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Yong Zhao and William McDiarmid: Time to Rethink Standardized Testing

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2021 //
13

Two friends got together to address an important topic for readers of the blog. Yong Zhao is a much-published international scholar based at the University of Kansas. Bill McDiarmid is Dean Emeritus of the College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

They write:

COVID-19 has disrupted schooling in its traditional sense. It has also disrupted other school related activities such as state standardized testing. As schools return to “normal” thanks to vaccination, many states are already pushing to resume standardized testing as part of the “normal” operations of formal education and to assess the so-called “learning loss” (Zhao, 2021). Resuming standardized testing is perhaps one of the worst things that can happen to children, especially after more than a year of social isolation and unprecedented disruption.

Standardized testing in schools has been criticized repeatedly for multiple reasons. A decade and a half ago, Sharon Nichols and David Berliner clearly articulate the damage to American education caused by standardized tests in their book, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). Dan Koretz has cited mounting evidence to show that test-based accountability has failed to significantly improve student performance in his recent book The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better(Koretz, 2017). State-mandated high-stakes testing has led educators and educational authorities to cheat, reduced education to a narrow band of the knowledge spectrum, demoralized educators, and failed to significantly close the opportunity and results gaps that marginalized students and their families continue to endure (Emler, Zhao, Deng, Yin, & Wang, 2019; Tienken & Zhao, 2013).

The negative impact of standardized testing on students cannot be overstated. First, testing discourages many students, especially historically marginalized students who may not do well on the tests for reasons outside their control. These students, primarily because of where they happen to live, have performed worse on standardized tests than their counterparts from wealthier, suburban, and mostly white neighborhoods. The results, then, are often used to hold them back or relegate them to remediation. Consequently, they miss opportunities to participate in more meaningful activities that could nurture their talents, interests, and, thus, their engagement with school.

Second, standardized testing for each grade is designed to measure students learning for that year in school. The learning thought to be measured for a given year, however, may be less important than other knowledge, skills, and dispositions students may have developed that will serve them better in their lives.  For example, although students may have not mastered certain mathematical formulae measured on the state test, they may have improved their talents, curiosity, confidence, or collaborative skills which are valuable in life (Zhao, 2018). Opportunities to build these essential skills may be rare. Mathematical formulae, on the other hand, can be retrieved online as needed. Assessment in education has been heavily focused on short-term instructional outcomes and knowledge while largely ignoring non-cognitive skills and skills needed to be life-long learners. In a world in which workers will be changing jobs four or five times and established industries will die out and new ones arise, students will need the skills suited to frequent self-reinvention.

Third, standardized testing has typically focused on two subjects: literacy and numeracy. Other subjects and domains of knowledge have been slighted or ignored. Equally important it fails to offer students opportunities to demonstrate their learning in activities and domains that are of greatest importance to them and in which they may excel. As a result, although testing results show students’ talent in taking tests in mathematics and language, it says nothing about students’ strengths and their potential to be not only good but, potentially, excellent at whatever are their innate talents and interests (Zhao, 2016). Many examples exist in multiple areas of human achievement of people who tested poorly in school but made extraordinary contributions to our world. Testing does nothing to further educators’ efforts to deploy strength-based practices that encourage and support interest-driven learners. 

After years of criticism from many students, families, and educators, and exposure of the corrupting and distorting effects of high-stakes testing, many policymakers, educational authorities, and members of the public cling to test-based accountability. Although ESEA has reduced testing requirements, the change is minimal. U.S. students may face fewer tests than a decade ago but, except for the pandemic period, students are still over-tested.  

Some argue that testing is necessary to figure out if school systems are addressing the persistent failure to justly serve marginalized students and communities. This could be accomplished, however, without high-stakes consequences for schools, educators, students, and families. We can also imagine assessments that place as much emphasis on the skills needed for the rapidly evolving world of work as on the legacy curriculum subjects. According to the World Bank, McKinsey, the OECD, and other crystal-ball-gazingorganizations, if students are to succeed in the future, these include creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, as well as non-cognitive skills such as persistence, teamwork, and conscientiousness.  Some researchers are currently testing surveys that provide reliable data on these skills (STEP, 2014).  

In line with “never waste a crisis,” the current moment of disruption is the time for us to radically rethink our addiction to high-stakes assessments. It won’t be easy. Many are heavily invested in the testing status quo. At the very least, we need a conversation that includes the voices of all concerned – students, educators, families, communities, and policymakers.  

References:

Emler, T. E., Zhao, Y., Deng, J., Yin, D., & Wang, Y. (2019). Side Effects of Large-Scale Assessments in Education. ECNU Review of Education, 2(3), 279-296. 

Koretz, D. (2017). The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Manyika, J., Lund, S., Chui, M., Bughin, J., Woetzel, J., Batra, P., . . . Sanghvi, S. (2017, November 28). Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages. McKinsey Global Institute.Retrieved 03/25/21 from:https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages

Nichols, S. L., & Berliner, D. C. (2007). Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

STEP skills measurement surveys : innovative tools for assessing skills (English). Social protection and labor discussion paper, no. 1421. Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group. Retrieved 03/25/21 from: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/516741468178736065/STEP-skills-measurement-surveys-innovative-tools-for-assessing-skills

Tienken, C. H., & Zhao, Y. (2013). How Common Standards and Standardized Testing Widen the Opportunity Gap. In P. L. Carter & K. G. Welner (Eds.), Closing the Opportunity Gap: What America Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance (pp. 113-122). New York: Oxford University Press.

Zhao, Y. (2016). From Deficiency to Strength: Shifting the Mindset about Education Inequality. Journal of Social Issues, 72(4), 716-735. 

Zhao, Y. (2018). What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Zhao, Y. (2021). Build back better: Avoid the learning loss trap. Prospects, 1-5.

Yong Zhao

Foundation Distinguished Professor

School of Education and Human Sciences

University of Kansas

Professor in Educational Leadership

Melbourne Graduate School of Education

University of Melbourne

and


G. Williamson McDiarmid

Dean Emeritus

College of Education

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil

Categories Accountability, Research, Standardized Testing

Gayle Greene: The Country Moves Forward, the Schools Remain Mired in the Past

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2021 //
24

Gayle Green is a professor emeritus at Scripps College. In this post, she rages about the stupidity of the Biden testing mandate. In other areas of American life, we learn from our mistakes and move forward. But our policymakers are stuck in the past, so in love with failed ideas that they can’t let go of them.

She writes:

There’s hope in the air, a scent of spring, anticipation of change, democracy may pull through. Why, then, with K-12 public schools, the broken promise, the dismay?

Biden raised hopes when he promised, Dec 16, 2019, that he’d “commit to ending the use of standardized testing in public schools,” saying (rightly) that “teaching to a test underestimates and discounts the things that are most important for students to know.” Yet on Feb 22, his Department of Education did an about-face, announcing, “we need to understand the impact COVID-19 has had on learning …parents need information on how their children are doing.”

How the children are doing? They’re struggling, that’s how, doing their best, and so are teachers and parents. And it’s the least advantaged who are struggling the most, who, in the transition to online teaching, are likeliest to be without access to the internet, whose families are most vulnerable to loss of jobs, health care, lives. Now this? It costs $1.7 billion to administer these tests, but the toll on kids— the tears, terrors, alienation— is incalculable.

Most people have no idea what a blight these exams are, how they’ve stripped K-12 curricula of civics, history, literature, the arts, languages, even the sciences. Since schools live or die on the basis of test scores, what does not get tested does not get taught, and education is reduced to a mindless drill of math and English skills. No wonder kids come out of school wanting never to read another book, knowing nothing about science, the past, how to read their world. No wonder teachers are leaving in droves; the teacher shortage was dire even before the pandemic. When Betsy DeVos waived these tests last spring, teachers were so relieved that some said it had been worth the move online, to have 6-8 weeks liberated for teaching.

The high-stakes standardized testing regime began with George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002). The program arrived in a cloud of rhetoric about “access” and “civil rights,” describing itself as “an act to close the achievement gap… so that no child is left behind.” NCLB was, by 2009, an acknowledged failure, but the Obama administration took it over, renaming it Race to the Top, and requiring that states adopt, as a condition for federal funds, the Common Core State Standards, a set of national standards nailed into place in 2010 by the billions and boosterism of Bill Gates. Gates promised that the Core would “unleash powerful market forces,” which it did, and would level the playing field, which it did not.

And how could it? The only thing testing has ever done for the disadvantaged is to communicate a message of failure and lay waste to public schools. What test scores measure is family income; they correlate so closely that there’s a term for it—the zip code effect. When test scores have shown “low performance,” schools have been closed by the hundreds, mainly in low-income, minority neighborhoods, and replaced with privately-run, profit-generating charters.

Despite twenty years of failure, despite the waste of time and money, the standardized testing must go on. More broken promises.

Open the link and read the rest of the post.

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

Kevin Welner: Parents Thrilled with Return of Testing!

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2021 //
7

Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center and professor of education at the University of Colorado in Boulder, writes here about the “testing pods” created by enthusiastic parents. Welner recently published a book of satirical essays called Potential Grizzlies.

Parents Rush to Form “Testing Pods”

Throughout the nation, anxious parents are worried that the pandemic will prevent their children from being sufficiently subjected this spring to the usual battery of state assessments. Some of these parents are taking the initiative and forming “testing pods” with neighbors and friends.

The pods typically include a testing proctor hired by the parents, who is tasked with ensuring that the students sit still, don’t interact with one another, and quietly focus on the days-long succession of test questions.

The nation’s children themselves have been fretfully yearning to experience testing again, after last spring’s cancellation of the incomparable experience. “These miserable children!  I know the testing-pod option isn’t available to all parents,” said Mindy McLean. “But we can’t ignore our own kids’ needs. Last spring was so traumatic for Billy when they heartlessly pulled the testing away.”

This spring, the challenges remain enormous, and there’s almost no possibility that the test results will be useful for measurement or accountability purposes. But the U.S. Department of Education has nonetheless told states that blanket waivers to the ESSA testing requirement are out of the question. 

The situation has left apprehensive parents like McLean in a state of limbo. “Do I trust that the state will come through, or do I take the initiative? Maybe I’m overreacting, but what if I trust the state and they end up cancelling again?”

The testing pod formed by McLean has already begun meeting,in order to begin the enriched-learning experience of weeks of test-prep. The children fill their days with practice tests, readpassages narrowly as test prompts, and dream of the time when they can once again relish the genuine testing event.

Reflecting on her family’s privileged position, McLean told us that she has no regrets. “Gandhi once said, ‘Live as if you were to die tomorrow.’ That’s what I tell Billy, and that’s why he can’t be deprived of these tests once again.”

In case you were misled, April Fools’ Day!

Categories Humor, Parents, Standardized Testing

Please Complete This Survey on Opting Out of Standardized Testing

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2021 //
7

Researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University, are conducting a survey on opting out of standardized tests. You can help them by completing their survey.

I am writing to ask for your help in promoting the 2021 National Survey on Opting Out. Thanks again for all your feedback and help with our research project.

Over the past five years, our research team at Teachers College, Columbia University has conducted a series of studies of the Opt Out movement. Our studies are not associated with any grant or other funding from either public or private sources. Therefore, our analysis is completely independent.

Our main project is the National Survey on Opting Out, which we conducted twice in 2016 and 2018. The purpose of the Survey is to understand who is involved in the Opt Out movement and why. We define involvement in broad terms to include parents who opt their children out of standardized testing and others who sympathize with the Opt Out movement. The survey is informed by interviews and conversations we had with activists around the country (e.g., Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas, and Washington). For New York, we relied on extensive interviews conducted by David Hursh and Bob Lingard; among others they interviewed Jeanette Deutermann and Lisa Rudley.

We would appreciate your help in promoting the 2021 National Survey on Opting Out. Feel free to share the link with your contacts and on social media. We are active on social media, with updates about the study:  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OptOutNtlSurvey
Twitter: @OptOutNtlSurvey

The survey is anonymous and responses are confidential. The survey is shorter than last time and should take you approximately 15 minutes to complete.

Link: https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6i2cmIQ2O3L9ggu

Thank you in advance for your support!

Oren Pizmony-Levy & Nancy Green Saraisky

—-
Oren Pizmony-Levy, PhD
Associate Professor & Program Director 
International & Comparative Education Program
Department of International and Transcultural Studies
Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street
370 Grace Dodge Hall
Box 55
New York, NY 10027

Tel (office): 212-678-3180

Email: pizmony-levy@tc.columbia.edu
Website: http://orenpizmonylevy.com/

Categories Opinion Polling, Opt Out, Standardized Testing

A Bold Idea for Testing: Opt-In

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2021 //
24

The Ossining, New York, school district has a creative response to the federal mandate to administer tests at a time when children’s lives have been disrupted by the pandemic. The superintendent has asked parents to write a letter asking for their child to be tested, that is, to “opt in” to testing.

Gary Stern of the Lower Hudson news (Lohud) reports:

At a time when many school districts are peeved that they are being forced by Washington to administer standardized tests, the Ossining district is taking the provocative step of only giving the tests to students whose parents request it.

This “opting in” approach may mean that few students will take the state-run tests for grades 3-8, which are scheduled for April, May and June. But that’s fine with Ossining officials, who say the tests will be unacceptably disruptive during the pandemic and will yield little meaningful data.

“We’re in a pandemic, and there is a lot our students are going through right now, and our staff,” Ossining Superintendent Ray Sanchez said. “We’re fulfilling the requirements to administer the assessments, and we’re giving parents a voice in the process.”

Kudos to Superintendent Sanchez for recognizing that children belong to their parents, not the state, and that parents should make the decision about the tests, not politicians.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has yet to come up with a plausible reason for administering the state tests this year. The tests were suspended last year; there is no baseline data. The tests will not measure “learning loss.” If the Department wanted state and national data, it should not have canceled the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which gathers that data and has a 50-year timeline.

Categories Accountability, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing

Richard P. Phelps Looks Back on D.C. Reform, Part 2

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2021 //
10

Richard P. Phelps was hired by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to oversee testing, which was a crucial element in her plans to “reform” the district and raise test scores. During his time there, outsiders raised questions about whether there was widespread cheating on tests.

Phelps addresses those questions in this post.

He begins:

Ten years ago, I worked as the director of assessments for DCPS. For temporal context, I arrived after the first of the infamous test cheating scandals and left just before the incident that spawned a second. Indeed, I filled a new position created to both manage test security and design an expanded testing program. I departed shortly after Vincent Gray, who opposed an expanded testing program, defeated Adrian Fenty in the September 2010 DC mayoral primary. My tenure coincided with Michelle Rhee’s last nine months as chancellor.

The recurring test cheating scandals of the Rhee-Henderson years may seem extraordinary but, in fairness, DCPS was more likely than the average U.S. school district to be caught because it received a much higher degree of scrutiny. Given how tests are typically administered in this country, the incidence of cheating is likely far greater than news accounts suggest, for several reasons:

–in most cases, those who administer tests—schoolteachers and administrators—have an interest in their results;

–test security protocols are numerous and complicated yet, nonetheless, the responsibility of non-expert ordinary school personnel, guaranteeing their inconsistent application across schools and over time;

–after-the-fact statistical analyses are not legal proof—the odds of a certain amount of wrong-to-right erasures in a single classroom on a paper-and-pencil test being coincidental may be a thousand to one, but one-in-a-thousand is still legally plausible; and

–after-the-fact investigations based on interviews are time-consuming, scattershot, and uneven.

Still, there were measures that the Rhee-Henderson administrations could have adopted to substantially reduce the incidence of cheating, but they chose none that might have been effective. Rather, they dug in their heels, insisted that only a few schools had issues, which they thoroughly resolved, and repeatedly denied any systematic problem.

Phelps’ articles were originally published at the Nonpartisan Education Review. They were reposted on Valerie Jablow’s blog.

Categories Accountability, Cheating, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

Richard P. Phelps: The D.C. Reform Hoax, Part 1

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2021 //
7

Richard P. Phelps recounts his experiences as the director of assessment for Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. Phelps was expected to expand the notorious IMPACT testing program, meant to evaluate teachers. Phelps visited hundreds of administrators and teachers and asked their advice about how to make the program better. They gave him good ideas, and he passed them on to top staff as recommendations. The professionals’ advice was rejected by two top reformers.

Phelps’ article was posted on the blog of D.C. activist Valerie Jablow. She acknowledged its origin in this editor’s note:

[Ed. Note: In part 1 of this series, semi-retired educator Richard P. Phelps provided a first-hand account of what went down in DCPS as ed reformers in the early days of mayoral control pushed standardized tests; teacher evaluations based on those tests; and harsh school penalties. This second part looks at the cheating scandals that arose in the wake of such abusive practices. Such accounts are all the more important now that the DC auditor has just released a bombshell report of poor stewardship of DC’s education data. Both articles appeared in Nonpartisan Education Review in September 2020 and are reprinted here with permission. For this part, the author gratefully acknowledges the fact-checking assistance of retired DCPS teacher Erich Martel and DC school budget expert Mary Levy.]

Phelps came to realize that the “reformers” really didn’t care about improving education or helping children. They were padding their resumes, building their career prospects in the lavishly funded reform world.

Phelps writes:

Alas, much of the activity labelled “reform” was just for show, and for padding resumes. Numerous central office managers would later work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Numerous others would work for entities supported by the Gates or aligned foundations, or in jurisdictions such as Louisiana, where ed reformers held political power. Most would be well paid.

Their genuine accomplishments, or lack thereof, while at DCPS seemed to matter little. What mattered was the appearance of accomplishment and, above all, loyalty to the group. That loyalty required going along to get along: complicity in maintaining the façade of success while withholding any public criticism of or disagreement with other in-group members.

Unfortunately, in the United States what is commonly showcased as education reform is neither a civic enterprise nor a popular movement. Neither parents, the public, nor school-level educators have any direct influence. Rather, at the national level, U.S. education reform is an elite, private club—a small group of tightly connected politicos and academics—a mutual admiration society dedicated to the career advancement, political influence, and financial benefit of its members, supported by a gaggle of wealthy foundations (e.g., Gates, Walton, Broad, Wallace, Hewlett, Smith-Richardson).

Despite their failures, the elites who led DCPS moved on to remunerative positions. The game goes on. And it’s not “for the children.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Hoax, Lies, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

Theresa Thayer Snyder: What Shall We Do With the Children After the Pandemic?

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2021 //
39

I originally posted this commentary in December 2020. It has since been opened by readers more than 600,000 times. It struck a chord with teachers and parents. It still does.

In recent months, we have heard a crescendo of recommendations for what to do with the children. “Test them!” “Quantify the learning loss!” “Let no child go untested!” Those clamoring for testing are well-funded, usually by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They have big megaphones. Here and there, other voices have spoken with quiet authority about what children need when they are back in school. They need social and emotional support. Some have lost parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins to the virus. Some have experienced intense loneliness and sadness.

Theresa Thayer Snyder offers different advice, based on her long experience as an educator. She was superintendent in the Voorheesville, New York, district. As more and more schools begin to reopen, it is time to read it again.

Teresa Thayer Snyder was superintendent of the Voorheesville district in upstate New York. She wrote this wise and insightful essay on her Facebook page. A friend sent it to me.

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I am writing today about the children of this pandemic. After a lifetime of working among the young, I feel compelled to address the concerns that are being expressed by so many of my peers about the deficits the children will demonstrate when they finally return to school. My goodness, what a disconcerting thing to be concerned about in the face of a pandemic which is affecting millions of people around the country and the world. It speaks to one of my biggest fears for the children when they return. In our determination to “catch them up,” I fear that we will lose who they are and what they have learned during this unprecedented era. What on earth are we trying to catch them up on? The models no longer apply, the benchmarks are no longer valid, the trend analyses have been interrupted. We must not forget that those arbitrary measures were established by people, not ordained by God. We can make those invalid measures as obsolete as a crank up telephone! They simply do not apply. 

When the children return to school, they will have returned with a new history that we will need to help them identify and make sense of. When the children return to school, we will need to listen to them. Let their stories be told. They have endured a year that has no parallel in modern times. There is no assessment that applies to who they are or what they have learned. Remember, their brains did not go into hibernation during this year. Their brains may not have been focused on traditional school material, but they did not stop either. Their brains may have been focused on where their next meal is coming from, or how to care for a younger sibling, or how to deal with missing grandma, or how it feels to have to surrender a beloved pet, or how to deal with death. Our job is to welcome them back and help them write that history.

I sincerely plead with my colleagues, to surrender the artificial constructs that measure achievement and greet the children where they are, not where we think they “should be.” Greet them with art supplies and writing materials, and music and dance and so many other avenues to help them express what has happened to them in their lives during this horrific year. Greet them with stories and books that will help them make sense of an upside-down world. They missed you. They did not miss the test prep. They did not miss the worksheets. They did not miss the reading groups. They did not miss the homework. They missed you.

Resist the pressure from whatever ‘powers that be’ who are in a hurry to “fix” kids and make up for the “lost” time. The time was not lost, it was invested in surviving an historic period of time in their lives—in our lives. The children do not need to be fixed. They are not broken. They need to be heard. They need be given as many tools as we can provide to nurture resilience and help them adjust to a post pandemic world.

Being a teacher is an essential connection between what is and what can be. Please, let what can be demonstrate that our children have so much to share about the world they live in and in helping them make sense of what, for all of us has been unimaginable. This will help them– and us– achieve a lot more than can be measured by any assessment tool ever devised. Peace to all who work with the children!

As an added bonus, here is a video featuring the author of this wonderful article. Her title: “Children. Cherished and Challenged.”

Categories Childhood, Education Reform, Hope, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

Michael J. Hynes: Beware the College Board Dragon!

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2021 //
30

Dr. Michael J. Hynes is superintendent of the Port Washington school district on Long Island in New York. He previously posted here his proposal for a new vision of education.

He writes here about the College Board, which has become the gatekeeper whose tests decide which students go to which colleges.

He writes:

The College Board Monster and Why It’s Time to $lay the Dragon (at least during a pandemic)

Michael J. Hynes, Ed.D.

Reader beware. I wrote a scathing diatribe about the College Board a few years ago. I have since updated it as we enter testing season this spring.

Before you read my thoughts about the educational sacred cow and standardized testing machine known as the College Board, you should know up front that I am no fan of the College Board CEO/President David Coleman who years ago was the architect of Common Core. I felt this way before the pandemic and feel even more strongly about it now.

Most of us in the educational world know of the Common Core State Standards and the “test focused education reform movement” that accompanied it as a fiasco that plagued American schools.

Mr. Coleman was on the English Language Arts writing team and his good friend and eventual partner at Student Achievement Partners (SAP) Jason Zimba was a leader on the Common Core Mathematics team. Student Achievement Partners is a non-profit organization that researches and develops achievement based assessment standards.

Interesting enough, it was funded in large part by Bill Gates. The final nail in the coffin for me was when I realized Mr. Coleman, his former assistant and Mr. Zimba were founding board members for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, an organization that lobbies for standards driven educational reform.

Do you see a pattern?

Years later Mr. Coleman still leads the College Board money-making machine and this educational monolith is the church where most public schools worship several times a year.

For the reader who doesn’t know what The College Board is: it is the ultimate gatekeeper and judge-jury-executioner for millions of students each year who dream to enter college and it literally is a hardship for many families due to the test taking expense.

Schools and families have no other choice because there is no other game in town, aside from a student taking the ACT exam.

The College Board claims to be a non-profit organization, but it’s hard to take that claim seriously when its exam fees for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Advanced Placement test (AP), services for late registration, score verification services and a multitude of other related fees are costing families and schools millions of dollars each year.

Eleven years ago this “non-profit” made a profit of $55 million and paid nineteen College Board Executives’ salaries that ranged from three hundred thousand dollars to over one million dollars a year.

That trend continues today.

Cost aside, it is hard to fathom and understand how the College Board has claimed a monopoly-like status over our public school system.

Over the years it has literally convinced school administrators, school board trustees, teachers, parents and students they can’t live without what they sell. They sell classes and tests to schools like Big Pharma sells pills to consumers.

They sell as much as they can and jack up the prices just enough where most people won’t complain. They have convinced my beloved public education system, the university system and pretty much the solar system that if students don’t take the PSAT, the SAT and now multiple Advanced Placement tests during a child’s tenure in high school, then those students won’t be competitive and have the same opportunities to be successful in life as the ones who drink the College Board Kool-Aide.

I fear too many of us have bought this story hook, line and sinker without many of us asking the question…why and how did we let this get so out of control?

We now know there are over 800 colleges (and counting) that are SAT optional or flexible. We also know that AP classes and tests have doubled over the past ten+ years. Over four million tests are administered each year.

If you do the simple math (4 million tests x $94.00 a test = over $376 million a year). And that’s just the AP exam…the money from the AP exams go to the College Board and a students’ score is sent to the student but they never know what questions they got right or wrong, they just receive a score of 1-5. The reality is many schools get great marks for enrolling more AP students and the College Board makes a ton of money off this arrangement.

What a sham.

The problem I have with College Board is the effect and infection it’s created on the climate within school systems and their respective communities. We have reached a crescendo of students and families believing that “more is more” when it comes to prepping for the PSAT/SAT tests.

The SAT (with the optional essay) can be taken several times throughout a student’s high school career. If you do the simple math (1.7 million tests x $64.50 a test = $109 million a year). This does not include the other fees attached to the SAT test or the prep books or courses a student may take. If your child is applying to many colleges, you will pay for each score sent to them. 

Here is an example of how much it costs for SAT prep courses:

There are some SAT prep centers that cost upwards of $1800 per in-person course to online courses that cost up to $1400 per course. One-on-One tutoring can cost up to $200 an hour. This all adds up very fast. More important, how is this not seen as an equity concern? Many families can’t afford this type of assistance and since so much is at stake for successful college acceptance, it’s criminal unless the system truly changes. 

As a school superintendent I see and hear about many families hiring tutors for PSAT tests (sometimes starting in eighth grade) and many young men and women taking AP classes because they are “weighted” which bolsters their academic transcript and grade point average.

Most troublesome to me is when I’m told by families that enroll their children in multiple AP classes each year; taking so many AP classes provides a “badge of honor” for both the family and student. In some school districts you have communities that have bred and unleashed a “Keep up with the Joneses” phenomenon. All at the expense for what?

If this is true, what are the unintended consequences? Mental health has never been more important. When students take multiple AP classes and have four hours of homework and skip lunch every day, who suffers in the end? When a student feels like they have to take multiple AP classes to keep their class ranking high and take as many classes as possible to receive college credit so they potentially save money when they go to college, what are they losing in the present moment when they are still in high school?

I believe we have more stressed out and anxious children in our high schools than ever before.

This is a big reason why.

I offer some sincere observations sprinkled in with some facts…

1. AP classes have a lot of material with not much time to teach and truly understand it. Don’t get me wrong, many of the courses are wonderful and stretch our student’s worldview and cognitive abilities, but the courses end in early May. They don’t have the same amount of time as other students who take courses throughout the year. IN NY they have almost two months of school left!

2.  Students are over burdening themselves with the belief that 8-10 AP courses guarantees them access to a high performing university or academic scholarships. I don’t believe that’s true.

One thing I can guarantee this type of course load will provide is 4 hours or more of homework every night and not enough time for students to take electives they will enjoy.

Also, a friend of mine and I agree that the college acceptance process is so badly and deeply damaged, that kids should know that lots of AP classes will not help them as much as they think.

3.  If schools had the courageous conversation to eliminate class ranking, eliminate the weighting of AP classes and mandate lunch for every student, I believe we will have healthier and happier kids. U.S. News and World Report must stop using AP courses as part of their criteria in ranking the top high schools in America.

If they care about college readiness so much, how about looking at more important factors for success such as a student’s emotional, social and physical growth.

It would paint a much more effective predictor of college readiness and future success.

4. Schools must do a better job of promoting predictors of success that are not affiliated with the College Board. Universities want to see that students are more than AP test taking machines:1. GPA (grade point average) is a much better predictor of college success2. Rich and eclectic electives – take risks and explore new opportunities3. Play a sport – physical growth is just as important as academic growth4. Join clubs – a great way for students to get their social and emotional needs met5. Join outside school organizations in the community – fosters empathy6. Work after school part time – teaches responsibility

A few years ago, Mr. David Coleman once said, “Never give someone only one chance to be great.”

I couldn’t agree more but we know the College Board stands to make millions of dollars off of a child’s second chance by taking the SAT or AP test(s) multiple times a year.

If the College Board is really looking to provide better opportunities for students, why not make the test fee reasonable? I know they offer reduced pricing for some hardships but why not make a flat fee for all students? I thought the purpose of a non-profit was to not make a profit…especially off of children.

Finally, if information needs to be sent from the College Board to anywhere the family needs, make it a free service.

I have a problem when non-educators make decisions in my educational arena.

David Coleman and the College Board are not educators, they are business-people. As a parent, would you bring your child to a businessperson instead of a pediatrician if your child was sick? Would you find it odd that your child’s teacher or principal was a businessperson and not an educator?

So the obvious next question is. why is it widely accepted that we have business-people who run an educational institution that has such a significant influence over our children’s futures, a families’ pocketbook and total domination over the last two-three years of your child’s high school experience?

Mr. Coleman, please help me understand how these tests have not been placed on hold during this pandemic. Students are fighting for their lives. They are living in incredibly difficult times where the importance of mental health is at an all-time high but our children’s mental health is at an all-time low. 

The College Board has fleeced us all and its time we fight back against our over reliance on this monopoly.

Categories Accountability, Standardized Testing

Don’t Believe the “Learning Loss” Hoax

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2021 //
106

The mainstream media are filled with warnings about “learning loss” and how we must measure it and why students should go to summer school to make up for what they have “lost.” If we can’t quantify it, they say, how can we know which students are behind? This is silly. There was no “pre-test,” so there can’t be a “post-test.” A test that students take this spring can’t possibly demonstrate “learning loss,” since they can’t be compared to anything else. If you want to know where students are in their learning, ask their teacher.

Here are some good readings on “learning loss.”

Peter Greene gathered some and calls his post a “learning loss debunkery reader.” And don’t miss Peter’s personal tale of his own “learning loss.” It began right after high school graduation, when he realized he had forgotten algebra!

Russ on Reading turned “learning loss” into a Henny Penny fable, in which the wolves are trying to get into the henhouse.

“Wait a minute. Are we sure our children have lost their learning? I know a year away from the schoolhouse is concerning. And I know the online learning is not as good as beak to beak learning, but just what are we worried about here. Our children are learning lots of things. They have learned how to make the best of a bad situation. They have learned how we all need to pitch in to help each other. They have learned to wear masks in public. They have learned a lot about communicable diseases. They may have different learning this year, but is that the same as losing learning?  Before we let the foxes into the hen house, we better be sure there is a big problem.”

The Zoom meeting went silent. Goosey Loosey shut down Foxy Loxy’s Zoom feed. She said, “You know maybe we have bigger things to worry about than learning loss. I am going to go read my chicks a book.”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, For-Profit, Standardized Testing, Students
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