Mercedes Schneider comments here on the Biden administration’s unexpected and ridiculous decision to insist on another round of standardized tests in the middle of the pandemic.
She begins:
On February 22, 2021, acting ed secretary Ian Rosenblum (formerly of testing-friendly ed reform org, Education Trust) sent this letter to state school superintendents informing them that standardized testing must happen in the 2020-21 school year “to understand the impact COVID-19 has had on learning and identify what resources and supports students need” and “to address the educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.”
Anyone with a smidge of critical thought and modest powers of observation could easily make a short list of the impact that COVID-19 has had on learning. Furthermore, the biggest support public schools have needed for years is adequate (equitable) funding not tied to property taxes and not tied to any federal competition.
Surveying district and state superintendents about what they need in order to provide equitable education opportunities for their students would be a much better use of US Dept of Ed time and money than spending multiple millions on standardized tests.
But, but, but, according to Rosenblum, as a last-thought, tacked-on reason for administering tests during a pandemic, “parents need information on how their children are doing.”
I have been teaching the better part of three decades, and I have yet for any parent to ask me for standardized test scores so that the parent can know how their children are doing. They ask about grades on class assignments; they discuss specific skill areas that are challenging and ask for help with addressing the specific challenges arising from completing classroom assignments; they discuss supports needed when the children or other family members are facing health issues or other crises at home; they ask for assistance addressing behavior issues, but they never ask for standardized test scores out of a need to know how their children are doing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In education as in every other concern there will be no progress so long as political campaigns are “sponsored” by corporate commercial interests.
The most ridiculous decision I’ve heard in public education ever!
OH NO! I am sick.
Teachers are the best people to inform parents on students’ performance. The big test does nothing other than waste time and money. Most public schools issue report cards three or four times a year. In addition, where I worked we met with parents twice a year in the afternoons and evenings. On the secondary level, progress reports were sent to the parents of any student that was in danger failing the course. Teachers were always available to communicate with parents by phone, on-line and in person by appointment. All of this outreach is far more important to parents than results on bubble tests that simply compare one student’s performance to those of his peers. For secondary students, grades in high school correlate to college success far better than the results of any standardized test including the SAT or the ACT.
educators need to know student placement and educational plan. This doesn’t need a big test that doesn’t get back to teachers for 4 months. Teachers need to know information for student plans. This can be done with small pretests that go directly for teachers use.
What action can we take right now to move the Biden administration away from this travesty?
Join up with an organized group in your state and NPE and speak out.
Diane,
I couldn’t agree more with Mercedes Schneider here and with Leonie Haimson posting on your blog yesterday (the “absurd decision” to impose testing this year). None other than Ian Rosenblum signs off on this announcement. Ian who?–rushes out this garbled letter apparently requiring standardized–yet infinitely unwieldable–testing. Mentions the need to test in order to understand the impact Covid-19 has had on learning on the same day President Biden marks half a million people in this country dead of the virus.
In football parlance this guy, Ian Rosenblum, isn’t even 4th on the depth chart of the US Dept. of Education–not even on its practice squad. His sign-off as the person “Delegated the Authority to Perform the Functions and Duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education” is a laughable title that Monty Python couldn’t invent.
Couldn’t such a foolish decree have waited for the Secretary of Education to issue. Maybe the new administration didn’t want this stupidity to be his first major educational initiative.
Well said, Fred Smith.
Here is structure of US ED:
Secretary of Education
Deputy Secretary of Education
Undersecretary of Education
8-10 Assistant Secretaries of Education, each of whom has one or more deputy assistants.
Ian Rosenblum is at the bottom of the pile, not chosen by an Assistant Secretary yet already a deputy to that unknown person.
He has never taught. He is a professional testing advocate. Who chose him? Not his boss. No one knows.
It tells the ed reform orgs they’re still in charge and we’re just going to have a meaningless musical chairs- shuffle where we get the exact same policy of the last 20 years except with friendlier faces at the top.
With Republicans you get ed reform + vouchers and with Democrats you get the same ed reform – vouchers. Other than that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference in terms of what public school students see and experience and since they don’t experience vouchers since they attend public schools for all practical purposes it’s identical.
The president nobody really wanted is doing what nobody really wants. Nobody wants Wall Street in charge of our government. Joe Biden, President Shmuck.
But, but, but “asking about grades and class assignments” don’t make money for the private sector, greed-based, useless standardized test-you-to-death industry.
and kids have now become extremely lucrative data points for the big data industry: you get nothing without finding ways to get kids to enter that data into the tech world
I just sent an email to President Biden telling him to contact you about the ridiculous standardized testing mandate. I gave a few reasons of my own, but I am so disappointed in his allowing this to go on.
Catherine Solli One of your faithful followers.
> >
Thank you, Catherine.
The administration says they are proceeding with the tests to find out where additional resources need to be targeted. That makes it reasonable to expect the administration to be able to answer the following question: What resources? (Closing public schools is not a good answer.)
Can someone please take a poll of the teachers who have to administrate these freaking tests (and make lesson plans that work to cover what’s in the tests and procedures) and see what they have to say about the tests? I want state-wide and nation-wide polls and studies asking the people who do the job if standardized testing does their students, schools, and themselves any good at all and how.
When there’s a story, it’s one teacher here or there (sometimes anonymously) talking about the drawbacks or student panic, or whatever. No, let’s get state-wide and nation-wide surveys to tell the government what’s the truth about these tests and procedures, rather than them going “well, we’ve always done this, let’s just tweak it a bit.” Ugh.
These tests are why I threw up my hands and stopped trying to get a teaching job. We were told (in mid 2000s) that they were gonna get rid of the Texas TAKS test–and all us teachers in training cheered. Then STAAR came along and it was just a slightly harder, repackaged version of what we’d all seen before. When I was a sub, because I was certified, I helped administer the tests for four years. Every year they upped the ante on rules and testing procedures. If the teacher didn’t do it all right–especially the no electronics policy–and some student was found to have their phone on them while testing was going on and another teacher came in and caught ’em, that could put my license in jeopardy. I thought it was too much of a risk because heaven forbid teens be without their freaking phones for 3 or 4 hours. That almost happened to me (caught ’em just in time trying to hide their phone under a chalkboard eraser and made ’em turn it in), and it shook me so bad I said “hell with this” and never went back.
I know a bunch of teachers who left the job, but would return if those damned tests were gone. Never met a teacher that liked ’em, or a parent, or a student, and it just creates more demands and stress. They need feedback from the people who actually have to carry out the testing and prepwork, dammit.
As if they cared. Only one way to make voices heard where it counts: OPT OUT.
My bestie lives in Washington state, and they’ll have lots of folks opt out. I wonder what the reaction would be if the kids all over Texas opted out, but also walked out (with safe help). I’d be on the side of the road cheering them on for taking a stand for their future. These tests just aren’t it, and one’s graduation chances shouldn’t hinge on tests like they do in some states (Texas relaxed that requirement, but could well bring it back).
Schneider focuses on my fave [there are many] irrational aspect of requiring stdzd testing this yr: the utter lack of stdzd situation. Stdzd tests are already a p***-poor way of determining degree of instruction success. But if we put on the edumetrician’s hat for a sec & pretend they are, that edumetrician would count on at the very minimum an across-the-board base standard such as roughly 8 months parked in a seat getting in-person instruction. Instead we have a mix of all-remote, hybrid, & in-person, & switching among them, each interrupted to varying degrees by tech issues, school closures, quarantines, & even [most recently] bizarre weather. I’d like to see the computer algorithm that can account for widely-varying differences among districts & even individual schools and come up with anything useful to anybody for anything. As Schneider points out, Dept of Ed here is simply introducing more variables: tests now or later, shorter or longer, remote or not.
If ever there were a time to let teachers figure out what their students need going forward, this is it.
But, as I’ve said here often: whenever govt edicts make zero sense, follow the $.
I’m glad Mercedes pointed out the ridiculous Rosenblum quote, “parents need information on how their children are doing.” You know an easy way to find out how your children are doing? Talk to them.
Just sent this message to Sen. Sherrod Brown (it’s useless to contact Portman):
I ask you to vigorously oppose the Department of Education’s recent decision to require standardized testing in elementary and secondary schools throughout the nation.
Candidate Biden unequivocally stated he would oppose standardized testing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haGLsCBPWKA). Based on his administration’s recent decision to go ahead and require testing, this can only be truthfully characterized as a lie and betrayal of public education.
Standardized testing–which ultimately forces teachers to teach to the test–has no purpose other than to feed the same privatizing interests that profit off of and drain funding from public schools. They are part of an overall strategy that includes charter schools and vouchers. They serve no purpose that benefits students, teachers, or public schools.
With this reckless act, President Biden has betrayed an important campaign pledge and made enemies of formerly strong supporters of his administration.
Should you not speak loudly and clearly about this travesty, one can only conclude that you will also betray your constituents.
No one should surprised by Joe Biden’s betrayal; he has a long history of mendacity (although not to the degree of his predecessor).
Biden promised his campaign donors that “nothing would change.” Centrist Democratic insiders, from Obama and Clyburn, to Klobuchar and Mayor Pete, maneuvered to shrink the playing field. Warren obliged by staying in the race.
So now, here we are.
Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss.
Could it be that the announcement was made without Biden’s prior knowledge?
Biden has not said anything to counter this decision.
Just think, all that money for testing could have been spent on something useful – like updating HVAC systems to actually make schools safer.
Representative Jamaal Bowman has come out against this: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/23/big-mistake-bowman-and-education-experts-blast-biden-administration-mandating
Not that it matters, but this is an email I sent to Ian.
I do not think you are a legitimate policy maker for education since the new Secretary of Education has not been confirmed.
Your letter misstates the necessity of state standardized tests to make sound judgments of about federal, state and local policy.
Your letter exposes President Biden as a person who will lie to educators.
I am among thousand who will be supporting OPT OUT as a response to the ridiculous policies voiced in your letter.
The result will be that kids won’t have the summer off but will study for tests.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.