Many of you have asked how to express your indignation and outage about the decision by Acting Assistant Secretary Ian Rosenblum to require all states to administer standardized testing this spring at a time of great stress on students, families, teachers, schools, and communities.
I have repeatedly explained why the federally mandated tests are worthless. The teachers are not allowed to see the questions or the answers that individual students gave. The scores are returned 4-6 months after the tests. The teacher learns nothing about how students are progressing. The tests measure, above all, family income and education. They provide no information of value.
I suggested that you write your members of Congress.
You should also write the author of this absurd decision, Ian Rosenblum. At the moment the Department of Education is leaderless, having no confirmed leaders. Ian was never a teacher. He worked for Education Trust, the pro-testing organization funded by the Gates Foundation.
You might want to remind Ian that standardized tests do not promote equity. The bottom half of the bell curve produced by these tests is dominated by the kids with the highest needs: those whose families are poor, those who are not fluent in English, those with disabilities. They are demoralized year after year by standardized testing. They need smaller class sizes, not tests.
You can contact Ian to express your views at the following email addresses:
Ian.Rosenblum@ed.gov
ianrosenblum@gmail.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Writing him about this decision would require enormous restraint, given the language I would be tempted to use. LOL.
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Dear Mr. Rosenblum:
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Uh oh
Diane just got put on Rosenblum’s black list for handing out his email.
Now he’s going to have to go under cover like Obama did when emailing with Hilary.
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Ian seems to be about the age of my grandchildren. I am not concerned about being on his “black list.” He should worry about being on mine.
That an advocate for high-stakes testing was in charge of announcing–if not making–this heinous decision is what concerns me.
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I see this a bit differently.
Yes, writing to Ian Rosenblum at his @ed.gov address is appropriate and a good idea–if for no other reason than to for ED to collect evidence of how useless and improper parents and teachers find these tests, now and even in times when there is no pandemic. I notice that this was done before Cardona comes on board (and they may be trying to keep the fallout from jeopardizing the vote).
But the tests are still part of federal law. If we don’t give them now, they’re still out there, and we’ll have to do them eventually–or fight a well-established infrastructure that’s been building for 20 years, including a national belief that testing data is real and believable. The testing juggernaut is not going away just because giving the tests is more unfair and wasteful now than ever.
Michigan’s superintendent has already announced that MI will not be giving the M-STEP this year, the statewide assessment that meets federal standards. He is suggesting districts choose shorter, more targeted tests and give them whenever they think the data might be useful–fall, perhaps. He also noted that tests do not have to be given to all children, as the 95% benchmark doesn’t apply. He was not specific, but I am certain this refers to kids in special education.
So–if all districts had the option of giving shorter, selected, even teacher-designed tests in the fall, and selected special education students did not have to take inappropriate tests–and states reported that the information was useful, there would be a much better basis for changing a policy established and supported by a whole lot of Democrats (not to mention parents and teachers).
I also have to say that–to my surprise–a piece I wrote on suspending testing this year generated comments from teachers who WANT the tests, as a means of proving that online schooling was inferior to face to face school. Most of them teach students of color. Their fear is that, without testing data, nobody will believe that remote learning isn’t ‘good enough.’
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Nancy,
Are you spinning disingenuously for PR purposes?
You claim “teachers” that you know want children to take tests that they anticipate the children will fail? Would that be similar to employees of a jet engine manufacturer who cheer an engine failure as proof their assessment was correct? It’s wrong on so many levels, but probably worst is for children to be set up for a paper trail of failure for something beyond their control
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Nancy,
Our nation has been in love with standardized testing for many decades. Most people think that the tests tell teachers and parents and policymakers really valuable things about student progress.
They don’t.
It is a myth and a lie.
We have long had data about the inadequacy of online learning. CREDO did a study of remote learning in 2015 showing that a student who takes his/her courses online loses an entire year of schooling in math, and months of schooling in reading.
Why do we need to subject the entire nation to another round of testing to prove what we already know?
Will the tests identify the low-performing kids? They are the same kids who were low-performing last year and the year before that?
Do their schools need money to reduce class sizes and hire experienced teachers? Of course.
Do we need tests to tell us what we already know?
No.
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I have never had a standardized test tell me anything that I didn’t already know.
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“Their fear is that, without testing data, nobody will believe that remote learning isn’t ‘good enough.’”
But if testing doesn’t give useful info, how can it show anything about student learning or not learning during COVID? I am just not getting the logic. It’s like
“Mom, the radio says it’s 30 degrees Celsius here, in Madrid, Spain.”
“Jenny, I have no idea about the Celsius scale, I understand temperature only in Fahrenheit.”
“So, mom, should I put on my fur coat or not?”
“@&\¬§!!!!”
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“But if testing doesn’t give useful info, how can it show anything about student learning or not learning during COVID?”
Thank you Mark, that’s the money quote.
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Touche, Mate!
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Thanks for providing Rosenblum contact info. The Columbus Dispatch posted about the testing edict yesterday. Two people cited in the article who are in agreement with Rosenblum are Chad Aldis of the conservative, billionaire-funded Fordham Institute. And, number two, an advocate for school privatization, Ohio state Sen. Matt Huffman, whose first cousin, also a legislator made racist comments in a public hearing this summer.
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Teachers that have successfully worked with the base of the testing pyramid know what works, smaller classes and support for students and their families. These students do not need to hear the repeated message that they “just don’t measure up.” Standardized tests play a role in demoralizing poor students, not helping them. Whether we want to face it or not, the scars of standardized testing play a role in the school to prison pipeline. We need to stop making our schools benefit testing companies. Our obligation is to do our best for our students, and this means eliminating punitive standardized testing that reinforce a false belief in racist eugenics.. Poverty is our biggest challenge, not low expectations or lazy teachers. More standards and testing will not eliminate poverty. Only a change in our economic policies can do that.
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Worth your time.
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Thanks. The blog entry provides an accurate P.O.V.
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In other news, self-style “Libertarian” Rand Paul showed himself to be an extreme anti-trans bigot in a hearing today, and he and his fellow nutcase Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t seem to understand the simple difference between sex and gender.
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From Jersey Jazzman’s blog: Quote – Normally, I believe that test data can be useful for research and policymaking purposes — although I think we could get data just as good as we have now for a lot less cost and bother by cutting back the amount of testing and removing unvalidated attachments to high-stakes decisions.
But the more I think about it, I the more I come to the conclusion that the data this year isn’t going to be of much use. Why, then, go through the bother of testing kids when the cost is so high and the value of the results is so low? The tests can wait a year. Give everyone a break.
[snip]
Identifying the resources and supports students need is the job of schools. The government’s job is to get schools the extra money they’re going to need so schools can provide resources and supports. Go work on that and leave the educational decisions to educators. end quote
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com
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Diane. Thanks for the two ways to contact the letter writer– Ian.Rosenblum@ed.gov and ianrosenblum@gmail.com
I have used both and sent a copy of my “Ian” letter to Senator Sherrod Brown urging him to add his voice to those object to this unqualified giver of edicts.
I know that tests are still required for ESSA and that is the larger problem. For now I join the many who are for OPTING OUT.
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After 56 years as an educator I can say with confidence that standardized is a substantial waste of time, energy and personal resources and tells you virtually nothing about individual students.
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Thank you, Joseph.
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It doesn’t matter! All kids will be taken from where they are and teachers will move them forward. Testing doesn’t change any thing. They are what they are Are you looking for someone to blame? If so you are doing this for your own gain and not for the children.
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Bad actors scheme to create a bogus paper trail of failure and then use it to justify destruction of the common good. The pattern has played out in states like Ohio.
Advocates for children recognize when those who champion testing are political conservatives and, the political appointees for greedy, libertarians and for tech tyrants, what they propose is NEVER for the good of America nor, for the good of the middle class and poor.
The private schools that Gates sent his kids to, rejected his plot.
Harvard’s Gates-funded Roland Fryer wanted a two-tier system, testing for some not others, what a surprise (sarcasm).
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Testing wastes billions and instructional time.
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I just Googled Ian Rosenblum & saw his picture.
For those of you who have seen it, do you notice a strong resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg? Could be his twin.
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Rosenblum looks to be about 32 from his picture. He knows nothing about teaching. He doesn’t understand the damage he is doing to children and teachers.
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I agree, & I think this year’s situation is the worst: a know-nothing-about-education punk commanding the entire country to test (punish)
“other people’s children” during what might be the worst time in their young lives. As has been done by Black Lives Matter, as has been done during the Viet Nam War Protests, we MUST be out in the streets in every town, village & city, in HUGE numbers, all over the U.S. Please, people, those of you with the gift of organization ORGANIZE & NOW. In IL (one of the states that requested a testing waiver), testing traditionally starts in March. PLEASE…NOW!
This absolutely, positively cannot stand.
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I doubt Rosenblum made his decision about testing without consulting to Biden.
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I doubt Rosenblum made this decision without Biden’s approval.
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Rosenblum is just yet another Ivy League leadership product.
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I agree, & I think this year’s situation is the worst: a know-nothing-about-education punk commanding the entire country to test (punish)
“other people’s children” during what might be the worst time in their young lives. As has been done by Black Lives Matter, as has been done during the Viet Nam War Protests, we MUST be out in the streets in every town, village & city, in HUGE numbers, all over the U.S. Please, people, those of you with the gift of organization ORGANIZE & NOW. In IL (one of the states that requested a testing waiver), testing traditionally starts in March. PLEASE…NOW!
This absolutely, positively cannot stand.
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Thank you very much for providing a way to contact Mr. Rosenblum. I just finished writing to him at his @ed.gov address.
It is critically important that we in the teaching profession let him know the absurdity of his “mandate” to administer standardized tests during this pandemic. In a year so fraught with technological obstacles to and income-related disparities in teaching and learning, these uniquely flawed testing results will ultimately be used to “rate” students, teachers, administrators, districts, and school buildings. His decision is both unjustifiable and ludicrous!
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Please don’t test !!!!
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The odds that Rosenblum will reply to the e-mail-writing public who funds the ed departments of the U.S. and states, zero. The odds Rosenblum will pick up the phone if Bill Gates calls, 100%.
Rosenblum works for the oligarchs and so does Biden.
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Why, regardless of who’s president, does the federal Department of Education continue to be populated with officials who know little to nothing about what actually supports learning and teaching and grows productive, resourceful, happy human beings?
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Deputy Secretary designate Cindy Marten is that person.
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I don’t know anything about Lane. He is not #2 at DOE. Cindy Marten is. Neither was Rosenblum.
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