The New York Times published an editorial correctly blasting Betsy DeVos as the worst Secretary of Education in the 40-year history of the Department of Education. Unfortunately, the balance of the editorial was a plea to administer tests to find out how far the nation’s children had fallen behind because of the pandemic.
This is a misguided proposal, as I have explained many times on this blog. See here.
The Times wrote in this editorial:
Given a shortage of testing data for Black, Hispanic and poor children, it could well be that these groups have fared worse in the pandemic than their white or more affluent peers. The country needs specific information on how these subgroups are doing so that it can allocate educational resources strategically.
Beyond that, parents need to know where their children stand after such a sustained period without much face-to-face instruction. Given these realities, the new education secretary — whoever he or she turns out to be — should resist calls to put off annual student testing.
The annual federally mandated testing will not answer these questions, at a cost of $1 billion or more.
The information the Times wants could have been efficiently collected by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests scientific samples of students in reading and mathematics every other year. The cost would have been substantially less than testing every single student in grades 3-8.
But DeVos canceled the 2021 administration of NAEP. NAEP would have provided voluminous amounts of data about student progress, disaggregated by race, gender, English learner status, and disability status. Everything the Times’ editorial board wants to know would have been reported by NAEP, with no stakes for students, teachers, and schools. No student takes the entire test. The sampling is designed to establish an accurate snapshot of every defined group, and there is a timeline stretching back over decades.
So now, as the editorial demonstrates, the pressure is on to give the annual tests to every single student. The results will be useless. The teachers are usually not allowed to see the questions, never allowed to discuss them, and never allowed to learn how individual students performed on specific questions. The results will be reported 4-6 months after students take the test. The students will have a new teacher. The students will get a score, but no one will get any information about what students do or don’t know.
The tests will show that students in affluent districts have higher scores than students who live in poor districts. Students who are English language learners and students with disabilities, on a average, will have lower scores than students who are fluent in English and those without disabilities. This is not a surprise. This is what the tests show every year.
If Secretary-designate Cardona needs to know how to allocate resources, he doesn’t need the annual tests for direction. He already knows what the tests will tell him. Federal funds should go where the needs are greatest, where low-income students are concentrated, where the numbers of English learners and students with disabilities are concentrated. The nation doesn’t need to spend $1 billion, more or less, to confirm the obvious.
Anyone who thinks that it is necessary or fair to give standardized tests this spring is out of touch with the realities of schooling. More important than test scores right now is the health and safety of students, teachers, and staff.
Advice to the New York Times editorial board: Talk to teachers.
I admire your tenacity and energy for the good cause.
i think you should be on the Board. Just any teacher isn’t a reliable source.
I’ll volunteer. I had work in the NY times before. Sign me up.
YES!
I cringed and cursed when reading today’s Sunday NYT edit calling for resumption of annual testing. Bipartisan ed policy is like the Titanic heading for the iceberg, too big an operation with too big an engine and too small a rudder. Pls write a guest op-ed to yell yet again about the catastrophic damage continuing with testing.
I don’t think they care whether the information will be of help to teachers. They look on teachers as glorified babysitters there to deliver whatever nonsense they come up with and take the blame for its failure when it inevitably does. What was Curmudgeon’s line about looking for something under a light post 100 feet from where it was lost because the light was better there? They want an “easy fix.”
“…a shortage of testing data…”
Lol!
Unfortunately, we know how this story ends. Tests are coming.
The Times Editorial was never fact checked.
Devos’ authority over NAEP ended with her appointment of the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent body that sets NAEP policy. The policy is carried out under the direction of the Commissioner of Education Statistics. announcement
On November 25, 2020 James Woodworth, PhD, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics announced a delay in the NAEP tests, and offered reasons for doing so. You can see his reasoning here. https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/commissioner/remarks2020/11_25_2020.asp
“Under the law, the National Assessment Governing Board is given responsibility for setting the assessment schedule, developing the frameworks that provide the blueprint for the content and design of the assessment, and setting achievement levels.”
The NAEP Governing Board approved Woodworth’s decision. https://www.nagb.gov/news-and-events/news-releases/2020/governing-board-statement-on-postponment-of-naep-2021.html
Right now the scheduled tests have not been cancelled, but “delayed.”
DeVos appointed Woodworth too. He follows her orders.
Donald Trump appointed Woodworth, almost the same as DeVos but here is the announcement.
https://www.aera.net/Newsroom/AERA-Highlights-E-newsletter/-em-AERA-Highlights-em-January-2018/Woodworth-Appointed-as-NCES-Commissioner
Laura,
Trump has no idea who Woodworth is. Read the bio in the press release you posted here. He got his doctorate at the University of Arkansas (the University of Walton) from the voucher-loving Department of Educational Reform. His specialities were “charter schools, online education, and education finance.” He then worked at CREDO, the Walton-funded evaluator of charter schools at Stanford. My hunch is that he was recommended to Betsy DeVos by Jim Blew, who served in the key role of Assistant Secretary for Policy, Planning and Evaluation at the US ED under DeVos; Blew previously worked for the Walton Foundation.
Woodworth is part of the DeVos team. Her influence over NCES and NAEP did not end when she finished making appointments to NAGB (the National Assessment Governing Board).
Cardona will have to live with those in the Department of Education who are appointed for set terms, such as NAEP board members. Woodworth has a set term of four years, meaning he has served only two years and Cardona will have a DeVos appointee in charge of the vital NCES.
Here are his scholarly publications:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MLX4QecAAAAJ&hl=en
Most have to do with charter schools.
Here’s the WaPo posting similar re-open! dreck about teachers and their unions. Maybe it’s just a coincidence?
“The school system had proof that children were falling behind because of remote learning but sowed doubt in the findings by presenting inaccurate data. Principals had no input in shaping the reopening plan and were left in the dark about its details. Advocates for homeless children — the students city officials argued most urgently needed to be in school — never heard from administrators. Groups that worked with students with disabilities said they couldn’t get their questions answered, so these families were reluctant to go back.
“Paul Kihn, deputy mayor for education, said the city surveyed families in the summer and knew about half were ready to return to school buildings. But city officials made a major miscalculation. They assumed they would be able to strike a deal with the union and enough teachers would be willing to come back to classrooms.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/washington-dc-failed-school-reopening/2021/01/02/af6d6b56-2532-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html
Do we really need tests— and in some states like NY tests have never even been independently validated — to tell us if kids are falling behind during covid? Newsflash: they are falling behind. And they are stressed. And many are scared. And many are grieving. And some kids didn’t even have a chrome book or remote device as of December. Yes, they are falling behind. And you don’t need to put a number on it. Please finally let go of these inane tests and finally finally do what is on the best interests of children.
“The country needs specific information on how these subgroups are doing so that it can allocate educational resources strategically.” Translation: Wall Street and Silicon Valley need data merely suggesting the Nation [is always] At Risk, especially ‘subgroups’ (which is the latest Orwellian word for Black and Indigenous People) so that they can target those People, and sell products and charter management companies tactically, as with menthol cigarettes and Stop And Frisk.
Got that right. Not to mention that simply administering the tests checks off the “done” boxes for testing et al ed-industry donors.
I couldn’t agree more! I was stunned when I read the editorial this morning. Another misunderstanding about teaching and learning and assessments.
Intentional misunderstanding
“The nation doesn’t need to spend $1 billion, more or less, to confirm the obvious.”
Do these people who endorse standardized testing ever examine their foolish dogma? Have they ever seriously evaluated the history of testing misuse and its potential for generating more 21st century segregation academies? What is eternally frustrating is when the Times cynically uses poor, black, brown & the disabled to advance education agenda.
Would it take too much effort for the Time to question the validity of both Democratic & Republican education policies? Their education reporting consistently takes their cues on policy from the Democratic party leadership and some Republicans (e.g. Bloomberg). Dem leadership’s mouthpiece CAP is promoting the need for continuing annual testing. Why? Equity for black, brown & poor students.
I hope you sent a letter saying that to the Publisher and editorial director.
I don’t write letters to the editor but I’ll tweet this to theTimes
It’s a superb reply, Diane, concisely summarizing the issue, plus including NAEP info of which plebes (incl apparently the NYT Ed Bd) are unaware. Deserves its own NYT space.
The New York Times op-Ed page has rejected whatever I have sent them in recent years. The lead NY Times reporter Eliza Shapiro has blocked me on Twitter. I used to publish there once or twice a year. I have been shut out.
Now I don’t feel so bad! I wait the obligatory three days and never hear from the NYT. They immediately thank me for trying, but they receive so many submissions they can’t reply to everyone. The grail eludes me. We know how discerning the Gray Lady can be.
The Ny Times won’t print something that doesn’t fit the ideology of their editors?
What a surprise.
I am disappointed in the comment thread as well. Commenters at the NYT are generally a reasonable, well-educated and informed bunch, but we don’t get to hear them much on public ed due to NYT sparse & sub-par reportage in this area. Sadly on this subject all but teachers (& some parents of school-aged kids) are under-informed. They draw on their own distant memories of K12 & reveal little grasp of details citizens/ taxpayers should know about what goes on in pubschs today. Perhaps because they read only the NYT.
True. It’s scary how many people base their views on education on what they read in the NYT.
They just…don’t…get…..it.
Or, choose not to get it.
The rule of thumb should be, ‘first do no harm’.
These sorts of standardized tests do harm.
It’s the LAST thing students need now.
I agree with you and Trump on this. Testing is the problem.
Trump learned this in babyhood. Close your eyes and everything is gone.
If we didn’t have tests, we wouldn’t have any problem.
Fred,
No pregnancy tests, no pregnancies!
But by the impeccable logic of Chetty et al, if we had no tests, we’d have no VAM and without VAM, we would not be able to fire the bad teachers sooner rather than later, which would without a doubt result in more teen pregnancies.
So, if for no other reason, we need the tests to keep pregnancies down.
Not even a condom or the pill can accomplish what tests can.
Yes! Not just the tests. High scores reduce the teen pregnancy rate.
In short
A test a day keeps babies away
Moreover, if there were no tests, we would never know that Trump can’t tell the difference between an elephant and a camel.
Be careful, SDP! These days your logic might pass the smell test in the wrong circles.
To argue with such logic would be to deny that the 🌞 goes around the 🌎.
NY Times Editorials
When Hell’s in a freeze
And Heaven is hot
The teachers will seize
The editor’s spot
It’s bound to transpire
Cuz Time’s span is long
And Hell’s raging fire
Is naught but a song
Why We Need Tests
Without brain scans, we would lose our mind;
If there were no eye charts, there’d be no one blind;
Without polygraphs, there would be no lies,
Nor would there be any strokes without MRIs;
Without true-false tests, there would be no gray,
And there would be no fathers, without DNA;
Without sobriety tests, there would be no drunks;
And without smell tests, no spoiled milk or skunks;
Without litmus tests, who’d know where they stood,
And without beta tests, everything is good;
Without needs tests, we couldn’t tell who’s best
And without stress tests, we’d all be at rest.
I need to revise one couplet:
Without true-false tests, life would be dull gray,
And there would be no fathers, without DNA.
This has been something I’ve been preaching for years. We are too underreported and under represented.