Congressman Jamaal Bowman, experienced teacher and principal and teacher, was elected last November and now is a member of the House Education Committee. He was outraged by the announcement that the Biden administration demands a resumption of annual testing. He denounced it as “a big mistake.” He knows what kids need, and it’s not testing.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Tuesday joined progressive education experts in criticizing the Biden administration’s decision to mandate standardized testing in schools despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“We have an obsession with arbitrary testing metrics above all else, even in the middle of a pandemic that’s dislodged every facet of American life.”
—Rep. Jamaal Bowman
Bowman (D-N.Y.)—a former teacher and principal—argued that “prioritizing testing in the middle of the pandemic is a big mistake.”
“It’s a mistake that reflects a broader problem in American education,” the first-term congressman said in a statement. “We have an obsession with arbitrary testing metrics above all else, even in the middle of a pandemic that’s dislodged every facet of American life. We’ve forgotten that testing is one useful tool, and should not be the goal of education in and of itself.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When will the DEMS learn? I hope the DFERS haven’t gotten to Biden. DFERS are so wrong.
Why would they learn? You vote for them no matter what they do. If they don’t have to worry about keeping their voters happy, why wouldn’t they focus on keeping their donors happy?
Are you suggesting we should have voted for Trump? DeVos announced last fall that there would be no waivers this spring.
Aren’t you glad Trump is gone?
Jamaal Bowman is a Democrat.
Why would the people who bash Democrats like Jamaal Bowman and defend Donald Trump learn? There are deluded people out there who haven’t even noticed all the progressive changes that happened in a month, and are still insisting that the progressive change that Jamaal Bowman wants that is not yet achieved would be closer to being achieved if we had another 4 years of Trump.
It is not just deluded, it is a lie.
Waiting to see if more progressives in Congress will join Bowman. But who would agree with this dangerous Trump defender that we must defeat any progressive in Congress who isn’t joining Bowman to demand the end of annual testing? I’d rather support a progressive AOC who won’t denounce charter schools than a Trump Republican.
Anyone want the Keystone Pipeline and Betsy DeVos back? Wouldn’t having more environmental and education wreckage be a small price to pay to achieve that progressive future that those who believe Steve Bannon’s propaganda are convinced will only happen if right wing Republicans are empowered and the evil “non-progressive” Democrats are defeated.
Rasheed Tlaib is working with Jamaal. More on this later.
That’s great news about Tlaib. Maybe the rest of the squad will join, too.
Interesting, I do not see an answer from dienne77 for Diane’s questions.
“Are you suggesting we should have voted for Trump?
Aren’t you glad Trump is gone?”
This is when silence is the answer.
Dienne77, do you support Trump’s mob that attacked our capital on January 6? Do you think they deserve to call themselves patriots?
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin says the terrorists on Jan 6 were pretending to be Trump supporters. He says it was a “false flag operation” organized by the Left.
I wonder why everything arrested so far is a strong Trump supporter?
Why aren’t they finding Antifa folks to arrest?
Re: “Aren’t you glad Trump is gone?”
Yes. It was entirely predictable that education would be a difficult issue in a Biden administration. There is a long record of comments on this blog that support this. But the difference is that we are now not fighting on every conceivable front of public policy. Yes, we are predictably disappointed in the Biden administration so far. But I’d rather fight on this issue than every issue under the sun. That’s progress in today’s political climate. Let’s face it, if it wasn’t this issue, our sneering commentator would find something else to grouse about in order to crow, “I told you so.”
Thank you, Jamal Bowman.
Representative Bowman is our biggest ally in Congress, and he nails this.
(I dare anyone to tell him high-stakes testing is the civil rights of our time. Not hearing that phrase very often these days.)
Testing is the civil rights issue of our time
Just thought you might like to hear that.
LOL, SDP! (Getting rid of it, right?…at least in high-stakes form.)
One of the few voices of reason and common sense in a vast ocean dominated by pro standardized testing killer whales.
So what should be done to organize around this and stop the madness? This is only the beginning…
From an Indiana Supertindent: Now comes another reality. The test results don´t get back to the teacher for several months rendering them completely useless. Assessment is only as good as the information gathered and its application to the education of the child. Four months later not only is the child at a different skill level, but the teacher has already prepared the student´s educational plan.
Dr. Nicki Woodsen, a superintendent in an Indiana Public School told her teachers to do their own assessment to prepare their plans in a timely manner. As she explained that to her school systems Board of Education, they understood and agreed. It is essential for any assessment information to be in the hands of the teacher immediately.
As someone asked yesterday–where are the teachers’ unions on this? Where is the leadership? Is Randi Weingarten still waiting for a baby seat at the table?
Union Heads vs Teachers
We need a seat at the table
To get a better deal
We’re already at the table
Because we are the meal
Oh, nicely asked. Thank you.
Where have the teachers’ unions been for the last 20 so years?
Don’t wait for them. Every classroom teacher needs to pen a letter and address it to Biden. It time to voice the concerns about how disastrous this testing has been to public education. It time to put and end to participating in a profit making endeavor that involves students and is not in their best interest especially during a pandemic.
Dear Always,
I agree with you.
It’s ironic that Pearson’s motto is Pearson – Always Learning.
Some years back, I played off this and re-branded them: Pearson – Always Earning.
Learning about Earning
Public’s always learning
That Pearson’s always earning
Profits always turning
And students always burning
From an Indiana Supertindent: Now comes another reality. The test results don´t get back to the teacher for several months rendering them completely useless. Assessment is only as good as the information gathered and its application to the education of the child. Four months later not only is the child at a different skill level, but the teacher has already prepared the student´s educational plan.
Dr. Nicki Woodsen, a superintendent in an Indiana Public School told her teachers to do their own assessment to prepare their plans in a timely manner. As she explained that to her school systems Board of Education, they understood and agreed. It is essential for any assessment information to be in the hands of the teacher immediately.
Standardized testing in and of itself cannot even be justified as a useful tool. It only rates and ranks students and provides little information useful to instruction. Worst of all it wastes public funds, and it does not inform instruction. Formative tests actually guide instruction. High stakes standardized tests narrow curricula as more time is spent on test prep instead of meaningful content.
Posted at Oped https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Big-Mistake–Bowman-Bl-in-General_News-Bowman-Jamaal_Education_Education-Curriculum_Education-Testing-210224-82.html#comment785791
with 3 comments
1- The testing companies (like Pearson) are making a fortune because people do not know WLLL “What Learning Looks Like” — which was the governing mantra of the New Standards research for which my practice in NYC was a cohort — chosen by Harvard and Pew… because ALL my students learned to write successfully as they proved BY THEIR WRITING PORTFOLIOS.
Genuine and authentic assessment (note those adjectives folks) is a continuing process that any and all SUCCESSFUL, teachers use to decide what their students have learned and what to do next.
I used portfolio to assess whether or not my former sixth grade students had learned the skill — to write well enough to move on to 8th grade and to high school. No writing test would tell me what they needed to do next. You don’t give a written test to see if a person can play an instrument, or ride a bike, or ski… PRACTICE does the work, and is visible when the use the SKILL.
Read often, the Jan Resseger blog or do no miss the Diane Ravitch blog where this NYU professor of Education History, and One of Politico’s choice for MOST IMPORTANT AMERICANS, gives you a daily connection to the TRUTH about what is happening to education and our public schools.
And go to my series here at OEN and discover how the charlatans and privateers are destroying public education.
Read my Article: “BAMBOOZLE THEM” where teacher evaluation is the key to reform |
Submitted on Wednesday, Feb 24, 2021 at 3:30:25 PM
I tried to go to your series at OEN, but have no idea what OEN is or where I can find it. A quick search brings up Optical Entertainment Network and Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, and I’m not willing to search further in the acronym and abbreviation maze.
I have always wondered what happened with Obama . . . maybe the same thing is happening here with Biden? He has never made education enough of an issue to realize what’s been going on in the last 50 years (what we’ve talked about here over and over again). He has so many other things on his “plate,” he let his also-careless or reformer-advisors lead his educational policy-making.
Also, the problem is complex as it relates not only to the education of children on a day to day basis, but also to long-term cultural development at the foundational level of children’s development. It’s not so easy for many to understand . . . not that they cannot, but that they are just not willing to think their way into it AS a long-term foundational issue. Say “the philosophy of education” . . . . crickets.
The deeper problem is not-so-easy for busy people like parents to understand . . . it’s about the conflicted relationship between education and (1) predatory capitalism and (2) privatization as a well-funded team sport with its big names and lobbyists.
And (3) the biggest problem . . . the systematic diminishment and then planned ABSENCE of public education in the cultural sphere . . . where that education is at the root of a well-preserved generations-long democracy. . . . To Biden I would say, It’s the curriculum, stupid, and what will go missing in it.
By supporting testing especially NOW, Biden is feeding a tree that is losing or has already lost its roots. (Where’s Jill on this?) My guess is that, like Obama, Biden hasn’t cared enough to understand the depth of the issue and so listens to the big names and monied interests who of course “want what is best for the children, and it’s not public education.”
But if you’ll pardon my naivete, I think Biden WOULD care if he understood . . . just like when the Obama administration changed course when they realized the problems inherent with the privatization of prisons.
Maybe Jamal Bowman can gain an administrative audience on this. But for Biden, I think with the testing mandate, we have our signal that the so-called reformers got to him. What they are actually up to with their reforming tactics is democracy itself. CBK
It’s deja voodoo all over again.
comment 2 was from Diane’s blog post of Peter Greene: and here…
Writing in Forbes, where he is a columnist, Peter Greene explains why the Big Standardized Tests are a very expensive waste of money and time.
See his Six Arguments For Giving The Big Standardized Tests This School Year (And Why Biden’s Education Secretary Should Ignore Them)https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/12/15/six-arguments-for-giving-the-big-standardized-tests-this-school-year-and-why-bidens-education-secretary-should-ignore-them/?sh=3faa8ba27b47
“Testing is a billion-dollar industry. In Texas alone, the annual cost of administering the test is approaching $100 million. Shutting down the tests two years running will be a costly proposition for testing companies, so it’s not surprising that pressure is mounting for states to commit to administering a test this year, particularly with a new education secretary on the horizon. ”
“”target resources” in many states means strip local control and stage a state takeover of the district or allow privately owned and operated charter schools to move in and serve some students while leaving the rest in an even-more-underfunded public system. Ohio is the home of HB 70, a takeover bill that stripped all local control, gave a state-appointed czar an un-achievable task, all while threatening to turn the district into a charter system. In many states, schools with low test scores have not been assisted, but simply closed, a school system version of trying to fire your way to excellence. “
A billion dollars that could update a lot of HVAC systems to make our schools safer for all.
But that’s not a priority for Joe Donor Base – Pearson’s profits come first.
What can we do if anything? Can this be reversed?
I know you mentioned in a previous comment to call our state senators etc.
Can this help?
Join any opt out group.
Join NPE.
JOIN FAIRTEST.
I will have more recommendations. Gathering them.
I searched for NPE and found National Plastics Expo, Norton Power Eraser, and a fitness training business (perhaps NPE are the initials of the founder).
Try Network for Public Education
I’ve made a lot of comments here about this question over the past four years, so I won’t bore readers with them again. The short answer to “What can we do?” is simple. Get engaged. Don’t look for easy letters to sign or phone calls. It’s hard work, it’s consistent work. I will admit to not being able to do so, as I wish I could. But I do write letters to my representatives and make efforts to follow up. That’s a minimum. But looking for easy answers like signing up to letters that others organize is not enough.
Until education and its advocates create fear or are the reasons for consequential political dividends in local school board, state legislatures and Congress, education advocates will always be ignored by Republicans and taken for granted (“where are they going to go, they have to support us”) by Democrats, then expect more disappointment in the future. Until now, education advocates have done neither. [Compare the fear and dividends issues like guns and abortion issues pay for Republicans, for example. Public education constituencies don’t come close to those models.]
Excellent points.
While gun control and abortion rights are faced with the problem of death by a thousand cuts, public schools face a magnified threat. The confluence of tech tyrants, Wall Street greed, libertarians and the religious with the goal to take over government ed departments or, to destroy the common good makes the situation wholly more difficult.
This will not go over well…
The ultimate goal is a permanent overhaul of the decades old testing debacle and industry; not a one-year temporary solution. We need representatives and teachers and school leaders and parents to scream and yell about this – but avoid the labels, giving fodder to the reformers and conservative rhetoric, and losing the opportunity for change for the right reasons, not just pandemic one time.
Of course it makes sense to pause policy for 2020-2021 due to the pandemic. Then what?
Right back to square one for 2021-2022
Everyone will assume it goes back to as before post-pandemic. The debate over testing will not have gained any movement.
Anti-testing has very little capital in the capitol, should we expend it now?
Why give the reformers and gop fodder to add to their attacks? I can hear the speeches now: “Those liberals don’t care about learning.” “They don’t want to teach during the pandemic.” “They haven’t been teaching…” “They don’t think measuring learning matters.” “They… they… they…”
I assure they are not going to campaign on “we understand trauma and outrageous pressures to replicate school so testing this year makes no sense.”
Use this as a means to illustrate how ludicrous testing is and a springboard to extended change, not a one-year fix.
Read the letter. Short of saying “no testing” – they gave every bit of flexibility possible. Spring, summer, fall… shorten it… where ever you want… I think this signals they are willing to talk about permanent policy change, but not using the pandemic as reason and making us look bad.
Wait, What? And the OTHER elephant in the educational room: I have to wonder just what about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) OR the testing of these, actively engages students in their psychological, philosophical, social, moral-ethical, political, spiritual and, more generally, their cultural education that would include a sense of history, that would in turn raise questions about the run-up to their present situation?
Of course, students are already learning about these things and cannot do otherwise; and of course they provide a (mostly informal and so hidden) backdrop to STEM learning, and cannot do otherwise. However, the problem is not only about testing . . , but also about what’s missing in the curriculum that is being tested . . . ? CBK
Now comes the six month period where lawmakers focus exclusively on ensuring all public school students sit for standardized tests and accomplish nothing else:
https://www.dispatch.com/news/
“Kids across Ohio are going to take those federally required tests this year.
But the standardized exams might be shorter, spaced out over several weeks or delayed until the fall.”
What have ed reformers accomplished for public school students since the pandemic began? Testing mandates. That’s it.
Why would any public school family support, hire or elect these people? There is no upside for public school students. It’s ALL downside.
Where’s our new US Secretary of Education?
Or are ed reform groups funded and directed by four billionaires going to remain in charge of US public education?
If we’re going to follow Gates and Walton and Broad, let’s just cut out the government middlemen and have them run education directly. It would be more honest.
We’ll ask the Walton Family for permission to waive testing.
If you want more like Jamaal, join The Justice Democrats. Our next candidate is Nina Turner running for U.S. House of Representatives, OH-11.
I am a potential constituent and supporter of Nina [and a disappointed constituent of Marcia Fudge, who I predict will be the most useless member of Biden’s administration], I am not confident she will win.
Ed reformers are just getting started with testing:
“Evaluating individual students’ mastery of content, not just grade-level standards and average scores.
Demonstrating that schools are adding value when continuous, uninterrupted assessment scores are not available.
Navigating the complexity of challenges schools face in achieving equitable outcomes and measuring how well they are overcoming them.
Recognizing teaching and learning that occurs after the final year of state-mandated assessments—typically 10th or 11th grade—which neglects students’ diverse postsecondary and career pathways.
Finding ways to account for the possibility that students in the same school have had extremely different learning experiences, some fully virtual (possibly even taking courses from other schools or programs) and others partially or fully in live instruction.
Identifying methods to judge the effectiveness of COVID-19 innovations, such as learning pods, tutoring, and small-group online instruction.”
They’re planning on piling on AT LEAST 15 more “assessments” on public school students in the coming years.
They haven’t backed off the testing obsession at all. In fact, they’re planning on quadrupling the “assessments” and “measures” and “gauges”.
When all you have is a hammer….
https://www.crpe.org/publications/state-accountability-systems-covid-era-and-beyond
Well stated. I’m glad an educator in Congress is speaking out about this travesty.
Since we have to test I hope they just get on with it and get it out of the way.
If we let state lawmakers “debate” the details of standardized testing for the next three months public schools are never going to get any real assistance.
Test them to satisfy the ed reform lobby and let’s move on to something useful. They’ve been waiting a full year for help. Don’t hold it up for this.
NO! Get in the way!
Resist!
Why accept stupid, expensive, and time-wasting demands from a guy whose last paid job was to advocate for high-stakes testing at EdTrust New York?
We have John King as head of EdTrust/MD. The commercials are running non-stop on local TV (barf!). Now he is involved in UMD school of education and it’s been hinted at that he is going to take a run for Governor of MD. G-d help us all! So glad that we pay for child #2 to go to private school and I don’t have to deal with the testing madness anymore.
Parents in New York literally drove John King out of the state when he was commissioner. He was a huge proponent of Common Core and high-stakes testing.
When he tried to meet with parents, he was shouted down. He had to cancel his “listening” tour because he never listened.
Before he was NY Commissioner, he ran the charter schools in Mass with the highest suspension rate in the state.
Roxbury Prep. No excuses.
Protest the pro test!!
Let parents opt into testing this year. Make it a choice for parents.
. . . . and irony aside, someone remind them of the problems that have emerged from the movement to privatize prisons. CBK
Thank you, Representative Bowman!!!
Before I let my cynical pessimism get the better of me, let me agree with this.
Lost the testing. It’s racist and debilitating for kids.
It’s child abuse. Enough.
Decades of this test-driven “Reform” has led to a) no statistically significant increase in scores on NAEP or on international tests or on the state standardized tests themselves (so, the testing has failed by it’s own purported measure) and b) to no closing of achievement gaps, again as measured by the tests themselves.
But it has led to a) enormous opportunity costs (all that money and time wasted) and b) neglect of nontested subjects and c) devolution of curricula and pedagogy to make it more test preppy.
It’s is the height of stupidity to double down on such an obviously, utterly failed policy.
Bob I suggest that you are not thinking of it rightly.
That is, if the testing is (1) FOR the students, then you are on-target; however, . . .
. . . if it’s (2a) FOR big test-companies making money and controlling curriculum or if (2b) FOR Congress and the administration demanding fake accountability of public schools, students and teachers, so that ALL can pretend they are holding everyone accountable for spending public money, while taking bribes from their big-money donors, then you have it all wrong.
It’s (2a/b), of course, so get your information straight? CBK