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Susan Ochshorn: Defending Childhood In the Face of Ignorance

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2015 //
121

Susan Ochshorn read Robert Pondiscio’s post “Is Common Core Too Hard for Kindergarten?” (he thinks not), and she felt impelled to respond, even though she is on vacation. Ochshorn is the founder of ECE Policy Works. She is the author of the forthcoming book, “Squandering America’s Future – Why ECE Policy Matters for Equality, Our Economy and Our Children,” about critical policy issues in early childhood education (Teachers College Press, 2015).

 

 

Susan Ochshorn writes:

 

Leave the country, and all hell breaks loose. A couple of days ago, in the “Common Core Watch,” the bully pulpit for the conservative Fordham Institute, Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow and vice president for external affairs, asked if the blessed academic standards were too hard for kindergarten. The short answer: no.

 

The occasion for his musings—and supreme irritation—was the publication of “Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose,” a report of Defending the Early Years (DEY Project) and the Alliance for Childhood. The paper debunks the common belief that reading earlier is better for future academic success, and warns of the deleterious effects on children of what Pondiscio calls a “perceived shift” from play-based, experiential learning to more academic approaches.

 

Perception is relative, of course. But where has Pondiscio been? Apparently, he’s heard nothing about the research of Daphna Bassok and Anna Rorem—empirical proof on the shift, from the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Working with two national datasets, which straddle the introduction of No Child Left Behind, the authors sought to fill in the gaps about the changing nature of kindergarten in the United States between 1998 and 2006. They discovered that even before the adoption of the Common Core standards, pressure among principals and teachers had accelerated considerably, with high-stakes assessments leading to academic and accountability “shove down.”

 

For some of that time, according to LinkedIn, Pondiscio was employed in public relations and communications at Time magazine, Hill and Knowlton, and Businessweek. Just as NCLB got going, he spent four years teaching fifth-graders in the South Bronx, before moving on to the Core Knowledge Foundation, and Democracy Prep, a network of charter schools based in Harlem, where he taught seminars in civics, citizenship, and democracy.
Civics? For someone who calls himself an expert on the machinations of our precious democracy, Pondiscio couldn’t be more disdainful of those who would raise their voices in protest—those who do know something about early child development and education. “The authors make much of the fact that no one involved with writing the standards was a K-3 teacher or early-childhood professional,” he writes. Not important, he concludes.

 

And then there’s Valerie Strauss. The Washington Post and “Common Core-averse education blogger” has been championing the report in her space, and running pieces by parents and teachers “arguing that ‘forcing some kids to read before they are ready could be harmful.’” What unmitigated nerve!
But let’s get down to the nitty gritty here. Before Pondiscio became a PR guru and a civic society expert, he picked up a bachelor’s degree in cultural studies. Nowhere on his curriculum vitae do I see anything related to kids’ development. Nada.

 

Yet he has no trouble weighing in on the fine details of the subject—including developmentally appropriate (or inappropriate) practice.
It’s “not as scientifically clear-cut as many suppose,” he writes. “There’s little evidence to suggest that a child’s readiness to learn occurs in the discrete, stair-step phases that Piaget theorized about long ago.” He then goes on to cite cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham, who has apparently noted—wisely, I might add—that “children’s cognition is fairly variable day to day, even when the same child tries the same task.” Indeed. The very argument made by the authors of “Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose!” Kids are not universally ready to read at five.

 

Pondiscio’s in way over his head here. Children’s development is exceedingly uneven. Anyone who knows anything about child development would tell you that—including the Finns, who don’t push their children to read when they’re five, who hold off on standardized testing until much later, and, by the way, are up there with the world’s highest scorers on the PISA tests of academic mastery. Another thing: the Finns revere children, and see early childhood as a time for play, exploration, and the foundation for equality, and citizenship in a democracy.

 

As Finland’s minister of education, Krista Kiuru, told an interviewer in the Atlantic last spring: “Equal means that we support everyone and we’re not going to waste anyone’s skills. “We can’t know if one first-grader will become a famous composer, or another a famous scientist,” she said. “Regardless of a person’s gender, background, or social welfare status, everyone should have an equal chance to make the most of their skills.”

 

But Finland’s not cramming kindergarten readiness assessments and reading down the throats of five-year-olds. And Finland doesn’t have alarming rates of preschool expulsion, as we do in the U.S., mostly among little boys of color. Children’s social-emotional development is inextricably linked to their acquisition of cognitive skills. And play is where the cognitive and social-emotional come together. Yes, kids are capable of amazing things—they are, in fact, our littlest innovators—but play, as neuroscientist and anthropologist Melvin Konner wrote in his epic work, “The Evolution of Childhood,” is the primary engine of human development.

 

Pondiscio says that nothing in the Common Core standards precludes the creation of “safe, warm, nurturing classrooms that are play-based, engaging, and cognitively enriching.” Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so? But such classrooms are rapidly disappearing, given over to learning blocks dedicated to discrete subjects, which sideline the kind of imaginative play on which children thrive. They’re part and parcel of the Common Core package, over which teachers have no control. He also urges early childhood advocates to push “aggressively for teacher education and professional development,” enabling them to meet the Common Core benchmarks. They are pushing, like Sisyphus—but the rock weighs a ton. And as states develop evaluation systems that rate teachers based on student test scores, their very livelihoods are at stake.

 

I’d suggest a semester of child development 101 for the Fordham Institute’s VP for external affairs. NYC has plenty of terrific programs, and he’s got huge gaps in his own core knowledge.

Categories Childhood, Common Core

Teachers of the Year to Governor Cuomo: Please Pay Attention!

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2015 //
10

Seven outstanding teachers wrote a letter to Governor Cuomo. It was published in the Albany Times-Union, where there is a good chance he and members of the Legislature might read it. Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall. Maybe by now the paywall has disappeared. I hope so as everyone in every state should read this excellent letter.

The teachers write:

The following article was written by seven New York state Teachers of the Year: Ashli Dreher (2014, Buffalo); Katie Ferguson (2012, Schenectady); Jeff Peneston (2011, Syracuse); Rich Ognibene (2008, Rochester); Marguerite Izzo (2007, Malverne); Steve Bongiovi (2006, Seaford); and Liz Day (2005, Mechanicville)

Dear Governor Cuomo:

We are teachers. We have given our hearts and souls to this noble profession. We have pursued intellectual rigor. We have fed students who were hungry. We have celebrated at student weddings and wept at student funerals. Education is our life. For this, you have made us the enemy. This is personal.

Under your leadership, schools have endured the Gap Elimination Adjustment and the tax cap, which have caused layoffs and draconian budget cuts across the state. Classes are larger and support services are fewer, particularly for our neediest students.

We have also endured a difficult rollout of the Common Core Standards. A reasonable implementation would have started the new standards in kindergarten and advanced those standards one grade at a time. Instead, the new standards were rushed into all grades at once, without any time to see if they were developmentally appropriate or useful.

Then our students were given new tests — of questionable validity — before they had a chance to develop the skills necessary to be successful. These flawed tests reinforced the false narrative that all public schools — and therefore all teachers — are in drastic need of reform. In our many years of teaching, we’ve never found that denigrating others is a useful strategy for improvement.

Now you are doubling down on test scores as a proxy for teacher effectiveness. The state has focused on test scores for years and this approach has proven to be fraught with peril. Testing scandals erupted. Teachers who questioned the validity of tests were given gag orders. Parents in wealthier districts hired test-prep tutors, which exacerbated the achievement gap between rich and poor.

Beyond those concerns, if the state places this much emphasis on test scores who will want to teach our neediest students? Will you assume that the teachers in wealthier districts are highly effective and the teachers in poorer districts are ineffective, simply based on test scores?

Most of us have failed an exam or two along life’s path. From those results, can we conclude that our teachers were ineffective? We understand the value of collecting data, but it must be interpreted wisely. Using test scores as 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation does not meet this criterion.

Your other proposals are also unlikely to succeed. Merit pay, charter schools and increased scrutiny of teachers won’t work because they fundamentally misdiagnose the problem. It’s not that teachers or schools are horrible. Rather, the problem is that students with an achievement gap also have an income gap, a health-care gap, a housing gap, a family gap and a safety gap, just to name a few. If we truly want to improve educational outcomes, these are the real issues that must be addressed.

Much is right in public education today. We invite you to visit our classrooms and see for yourself. Most teachers, administrators and school board members are doing quality work. Our students and alumni have accomplished great things. Let’s stop the narrative of systemic failure.

Instead, let’s talk about ways to help the kids who are struggling. Let’s talk about addressing the concentration of poverty in our cities. Let’s talk about creating a culture of family so that our weakest students feel emotionally connected to their schools. Let’s talk about fostering collaboration between teachers, administrators and elected officials. It is by working together, not competing for test scores, that we will advance our cause.

None of these suggestions are easily measured with a No. 2 pencil, but they would work. On behalf of teachers across the state, we say these are our kids, we love them, and this is personal.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, Funding, Poverty, Students, Teachers, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

Gene V. Glass: Arizona Education Politics Gets Stranger by the Day

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2015 //
10

Gene V. Glass, distinguisher researcher of education at Arizona State University, brings us up to the date with the drama in Arizona over privatization and the Common Core, with surprising enemies and allies taking sides:

 

 

Professor Glass writes:

 

 

It all started when Doug Ducey won the governor’s race last November. Duce, who cut his political teeth as a student at Arizona State University editing the campus newspaper, made his millions in the ice cream business (Cold Stone Creamery). Immediately upon taking office he instituted a hiring freeze and promised to increase school choice. That same mid-term election saw a virtual unknown Republican school board member, Diane Douglas, defeat ASU Education professor David Garcia for the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Douglas vowed to dump Common Core on grounds of its being federal intrusion into a state responsibility, but policy had nothing to do with her victory; if you had an R behind your name in the mid-term election, you won.

 

Two days ago, Douglas fired two of her top administrators — Executive Director and Asst. Executive Director — at the Department who were carry-overs from the previous Superintendent. It’s not hard to imagine why; they were far down the road of installing the Common Core in Arizona schools. Yesterday, the whole business erupted in a public fight between Ducey and Douglas over whether the latter has the authority to fire people in her department. After a prayer breakfast Thursday morning, the Governor was barely out the door before he gave reporters an insincere piece of his mind: “[I’m] sorry she chose to go down that path.”Douglas shot back: Ducey, she said, is establishing a “shadow faction of charter school operators and former state superintendents [referring to Lisa Graham Keegan who supported Douglas’s opponent in the election] who support Common Core and moving funds from traditional public schools to charter schools.”

 

Score +1 for Douglas for speaking the truth. The Arizona Senate has moved forward quickly in this session to support the privatization of K-12 education. The Senate education committee has already approved bills that would 1) award vouchers (at 90% state per pupil expenditure) to any student whose application has been turned down to open enroll in a public school or a charter school within 25 miles of their home, and 2) award a voucher to any student on an Indian reservation. Clearly the Republicans are flexing their muscles after the November victory; such radical pro-voucher legislating has never before made it into law in Arizona. Perhaps this is the year.

 

 

Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
National Education Policy Center
University of Colorado Boulder
_________________________

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Common Core, Privatization, Vouchers

Parent: Why My Son Will Not Be Taking the PARCC Test

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
38

Parents and students are the most powerful participants in the education debates for a simple reason: No one can fire them. Furthermore, they are not simply kibitzers or think tank pundits: Their lives are involved in the decisions about education. Here is a thoughtful comment by a parent in New Jersey, where the rebellion against high-stakes testing is in full swing:

 

 

I think it is extremely important for all educators to take the high road on this and not let justified anger cloud the logical arguments. I would encourage the NJEA President, Wendell Steinhauer, to sharpen his criticism and clearly articulate parental as well as educator concerns. I would also encourage him to have his association develop their own professional development / educational programs for teachers, working with schools. We all have many things to learn – it is a continuous process. Partnership with the “other side” – for the worthy goal of providing a wonderful education for our children – that would be difficult for Governor Christie to make less of.

 

I informed my local board of education during public comment that my son (6) will not be sitting for the PARCC testing (if it is still around) when he reaches third grade. I am quite serious as I feel PARCC and everything behind it is not in the best interest of any student – any teacher – any grade. Testing 8 year olds for career readiness is in itself inappropriate. Basically Common Core attempts to centralize everything – and this robs the spirit from the classroom. I feel this process it is hurtful to students for several reasons not limited to these:

 

 

1. PARCC will be administered on computer rather than paper which places pressure on our youngest of students to learn keyboarding (my son is already learning in first grade) and be exposed to computers even before they have had the experience and develop the proper motor skill to form letters correctly. The computer forms letters perfectly at the push of a button. In the perfect world I would prefer students be on computer much later. Students would benefit by working with real materials rather than inundating elementary schools with I-pads, laptops, “smart-boards” and all the other hardware “sugaring” up classrooms our youngest occupy. Tight school budgets are spending yet more on hardware just to accommodate computerized PARCC. It would make much more sense to give just one test on paper. A school’s network infrastructure, computer operating systems, and labs are not designed as a professional testing center is – and should not be. Tests of this kind are documents that require paper and are more practical on paper. Give an appropriate and elegant test once per year on paper and get the results to their teachers in a week. Perhaps that might be helpful.

 

2. The type of questions I found on PARCC in taking a practice test caused me a huge headache as they were twisted and confusing. I would not subject a young mind to such an assessment. In addition, activities in the classroom should not be centered on what is on this test. This robs the classroom of spontaneity – teaching moments – and valuable digression into areas of interest. A one size fits all top down totalitarian style mandated test is counter to our land’s free and open spirit.

 

3. Data collection – I will not have 400 points of data collected on my son and held in a database of a private company (already under investigation) for unknown future use. Centralizing this is an invasion of my son’s privacy and disrespectful. I will not have a third party testing company hold his data. Every parent needs to be concerned about this – it is Un-American! More than enough data to inform instruction can be obtained in various ways within the school itself.

 

4. Two tests per year are given. Massive amounts of instructional time is lost. Two tests because they will be used to evaluate teacher performance. This is flawed logic. There are way too many variables in the lives of students that can have dramatic effects on how they do in school. In addition, over evaluate a staff and you will have no time to inspire – no energy to motivate. Yet more tests, in most cases, are also administered for the so called “Student Growth Objectives“ – one more bad idea gone wild. Administrators have more than enough information within the building to inform instruction. In addition, local school districts are surrendering to a micromanaging overreach by the federal and state governments – as are teachers. What will be next? Teacher lesson plans from headquarters? We are going down a dangerous and undemocratic road.

 

An educational leader, in my opinion, must be a catalyst – must be the cause of positive excitement about the world – like of the world, real curiosity, knowing of the world! The American poet and philosopher Eli Siegel stated “The purpose of education is to like the world through knowing it“ and I wholeheartedly agree. I hope Mr. Hespe and other leaders will respectfully find out more about his important philosophy and extremely effective teaching method.

 

I believe that we are presently in a situation where teachers and students are not lifted up – but instead, insulted through SGOs, endless data collection, performance rubrics, and more. A once more collegial relationship is being replaced by a corporate style data collecting and crunching top down management – (a la McDonald’s) filling out endless computerized evaluations of teachers digitally warehoused by a centralized and privatized third party company. If more weight were given to supporting and lifting our teachers – more resources given to motivating, exciting, and further educating them – it would, in my opinion, be very wise – as our students, our children, my child, would benefit. We are missing that boat all should be on – parents, teachers, administrators, elected, BOE members, and our children.

 

I intend to be a vocal critic / advocate for my son and all his classmates at PTA meetings, BOE meetings and even council meetings in my own town. I hope more and more parents will object to mandating of Common Core / PARCC / teacher over- evaluation, and hope that the state reconsiders how it sees its schools, its teachers, and all its young residents across a most uneven (and unfair) financial spectrum. What is desperately needed is people centered decisions and laws – not profit centered.

 

I believe Dr. Maria Montessori saw children as individuals and respected the differences – and different rates of development found in each young mind – this is needed – not a one size fits all (profit centered) approach. Most importantly, in order to have schools be more successful everywhere, the state must work hard to close the huge financial gap within and between communities and lift communities rather than attempting to privatize schools in the most needy areas. That is no solution and an ugly cop out by our government that increasingly seems to be on the side of the profiteers – not the people.
David Di Gregorio, Parent
Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Categories Common Core, New Jersey, Parents, Testing

Nick Tampio: Why We Are Opting Out

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
8

Nicholas Tampio, a professor at Fordham University, explains why his children will not take the state tests.

“Our family is refusing the Common Core state tests in the spring. We refuse the tests because they weaken local control of the schools, pressure teachers to use a flawed pedagogy and facilitate a collection of data that may harm teachers and students….

“To be clear, we see a valuable role for the federal government and disapprove of certain educational policies adopted by states in the past. But that is no reason to abandon America’s historical commitment to the principle of local control of schools. Educators and parents in our district have more knowledge of, and investment in, our students than do foundations or the federal government.

“Our Westchester school district has been thriving—with the vast majority of graduates going to four-year colleges, including some of the finest in the country. It makes no sense for our district’s students to be guinea pigs in a poorly conceived experiment….”

“To be clear, we see a valuable role for the federal government and disapprove of certain educational policies adopted by states in the past. But that is no reason to abandon America’s historical commitment to the principle of local control of schools. Educators and parents in our district have more knowledge of, and investment in, our students than do foundations or the federal government.
Our Westchester school district has been thriving—with the vast majority of graduates going to four-year colleges, including some of the finest in the country. It makes no sense for our district’s students to be guinea pigs in a poorly conceived experiment.”

Categories Common Core, Opt Out, Testing

Is Chris Christie For or Against Common Core–or Both?

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
16

In Iowa, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey expressed “grave concerns” about the Common Core standards, especially that they are being tied to federal funds.

 

Christie told a group of Republicans in West Des Moines on Monday that Common Core ain’t what it used to be. He blamed federal strings and money attached to the program. It’s another checkmark on the scorecard of Christie’s conservative credentials.

 

But at home in New Jersey, implementation of the same standards is full speed ahead.

 

Christie created a commission to review the Common Core testing (PARCC), and parents and teachers have turned out in large numbers to express their opposition to PARCC in public hearings.

 

But Christie has done nothing to abandon the Common Core standards or the testing, despite the “grave concerns” expressed to voters in Iowa.

Categories Common Core, New Jersey, Testing

Peter Greene Answers Mike Petrilli’s 9 Questions About Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
19

Peter Greene read Mike Petrilli’s challenge: Mike suggested nine (or more) questions that should be asked of any Republicans who oppose Common Core. Mike and the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute are zealous advocates for Common Core.

Here are Peter’s answers to Mike’s questions.

Peter begins by remarking on Mike’s debating style:

“This is one of the things I find vaguely charming about Petrilli– he seems like that overeager kid on the debate team who enjoys making a verbal jousting match over anything from the death penalty to the correct side on which the loose end of the toilet paper should hang. Political advocacy/thinky tankery seems like his dream job.”

But on to the questions, which I will excerpt. Open the link to read the other five questions and answers.

“1) Do you mean that you oppose the Common Core standards themselves? All of them? Even the ones related to addition and subtraction? Phonics? Studying the nation’s founding documents? Or just some of them? Which ones, in particular, do you oppose? Have you actually read the standards?

Yeah, when Petrilli says nine questions, he’s being liberal with his use of the traditional counting methods.

I have, of course, read the standards, and the correct question is not to ask exactly which ones I object to. I would ask, instead, why I am supposed to search through all the standards looking for the unobjectionable ones, like hunting a piece of uncooked spaghetti in a stack of needles. I would not hand a teacher a textbook and say, “Some of the pages of this book are good and usable, so keep the whole thing.” I would not serve someone a meal that is part nutritious food, part plastic, and part arsenic. The fact that some standards are unobjectionable does not mean the whole thing shouldn’t be thrown out.

2) Or do you mean that you oppose the role that the federal government played in coercing states to adopt the Common Core?

Well, yes. That and the role it continues to play. Petrilli suggests that doesn’t make a GOP candidate special among other GOP candidates. So be it. It’s better to be right than to be special.

3) Do you mean that you think states should drop out of the Common Core? States like Iowa? Isn’t that a bit presumptive, considering that you’re not from Iowa and the state’s Republican governor wants Common Core to stay?

This is not so much a question as a dare. Go ahead, it says. Go ahead and declare yourself in favor of setting aside the will of the state. The correct answer is, of course, that Iowa has the right to be a damn fool if it wants to, but that doesn’t make it any less foolish, and any sensible person would offer the opinion that Iowa ought to stop being foolish.

4) If you do think that states should reject the Common Core, which standards should replace them? Do they need to be entirely different, or just a little bit different? And could you cite a specific example of a standard that needs to be “different?”

Let’s back up the assumption truck, and let me hear your support for the idea that national-ish standards are necessary or in any way useful. Which highly successful nations on the globe are successful because of national standards? Which studies show the value of national standards? Because I think the states should get rid of the standards, period. But if the state thinks they need standards, they can best design them from the ground floor up. The Common Core does not need to be (nor should it be) a rough draft, and there is no need to compare future hypothetical standards to it. If your brother gets divorced, and then remarried, you do not go to Thanksgiving dinner and ask for an accounting of how different his new wife is from his previous one.”

Categories Common Core, Republicans

Why Most Students Will “Fail” PARCC Test

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
60

G. F. Brandenburg alerted me to this very troubling analysis by Russ Walsh of the reading levels in the PARCC test.

Brandenburg titled his post:

“Looks like the reading levels of the new PARCC were deliberately set so high that most students will give up.”

Russ Walsh scrutinized reading passages from the PARCC test for grades 3-8 to determine their readability and appropriateness for each grade level. He used five different measures if readability.

He writes:

“Since readability formulas are notably unreliable, I first decided to use several different readability measures to see if I could get a closer approximation of level. The measures I use are all commonly used in assessing readability. All of them use two variables, with slight variations, to determine readability: word length and sentence length. They vary slightly in the weights they give these variables and in how these variables are determined.

The readability formulas I used were the Fry Readability Graph (Fry), the Raygor Readability Graph (RR), the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Tests(FK), the Flesch Reading Ease test (FRE) and Lexile Framework for Reading.The Fry, Raygor and Flesch-Kincaid formulas yield a grade level readability estimate. The Flesch Reading Ease test provides an estimate of the “ease of reading” of a passage based on a child’s age. Lexile measures are the preferred readability measure of the whole corporate education reform movement behind the Common Core and PA,RCC so it must be included here as well. According to the Lexile Framework website “Lexile measures are the gold standard for college and career readiness.”

After reviewing the outcome of his analysis, Walsh concludes:

“Conclusions: The stated purpose of the Common Core State Standards and the aligned PARCC test was to “raise the bar” based on the notion that in order to be “college and career ready” students needed to be reading more complex text starting in their earliest school years. The PARCC sample tests show that they have certainly raised the bar when it comes to making reading comprehension passages quite difficult at every grade level.

“These results clearly show that even by the altered Lexile level standard the 4th grade passage is much too difficult for 4th grade children. I would hope that the actual PARCC would not include any material remotely like this over-reaching level of challenge for children. I would hope, but the inclusion of this passage in the sample does not give me confidence.

“The other results show that the passages chosen are about two grade levels above the readability of the grade and age of the children by measures other than the Lexile level. The results of testing children on these passages will be quite predictable. Students will score lower on the tests than on previous tests. We have already seen this in New York where test scores plummeted when the new tests were given last year. English Language Learners (ELL) and students with disabilities will be particularly hard hit because these tests will prove extraordinarily difficult to them.

“What happens when students are asked to read very difficult text? For those students who find the text challenging, but doable, they will redouble their efforts to figure it out. For the majority of children, however, who find the text at their frustration level, they may well give up. That is what frustration level in reading means. The ideal reading comprehension assessment passage will be easy for some, just right for most and challenging for some. The PARCC passages are likely to be very, very challenging for most.”

Brandenburg says of Walsh’s findings:

“Many analysts say that mass failure is precisely the goal of the people who designed the Common Core tests: if they define “mastery” as reading and doing math two grades above current grade level, then by definition all but a tiny fraction of students will fail, and these “experts” can proclaim that public education is a failure and must be abolished.

“It’s an evil plan worthy of an evil genius.”

Categories Common Core, Testing

New Jersey Parent: The Movement is Growing

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2015 //
16

New Jersey parent and blogger Sarah Blaine (parentingthecore) describes the test rebellion brewing in her state:

“I have been so proud of my state ever since the January 7, 2015 State Board of Education open public comment period. We filled 4 rooms of testimony (in two buildings) that day. Almost 100 people spoke out against the PARCC, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

“Trenton set the spark, and the press jumped on the bandwagon. We’ve had stories (that I’ve seen) about the PARCC refusal movement in The Star Ledger, on CBS News, in The Asbury Park Press, in The Alternative Press, in countless local papers, and the best TV coverage I’ve personally seen is this NJ Public Television/PBS-13 piece from earlier this week (and not just because I am interviewed in it via a terrible Skype connection to my iPad) http://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/legislation-addresses-parcc-test-controvery/ .

“Our Opt Out of State Standardized Tests – New Jersey Facebook page has grown from about 2,700 prior to the January 7th meeting in Trenton to 7,443 as of this writing.

“At the Jersey City meeting of the Governor’s PARCC Study Commission on January 28th, I watched parents, teachers, and even a Superintendent stand up, one after another, to speak intelligently, thoughtfully, and passionately about the problems the PARCC tests are causing at our schools. That generated more press coverage.

“And then the following night in Jackson, NJ, even more parents and teachers spoke out against the tests. As I understand it, the testimony that night lasted for well over 5 hours (plus 4 hours in Jersey City the night before).

“Tomorrow, as noted above, the state assembly’s education committee is hearing public testimony regarding three bills: A-4165 (enshrining parents’ opt-out rights in law, which is up for discussion only, unfortunately), A-4190 (preventing any graduation, placement, or other academic decisions to be made for students based on PARCC results for the next three years), and A3079 (prohibiting all standardized testing in grades K-2).

“Take the PARCC events and screenings of Standardized have been popping up all over the state. We have more than 20 local “Cares About Schools” type groups scattered through our towns now. A grassroots group is even working on a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $4,000 of the $8,000 needed to fund three Choose to Refuse the PARCC billboards.

“It’s been amazing to be a part of this movement, and I am so proud of my fellow citizens for standing up for public education. I was particularly proud of my local Board of Education this week, which passed (by a vote of 6-0) a resolution requiring all of our schools to offer educationally appropriate alternatives to kids whose parents refuse to allow them to test.

“But we’ve still got a long way to go.

“We’ve got to get those NJ assembly bills passed into law. We need to make sure that as a country, we do what it takes to ensure that the ESEA re-authorization doesn’t codify problematic education policy into law for years to come. And we need to plan a better future for our kids — one that values real learning and education in all subject areas over standardized test scores.

“My local school district announced on Monday night that at its PARCC technology trials, 88% of students were able to complete the test. That’s 12% who weren’t able — due entirely to technology issues. The PARCC is a mess, but we parents need to get the word out and turn our small refusal movement into a massive groundswell. Testing starts in less than 3 weeks. The time is now. (Although I do expect our movement to grow exponentially between March and May once parents hear from their kids how awful the first round of tests really area.)

“As a parent, I think the technology idiocy compounds all of the issues, but personally, I’m in this because assigning high-stakes consequences (for schools, teachers, and/or kids) to these tests forces narrowing of the curriculum. I’m speaking out tomorrow about what I’ve seen disappear from my kids’ schools. I urge New Jersey and the rest of the country to do the same. We really can make a difference for our kids. I’m amazed at how much real statewide, grassroots organizing can accomplish. But this is still the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got about a million public school kids in NJ scheduled to take this test, and about 7,000 members of our Opt-Out group.

“We need to grow the numbers further, and show that parents are fed up with what’s happening to our kids’ education.

“We have the power — now we have to convince our neighbors and friends to stop assuming that we can’t change things, and to instead buckle down to make sure we can.”

Categories Common Core, New Jersey, Testing

New Jersey: Resistance to PARCC Grows

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2015 //
46

CBS News reported on the growing backlash against PARCC testing in Néw Jersey, where many object to the test and plan to refuse it.

The State Commissioner of Education David Hespe dismissed concerns about a high failure rate (which other states have experienced), saying that students needed to be challenged because life isn’t easy.

It is also the case that life is not a multiple-choice test.

Categories Common Core, New Jersey, Testing
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