Earlier today I posted about a letter that went viral. Its authorship was attributed to two different people. A reader, Mary Ginley, says she wrote the letter in 1999:
“I wrote the original letter in 1999 and it was published in the East Longmedow Town Reminder in Maasachusetts. I was active in the anti-MCAS movement at the time.”
I received news from England that a letter written by Rachel Tomlinson, the head of Barrowford, a primary school in Lancashire, went viral.
The letter was a clone of one written by American teacher Kimberly Hurd Horst on her blog.
No claims of plagiarism here. Maybe every principal and teacher should send the same letter home when students get their Common Core test scores, saying they failed. Remind parents that children are more than a test score. Tell them that the passing mark was set unreasonably high. Tell them that the tests failed, not the children.
In October last year Hurd Horst wrote on her blog: “There are many more ways to be smart than what many schools are currently allowing. The current testing culture personally drives me crazy. It does not tell students that they matter. Tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each student special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each student the way I do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way the families do. They do not know that some of my students speak two languages. They do not know that they can play a musical instrument or that they can dance or paint a picture. Doesn’t that matter more?”
The school seemed to acknowledge debt to Hurd, retweeting a comment from someone linking to her blog.
Valerie Strauss describes what happened in Lee County last night when the school board voted 3-2 to opt out of state testing, and she reviews what the state might do in response.
She writes:
“The pushback from Lee County — the ninth-largest district in the state and the 37th largest in the country, with more than 85,000 students – is striking in a state that has been at the forefront of standardized test-based “accountability” systems that use student test scores to evaluate not only kids but their teachers, principals, schools and districts. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was a pioneer in test-based accountability and he continues to support it around the country, even amid a growing revolt around the country by parents and educators against test-based school reform, which has led to narrowed curriculum, obsessive test preparation and other negative consequences. Reformers have insisted that test scores are a legitimate high-stakes evaluation tool, even though assessment experts have repeatedly said otherwise.
“The Lee County school board voted to opt public schools out of all state-mandated testing. That includes standardized tests that will assess the new Sunshine State Standards, which were “adopted” after Florida pulled out of the Common Core and set forth new standards that were very similar. According to Armstrong, the boycott also includes state-mandated end-of-course exams, which are supposed to be given starting this year in every course that does not have a standardized test attached to it. The end-of-course exams, however, can be locally designed, do not have to be standardized computer or paper-and-pencil tests and can include a range of options.
“Asked what the state Department of Education could do to the county for taking this position, he said Florida could withhold state funds from the country and take other action, including removing a member from the board. A summary of possible consequences for the county, issued by the county’s school district attorney, included a number of other potential consequences, including the possibility that high school students could not complete state requirements to graduate. You can see the entire list here.”
Lee County, Florida, made history tonight. Despite threats from state officials that they might cut funding, the school board voted to opt the entire district out of state testing.
“The school board has voted to opt out the entire district from all statewide, standardized testing – effective immediately. The decision was received with overwhelming cheers and applause in the packed auditorium.
“The motion passed three to two, with board members Don Armstrong, Tom Scott and Mary Fischer in support of the vote.
“Board members Jeanne Dozier and Cathleen Morgan said they would prefer the district wait until an alternative plan is in place. Superintendent Nancy Graham warned the district that the abrupt decision could be harmful to students.
“There is an unmistakable emotion in the room tonight at the Lee school board meeting as the board deliberates a motion to opt out from all statewide tests.
“The standing-room only audience cheered and booed as more than 33 concerned citizens took the podium to speak their thoughts on the possibility of the district opting out of standardized tests. The audience was filled with protestors wearing red “#boycott shirts.”
“The flood of red represented various activist groups in Lee County, including Teaching Not Testing, Florida Citizens’ Alliance and the Libertarian Party of Florida.
“Because 33 people requested to give public comment tonight, each speaker only has one minute to voice their thoughts.
“Chairman Tom Scott reminded the audience that school board policy prohibits booing, cheering and clapping. The audience, at times, could not help itself as citizens gave impassioned one-minute speeches.
“Emotions came to a head when mother Lori Jenkins took the stand. She said her son has a terminal heart condition and was at home on a leave from school, yet the district still sent someone to proctor his exam at his home on his deathbed. The audience gasped with disgust.
“He’s terminal, he’s going to die, but he goes to school! He does the stupid remedial classes!” Jenkins yelled. The audio was cut off when she hit her one-minute limit. She continued to yell into the mic as the audience called for the board to let her speak. Jenkins received a standing ovation.
The ASCD published an eye-popping chart showing that NAEP long-term trend test scores for 17-year-olds were flat from 1971-2012. At the same time, economic productivity soared by 375%, and gross domestic product grew by 100%.
What do you make of that?
I have pointed out repeatedly that our students have never excelled on international tests. On the first international test in 1964, our students came in last of 12 nations. Yet as I explain in my book “Reign of Error,” over the next half-century we outperformed the other 11 nations who had higher test scores.
What do you make of that?
Mike Klonsky knows who is sucking the oxygen out of classrooms and killing the joy of learning: Arne Duncan.
Don’t take Mike’s word for it. Arne confessed. He said he would give schools a one-year reprieve from his testing mandates. One year to breathe deep and suck in some real oxygen. Then he returns to take your oxygen away again. Makes sense, no? No.
Remember that Arne Duncan said that there was too much testing, that testing was sucking the oxygen and joy out of classrooms? New York didn’t get the message. In that state, state tests count for 20% of educator evaluations, and local assessments count for another 20%. That is the agreement negotiated with the unions when the state won Race to the Top funding.
That was then, this is now.
The Néw York Board of Regents want state test scores to count for 40% of the evaluations of teachers and principals. This report was was confirmed to me by someone in Albany.
It matters not to the Regents that test-based evaluation is not working anywhere else. It matters not that the AERA and the National Academy of Education warned against it, warned that it would incentivize teachers to avoid high-needs students. It matters not that the American Statistical Association warned against using test scores to rate individual teachers since they affect only 1-14% of variation in student scores.
The ASA said: “Attaching too much importance to a single item of quantitative information is counter-
productive—in fact, it can be detrimental to the goal of improving quality. In particular, making changes in response to aspects of quantitative information that are actually random variation can increase the overall variability of the system.”
Unlike the state of Vermont, which refuses to rate teachers and principals by test scores, Néw York’s Regents will plunge ahead, regardless of the damage they do to teachers, principals, students, and communities.
Peter Greene calls attention to a new federal grant program of $28.4 million, to pay for low-income students to take Advanced Placement courses. AP courses are a source of revenue for the College Board, whose president is David Coleman, architect of the Common Core.
Greene writes:
“I will remind everyone, as I always do, that the College Board (home of the AP test and the SATs) is not a philanthropic organization, administering these tests as some sort of public service. They are a business, one of several similar ones, selling a product. This program is the equivalent of the feds saying, “Students really need to be able to drive a Ford to school, so we we’re going to finance the purchase of Fords for some students.”
“What does the College Board get out of this program?
“Huge product placement. David Coleman’s College Board has been working hard to market the AP test as the go-to proof that a student is on the college path. Some states (PA is one) give extra points to school evaluation scores based on the number of AP courses offered. The new PSAT will become an AP-recommendation generator. This program is one more tap-tap-tap in the drumbeat that if you want to go to college, you must hit the AP. The program can also be directed toward IB tests or “other approved advanced placement tests,” but it’s the AP brand that is on the marquee.
“The product placement represents a savvy marketing end run. The AP biz has previously depended on the kindness of colleges to push their product. But colleges and universities weren’t really working all that hard to market the College Board’s product for them. Now, with the help of state and federal governments and their own PSAT test, the College Board is marketing directly to parents and students, tapping into that same must-go-to-college gut-level terror that makes the SAT test the must-take test.
“$28.4 million.
“What do low-income students get out of this?
“A chance to take an AP test. Not, mind you, more resources to get ready for it, nor do they get help with actually going to a college after taking the test (which may or may not give them any help once they get in).
“These grants eliminate some of the financial roadblocks for low-income students taking Advanced Placement courses, letting them take tests with the potential of earning college credit while in high school,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.”
So it’s not help to prepare for the tests, no guarantee of earning college credit in high school, just a chance to take a test that you may not be prepared for. And a nice addition to the College Board’s bottom line. Let us not forget that Coleman got his start at McKinsey. He is a businessman, not an educator. And the College Board’s relationship with the DOE is good business.
Fred Smith, a testing expert who worked many years at the New York City Board of Education, has become a mentor to the opt-out movement in New York. In this article, which was published in the New York Daily News, Smith writes, “Do you solemnly swear to tell the half-truth, the partial truth and nothing like the truth? Apparently, that’s the vow press officers who work for the New York State Education Department take.”
“Why was half of Thursday’s announcement of the 2014 test results devoted to testimonials, mainly from selected superintendents, on how educational gains are being made due to implementation of the Common Core?”
Smith writes that:
“The 2014 tests were given in April and scored in May, with the results and press release issued in August. Why the delay. The same pattern was followed in 2013.
“The delay is unexplained, and it feeds suspicions that the state is sitting on the results trying to figure out the most advantageous way to package them.”
Under pressure from parents, the state released half the test questions. Smith wonders, why not release them all? By the time teachers get the test results, the children are no longer in their class. Nor do teachers learn which questions their students got right or wrong. If teachers can’t learn anything about their students other than whether he or she was rated as a 1, 2, 3, o4, of what value is the test?
The state’s contract with Pearson stipulates that test questions may not be used again, so why not release to the public the entire test that the public paid for?
Sarah Garland, writing for the HECHINGER Report, says that the Reagan-era report “A Nation at Risk” (1983) laid the groundwork for today’s regime of high-takes testing, longer school hours, and tougher accountability measures. The conservative Republicans he quotes express satisfaction with the Obama administration’s embrace of their agenda. The enduring puzzle: who stole the Democratic agenda of equity and teacher professionalism?
