Gerri Songer compares ACT and PARCC and finds them both wanting , both developmentally inappropriate.
She begins that she used to think that ACT “is a dreadful attempt to assess student learning. Now that PARCC has hit the scene, ACT is beginning to look significantly better!”
Songer shows that both tests are beyond the cognitive levels of most high school students.
She then argues:
“Albert Einstein once said, ““Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Making things simple is true genius. Einstein’s first job was that of a patent clerk. He analyzed the ideas of others and simplified them, communicating them in a way most could understand. “Anyone can complicate things. But it takes patience, probing questions and creative thinking to simplify. Whatever problem you are facing it’s probably not as complicated as you think – but we often make it so. If you want to solve more problems, simplify them. The real genius is turning complexity into simplicity.”
“As much as our test makers seem to love using archaic language from primary sources written by our founding fathers at the birth of our American nation, somehow they must have overlooked Thomas Paine‘s Common Sense, “IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.”
“Let me break that down for our test makers, “I’m going to make this plain and simple, using the mental faculty of common sense: Keep an open mind and listen to what I have to say!”
“Perhaps Arne Duncan would benefit from taking a look at Henry David Thoreau‘s Civil Disobedience, “I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.“
“In case you didn’t get that, Arne, let me help you, “Keep your nose out of public education – you obviously know nothing about it, and educators clearly do.”
“Students are not developmentally able to complete the multi-step, finitely detailed, mental manipulation of text needed to process information at the level of sophistication used by PARCC. The frontal lobe of the human brain is not fully developed until after age 20. The frontal lobe is concerned with reasoning, planning, problem-solving, parts of speech, executive functions (organization), judgment, emotions, and behavioral control. It allows for abstract thinking, an understanding of humor (subtle witticisms and word plays), sarcasm, irony, deception, and the mental processes of others. Other functions include: memory, sequencing of events, flexibility in thinking processes, attentiveness of focus.
“High school students are at varying stages of their cognitive development, yet both ACT and PARCC require they perform intellectually at the graduate level (1395L), or at the level of an accountant (1400L) or scientist (1450L). This is an unfair, unrealistic, and inappropriate expectation that assessments such as ACT and PARCC has placed on students. Educators MUST stop bending to legislative controls and demands upon education. Studies show that standardized testing is not the best predictor of college success.
“Human intelligence is so multifaceted, so complex, so varied, that no standardized testing system can be expected to capture it,” says William Hiss. Hiss is the former dean of admissions at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine — one of the nation’s first test-optional schools. “My hope is that this study will be a first step in examining what happens when you admit tens of thousands of students without looking at their SAT scores,” Hiss says. “And the answer is, if they have good high school grades, they’re almost certainly going to be fine.”
“The nonsubmitters [of Standardized Testing Scores] are doing fine in terms of their graduation rates and GPAs, and significantly outperforming their standardized testing.” In other words, those students actually performed better in college than their SAT and ACT scores might lead an admissions officer to expect. For both those students who submitted their test results to their colleges and those who did not, high school grades were the best predictor of a student’s success in college. And kids who had low or modest test scores, but good high school grades, did better in college than those with good scores but modest grades.
“Educators MUST remember the original intent of standardized testing: “A big test, the theory went, would allow more ‘diamond in the rough’ students to be found and accepted to top schools, regardless of family connections or money.” Today, standardized testing is used to filter students and to attack teachers, school districts, and public education as a whole. It is used as a means for capitalists to exploit children, dedicated professionals, and democracy to gain control of what they perceive as a new, untapped, money-making entity, public education. If the American public has any difficulty figuring out what this will look like, read Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle. This novel portrays the impact American greed has on the weak, the innocent, and the underprivileged. The Jungle is the novel that brought about attention to our need for unions and federal protection over its American workforce.
“I urge educators to call for an indefinite moratorium on the implementation of Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) to assess Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I also advocate eliminating standardized testing all together, and replacing it with the use of GPA and class placement as an indicator of college and career success.”
