Archives for category: Standardized Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

First Grade Teacher: How Common Core Tests Affect My Students

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2015 //
50

This letter was written by a first grade teacher in upstate Néw York:

She writes:

(Un)Intended Consequences

Today was the first day of the NYS ELA tests. I must state right from the outset that my students do not take these tests. Not yet. But in two short years, they will. And yet, these tests had an effect on my students today and will continue to do so in the days to come. You see, these tests have a ripple effect. The immediate effect is that my students who receive services such as reading and resource will not receive these services for the next TWO WEEKS since the teachers who provide these services are proctoring the state tests. They will also lose services when some of these same teachers are pulled out to score the tests in the subsequent weeks. (They will lose out again when we begin the SLO testing in May, but that is for another post). The longer term effects are more devastating. You see, their education has been hijacked by these tests. Although my “Firsties” are not taking these tests yet, they are preparing for them and will continue to do so throughout their Elementary years.

When I started teaching oh so many years ago, we focused on thematic instruction and integrating all subject areas so that our students had opportunities to make connections. We taught in ways that honored many learning styles, student’s individual differences and developmental stages, along with their individual needs. We understood (and still do) that each child has different intelligences and learning styles. My walls and windows of my classroom were covered with songs and poems, student artwork and artifacts of student learning. My little ones sang and read and played. We taught using literature with rich language and focused on building background knowledge. Children were encouraged to synthesize knowledge and draw conclusions using what they knew and what they were learning. We used a tremendous amount of glitter and paper and encouraged children to express themselves in ways that played to their strengths. We did projects and had lots of hands-on learning with manipulatives. I assessed through observation and working directly with students.

Over the years, we have had to move away from what we know is right for kids to what we are told we must do in order to prepare students for the tests.

At first, teachers knew that we could use those tests to help identify areas where students needed further instruction and where we could improve our teaching. We accepted that our 4th and 8th grade students would be tested and we knew how to prepare them. We focused on those areas and we saw growth. We didn’t like “No Child Left Behind” but we could work within it.

Fast forward to “Race To The Top” and Common Core and the use of the tests to evaluate teachers. Without going into all that is wrong with this, let me just say how it has affected my little ones:

My walls are no longer covered with songs and poems and artwork. That has been replaced with “anchor charts”, “I can statements” and “Learning targets”. We barely use construction paper and I have not purchased glitter in 3 years. There is no time for art projects or creative expression. Children can no longer choose their learning. They write to prompts and must write different genres at certain times. Math is done on paper and manipulatives are few and far between (except when I pull out the old stuff). Reading is “close reading” and answers to questions are to be solely based on the text, without synthesis of prior knowledge.

Assessment is daily and must be documented along with being scripted (because Big Brother is watching). Modules are scripted, teacher led and boring for little ones. We have to have 50% of text presented as informational text. Students have to write essays before they even have automaticity of letter formation. ALL THIS IS DONE SO THEY CAN PREP FOR THE TESTS. My students will take keyboarding in 3rd grade so they can take the tests online…BEFORE SOME OF THEM EVEN HAVE THE PHYSICAL HAND SPAN TO USE A KEYBOARD.

Our littlest learners are preparing for these tests as soon as they enter school. We know that. We know that our colleagues in grades 3-8 depend on us to lay the foundation. We know that our little ones are being used as weapons to help destroy public education. We know that they cannot possibly do well on these tests as they are written 2-3 grade levels above their current grade level and that an arbitrary “cut score” will be determined AFTER the tests are scored to manipulate the data. We know that we cannot discuss these tests and that they cannot be used to inform instruction nor to inform us of our students’ progress. These tests are solely being used to create false data about our students and our schools. They are being used to make our public schools look as though they are “failing” and that our teachers are incompetent. They are creating a pressure cooker atmosphere.

Our Bully of a governor wants to turn our public schools into For-profit Charter schools (which are little more than test prep factories that do NOT have transparency of finances). He is beholden to his hedge fund donors and his big $ donors. In addition, he has publicly stated that he wants to break the teacher’s union. Our children’s education has been hijacked. Our teachers are being abused by an agenda that puts money over what is right for kids. Our society’s future is being manipulated to create a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, both in terms of dollars and education and opportunities. The simple fact that the private schools where the children of the elite attend do not have to participate in these tests or this curriculum, is very telling.

Today’s refusal numbers are encouraging. This is a lesson in civil rights and civil disobedience. We are teaching our children that they have a way of changing what is wrong in our government and our society through nonviolent means. We are teaching them that they have a voice. We are showing them that we can all create change. We are also showing them how to stand up to Bullies. And THAT is a great lesson that no amount of test prep can compare to.

Categories Childhood, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Retired Superintendent: Opt Out

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
9

Sometimes, people have to retire to speak candidly. A reader in Néw York left this comment:

 

“I am a retired Superintendent. If my kids were still in school they would not waste their time taking these tests–and I would encourage the friends of their parents to have their children opt out. These are terrible assessments that are used for very inappropriate purposes. Do not feed the Tisch/Cuomo testing machine–take your child to a museum when other kids are being tested–and make clear to administrators that under no circumstances are your kids to be taken out of class for make up exams!”

Categories New York, Opt Out, Standardized Testing

BAT Leader Explains to Chancellor Tisch Why New York Tests Have NO Diagnostic Value

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
21

Marla Kilfoyle is a National Board Certified Teacher and a leader of the Badass Teachers Association. She is also the parent of a 12-year-old public school student. She was surprised to hear Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch say that teachers and parents need the state tests because of their diagnostic value. In this post, she explains to Chancellor Tisch why the state tests have no diagnostic value. Her post contains a typical state test report to parents. It was returned months after the test, when the student has a new teacher. It has scores on it, but no description of the student’s weaknesses or strengths in any particular area. In the example she gives, the parents learn that their child scored a 1, the lowest ranking, but nothing about where the child needs extra help.

She compares the lack of diagnostic information on the New York State report to another test administered to students. It is called WIAT (Wechsler Individual Test). This test breaks down each student’s test performance on specific skills. It is returned to parents in less than a month. (The WIAT is owned by Pearson, which also created the non-informative New York annual tests.)

Kilfoyle is upset by Chancellor Tisch’s description of the opt out movement as a labor dispute. The many thousands of parents whose children refused the tests were not acting on behalf of the teachers’ union. They were acting as parents concerned about subjecting their children to a useless test.

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Pearson, Standardized Testing

Two Long Island Superintendents Explain the Reasons for the Opt Out Movement

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
15

Steve Cohen and David Gamberg are highly respected superintendents on Long Island. In this post, they explain why so many parents object to the current climate of high-stakes testing. With leaders like Cohen and Gamberg, who think that students need and deserve a real education, you can understand why Long Island is the epicenter of the Opt Out movement in New York and perhaps in the nation. Their article appeared in the Suffolk Times-Review, a local newspaper on Long Island; I should not quote so much of it, but it is such a powerful article that I could not resist. Open the link and read it all. Both of these superintendents, by the way, are already members of the blog’s honor roll.

 

They begin:

 

A mere four years ago, and for decades prior, one could not find any substantial evidence of students opting-out of standardized testing. At first glance, the current, heated, conflict over state testing and the “opt-out” movement appears to be a dispute between those who believe in and those who dispute the value of state tests. But this conflict goes deeper. It is a conflict about what is good for children and adolescents, about how children learn and thrive, and about how to raise young people to enter into and contribute to their communities as mature members of a democratic society.

 

Those who support testing contend that facing tests, and the concomitant adversity that one might experience (even if the test is developmentally inappropriate) are a part of life. To do otherwise is considered weak, and represents a failure to develop the “grit” necessary to fully engage in life’s challenges. For these people, it is inconceivable that locally developed assessments — perhaps even more purposeful and useful assessments — could accomplish that very same goal. Living in a culture of fear as we do, many people believe that it is necessary to impose carefully guarded secret tests from above to make sure that we hold incompetent adults — untrustworthy teachers and administrators — accountable for the abject failure of some children who graduate from our public schools….

 

They write that the so-called reformers,  like Governor Cuomo and the Legislature, are fixated on basic skills and compliance with the demands of the state. What they care very little about is the broader, civic and humane purposes of education.

 

Broad learning in the arts as well as in the sciences, in literature as well as in history, economics, psychology, plus athletics, independent study and community service, is a notion that seems to be beyond the scope of this version of school improvement. Indeed, to reformers, failure to create a “live to work” system of public education will mean that the next generation will not be able to “compete” with young people in other countries for good jobs. In particular, these education reformers believe that African-American, Hispanic, and poor children generally are most at risk if these reforms are not adopted immediately — despite the cruel fact that these tests have increased the “performance gap” between poor and middle class children. People who believe in this “reform” conception of public education insist that current state tests are absolutely necessary to help children learn what they need to know.

 

Many defenders of current state tests also find it morally reprehensible to break the rules, even if the rules support a broken system. To be an agent of change, and seek to be in favor of a better system is considered wrong and virtually un-American to these people. The system is what it is, and everyone should be quiet and obey the rules. Our founding fathers, who were patriots, would have had a hard time understanding why they risked their lives to establish our democracy if they believed that adherence to the official way of doing things could not be challenged. We would suspect that the likes of Washington, Franklin and Jefferson would do far more than simply opt-out of tests.

 

People who reject these ideas believe they have no other way to express their dislike of this conception of public education than to deny reformers the “data” needed to keep education reforms moving ahead, by refusing to have their children take these tests. The governor and the Legislature have ignored the deeply felt beliefs of hundreds of thousands of parents who believe that public education is too complex, and too important to the future of their children, to be characterized adequately by a wooden, mechanical conception of childhood development.

 

They believe that education must be more than the crimped enterprise of getting young people ready for future jobs that may well not even materialize. People who “opt” their children out of these tests believe that public education should not deny young people broad exposure to the deep intellectual and moral heritage of modern democratic society; it should not dismiss local traditions of providing community service; it should not ignore the immense variety among young people’s interests, abilities and needs. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is the belief that there are many highly successful school systems around the state that have taught children to read, write and learn mathematics at the highest levels for decades, while also providing these children with serious exposure to science, history, various arts, athletics and a host of meaningful community experiences. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is recognition of the reality that helping poor children cannot be done by testing them. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is the belief that teachers by and large have contributed greatly to the high-level achievements of countless public school students. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is the belief that a simplistic and suffocating approach to improving education is bad for children — all of them. People who reject these “reform” ideas wonder why the reformers themselves send their children to private schools that work more or less the way hundreds of successful public schools work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Opt Out, Real Education, Standardized Testing

Arne Duncan Threatens to Step In if Opt Outs Continue to Grow

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
205

Arne Duncan’s response to the many thousands of parents who are now opting out of state testing is typical of his past remarks about “white suburban moms” who are disappointed to learn that their children are not so brilliant after all, or teachers and parents who have been “lying” to their children by praising their mediocre school performance. He basically says they should get over it and do what the state and federal government tells them to do and stop coddling their children. He doesn’t coddle his children, why should they?

 

In an interview, he said that the federal government might have to step in if states have too many opt outs. Duncan has been touting the virtues of the Common Core and of the two tests that he funded—PARCC and SBAC–and he can’t understand why parents don’t want their children to take them.

 

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that the federal government is obligated to intervene if states fail to address the rising number of students who are boycotting mandated annual exams.
Duncan’s comments come as an “opt out” advocacy group in New York reports that more than 184,000 students statewide out of about 1.1 million eligible test takers refused to take last week’s English exams. In New York City, nearly 3,100 students out of about 420,000 test takers opted out, according to the group.

 

The number of opt outs in New York more than tripled over last year.

 

Those estimates suggesting that more than 15 percent of students refused to take the tests have raised questions about the consequences for districts. Federal law requires all students in grades three to eight to take annual tests, and officials have said districts could face sanctions if fewer than 95 percent of students participate. On Tuesday, when asked whether states with many test boycotters would face consequences, Duncan said he expected states to make sure districts get enough students take the tests.
“We think most states will do that,” Duncan said during a discussion at the Education Writers Association conference in Chicago. “If states don’t do that, then we have an obligation to step in.”
Duncan also said that students in some states are tested too much, and acknowledged that the exams are challenging for many students. But he argued that annual standardized exams are essential for tracking student progress and monitoring the score gap between different student groups.
He also said the tests are “just not a traumatic event” for his children, who attend public school in Virginia.
“It’s just part of most kids’ education growing up,” he said. “Sometimes the adults make a big deal and that creates some trauma for the kids.”

 

Categories Duncan, Arne, Opt Out, Standardized Testing

Meet the Parents Who Started a Revolution

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
19

Donn Esmonde of the Buffalo News sat down to talk with three of the parent leaders of the historic Opt Out movement in New York state. Although the mainstream media has trouble understanding that the movement is led by parents, Esmonde got it.

They don’t look or act like radicals. None dress in camouflage. All three are parents who vote, pay their taxes, stop at red lights and salute the flag. But Eric Mihelbergel, Christine Cavarello and Jodi Hitchcock – and thousands like them – form the roots of a revolution.

It would be one thing if they were a disaffected minority, a grumpy niche, a band of eccentrics. But their numbers have swelled to the point where they – and their message – can no longer be ignored. Not even by as large, autonomous and irrepressible a bureaucracy as State Ed.

The three are part of a mushrooming legion of parents who don’t let their kids take standardized state tests. Their numbers are startling: 70 percent of third- through eighth-graders in West Seneca; 58 percent in Lake Shore; 56 percent in North Tonawanda; and 49 percent in Lackawanna opted out of Tuesday’s English Language Arts (ELA) exam. Numbers were lower in other districts – but exponentially larger in most places than last year….

We sat Thursday in the living room of Mihelbergel’s tidy ranch house in Tonawanda. I wanted a better idea of the motives behind the movement. These parents didn’t strike me as irrational, uninformed or overprotective. Quite the contrary.

They have a huge – and, it seems to me, justifiable – problem with their kids being force-fed these now-annual exams of questionable content. The results are being more heavily tied by the governor into grading teachers and schools. At worst, it feeds a teach-to-the-test culture that undercuts learning, handcuffs teachers and disregards the strengths and interests of each kid.

“It’s a game nobody’s going to win,” said Cavarello. “You’re chasing test scores, to the detriment of really educating the kids … The teachers aren’t happy, but they can’t do much about it.”

When the testing tail wags the learning dog, parents stand up in protest. And their numbers are growing. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, “You know something is happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Cuomo?”

The parents I spoke with aren’t rising up because they don’t know what’s happening in the classrooms, but because they do. Ramping up standardized testing, and its ripple effect in schools, has turned parents into rebels, solid citizens into outliers, the law-abiding into the rule-defying.

“The state has underestimated the power of that Mama Bear and Papa Bear instinct, when it comes to protecting our children,” said Hitchcock. “This fight isn’t easy, it takes a lot of work.”

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing

Mother Crusader: Pearson is Field-Testing PARCC Tests for 2nd Grade in New Jersey

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
47

Darcie Cimarusti, the ever-vigilant blogger known as Mother Crusader, discovered that Pearson is field-testing a PARCC test for 2nd grade in New Jersey public schools.

She went to the PARCC website and learned that Pearson is developing assessments for K-2. These tests will presumably prepare children for the test in the next grade and the grades after that. You can never start the testing too soon!

The children are being used as guinea pigs to help in Pearson’s product development. She guesses they will be subject to the same rules of confidentiality required of students in grades 3-11, even though they are too young to understand what they agree to do–or not do. “Don’t talk about the test.” Of course, to a child, that is probably an incitement to talk about the test.

She poses this question:

The New Jersey Assembly has already passed a bill that would prohibit the administration of non-diagnostic standardized tests prior to 3rd grade. The Senate needs to act now. They have the power to keep Pearson away from our youngest students. If Pearson’s grade 3-11 tests were field tested in NJ in the 2013-14 school year and implemented in the 2014-15 school year, it stands to reason that a Grade 2 field test this year means the introduction of a Grade 2 PARCC test next year.

So what is the NJ Senate waiting for?

Categories New Jersey, Standardized Testing

Is It Illegal to Write or Read This Article about Testing?

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
41

Blogger-teacher Steven M. Singer here reveals the veil of secrecy that testing corporations drape around their product.

He writes:

Warning!

What you are about to read may be a criminal act.

I may have broken the law by putting this information out there.

Edward Snowden leaked data about civilian surveillance. Chelsea Manning released top secret military documents.

And me? I’m leaking legal threats and intimidation students and teachers are subject to during standardized testing.

Not exactly a federal crime is it?

No. I’m asking. Is it?

Because teachers are being fired and jailed. Students are being threatened with litigation.

All because they talked about standardized tests.

The US government mandates public school children be subjected to standardized assessments in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Most schools test much more than that – even as early as kindergarten.

And since all of these assessments are purchased from private corporations, the testing material is ideological property. The students taking these exams – regardless of age – are no longer treated as children. They are clients entering into a contract.

He cites the copyright warning that students are required to read before they take the Pennsylvania tests. If they photograph or reproduce or copy any part of the test they may be find no less than $750 or as much as $30,000. Wow! Not too many children have that kind of dough to pay for a copyright violation.

The state warns students that they are not allowed to discuss the test with others either during the test or after it.

Singer writes:

Sure kids shouldn’t talk about the test with classmates DURING the testing session. Obviously! But why can’t they discuss it after the test is over!?

Kids aren’t allowed to say to their friends, “Hey! Did you get the essay question about ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’?”

They aren’t allowed to discuss how difficult it was or compare how each of them answered the questions?

These are children. If you think they aren’t talking, then you just don’t know kids. You don’t know people!

And why shouldn’t they talk about it? They just shared a stressful, common experience. Who wouldn’t want to compare it to what others went through so as to decide how your experience rates? Did you answer the questions well or not? Did you get a more difficult question than others? Did the thing that struck you as odd also hit others the same way?

Personally, I do not consider talking like this to be cheating. It’s just human nature.

He goes on to discuss the constraints imposed on teachers.

He asks:

Therefore, I must ask an important question of you, dear reader: Did I violate these rules by writing this very article? Is the piece you are reading right now illegal?

And he wonders: Why is the state exercising its powers to protect the testing corporations? Wouldn’t it be nice if the state were protecting its students and teachers?

Categories Cheating, Pennsylvania, Standardized Testing

Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out Responds to the New York Times’ Article

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
44

This comment was posted on the blog by Peggy Robertson, founder of United Opt Out, in response to the New York Times’ article implying that the Opt Out movement is led by the teachers’ unions.

Peggy Robertson writes:

Opt out is led by parents, teachers, students and citizens. When United Opt Out National began over four years ago we were simply a facebook page with a file for each state. Within hours our FB group page was flooded with opt out requests and now we have opt out leaders all over the country and grassroots opt out groups popping up everywhere. I think Florida has 25 at this point – probably more since I last checked – and mind you they did this all on their own. UOO has simply been a catalyst and a support. What is even more fascinating, and sad, is that UOO has reached out to the unions many times, and never received a response. You will notice that United Opt Out National is rarely mentioned in recent articles. I think that’s because we represent the people. The power of the people. UOO has no funding (heck I paid for our website for the first two years pretty much on my own). When our website was destroyed last year guess who helped UOO fund/rebuild it? The people. No corporations. No unions. The people – the citizens of this country – for free – and with truth and heart – have helped us to create fifty state opt out guides. The citizens have helped us to continually update and alert folks to opt out situations across the country. The people have helped us create essential guides, opt out letters, and social media campaigns. The fact that this is happening by the people, for the people, with no funding, is true democracy and is a dangerous thing. Folks would much prefer that we are sheeple and that we are incapable of strategically planning a nationwide opt out movement. Guess what? We did it. All of us. That makes us dangerous. That makes the media/corporations want to co-opt and shut down our work. A mass movement of civil disobedience that is running through our country like a tidal wave in an attempt to save our democracy is indeed a powerful force that no corporation can shut down. Let’s keep pushing forward. Solidarity to all of you.

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Unions

Carol Burris Discusses Some of the Worst Questions on the Pearson Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
55

Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School, has been an outspoken critic of both the Common Core standards (which she once supported, even wrote a book about them) and the testing associated with them. She is a leader of the Opt Out movement on Long Island in New York.

In this article for Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog, Burris reveals some of the most problematic questions on the Common Core ELA tests, administered last week. So many of the questions and the reading passages are now circulating on the Internet that it is hard to believe that Pearson thinks its tests are secure. They are not.

The article includes links to all the items mentioned.

Burris writes:

Disgusted teachers and parents are defying the “gag order” and talking about the tests, anonymously, on blogs. The sixth-grade test has consistently come under fire, especially during Day 3 when an article entitled, “Nimbus Clouds: Mysterious, Ephemeral, and Now Indoors” from the Smithsonian Magazine appeared on one version of the test.

Here is a passage from the article:

“As a result, the location of the cloud is an important aspect, as it is the setting for his creation and part of the artwork. In his favorite piece, Nimbus D’Aspremont, the architecture of the D’Aspremont-Lynden Castle in Rekem, Belgium, plays a significant role in the feel of the picture. “The contrast between the original castle and its former use as a military hospital and mental institution is still visible,” he writes. “You could say the spaces function as a plinth for the work.””

You can read the entire article here.

The genius at Pearson who put that article on the sixth-grade test should take his nimbi and his plinth and go contemplate his belly button in whatever corner of that Belgian castle he chooses. The members of the State Education Department who approved the article’s inclusion should go with him.

Other complaints include:

* requiring fourth graders to write about the architectural design of roller coasters and why cables are used instead of chains

* a sixth-grade passage from “That Spot” by Jack London, which included words and phrases such as “beaten curs,” “absconders of justice,” surmise, “savve our cabin,” and “let’s maroon him”

* a passage on the third-grade test from “Drag Racer” which has a grade level of 5.9 and an interest level of 9-12th grade.

The eighth-grade test required 13-year-olds to read articles on playground safety. Vocabulary included: bowdlerized, habituation techniques, counterintuitive, orthodoxy, circuitous, risk averse culture, and litigious. One of the articles, which was from The New York Times, can be found here. Here is an excerpt:

Paradoxically, we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.

I am sure that 13-year old ESL students were delighted by that close read.

[Guess the subjects deemed too ‘sensitive’ for new Common Core tests]

And who will be scoring this new generation of tests? If you have a bachelor’s degree, you can ‘soar to new heights’ working either the day or night shift with Pearson making $13 an hour. Or, if you would like to spend some quality time in Menands, New York, the temp agency, Kelly Services, will hire you for $11.50 an hour to score. No degree? No problem. The company’s last ad on Craig’s list for test scorers didn’t require one.
With these exams, the testing industry is enriching itself at the expense of taxpayers, all supported by politicians who self-righteously claim that being subjected to these Common Core tests is a “civil right.” Nonsense. It is clear that none of this will stop unless the American public puts an end to this. I have only two words left to say—opt out.

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »