Valerie Strauss wrote a column in her Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post about the two most horrifying stories in the past decade of high-stakes standardized testing. Both occurred in Florida, a state where standardized testing is treated as an unerring and essential metric, except for students who use state money to attend religious schools, which are exempt from the state’s testing regime.
So devoted is Florida to standardized testing that all its legislators, the governor and the State Commissioner Richard Corcoran (whose wife runs a charter school) should be required to take the tests required of eighth graders and publish their scores.
You should subscribe to the Washington Post just to read Valerie Strauss.
Strauss writes:
There were stories about teachers being evaluated on the test scores of students they didn’t have and subjects they didn’t teach.
There were stories of high-performing teachers getting poor evaluations because of complicated and problematic algorithms that were used to calculate their “worth” in class — which some reformers said could be ascertained by eliminating every single other factor (even hunger and chronic grief) that could affect how well a child does on a test….
But there were two that still resonate deeply and reveal just how vacant — and mean — some of the policy was. Why recount them? Because as new school reform efforts are being implemented, it is worth remembering that good intentions are not enough and that bad policy has real and sometimes extreme effects on children and adults.
One of these stories was from 2013, when the state of Florida required a 9-year-old boy who was born without the cognitive portion of his brain to take a version of the state’s standardized Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). The boy, Michael, was blind, couldn’t talk or understand basic information. Judy Harris, the operator and owner of a care facility for children in Orlando where Michael was left shortly after birth, told News 13 at the time:
Michael loves music, he loves to hear, and he loves for you to talk to him and things like that, but as far as testing him, or questioning him on what is an apple and a peach, what is the difference? Michael wouldn’t know what that is.”
But the rules said every student could take a test and be evaluated, however severe their disabilities might be. I wrote about the situation at the time and asked education officials in the Florida Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education why this was happening. They all said every student could be assessed. At the time I wrote:
State Rep. Linda Stewart of Orlando told me she didn’t think that a young boy who can’t tell the difference between an apple and a peach should be taking any test, and tried to get officials in the Education Department to step in to stop the charade of Michael taking a test.She said nobody did. “Nobody wanted to take the responsibility of stopping it,” she said.Rick Roach, an Orange County, Florida, school board member who was following Michael’s story, confirmed that Michael was in fact forced to take the test, meaning that a state employee sat down and read it to him, as if he could actually understand it.
In 2013, Roach had told Michael’s story to educator Marion Brady, who wrote about it for The Answer Sheet. I recently asked Roach about Michael’s status and he said Michael, now 15, still lives at the home run by Harris.
The second disturbing story was about a boy in Florida named Ethan Rediske, who suffered a brain injury at birth and had cerebral palsy, epilepsy, cortical blindness and the developmental equivalency of a 6-month-old child. He died on Feb. 7, 2014.
In 2013, Ethan was forced to “take” a version of the FCAT over the space of two weeks because Florida still required every student to take one. His mother, educator Andrea Rediske, managed to obtain a waiver so that he didn’t have to take the test in 2014, but it turned out there was a hitch. As Ethan was in a morphine coma dying in a hospital, the state insisted that his family prove he deserved the waiver. The ugliness of the situation was captured in the following email she wrote to Orange County School Board member Rick Roach and to reporter Scott Maxwell, who wrote about Ethan and similar cases for the Orlando Sentinel:
Rick and Scott,I’m writing to appeal for your advocacy on our behalf. Ethan is dying. He has been in hospice care for the past month. We are in the last days of his life. His loving and dedicated teacher, Jennifer Rose has been visiting him every day, bringing some love, peace, and light into these last days. How do we know that he knows that she is there? Because he opens his eyes and gives her a little smile. He is content and comforted after she leaves.Jennifer is the greatest example of what a dedicated teacher should be. About a week ago, Jennifer hesitantly told me that the district required a medical update for continuation of the med waiver for the adapted FCAT. Apparently, my communication through her that he was in hospice wasn’t enough: they required a letter from the hospice company to say that he was dying. Every day that she comes to visit, she is required to do paperwork to document his “progress.” Seriously? Why is Ethan Rediske not meeting his 6th-grade hospital homebound curriculum requirements? BECAUSE HE IS IN A MORPHINE COMA. We expect him to go any day. He is tenaciously clinging to life.This madness has got to stop. Please help us.Thank you,Andrea Rediske
The cases of Michael and Ethan were not isolated. Since that time, the national obsession with standardized testing has somewhat abated. Many states have moved away from evaluating teachers by test scores and reduced the consequences for low scores. Yet most students are still required to take standardized tests, and problems with them remain.
These stories are two I don’t believe I will ever forget.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Ironically both are from Florida, under the Jeb Bush dictatorship.
This is what happens when ignorant politicians take over schools. How horrible to degrade students who are suffering. When will this standardized testing nonsense ever end? Nobody benefits from this except testing companies and publishers of books that cater to the testing mania.
This is just plain sickening. Indiana got a lot of its ‘great ideas’ from Jeb Bush’s dictatorship.
Horrible stories.
It’s true that the obsession with evaluating teachers by test scores — which is both faulty and leads to numerous unintended (or maybe intended?) negative consequences — has somewhat abated, it remains a bedrock principle of Ed Reformers. And while they may give the appearance of backing down, they have not given up. Appreciation to Valerie Strauss and Diane for publicizing these worst of all examples.
I think it is time for all students to reject doing tests completely. Their parents should support them, but teachers must be completely uninvolved. It is long past the time when fools and terrorists have lost their ability to do anything positive in education. I suggest they be replaced by successful teachers.
imagine not only trusting but seeking out the opinions of professional veteran teachers…..
I thought the saddest Florida testing story was ten minutes into the Last Week Tonight episode on standardized testing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k. I hate seeing young people get hurt. Not to quibble about what is the worst story, though. I’m sure there are hundreds of ’worst’ stories about testing coming out of Florida, and thousands more going untold. It would be downright stupid to feel the need for some sort of letter grades based on tests to try to figure out which story is the worst.
In a related tale, students who are killed count against the school when it comes to figure graduation rate. For a small rural school, losing a student to an auto accident can men being listed as a failing school according to some metric. Luckily, the pain of this stat is not passed on to the grieving family, just left for the school to consider.
Just when you think that politicians could not be more blind, stupid, ignorant ad nauseum one reads stories like this..
What a GREAT future we have.
How VERY proud we must be to see our
politicians so extremely well educated.
WOW
Indiana House and Senate seem to be moving on a bill to give a 2-year hiatus from state testing being part of a teacher’s evaluation. There is pretty fierce resistance from Ed Reform accountability hawks. So far, so good.
Some of the state senators are openly discussing the wisdom of getting rid of state standardized testing!
These absurd and cruel cases of mandated tests are the result of federal legislation unerringly carried out by state and local officials. The national obsession with tests has not really diminished and it will not unless there is an organized national campaign to modify the Every Student Succeeds Act. ESSA is up for reauthorization before September 30, 2020.
Testing will not go away until ESSA is killed or is radically changed. Hardly anyone campaigning for public office is talking about ESSA directly…except for the 74Million whose current spokesperson wants a return to NCLB accountability, not these soft and mushy state plans.
The 74 Million—voice box for charter schools, vouchers, and choice and for mandated tests as a means to increase market share for private options is already calling attention to recommendations for the reauthorization of ESSA https://www.the74million.org/article/its-nearly-time-to-reauthorize-the-every-student-succeeds-act-4-priorities-otherwise-distracted-national-leaders-should-set-to-make-the-k-12-law-stronger/
I am not confident that Democrats in Congress are really organized or interested in exercising some control on modifications. In contrast, the 74 Million is making a case for more testing and accountability of the kind NCLB foisted on the nation. The 74 Million is a voice box for charter schools, vouchers, and choice. Mandated tests and A-F report cards are among the means to increase market share for private education, including charter schools and taxpayer funded “scholarships” that serve as vouchers.
The 74 Million is calling in “experts” to propose revisions to ESSA. One of these, Conor P. Williams, a fellow at The Century Foundation, has been critical of ESSA since 2015. Here are his latest recommendations, and from his position at a supposedly “progressive” think tank.
“First:’’ We should consider deeper centralization of public education…. Unfortunately, when ESSA was drafted, Congress moved in the opposite direction — passing a weak law that gave more discretion to local leaders on core equity protections.” Williams thinks state and local leaders cannot be trusted to work toward equity in educational opportunity.
‘‘Second:’’ We should consider revamping federal accountability. …The federal government should be more prescriptive in defining what it expects from schools, but that prescription can also include a wider range of data points — academic proficiency and growth across a range of subjects including math, reading, science, civics and more. It should include inputs like funding alongside outputs. It should be as broad as possible … so long as it gives states less leeway to shape accountability systems.”
‘‘Third:’’ We should dramatically expand the amount the federal government spends on public education, partly with an eye toward expanding access to early childhood education and connecting it with K-12 schools….When Congress commits to increasing federal funding for public education, it should build greater access to pre-K and help elementary schools adjust their practice to build on these new early education programs.”
‘‘Fourth:’’ We should avoid mandating priorities that federal policies are bad at advancing, no matter how worthy they seem.” Examples of programs that are hard to measure at the scale of federal policy are family engagement and social and emotional learning. Although the federal government does not pay teacher salaries, it could, and it could set a minimum salary. In addition, USDE could “refuse to provide full funding under ESSA to states that allow privileged communities to further school segregation by seceding from existing school districts. It could ramp up federal investments in school infrastructure to accelerate the pace of much-needed repairs. It could identify and fund broader education research on a host of education priorities.”
“Of course, most of this is too detailed and/or politically dangerous for any candidate to take out on the campaign trail. So no one’s campaigning on ESSA. The administration has yet to show any interest in meaningful leadership on systemic K-12 education reform. And, yes, given the state of our democracy, it’s a terrifyingly open question whether we’ll have the will and/or bandwidth to rethink the contours of public education in America.
But the deadline is still looming — the end of next school year — and we clearly won’t even be ready to start thinking about fixing ESSA if we don’t start talking about it.”
I think that the Democratic candidates for office are supporting versions of points three and four and may be ignoring ESSA for the reasons given by Conor P. Williams. There are so many daily distractions from the impending dealine for ESSA reauthorization that the ttesting monster in this law will continue to be in force…or modified to be even worse.
These absurd and cruel cases of mandated tests are the result of federal legislation unerringly carried out by state and local officials. The national obsession with tests has not really diminished and it will not unless there is an organized national campaign to modify the Every Student Succeeds Act. ESSA is up for reauthorization before September 30, 2020.
Testing will not go away until ESSA is killed or is radically changed. Hardly anyone is talking about ESSA directly…except for the 74Million whose current spokesperson wants a return to NCLB accountability, not these mushy state plans.
I am not confident that Democrats are organized or interested in exercising some control on modifications to ESSA. In contrast, the 74 Million is making a case for more testing and accountability of the kind NCLB foisted on the nation. The 74 Million is a voice box for charter schools, vouchers, and choice. Mandated tests and A-F report cards are among the means to increase market share for private education, including taxpayer funded “scholarships” that serve as vouchers.
The 74 Million is calling in “experts” to propose revisions to ESSA. One of these, Conor P. Williams, a fellow at The Century Foundation, has been critical of ESSA since 2015. Here are his latest recommendations, and from his position at a supposedly “progressive” think tank.
“First:’’ We should consider deeper centralization of public education…. Unfortunately, when ESSA was drafted, Congress moved in the opposite direction — passing a weak law that gave more discretion to local leaders on core equity protections.” Williams thinks state and local leaders cannot be trusted to work toward equity in educational opportunity.
‘‘Second:’’ We should consider revamping federal accountability. …The federal government should be more prescriptive in defining what it expects from schools, but that prescription can also include a wider range of data points — academic proficiency and growth across a range of subjects including math, reading, science, civics and more. It should include inputs like funding alongside outputs. It should be as broad as possible … so long as it gives states less leeway to shape accountability systems.”
‘‘Third:’’ We should dramatically expand the amount the federal government spends on public education, partly with an eye toward expanding access to early childhood education and connecting it with K-12 schools….When Congress commits to increasing federal funding for public education, it should build greater access to pre-K and help elementary schools adjust their practice to build on these new early education programs.”
‘‘Fourth:’’ We should avoid mandating priorities that federal policies are bad at advancing, no matter how worthy they seem.” Examples of programs that are hard to measure at the scale of federal policy are family engagement and social and emotional learning. Although the federal government does not pay teacher salaries, it could, and it could set a minimum salary. In addition, USDE could “refuse to provide full funding under ESSA to states that allow privileged communities to further school segregation by seceding from existing school districts. It could ramp up federal investments in school infrastructure to accelerate the pace of much-needed repairs. It could identify and fund broader education research on a host of education priorities.”
Conor P. Williams continues with this observation.
“Of course, most of this is too detailed and/or politically dangerous for any candidate to take out on the campaign trail. So no one’s campaigning on ESSA. The administration has yet to show any interest in meaningful leadership on systemic K-12 education reform. And, yes, given the state of our democracy, it’s a terrifyingly open question whether we’ll have the will and/or bandwidth to rethink the contours of public education in America.
But the deadline is still looming — the end of next school year — and we clearly won’t even be ready to start thinking about fixing ESSA if we don’t start talking about it.” https://www.the74million.org/article/its-nearly-time-to-reauthorize-the-every-student-succeeds-act-4-priorities-otherwise-distracted-national-leaders-should-set-to-make-the-k-12-law-stronger/
I think that some features of points three and four can be found in the statements and plans of Democratic presidential candidates. But I also think that the timeline for ESSA reauthorization gives an advantage to supporters of testing, more of the same, or worse, a return to NCLB-like “accountability” with more data-points and ways to portray public education as failed. Choice through federal vouchers is at the ready for DeVos.
In addition, an ESSA reauthorization might well include “performance contracts” of the kind Bellwether Education Partners is pushing with some help from Texas legislators. The new push is for “autonomous districts” free of elected school boards and operating under a performance contract. “The district transfers school operational authority to an independent organization; district oversight (governance) is limited to the performance contract with the partner organization.”
This model could evolve much like pay-for success contacts with federal incentives or “partnerships” with investors who would demand more efficient and cost-effective performance management of schools. https://bellwethereducation.org/sites/default/files/Autonomous%20District%20Schools_Bellwether%20Oct.%202019.pdf
There are tough questions in all of this and too much competeing for our attention.
Very appreciative of your bringing this up, Laura. I wasn’t aware that ESSA is up for reauthorization this year. So hard to break through but definitely an opportunity. I remember when ESSA came about, senators refused to explicitly state that parents could opt out. Would be so great if we could make gains somehow.
“These absurd and cruel cases of mandated tests are the result of federal legislation unerringly carried out by state and local officials.”
Can you say GAGA Good Germans?
I’m not a fan of high-stakes standardized testing or of summative testing generally. But I’ve long believed that there is a rough-and-ready test of whether a supposed educator has a clue what he or she is doing: does this person take the current high-stakes testing in ELA and the puerile Gates/Coleman “standards” on which they are based at all seriously?
The horror stories above are examples at the limit. But they illustrate several failings of the whole test-and-punish ed “reform” paradigm. A little thought about the ways in which the insanity that these examples illustrate apply to the Common Coring and standardized testing of our students generally is revelatory.