A teacher in California, who must remain anonymous to protect her job, wrote this post. CAASP testing is the Common Core test produced by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).
“We are 100% virtual, and teachers just had to sign an affidavit regarding CAASPP testing. I cannot believe they are STILL going forward with this. They expect that kids will 1) be in a quiet place with no distractions, 2) have their cameras on at all times, 3) not be using any other materials except pencil/paper, 4) that kids will have earbuds/headphones so they can hear the audio portion, 5) that kids won’t talk about the test content with ANYBODY.
And then, teachers are 1) supposed to simultaneously monitor 20+ students’ cameras and computer screens, 2) write down every time a student looks away or commits some other infraction, 3) keep every kid from unmuting their microphones (impossible).
I have students who stagger their time on chromebooks because of limited Wi-Fi, students who are self-conscious and terrified to have their cameras on, students who have multiple siblings all trying to do virtual meetings at once, students who literally hide in the bathroom so they can concentrate on my teaching (until they are kicked out 10 minutes later), students who are home alone at 8-10 years old, and I could go on. How is this EQUITABLE? How will the results be ACCURATE? I just cannot understand the rationale behind going forward with CAASPP testing. Oh, and 99% of our student body has to take the CAASPP in order for our results to be valid. Do you think that is going to happen? I am not being negative; I’m being realistic. I am praying that the decision makers will come to realize how ridiculous it is to try and do this test virtually.”
The teacher who forwarded this post added this thought:
This is where we are in CA right now despite CTA’s push to cancel the test, everything is moving forward. I just finished two weeks of MAP testing, 200 students from my school of 1200 did not finish and yet they think we are going to do the SBAC test which is four times longer.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Insanity, yes. But more. Government enabled, continued rapacious quest for profit for testing industry. Continued quest of privatizers to blame public schools for cooked up failure. Contempt for students, teachers, and most of all evidence.
The greed of Cut-Throat Capitalism follows only one rule, make money and lots of it.
In the end, that wealth accumulation for a few will be a pyrrhic victory.
Obviously, there is no concern for the students as well as any worry about issues of equity. Testing is a racquet for the data mongers. Parents should refuse to allow their children to participate in such unsound, unfair practice. Opt out!
Not Smarter, Imbalanced Assessment Cabal
And now for something completely different. I took these comments from a thread about the conservative outrage over Jen Psaki’s referring to Senator Graham as “Lady G”:
Where’s my fainting couch?
As opposed to “Auntie Pity Pat”?
Clutching my pearls
Aren’t y’all just so cute now
Come on, Jen. He prefers to be called “Queenie.”
Ah, look who’s melting now. –The Snowflakes
I knew I loved Jen Psaki.
We expect formal, professional language from the President’s spokesperson, e.g., “repressed, hypocritical, duplicitous, self-loathing homophobe.”
I hope the ‘political correctness police’ in the Democratic Party don’t do an Al Franken on Jen Psaki as she is doing an excellent job. I hope at most she is required to make an apology, or better yet, it is overlooked.
I ❤ Jen Psaki. Smart. Careful. Honest. Professional. She is awesome.
Isn’t it illegal for a government organization (a school) to require and monitor a camera inside a private home without a warrant?
Or at least some sort of court order?
Why yes, I do believe it is a violation of a really good law. If it isn’t, someone should write a law in a bill of rights or something. Schools cannot coerce parents and students to turn on cameras on private property.
But let’s face it, that doesn’t matter to the data obsessed. They don’t really need test security; they need the mere illusion of test security for the illusion of validity, and will also need, for product security, to prosecute anyone who reveals their questionable questions on social media. Test security is for test validity. Since when do they care if the scores are accurate? They don’t. They just need to have some numbers they can use as an excuse to privatize Milton Friedman’s low-hanging fruit.
“They just need to have some numbers they can use as an excuse to privatize Milton Friedman’s low-hanging fruit.”
How true! Once the numbers are in, administrators pay no attention to whether testing protocols were followed or if it was even possible to do so. Administrators used numbers to take my job. It didn’t matter that the students were not placed in the appropriate classes for over two months or that too many students were in the classroom, so that access to program components was severely cut. It was January before all my students had full program access,…Kind of. They had no computer access for the first six weeks. The district could not afford new workbooks, so I was copying one I had saved from the past year for all my classes. It was used every day. It meant nothing that they had failed to provide the program to anything close to what was required. All that mattered was the numbers they got in February. (They had to make hiring decisions in March to meet contract rules.) Obviously, most of them could not come close to achieving growth targets for the year with about three months worth of instruction.
Don’t even ask me how their MAP testing was botched.
STUDENT: Mr. Shepherd. Mr. Shepherd. DId you watch the Super Bowl?
ME: This is some sort of sporting event?
Isn’t the Super Bowl a historic battle? I believe it is. So if the Super Bowl is Brown vs Board of Education, my money is on Brown to score 35 to 7.
Actually, that’s not such a high scoring contest. 9 to 0. Hey Bob, though, seriously, if you had to watch the game today, would you root for the team in red and white, or the team in white and red?
The Stuperbowl is proof positive that our country has reached the peak of stupidity.
I just watched the Puppy Bowl.
No VAM.
No stakes.
The players are adorable.
And if you act fast, you can adopt one.
I once watched a Fish Bowl. The Puppy Bowl is good. Those pups only have to jump over a bar if they want high steaks.
You have poetry I didn’t know about, Diane.
Does this teacher not have a union??? Why are NEA & AFT not taking a stronger stand–together–on these issues?
Stronger stand? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum. One has to take a stand before it can get “stronger”.
I agree. It is unconscionable that teachers’ unions in the United States have not taken a strong, definitive stand against this continued child abuse. The lack of action on their part is complicity in the abuse. It’s horrific.
They could end this madness.
The teachers’ unions represent teachers like Trump represented his supporters.
Or like most Democrats in Congress represent their Democratic constituents.
Hmm, do I detect a pattern?
And not a single adminimal (otherwise known as an administraitor, thanks SS) has refused to implement these malpractices?
Well, of course not! Can’t be rocking the boat now can we?
Sad, sick, stupid, sycophantic these adminimals who have no cojones whatsoever. Which sadly is all of them! Only worried about themselves and the extra $$ they make from having gotten out of the classroom. And people wonder why the state of public education is where it is currently. And why so many question it.
Appalling.
In NYS they canceled the Regents Exams. Students need to pass 5 exams to graduate but with the exams canceled they were given a variance.
Surprise, the graduation rate soared, especially in places like the Buffalo Public Schools. There’s something wrong with a system which does not allow a student to graduate after attending four years of high school. There used to be a Regents Diploma or a School Diploma, but now a Regents Diploma is required for everyone, Guess who this hurts? Talk about white privilege.
I have asked this question before: Why don’t teachers simply refuse to give the tests?
In many states, teachers would not only lose their jobs but their teaching licenses. Until you can get enough teachers to realize that these tests are worthless and agree to not give them, the few that refuse will lose their jobs. Happened to a teacher in Salt Lake City a few years ago, for a test that wasn’t going to be given after that year.
And, sadly, far too many teachers think the tests give “good data.” It’s quite an uphill battle at my school, for example, even though we’re “failing” when we are NOT failing.
“Teachers would lose their jobs”. I’m aware of that threat. I am a teacher with a family to support. However, I’ve also been doing this job for 28 years, so my cynicism regarding testing (and reform in general) is also at its zenith.
If there weren’t enough substitutes to cover classrooms pre-COVID, how does firing teachers now even begin to make sense? Exactly who would be covering all of the classrooms of these newly unemployed teachers? Think about what that means.
The Teachers-Having-a-Seat-at-the-Table approach to dealing with reformers hasn’t worked for 20 years. Honestly, I’ve always considered this to be a lame and ineffective method as it ends with teachers acquiescing everything. A national, organized approach to ending this right now is the only way I see that can work.
Or, we can do nothing and hope for the best. There’s always the next election cycle. Of course in 7 years for me, there’s also retirement.
The Great Teacher Debate
“We need a seat at the table
To get a decent deal”
We’ve always been at the table
Because we are the meal
These details display the ridiculopathy at play. A silly joke I read to my hubby for a shared laugh.
Most comments here echo my immediate reaction. When govt policy is utterly irrational, it’s always about money.
In other words, government policy is always about money.
The teacher asks, “How is this EQUITABLE? How will the results be ACCURATE?”
Let’s look at one of the testing conditions. There will be 20 different environmental concerns potentially affecting the outcome of the tests including noise, lighting, ventilation, temperature, and distractions.
This is the ed reform “contribution” to public schools and students in the pandemic- they lobbied for standardized testing.
They offered nothing else of positive or practical value to public schools or students, but they DID succeed in forcing our students to take the tests they promote.
What is the upside of the ed reform movement for public school students and families? Do they offer ANYTHING positive? 20 years of funding tens of thousands of full time paid ed reform advocates and academics, billions and billions in federal funding of NCLB and RttT and we got “standardized tests” out of it.
I took standardized tests in public schools well before the ed reform “movement” became a cottage industry for consultants, so what have they contributed? You can’t even credit them with the tests. We had the tests before we ever put these people on the public payroll.
The claim is ed reformers need the testing data to do something or other “for” public school students. But we know what ed reform does “for” public school students and it’s been the same for the last 20 years- they promote and fund charters and vouchers.
Can’t they fulfill their mission without forcing public school students to take tests? Their mission doesn’t involve public school students at all.
What would be different about how ed reform approaches public schools WITH the test scores? How will the tests inform their work? Their work is identical no matter what the test scores say – if the scores are low public schools are all failing and if the scores are higher that means ed reform is succeeding so we have to double down on ed reform.
They push the exact same agenda with higher scores or lower scores, so why not just dispense with this charade and they can do their privatization thing and our kids won’t have to take their tests. Win/win.
I’ve been in the same public school district for 30 years, so have observed ed reform for their entire 20 year tenure.
Our scores were at one level and then they went down with the more difficult Common Core tests. Nothing at all has changed in how the ed reformers in state government approach our schools. They have the identical agenda they had with the higher scores.
With the higher scores we got funding cuts,expansion and promotion of charters and vouchers and the demonization of public schools. Same with the lower scores.
Public school students got absolutely no benefit from 2 weeks of testing a year. The scores don’t inform the work of ed reform at all- high, low, it’s identical.
My youngest will graduate high school having cycled through FIVE different testing schemes in this state and not one of them made a bit of difference in the way our schools were treated by ed reformers. He is an expert on standardized testing.