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Should Children Eat Tests? Or Should Pearson?

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
23

Jason Stanford wrote a blistering critique of the misuse of testing in Texas and Sandy Kress responded. Sandy Kress was the architect of No Child Left Behind, which imposed a testing regime on the entire nation. Kress is now a lobbyist for testing giant Pearson.

Stanford summarized his original column, called “Let Them Eat Tests,” as follows:

  1. Texas taxpayers are paying Pearson $470 million for the STAAR test.
  2. Sandy Kress, the father of No Child Left Behind, lobbies for Pearson in Texas.
  3. The school taxes I pay fund a system that corrupts the classroom experience for my two sons who attend an elementary school in Austin by requiring them to learn test-taking skills to pass Sandy Kress’ tests.
  4. Sandy Kress, enriched in very small part by my tax dollars, chooses to send his children to private schools where they don’t have to take his standardized tests.

Kress took this as a personal attack, as well as an attack on the concept on the value of testing and accountability. Read his response. In fact, read the whole exchange. It is a very thorough airing of important issues that concern every state and every citizen these days.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Pearson, Testing, Texas

Pearson Wields Undue Power in Britain Too

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2012 //
6

A recent article in the Guardian explores how the publishing giant Pearson commands the education world in Britain.

Pearson not only sells textbooks and testing, but also owns Britain’s biggest national examination system, which is operated for profit.

But that’s not all.

Pearson is now promoting itself as a policy studies outfit and think tank, studying the problems of British education and offering solutions. In whose interest, one wonders.

And of course it is developing a model school with a computer-based curriculum called the “Always Learning Gateway,” covering 11 subject areas. It is being tried out for free but will eventually be offered for profit.

Pearson is preparing a report on which the English examination system is promoting high standards and positioning Britain to be a global leader.

“Alasdair Smith, national secretary of the Anti Academies Alliance, which is critical of corporate influence in education, says: “This stuff frightens the life out of me. My concern is that business dictates the nature of education, and especially the aims of education, when it should be one voice among others.”

“Ball says private influence does not stop at Pearson. He mentions McKinsey, the management consultant that has published two widely cited international reports on successful education systems, as evidence of companies’ incursion into policymaking. Sir Michael Barber, Tony Blair’s former education standards guru, was an author of both McKinsey reports. He now works for Pearson.

“Last month, it was reported that ministers want to “outsource” some policymaking to companies, consultants and thinktanks in a bid to scale down the civil service.”

The British government, it seems, is outsourcing education policy to the nation’s largest vendor of education products and services.

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, International, On-Line Education, Pearson, Testing

Common Core Standards: A Boon for Edu-Biz

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2012 //
15

Whether the Common Core standards are good or bad, one thing that is clear is that they have opened up multiple opportunities for entrepreneurs.

The textbook industry is retooling, at least adding stickers that say their products are aligned with the Common Core.

Pearson is developing a complete curriculum package in mathematics and reading, for almost every grade, assisted by the Gates Foundation. Children in some district will be able to take their lessons from Pearson products from the isearliest years right through to high school graduation.

Consultants are standing by, ready to sell products and services to school districts.

Here is one interesting list of what is available. There are many more.

What is happening now was not unexpected. Indeed, it is the intended result, it was planned for, hoped for, envisioned.

Joanne Weiss, who helped design Race to the Top and is now chief of staff to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, described the plan:

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

Weiss spent many years as an edu-entrpreneur, engaged in the design, development and marketing of products for the education industry.

We don’t know yet whether Common Core standards will improve the education of America’s children. But of this we can be sure: They will be good for the education industry.

Diane

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Obama, Pearson, Race to the Top, U.S. Department of Education

Pearson Helps the Poor

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2012 //
7

Pearson, the all-encompassing media giant that dominates education publishing, plans to open $3-a-month private schools for children of the poor in Africa and Asia. According to Sir Michael Barber, who advises Pearson, there really is no point depending on government when private entrepreneurs can supply education at low cost far more efficiently.

I suppose the goal is to get the business up and running, then get government to foot the bill as it outsources education to Pearson.

Maybe it makes sense to have a private company providing basic education in a country that can’t or won’t, though there must certainly be some questions raised about the cultural, political, and ideological content of the education that is provided. What kind of teachers will be hired for these $3-a-month schools? Will they be teachers or computer monitors?

Is this actually the same plan that has been developed for the U.S. under a different guise?

Categories Education Reform, Pearson

Pearsonizing Our Children

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2012 //
3

On Tuesday, I posted a blog at Bridging Differences (Education Week) called “The Pearsonizing of the American Mind.”

The title was a reference to Allan Bloom’s bestselling book of the 1980s, The Closing of the American Mind. His book referred to the insidious ways that popular culture interferes with the goals of liberal education. My article described the ways in which one giant corporation was taking control of the education “industry,” through testing, online instruction, ownership of the GED program, online charter schools, and proprietary control of instructional materials for the Common Core. Truly, the reach of Pearson across all of American education is astonishing.

As often happens, I got many wonderful comments. This one came from a regular reader who (from the moniker) is a chemistry teacher:

Yes, our focus has to be on the “locus of control”. Pearson and Gates goal in testing isn’t to improve education outcomes; it’s to increase market control. For corporate reformers, holding districts, schools, teachers and children (yes, children!) “accountable” means having the legal power to take control of them, and run them for their own purposes. Yes, we’ve politically given actual legal authority over our children’s minds to the same monopolists who crashed our finance system. The price isn’t just the damage of the testing, though. Now that they own our public schools, the corporatists have removed many unprofitable costs. Brick and mortar buildings, breathing teachers, playgrounds and libraries, are now all hopelessly out of the reach of many children. With the advent of the common core and the “revolution” of online delivery of proprietary learning materials, our children can sit home in front of a screen, not even moving around the room, and be assessed by computer programs aligned to the one true Core. We’ll have Pearsonized their minds, their lives, and their bodies. Here is one true example of the cost we contemplate: “She’s pretty typical. She is a very sedentary child, has been for a long time, really has no experience with activity, no way to think about being active. She’s relatively socially isolated, doesn’t really have very many social opportunities. She’s homeschooled. She has a number of medical problems, in addition to her diabetes.” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june12/diabetes_06-06.html

We must worry about what we are doing to our children, our society and our future as we drift along into a world we did not make and do not want.

Diane

Categories Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Pearson, Testing

Parents Vs. Goliath

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2012 //
3

This morning, parent groups in New York City are leading a protest against high-stakes testing at the headquarters of Pearson. They call their action “a field trip against field tests.” It happens to be a professional development day, so many parents plan to bring their children. Half a dozen different parent groups are coordinating their plans. Among other planned highlights of the demonstration, there will be a marching band!

They hope to inspire parents in other cities and across the nation.

The parents are demonstrating against the Pearson field tests that will be administered in schools across the city and the state this month, wasting another day of instruction to help develop test items for future tests. Pearson needs the field tests for its purposes but the parents don’t want to see more time spent on testing to prepare for more testing.

Yesterday parent activists discovered that Pearson had created a Facebook page called “Parents Kids & Testing.” They began bombarding the site with their comments, which disappeared as soon as they were posted. One parent wrote that her comment was still up, after thirty-six minutes, “maybe they are sleeping,” but soon wrote to say that it was gone. Soon there was a contest to rename the Pearson Facebook page, and one suggestion was “The Black Hole,” to identify the fact that any dissident comments would soon be gone. So many of the Parent Voices continued the game, posting their comments of outrage and watching a faceless person on Facebook delete them.

Another parent soon made the connection from Pearson to Students First, and she recounted her Twitter exchange with that group, which was purposely confusing “learner-centered” education (computer instruction) with “child-centered” education (engagement of the teacher with children’s individual needs and interests).

“Is it wrong that I’m a little excited to have more Pearson b.s. to debunk?
In a similar vein, I just picked a fight with @studentsfirst on Twitter re an article they Tweeted on “learner-centered” education. Not to be confused with CHILD-centered education, which presupposes the humanity of both the student and the teacher, learner-centered education replaces teachers with computers that can deliver “individualized” content. http://gettingsmart.com/news/digital-learning-is-critical-for-move-to-learner-centered-instruction/ I mean….REALLY? How could I not?

What does all this mean? It means that parents–the sleeping giant–have been awakened. If their movement against high-stakes testing continues to build, the conversation will change. They will not sit idly by as their children’s education is sacrificed to the insatiable need for more and more testing, producing more and more data, and less and less education.
Diane
Categories Parent Groups, Pearson, Testing

A Solution to the Testing Mania

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2012 //
23

The popular rising against high-stakes testing grows larger every day.

In Texas, more than 500 school boards have endorsed a resolution opposing high-stakes testing.

A coalition of organizations and individuals prepared a national resolution against high-stakes testing. Hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals have signed it. (Please add your name.)

Florida parents are up in arms against the FCAT. Even editorial boards are beginning to see the sham perpetrated on students using tests of dubious quality.

Parent groups around the country are organizing to resist, as they see the unnecessary pressure applied to their children. The issue is personal, not theoretical. They may not have read the policy briefs, but they see their own children spending weeks preparing for the state tests, weeks in which there is no instruction, just test prep. Parents know this is wrong.

In New York City, parents are planning a public protest on June 7 at the headquarters of testing behemoth Pearson. Their immediate grievance is the field tests in June, which Pearson needs for its R&D but which steals away yet another day of instruction. But their underlying grievance is with the whole lockstep top-down regime of high-stakes testing, which distorts the meaning of education.

All of this is happening because our elected and appointed leaders are in love with accountability. For accountability, they need data. They will use the data to rank students, to rate teachers, to grade schools, and then to apply sanctions and–in rare circumstances–rewards (but there is little or no money for the rewards). Based on test scores, some teachers will be fired. Some principals will be fired. Some schools will be closed. Students will learn that they are not as good as other students. Schools will get a letter grade. Everyone will be ranked, rated, graded.

And this whole structure rests on the standardized tests.

Folks, the tests were not designed for high-stakes purposes. And they are not good enough to bear the weight now placed upon them.

The basic rule of psychometrics is this: Tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed.

That rule is violated every time a student is flunked, a teacher is fired, a principal is fired, or a school is closed, based on test scores.

Tests should be used to help, not to punish or reward.

So, as the title of my blog promises, I have a solution.

All of this will end if we do this one simple thing.

Insist that all policymakers, think tank gurus, academic experts, and politicians who believe so passionately in standardized tests do this:

Take the tests in reading and mathematics and publish your scores.

Do not demand for other people’s children what you are not willing to do yourself.

Take the tests and publish your scores.

Say that. Say it whenever they praise the tests. Say it whenever they impose them on your children.

And watch what happens.

Diane

Categories Pearson, Testing

NY State Ed Dept: Lie to Students

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2012 //
16

As you may know, there has been growing parent dissatisfaction about the amount of testing that their children are subjected to.

initially, the tests and test prep increased because officials wanted to measure student growth on tests.

Then, the testing increased because officials want to measure teacher quality.

From the vantage of parents, the school day and year are increasingly devoted to testing, not teaching.

Just weeks ago, students sat for the annual spring testing. Now, in New York state, there will be testing in June, but this time it will be a field test, part of the testing company’s trials of its test items.

When parents got wind that there would be more tests in June, and that the tests were for the benefit of Pearson, several parent groups began organizing boycotts. After all, neither the school nor the teachers would be penalized if students didn’t take the field tests, so it is an opportune time to opt out and make a statement.

Last week, the New York State Education Department sent out a memo instructing teachers that they must not tell students that the June tests are field tests. They must pretend that it is a real test.

Parents were aghast that the State Education Department would tell teachers to lie to students.

I’m beginning to sense a trend. Once the public understands that all this testing is counter-productive, that it steals time from instruction, that it has become an end and not a means, the game will change. The bureaucrats are hunkering down. But once the tide turns, there will be no going back.

Diane

Categories New York, Pearson, Testing

Why Do We Spend So Much on Testing?

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2012 //
10

A parent in Texas wrote to say that she couldn’t understand why the state was paying Pearson $100 million a year while laying off teachers. She’s right. This is crazy. She pointed out that in addition to the direct cost of the state testing, schools and districts now had to pay people whose sole job is the care and feeding of the testing monster. One district is hiring a testing coordinator for each of its five high schools, More money diverted from the classroom. At the same time the cost of testing grows, the budget for public education shrinks.

She sent me this article from an Austin newspaper: http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/educators-parents-fight-testing-system. Sandy Kress, who was the architect of NCLB and is now a lobbyist for Pearson, strongly defended the testing system, saying that young people would be closed out of good jobs if they didn’t take all those tests.

Now, be it noted that this claim is utterly false. Students in independent schools (such as the one that Kress’ own children attend) do not take all those tests and they presumably will not be shut out of the good jobs in the future. http://jasonstanford.org/2012/05/the-lone-staar-rebellion/

Furthermore, there is no reason to assert that taking state tests prepares anyone for good jobs in the future. Where is the logical connection? How does testing prepare you to get a better job? The testing regime now in force penalizes students who exhibit imagination or divergent thinking. Entire generations of Americans have gotten good jobs without being subjected to test prep and annual high-stakes testing.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/11/art5full.pdf, p. 88), most new jobs will not require a college degree.

And where is the evidence that taking all those state tests is the best way to prepare for college? Again, none of the children who attend elite independent schools take those tests and they seem to have a high rate of success in gaining admission to selective colleges and universities.

Really, the test salespeople and lobbyists for the testing industry have sold the American people a bill of goods. Either we buy their product, and more of it, and pay them for prep materials, and pay them for test security, and pay test coordinators, or no one will get a good job in the future.

Don’t believe it.

Diane

Categories Pearson, Testing, Texas

A Parent Chooses

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2012 //
6

This is one of the best stories I have read in days.

Here is an example of a parent who said “enough is enough.”

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/11/a-request-to-make-the-pearson-tests-public/?partner=rss&emc=rss
This parent filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that the Pearson tests be released for public review.
He is right. Why should this company and this state have the power to make decisions about our children (and my grandchildren) without showing us what their criteria are?
I say to him, “Thank you!”
It’s time for parents to stand up and stop this top-down controlling of children and misuse of testing.
Standardized tests have their place as diagnostic tools. They have their place, used sparingly, for information purposes.
But they are being overused and misused.
Parents, say no.
Diane
Categories Parent Groups, Pearson, Testing
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