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Colorado Parents and Educators Want an End to High-stakes Testing

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2026 //
5

A group of activists in Colorado speaks out against standardized tests. Angela Engels’ article was printed in the Colorado Times Recorder.


A Message from Judy Solano, Chair, A4PEP (Advocates for Public Education Policy).

“It takes courage to speak out about the injustices in the world, especially when policy-makers funded by wealthy education reform organizations hold the power.  May we all be warriors in the battle for truth.”

COLORADO TIMES RECORDER

Test-Based Accountability Is Failing Colorado’s Children

by Angela Engel                                                       May 15, 2026

As the Colorado General Assembly wraps up the 2026 session, lawmakers once again failed to confront one of the most costly and disruptive features of public education: high-stakes standardized testing.

Key legislative proposals that would have addressed the burden of high-stakes testing were defeated again. SB26-068would have reduced CMAS standardized tests to the minimum extent possible, and HB26-1291 would have reduced teacher evaluations for non-probationary teachers from annually to every three years. Both had bipartisan sponsorship and were supported by teachers, parents, and community members, but opposed by billionaire-backed education reform lobbyists.

A memorial backed by the Advocates for Public Education Policy (A4PEP), urging Congress to return authority to locally elected school boards, as provided in the eww hearing.

These decisions deserve more than a procedural explanation.

The issue of high-stakes testing is neither marginal nor new. Since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, policymakers have imposed lengthy and expensive criterion-referenced standardized tests on students, then incorrectly used that data to make high-stakes decisions about teacher pay and school closures. Because test scores are most closely correlated with income, policymakers have tolerated the practice of closing schools in low-income neighborhoods at the expense of our most vulnerable students.

A 2014 study showed that Colorado’s testing requirements cost up to $78 million annually in combined state and district expenditures. Adjusting for inflation, that would equal more than $100 million today. Approximately 450,000 students spend an average of 20 hours of classroom instruction each year on these assessments — more than 9 million hours diverted away from teaching and learning.

Meanwhile, the number of students identified as at-risk has increased by 118%, more than doubling since 2000. After more than two decades, the results of this approach are clear. Achievement gaps have not closed. Teacher attrition continues to rise. Families increasingly question a system that prioritizes testing over learning, with many choosing to opt out altogether.

This is not a policy in need of minor adjustment. It is an accountability structure that has failed to deliver on its core promises — and it deserves fundamental sreplacement. And yet, it remains firmly in place. Not because the evidence is unclear, but because the accountability system itself is protected.

Standardized testing is no longer just an educational tool. It is embedded in a network of contracts, compliance requirements, testing vendors, consulting firms, and political interests backed by well-funded lobbying efforts. There are real financial and political incentives to preserve it, regardless of outcomes.

Spending more than $100 million annually on a system that continues to produce the same disparities while costing students millions of hours of learning time reinforces a governance model that rewards compliance and discourages challenge.

This climate — where profits and political interests are prioritized before children — did not emerge on its own. It has been shaped over time by a campaign finance system that rewards candidates who support policies centered on test-based school accountability.

When you see something wrong, something inhumane, don’t just say something. Do something. It’s time policymakers stop protecting harmful practices and confront the consequences of policies that continue to waste taxpayer dollars, diminish learning opportunities, and drive many of our most talented and experienced teachers from the profession. After twenty-five years, the ramifications of inaction are impossible to ignore.

Public education should not revolve around protecting systems, contracts, corporate profits, or political interests. It should revolve around children. Colorado students deserve a well-rounded education that values critical thinking, creativity, and civic engagement over excessive testing and data collection. For too long, corporate education groups and privatizers have robbed students of a meaningful education and carefree childhood. This accountability model offers the illusion of control while costing Colorado a future of empowered, well-educated leaders.  

To view the planned Senate memorial, click here.  

Angela Engel is a mother, educator, and facilitator. Learn more on her website, www.angelaengel.com. Don Perl, Judy Solano, Mike DeGuire, and Manuel Solano contributed to this article.  https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2026/05/test-based-accountability-is-failing-colorados-children/79032/

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, Evil, Extremism, Fake News, New York, Standardized Testing

Peter Greene: Conservatives Think States Can Support Both Public Schools and “Choice.” They Can’t.

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2024 //
21

Peter Greene critiques the conservative idea that states should support public schools and all sorts of choice. Greene explains why this idea erodes the quality of public schools, which enroll the vast majority of the nation’s students. Conservatives blame teachers’ unions for whatever they dont like about pibkic schools, but Greene denonstrates that they are wrong. Open the link to read the full article.

He writes:

In the National Review, Michael Petrilli, Thomas Fordham Institute honcho and long-time reformster, poses the argument that folks on the right don’t need to choose “between expanding parental options and improving traditional public schools.” Instead, he asserts, they “can and should do both.”

On the one hand, it’s a welcome argument these days when the culture panic crowd has settled on a scorched earth option for public schools. As Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation president, put it in his now-delayed-until-after-it-can’t-hurt-Trump-election-prospects book, “We don’t merely seek an exit from the system; we are coming for the curriculums and classrooms of the remaining public schools, too.” For many on the right, the education policy goal is to obliterate public schools and/or force them to closely resemble the private christianist schools that culture panickers favor. 

Pertrilli is sympathetic to the “let’s just give parents the money and be done with it” crowd. 

We’ve inherited a “system” that is 150 years old and is saddled with layers upon layers of previous reforms, regulations, overlapping and calcified bureaucracies, and a massive power imbalance between employees and constituents, thanks to the almighty teachers unions.

Sigh. Reforms and regulations, sure, though it would be nice for Petrilli to acknowledge that for the last forty-ish years, those have mostly come from his own reformster crowd. And I am deeply tired of the old “almighty teachers unions” trope, which is some serious baloney. But his audience thinks it’s true, so let’s move on. 

Petrilli’s point is that conservatives should not be focusing on “school choice” alone, but should embrace an “all of the above” approach. Petrilli dismisses Democrats as “none of the above” because of their “fealty to the unions,” which is, again, baloney. Democrats have spent a couple of decades as willing collaborators with the GOP ; if they are “none of the above” it’s because they’ve lost both the ability and authority to pretend to be public education supporters. The nomination of Tim Walz has given them a chance to get on the public education team, but let’s wait and see–there’s no ball that the Democratic Party can’t drop.

Petrilli sits on a practical point here (one that Robert Pondiscio has made repeatedly over the years)– public schools are a) beloved by many voters, b) not going away, and c) still educate the vast, vast majority of U.S. students. Therefore, folks should care about the quality of public education.

Petrilli then floats some ideas, all while missing the major obstacle to his idea. There are, he claims, many reforms that haven’t been tried yet, “including in red states where the teachers unions don’t have veto power.” I believe the actual number of states where the union doesn’t have veto power is fifty. But I do appreciate his backhanded acknowledgement that many states have dis-empowered their teachers unions and still haven’t accomplished diddly or squat. It’s almost as if the unions are not the real obstacle to progress.

His ideas? Well, there’s ending teacher tenure, a dog that will neither hunt nor lie down and die. First of all, there is no teacher tenure. What there is is policy that requires school districts to follow a procedure to get rid of bad teachers. Behind every teacher who shouldn’t still have a job is an administrator who isn’t doing theirs. 

Tenure and LIFO (Last In First Out) interfere with the reformster model of Genius CEO school management, in which the Genius CEO should be able to fire anyone he wants to for any reason he conceives of, including having become too expensive or so experienced they start getting uppity. 

The theory behind much of education reform has been that all educational shortfalls have been caused by Bad Teachers, and so the focus has been on catching them (with value-added processing of Big Standardized Test scores), firing them, and replacing them with super-duper teachers from the magical super-duper teacher tree. Meanwhile, other teachers would find this new threatening environment inspirational, and they would suddenly unleash the secrets of student achievement that they always had tucked away in their file cabinet, but simply hadn’t implemented.

This is a bad model, a non-sensical model, a model that has had a few decades to prove itself, and has not. Nor has Petrilli’s other idea– merit pay has been tried, and there are few signs that it even sort of works, particularly since schools can’t do a true merit pay system and also it’s often meant as a cost-saving technique (Let’s lower base pay and let teachers battle each other to win “merit” bonuses that will make up the difference).

Petrilli also argues against increased pay for teacher masters degrees because those degrees “add no value in terms of quality of teaching and learning” aka they don’t make BS Test scores go up. He suggests moving that extra money to create incentives for teachers to move to the toughest schools. 

Petrilli gets well into weeds in his big finish, in which he cites the “wisdom of former Florida governor Jeb Bush” and the golden state of Florida as if it’s a model for all-of-the-above reform and not a state that has steadily degraded and undercut public schools in order to boost charter and private operations, with results that only look great if you squint hard and ignore certain parts(Look at 4th grade scores, but be sure to ignore 8th and 12th grade results). And if you believe that test results are the only true measure of educational excellence.

So, in sum, Petrilli’s notion that GOP state leaders should support public education is a good point. What is working against it?

One is that his list is lacking. Part of the reform movement’s trouble at this point is that many of its original ideas were aimed primarily at discrediting public education. The remaining core– use standardized tests to identify and remove bad teachers– is weak sauce. Even if you believe (wrongly) that the core problem of public education is bad teaching, this is no way to address that issue. 

Beyond bad teachers, the modern reform movement hasn’t had a new idea to offer for a couple of decades. 

Petrilli also overlooks a major challenge in the “all of the above approach,” a challenge that reformsters and choicers have steadfastly ignored for decades.

You cannot run multiple parallel school systems for the same cost as a single system. 

If you want to pay for public schools and charter schools and vouchers, it is going to cost more money. “School choice” is a misnomer, because school choice has always been available. Choicers are not arguing for school choice–they’re arguing for taxpayer funded school choice. That will require more taxpayer funds. 

You can’t have six school systems for the price of one. So legislators have been left with a choice. On the one hand, they can tell taxpayers “We think school choice is so important that we are going to raise your taxes to pay for it.” On the other hand, they can drain money from the public system to pay for charters and vouchers all while making noises about how the public system is totes overfunded and can spare the money easy peasy. 

I can offer a suggestion for conservatives who want to help public schools improve.

Get over your anti-union selves.

Please open the link to finish the article.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, School Choice, Segregation, Unions, Vouchers

Oklahoma: This Is What Public Schools Do!

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2024 //
10

This story from Oklahoma went viral. It is a powerful counterpoint to the nonstop negativity that deformers spew to the media about public schools. It is also a rebuke to the nonsense that Oklahoma legislators spout about the state’s public schools.

It is a story of caring, concern and dedication to the students. It stands in sharp contrast to the charter schools built on the “no-excuses” model of iron discipline and conformity. What can charter schools learn from public schools like Bizby North Intermediate?

If only Oklahoma’s Governor, its State Superintendent, and its legislators cared as much about the state’s children as its dedicated educators!

BIXBY, Okla. (KFOR) – Out at a school in Bixby, Oklahoma is a principal whose hug was caught on camera and passed around online last week spreading what’s said to be some much-needed positivity.

“We do this all the time and tomorrow my team will do it all over again,” said Bixby North Intermediate Principal Libby VanDolah.

She was captured on camera taking care of one of her many students.

VanDolah said that while speaking with other members of her staff she noticed a student with their face in their hands sitting on the ground.

“At first I thought they were tying their shoes but then when I looked again they were still on the ground,” said VanDolah. “I don’t even know if I even finished what I was saying, I just walked off because I knew this student was needing some assistance.”

VanDolah got down on the ground and that’s when she noticed the student was crying.

“My team went into action. I got down and hugged that student, and my counselor went and got that student breakfast,” said VanDolah. “We sat there and hugged and it was a few minutes before we were ready to move. It was just a moment.”

That hug was captured on camera and posted online by Jessica Jernegan, Bixby Public Schools Director of Community Engagement. And that’s what the picture did, it engaged the Oklahoma community.

“That picture encapsulates what public school is about,” said VanDolah. “We meet the kids where they are and we give them what they need. All educators do it. It happened to me yesterday (Thursday) but it could have been my assistant principal or it could have been someone in another district.”

The student had walked into school without a backpack or a coat and was stressed VanDolah said.

The post by Jernegan was shared by Representatives, online influencers, and by many teachers. Jernegan posted:

“Not one question from the principal about being tardy or where’s your backpack or where are you supposed to be?!

A moment. A hug. And breakfast.

In case you’re still with me on this post and wondering if all the rhetoric you’re hearing about public schools is true…let this be a small but very real and tangible reminder that it is most definitely not.

We’re just over here meeting kids where they are and giving them what they need.”Jessica Jernegan, Bixby Public Schools

“I think the reason why it went so viral is that people are hungry for positive things, especially centered around education,” said VanDolah. “We do it every day because we care so deeply about our kids. Yes, I have the honor of being 475 different moms. I think the reason so many people connect with it is because they have an educator in their life that they’ve seen this happen with.”

The student had walked into school without a backpack or a coat and was stressed VanDolah said.

The post by Jernegan was shared by Representatives, online influencers, and by many teachers. Jernegan posted:

“Not one question from the principal about being tardy or where’s your backpack or where are you supposed to be?!

A moment. A hug. And breakfast.

In case you’re still with me on this post and wondering if all the rhetoric you’re hearing about public schools is true…let this be a small but very real and tangible reminder that it is most definitely not.

We’re just over here meeting kids where they are and giving them what they need.”Jessica Jernegan, Bixby Public Schools

“I think the reason why it went so viral is that people are hungry for positive things, especially centered around education,” said VanDolah. “We do it every day because we care so deeply about our kids. Yes, I have the honor of being 475 different moms. I think the reason so many people connect with it is because they have an educator in their life that they’ve seen this happen with.”

To see the photograph, open the link.

Categories Childhood, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, Joy, Love, Oklahoma, Principals

Nancy Bailey: An Overview of the War Against the Teaching Profession

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2021 //
30

Nancy Bailey has assembled a devastating review of a three-decades long effort to destroy the teaching profession and replace it with models derived from the corporate sector.

She begins:

The pandemic has been rough on teachers, but there has for years been an organized effort to end a professional teaching workforce by politicians and big businesses.

In 1992, The Nation’s cover story by Margaret Spillane and Bruce Shapiro described the meeting of President H. W. Bush and a roomful of Fortune 500 CEOs who planned to launch a bold new industrial venture to save the nation’s schoolchildren.

The report titled, “A small circle of friends: Bush’s new American schools. (New American Schools Development Corp.),” also called NASDC, didn’t discuss saving public schools or teachers. They viewed schools as failed experiments, an idea promoted by the Reagan administration’s A Nation at Risk, frightening Americans into believing schools were to blame for the country’s problems.

The circle believed their ideas would break the mold and mark the emergence of corporate America as the savior of the nation’s schoolchildren.

The organization fell apart, but the ideas are still in play, and corporations with deep pockets will not quit until they get the kind of profitable education they want, for which they benefit.

They have gone far in destroying public education and the teaching profession throughout the years, not to mention programs for children, like special education.

Here are the ideas from that early meeting, extracted from The Nation’s report, with my comments. Many will look eerily familiar.

. . . “monolithic top-down education philosophy,” which disrespected teachers, parents and communities alike.

NCLB, Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act, and Common Core State Standards disregarded teachers’ expertise and degraded them based on high-stakes test scores.

These policies also left parents and communities feeling disengaged in their schools.

Please open the link and read the rest of this perceptive post.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching, Technology

College Deans Speak Out Against High Stakes Testing

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2021 //
23

Scores of education deans signed a letter to Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), chair of the House Education Committee, in opposition to the recent announcement by the Biden administration that it would not grant waivers to states from the annual testing mandate in the Every Student Succeeds Act, which originated as part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. The letter was written before the confirmation of Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. The signatures were gathered by Kevin Kumashiro as spokesman for the group.

Dear Chairman Scott,

I am writing as a leader of Education Deans for Justice and Equity (https://educationdeans.org), an alliance of hundreds of education deans across the country with expertise in educational equity and civil rights.

We, in EDJE, are deeply concerned by the recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that it will not grant state waivers of ESSA mandates for 2021 student testing, as it did in 2020. Two weeks ago, we sent the attached letter to Secretary-Designate Miguel Cardona, signed by over 200 deans and other leaders, that outlines what we believe the research makes clear, namely, that there are fundamental problems with these tests, that the administration and use of these tests widen (not remediate) inequities, and that these problems are exacerbated in the midst of the pandemic.

We agree that we need data to make informed decisions and to address long-standing and emergent challenges, but to do so, we describe the different types of data that are needed and the assessments–other than state testing–that are more appropriate for such purposes. We urge you and Congress to act quickly and forcefully to insist that the Department waive mandates for 2021 student testing, and we are available to work and meet with you in support of this change.

The letter, included in the link below, begins:

As the nation struggles to address the impact of the pandemic on public schools, we urge the U.S. Department of Education to waive federal ESSA student-testing requirements for all states for 2020-2021 (as was done for 2019-2020).
We, Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE), are an alliance of hundreds of deans of schools and colleges of education across the country who draw on our expertise as researchers and leaders to highlight three research findings to support our request.


First, ​problems abound with high-stakes standardized testing of students, particularly regarding validity, reliability, fairness, bias, and cost​. National research centers and organizations have synthesized these findings about standardized testing, including the ​National Educational Policy Center​ and ​FairTest​. For example, some of the ​harmful impacts​ of high-stakes testing include: distorted and less rigorous curriculum; the misuse of test scores, including grade retention, tracking, and teacher evaluation; deficit framing (blaming) of students and their families and ineffective remedial interventions, particularly for communities of color and communities in poverty; and heightened anxiety and shame for teachers and students. Researchers have also spoken specifically about annual state testing, like in ​California​ and Texas​, arguing that such assessments should not be administered, much less be the basis for high-stakes decision making.


Second, ​these problems are amplified during the pandemic.​ The research brief, ​The Shift to Online Education During and Beyond the Pandemic​, describes the “law of amplification” and ways that the shift to online education widens long-standing inequities and injustices in education, particularly for groups already disadvantaged in schools. These challenges with technology, logistics, and safety would unquestionably apply to testing, whether in-person or online. For example, districts that administer computer-based tests in-person are now trying to determine how to recall computers that were loaned to students in order to have enough computers in school, which in effect, means that those students will not have computers for remote learning for weeks. In fact, with the vast changes and differences in curriculum and instruction that resulted from the shift to online education over the past year—that is, the reduction in opportunities to learn, particularly in schools that were already under-resourced—the content validity of the tests is almost certainly compromised, as described by the ​National Education Policy Center​. Furthermore, with so much trauma in the lives of students and families, schools need to invest all they can into quality time with students, supplemental tutoring, and enrichment and wellness programs, not stress-inducing, time-consuming tests that provide narrow data of limited use.

EDJE LetterToCardonaWaive2021StudentTesting 2.15.2021Download
Categories Biden, Cardona, Miguel, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Standardized Testing

A Broadie Joins the Biden Administration

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2021 //
21

Maureen Tracey-Mooney joined the White House staff as a Special Assistant to the President for Education.

She is a graduate of the notorious Broad Center, the plaything of billionaire Eli Broad, which teaches its “students” the value of applying business principles in education and the benefits of closing low-performing schools instead of helping them. According to the Broad Center, “As a Broad Resident, Maureen Tracey-Mooney worked with Achievement First as Director of Extended Learning.” Achievement First is a “no excuses” charter chain that is known for harsh discipline. It is based in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York and was funded by billionaires like Jonathan Sackler, who made his billions selling OxyContin and creating an addiction crisis that took at least 200,000 lives. (In 2019, the charter chain announced it would take no new donations from Mr. Sackler, who had already given $1.6 million).

Broad Resident: https://www.broadcenter.org/alumni/directory/profile/maureen-tracey-mooney/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/05/white-house-announces-additional-policy-staff/

Maureen Tracey-Mooney, Special Assistant to the President for Education

Maureen Tracey-Mooney worked on the domestic policy team on the Biden-Harris Transition and supported the development of President Biden’s PK-12 agenda. Previously, she worked on President Obama’s campaign and transition. She served as then-Vice President Biden’s Deputy Domestic Policy Advisor in the first term of the Obama-Biden Administration, working on education, labor and other issues. In that role she supported the development of the Obama-Biden Administration’s successful Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge and President Obama’s Preschool for All plan. She left the Vice President’s office to earn her MPA from Princeton University and transition to local education work. Immediately before joining the transition she worked for the Newark Board of Education in New Jersey, where her work focused on the development of new teachers. Originally from Ohio, Maureen graduated from the University of Chicago; her life is possible because a generous friend gave her a kidney.

It’s heart-warming that President Biden has appointed genuine public school educators to the #1 and #2 jobs in the Education Department. Itis alarming that the education staff at the White House and among those surrounding Secretary Cardona and Deputy Secretary Marten are from the Obama administration’s failed Race to the Top, TFA, and DFER. Will we have another four years of the punitive “bipartisan consensus” that melded NCLB, Race to the Top, and Betsy DeVos?

Are the real educators mere figureheads at the top of the Department, while the big decisions are made by deformers in the White House, and stealth political types like Ian Rosenblum, now Acting Assistant Secretary who announced the “no test waiver” policy, responding to a campaign by his former boss, John King of EdTrust.

Biden already lied about his promise to cancel annual standardized tests mandated by the federal government, a policy unknown in any high-performing nation, a policy that has produced zero gains on the National Assessment for a decade.

Will he resume the failed policies of the past or chart a new course in education? Right now, based on personnel, the auguries are not good.

Categories Biden, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act, Newark, Privatization, Race to the Top

Laura Chapman: On EdTrust’s “Demand” to Test Students This Spring

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2021 //
14

Laura Chapman is a regular reader and contributor. She is a retired educator and a crack researcher. She writes here about a letter from Education Trust and other groups to Secretary-designate Miguel Cardona, urging him to deny all state requests for waivers from the mandated federal testing this spring.

She writes:

Kevin Ohlandt of Delaware and I looked behind the curtain of this attempt by the Education Trust and several other charter-loving groups to “demand” Secretary Cardona refuse state waivers on standardized tests.

I looked at the footnotes to discern what “authorities” this hastily assembled group relied on is issuing their demand. Their call included some footnotes as if to prove the wisdom and validity of the tests.

Here is an excerpt from one source: McKinsey & Company.

“We estimate that if the black and Hispanic student-achievement gap had been closed in 2009, today’s US GDP would have been $426 billion to $705 billion higher. If the income-achievement gap had been closed, we estimate that US GDP would have been $332 billion to $550 billion higher (Exhibit 1).”

This absurdity is from a report, dated June 1, 2020, offering several scenarios of possible outcomes for students who would receive instruction online, or in person, or in hybrid arrangements. The report is so out of date that it should be an embarrassment to EdTrust and others pushing these hypotheticals. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime

The second footnote comes from the charter-loving Bellwether Education Partners. It refers to their October 21, 2020 titled “Missing in the Margins: Estimating the Scale of the COVID-19 Attendance Crisis.” This report estimates that three million of the most marginalized students are missing formal education in school–virtual or in-person. The estimate of three million comes from mostly federal estimates of the number of students in higher-risk groups in every state and nationally: Students in foster care, Students experiencing homelessness, English learners, Students with disabilities (ages 6-21) and Students eligible for the Migrant Education Program.

This report, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, offers a series of recommendations already in the works for addressing the effects of the pandemic on K-12 education. Most of these recommendations have less to do with formal education than with tapping every possible community and state resource (except money) to provide food, shelter, and other necessities to survive unemployment and dodge the virus.
This Bellwether report also chases data from news reports from several large districts, the State of Florida and a study done in 2008.

This whole effort relies on out of date “estimates” of this and that, and offers recommendations of little use in addressing the systemic and immediate needs of students, teachers, their families and caregivers.

The last thing we and they need is to have anyone telling the Secretary of Education to keep the meaningless standardized tests.

Opt out and do so proudly.

Categories Accountability, Cardona, Miguel, Every Student Succeeds Act, Federal Waiver, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Standardized Testing

Join the National Town Hall to Learn About Canceling Testing This Spring

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2021 //
5

The standardized tests to which our students have been subjected for two decades have not improved American education. They have degraded it into endless months of test preparation, for tests of dubious reliability and validity. Schools have reduced or eliminated the arts, recess, civics, and other subjects because they “don’t count.” Only the tests count.

Standardized tests do not reduce achievement gaps. Standardized tests do not increase equity. Standardized tests label children as winners or losers, and the same students are labeled “losers” or “failures” year after year by these flawed instruments. Standardized tests are highly correlated with family income. Standardized tests had their origins in racist and eugenicist theories. They should be thoroughly discredited, but our policymakers refuse to see the harm they do.

Federal law requires that every student in grades 3-8 take standardized tests in the spring. The teachers are not allowed to discuss the questions. The scores are returned 4-6 months later, when the students have different teachers. The teachers are not allowed to know which questions students got right or wrong. The tests have no diagnostic value. None.

FairTest              
National Center for Fair & Open Testing

for further information:
Bob Schaeffer    (239) 395-6773
            mobile    (239) 699-0468

WHAT:    National Town Hall on Suspending High-Stakes Testing in Spring 2021 

WHO:     U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman, New York — House Education Committee 
                Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig, Dean, University of Kentucky College of Education 
                Dr. Lorrie Sheppard, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Colorado 
                Dr. Jack Schneider, Asst. Professor, Leadership in Education, University of Massachusetts 
                Dr. Lisa Escarcega, Colorado State Board of Education 
                Roberto Jiménez, School Committee Member, Chelsea, Massachusetts 
                The event will be MC’d by Bob Schaeffer, Executive Director, FairTest, 
                            and Ilana Spiegel, University of Colorado Board of Regents. 

WHEN:   Tuesday, January 26, 2021 — 6:00pm EST 

WHERE:  online via Zoom webinar 

HOW:      Register at:  https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FCKpfQKmSqmXKMo-KKH3Og  — recording available via Facebook after the event

WHY:       Public school parents, educators, and community leaders believe that no test score is worth risking the lives of students and school personnel. Forcing children to return to classrooms to take government-mandated standardized exams would be dangerous and irresponsible. No one needs a test to know that many low-income children in under-resourced schools have fallen further behind. Results from tests administered this spring could not be valid or reliable; the conditions in which students tried to learn have not been “standardized.”


                Parents and educators overwhelming support canceling spring 2021 exams.  According to the “Understanding America Study” by the University of Southern California, nearly two thirds of parents agree with suspending this year’s testing mandates. Fully 72 percent of Black parents favor cancellation. So do the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association.


                The time and resources spent administering tests this year would be better invested in educating students while supporting their emotional needs.  Federal testing requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act and state high-stakes exam mandates must be suspended for at least another year.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, Hoax, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing

To Test or Not to Test, That Is the Question

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2020 //
83

Everyone seems to have an opinion about whether the mandated federal tests should be administered this spring. When the pandemic was first acknowledged last March, Betsy DeVos offered waivers to states that wanted to suspend the testing. Although Biden has publicly expressed disdain for standardized testing, there has been no hint of whether he will appoint a Secretary of Education with instructions to do as much as DeVos did in deferring the annual testing.

My view: Resumption of standardized testing is completely ridiculous in the midst of a pandemic. The validity of the tests has always been an issue; their validity in the midst of a national crisis will be zero. They will show, even more starkly, that students who are in economically secure families have higher test scores than those who do not. They will show that children in poverty and children with disabilities have suffered disproportionately due to lack of schooling. We already know that. Why put pressure on students and teachers to demonstrate what we already know? At this point, we don’t even know whether all students will have the advantage of in-person instruction by March.

If anything, we need a thorough review of the value, validity, and reliability of annual standardized testing, a practice that is unknown in any high-performing nation in the world. We are choking on the rotten fumes of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Here is a letter sent by several organizations in support of high-stakes standardized tests.

Politico wrote yesterday:

TESTING TIME — A major test awaits President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for Education secretary. The question is whether to waive federal standardized testing requirements this spring for K-12 schools for a second year or to carry on, despite the pandemic. There’s no easy answer.

— A host of education and civil rights groups say statewide testing will be important to gauge how much students have fallen behind during the pandemic, particularly for the most vulnerable kids. Even before the coronavirus, “The Nation’s Report Card” revealed children across the country have fallen behind in reading, with the largest drops among lower-performing students.

— Statewide testing will “give us a snapshot, if an incomplete snapshot, of what happened this year. How close did students get to the standards?” said Brennan McMahon Parton, director of policy and advocacy for the Data Quality Campaign.

— Teachers unions and standardized test opponents, however, say this isn’t the time. “Battle lines are being drawn,” said Bob Schaeffer of FairTest, a group that opposes what it calls the misuse of standardized tests. “The vast majority of parents and teachers think it’s ridiculous to believe that you can get meaningful results from a standardized test in the middle of a pandemic.”

Andrew Ujifusa writes in Education Week about the battle over whether to resume standardized testing as mandated in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Pressure is growing for schools to get some kind of relief from traditional standardized tests as coronavirus cases reach new highs, and education officials in at least a few states are responding. 

In Washington, President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will have to decide whether to grant states waivers from federally mandated tests soon after he takes office Jan. 20. But the validity and usefulness of tests during the pandemic has been a concern for months. And at this point, states are clearly not content to wait for input or leeway from any new U.S. Department of Education leadership about the issue in general. 

  • On Thursday, the Georgia state board of education voted to virtually eliminate the role state standardized tests play in students’ course grades this school year. Board members voted 10-3 to make several end-of-course exams count for just .01 percent of those grades, down from the normal 20 percent, the Associated Press reported. State Superintendent Richard Woods backed the moved. Woods sharply criticized U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ announcement in September that states should not expect testing waivers for the 2020-21 school year, a position that could change after Biden’s inauguration of course. 
  • South Carolina announced a similar move late last month regarding end-of-course exams; districts will be allowed to decide how much those tests count for students’ grades, instead of the typical 20 percent. The Post and Courier reported that district leaders welcomed the decision. 
  • On Nov. 19, the Virginia education department announced that students can take “local assessments” instead of the state Standards of Learning exams in history, social science, and English writing. “The waivers and emergency guidance will simplify the logistics of SOL testing this year and ensure that [the] COVID-19 pandemic does not unduly prevent any student from earning a diploma,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane. However, the state did not adopt those changes for the science, reading, and mathematics tests required by federal law; Lane told state school board members that it’s “unlikely” the feds will waive those tests. 
  • Earlier this month, California announced it would replace traditional Smarter Balanced exams with shorter versions of the test, EdSource reported. 
  • A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers say they want state superintendent Mike Morath to either cancel state STAAR exams this school year, or at least not use them to rate schools and districts. “The last thing they all need right now is the extra and added stress of STAAR,” state Rep. Diego Bernal, a Democrat, told the Texas Tribune, referring to educators, parents, and students. Morath gave a noncommital response to the idea, although last summer he said he wanted the exams to be administered as usual. Like all states, Texas got a federal waiver last spring not to give exams that are typically required by the Every Student Succeeds Act. (“STAAR” stands for “State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.”)

This kind of momentum isn’t universal. Utah recently announced that it plans to forge ahead with its regular standardized exams. “We believe there’s actually an increased need for us to be able to attain data that can inform and enlighten us about the impacts of this pandemic on student learning,” state Assistant Superindendent Darin Nielsen said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. 

Last summer the Council of Chief State School Officers stressed that while state leaders must be “nimble and innovative” in what tests are used and what they’re used for during the pandemic, “Assessment tools must continue to play a key role in our education system.” On Friday, a coalition of groups including the National Urban League, UnidosUS, and the Education Trust called on the federal government not to grant waivers from exams because “our families and communities cannot afford to go two years without knowing how well our students are doing in school.” The groups also hailed recent federal guidance on assessments and accountability released in October.…

“At the end of the day, there’s going to be an asterisk around any 2020-21 [test] results if they’re given,” Stephen Pruitt of the Southern Regional Education Board told our colleague Sarah D. Sparks in July. 

Even more than an asterisk, the pandemic should underscore that the traditional standardized tests mandated by federal law simply haven’t worked as desiged, and push the Biden administration and others to rethink the entire system, said Joshua Starr, the CEO of PDK International, a professional association of educators. 

“This is the time to actually challenge the assumption that the state testing regimes will give us what we want,” said Starr. “I have no confidence that state standardized tests this year will do that. I don’t know that they’ve ever done that, and they certainly won’t do it this year.”

While Starr said that formative assessments, for example, could be useful to students and educators. But he said that in general, given the pandemic’s clear and disproportionate impact on underserved students and communities, education leaders should move straight into directing more resources and support to students and families in need, without depending on tests to do so. 

The ability of tests to discern trend lines in a typical fashion has also been disrupted beyond the point of being useful, including for accountability, said Daniel Koretz, a research professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who focuses on assessments. And more broadly, he said, potential disruptions for students at home and other factors unique to the pandemic present an environment that tests simply can’t control for. 

“Even for diagnostic testing, there is a pretty high risk I think that we would not be able to trust comparative data,” Koretz said, adding, “I wouldn’t want to see what little instruction we’re able to give kids now consumed by test prep.” 

Categories Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing

Nancy Bailey: Who Should Be the Next Secretary of Education?

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2020 //
49

Veteran educator Nancy Bailey has some very clear ideas about the next Secretary of Education. All her proposals are premised on Trump’s defeat, since billionaire Betsy DeVos would want to hang on and finish the job of destroying public schools and enriching religious and private schools.

Let’s hope that the next Secretary of Education has the wisdom and vision to liberate children and teachers from the iron grip of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act, High-stakes testing, privatization, and a generation of failed federal policies.

Bailey begins:

During this critical time in American history, that individual should be a black or brown woman, who has been a teacher of young children, and who understands child development. She should hold an education degree and have an additional leadership degree and experience that will help her run the U.S. Department of Education.

Children deserve to see more teachers who look like they do, who will inspire them to go on and become teachers themselves. A black female education secretary will bring more diverse individuals to the field and set an example. This will benefit all students.

Many individuals, including accomplished black men, have brilliant minds, and understand what we need in the way of democratic public education. Leadership roles should await them in the U.S. Department of Education, in schools, universities, or states and local education departments.

But with the fight for Black Lives to Matter and for an end to gender inequality, a knowledgeable black woman with a large heart to embrace these times should take this spot. The majority of teachers have always been women, and while men are critical to being role models for children and teens, it is time for a black woman to lead.

We have had eleven education secretaries, and only three of them have been women, including Shirley Hufstedler, Margaret Spellings, and Betsy DeVos. None of these women were educators or had experience in the classroom. Only two African American men have been in this role, and neither of them could be considered authentic teachers and educators. Both had the goal to undermine public schools.

The time is now for a black female education secretary who will set a positive example and be the face of the future for children from all gender and cultural backgrounds.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Betsy DeVos, Biden, Courage, Creativity, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Standardized Testing, U.S. Department of Education
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