Portland parents, if you want to learn more about the person who is going to be your next school superintendent, please contact Ed Johnson, a watchdog over the Atlanta Public Schools.
Edward Johnson: edwjohnson@aol.com
Archives for category: Oregon
In a hotly contested race, a former principal of a KIPP charter school is running for a seat on the Portland, Oregon, school board. The website of the candidate, Jamila Singleton Munson, does not mention her role in the KIPP corporate chain or the fact that she was chief of staff for Teach for America. Apparently she is still employed by TFA. TFA has a branch–Leaders for Educational Equity–that encourages and funds its personnel to run for office, as part of its plan to dominate state and local school boards.
Munson’s resume demonstrates she’s part of the country’s education-reform movement that generally supports school choice and charter schools as well as the use of test scores to measure acceptability for schools. Teachers unions generally oppose those approaches.
Steve Buel dropped out of the race. Rita Moore is the pro-public school candidate.
http://www.mooreforschools.com
Will Portland elect a public school advocate or an advocate for privatization of its public schools?
The Oregon legislature passed a bill requiring audits of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests (SBAC), the tests of the Common Core standards funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
The Oregon chapter of Parents Across America conducted its audit and determined that the tests are outrageously expensive in money and time. And, while so much attention is devoted to testing, the opportunity to spend time and money wisely and well are lost.
Here is a small sample:
Actual invoice costs of SBAC
Former Deputy Superintendent Rob Saxton has been quoted as saying the actual dollar amount spent on SBAC is anywhere from $12 million to $27 million dollars, a sizable increase over the previously administered OAKS test said to have cost $7 million. What is the true dollar amount spent on SBAC for each of the years the test has been given in the state of Oregon? Include the per pupil cost of the test itself, proctoring, grading, retesting, communicating results, and in addition, itemize other cost directly related to the test.
What is the cost of resource materials purchased for both teachers and students to support SBAC?
What is the actual dollar amount spent to train teachers on how to proctor the test? Include any “professional development” that teachers are required to participate in to administer the tests.
What is the cost of substitute teachers for the test-related hours (days) classroom teachers were out of class?
In January, 2016, OEA president Hannah Vaandering told Symposium attendees that the SBAC was neither valid nor reliable, but the consortium had been invited back to “fix” that. How much does the fix cost? If such a thing can be fixed, how much has the state been billed? Was the test fixed before it was given in the 2015-2016 school year? If not, what is the cost of giving an invalid test?
Skyrocketing Technology Costs
What are the technology costs related to SBAC testing? How much is spent on computers to support testing?
Computer labs and entire libraries are dedicated to SBAC during testing season at many schools. What is the cost in lost learning when students can’t have access to books and the Internet because of weeks and months of testing?
There seems to always be money for technology and software when there is money for little else. Is the testing culture dictating school and district spending? How do we calculate the opportunity costs related to the favored testing agenda?
Poverty, Race, Cultural Bias, and Pushouts (Suspensions and Expulsions)
The Impact of Poverty, Race, and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity (July 2015) (PAA) presents data that exposes the price children pay when standardized test scores are the key measurement of success.
The basis of standardized testing is embedded in eugenics and is unfairly biased against students of color. (More than a Score) by Jesse Hagopian.) How do you put a price tag on that?
The correlation between poverty and school achievement cannot be denied. Numerous studies show that providing children with the necessities of life including housing, food stability, and healthcare are imperative to assure success at school. Covering the cost of these services to level the “testing field” seems to be a fair and logical step in assuring that all students are prepared for success at school. Should those costs be considered?
Testing has not closed the “achievement gap” between African American and white students. Since the mantra of the USDOE/ODE has consistently been that rigorous standardized testing is needed to close the achievement or opportunity gap, when do we finally stop and say, “Enough is enough! We will not waste another cent on this folly.” SBAC is not valid, reliable, or fair. Over 100 Education Researchers Sign Statement Calling for Moratorium on High-Stakes Testing, (SBAC/California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education.)
Rebelling against the test curriculum results in many more students being suspended or expelled from school. The number of kindergarten suspensions has skyrocketed — especially for African American boys. Wages lost and the cost of alternative childcare arrangements is an extra cost that parents cannot afford and is directly related to the testing curriculum.
High school students who do not pass the SBAC are more likely to drop out of school. The cost of completing a GED or attaining further future education can be attributed to punitive standardized tests.
Inane standardized testing policies have contributed to a school-to-prison pipeline culture. The costs of incarceration amounts to much more than properly educating a child. This cost may be an unintended consequence of SBAC, but it is a cost related to the test nonetheless.
The Oregon state legislature passed a law permitting parents to opt their children out of state tests.
The state Department of Education is not happy. It sent out a form to parents interesting in opting out. Before signing the form, they must read a warning that parents will lose access to valuable information about their child and may harm their child’s school.
An article by Betsy Hammond in The Oregonian captures the parents’ reaction:
The portion of the form that has testing opponents most livid are the two sentences above the line where a parent must put their signature to get their child out of testing:
“I understand that by signing this form I may lose valuable information about how well my child is progressing in English language arts and math. In addition, opting out may impact my school and district’s efforts to equitably distribute resources and support student learning.”
Steve Buel, a Portland school board member who is a leader in the anti-testing group Oregon Save Our Schools, called the forms “maliciously misleading.”
Opt Out parents don’t like to be intimidated or condescended to.
This parent predicts:
As in other states, Oregon will start to see building principals, district administrators, superintendents stepping forward about the harmful effects of high-stakes testing. School board members, teachers, specialists, parents, and students have been speaking up, and the numbers continue to grow. ODE adding that phrase above the signature is not only misleading, it’s obnoxious, and on the wrong side of history.
Despite pressure from the big spenders at Stand for Children and other titans of corporate reform, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed the legislation allowing parents to opt out of state tests.
Federal officials had warned that the bill, which also reduces the consequences for schools where many students skip tests, could lead the federal government to withhold millions in federal education funding.
House Bill 2655, which was strongly backed by the Oregon Education Association, prioritizes the rights of parents to exempt their children from that one aspect of public schooling over the desire of school accountability proponents to get complete reading and math test results for all students each year.
But Brown said she wants Oregon educators to make the case to parents that taking part in state tests is valuable so that they will opt for their children to keep taking the exams.
The new law means that, beginning next spring, schools will have to notify every family at least 30 days before state testing begins about what the tests will cover, how long they will take and when results will be delivered. Those notices will also tell parents they can exempt their child from the tests for any reason.
Friends in Oregon: Forget the governor’s misgivings! Opt out is the best tool you have to protect your children from the current national mania for standardized testing. Opting out will curb the overuse and misuse of standardized testing. Former Texas state commissioner of education Robert Scott memorably said in 2012 that the educational industrial complex was out of control and that testing was “the heart of the vampire”
He also said:
The assessment and accountability regime has become not only a cottage industry but a military-industrial complex. And the reason that you’re seeing this move toward the “common core” is there’s a big business sentiment out there that if you’re going to spend $600-$700 billion a year in public education, why shouldn’t be one big Boeing, or Lockheed-Grumman contract where one company can get it all and provide all these services to schools across the country.
I mean, that’s really what you’re looking at. We’re operating like a business.
The BATs of Oregon and Washington State are joining together to protest Pearson and high-stakes standardized testing on Tuesday. The timing is right since the Oregon Legislature just passed a bill allowing parents to opt their children out of state testing, and Governor Kate Brown is deciding whether to sign it (and the corporate privatizers are rallying to persuade her to veto). Help the parents and children by contacting Governor Brown; from her bio, she seems to be genuinely concerned about children and families. If she is, she will sign the legislation.
Join the Oregon and Washington State BATs Protest Pearson in Portland
#Tested2Death Rally June 23rd
Meet at Shemanski Park (Portland, Oregon) 10:30 a.m. then march to Hilton Executive Tower
Rally will be from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
“Stand for Children” was once a civil rights group; it once advocated for more funding and for programs to help children. Then it was taken over by the corporate reform movement and became outspoken against unions and teachers. The budget surged into the millions, due to its new-found friends (the Gates Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and friends from Bain Capital). In Illinois, it bought up all the top lobbyists to push through a bill to limit teachers’ rights and prevent teachers in Chicago from striking. Stand’s founder, Jonah Edelman, boasted about his success in beating the unions and was videotaped doing so at the Aspen Institute (here is the videotape). (He later apologized for what he said but not for what he did.) In Massachusetts, Stand threatened an expensive referendum to eliminate teachers’ job rights and won.
Many of its original friends left the organization because they did not like its alignment with the forces seeking privatization of public education and demonization of teachers. Some now call the group “Stand ON Children.”
In Oregon, parents and teachers fought hard for a bill to establish the right of parents to opt their children out of state testing. The bill was passed by the Legislature and is now heading for the Governor’s desk for her signature.
Stand for Children has been lobbying and campaigning to persuade Oregon Governor Kate Brown to veto the bill. They wrap themselves in the mantle of “it’s all about the kids” and “it’s all about disadvantaged kids,” to attack the right of parents to say no to abusive high-stakes testing.
If you are a parent or educator or student in Oregon, let Governor Brown hear from you.
Despite the pressure exerted by the U.S. Department of Education and threats to cut off federal funding, the Oregon legislature passed a strong opt out bill, protecting parental rights.
From: Oregon Education Association
Oregon Senate passes HB2655–first step on path to a better way
Senate Passes “Student Assessment Bill of Rights”
Today the Oregon Senate overwhelmingly passed HB 2655 (24-6) — one of the strongest bills in the nation to support all students and parents on statewide standardized assessments. The bill establishes the Student Assessment Bill of Rights which requires assessment transparency by giving students:
the right to know the purpose of statewide assessments and how the results will be used
when exactly the assessments will be administered
the amount of class time required for the assessment
the learning targets that make up the assessment
how students can self-assess and track their own progress
when the results will be made available
and who will have access to the student’s testing data and how the data will be used
HB 2655 also establishes one of the most parent friendly opt-out provisions in the nation by ensuring that every parent has easy access to information about statewide assessments and how to exercise their right to determine if sitting for the statewide standardized assessment is in the best interest of their child.
More importantly, the legislation brings us one step closer to our ultimate goal–a system where parents, students and teachers are “all-in” instead of wanting to “opt-out.” We have already been working with educators and education leaders across the state to begin to map out a better path for student assessments that focuses on inspiring a love of learning. To learn more about how you can get involved, click here.
This is a huge victory for students and parents, and we’re proud of all the work you did to pass HB 2655 –this bill would not have become law without your commitment to improving public education in Oregon.
The U.S. Department of Education has threatened to withhold funding from the state of Oregon if a bill passes allowing parents to opt out of Common Core testing.
“PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The U.S. Department of Education has sent the state of Oregon a letter, threatening to pull federal funding if Oregon lawmakers pass a bill making it easier for parents to opt out their children from standardized tests.
“The state could lose more than $140-million a year if the bill passes, maybe up to $325-million. Representative Lew Frederick is a supporter of the bill. He says losing funding has always been a thought but he tells KOIN 6 News, Oregon isn’t the only state fighting standardized testing.
“The bill doesn’t say get rid of the test.” said Frederick. “The bill says simply, here is a procedure for opting out of the test if parents come forward and want to opt out, that’s all it says.”
This money represents funding for the neediest students in the state.
The only time in the past that the Feds made similar threats was in the 1960s, when districts refused to desegregate, pursuant to federal law and court orders. Who imagined that the day would come when the ED would threaten to cut off funding if a state allowed parents to refuse the tests?
The school board of Springfield, Oregon, may propose a moratorium on the Smarter Balanced Assessment. In other words, the whole district may opt out.
State officials have warned the district it may lose state and federal funds, in a blatant attempt to intimidate the elected officials of the district.
“Board member Jonathan Light proposed a motion at a meeting earlier this week that would place a moratorium on the more challenging tests, called Smarter Balanced. Light, who is a music teacher in the Pleasant Hill School District, said he determined that the computerized tests “are not good for kids.”
“Not good for kids” is a good reason not to do it.
““There’s a whole lot of agreement about not liking this test,” said Light, citing concerns for students who don’t have access to computers at home to practice the tests. He criticized the state Department of Education for requiring students to take the test when state officials predict that 70 percent are expected to fail.
The five-member Springfield board is currently the only one in the state to consider such action. The board is expected to discuss the topic again at an April 27 planning meeting and may vote on the motion at a later date.
In addition to placing a moratorium on the tests, Light also proposed that the district create a committee to study the tests and the Common Core State Standards to “either accept, modify or introduce an alternative testing system that would directly serve our students and satisfy state requirements.”
“I think it is a risk, but hopefully other boards would step up,” he said.
“We could really change things,” he added….”
“Some parents have criticized the tests because they say students are not prepared to take them, and younger students don’t have the keyboarding skills to type their answers. Some parents and teachers say the tests give school districts incentive to focus more on reading, writing and math — topics students are tested on — rather than a more well-rounded education that includes, for example, the arts.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 