Archives for category: Standardized Testing
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Dad Gone Wild: Is There a Cure for Data Addiction?

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2015 //
23

Dad Gone Wild is a blogger in Nashville whose children attend the local public schools. In this post, he recounts his decision to start serious running, first for his health, but then because he became obsessed with collecting data about his running.

You see, it started with a simple app that measured time and distance and kept a running total for a benchmark. But then it progressed to enough of a dependency to justify getting a top-of-the-line Garmin race watch because, well, dependence on data requires more data. Where I once was only concerned with how far and how fast I ran, I am now measuring footfalls, cadence, and several other categories that a) I don’t know exactly what they mean, and b) I wouldn’t know how to change them even if I knew what they meant. I imagine that my running has gotten better over the years, but I attribute that to running more and trying to eat better, not measuring my cadence and footfalls. My sense of accomplishment has certainly not grown; in fact, I’ve noticed a weird phenomenon.

If I head out on a run and one of my measurement tools isn’t working, I’ll either quit the run or proceed without the measurement. The weird part is, that if I continue the run sans measurement, it’s almost like it didn’t happen. I’m going the same distance. I’m burning the same miles, but for some reason it doesn’t feel real. When I look at the data for the month, those runs cease to exist and any progress I might have made is discounted. When I compare my results to friends I “compete” against, it almost feels like I’m lying about those results.

He realizes that the data have taken over; he no longer thinks about why he runs, but only about the measurements. That’s data addiction.

We also say that standardized tests are for the good of the child and that we are preventing minority children from slipping through the cracks, the opposite is actually true, but I ask you, how many people have cited that one test back in 7th grade that opened the door to learning for them? Until they took that test they were lost in the wilderness, but that test inspired them to greatness. Now substitute test with book or mathematical concept, and I bet you get a different answer. By putting emphasis on learning for the measurable we are actually restricting people’s potential. Like when I fail to take a 3-mile run because it doesn’t add significantly to my monthly totals, similarly, students will potentially fail to partake in opportunities to learn because it will produce no measurable results.

Data addiction also leads to putting undue pressure on suppliers. Let’s face it, that is what we are turning our teachers into, data suppliers. Our teachers are under a constant barrage to deliver more data. They are losing valuable time and sanity trying to meet the ever-increasing need. They are in an endless churn to produce more data under the threat that if they don’t, we will replace them with people who can, though we never mention a viable source for these replacements. Perhaps there is a teacher orchard producing an overabundance of quality teachers willing to work for decreasing pay and autonomy that I am unaware of.

Our thirst for more that is measurable has reduced the art of teaching into that of a producer. We’ve lost sight that teaching children is more than just about instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Think about the teachers who had a profound effect on you and your growth. Do you remember them because in fifth grade they had you reading on a seventh grade level, or is it deeper than that? Is it because you felt that they cared for you and were truly vested in helping you understand your place in the world?

Can data addiction be cured or are we doomed to reduce everything we do to numbers, forgetting why we do those things?

We will have a life with data, but a life without purpose.

Categories Data and Data Mining, Standardized Testing

Florida: House Minority Leader Supports Opt Out!

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2015 //
4

Mark Pafford, House Minority Leader in the Florida legislature, supports parents who tell their children to opt out of standardized testing.

Pafford says that Florida does not have the public education system that the state’s children need. He singles out the overuse of testing as an area where the state has gone wrong. It uses tests not to help people, but to punish them.

Wise man! Pafford for Governor!

Categories Florida, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

Andrew Rotherham: why Ed-Businesses Fail

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2015 //
20

Andrew Rotherham is a reformer who runs a consulting business. He is on many boards, including Campbell Brown’s 74. He used to write a regular column for TIME, now he writes for US News. He typically discloses his conflicts of interest at the end of his articles.

In this article, he tries to explain why it is so difficult for public companies to succeed in the public education sector. He says that the market makes demands for performance indicators that lead to poor decisions. His example is Joel Klein’s Amplify, which Rotherham thinks was too good for the market. (Amplify is or was a client of Rotherham’s business). Other commentators attributed Amplify’s failure to the poor quality of its tablets, some of whose screens cracked and chargers melted after delivery to Guilford County, NC. Rotherham also explains the poor stock performance of K12 (another of his past or present clients) by saying that the market forced it to enroll students who were “ill-suited” to its model.

He writes:

Pressure to hit revenue and growth expectations drives companies to attract customers who are a poor fit. That’s why Edison ended up in Philadelphia. It’s also why the online learning company K12 got caught in a perverse spiral when enrollment expectations drove it to recruit students who were ill-suited to succeed in the company’s model. The more such students the company signed up, the more its academic results suffered. 

All in all, his explanation of why businesses fail is a good explanation of why “reform” by test scores fails. Reformers think they can reach the projected “profits” by setting audacious goals, pressuring and intimidating educators, and closing schools. Those tactics don’t work in business, and they don’t work in education.

PS: apologies to readers for the several typos in the original. I wrote this while riding in a taxi on a bumpy highway. But no excuses. I should have read it before posting it.

Categories Corporate Reform, For-Profit, Standardized Testing

Peter Greene on the Democratic Debate: Not Even a Bridesmaid

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2015 //
21

Peter Greene watched the debate and became outraged, as only he can.

So this is how it’s going to be. The GOP is going to have a cartoon discussion about education, focusing on how to use charters to dismantle public ed and on how to find wacky ways to pretend that we’re not havin’ that Common Core stuff. And the Democratic line on public ed? The Clinton campaign locked in on their line months ago– stick to the safe-and-easy topics of universal pre-K and accessible, cheaper-somehow college education.

That mantra is comfortable and easy. Plain folks can listen to it and hear, “Aww, more pre-school for those precious cute little kids, and a chance for young Americans to make something of themselves,” while corporate backers, thirsty hedge funders, and ambitious reformsters can hear, “Expanding markets! Ka-ching!!”

The unions made their endorsement early. Did that take education off the table as an issue?

Really? We don’t want to hear anything about the disastrous policies of the last twelve years that have systematically broken down and dismantled American public education and the teaching profession? Dang, but I could have sworn we wanted to hear about that. But I guess now that the union is on Team Clinton, our job is not to hold her feet to the fire so much as it is to give them a little massage and carry some baggage for her so that she can save her strength for other issues. Important issues. Issues that aren’t US public education.

Sanders, with his focus on how the rich have commandeered so many parts of our democratic society, is so close to making useful statements about the education debates, but it just doesn’t happen. And I’m not sure how somebody helps it happen at this point. And those other guys? Generic Candidates #3-5? I don’t know what they think about education, but I suppose now that the education vote is supposedly locked up by Clinton, they won’t feel the need to go there.

Bottom line– US public education, despite the assorted crises associated with it (both fictional and non-fictional) is shaping up to be a non-issue once again in Presidential politics. I would say always a bridesmaid, never a bride, but it’s more like always the person hired for a couple of hours to help direct the car parking in the field back behind the reception hall. Or maybe the person who cleans up the reception hall after the bridal party has danced off happily into the night.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Vouchers

Journalists: Ask The Candidates These Questions

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2015 //
9

The Network for Public Education created a list of questions that journalists should ask the candidates. In this post on Salon.com, I explained NPE’s agenda to improve our public schools and to repel the corporate assault on them.

K-12 education issues, of huge importance to the future of our nation, were almost completely ignored in 2012. They should not be overlooked in 2016 because the very existence of public education is under attack. Billionaires hope to privatize urban districts, then move into the suburbs and elsewhere.

For those of us who believe that public education is a public responsibility, the time to become active is now.

We oppose the status quo of testing and privatization. We seek far better schools, equitable and well-resourced, where creativity and imagination are prized, not test scores. We seek equality of educational opportunity, not competition for scarce dollars.

Please join the Network for Public Education and help us build a new vision of education for each child.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Politics, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, School Choice, Standardized Testing, Vouchers

Rhode Island: PARCC Testing Is Designed to Confuse Students

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2015 //
35

Carole Marshall and Sheila Ressger, both retired teachers in Rhode Island, report that the PARCC test was poorly designed and does not measure what students know and can do.

They write:

“While RIDE [Rhode Island Department of Education] insists that the PARCC is a high-quality test, what has been created is instead a test that values a caricature of critical thinking — overly complex, ambiguous questions that are intended to “catch” students. Those who doubt it can google “PARCC sample tests” and see for themselves. Countless adults with advanced degrees have testified that many of the Common Core worksheets and PARCC sample test questions are confusing to the point that even they cannot determine the “correct” answers. English language learners, students with disabilities, and students living in high poverty neighborhoods are particularly hard hit, but all children are hurt by the testing.

“The basic problem is that the PARCC tests are aligned to the Common Core standards, which ignore developmental learning. The stated purpose of the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC tests is to “raise the bar,” under the theory that our children need to be reading far more complex texts starting in the earliest grades.

“They have certainly raised the bar; noted literacy expert Russ Walsh reports that the passages are about two grade levels above the readability of the grade and age of the children. He also reports that while Common Core proponents are claiming that the standards and testing call for a higher level of critical thinking, most questions following the PARCC Language Arts passages have a very narrow focus, and can actually be answered without a firm understanding of the text. Thus, scores on the PARCC don’t in any way reflect what children are truly capable of….

“Here in Rhode Island, representatives of RIDE have acknowledged that the grade level expectations of the Common Core do not align with the expectations of previous standards. In other words, material that used to be taught in fourth grade here may now be taught in third grade. Imagine last year’s second grader who was doing well in all respects. Now in third grade, this student is expected to perform at the fourth grade level on the PARCC without having ever been exposed to the foundation of third grade work.

“Another major problem is that Pearson and RIDE have decided that all children will take the PARCC online if at all possible. Young children are being rushed to learn keyboarding skills for testing. During the tests last spring, while working on an exceptionally long and confusing series of tasks, children were also required to perform functions such as scroll down, switch back and forth, and drag and drop items, as well as type into boxes. There is no way to measure how much impact all of this had on their ability to understand the passages and the questions.”

Common Core testing is reenforcing a false narrative of failure by “raising the bar” so high that most children will fail. These decisions were made knowingly. Those who decided on this cruel policy should be arrested for child abuse.

Categories Common Core, Rhode Island, Standardized Testing

My Thanks to Raj for His Comments on the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2015 //
12

In response to the post about the “school-to-prison-pipeline, a frequent commenter who signs as Raj, submitted the following comment. It begins like this, you can read the full comment after the original post:

Raj wrote:

This is what ACLU says:

“WHAT IS THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE?

The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the “stops” below.

Failing Public Schools

For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of quali­fied teachers, and insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special edu­cation services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational envi­ronments. This failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts, increasing the risk of later court­involvement. (1) Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores. (2)

Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline

Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances. Under these policies, students have beenexpelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school. Rates of suspensionhave increased dramatically in recent years—from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 2000 (3) — and have been most dramatic for children of color.

Overly harsh disciplinary policies push students down the pipeline and into the juvenile justice system. Suspended and expelled children are often left unsupervised and without constructive activities; they also can easily fall behind in their coursework, leading to a greater likelihood of disengagement and drop-outs. All of these factors increase the likelihood of court involvement. (4)

As harsh penalties for minor misbehavior become more pervasive, schools increasingly ignore or bypass due process protections for suspensions and expulsions. The lack of due process is particularly acute for students with special needs, who are disproportionately represented in the pipeline despite the heightened protections afforded to them under law.

Raj,

This is an excellent contribution to understanding the “school-to-prison-pipeline.” Thank you.

For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools.

Overcrowded classrooms. Bill Gates and Arne Duncan have both said that class size doesn’t matter, and that great teachers can teach larger classes than they have now. Mayor Bloomberg even suggested that a “great” teacher could teach double the number currently assigned, which would mean a class size of 50-70 students. Surveys repeatedly show that both parents and teachers want small classes, and research shows that the greatest benefit of small classes goes to the neediest students, who need extra attention with the teacher.

A lack of qualified teachers. State after state has been staffing the neediest schools with inexperienced, unqualified teachers from Teach for America. There would be more qualified teachers if state legislatures raised teacher pay, stopped cutting pay raises for experience and additional relevant degrees, and stopped fighting due process for teachers. Such actions literally drive teachers out of their chosen profession.

Insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special edu­cation services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational envi­ronments: The ACLU hits the nail on the head. So much money is diverted to testing and test prep and consultants, and not enough is appropriated for the services and personnel that meet the real needs of students. You understand that underfunded schools do not choose to be underfunded. Decisions about funding are made by the Congress, the state legislatures and governors, and district leadership. The blame for the shortage of these resources in the schools that enroll the most vulnerable students must be placed squarely on federal, state, and local leadership.

Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores. Test-based accountability, including NCLB and the Race to the Top, increase the numbers of students who fall into the STPP. The emphasis on testing and the consequences for failing to teach a bar set too high discourage the students in the bottom half of the bell curve (all standardized tests are normed on a bell curve). The Common Core tests have shifted the norm so that 65-70% of students “fail.” If students fail and fail and fail, they give up. What shall we do for them?

The next section of the ACLU statement aptly describes “no-excuses” charter schools:

Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline

Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances.

Charter schools, especially of the no-excuses variety, have higher suspension rates than public schools. They engage in harsh disciplinary policies that are not allowed in public schools. They can push out students for minor offenses.

Raj, thank you for this useful description of the “school-to-prison pipeline” by the ACLU.

We should all take heed.

Arne Duncan, who is talking about the STPP today at 4 pm EST on Sirius “Urban View” could reduce the pipeline by abandoning high-stakes testing and cutting off federal funding for “no-excuses” charter schools.

Each and every child should be able to enroll in a school with a humane and caring environment.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing

Angie Sullivan: What Do Kids Need Most: Tests or Teachers?

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2015 //
21

Angie Sullivan teaches kindergarten students in Las Vegas. Many of her students are poor. This was the discussion at the last board meeting. The board decided to spend $613,325 on more testing.

“The last thing African American students need is additional testing.

Vegas is facing a crisis. A severe and drastic teacher shortage in urban Vegas.

African American students are more likely to have no teacher.

We are missing teachers. 30,000 kids without a teacher? The school named after Martin Luther King has 8 licensed teachers and everyone else is temporary. A staff of 70 substitutes?

But we will add more testing to already at-risk kids?

African American Victory schools had an almost 100% White Administrative Staff show up this evening to ask for more testing.

An administrator speaking to the board just claimed: kids are sad when they cannot be tested? Really?

Does the school board really believe that more data of any sort will be key to improvement?

More testing is useful? Formative or summative?

This teacher will state clearly. This is a tragedy.

I would love to see the full deal. And who this vendor really is that just sideswiped the usual vendor approval process. Who is connected to this vendor and to this deal? Garvey brought the legality up several times. Good point. Voted yes anyhow.

No teachers. No teachers. No teachers.

Where is the additional support? This is supposed to help a teacher who does not exist? This will help the substitute?

Not negotiating in good faith.

Yes to testing? No to teachers.

Great example how priorities are skewed and how bad choices are made.

If you dont help kids – which is work done by skilled labor – all the data in the world is useless. It is people on the ground who love kids – who will turn schools around or help at-risk kids.

Bad mistake.

Tragedy.

And legislators – the board blamed you several times this evening for not giving them much time. Seems they do not value you either. They routinely blame you. They blame me too.

Join the club.”

“Angie.”

Categories Nevada, Standardized Testing, Teacher Shortage

Hawaii: Educators Disparage SBAC Tests

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2015 //
11

This post arrived from Randall Roth, a one of the signers of the article:

The following commentary appears in the October 8 edition of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser under the headline, “New testing regime at public schools is a recipe for disaster.” The byline follows the piece:

Testing obviously plays an important role in educating children — particularly tests designed to help teachers identify the needs of individual students.

The state’s new testing regime, called the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA), is quite different. It is not just unhelpful, but counterproductive.

First, SBA test results are not available until long after the test-takers have moved on from their current teachers’ classrooms and, in many instances, from their current school.

Second, SBA tests and the entire battery of tests administered cost more money to buy and consume more time to prepare for and administer than most members of the public would ever imagine possible.

These resources should instead be spent educating the children.

Third, test-takers perceive these tests as inconsequential and have little incentive to take them seriously, yet teaching careers are on the line, including those of teachers in subject areas not even covered by these tests.

Fourth, subject areas not covered by the SBA tests, such as art, music, history and science, tend to be de-emphasized by school communities seeking higher test scores, and individual teachers have a strong incentive to “teach to the test” in the areas that are tested.

The superintendent has long contended that the SBA test results would be helpful in evaluating teachers.

Ironically, the combination of these flawed tests and their role in an equally flawed teacher-evaluation system has already adversely affected a principal’s ability to deal effectively with teachers who require their attention and support.

Such unintended consequences can be expected when non-educators like the superintendent take it upon themselves to dramatically alter the way schools work without first seeking the meaningful involvement of school-level personnel.

Businessmen Terrence George and Harry Saunders recently expressed enthusiastic support for the new testing regime in Hawaii’s public schools (“Students did well on challenging exams,” Island Voices, Sept. 27).

They described recently released test scores as “encouraging,” not because the scores were high — they were not — but because the scores had been expected to be even lower.

After acknowledging that making sense of all this is “admittedly confusing,” these businessmen concluded that senior members of Hawaii’s Department of Education should be commended.

With all due respect, we strongly disagree.

And Hawaii’s public school principals overwhelmingly disagree.

According to our 2015 survey of public school principals, approximately nine out of 10 believe that the DOE has performed poorly in this area of implementing the SBA.

There is an inherent risk in harmful unintended consequences as a result of top-down decisions such as these decisions about the recent testing.

Such risks can be minimized or eliminated by seeking involvement and using the meaningful feedback of students, parents, teachers, and principals.

Such consequences can be avoided if DOE leadership has a deep understanding of what works and what does not.

We can’t help but wonder if the superintendent has ever asked herself why no private schools in Hawaii have adopted anything remotely close to the new SBA testing regime currently being forced on every public school in Hawaii.

Darrel Galera is executive director of the Education Institute of Hawaii (EIH) and former principal of Moanalua High School, and Roberta Mayor is EIH president and former principal of Waianae High School and education superintendent in Oakland, Calif. This commentary was also signed by EIH board members Marsha Alegre, John Sosa and Randall Roth.

The commentary can be found at http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20151008_new_testing_regime_at_public_schools_is_a_recipe_for_disaster.html?id=331193142&c=n (registration required)

Categories Common Core, Hawaii, Standardized Testing

Gary Rubinstein: Did NYC Charters Outperform Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2015 //
43

Gary Rubinstein explores the familiar claim that charter schools in New York City are far superior to public schools, when measured by test scores. The media, especially the newspapers, have said this repeatedly, as if it were a proven fact.

Not so fast, Gary says. he checked out the scores of the city’s charter schools, in relation to their “economic need index,” and compared them to public schools with their economic need index.

Only one charter chain stand out as an outlier: Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charters.

Otherwise, the test scores of the charter sector were similar to those of public schools.

Gary concludes:

“It seems pretty clear to me that, on average, the charter schools are not outperforming the public schools, based on how about half of of the charters are above the trend line and half below. Also it is relevant that most of the charters have an economic need index between .7 and .9 while there are a significant number of public schools that have an economic need index above .9. This runs contrary to the charter school supporters who continue to insist that charters serve the ‘same kids’ as the nearby ‘failing’ public school.

“Success Academy are such outliers that I can’t understand why charter supporters who are so focused on test scores are not out there insisting that all charter school resources be sent to expand Success Academy and the ‘yesterday’s news’ charters like KIPP, Democracy Prep, Harlem Children’s Zone, The Equity Project, etc. get shut down for poor performance.”

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, New York City, Standardized Testing
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