Archives for category: NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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Daniel Katz: Why the NY Times Is Wrong About Annual Testing

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2015 //
39

Daniel S. Katz of Serin Hall University explains here why the New York Times is wrong about the value of annual standardized testing.

The editorial acknowled that there is too much testing, but failed to acknowledge that this condition is the result of federal mandates. It credits the high-stakes testing regime with higher achievement but doesn’t recognize that test scores increased faster before NCLB.

It is hard to believe that the Néw York Times editorial board is so out of touch with parents, students, teachers, and the realities of school.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Race to the Top, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Standardized Testing

Take Your Choice: The Testing Status Quo or Opt Out?

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2015 //
28

The New York Times is convinced that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have been a great success, and the editorial board urges Congress to stick with annual high-stakes testing. The editorial is couched in terms of the wonderful things that have happened to children of color, echoing the “reform” theme of testing as a “civil right.” This editorial is so out of touch with reality that it is hard to know where to begin. States are now beginning to test little children for 10-12 hours to see if they can read and do math; the amount of testing and the stakes attached to it are not found in any high-performing nation in the world, only here. The billions of dollars now devoted to standardized testing is obscene, especially when many of children who need help the most are in overcrowded classes and in states that have slashed the budget and/or opened charter schools and handed out vouchers to drain funding away from the public schools.

 

For a different point of view, read Carol Burris’s strong article about why it is time for civil disobedience, why parents should refuse to allow their children to take the tests.

 

Burris writes:

 

It has become increasingly clear that Congress does not have the will to move away from annual high-stakes testing. The bizarre notion that subjecting 9-year-olds to hours of high-stakes tests is a “civil right,” is embedded in the thinking of both parties. Conservatives no longer believe in the local, democratic control of our schools. Progressives refuse to address the effects of poverty, segregation and the destruction of the middle class on student learning. The unimaginative strategy to improve achievement is to make standardized tests longer and harder.

 

And then there are the Common Core State Standards. Legislators talk a good game to appease parents, but for all their bluff and bluster, they are quite content to use code names, like the West Virginia Next Generation Content Standards, to trick their constituents into believing their state standards are unique, even though most are word for word from the Common Core.

 

The only remedy left to parents is to refuse to have their children take the tests. Testing is the rock on which the policies that are destroying our local public schools are built. If our politicians do not have the courage to reverse high-stakes testing, then those who care must step in. As professor of Language and Composition, Ira Shor, bluntly stated:

 

Because our kids cannot defend themselves, we have to defend them. We parents must step in to stop it. We should put our foot down and say, “Do it to your own kids first before you experiment on ours!”

 

In contrast to the New York Times, which argues for the status quo on grounds of helping minority students, Burris sharply argues:

 

The alleged benefit of annual high stakes testing was to unveil the achievement gaps, and by doing so, close them. All that has been closed are children’s neighborhood schools. In a powerful piece in the Huffington Post, Fairfield University Professor Yohuru Williams argues that annual high-stakes testing feeds racial determinism and closes doors of opportunity for black and brown children.

 

Last year, Alan Aja and I presented evidence on how the Common Core and its tests are hurting, not helping, disadvantaged students. (The links to both articles are in Burris’s article.)

 

Burris concludes:

 

I am a rule follower by nature. I have never gotten a speeding ticket. I patiently wait my turn in lines. I am the product of 12 years of Catholic schools–raised in a blue-collar home where authority was not to be questioned. I was the little girl who always colored in the lines.

 

But there comes a time when rules must be broken — when adults, after exhausting all remedies, must be willing to break ranks and not comply. That time is now. The promise of a public school system, however imperfectly realized, is at risk of being destroyed. The future of our children is hanging from testing’s high stakes. The time to Opt Out is now.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Opt Out, Testing

Write Congress Now to Say No! To “Student Success Act”!

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2015 //
24

The Network for Public Education urges you to write your Congressman or Congresswoman now.

The Network For Public Education | We are many. There is power in our numbers. Together, we will save our schools.

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

It has been reported that the US House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 5, the “Student Success Act,” on Friday, February 27th. The bill, which is the House’s version of the long overdue reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, was rushed through the House Education and the Workforce Committee with no public hearings. The bill is deeply flawed, and raises many concerns for public education allies.

There are four crucial issues:

Requires that states test all children in grades 3-8 and once in high school, even though no high performing nation tests all children every year

Makes Title I funds portable, which will decrease funding to the schools in greatest need, and opens the door for vouchers

Limits Title II funding to 10% for class size reduction

Increases funding for charter schools and encourages the growth and expansion of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), which will advance the privatization movement

The time is now to send a clear message that we demand better for our children and our schools. Please join NPE and write your Representative today to let him/her know you oppose the passage of this bill.

Sponsored by

Network for Public Education
Tucson, AZ

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Network for Public Education

BATS: Why You Should Opt Your Child or Your Students Out of Standardized Testing

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2015 //
6

This is a terrific short video, created by the BadAss Teachers Association. In images, it simply explains the blight that has descended on American public education because of the misguided policies of George W. Bush, President Obama, and Arne Duncan, because of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Lots of kids have been left behind, and the Race to the Top was won by Pearson and McGraw Hill.

 

 

Categories Accountability, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Students

A Report on Anthony Cody’s Visit to Georgia

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2015 //
1

This post, written by Joseph Ray Lavine, gives an account of Anthony Cody’s speech at the University of Georgia. Cody told the audience that programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top had squandered billions of dollars, and that methodologies like “value-added measurement” could not measure what mattered most in education. Teachers want students who can engage in critical thinking, collaboration, and who can persevere, but the testing regime does not promote or encourage these qualities, nor can it measure them. We are not raising the bar, he said; we are actually lowering expectations by relying so heavily on high-stakes testing.

 

Cody recently published a book about the Gates Foundation and its influence on current failed reforms. The book is “The Educator and the Oligarch”; it describes his exchanges with the foundation and his efforts to persuade it to change course.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

A Conservative Critique of NCLB Reauthorization

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
13

This is a statement by a group of conservative policy analysts, critiquing Republican efforts to rewrite No Child Left Behind. Their major complaint is that the current bills preserve federal control of education. They want states to make the decisions about when and how often students should be tested. They want the new law to say definitively that the federal government must not interfere with curriculum.

Being conservatives, they want Title I to be portable to promote school choice. They want to eliminate mandates and competitive grant programs.

Read it for yourself.

Arne Duncan seems to have united right and left in wanting to curtail the role of the federal government, though for different reasons. I want federal money to go to public schools. But I agree that the testing mandates and sanctions should be abandoned. When to test and how often to test should be a state function.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing, U.S. Department of Education

San Diego School Board Votes 5-0 to End Annual Testing in NCLB

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2015 //
11

The school board of the San Diego Unified School District voted 5-0 to urge Congress to eliminate the federal mandate of annual testing, Read their full statement below.

 

Remember that one of the crucial elements in the grassroots movement to roll back the tide of high-stakes testing started in Texas, when school board after school board voted to oppose high-stakes testing, and eventually more than 80% of the state’s school boards voted against high-stakes testing. The legislature heard the voters, and pulled back from a proposal to require 15 tests for high school graduation.

 

This is how a movement grows. Congress is rewriting NCLB as you read this. It is said to be on a fast-track for reauthorization in both the Senate and the House. Almost all the D.C.-based interest groups have joined to demand that YOUR children and YOUR students be tested annually. The best way to stop this out-of-control train of failed policies is to organize, speak up, speak out, demonstrate. Urge your school board to adopt a resolution akin to the one passed unanimously in San Diego. Visit the offices of Senator Patty Murray, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Al Franken, and all the Congressmen and Senators who are about to pass legislation keeping NCLB intact for another seven years. Make your voice heard.

 

The resolution adopted by the school board of the San Diego Unified School District on February 10:

 

SAN DIEGO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

RESOLUTION IN THE MATTER OF SUPPORT

TO REMOVE THE ANNUAL TESTING REQUIREMENT FROM THE ELEMENTARY

AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT (ESEA)

AND MAKE OTHER MODIFICATIONS AS CONGRESS CONSIDERS REAUTHORIZATION OF ESEA (NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND) )
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,” was due for reauthorization in 2007, and the U.S. Congress has not reached a bipartisan agreement that will ensure passage to streamline existing federal requirements and allow states and local educational agencies to develop and implement policies that will best support students; and
WHEREAS, there are several significant aspects of ESEA that should be amended during the Act’s reauthorization, including the elimination of sanctions and unintended consequences; granting states and local educational agencies greater local flexibility; the elimination of federally mandated, annual standardized testing; and maintaining provisions of ESEA that support its original intent of supporting students with the greatest needs; and
WHEREAS, the nation’s future, social well-being and economic competitiveness relies on a high- quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship, and lifelong learning; and
WHEREAS, the over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools by hampering educators’ efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and deep subject-matter knowledge that will allow students to contribute and thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy; and
WHEREAS, it is widely recognized that high-stakes standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness, and the over-reliance on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing student’s love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving teachers out of the profession, and undermining school climate; and
WHEREAS, the San Diego Unified Vision 2020, long-term strategic plan, Quality Schools in Every Neighborhood, supports and provides for quality teaching, access to broad and challenging curriculum for all students, closing the achievement gap with high expectations for all, and is committed to using multiple formative measures of success that go beyond standardized achievement tests; and
WHEREAS, the ESEA Discussion Draft repeals the long-standing Title I Maintenance of Effort (MOE) and the Title IX General Provisions MOE requirement, and without them, state and local education funding could be lowered by states with no consequences to the state’s ongoing receipt of federal aid; and
WHEREAS, the ESEA Discussion Draft freezes funding for reauthorized programs for Fiscal Year 2016 through Fiscal Year 2021, eroding the investment of federal funding for public education that would result in reductions in services to student subgroups that require additional investments and support systems, including low-income, English learners, and students of color; and
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District calls on the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the “No Child Left Behind Act,” eliminate the federally- mandated, annual testing requirement in each of Grades 3 through 9, and at least once in Grades 9 through 12; promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability; and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District calls on the U.S. Congress to reinstate the current Maintenance of Effort requirements in ESEA to protect the integrity and benefits of federal ESEA programs; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District supports a ESEA reauthorization bill that provides states and local educational agencies with additional flexibility to design their own accountability systems, including how states identify schools that are under-performing and determine appropriate interventions or technical assistance to support student growth and achievement, and support the use of multiple measures and growth models of academic achievement that reflect a well-rounded education necessary for success in the 21st century; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District supports a ESEA reauthorization bill that provides school districts the flexibility and resources needed to respond to the educational challenges in local communities, and provides greater local flexibility in the use of ESEA funding for Titles I, II and III as states and school districts are in the best position to make spending decisions to facilitate local innovation and student achievement, without placing undue burdens on districts that would adversely impact effective governance; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District supports an ESEA reauthorization bill that eliminates the inflexible sanctions and prescriptive actions that currently result in more schools being identified as Program Improvement if one or more student subgroup misses Annual Yearly Progress, as without the sanctions, districts would have more flexibility to use Title I funds to develop and/or implement programs and services that have evidence of improving student outcomes and advancing academic progress of all student subgroups; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District calls on the U.S. Congress to remove the funding freeze for reauthorized ESEA programs that would severely cut services over the next six years, and urges the passage of a modernized version of ESEA that is fully supported by federal investments in Title I, which has been woefully underfunded for decades.
Adopted and approved by the Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District at the regular meeting held on the 10th day of February 2015.

Categories Education Industry, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Resistance, Testing

Democrats Preserve George W. Bush’s Legacy

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2015 //
13

The latest from Politico on NCLB reauthorization: Democrat Patty Murray saves annual testing. Wonder if George W. Bush, Margaret Spellings, Sandy Kress, and Pearson will thank her.

“GRADE-SPAN’S LAST GASP?: Now that Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray are working together [http://politico.pro/1zMZ2Zn ] on a No Child Left Behind bill, it’s all but certain that any deal will keep the federal annual testing mandate. Nonetheless, anti-testing advocates are more vocal than ever: Over the weekend, congressional education staffers’ inboxes were flooded with more than 1,000 emails sent by Save Our Schools New Jersey asking Congress to roll back the federal testing requirement and “stop using test scores to punish students, teachers and public schools.” Save Our Schools NJ volunteers told Morning Education that they didn’t intend to bother the aides. They had asked New Jerseyans to copy the aides on letters they were sending to their legislators and stopped once they realized the blunder. The fact that so many Garden State residents “contacted their federal legislators in one day,” the volunteers wrote in an email, “says a lot about how passionately people feel about the negative impact that high-stakes standardized testing is having.”

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

A Reader in Tennessee Writes to Every Member of the Senate HELP Committee about NCLB

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2015 //
14

I sent this to each Senate Committee member:

 

 

Dear Sen. xxxx
I am a TN educator and I’d like to ask that you consider some facts about public education reform in TN generally and the proliferation of charter schools in particular.

 

The testing & accountability measures in TN were written by ALEC and by for-profit entities that have an interest in privatizing public education.

 

The value-added model (TN version is TVASS), marketed as an indicator of teacher quality, is junk science according to the American Statistical Association and by a majority of independent researchers: The lit review is here:

 

http://vamboozled.com/recommended-reading/value-added-models/

 

How can an education system improve if Congress allows junk science to dictate the direction of our education system? Test scores are designed to sort & rank. Testing is not learning- it’s a tool that teachers know when & how to use. Congress doesn’t dictate to any other profession how to use the tools of their profession. Why should teaching be any different?

 

All around the country VAM & standardized test scores are being misused to close schools, disperse, destabilize poor communities, sort out high needs (e.g. expensive children in SPED or at-risk) and privatize. The Dept of Education is now promoting VAM junk-science for colleges of Education.

 

Accountability has been in short supply for TN’s charter authorizer Achievement School District (ASD) and for outside consultants sucking up our tax dollars for invalid teacher evaluations and useless standardized tests(e.g., TEAM/TAP was developed by convicted felon Michael Milken & his brother and has no valid research line to support it’s claims)

 

Here are some persistent problems with charter schools & education privatizaion that deserve greater accountability and compliance.

 

1. Increased Segregation

 

• The vast majority of high-poverty charters fail due to racial & socio-economic segregation. The high-poverty model has not met with success at a national level.

 

• The most comprehensive study of charter schools completed to date found that only 17% of charter schools outperformed comparable traditional pubic schools.83% of public schools are better than charters. New Orleans Charter Schools have the lowest ACT scores in the country.

 

• Many families now believe- as do virtually all leading colleges & universities- that racial, ethnic, & income diversity enriches classrooms.

 

• The main problem with American schools in not their teachers or their unions, but poverty & economic segregation.

 

Reference:

 

Kahlenberg (2013). From all walks of life: New hopes for school integration. American Educator. Winter 2012-2013, pp. 2 – 40.

 

2. Sanctioned Discrimination or Whose Choice?

 

• The first choice of most parents is to send their child to a high-quality neighborhood school; it is unclear how this bill supports that choice. In fact, we have seen how the rapid expansion of the charter sector has undermined neighborhood schools, drawing resources from them and at the same time expecting them to serve our most at-risk students. –

 

• Charters take public money yet have the legal status of private schools.

 

• Charter organizations have gone to court to protect themselves from educating & retaining ALL children.

 

• Charters discriminate against children with disabilities, children who do not test well, or who do not fit into inflexible discipline policies. Such children may be admitted to bolster enrollment but are expelled or counseled out after BEP funds are distributed, Public schools lose $6,000/child and face class overloads near testing time.

 

• Charters advertise ‘choice’ but overwhelmingly exclude parent voice.

 

• Parents have no legal recourse to challenge harmful charter school practices. Charters may legally ignore the key aspect of parent involvement: school level decision- making.

 

• Parents and the public are consistently misled about the community desires for a charter school. Charter waitlists cannot be confirmed and many records are slipshod.

 

• In New Orleans where all public schools have disappeared, the most difficult to teach children have been abandoned.

 

References:

Green, P. C., III, Baker, B. D., & Oluwole, J. O. (2013) Having it both ways: How charter schools try to obtain funding of public schools and the autonomy of private schools. Emory Law Journal, Vol. 63.303.

 

Parents Across America (PAA) http://parentsacrossamerica.org/parents-america-hr2218-%e2%80%9cempowering-parents-quality-charter-schools-act%e2%80%9d/#sthash.Ch0TKntq.dpuf

 

Welner, K. G. & Miron, G., (2014). Wait,wait. Don’t mislead me! Nine reasons to be skeptical about charter waitlist numbers. National Education Policy Center, University of Colorado, Boulder. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/charter-waitlists

 

Gabor, A. (2013) The great charter tryout. The Investigative Fund. http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1848/

 

What we support:

 

More community schools just like the highly successful Pond Gap in Knoxviile, TN.

 

To improve the schools we have, rather than shutting down or turning around traditional schools to make way for more charter schools.

 

All charter schools to have neighborhood boundaries and accept all children from within those boundaries whose parents choose to enroll their child at the charter school. Charter school enrollment processes should be consistent with and as simple as those of neighborhood public schools.

 

Charter schools should be held accountable for their enrollment, discipline, transfer, and other practices.

 

Charter schools and all other schools receiving public funds must be equally transparent and accountable to the public.

 

Finally, TN has a shameful 45% child poverty rate. My state has one of the highest rates of low wage & minimum wage jobs in the country. Our public schools in TN need resources- not privatization- to compensate for failed political & economic policies.

 

Thank-you for your work & consideration,

 

 

Joan Grim

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Tennessee, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

FairTest: Congress Moving Swiftly on NCLB Revision: Act Now

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2015 //
2

FairTest sent out a blast email to urge everyone to contact their Senator or Congressman before it is too late. This is an opportunity to reduce federal testing mandates. If we don’t act now, we will be stuck with NCLB testing every year for at least the next seven years:

 

 

Hi everyone.

 

Congress is moving swiftly.

 

The House plans a committee vote in the next two weeks followed by full House floor debate the last week of February. Education Committee Chairman John Kline supports testing every grade. Those of us who want grade-span testing and flexibility must over-ride Kline in committee or win a floor amendment. Rep. Gibson’s grade-span testing bill provides a vehicle.

 

In the Senate, the HELP committee is expected to act before the end of the month with the full Senate taking it up shortly after. Chair Alexander’s ‘option 1’ on assessment provides an vehicle, but he also has ‘option 2’ which retains every-grade testing.

 

In both cases, however, it will not be easy to win. Our only real chance is grassroots pressure.

 

Attached and below find our latest call for people to contact their Senators and Representatives (with link to do so).

 

If you have not yet shared this with your people, please do so. If you already have, please do it again next week. As we know, people often miss their email messages, say they will get to it later then don’t, etc. In other words, repeated asks is the way to go.

 

Thanks,

Monty Neill

 
Dear Friends,

You can help stop Congress from reauthorizing a No Child Left Behind law that locks in another decade of testing overkill. Email your U.S. Senators and Representative today.

 

Tell them to scale back standardized testing to once each in elementary, middle and high school and end punitive sanctions. With strong grassroots pressure, we can win. So write now!

 

Congress’ decision will control what states and districts can do for years to come. Your voice is needed to put policy makers on a better track.

 

Washington, D.C. is acting quickly. Bills will move in both House and Senate in the next few weeks. That leaves very little time.

 

Send your email now!

 

Thank you,

 

Monty Neill, Executive Director

FairTest

The complete link is http://www.fairtest.org/roll-back-standardized-testing-send-letter-congres

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing
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