FAIRTest and other assessment reform allies call on the new Biden administration to suspend high-stakes standardized testing this spring. Please add your name to their petition! Open the link to add your name to this petition.
To: U.S. Secretary of Education and state education policymakers
From: [Your Name]
We call on the U.S. Department of Education to waive provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act that require states to administer standardized exams to students in the 2020-2021 academic year. We also call on the states to cancel their own additional testing mandates and to waive any consequences attached to their results, at least for the current school year.
Simply reducing testing stakes is not enough. It is critically important to suspend all government-mandated standardized exams so that educators, who know their students firsthand, may focus on teaching and learning, address students’ social and emotional well-being, and connect with families.
The use of standardized tests in public education has long raised concerns. Too often, these tests have supplanted teacher assessments of student performance; forced schools to focus on a narrow set of skills and subjects; limited opportunities for low-income students, students of color, English language learners, and students with disabilities; and penalized schools for test results without providing them with the support they need to succeed. Instead of being a good measure of teaching and learning, test scores have always correlated closely with students’ socioeconomic status.
In light of the disruptions caused by COVID-19, waiving standardized testing requirements is especially important right now. The time and resources required to test students this year would be better spent educating and supporting them.
● The results won’t be valid, reliable, or useful. Teaching, learning, and testing conditions vary widely and continue to be in a state of flux. Since students will not have covered all the material the tests are supposed to measure, the results will not be comparable to results from other years or jurisdictions. We don’t need test scores to know that low-income children in poorly resourced schools have fallen even farther behind in a pandemic. In addition, more parents than usual are likely to opt their children out of taking the tests, further skewing the results.
● There are better ways to know how students from different backgrounds and learning needs fared during the pandemic. In addition to classroom-based assessments, sampling exams can provide data on trends in learning without distorting the curriculum or subjecting all students to standardized tests this year. Instead of more testing, we should be focusing on solutions that address poverty, racial inequities, and school funding disparities.
● Most parents oppose testing this spring. According to the Understanding America Study done by the University of Southern California, support for canceling the tests rose from 43 percent in mid-April to 64 percent in mid-October. The opposition is strong across all demographic groups but is especially high among Black parents, 72 percent of whom favor cancellation.
In a time of scarcity, funding must be used to support underserved and at-risk students, not enrich commercial test makers. It’s time to waive federal testing requirements and eliminate high stakes for state and local assessments.
Let’s seize this opportunity to provide better options for our students.
Our children, their families, and their teachers deserve it.
Yes please add my name.
*Sally Jean Celmer* *Realtor, * *RE/MAX One* *Seller Representative Specialist (SRS)* *Accredited Buyer Representative, (ABR)* 132 Main Street, Prince Frederick, MD 20678 *410-535-6291 (Office), **443-532-8630 (Mobile)* *sallyjeancelmer@gmail.com *
* *
On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 11:01 AM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” FAIRTest and other assessment reform allies call on > the new Biden administration to suspend high-stakes standardized testing > this spring. Please add your name to their petition! Open the link to add > your name to this petition. To: U.S. Secretary of Ed” >
Thanks, Sally. You have to sign it yourself! I can’t do it for you.
I would prefer, of course, for all tests to be at the discretion of teachers and eliminated from ESSA, up for reauthorization during Biden’s term in office.
I am a wishful thinker and worker in arts education where I can conjure tests, guaranteed to produce results that would have not much if any bearing on formal instruction in school, but far more closely associated with advantages beyond school…a consistent finding in many testing programs
“● The results won’t be valid, reliable, or useful.” They NEVER were and they NEVER will be!
Bingo, bango, boingo. Give that fine young lady a Kewpie Doll!
We did not have enough money for teacher raises here in Tennessee. We did not have enough money for air purification or extra personnel so we could safely open schools. But we have plenty of money for tests that are worthless to start with.
Maybe teachers should have a walkout.
Signed.
End high-stakes testing for good.
Ed reform’s single contribution to public school students in the pandemic- demanding they all sit for standardized tests:
“Tempting as it may be, cancelling state exams again would be a huge blunder. Most analysts predict mounting learning losses due to the disruptions, yet without state tests nobody can measure the size and scope of the damage. How many Ohio students have been knocked off course — and just how far off course? Which student groups have struggled most? Are the losses widespread or do they vary from community to community?”
Why does a DC charter/voucher lobbying group have so much influence over what happens in Ohio PUBLIC school classrooms?
They oppose public schools. Why do they set policy for public schools?
No one has lifted a finger to assist Ohio public schools or public schools in this pandemic. Now ed reformers arrive just in time to demand all our kids sit for state tests?
As usual, the only thing ed reform offers public school students is testing. No positive benefits or plans or improvements to public schools- just the same old grim, joyless testing mandates.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/12/10/column-dont-cancel-k-12-testing-when-we-need-data-more-than-ever/6489631002/
I know there’s very little discussion or debate within the ed reform echo chamber, but why is assistance to public schools conditioned on students sitting for standardized tests this year?
Ed reformers claim they want to assist public school students in the pandemic- almost a year late, but I guess better late than never. Why don’t they just assist them? Why do students have to be tested before anyone offers them any practical assistance?
What’s the promise ed reformers are making here? If we test all our kids someone in government will (finally) start working on their behalf? Why didn’t they start working on their behalf back in March?
We need to be louder than the corporate lobbyists right now. Please sign and share the petition(s). Please write your state school boards and superintendents. Please write the president elect. The time is now.
Just signed. Thanks for posting.
Signed & wrote a very long comment. Very long. I wrote that “standardized” (not–neither valid nor reliable) testing must be taken off the desks/desktops of our kids…forever.
Suspend high stakes testing for ever. When kids come back to school, clear assessments that are readily available to teachers will be necessary. After this long of a break, kids skill levels will be all over the board. Brief 1on 1 assessments must be used as a jumping off point not as a punishment.
For example, rather than memorizing the scientific method, demonstrate it. Also 7th graders will no longer be a homogeneous group. For those who fall behind, will you retain them in a lower grade or fake pass them without learning? Maybe a reading club concept will place all kids in a homogeneous group for 45 minutes a day to assure real learning.
No longer will grade levels be an indication of academic achievement. Also if a student comes home with a C does that mean they are on grade level? Reality time, it doesn’t mean a damn thing!
And if a kid scores on the 8th grade level in reading and the 5 th grade level in math, what grade should they be in?
What if kids would keep a portfolio of their successes they could present that to potential university personnel or employers to let them know what they really learned. Isn’t that better than a worthless SAT?
When kids return after this much time off, it will be IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL to place them in a system that was never designed to serve all kids. Be ready for September, it will be a challenge of a life time. A challenge that only public schools will be able to handle.