Archives for category: Standardized Testing
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Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Randi Weingarten: Stop Testing Little Children!

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2013 //
39

Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Randi Weingarten have co-authored a terrific article about why little children should not be subjected to standardized testing.

They write:

Young kids learn actively, through hands-on experiences in the real world. They develop skills over time through a process of building ideas. But this process is not always linear and is not quantifiable; expecting young children to know specific facts or skills at specified ages is not compatible with how they learn. It emphasizes right and wrong answers instead of the developmental progressions that typify their learning. 

Young children need opportunities to engage in active, age-appropriate, play-based learning. They need to figure out how things work, explore, question and have fun.

Such experiences have been shown to have significant educational and social benefits for children. And studies show that early childhood education provides a high rate of return for society’s investment.

They explain that standardized testing is counter-productive for young children.

This should be read by policymakers, especially in Washington, D.C., and state legislatures.

Parents don’t need to read it, because they already know that standardized testing is inappropriate to “measure” their child’s readiness for college-and-careers, or for anything else.

Early childhood educators know it too. They have issued statement after statement decrying the insistence by policymakers that little children who barely know how to hold a pencil should pick a bubble.

It is time to stop labeling children as “successes” or “failures” based on what the testing industry determines is right for their age.

One day, we will see similar articles about standardized testing for students in grades 3-12.

Standardized tests have their uses for older children, but only as an audit function, not as a measure of the knowledge and skills of individual children.

Students should be tested primarily by their teachers, who know what they were taught. The teachers can get instant feedback and use the information from their tests to help students who need help, and to recognize where their teaching didn’t click.

Isn’t it amazing that we became a great nation without standardized testing?

The nation’s mad love affair with standardized testing reaches the height of absurdity when children in the early grades and in pre-kindergarten are subjected to the tests.

Carlsson-Paige and Weingarten are right: Stop now. Let the children learn and play and develop as healthy, happy human beings.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Standardized Testing

Why Are We Obsessed with Test Scores?

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2013 //
51

A regular reader who calls him- or herself “Democracy” wrote the following in response to my post about the hype and spin surrounding NAEP scores:

“Diane Ravitch writes this: “Anyone who takes them [NAEP scores} seriously is either a sports writer covering education or someone who thinks that education can be reduced to the scores on standardized tests.”

I don’t disagree. But there are, obviously, plenty of educators and citizens, perhaps even most, who do disagree. They buy into goofy arguments made by the testing business (the College Board, the ACT, Pearson, etc.). They spout the “data-driven” nonsense. They think SAT and ACT scores actually measure “learning” and “intelligence.” They believe that Advanced Placement courses really are “better” than other college preparatory classes. They adopt and implement teacher merit pay schemes based on student test scores. They tout the test scores of their graduates, and of their incoming freshman classes.

Who are these people? School superintendents and school board members. Teachers, Guidance counselors. College admissions officers, and college presidents and board of trustees members. Parents, Politicians.

These are the same people who gamely embraced No Child Left Behind, and who had neither cognitive presence, courage, nor professional conviction to oppose it until THEIR schools were directly threatened.

Many of these same people have now latched onto the Common Core, as a new and improved model of school “reform.” Unfortunately, it’s one that seeks to cure a disease (public schooling in “crisis”) that doesn’t exist. In the process, there’s an incredible waste of resources that might have been used to move in a different research-based direction and affect genuine, meaningful educational improvement.

And what about education reporting. It’s woeful. Or worse. People like Tom Friedman toss off dreadfully ignorant stuff on schooling and test scores. Amanda Ripley passes herself off as an “investigative journalist” and educational “expert.” Jay Mathews at The Post continues to push the “AP is better” myth, while his editors continue to heap praise on the Michelle Rhee-Kaya Henderson regime in DC. At The Educated Reporter and The Atlantic, they seem to have been former sports writers.

I appreciate Diane Ravitch’s efforts to help educate and enlighten those who disagree with her take on test scores. There are certainly a lot of them, and it’s quite an undertaking.”

Categories NAEP, Standardized Testing

Angela Engel: Support Your Child by Opting Out of State Tests

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2013 //
9

What we have learned after thirty years or more of standardized testing, is that the tests mirror family income education: they measure gaps but do nothing to close them; our kids spend (waste) too much time preparing to take the tests; the test results are massively misused for rewards and punishments instead of for diagnostic purposes; the testing industry is rich and powerful and hires lobbyists to protect its hegemony.

Make 2014 the year we opt out. Do not let your child take the state tests: do not let your child take field tests; do not let your child take practice tests.

Seek out information about your state’s laws by writing Peg Robertson of United Opt Out.

Here is a recent post by education activist Angela Engel of Colorado:

In the sixteen years since I first administered the CSAP test to my fourth grade students at Rock Ridge Elementary School, here’s what we’ve learned:

Wealth and poverty are the greatest indicators of test performance

High-stakes testing correlates to segregation

High-stakes testing increases inequities in opportunities and resources and further harms low-income children and youth

Test scores are not an accurate indicator of a student’s knowledge or potential

Emphasis on standardized testing kills creativity, imagination, and innovation

Commercial tests are more expensive and are far less informative than classroom assessments collected over time and evaluated by professional teachers

High-stakes testing does not improve schools, teachers or students

High-stakes testing has cost billions of dollars with no return on those investments

Standardized tests and the stakes and labels associated with these tests are destructive to children and youth and fail to honor their unique ways of thinking and learning

Over these many years, I have worked to challenge high-stakes standardized testing. I have published a book and articles, written legislation, lobbied on behalf of kids, spoken to audiences, organized and educated. I’ve come to understand that the public’s collective will and their intolerance for injustice is the greatest agent of change. We can still try and change the laws, we can continue to inform the people, and we can also refuse to conform. We can live by a different set of rules; standards that respect our children; choices that are responsible to our spending; and decisions that heal the opportunity divide and lead to cooperation.
The Coalition for Better Education is beginning their annual Colorado campaign to educate parents and students about their rights to refuse the test and OPT OUT. All money goes directly to billboards. In the words of Don Perl, “no amount is too small.”

______
Dear Colleagues:
I have randomly gone through the names of those who have been strong activists in the past for our billboard campaign to inform parents of their rights to exempt their children from the fraud of high stakes standardized testing. As most of you know, we have advertised on Colorado highways since 2005 to raise awareness of the boondoggle of CSAP (now TCAP) and each year more and more parents have opted their children out of the tests.

This is a critical year for voices raised against the corporate takeover. They are more forceful than ever. Consider the latest publications – Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error, Jim Horn’s The Mismeasure of Education. The Progressive has a new website exposing the corporatization of public education, http://www.publicschoolshakedown.org. The strike of the Chicago Teachers’ Union a year ago had much to do with raising awareness of the privatization of what is a public trust – public education. Our mission has also been included in the wonderful collection of stories in Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education by Professors Nancy Schniedewind and Mara Sapon-Shevin.

I have just signed a contract with Mile High Outdoor Advertising to put two billboards up on the Eastern Slope. We will have these boards from January through March and I am attaching two photos of last year’s boards. Those two boards will cost us $2,200. We have a bank account in the Weld Schools Credit Union which now has about $500 in it. So, we need to raise something like $1,700 to cover the cost of the boards. We have no administrative costs whatsoever. So, however you could spread the word, however you could contribute to this campaign will be very much appreciated. Any contribution at all will help move us toward our goal.

Checks go to:

The Coalition for Better Education, Inc.
2424 22nd Avenue
Greeley, Colorado 80631

In appreciation and solidarity,

Don Perl
The Coalition for Better Education, Inc.
http://www.thecbe.org

Please forward this newsletter to your friends and ask them to visit http://www.AngelaEngel.com.

Angela Engel, 8131 S. Marion Ct., Centennial, CO 80122

Categories Colorado, Standardized Testing, Testing

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Tests Are Loaded with Errors

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2013 //
63

Heather Vogell, a stellar reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has done in-depth investigative reporting on the standardized tests that now are used to determine the fate of students, teachers, principals, and schools.

She has found a surprising number of errors, though not surprising to those familiar with the testing industry.

Read this article. How should a student respond to questions where all the answers are wrong?

What does it do to students when they realize the questions or answers are wrong?

Here is an idea for this tireless reporter: investigate how much money the testing industry spends to lobby Congress and the states to maintain their hold over the minds of our students and the very definition of education.

Readers, after you read Heather Vogell’s excellent articles, please read Todd Farley’s eye-popping exposé of the testing industry called “Making the Grades.”

You will never forget his description of how student constructed responses are scored and who is doing it (minimum wage temps).

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

Do Civil Rights Groups Want More High-Stakes Testing?

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2013 //
66

A group called the Campaign for High School Equity made
news the other day when it criticized Arne Duncan’s NCLB waivers
and complained that the waivers might reduce the amount of
high-stakes testing for poor and minority students. Mike Petrilli
at the conservative think tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute
challenged me to admit that the civil rights groups were leading
the charge to protect high-stakes testing. I accepted his
challenge. It didn’t make sense, on the face of it, that civil
rights groups would want more testing. Every standardized test in
the world reflects socioeconomic status, family education and
income. Testing measures advantage and disadvantage. Some kids defy
the odds, but the odds strongly predict that the have-not kids will
be at the bottom of the bell curve. They will be labeled as
failures. They may get help, they may not. But one thing is sure:
standardized testing is not a tool to advance civil rights. Testing
is not teaching. Low scores do not produce more resources or higher
achievement. More testing does not improve learning. It increase
rote learning, teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum, and
sometimes, cheating. So who is this group and why does it want more
testing. First,
the article that Mike forwarded to me. It says that the
waivers are allowing too many schools to avoid the consequences of
being low-performing. In other words, the Campaign for High School
Equity prefers the draconian consequences of No Child Left Behind
and the punitive labels attached to schools based on high-stakes
testing. Of course, their statement also makes it appear that Arne
Duncan is trying to water down punishments and high-stakes testing,
when nothing could be further from the truth. Who is part of the
Campaign for High School Equity? It includes the following groups:
National
Urban League • National
Council of La Raza • National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People • The
Leadership Conference Education Fund • Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund • League
of United Latin American Citizens •National
Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational
Fund • Alliance
for Excellent Education • National
Indian Education Association • Southeast
Asia Resource Action Center Why are they in favor of
high-stakes testing, even though the evidence is overwhelming that
NCLB has failed the children they represent? I can’t say for sure,
but this I do know. The Campaign for High School Equity is funded
by the Gates Foundation. It received a grant of nearly $500,000.
Some if not all of its members have also received grants from Gates
to support the CHSE. The NAACP
received $1 million from Gates to do so. LULAC
received $600,000 to support the CHSE. The Alliance
for Excellent Education received $2.6 million “to promote
public will for effective high school reform.” The Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights Fund received
$375,000 from the Gates Foundation to support CHSE. The
National
Association of Latino Appointed and Elected Officials is
Gates-funded, though not for this specific program. The National
Indian Education Fund received
Gates funding to participate in CHSE. The Southeast Asia
Resource
Action Center was funded by Gates to participate in CHSE. The others are not Gates-funded.

When CHSE demands more high-stakes testing,
more labeling of schools as “failed,” more public school closings,
more sanctions, more punishments, they are not speaking for communities
of color. They are speaking for the Gates Foundation.

Whoever is actually speaking for minority communities and children of color is
advocating for more pre-school education, smaller class sizes,
equitable resources, more funding of special education, more
funding for children who are learning English, experienced
teachers, restoration of budget cuts, the hiring of social workers
and guidance counselors where they are needed, after-school
programs, and access to medical care for children and their
families.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

What’s Not to Like About Exeter? Sidwell? Lakeside? Dalton?

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2013 //
133

The folks at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute are struggling to come to terms with the New York testing disaster. They certainly will not retreat from their deep faith in standardized testing, and they insist that there must be more parent choice, even though parents are sick of the excessive testing and most continue to choose their neighborhood school, if they still have one.

This is my favorite line:

“Reform critics like Diane Ravitch often question why we don’t push reforms that would create a “Sidwell Friends” for every student. Putting aside where we would find the extra $1.6 trillion it would take to make that possible, there is a simpler answer: some of us don’t want Sidwell Friends. And just because some believe the elite culture of the top 1 percent is what’s best for all children, doesn’t mean all parents share that belief.”

I can’t say where that $1.6 trillion number comes from. I went to ordinary public schools that did not face annual budget crisis, that did not squander millions on standardized testing, that provided arts programming and daily physical education and foreign languages, that did not fire teachers if students got low test scores. But people who did not go to ordinary public schools may not know that.

What I want to challenge here is the assertion that “some of us don’t want” what the best private schools have to offer.

Who wouldn’t want what Sidwell offers? Or Exeter? Or Lakeside Academy in Seattle?

Who wouldn’t want classes of 12-15 instead of 35-40?

Who wouldn’t want a beautiful campus?

Who wouldn’t want experienced, respected teachers?

Who wouldn’t want a rich curriculum with science labs, history projects, drama and music, and lots of sports every day?

Who wouldn’t want to go to a school that never gave standardized tests and didn’t judge teachers by students test scores?

Maybe there are such people. I have never met them. Maybe they work at Fordham or the Gates Foundation, but I doubt it.

Categories Class size, Curriculum, Parents, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

Is VAM Junk Science? Matt Di Carlo and I Disagree

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2013 //
43

I usually agree with Matt Di Carlo. He is one smart guy.

But not always.

That’s okay. Friends can disagree and still be friends (I proved that by blogging with Deborah Meier for five years).

I think that value-added methods of using test scores to rate teacher quality are “junk science.”

Matt disagrees

Now, granted, I am but a historian, not a social scientist, but I do read lots of social science. I noted that the National Academy of Education and AERA held a briefing on Capitol Hill and issued a joint statement warning about the pitfalls of VAM. Here is a salient point from their report: “With respect to value-added measures of student achievement tied to individual teachers, current research suggests that high-stakes, individual-level decisions, or comparisons across highly dissimilar schools or student populations, should be avoided.”

Edmund Gordon, one of our nation’s most eminent psychologists, recently led a commission to study assessment practices. He concluded that the overemphasis and misuse of standardized testing to hold students, teachers, and schools accountable is not only ineffective but “immoral.”

I would say that “immoral” is an even stronger condemnation than “junk science.”

Campbell’s Law suggests that the use of high-stakes testing degrades education. Threatening to fire teachers if their students’ scores don’t go up does not produce better education. It produces worse education. It promotes narrowing of the curriculum. It promotes cheating. It encourages teachers and schools to avoid the neediest students.

Teaching is so much more than test scores. To think that teachers may be defined significantly by the rise or fall of the test scores of their students requires a belief in the intrinsic value of standardized tests that I do not share. We may learn something from wide assessments with no-stakes, like NAEP. But using these flawed instruments to fire teachers and close schools is–in my judgment–wrong. They were not designed for those purposes. And the first rule of psychometrics is that tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed.

All things considered, the term “junk science” seems appropriate, as does Dr. Gordon’s phrase: ineffective and immoral.

One reason parents flee public schools, if they can afford it, is to escape the dead hand of testing that now strangles learning. The sooner we can put testing in its place as a diagnostic tool for teachers to assess what they have taught (not as a Pearson-designed 14-hour ordeal), the sooner we will restore the rightful purposes of education and the dignity of the teaching profession.

Categories Accountability, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

A Teacher’s Pledge for the Ethical Use of Test Data

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2013 //
12

Anthony Cody met teacher Michelle Gunderson at Occupy the DOE. When he heard her ideas about testing, he invited her to write a guest blog.

Gunderson explained that she has seen test used to sort children, to punish children, and now–to privatize schools.

She has developed her own credo for the ethical use of tests.

Please read it.

The essence of the pledge is that a student’s test scores should be treated as confidential.

I wholeheartedly agree.

I would go farther.

We don’t expect our doctors to turn over our test results to the state, why should teachers give children’s data to anyone but them and their parent or guardian?

Categories Standardized Testing, Testing

Jonathan Kozol Will Be Honored by FairTest on May 9

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2013 //
1

If you live anywhere near Cambridge, you should plan to attend this FairTest event on May 9 when FairTest will honor Jonathan Kozol.

FairTest will present Jonathan with the Deborah W. Meier Award for Heroes in Education for his lifelong commitment to education, children, and human rights.

Jonathan is indeed a hero in education.

He is a champion for children, for teachers, and for public schools.

I am happy to add him to this blog’s honor roll for his courage, his eloquence, and his clear vision of a just, decent, and humane society.

 

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Honor Roll, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

FairTest: An All-New, Improved SAT, “With Tail Fins?”

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2013 //
13

FairTest has been a watchdog for the testing industry for many years.

The latest news is that the SAT will be overhauled (again), this time to align it with the Common Core standards.

No big surprise, since the head of the College Board, David Coleman, was the lead player in developing the Common Core standards.

Fairtest reports that more than 800 colleges and universities no longer require the SAT for admission.

A test coaching industry has grown up to prep students for the SAT.

Thus, one’s SAT scores have become, more than ever, an indicator of a family’s ability to pay for test prep.

The FairTest newsletter reports:

“Responding to the College Board’s ongoing failure to address the exam’s flaws, the number of schools dropping the SAT has surged. Since 2005, nearly 90 colleges and universities have eliminated testing requirements for all or many applicants. That brings the total to more than 800. The test-optional list now includes 140 institutions ranked in the top tier of their respective categories by U.S. News & World Report.”

Categories Common Core, Higher Education, Standardized Testing, Testing
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