This short article encapsulates the themes of my book SLAYING GOLIATH. Piling on tests and punishments for students and teachers and closing schools doesn’t solve any problems, and it certainly doesn’t improve education.
The article gives a much abbreviated history of “reform” from George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Betsy DeVos. Testing and choice, they assumed, would fix all the problems.
Not true.
For almost twenty years, the Bush-Obama-Trump program of standardized testing, punitive accountability, and school choice has been the reform strategy. It has utterly failed.
So the question remains: How do we improve our schools? We begin by recognizing that poverty and affluence are the most important determinants of test scores. This strong correlation shows up on every standardized test. Every standardized test is normed on a bell curve that reflects family income and education; affluent kids always dominate the top, and poor kids dominate the bottom. Nearly half the students in this country now qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, which is the federal measure of poverty. We can ameliorate the impact of poverty on children and families by making sure that they have access to nutrition, medical care, and decent housing. Pregnant women need medical care to ensure that their children are born healthy.
If the billionaires supporting charter schools and vouchers are serious about improving education, they would insist that the federal government fully fund the education of students with disabilities and triple the funding for schools in low-income districts. Teachers should be paid as the professionals that they are, instead of having to work at second or third jobs to make ends meet. Teachers should write their own tests, as they did for generations. States and districts should save the billions now wasted on standardized testing and spend it instead to reduce class sizes so children can get individualized help from their teacher.
Children and schools need stability, not disruption. They need experienced teachers and well-maintained schools. All children need schools that have a nurse, counselors, and a library with a librarian. Children need time to play every day. They need nutrition and regular medical check-ups.
All of this is common sense. These are reforms that work.
There comes a time for Bill Gates and other billionaires to acknowledge that what they have done has failed. That time is now.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
High-stakes testing is the vampire that keeps rising from the dead. Put a stake in it. It has neither a) closed achievement gaps nor improved outcomes, by the Deformers’ own preferred measure, test scores.
It’s long past time to end the federal high-stakes testing mandate.
cs: nor b) improved outcomes
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the term “standardized testing.” Technically, a standardized test is one in which scores have been manipulated mathematically to express their deviation from the mean. These will take the form of a bell curve, as suggested above. The point of the standardization is to use the tests to compare students to one another. Of course, there are other methods for looking at an individual student’s scores in comparison to those of other kids, such as expressing the kids’ scores as percentiles. IQ tests and the SAT are standardized tests.
However, the high-stakes state tests typically are NOT standardized in this way. Technically, they are what is known as “criterion-referenced tests,” in which success or failure on the test is set with arbitrary cut scores and the test is meant not primarily for comparative purposes but, rather, to tell whether students did or did not meet some purported measure of accomplishment.
The fact that cut scores are chosen arbitrarily provides lots of room for fudging them. If a state department of education wants to claim that students are failing so that it can justify punitive measures like third-grade retention or school closings, it can set the cut scores high. If it wants to claim that a “reform” is working, it can set cut scores low. I once did an exercise in which I graphed cut scores for ELA and Math tests issued by the New York State Department of Education over several decades. These jumped around like a gerbil on methamphetamines. Sometimes, the cut scores for passing was so low that it was barely above what could be gotten by just choosing answers, on these mostly multiple-choice tests, randomly.
But, of course, the high-stakes state tests, especially the ones in ELA do NOT validly test what they purport to test. But that’s a whole other issue.
And, of course, scores from those criterion-referenced tests can be standardized and reported as standard scores, and it’s become increasingly common for people to use the term “standardized test” to refer to any test that is given to a lot of students and that has the same few forms, further complicating and muddying the whole discussion of them.
End the high-stakes testing now.
It’s a multi-billion-dollar, curriculum-and-pedagogy-distorting scam, and it is SHOCKING that the education community, with support from the teachers’ unions, has not risen up, en masse, to reject this ludicrous NUMEROLOGY.
cx: to tell whether students did or did not meet some purported FIXED (rather than comparative) measure of accomplishment.
Here, an edited explanation from Wikipedia:
[T]he standard score is the signed fractional number of standard deviations by which the value of an observation or data point is above the mean value of what is being observed or measured. Observed values above the mean have positive standard scores, while values below the mean have negative standard scores.
It is calculated by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation. This conversion process is called standardizing or normalizing.
Computing a z-score requires knowing the mean and standard deviation of the complete population to which a data point belongs; if one only has a sample of observations from the population, then the analogous computation with sample mean and sample standard deviation yields the t-statistic.
One more note:
“Standard scores” are standard because each raw score has been transformed according to its position in the normal curve so that the mean (score) and the standard deviation (SD) are predetermined values. For example, for most IQ tests today, the mean is set at 100 and the standard deviation at 15.
Again, standardization is for comparative purposes. Criterion-referenced tests are for the purpose of assessing whether a fixed criterion of success was met.
The Deformer/Disrupter emphasis on standardized testing has led to enormous waste of taxpayer dollars, lots of subsidized grift on the part of testing companies, and a VAST devolution and trivialization of curricula (teaching materials) and pedagogy (teaching methods). NONE OF THIS WILL CHANGE UNTIL THE FEDERAL HIGH-STAKES TESTING MANDATE IS ENDED.
It’s along past time. An entire generation of students has now had any change they might have had at getting a humane education in literature, art, music, history, science, and math stolen from them as a result of being subjected to curricula and pedagogy based on prepping for these invalid tests.
ENOUGH!!!!!
Deformer groups like the Fordham Institute for the Securing of Big Paychecks for the Officers of the Fordham Institute are now calling for continuing this fiasco (invalid high-stakes tests based upon puerile and backward “standards”) AND, in addition, the creation of a national Curriculum Commissariat and Thought Police to tell people WHAT they can teach and with what materials, in addition to telling them what outcomes education is supposed to have (that vague, ridiculous Gates/Coleman bullet list brazenly misnamed the Common [sci] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic].
And, I suggest, an enormous waste of instructional time.
It is positive step that the corporate media is finally starting to listen to information other than the talking points of biased billionaires. We all remember the ‘Time Magazine’ cover with Michelle Rhee holding a broom presumably to sweep away all the “bad, lazy teachers.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/10/03/three-time-covers-show-how-american-attitudes-about-teachers-have-changed/
yes: TIME as devastatingly guilty of indoctrinating the public with lies as any big money deformer
Nailed it.
This is the Time Magazine cover that I remember–that many teachers are “bad apples” and need to be smashed:
https://time.com/3533615/in-the-latest-issue-11/
That’s when I swore I would never subscribe to Time Magazine.
actually, “rotten apples”
So, the high-stakes state tests are SUPPOSED to measure whether students met some FIXED criterion for “proficiency” in Math, ELA, Science, etc. But, of course, they don’t do this, especially in ELA, because the tests are not valid measures. They do not actually measure what they purport to measure. In ELA, they literally CANNOT do so because the “standards” themselves that the tests are supposed to measure proficiency in are so vague as not to be validly operationalized in the form of concrete test questions. It’s a simple matter for me to put together a test to determine whether you have learned your multiplication table for integers from 1 to 12. It’s literally IMPOSSIBLE for me to put together a multiple-choice test with one or two questions on each of hundreds of “standards” to tell me, validly, whether you have mastered a “standard” as vague and abstract as “you can make valid inferences from texts” or as broad as “you can distinguish between different uses of words with multiple meanings” or as vague, abstract, and broad as “you can compare how two different texts are structured.” THIS OUGHT TO BE OBVIOUS!!! Clearly, people have been accepting that these tests are valid without thinking, at all, about whether they could be.
Enough. Can the stupid, almost completely content-free Gates/Coleman bullet list of abstract skills AND the invalid tests that purport to measure proficiency in those. SCAMS, both of them. Obviously, clearly, demonstrably, SCAMS.
The fixed criterion for “proficiency” is even more absurd when we understand that it is a subjective marker that can change from year to year. In the hands of the disrupters, it is a recipe for system gaming. It is not an absolute. If they seek to fail more students, they simple raise the cut score. If they seek to pass more, they lower the score. The passing score can be a capricious tool of privatization that is hugely political.
An arbitrary, ever changing cut line which ignores the natural schematics of the bell curve
It is absolutely a recipe for system gaming. What result do you want this year? One that shows that the schools are “failing” and we need to get tough with those teachers and test more and use lots of depersonalized software? Or one that shows that all that nonsense is working? LOL. Set the cut score anywhere you like.
This article really hits the nail on the head. If ways to profit from educating our youth were not the goal, then perhaps the deformers would be swayed to mend their ways.
Our only hope is that a growing number of the movers and shakers recognize the truth and take steps to end the nonsense.
Yes, excellent. Obvious the writer did some reading up on Diane Ravitch.
Isn’t the author Diane Ravitch herself? Or were you making a joke?
Trying to measure those vague “standards” with these high-stakes tests is like trying to cure cancer with aspirin or Dr. Coleman’s Magic Elixir. It’s like trying to end school shootings with thoughts and prayers. It’s literally, demonstrably IMPOSSIBLE.
It’s a scam, a con, a hoax, a flim-flam. Enough.
It’s like trying to turn a Phillips screw with a hammer.
People need to understand that some things are easily testable, and some are not. I can put together pretty easily a test that can tell me whether you know what a couplet is, whether you can distinguish between a fable and a parable. Those are easily testable. But a test to tell me, validly, whether you are able to draw inferences from texts IN GENERAL? Absurd, prima facie.
Nice analogy, Bob:
It’s like trying to turn a Phillips screw with a hammer.
AMEN.
That the high-stakes ELA testing continues blows my mind. Millions of teachers know that these tests are a scam. It’s so freaking obvious that they are. But politicians, EduPundits, bureaucrats, journalists, still take this crap seriously. ENOUGH!!!
If it was in Time Magazine, it must be true.
Presumably, Michelle Rhee only failed because her broom was not big enough. Or maybe she needed a leaf blower?
Ha ha ha.
Customer, ya know, Nature abhors a vacuum.
Stitch in TIME
A stitch in TIME saves nine
But stitch was not in TIME
A tiny tear
Unraveled there
And TIME ain’t worth a dime
The Presstitutes
The presstitutes
Dress up in suits
And go to work at Times
While journalist
Is simply dissed
Cuz truth reports are crimes
And insure a living wage and jobs through investment in green infrastructure.
I am writing as a grateful fan of DIane, and of Carol Burris, and of all the thoughtful and dedicated educators whose work is spread via Diane’s blog. However, I do wish there was occasionally some acknowledgment of the actual value of NON-high stakes common assessments used to build genuine understanding regarding achieved levels of student learning. It is essential to be able to think about ones own students’ (and teachers’) performance in comparison to carefully established (even if flawed) local, regional, and state-wide standards, provided that individual test items are fully available for analysis, and provided that the common assessments are one SMALL part of a system that emphasizes rich, timely, on-going feedback provided to students in response to authentic performance tasks. In this period of punitive, value-added insanity, with state test results being used in ways that have been toxic and unjustified, it’s still important to have periodic access to carefully crafted, normed test items so that we can step back and examine the broader outcomes of our instruction, and collaboratively identify areas where we may need to refine our curriculum or our teaching. Misguided national initiatives have driven our state education departments to mire us in testing battles that have left our teachers exhausted and demoralized and unintentionally deprived us of the opportunity to use “standardized” tests as a source of useful comparative data rather than a weapon for the “deformers.”
I am writing as a grateful fan of DIane, and of Carol Burris, and of all the thoughtful and dedicated educators whose work is spread via Diane’s blog. However, I do wish there was occasionally some acknowledgment of the actual value of NON-high stakes common assessments used to build genuine understanding regarding achieved levels of student learning. It is essential to be able to think about ones own students’ (and teachers’) performance in comparison to carefully established (even if flawed) local, regional, and state-wide standards, provided that individual test items are fully available for analysis, and provided that the common assessments are one SMALL part of a system that emphasizes rich, timely, on-going feedback provided to students in response to authentic performance tasks. In this period of punitive, value-added insanity, with state test results being used in ways that have been toxic and unjustified, it’s still important to have periodic access to carefully crafted, normed test items so that we can step back and examine the broader outcomes of our instruction, and collaboratively identify areas where we may need to refine our curriculum or our teaching. Misguided national initiatives have driven our state education departments to mire us in testing battles that have left our teachers exhausted and demoralized and unintentionally deprived us of the opportunity to use “standardized” tests as a source of useful comparative data rather than a weapon for the “deformers.”
I will start writing about that when I start seeing common assessments that are actually well crafted, ones that actually assess what can be assessed by means of such vehicles. But as long as these sloppy, invalid tests are being used to make high-stakes decisions, as long as they are being used to do international comparisons between groups that cannot be compared because they differ so much socioeconomically, I’ll continue to criticize them and to attempt to boo them off the national stage.
I think that perhaps you are thinking about the Stanford and Iowa Tests and how they were once used. No objection, here, to that!
Assessments that inform instruction are useful and non-high stakes. Reading and classroom teachers use the IRI (informal reading inventory) that provide much needed information to design and guide instruction. Teachers often give in class assessments as well to determine how students have understood content of instruction. These are meaningful assessments. Standardized tests are used to rate and rank largely along socioeconomic groups. These are the toxic tests.
Wasn’t there something like this before NCLB? I remember a stdzd test my kids [elemsch ’90’s] took in– roughly– 2nd, 5th, & 8th. Probably Stanford or Iowa. No stakes. It was a general look at Eng, Math, Sci, Soc Stud. Most likely, teachers & admins used it as you describe, a rough thumbnail comparing one’s district to others regionally/ nationally. Teachers discussed results w/parents as part of annual conferences. As a parent, I found the results unsurprising, except for the child who talked little about school & performed mezza-mezza. The test scores suggested areas of interest/ aptitude, and rough progress. That became important in hisch when I saw his grades in the subjects he’d shown most interest & aptitude early on steadily declining. Spurred us to get him involved w/the hisch’s alternate project-based pgm, which opened a whole new world to him.
I’m wondering if these are still in use. Seems there’d be no time for them, and results in any case would be drowned in all the noise from the “accountability” tests.
The state tests were not mandated by the feds. They were no stakes.
My school took the California Achievement Tests which were standardized, but these tests were vetted and normed, a rigorous method of trying to ensure that the tests measure what they purport to measure. These tests were far better and fairer than the rigged cut scores of the CCSS, but they were still culturally biased.
HALLELUJAH! I am so grateful that a national publication has provided such a truthful and valid summary of what has really been happening in public education, and perfectly expressed by, of course, Diane Ravitch.
Amen to that!
One of the great things about Diane’s book is she names the billionaire exploiters and manipulators instead of taking the cowardly, CYA path of “journalists”, who hide the perpetrators’ identities by falsely referring to an abstract, political “movement”.
Thank you, Linda.
I wondered if readers could tolerate that long list of names. It is overwhelming.
Diane – I know we’ve had our share of disagreements politics-wise the past few years, but I want to thank you for being a tireless crusader against privatization and deform. Your efforts are really starting to pay off. For something like this to appear in a neoliberal mainstream magazine like Time is nothing short of stunning and absolutely unthinkable a few years ago. Thank you for raising awareness and getting the train rolling.
YES YES YES.
It really takes my breath away how indefatigable Diane Ravitch is. How on earth can she possibly accomplish as much as she does?
I want to make one comment about her writing. I’ve spent much of my life as an editor working for publishing houses. Over the course of my career, I’ve had the good fortune to have been able to edit books by many of the country’s leading pubic intellectuals. NEVER have I seen a manuscript come from one of these people as clean as from Diane Ravitch. She’s a magnificent writer. Her prose is incredibly clear and succinct. She can turn a phrase with the best of them. She backs up generalizations with compelling evidence. She’s witty and erudite. She argues carefully and logically. Her prose is beautifully structured. She has a great sense for introductions that grab the reader and conclusions that send the reader off fired up to make something happen. Her raw manuscripts are astonishingly free of errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics (the best I’ve seen in this respect). She’s the sort of writer who makes the work of an editor EASY.
I just wanted to say that publicly.
Thank you, Dienne. You are a tough critic and that’s means a lot to me.
Well said, Dienne.
The deformers have a formidable opponent who has the respect of the 99%.
It is truly a breakthrough for this article to be appearing in Time Magazine, which has so often been a vehicle for dumb, Deformy articles. Bravo, Diane Ravitch!!!!
This article in TIME takes the other side of the story into a major magazine that used to celebrate Deform.
YES!!! Congrats!!! a MAJOR accomplishment!!!!
I cannot speak highly enough of this wonderful article. Like everything by Diane Ravitch, it is beautifully written, clear, concise, and cogent. It explains in short compass, for readers not in the loop, the Ed Deform fiasco over the years, and IMPORTANTLY, it provides a magnificent summary of what ACTUAL reform would look like. Let me quote from the piece:
We can ameliorate the impact of poverty on children and families by making sure that they have access to nutrition, medical care, and decent housing. Pregnant women need medical care to ensure that their children are born healthy.
If the billionaires supporting charter schools and vouchers are serious about improving education, they would insist that the federal government fully fund the education of students with disabilities and triple the funding for schools in low-income districts. Teachers should be paid as the professionals that they are, instead of having to work at second or third jobs to make ends meet. Teachers should write their own tests, as they did for generations. States and districts should save the billions now wasted on standardized testing and spend it instead to reduce class sizes so children can get individualized help from their teacher.
Children and schools need stability, not disruption. They need experienced teachers and well-maintained schools. All children need schools that have a nurse, counselors, and a library with a librarian. Children need time to play every day. They need nutrition and regular medical check-ups.
All of this is common sense. These are reforms that work.
Once again, Diane Ravitch cuts to the chase. The education issue of our time is POVERTY.
Time Magazine has an official circulation of 3 million but is read much more widely than that. I’ve seen estimates are that it reaches 26 MILLION readers.
I can’t think of anything more important for them to be reading than Diane’s piece is. Except, maybe, her new book.
Again, Diane, Bravo! This is the kind of thing that makes this woman my hero. I say this utterly, completely unabashedly. Diane Ravitch is a hero.
Great and in TIME, former house organ of the GOP under Henry Luce 👍
“If the billionaires supporting charter schools and vouchers are serious about improving education, they would insist that the federal government fully fund the education of students with disabilities and triple the funding for schools in low-income districts.”
Make education democratic, so always, without exception, cater to the interest of the majority of children. There is no place for individual choice in a democratic public education system. Individual choice needs to be realized from individual resources. Taxes are a public resource, hence no part of taxes can be considered individual resource.
The history of testing in Texas and what led to NCLB and everything that followed. Thank little george.
Click to access digest11-chap01.pdf
Does New York State have to stay deformed?
I keep asking, but so far have heard nothing.
Before Dr Betty Rosa became Chancellor of the NYS Board of Regents, she was a friend of the Opt-Out movement.
Where does she stand now on issues of school reform/deformity? What has she done/what can she do to reverse the disastrous policies of the past 10 years in NYS?
I admit I’ve been distracted by the train wreck that is our democracy today, but I’m back to thinking more specifically about education and how New York State can be a leader in reversing the horror of the Gates/Duncan/King/(put your favorite ed. villain here) era.
The NYS legislature is Democratic. The BoR is led by a smart, articulate woman, I don’t know anything about our acting commissioner, but they’re not MaryEllen Elia or John King.
C’mon New York teachers – Who do you know? What are you able to do?
Actions in Albany anyone?
I feel like this is something we could actually impact in a positive way.
Think of it as an antidote to the horror going on in DC.
This is New York State.
We can do better.