Archives for category: Standardized Testing
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New York: Commissioner Elia’s Misleading Description of State Tests

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2018 //
17

New York State Commissioner of Educatuon MaryEllen Elia defended the state tests in a letter to the editor of an upstate newspaper.

What was interesting was what she did not say.

She wrote:

Your recent editorial “Benefits of Regents testing still unclear” (“Another View,” Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Aug. 28) is riddled with inaccurate information about New York’s student testing requirements. For the benefit of your readers, I am writing to set the record straight.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education approved New York’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan. It reflects more than a year of collaboration with a comprehensive group of stakeholders throughout the state. Approval of our plan by USDE ensures that New York will continue to receive about $1.6 billion annually in federal funding to support elementary and secondary education in New York’s schools. Had we not received federal approval, that money would have been left on the table, to the great detriment of our students and teachers.

Over the past three years, I have communicated frequently with the USDE about test participation rates and the importance of not penalizing schools, students or anyone else when a district’s participation rate falls below the federally required level.

The editorial states that in June the Board of Regents adopted regulations to implement the state’s ESSA plan — leading your readers to believe, erroneously, that these regulations are now final. In fact, the implementing regulations are temporary. We continue to make changes to the regulations based on the many public comments received.

We anticipate the Board of Regents will discuss these comments and proposed modifications to the draft regulations at its September meeting. The revised regulations will again go out for comment before they are permanently adopted. We hope your readers will participate in this ongoing public comment process.

Your editorial also is misleading in its claim that releasing state test results in September “makes the testing data nearly useless for school districts.” Here are the facts. In early June, schools and school districts were able to access instructional reports for the 2018 state assessments. At the same time, the department released about 75 percent of the test questions that contribute to student scores. The instructional reports, together with the released test questions, are used by schools and districts for summer curriculum-writing and professional development activities. Additionally, while statewide test results are not yet publicly available, we have already provided districts with their students’ score information. Districts can — and should — use this information to help inform instructional decisions for the upcoming school year.

The state Education Department’s stance remains unchanged: There should be no financial penalties for schools with high opt out rates. We continue to review the public comments on this and other proposed regulations, and those comments will be carefully considered as we finalize the state’s ESSA regulations.

Ultimately, it is for parents to decide whether their child should participate in the state assessments. In making that decision, though, they should have accurate information. I hope this letter gives them a better understanding of the facts.

MaryEllen Elia
Albany
The writer is state commissioner of education.

I checked with teachers, and this is what they said.

The test scores are released long after the student has left his or her teacher and moved to a different teacher.

Most of the questions are released, but the teacher never learns which questions individual students got right or wrong.

The tests have NO DIAGNOSTIC VALUE.

The tests have NO INSTRUCTIONAL VALUE.

Apparently, it means a lot to Commissioner Elia to compare the scores of different districts, but that comparison is of no value to teachers, principals, or parents.

One middle school teacher said this to me:

“…the whole exercise is meaningless at the classroom level. Admins might look at the data when it comes to certain skills/content areas, but without looking at the questions/answers, it is not helpful for us in the trenches.”

Another teacher told me:

“…we do not get student-specific results for each question, we are supposed to look at statewide results and then somehow extrapolate that back to our classrooms, the following year, with different kids. So this is a BLUNT tool at best and students get no individual diagnostic benefit.”

The state tests are pointless and meaningless. They have no diagnostic value whatever for individual students.

Every parent in New York should understand that their children are subjected to hours of testing for no reason, other than to allow the Commissioner to compare districts. Their children receive no benefit from the testing. No teacher learns anything about their students, other than their scores.

The state tests are pointless and meaningless. They have no diagnostic value for students—or teachers.

OPT OUT.

OPT OUT.

OPT OUT.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

Jersey Jazzman Defends New Jersey’s Decision to Reduce PARCC Testing to Only 5% of Teachers’ Ratings

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2018 //
16

Mark Weber aka blogger Jersey Jazzman is a veteran teacher and a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University.

He wrote an open letter to a state senator in New Jersey who was angry that Governor Phil Murphy reduced the stakes attached to PARCC testing in relation to teacher evaluation.

State Senator Ruiz mistakenly believes that evaluating teachers by test scores is sound practice. She is wrong.

Weber reviewed the research demonstrating the invalidity of such measures.

By the way, New Jersey is one of the very few states that still mandates the PARCC tests. It originally was offered by 24 states. Only six states and DC still are in that small group.

You might find this to be a valuable resource for understanding why it makes no sense to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students.

Categories Accountability, New Jersey, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Can You Solve This Pearson Test Question?

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2018 //
120

This article appeared in the business section of the New York Times.

Author James B. Stewart decided to try to answer a sample question that is supposedly representative of the admissions test that students in New York City take to get into a handful of elite high schools. He found the question confusing. He got the wrong answer. He sent it to a legendary editor at the New Yorker magazine. She found it confusing. She got the wrong answer. I tried the question. I got the wrong answer. Pearson said it was a sample question, and no one actually had to see it on an exam. They revised the question. It was as confusing as the original.

This is the question.

“In the passage below, which of these is the most precise revision for the words “talked to some people who did the best in the contest?”

“During a nightly news-segment about a cooking contest, a reporter talked to some people who did the best in the contest.”

A. Conversed with some of the people who won the contest.

B. Spoke to the three contestants who did well.

C. Discussed the contest with some of the winners.

D. Interviewed the top three contestants.”

Stewart writes:

“The question didn’t say how many people the reporter interviewed, and a reader has no way of knowing. So an accurate revision would need to be equally vague. Any revision that specified “three contestants” is not an accurate reproduction of the original, but an embellishment. That eliminated answers B and D.

“Answer C refers to “some of the winners,” but doesn’t say winners of what. The original is explicit: “the contest.” And C embellishes “talked”: “discussed the contest.” The original doesn’t say what the reporter talked to the winners about. So C failed on two counts.

“That left A, which is both vague and explicit in the same way the original is, and thus the most “precise revision.” I chose it and pushed the “submit” button and got an immediate response.

“Wrong!“

So he tried the question on a language expert:

“So I sent the question to Mary Norris, author of “Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen” and a legendary copy editor at The New Yorker. If anyone understands revisions of English prose, it’s she. I didn’t tell her anything about my experience and asked her to answer the question and tell me what she thought.”

She thought the question was confusing.

“She said she was stumped immediately by the reference to “people” who “did the best in the contest.” Can multiple people be the “best?” Can there be more than one “winner”? What kind of “contest” would that be? “To say there are three people adds information that isn’t in the original,” she said. “And we have no way of knowing if that’s accurate.”

“C was tempting. “It’s nice and vague, and in this context, vague equals precise,” she said. Nonetheless, she picked answer B. “At least it doesn’t say ‘winner,’” she reasoned.

“Wrong again!

“The “correct” answer, according to the New York City Department of Education, is D. “The top three” in that answer is more specific than “some people who did the best” in the original.

“I would never have picked D,” Ms. Norris said.”

Back to the Education Department and Pearson:

“Will Mantell, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Education, said Pearson investigates “any items with problematic or unusual results.”

“If an error is found,” he added, “the item is not scored.”

“The risk of erroneous answers is reduced if students can take a test multiple times, as they can with the standard college admissions test. But students can take the SHSAT only once, except in unusual circumstances.”

Stewart says that this ambiguous and confusing question shows the risk of using one test score to determine admission.

It’s worse than that.

Pearson and its stupid and confusing questions and answers have turned me into a skeptic of standardized tests. There is nothing “standardized” about the question, and nothing “standardized” about the answer. They are both subject to human error amd completely subjective.

No student’s destiny should be determined by such a flawed instrument.

Categories Education Reform, Standardized Testing, Stupid

Who Are the Funders of Jeb Bush’s School Privatization Efforts?

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2018 //
31

Jeb Bush has been promoting school choice and disparaging public s hoops for years. Betsy DeVos was a member of the board of his Foundation for Excellence in Education until Trump chose her as Secretary of Education.

Jeb Bush invented the nutty notion of giving a letter grade to schools.

Jeb Bush zealously believes in high-stakes standardized testing and VAM. In Jeb’s Odel, Testing and letter grades are mechanisms to promote privatization.

Who funds his foundation?

See the list here.

The biggest donors in 2017 were Gates, Bloomberg, and Walton, each having given Jeb more than $1 Million for his privatization campaigns.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bloomberg, Michael, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, School Choice, Segregation, Standardized Testing, Vouchers, Wall of Shame, Walton Foundation

New York State Allies for Public Education to State Leaders: Don’t Punish Schools and Kids for Opting Out from Senseless Testing

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2018 //
22

New York State Allies for Public Education is an organization that represents 50 parent and educator groups across the state. It has led the opt-out movement in the state. This letter was written in response to punish schools where the “participation” rate in mandated testing fell too low. The very best response to the state’s threats and warnings would be to opt out; the more that parents opt out, the less likely it is that the state can “punish” them for exercising their constitutional rights.

Dear Board of Regents, Chancellor Rosa, Commissioner Elia and Dr. Lisa Long,

We find it reprehensible that under the guise of ESSA, NYSED is seeking to punish schools when parents exercise their legal right to opt their child out of the grades 3-8 state tests and is overreaching by requiring the collection of confidential student data. These proposed provisions of the New York State ESSA regulations show a blatant disregard for the amount of public outrage over the last several years regarding the flawed New York State testing system, unproven revised common core standards, and the unnecessary collection of personally identifiable student information.

Strong opposition to the grades 3-8 common core state tests has been evidenced by 20%- 22% of eligible students throughout New York opting out of these state exams over the past three years, despite threats from the state and individual districts and a one-sided state-initiated persuasion campaign (the Commissioner’s “Toolkit”).

Only 8% of school districts in New York met the 95% testing participation rate in 2017, and while the state has not yet released the opt out figures for the 2018 grades 3-8 tests, several news accounts reveal that the opt out number will remain high, and that the majority of school districts will not have met the 95% participation rate as a result.

In addition, it took a legislative act to stop NYSED and then-Commissioner John King from collecting personally identifiable student data in the name of inBloom, a $50 million database that was going to be used for corporate data mining purposes without parental consent.

The proposed New York ESSA regulations will allow the Commissioner to mislabel schools with opt out rates over 5% — including highly effective schools — as needing Comprehensive or Targeted Support and Improvement, with the potential of wrongfully identifying schools as needing these interventions. These proposed regulations allow the Commissioner to require schools to misuse Title I funds in an effort to increase test participation rates. Moreover, the proposed regulations allow the Commissioner to close these schools, and/or convert them to charter schools. This is a dangerous path for NYS to take.

The mere suggestion of using Title I funds for ‘marketing’ of these tests is a misuse of authority that results in the revictimization and intimidation of communities that have a long history of being underserved and disempowered. Furthermore, it should be regarded as a civil rights issue as these actions will disproportionately aim to quiet the voices of schools with high populations of students from low-income households which tend to correlate with families of color.

None of these proposed provisions are required by ESSA law, none of them will improve learning conditions or outcomes for our children, and all of them contradict earlier statements from the Board of Regents and NYSED officials that schools with high opt out rates would not be punished or otherwise targeted, and/or wrongfully labeled for interventions, etc. The intention of the 95% participation rate in the ESSA law is to deter institutional/systematic exclusion by schools not to usurp parental rights.

We strongly request that NYSED remove these provisions from the proposed regulations and refrain from punishing schools when parents assert their legal right to opt out of the state tests. Moreover, under no circumstances, should NYSED collect confidential, personally identifiable student data. The ESSA law does not require punishing schools for opt out; rather, it fortifies a parent’s right to opt out. Furthermore, the ESSA law does not require collecting individual student data for the purposes of accountability, nor should the Commissioner and NYSED.

Until NYSED embraces teaching our children through the lens of whole-child education and stop test-driven classrooms, we will continue to squander opportunities to truly help all children reach their full potential. It’s time we give the children of New York a meaningful, well-rounded education, and create a nourishing environment where children flourish because they genuinely love to learn.

Respectfully,

Lisa Rudley, Executive Director

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

Steven Singer: DFER and DeVos Think Alike about School Reform

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2018 //
24

Steven Singer hits the nail on the head: there is no difference between DFER and DeVos!

He writes:

“Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) put out a new video about what they think it means to be an education progressive.

“And by the political action committee’s definition, Betsy DeVos may be the most “progressive” education secretary ever.

“She champions “public charter schools.” Just like them!

“She is in favor of evaluating teachers on student test scores. Just like them!

“She is a booster for “holding schools accountable” through the use of standardized tests. Just like them!

“And she loves putting public tax dollars into private hands to run schools “more efficiently” by disbanding school boards, closing public debate and choosing exactly which students get to attend privatized schools. Just like… you get the idea.

“But perhaps the most striking similarity between DeVos and DFER is their methodologies.

“DFER announced it again was going to flood Democratic races with tons of campaign cash to bolster candidates who agreed with them. That’s exactly how DeVos gets things done, too!

“She gives politicians bribes to do her bidding! The only difference is she pays her money mostly to Republicans while DFER pays off Democrats. But if both DeVos and DFER are paying to get would-be lawmakers to enact the same policies, what is the difference!?

“Seriously, what is the difference between Betsy DeVos and Democrats for Education Reform?”

Singer concludes that faux progressive groups like DFER, who are indistinguishable from Republicans, are causing many people to abandon the party.

“Why do some progressives vote third party? Because of groups like DFER.

“Voters think something like – if this charter school advocacy group represents what Democrats are all about, I can’t vote Democrat. I need a new party. Hence the surge of Green and other third party votes that is blamed for hurting Democratic candidates.”

DFER and DeVos! Made for each other!

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER, School Choice, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

Breaking News: NAACP Comes Out in Opposition to High-Stakes Standardized Testing!

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2018 //
27

Today, the NAACP released a statement (“issue guidance”) opposing the use of a single standardized test score to determine students’ promotion or graduation.

Instead, issue guidance calls for multiple measures.

Julian Vasquez Heilig, who attended the national convention of the NAACP as a delegate from California, released the issue brief on his blog, “Cloaking Inequity.”

I encourage the NAACP to delve further into the misuse of standardized testing, which is scored on a normal curve and should never be used to make high-stakes decisions about promotion or high school graduation, not even as part of multiple measures.

Categories Civil Rights, Education Reform, Standardized Testing

Jersey Jazzman: What the Teacher-Bashing Press Does Not Understand about PARCC and Other Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2018 //
37

This is a thoughtful and important article by Mark Weber (aka Jersey Jazzman), who teaches in public school in New Jersey and is earning his doctorate in statistics at Rutgers.

He notes that both the New Jersey Star-Ledger and the New York Post were outraged–outraged!–that NJ Governor Phil Murphy plans to abandon the PARCC exam, which is aligned with the Common Core. They accuse Murphy of kowtowing to the lousy teachers’ unions and trying to dumb down the test.

But he points out that PARCC and NJ’s previous standardized test (NJASK) produced the same results.

This is worth your while to read as you will learn a lot about standardized testing and its limitations.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Privatization, Standardized Testing

Chicago Teachers Union Negotiates Right to Block Tests That Are Not Mandated by the State

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2018 //
6

This is a big step forward. The union gained the right to block unnecessary tests. The ultimate goal must be to block all standardized tests because they are inherently designed to favor advantaged students over disadvantaged students.

Some network chiefs are trying to saddle students and teachers with useless and unnecessary tests. But we know what our students need – and we’re using powerful new language in our contract to reject these tests.

As part of our demand for respect for our professionalism and decision-making, we’ve fought against tests that are unduly burdensome and not useful. In the current Board-Union Agreement, we won the right to vote on ALL assessments that are not mandated by the State of Illinois, REACH, or particular programs like IB or bilingual education.

This is huge. This year, dozens of schools have held discussions in their PPCs, school communities and union meetings, and held votes where members have said “NO” to ‘optional’ assessments.

Some Network Chiefs are pushing back and trying to persuade members to add more tests – but members have held firm and confident in their judgement about the assessments their students need – or don’t need.

Cases which cannot be resolved at the school level will be brought to Strategic Bargaining for resolution. Our view is that the contract is clear and that teachers know their students’ needs.

If you’re having problems resolving testing issues at the school level, contact your field rep so this can be brought to strategic bargaining. And remember to email your plan and vote results to Vera Lindsay.

Both teachers and students have been victims of over-reliance on high-stakes testing for decades. Way too much teaching time has been taken up with prepping students for test-taking and administering numerous assessments — often, it seems, to profit big testing companies. A serious side effect: counselors are so busy with test prep duties on top of huge caseloads that they lack adequate time to counsel students who need the help they’ve been trained to provide.

But we know what our students need, and we’re using powerful new language in our contract to reject the time wasted on unnecessary and pointless tests — and take that time back for teaching.

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Education Reform, Standardized Testing, Testing, Unions

Jesse Hagopian: Seattle Teachers Vote for Moratorium on All Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2018 //
23

Jesse Hagopian, star teacher and organizer, reports that the Seattle Education Association voted for a moratorium on all standardized testing.

This is a stellar example of teachers taking control of their profession and their classrooms. They are wresting control from uninformed legislators and the greedy testing industry, as well as Congress, which heedlessly imposes mandates without a clue about the damage they do to children, teachers, and education.

He writes:

I am bursting with pride for my union.

The Seattle Education Association voted at this week’s Representative Assembly to support a resolution calling for a moratorium on all standardized testing! This vote comes in a long line of organizing and opposition to high-stakes testing in Seattle.

In 2013, the teachers at Garfield High School voted unanimously to refuse to administer the MAP test. The boycott spread to several other schools in Seattle. When the superintendent threatened the boycotting teachers with a 10 day suspension without pay, non of the teachers backed down. At the end of the year, because of the overwhelming solidarity from parents, teachers, and students around the country, not only were no teachers disciplined, but the superintendent announced that the MAP test would no longer be required for Seattle’s high schools. In the subsequent years we have seen the movement continue to develop with Nathan Hale High School achieving a 100% opt out rate of the junior class of the Smarter Balanced test in 2015, with some 60,000 families opting their kids out of the common core test around Washington State.

whats-wrong-w-standardized-tests-infographic

Despite these heroic efforts to stand up to the testocracy, they are still trying to reduce teaching a learning to a score and use that score to punish students. Thousands of students will not graduate from high school across Washington State simply because they didn’t pass the common core test. The average student in the public schools in the U.S. takes an outlandish 112 standardized tests in the K-12 career–forcing teachers to teach to the test, rather than teach to the student. Study after study has reveled that these tests are a better measure of family income that aptitude. These test measure resources and your proximity to the dominant culture, negatively impacting English Language Learners, special education students, students of color, and low income students.

For all these reasons and more, my colleague Jeff Treistman, introduced a New Business Item (NBI) to bring before the Seattle Education Association this week to consider taking a bold stance against the outrageous over testing of students. Below is a short statement from Jeff explaining his reasoning behind the successful resolution, and gives us the language of the NBI. It is my sincere hope that the Seattle School Board heeds this resolution and moves to implement a “two year moratorium on all standardized testing, at the district, state, and federal levels and to open a public forum along with Seattle Public Schools on the best way to assess our students.”

Continue reading for the statement of Jeff Treistman, who introduced the resolution, as well as the text of the resolution.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Resistance, Seattle, Standardized Testing
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