Archives for category: Testing
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Utah: AIR’s Absurdly Long Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2014 //
55

Why should Common Core tests require 8-10 hours? Does anyone know? Why should third graders, 8 or 9 year-old children, be expected to sit for eight hours of testing? This is nuts!

This from a teacher in Utah, responding to a post called “Good Riddance to Common Core Tests.” Let the parents know. They recognize child abuse.

“And it’s not just the SBAC or PARCC that are long and awful. Utah went with its own CC testing, created by AIR. The 7-9 grade students at my school were forced into NINE 70 minute testing sessions per student, and MANY students took much longer than that. This included TWO major essays. There were several topics instead of one: how can you reliably compare students who wrote essays on different topics? The essays required reading several articles and then formulating and writing the essay. The test designers estimated that the expository essay would take a total of 30 minutes to read the articles and write, and that the argumentative essay would take 60 minutes. The tests were not timed, so theoretically the kids could take weeks to write the essays, and some did. No one, including the extremely talented, high-level writers, could finish the essays in the short time the test makers estimated, which, in my mind, calls into question the entire enterprise and the entire test writing company. ALL of us who work with students KNEW that these essays would take far longer than the estimated times. So if this company really knew how to write tests, how is it that they so grossly underestimated the time these essays would take?

“I have tried to let parents know how ridiculously long these tests are. I have now been told that I cannot do that, or the state will take discipline against my license. So how do parents even know what is being done to their children?”

Categories Common Core, Testing

Tennessee: Math and ELA Scores Are Flat

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2014 //
20

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of the test score obsession. I think our schools need to have a prolonged testing moratorium so we can figure out what education should be about and how to reduce our dependence on testing.

But since that has not happened yet, we are compelled to look at the rise and fall of test scores. .

When Tennessee’s scores went up on NAEP last year, Arne Duncan speedily pointed to Tennesssee as a shining star of Race to the Top, and the state even got a shout out from the President in his State of the Union.

Now the state scores are in, and there won’t be any boasting. If there is, it is simply spin.

Gary Rubinstein reports that Tennessee’s state scores were flat. they were up a wee bit in math, grades 3-8, and down a bit in reading, same grades. The biggest drops were in third grade, the kids most exposed to reform magic, where the reformers should be showing big gains.

Don’t expect to hear anything about Tennessee’s state scores from Arne Duncan or the President.

Categories Tennessee, Testing

Pearson Likely to Get $1 Billion PARCC Contract Despite Checkered Past

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2014 //
9

Now that the purchasing agent for New Mexico approved the $1 billion PARCC contract tailor-made for Pearson, that lucky British company will write the Common Core tests for 6-10 million American children.

But consider Pearson’s history of testing errors:

“PEARSON SCORE FOUL-UP HISTORY, by Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director, FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing (updated February, 2011)

1998 California – test score delivery delayed

1999-2000 Arizona – 12,000 tests misgraded due to flawed answer key

2000 Florida – test score delivery delayed resulting in $4 million fine

2000 Minnesota – misgraded 45,739 graduation tests – lawsuit with $11 million settlement – judge found “years of quality control problems” and a “culture emphasizing profitability and cost-cutting.” — (note FairTest consulted with plaintiffs’ attorneys)

2000 Washington – 204,000 writing WASL exams rescored

2005 Michigan — scores delayed and fines levied per contract

2005 Virginia — computerized test misgraded – five students awarded $5,000 scholarships

2005-2006 SAT college admissions test – 4400 tests wrongly scored; $3 million settlement after lawsuit (note FairTest was an expert witness for plaintiffs)

2008 South Carolina –“Scoring Error Delays School Report Cards” The State, November 14, 2008

2008-2009 Arkansas — first graders forced to retake exam because real test used for practice

2009-2010 Wyoming – new computer adaptive PAWS flops; state ordered Pearson to repay $9.5 million for “complete default of the contract”

2010 Florida – test score delivery delayed by more than a month – nearly $15 million in fines imposed and paid. School superintendents still question score accuracy.

2010 Minnesota — results from online science tests taken by 180,000 students delayed due to scoring error

2011 Florida – some writing exams delivered to districts without cover sheets, revealing subject students would be asked to write about”

Categories Common Core, Pearson, Testing

A Teacher Quits the D.C. Public School System

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2014 //
14

Olivia Chapman taught for five years in the public schools of the District of Columbia. Then she decided that her philosophy of education was diametrically opposed to the District’s demands. She resigned her position. Her letter of resignation was first posted on Rachel Levy’s blog, All Things Education.

When she resigned, she was asked what DCPS could have done to retain her. Her letter of resignation began like this:

“I truly don’t think that there is anything that you could have done to retain me in the district. Our educational philosophies do not align, specifically what those philosophies look like in action, not necessarily how they are written and presented. Although it would seem that your will and proclaimed dedication to educating all students and improving struggling schools are aligned to my own beliefs; stating your beliefs and acting on them can be extremely different.

“In my opinion and based on five years of experience in a struggling school (which I believe you now call a “40-40” school), the actions that you have imposed that are supposed to be helping to educate all students and improve the education of underprivileged students are backfiring. I know some of your test scores are going up, but that means so little when morale decreases and discontent from the community, teachers and students increase. Additionally, student behavior continues to worsen as their teachers are “impacted out”, the students are over-tested and the constant change in leadership causes students to lose faith in anyone sticking around long enough to invest in their successes. Your standards are higher while our resources are lower and the teachers are less effective because of constant turnover and poor training programs (Yes, I am referring to Teach for America and DC Teaching Fellows).

“IMPACT and high stakes standardized testing are deteriorating education. I have enjoyed working with each and every one of my students, as challenging as some of them may be, but I can no longer participate in a system that is tearing them down, wasting their time and breaking their spirits. I can no longer participate in the rigid guidelines of IMPACT/Common Core/Standardized testing; it is not what my kids need or ever needed to be successful. Yes, they need quality teachers, learning standards and assessments-but the manner in which you have delivered these three essential components of education are not effective. I have been witness to this for five years. You can throw data and numbers at me all you want, but it is not working for my students nor my school, and I know I am not alone in stating this, especially in Ward 8. You have poured enormous amounts of money into IMPACT and testing and not nearly enough into professional development, technology or character education programs for students. We have lacked the supplies and trainings to properly implement Common Core for the last three years. Honestly, you can call the standards whatever you want, revise them, increase their “rigor”, do whatever you please; but until communities, families, parents and students are held accountable for their participation in education, none of this matters…”

Read on.

Categories Common Core, District of Columbia, Resistance, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Schneider: Showdown Between Louisiana Governor Jindal and Commissioner White Gets Amusing

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2014 //
14

On June 18, Governor Jindal announced that Louisiana was pulling out of Common Core and dropping PARCC testing. State commissioner of education John White disagreed. The state board of education supports White.

Wow! The Governor versus the state commissioner!

Mercedes Schneider brings us up to date on this epic struggle between the governor and the state commissioner he once strongly supported.

The state board of education and White wants to sue Jindal, but apparently they need Jindal’s approval to sue him. Do you think they will get it?

Jindal has put a lid on the Department of Education’s spending. Can they afford to make a new testing contract?

The deadline to sign a contract for PARCC testing is July 30, with a down payment of 15%. Hmm. That could be a problem for Commissioner White and the state board since Jindal holds the purse strings.

Poker, anyone? Chess?

Categories Common Core, Jindal, Bobby, Testing

A Reading List on Testing

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2014 //
13

Bob Shepherd posted this reading list on testing.

The list was compiled by Alfie Kohn.

I have a few additions:

Todd Farley, Making the Grades

Banesh Hoffman, The Tyranny of Testing

Phil Harris, The Myth of Standardized Testing

Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn, The Mismeasure of Education

Daniel Koretz, Measuring Up

Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

Richard Rothstein, Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right

For a short online version of the Rothstein critique that is very powerful, read “Holding Accountability to Account”

Here is Alfie Kohn’s list:

The “five fatal flaws” of the Tougher Standards movement are adapted from Alfie Kohn’s book THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE, from which a shorter book called THE CASE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING has been spun off.

You may also be interested in a list of essays about standards and testing available on this website.

Other resources:

Two books on standards: WILL STANDARDS SAVE PUBLIC EDUCATION?, a short essay by Deborah Meier followed by comments from other thinkers, published by Beacon Press;

ONE SIZE FITS FEW: The Folly of Educational Standards, by Susan Ohanian, published by Heinemann.

A collection of essays about the destructive effects of (and dubious intentions behind) NCLB: MANY CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND (Beacon Press), with contributions by Meier and Kohn as well as Ted Sizer, Linda Darling-Hammond, George Wood, Stan Karp, and Monty Neill of FairTest.

Also on NCLB: WHEN SCHOOL REFORM GOES WRONG by Nel Noddings (Teachers College Press); and ENGLISH LEARNERS LEFT BEHIND: Standardized Testing as Language Policy by Kate Menken (Multilingual Matters).

Also see NoChildLeft.com and this excellent summary of the law and its effects.

Other books about testing:

– Phillip Harris et al., The Myths of Standardized Tests (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011)

– Sharon L. Nichols & David C. Berliner, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools (Harvard Education Press)

– Sherman Dorn, Accountability Frankenstein: Understanding & Taming the Monster (Information Age, 2007)

– M. Gail Jones et al., The Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)

– Linda McNeil, Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing (Routledge, 2000)
–

Marita Moll, ed., Passing the Test: The False Promises of Standardized Testing (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2004)

– Kathy Swope and Barbara Miner, eds., Failing Our Kids: Why the Testing Craze Won’t Fix Our Schools (Rethinking Schools, 2000)
–

Gary Orfield and Mindy L. Kornhaber, ed., Raising Standards or Raising Barriers?: Inequality and High-Stakes Testing in Public Education (Century Foundation Press, 2001)

– Peter Sacks, Standardized Minds (Perseus, 1999)

– W. James Popham, Testing! Testing!: What Every Parent Should Know About School Tests (Allyn and Bacon, 2000)

– Gerald Bracey, Put to the Test: An Educator’s and Consumer’s Guide to Standardized Testing (Phi Delta Kappa, 1998).

A book about Nebraska’s recently aborted attempt to build assessment from the classroom up, thereby challenging the top-down premise not only of NCLB but of the whole “accountability” movement of which it’s a part: Chris W. Gallagher, Reclaiming Assessment: A Better Alternative to the Accountability Agenda (Heinemann, 2007)

Information from and about FairTest, the leading national organization offering a critical perspective on standardized testing. Its website, http://www.fairtest.org, includes an evaluation of every state’s testing policy and links to a listserv called the Assessment Reform Network. A related group, the Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education (CARE), which opposes the new testing program in Massachusetts, has drafted an alternative assessment proposal — a very useful document for anyone who wonders (or is asked), “If not standardized tests, then what?” For a more recent answer to that question, see Ken Jones’s article “A Balanced School Accountability Model: An Alternative to High-Stakes Testing” in the April 2004 issue of Phi Delta Kappan.

A remarkable collection of examples of, and essays about, the destructive effects of standardized testing and related policies at http://www.susanohanian.org.

A list of state and national websites devoted to challenging the tests can be found about halfway down the page devoted to practical strategies. Note in particular a new (2011) group called “United Opt Out National,” with a website and Facebook page, devoted to organizing people to refuse to take the tests.

Audio- and videotapes of presentations by Alfie Kohn on these topics: http://www.alfiekohn.org/tapesdvd.htm

A powerful study that finds no evidence of improvement on national exams (such as the NAEP and the SAT) for states that use high-stakes testing. Rising scores on state tests appear to reflect only training to do well on those particular tests; indeed, by some measures, students in high-stakes states actually fare worse on independent measures of achievement.

Beardsley and Berliner on “High-Stakes Testing, Uncertainty, and Student Learning” http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/297/423

A devastating analysis, based on the high-stakes TAAS test in Texas, of how efforts to raise scores effectively undermine the quality of teaching and learning — and how this effect is most pronounced in schools that serve poor and minority students. This chapter, by Linda McNeil and Angela Valenzuela, is included in the book mentioned above, Raising Standards or Raising Barriers?. For the most comprehensive analysis of the effects of testing in Texas, click here to be linked to a lengthy article by Walt Haney.

Research demonstrating that when teachers are held accountable for raising standards and test scores, they tend to become so controlling in their teaching style that the quality of students’ performance actually declines:
Flink et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 59, 1990: 916-24.
Deci et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 74, 1982: 852-59.
Pelletier et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 94, 2002: 186-96.

Copyright © 2007 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed without permission as long as each copy includes this notice along with the author’s name. Permission must be obtained in order to reprint this article in a published work or in order to offer it for sale in any form. Please write to the address indicated on the Contact page at http://www.alfiekohn.org.

Categories Accountability, Testing

Peter Greene: I Will Not Quit; They Will Not Win

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2014 //
46

Peter Greene, a high school teacher in Pennsylvania, describes the present moment–in which powerful people are tearing apart public education and attacking the profession of teaching–as either a passing storm or the apocalypse.

“A far-reaching network of rich and powerful men is working to take the public education system as we know it and simply make it go away, to be replaced by a system that is focused on generating profit rather than educating children.

“Teachers have been vilified and attacked. Our professional skills have been questioned, our dedication has been questioned, and we have been accused of dereliction and failure so often that now even our friends take it as a given that “American schools are failing.”

“One of the richest, most powerful men on the planet has focused his fortune and his clout on recreating the education system to suit his own personal ideas about how it should work and what it should do. He’s been joined in this by other wealthy, powerful men who see the democratic process as an obstruction to be swept away.

“We have been strong-armed into adopting new standards and the programs that come with them. These are one-size-fits-all standards that nobody really understands, that nobody can justify, and that are now the shoddy shaky foundation of the new status quo.

“And in many regions, our “educational leaders” are also part of the reformster movement. The very people on the state and local level who are charged with preserving and supporting public education are, themselves, fighting against it.”

Despite the powerful forces determined to crush and privatize public education, Greene says, he will not quit.

He writes:

“Someone has to look out for the students. Someone has to put the students’ interests first, and despite the number of people who want to make that claim, only teachers are actually doing it. The number of ridiculous, time-wasting, pointless, damaging, destructive policies that are actually making it down to the students themselves is greater than ever before. Somebody has to be there to help them deal with it, help them stand up to it, and most of all, help them get actual educations in spite of it.

“I don’t want to over-dramatize our role as teachers, but this is what professionals do. Police, lawyers, doctors, fire fighters– they all go toward people in trouble. They run toward people who need help. That’s what teachers do– and teachers go toward the people who are too young and powerless to stand up for themselves. And for professionals, the greater the trouble, the greater the need.

“The fact that public education is under attack just means that our students, our communities, need us more than ever.”

Is there hope? Yes. None of the reformer ideas actually works. They will get bored. They will move on.

“The reformsters are tourists, folks just passing through for a trip that will last no longer than their interest. They’ll cash in their chips and move on to the next game. But we’ll still be here, still meeting the challenges that students bring us. They’ve committed to education for as long as it holds their attention and rewards them; we’ve committed for as long as we can still do the work. They think they can sprint ahead to easy victory; we understand that this is a marathon.

“I don’t care if this is a passing storm or the apocalypse. I choose not to meet it huddled and hoping that I’ll somehow be spared. And while we keep defaulting to battle metaphors, I’d rather not get into the habit of viewing every other human as an enemy that I have to combat with force of arms. I learned years ago that you don’t wait for everything to be okay to do your dance and sing your song; you keep dancing and singing, and that’s how everything gets closer to okay.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, US Education

Be a Patriot: Support Gus Morales!

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2014 //
7

Defend a brave teacher! Defend students! Sign the petition to reinstate Gus Morales!

Gus Morales was elected head of his school union in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as an outspoken opponent of high-stakes testing and privatization. Children’s test scores were posted in a data wall. Morales objected.

Only weeks after his election, he was fired.

“As I started speaking out, I was targeted with negative observations. One can infer that the negative observation was meant to quiet me. As long as I kept my mouth shut, everything was good, and then when I started speaking about what was happening to my students, I was let go,” says Morales, one of only a handful of Puerto Rican teachers in a school district that is nearly 80 percent Hispanic.

“Morales’ anti-privatization platform also called for a revitalization of the teachers’ union. “In the past, the union had defended its teachers, but it did so in a way that was not out in public. I want to be a teacher advocate where I attend school committees and speak on behalf of teachers,” he says….”

“A key factor in Morales’ decision to run was the massive expansion of high-stakes testing in the classroom. “My kids spend between 25 and 28 days per year just doing tests. The administration is obsessed with increasing reading and math scores, so their answer to that is to increase instruction time in those areas,” he argues.

“As a result, he says, local students are losing valuable learning opportunities in non-tested areas. “The effect is that kids in the suburbs where test scores are higher are getting a well-rounded education, and kids in Holyoke are not,” he says.”

Barbara Madeloni, the new president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association promised to fight for Morales.

Please support Gus Morales by signing this MoveOn petition.

Categories Massachusetts, Privatization, Testing

NEA Endorses National Campaign Against “Toxic Testing”

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
18

NEA delegates approve creation of national campaign for equity and against “Toxic Testing”

Campaign to focus on assessments and developing real accountability systems

DENVER—The National Education Association (NEA) will launch a national campaign to put the focus of assessments and accountability back on ensuring equity and supporting student learning and end the “test blame and punish” system that has dominated public education in the last decade. The average American student and teacher now spend about 30 percent of the school year preparing for and taking standardized tests. NEA’s nearly 9,000 delegates voted today at its 2014 Representative Assembly for new measures to drive student success.

“The testing fixation has reached the point of insanity,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “Whatever valuable information testing mandates provided have been completely overshadowed by the enormous collateral damage inflicted on too many students. Our schools have been reduced to mere test prep factories and we are too-often ignoring student learning and opportunity in America.”

The measure approves the use of NEA resources to launch a national campaign to end the high stakes use of standardized tests, to sharply reduce the amount of student and instructional time consumed by tests, and to implement more effective forms of assessment and accountability. The impact of excessive testing is particularly harmful to many poor, minority, and special needs students.

“The sad truth is that test-based accountability has not closed the opportunity gaps between affluent and poor schools and students,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “It has not driven funding and support to the students from historically underfunded communities who need it most. Poverty and social inequities have far too long stood in the way of progress for all students.”

The anti-toxic testing measure calls for governmental oversight of the powerful testing industry with the creation of a “testing ombudsman” by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Consumer Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. The position will serve as a watchdog over the influential testing industry and monitor testing companies’ impact on education legislation. NEA will continue to push the president and Congress to completely overhaul ESEA and return to grade-span testing thus ending NCLB’s mandates that require yearly testing, and to lift mandates requiring states to administer outdated tests that are not aligned to school curricula.

“It is past time for politicians to turn their eyes and ears away from those who profit from over-testing our students and listen instead to those who know what works in the classroom,” said Van Roekel.

NEA delegates also reaffirmed their commitment to high standards for all students and committed to further working with states that adopted the Common Core State Standards to ensure they are properly implemented and that educators are empowered to lead in that implementation process.

Delegates also passed new language on improving accountability systems, pushing for implementation of systems providing “real accountability in our public education system,” said Van Roekel. Delegates agreed to convene a broad representative group of NEA leaders from the national, state and local level to develop plans for public school accountability and support systems.

“Educators know that real accountability in public schools requires all stakeholders to place student needs at the center of all efforts. Real accountability in public schools requires that everyone—lawmakers, teachers, principals, parents, and students—partner in accepting responsibility for improving student learning and opportunity in America.”

Van Roekel insists that in order for real, sustainable change to occur in public education, major work must be done to provide equity in our schools and address the growing inequality in opportunities and resources for students across our nation.

The group will examine what steps NEA can take to build further on the components of excellence in teacher evaluation and accountability identified in NEA’s Policy Statement on Teacher Evaluation and Accountability, which was approved at the 2011 Representative Assembly in Chicago.

The accountability group will engage stakeholders in the education and civil rights communities to help respond to the growing inequality in opportunities and resources for students across the nation. Inequality must be addressed in order for real, sustainable change to occur in the public education system.

To follow floor action at the NEA 2014 Representative Assembly, please click here or follow @RAtoday on twitter at twitter.com/RAToday.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education, Unions

New Mexico Okays Pearson Contract for PARCC

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2014 //
3

New Mexico’s purchasing agent approved the award of a contract to Pearson to develop the Common Core PARCC tests, despite the absence of competitive bidding. AIR had lodged a complaint against the process since Pearson was the only bidder. The New Mexico contract covers testing of 6-10 million students in 14 states. It is worth about $1 billion to Pearson.

“Last December, the Washington DC-based American Institute for Research filed a protest with the state purchasing agent arguing that the bid for the contract was written favorably for Pearson. Namely, AIR’s takes issue with how the bid required the winner of the contract—whether it was Pearson or a different company—to use Pearson’s online testing system for the first year of testing.

“Such requirements were uncompetitive to other companies, AIR argued. Indeed, only Pearson responded to the request for proposal for the PARCC contract.”

AIR is deciding whether to appeal the decision to the judicial system or drop their appeal.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, For-Profit, New Mexico, Pearson, Testing
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