember the first time when you took a standardized test?
Her family moved to Westchester when she was five. It is VERY unlikely that her school waited until she took the 4th grade test to move her out of remedial education. This probably happened in Kindergarten or 1st grade.
It really doesn’t matter since many states had high stakes testing well before NCLB. My older sister was threatened with being fired for counseling parents to opt out of the tests in MD. She wouldn’t let her own children take these tests…. MSPAP I believe it was called. AOC was administered a test….period….and it doesn’t matter what it was called. It was administered because she was hispanic and they thought she would score low….and that’s the shame of it.
Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez followed the assessment path that Smith outlines as it is very possible. Any tests given K-2 in those days would have been hand scored. There was no bundling the tests to be shipped off to Albany for scoring in the early grades. As Smith points out, a reading teacher would look up the raw score in the technical manual, then find the chart in the manual that converts raw scores to percentiles. At that point in time, teachers had options to choose among a menu of entrance and exit assessments. However, none of these decisions would have been legitimately made on the basis of surname.
What does Diane Ravitch do when she makes an mistake, even a minor one like this? She goes to a public forum to correct the error. That’s just what she did when she bowed to the overwhelming evidence, years ago, and reversed her position on Ed Reform. In other words, she cares about the truth and follows the maxim expressed by Thomas Huxley: ““Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads or you shall learn nothing.” (Letter of Reply to Charles Kingsley, 23 Sept. 1860)
What does Don the Con do? He doubles down on it. “I had no business in Russia.” Or minimizes it. “just locker room talk.”
Thank you, Diane, for caring about the truth and for calling out those alt-right trolls who lied about your comment and about AOC.
Thank you, Bob. There is a great sense of relief in saying “I was wrong.” For one thing, it relieves you of the need to defend error.
That’s the best thing about this blog. It’s the most important thing. Being willing and able to change is the theme. It’s the point.
And lending one’s shoulder to pushing forward the Resistance to Ed Deform! And community. And lots of fascinating conversation with interesting, concerned, caring people (like LeftCoastTeacher).
The Young Turks show recently had an episode about right wing trolls attempting to smear AOC. Michael Huckabee, on Fox News (sic and sick), sneeringly referred to AOC as a Manchurian Candidate. Huckabee should look in the mirror, he’s the Koch brother candidate. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian also spoke about some Internet blogger, (who refers to himself as Ronald Reagan), claiming that AOC is an actress not a real politician. This is a common attack by the right wing: they claimed that the Parkland students were crisis actors, not real students. These right wing trolls are completely despicable and without any ethics or common human decency. They live in a miasma of lies, delusions and hatred.
Joe Jersey,
Exactly right!
I don’t expect to hear any of them publicly apologize for smearing AOC.
They hate because she is the future and they are the last gurgle of a dying past.
If you get past the titles, you will find that they are just there to leur you in to listening or reading an article, you will learn that this man was likening all politicians to being actors as they are performers–some are themselves and other are fake. I listen to AOC and I find her comments interesting and out of the box but without solutions. She sounds very radical when the science does not support her. I think she might be using Bob’s rules of the internet (I have to insert another from a relative: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”)
Don’t tell me the world is going to end in 12 years and then offer an idea that takes 10 to even develop.
Who made her GOD? We are the employers—I don’t ever want to hear a politician say that she/he is the boss. Waving a boney finger at me does not cut it (nor do helicopter hands). I think she could learn something from some of those within both parties before she starts throwing rocks. The media is creating a darling so you know she will be attacked. The media giveth and taketh out.
April,
If you watch her video, you will hear AOC say “I’m here to work for you.”
She one of the least arrogant politicians I have ever met.
Diane is right about AOC. I too never saw any arrogance in AOC. She is youthfully vigorous, forthright, articulate, and justifiably impatient with global warming among all the snowballing crises of this moment.
Here is an example where the test did some good, although AOL’s brightness should have been obvious.
Im sure Fred knows this, but the problem is that for every one who is built up by the tests, many are torn down.
When standardized tests are used for academic tracking, the stakes are very high.
They can make or break a student — both physically and mentally.
Fred is an Activist in the Opt Out Movement and advises parents.
I know Fred is an outspoken critic of testing, which is why I prefaced that with I’m sure Fred knows this
It was not meant as a criticism of Fred, but of the tests. Even the ones that are supposedly for diagnostic purposes can have high stakes.
Duane Swacker has pointed this out many times on this blog.
It’s not just the “high stakes” aspect that is so terrible, and, indeed that is one of the horrendous aspects of the standards and testing (S&T) malpractice regime. But the fact, proven by Noel Wilson in 1997* that the S&T malpractice regime is so rife full of onto-epistemological (foundational conceptual) errors that render using the COMPLETELY INVALID results of the S&T malpractice regime for anything whatsoever is “vain and illusory”, in other words total horse manure and should be rejected outright, condemned as the unethical, unjust and immoral malpractice that it is.
*Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” can be found at:
https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/viewFile/577/700
You’re right Duane
Better not to even start down the dead end testing road.
In Europe if a student misses the high school exam by one point, the student becomes tracked into a vocational track regardless of aspirations. I have always considered America’s education more forgiving. We have always had ways for “late bloomers” to change the course of their careers and lives if they are willing to do the work. The whole CCSS and testing have deliberately made everything so much worse because the elites want to break public education.
Not just Europe. China and Japan do something similar.
I know I sound like a broken record, but neither AOC or Diane were “wrong”.
We’re wasting our time arguing semantics which is exactly what these kind of propaganda attacks want. It helps them.
The right wing is spreading blatant lies in order to attack the character of an honest and genuine young woman who stands up to the rich and powerful. I don’t know how to stop enabling the right’s propaganda machine except to keep repeating that and only that. It seems as if having discussions about semantics just enables it.
Excellent point NYCpsp!
I agree there is no right or wrong. There are simply old memories, perceptions and semantics.
I keep waiting for one of my tRumptrainer friends to post something about this supposed flap on FB. It’ll be a field day for me!
It is easy for the naysayers to stir up controversy. If they don’t know something, they just make it up, aka, fake news.
Trump who screams “fake news” the loudest is the one spreading most of the “fake news”.
Don’t expect the trolls to print retractions and admit they were wrong.
Those trolls are part of a wider psyops propaganda campaign that is an element of the Civil War taking place in the United States today between the extreme Alt-Right and everyone else that does not fall into line and agree with them.
Psyops propaganda campaigns up until recent years were mostly used between nations that were adversaries, but today in the United States, the extreme Alt-Right had already launched an undeclared Civil War on anyone and everyone that does not agree and support their agenda.
AOC is now a target of the Alt-Right’s psyops campaign.
I do think you are wonderful, Diane…but why (other than showing off a little) would you go to the trouble of commenting on such a nothing item in the wonderful interview you had with AOC? It seems a little naive of you to think the trolls would not jump on anything at all that even smacked ever-so-slightly as something negative about her. Anyway, we are all taking too much time on this. And I imagine AOC finds it all mildly amusing.
You are right, John.
I don’t think he is right. That is exactly what makes the alt right and Putin trolls successful — blaming the victims. “It’s Diane’s fault for commenting” “It’s AOC’s fault for exaggerating or lying or misspeaking”
Both AOC and Diane acted like normal, upright, honest people. It is not their “fault” that there is a very expert propaganda effort to destroy anyone or anything that threatens the rich and powerful. It is not their “fault” for talking.
We can’t go down that road because the trolls will find something to twist into something that it is not no matter what you say.
The only people at fault are those who blame you or AOC or try to “debate” how wrong you or AOC were. The trolls love that. The trolls NEED that to get traction.
This is NOT your fault. This is NOT AOC’s fault. The right wing is spreading blatant lies in order to attack the character of an honest and genuine young woman who stands up to the rich and powerful. The ONLY people who should be called out are any trolls that try to cast “blame” on either AOC or Diane.
Sorry, but I’ve seen this before. HRC’s speech about “deplorables” was twisted way out of context and turned a wonderful thoughtful and empathetic insight she had about those who supported Trump into something it was not. That was not her “fault” for saying something that could be twisted by lies. But because too many democrats and progressives jumped on the bandwagon and pretended that when someone twists your words with lying propaganda, it is always your fault for saying something that can be twisted by liars, the propaganda won.
And the only way – the absolutely only way – to defeat it is to stop apologizing for something you didn’t do because the trolls twisted it into something it was not. Instead we need to turn it around on them.
The right wing spread a nasty and blatant lie in order to attack the character of an honest and genuine young woman who stands up to the rich and powerful. That is it. You did absolutely nothing wrong except be the person whose words those alt right propaganda trolls decided to twist to mean something they didn’t.
So true, NYCPSP. The alt-right spin machine needs fresh meat. The trolls are hungry. Funny they picked AOC as their target. She’s charismatic, smart, witty, formidable.
Have you watched this from The Young Turks?
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez BOMBARDED With Violent Threats”
I think this is proof that the United States is living through its 2nd Civil War and the threats and violence is only going to increase until it is a full-scale Civil War.