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New York: Report from the Frontlines

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2014 //
25

The following letter was written by a principal in Néw York City. He describes what so many educators feel: Education is being destroyed by excessive, pointless testing. The sad fact is that testing no longer functions as a way to inform teachers and parents and to help children but as a blunt instrument to wear children down and demoralize their teachers.

Subject: Student and testing burn out.

“Today, we had a few students that did not write a thing for the essay on today’s practice CCLS English Regents. The exam was tough and kids were burnt out.

“Once upon a time, there was an English Regents exam.The exam was a total of 6 hours over two days in which students had to write 2 essays. The new exam requires 2 essays, reading 10 pieces of text and answering multiple-choice questions that resemble AP/SAT subject questions. CRAZY!!!

“The combined testing of city and state, coupled with practice exams to ready the students for the tests are having a major impact.

“We are exhausting the children.
Exhausting testing team staff.
Distracting testing team staff from instructional and professional development work (Testing team personnel are usually out of classroom coaches/pd providers, etc.)
Losing Instructional time when students are taking the exams and when they are covered by subs so their teachers can grade exams.

“Exhausting a lot of money, not just in copying and administrative, processing, mailing costs, but in the hiring of subs so that teachers can score the exams.
Someone should look at the true cost of testing to this degree via RTTT mandates.

“I wonder every day whether the benefits will be worth the weight of the burden.

“I am not an advocate for no testing. I love accountability that results in action (adjustments to curriculum, professional development, intervention plans/actions, or removal, retraining, or reassignment of poor performing staff.

“I am just wondering how these exams can be made more civil for children.
They are almost a form of corporal punishment.

“Eight year olds sitting for 3 days straight for math and ELA state exams. Schools doing all of this testing and being forced by the state to administer field tests.

“It seems like unnecessary overkill.
The city giving exams in fall and spring in order to create these “local measures” for RTTT mandate.

“Perhaps the tests should be only state exams…
A November exam and a late May/June exam that is half the length of the current exams…
This way we eliminate the need for some of the city local measures for pre and post.
We can also garner a growth measure between a child’s results in late November and late May/June which can factor into the teacher rating.

“Anyway, this was a hard year. I would argue harder than Hurricane Sandy…all due to the policies that adults make devoid of practitioner in the field or principal input.

“There is so much talk out there about respecting communication and input from parents, etc.

“Yet, the centralization of power in one place has a few people pushing agendas on localities devoid of sincere and respected input.

“Sort of like the criticism incurred by the community boards in city neighborhoods that have no local code legislative or enforcement power…some argue they are there for the illusion of democracy so that a few powerful entities can make policy that permits developers and other agendas to have their way.

“Sorry for the negative information, but this has been a tough year and the conduits of input from the extremities to the heart are few and far between.

“Sincerely,

XXXXXXX

Categories Accountability, New York City, Testing

Beardsley Reviews Huffman’s Claims About Tennessee

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2014 //
9

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, one of our nation’s pre-eminent experts on value-added assessment, here reviews a TED-X talk by Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman, boasting of the tremendous growth in test scores as a result of his policies. Beardsley points out the curious fact that Tennessee started using VAM in the 1990s with little to show for it. But, there were those Tennessee NAEP scores, proof positive, according to both Huffman and Se rotary of Education Arne Duncan that Race to the Top–or Huffman’s personal presence–was creating strong results. Nd in the end, results (test scores) are what matter most, right?

But what about those NAEP results that Huffman and Duncan tout?

Beardsley writes:

“While [William] Sanders (the TVAAS developer who first convinced the state legislature to adopt his model for high-stakes accountability purposes in the 1990s) and others (including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) also claimed that Tennessee’s use of accountability instruments caused Tennessee’s NAEP gains (besides the fact that the purported gains were over two decades delayed), others have since spoiled the celebration because 1) the results also demonstrated an expanding achievement gap in Tennessee; 2) the state’s lowest socioeconomic students continue to perform poorly, despite Huffman’s claims; 3) Tennessee didn’t make gains significantly different than many other states; and 4) other states with similar accountability instruments and policies (e.g., Colorado, Louisiana) did not make similar gains, while states without such instruments and policies (e.g., Kentucky, Iowa, Washington) did. I should add that Kentucky’s achievement gap is also narrowing and their lowest socioeconomic students have made significant gains. This is important to note as Huffman repeatedly compares his state to theirs.”

Read the post. It is a very good demonstration of how data get used and misused for political purposes.

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee, Testing

New Mexico: Another VAM Disaster

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2014 //
27

Thus far, the concept of VAM–or value-added measurement–has an unbroken record of failure. Wherever it has been tried, it has proven to be inaccurate and unstable. Teacher and student records are erroneous. Teachers are judged based on students they never taught. VAM demoralizes teachers, who understand they are being judged for factors over which they have little or no control.

The major perpetrators of this great fraud are Bill Gates, who bet hundreds of millions of dollars on the proposition that test scores could be a major factor in identifying bad teachers and firing them, and Arne Duncan, who required states to use VAM if they wanted to be eligible to get a share of his $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund.

Yet a third perpetrator was Jeb Bush, whose love affair with data is unbounded. Bush went from state to state selling “the Florida miracle,” which supposedly proved that testing and accountability were the keys to solving America’s educational problems.

One of Jeb’s acolytes was Hannah Skandera, who was chosen as Secretary of Education in Néw Mexico but was never confirmed because of her lack of classroom credentials. As Secretary-designate, she sought to import the Florida model of testing and accountability.

When the state released its new teacher evaluation ratings, teachers and students showed up at the Albuquerque school board meeting to complain about errors. Teachers talked about missing and incomplete data. One student said he was part of a team that placed first in the state in civics, yet he failed his end-of-course government exam.

“James Phillips teaches calculus to Advanced Placement students at Albuquerque High School. He described how the previous week had seen him publicly praised by board member Marty Esquivel, who called him the best math teacher in New Mexico. Just days later, Phillips was notified that the PED had also ranked him “minimally effective.”

“Wendy Simms-Small, a parent of three APS students who’d helped organize the day’s rally, said she started getting active after hearing rumors that hundreds of teachers were planning on leaving the school system.

“I got curious and wanted to find out why,” she said. “As a member of this community over many years, I have never seen the demoralization of professional individuals like this ever before.” She said the pressure of testing had also taken a toll on her kids.

“Private corporations reap great rewards when school systems implement standardized testing,” said Simms-Small, “so it’s my belief that they’re motivated financially to turn our children into pawns for profit.”

At some point, the data-obsessed federal and state policy makers will have to concede that they were wrong or face a massive parent-teacher rebellion. They are literally destroying the nation’s schools with their mad ideas. It is time for a revival of common sense or a public discussion of the true meaning of education.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, New Mexico, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Yong Zhao: Shanghai May Drop Out of PISA, Not Interested in Being #1

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2014 //
44

This is stunning news from Yong Zhao of the University of Oregon.

Zhao, who was born and educated in China, reports that Shanghai education officials may stop participation in PISA.

Zhao, a critic of the international race for test scores, writes on his blog:

““Not interested in #1 on International Tests, Focusing on Reducing Academic Burden: Shanghai May Drop Out of PISA” is the headline of a story in Xinmin Wanbao[original story in Chinese], a popular newspaper in Shanghai. Published on March 7th 2014, the story reports that Shanghai “is considering to withdraw from the next round of PISA in 2015” because “Shanghai does not need so-called ‘#1 schools,’” said Yi Houqin, a high level official of Shanghai Education Commission. “What it needs are schools that follow sound educational principles, respect principles of students’ physical and psychological development, and lay a solid foundation for students’ lifelong development,” says the article, quoting Mr. Yi.

“One of the shortfalls of Shanghai education masked by its top PISA ranking, Mr. Yi, pointed out, is excessive amount of homework, according to the story. For example, teachers in Shanghai spend 2 to 5 hours designing, reviewing, analyzing, and discussing homework assignment every day. “Over half of the students spend more than one hour on school work after school [every day]; Teachers’ estimate of homework load is much lower than actual experiences of students and parents; Although the homework is not particularly difficult, much of it is mechanical and repetitive tasks that take lots of time; Furthermore, our teachers are more used to mark the answers as ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ while students are hoping their teachers can help them open their minds and point out their problems.”

“Homework is only one of the elements that supports student development,” an unnamed PISA official told Xinmin Wanbao. “Their skills and qualities should also be acquired from a variety of activities such as play, online activities, and games instead of merely completing academic assignments or extending homework time.”

If Shanghai drops out of PISA, this would send a powerful message to the rest of the world.

Categories International, Testing

Step Right Up and Buy Higher Test Scores. You Will Laugh Your Head Off!

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2014 //
53

This is one of the funniest YouTube videos I have ever seen (excluding a few about dogs and cats).

I promise you, you will not be disappointed. Watch it and forward it to your superintendent or your school board. Remember how I always say that VAM is Junk Science. Here is one of the world’s leading assessment experts, and his message mocks VAM as just plain Junk.

It features the great assessment expert W. James Popham as pitchman for a line of products guaranteed to raise your students’ test scores. Some of them are chewable, some are drinkable and last five hours (he warns that if the effect lasts for longer than five hours, call your physician at once).

Please watch this. You will never think about value-added assessments or rubrics the same way again.

Want to know more about Popham? Read this author bio.He is one funny guy.

Categories Humor, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Jack Hassard: Protect Your Children, Opt Out of Testing

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2014 //
11

Jack Hassard, emeritus professor of science education ay Georgia State University, describes what happened when a family in Marietta decided to opt their child out of state testing. Their school used scare tactics, threatening to have them arrested. They stood their ground, and the school backed down.

Hassard contacted parents in Texas who told him of the bullying tactics in Austin schools, all intended to raise scores. The Austin superintendent has been hired by Atlanta. Hassard says the Opt Out movement is strong and growing stronger in Texas.

Georgia has just contracted with McGraw-Hill for $110 million to design new tests for Georgia. Hassard says all this testing is unnecessary. Georgia could learn all it needs to know sbout its students either from NAEP or by administering no-stakes, sampled tests like NAEP.

Hassard concludes:

“If high-stakes testing is revoked, we will make one of the most important decisions in the lives of students and their families, and the educators who practice in our public schools. Banning tests, throwing them out, eliminating them, what ever you wish to call it, will open the door to more innovative and creative teaching, and an infusion of collaborative and problem solving projects that will really prepare students for career and college.

“Making kids endure adult anger is not what public education is about. Why in the world are we so angry and willing to take it out on K-12 students? Why do we put the blame on children and youth, and if they don’t live up to a set of unsubstantiated and unscientific standards and statistics, we take it out on teachers?

“The best thing for students is throw the bums (tests) out. The next best thing will be for teachers because without standardized test scores, there will be no way to calculate VAM scores as a method to evaluate teachers.”

Categories Georgia, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Texas

Bob Shepherd: How We Perpetuate Racial Inequity

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2014 //
61

Bob shepherd responded to the sixtieth anniversary of the Brown decision with these thoughts:

1. Today, a century and a half after the end of slavery, 38.2 percent of African-American children live in poverty.

2. Today, a century and a half after the end of slavery, we routinely jail or imprison people for breathing while black. A recent study in California found that white teens in that state used pot at higher rates than did black teens but that black teens were 17 TIMES as likely to be arrested for it. We in the U.S. have the highest rate of incarceration of any nation on Earth. Fully 2.9 percent of our population is in prison, in jail, or on parole. Although African Americans make up only between 12 and 13 percent of our population, they make up 40 percent of the prison population.

3. Today, a century and a half after the end of slavery, there are more African-American men in prison and in jail than there were enslaved African-American men in 1850.

4. Today, a century and a half after the end of slavery, U.S. schools are more segregated than they were in the late 1960s:

Click to access orfield-historic-reversals-accelerating.pdf

And we are supposed to react to this by

1. testing more, which has done nothing to change the “achievement gap” and will almost certainly increase that gap

2. giving parents more school choice, which is guaranteed to increase segregation

3. pouring many, many billions of dollars into summative standardized testing, evaluation schemes, data systems, and computers for taking tests instead of into prenatal care and wrap-around services from birth on

Categories Charter Schools, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Testing, Vouchers

Michelle Obama: The Arts Raise Test Scores (!)

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2014 //
79

A reader sent me this story with this comment: “Bizarro world.”

First Lady Michelle Obama promotes arts education because the arts raise test scores.

The administration said 35 schools would get federal turnaround funding for the arts because early evidence shows that the arts lead to higher math and reading scores.

Time to stop and think. The Bush-Obama high-stakes testing policies have diminished resources, staff, equipment and time for the arts.

The purpose of the arts is not to raise test scores but to express and develop our talents, to enhance our lives, to give us the joy of experience and skill in music and the other arts.

Arts are not a path to picking the right bubble on a standardized test. They are far more valuable than that. The self-discipline required in the arts, the joy of performance is sufficient unto itself.

Categories Arts Education, Obama, Testing

Laura Chapman: The Problems with EdTPA

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2014 //
29

Laura Chapman writes:

Unfortunately, this next generation of teachers is not just subject to manipulation by Teach for America.

The new EdTPA (Teacher Performance Assessment) is one of the new gatekeepers for entry into teaching. EdTPA was designed by scholars at Stanford. It has been rubber-stamped by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). AACTE represents 800 teacher education programs..

EdTPA is aligned with the CCSS. It honors direct instruction made evident in video snippets of teaching and plans that prospective teachers submit for scoring. Scoring has been outsourced to Pearson who charges a minimum of $300 per test, while paying $70 per hour to raters of the tests. In early 2014, edTPA was being used in 511 educator preparation programs in 34 states and the District of Columbia. CCSS plus training for direct instruction over authentic education will not just fade away. http://edtpa.aacte.org/about-edtpa

States can use edTAP scores for teacher licensure. Teacher education programs can use the scores for state and national accreditations.

The edTPA scores of graduates, and gains in students’ scores that they produce on the job will now be used to rate the “effectiveness” of teacher education programs. In other words, Obama+Duncan’s flawed K-12 policies are being foisted on teacher education. The Gates’ desire to track student test scores produced by graduates of teacher education programs in on track for becoming the new normal. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/barack-obama-arne-duncan-teacher-training-education-106013.html#ixzz2zwfJdsRs

it is hard to be optimistic. In addition to EdTPA, other tests for teacher certification require knowledge of the CCSS (e.g. Praxis http://www.ets.org/praxis/ccss). Other certifications of teacher education programs are no less troubling.

For example, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), approved new standards for teacher education in August, 2013. CAEP is a new entity merging NCATE, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and TEAC the Teacher Education Accreditation Council. In 2013, the merged organizations had accredited over 860 programs. CAEP standards must still be approved by USDE and appear to have been written for that purpose.

The standards from CAEP illustrate how hard it is to bury bad policies, and overcome horrific language about education.

Programs that prepare teachers are now called “providers.” Teachers who graduate are now called “completers.” The CAEP standards rely on 110 uses of the term “impact” to describe what teacher education and teachers are supposed to do. (Ask Diane what “impact” meant for her knee, or consider how ‘impacted” sardines may feel in a can).

Here is CAEP’s Standard 1.4 for teacher education: “Providers ensure that completers demonstrate skills and commitment that afford all P-12 students access to rigorous college-and career-ready standards (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards, National Career Readiness Certificate, Common Core State Standards).” http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard1/

CAEP Standard 4.1: “The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider.” http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard4/ This standard is absurd. It requires the use of “measures” that are known to be invalid and unreliable.

CAEP Standard 5.4: “Measures of completer impact, including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and acted upon in decision-making related to programs, resource allocation, and future direction.” http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard5/

Clearly, the demolition derby on K-12 is expanding to damage the independent voice of faculty in higher education, especially those most directly responsible for teacher education.

The “provider” language signals that alternative paths to teachers preparation are being honored. The 42 member “commission” charged with developing CAEP’s standards was dominated by high-level administrators in education and entrepreneurs who appear to be totally unaware of (or indifferent to) the meaning of due-diligence in developing standards. They ignored sound scholarship that should have informed their work, including extensive peer-reviewed criticisms of the CCSS, value-added and related “growth” measures, as well as all the well-document flaws in industrial strength management strategies from mid-century last.

Damn the torpedos, ignore the evidence, full steam ahead.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Another District in Néw York Says No to Pearson Field Tests

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2014 //
14

Add Spackenkill to the list of districts in New York that will not administer the Pearson field tests in grades 4 and 8. More are on the way. When districts realize that they have the power to say no, that’s when we begin to clip the wings of the testing industry and begin to restore reasonable balance to education as well as a reasonable balance of power between the state and localities.

Boycotting districts:

Babylon
Bellmore/Merrick CHSD
Comsewogue
Fairport
HFL
Glen Cove
Great Neck
Happauge
Jericho
Manhasset
Merrick
Mount Sinai
North Bellmore
Ossining
Pittsford
Plainview Old-Bethpage
Rye Neck
Rocky Point
Spackenkill
Syosset
West Irondequoit
Webster
White Plains

Categories New York, Pearson, Testing
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