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Getting Ready for the Common Core Testing

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
94

A friend of a friend of a friend passed this along, hoping I might be able to answer the question about the appropriateness of this test question in second grade.

What do you think?

“Please read a question on a quiz that my 7 year old son in the 2nd grade got wrong and tell me if I’m crazy for thinking that the testing and vocabulary have gone a bit nutso?”

Kings and queens COMMISSIONED Mozart to write symphonies for celebrations and ceremonies. What does COMMISSION mean?

A. to force someone to do work against his or her will
B. to divide a piece of music into different movements
C. to perform a long song accompanied by an orchestra
D. to pay someone to create artwork or a piece of music

Categories Common Core, Testing

When Students Awaken, Everything Will Change

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
13

It is beginning. Teachers, superintendents, local school boards, parent groups, and now students: all are saying the same things. Stop destroying education with high-stakes testing. Stop the chaos and disruption of school closings. Support and encourage, don’t humiliate and destroy.

Are you listening, Secretary Duncan?

Here is a new student group in New Orleans demanding quality education and equity.

Dear Friends,

United Students of New Orleans (USNO) is a coalition of students organizing
and advocating for fairness and justice in public schools across New Orleans. Starting with students from four schools: Walter L. Cohen, L. B. Landry, G.W.Carver, and Sarah T. Reed, it has grown to include students from seven schools across New Orleans, including both public and charter. Schools came together, and they united under the understanding that they were being denied their civil rights and an access to a real education.

Our purpose, as USNO, is to elevate the voices of public school students and push for equity, justice and resources in public education. We demand quality teachers, adequate study materials, and a safe environment free of discrimination and mental stress. We work to ensure that high school students, like us, get the resources needed to succeed in school, so that they can compete in the global market or enroll in higher learning institutions. Since our organization gathers and supports the student leaders of each school as separate entities and as a collective whole, we have learned what it means to give every student a fair and equal education with adequate resources. We also train other students to use their voices to inform the community about the issues in public schools that directly impact our daily lives.

Next week, USNO will travel to Washington DC to testify at the US Department of Education Hearing: The Impact of School Closings, Turnarounds, Phase-outs and Co-locations. To help these students attend the JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE or to help them with their campaign or to just help them to make it easier to get through and navigate the current school system, we need a little more help from our friends and supporters. $10, $25, $50, $100, or whatever you currently can give will be truly appreciated. We can go to FFLIC’s website http://www.FFLIC.org to the WEPAY, but make a note in contact organizer that this donation is for USNO or you can make to wepay or check payable to FFLIC for United Students of New Orleans at 1600 O.C.Haley blvd, New Orleans, La 70113 or cash. If you can’t donate money, can you support us with our fight for an adequate education? All you have to do is have a video, phone, or Youtube statement in which you give support such as “My name is (your name) and I’m an (occupation) and I support United Students of New Orleans.” Such support will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Terrell Major Student Co-Founder of USNO Meagan McKinnon Student Co- Founder

18 CITIES CONVERGE IN WASHINGTON D.C ON “JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE,” CALLING ON DEPT. OF EDUCATION TO END TOP-DOWN, DISCRIMINATORY CLOSINGS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
National Movement Forms In Wake Of Mass School Closings & Turnarounds That
Violate Civil Rights & Promote Divestment In Low Income, Students Of Color

WHAT: Students, parents and advocacy representatives from 18 major United States cities will testify at a hearing before the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. on the devastating impact and civil rights violations resulting from the unchecked closing and turnaround of schools serving predominantly low-income, minority students across the country.

More than 10 cities have filed, or are in the process of filing, Title VI Civil Rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, citing the closing of schools and the criteria and methods for administering those actions as discriminatory toward low-income, minority communities. Representatives from 11cities will testify at the hearing on the impact of school closings including the civil rights violations and the destabilization of their children and their communities resulting from the criteria used for school closings and the current accepted movement to privatize schools.

Demands of the Department of Education include a moratorium on school closings until a new process can be implemented nationally, the implementation of a sustainable, community-driven school improvement process as national policy, and a meeting with President Obama so that he may hear directly from his constituents about the devastating impact and civil rights violations the current policy is perpetuating.

The hearing will be followed by a procession and candlelight vigil at the Martin Luther King Memorial to continue to raise the voices of those impacted by the destabilization and sabotage of education in working and low-income, communities of color.

In the wake of the hearing, the 18 participating cities, along with additional cities in the process of organizing, are forming a national movement to unite students and advocacy organizations across the country to spread awareness of mass school closings and their impact on targeted communities.

WHO: Approximately 500 students, parents and community representatives impacted or at risk of impact by school closings representing 18 cities across the country will attend the hearing including: Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Detroit; District of Columbia; Eupora, Miss.; Hartford, Conn.; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Newark; New Orleans; New York; Oakland, Calif.; Philadelphia; Wichita, Kan.; Wilmington, Del.

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
2:00 p.m.– 3:55 p.m. 5:00 p.m. EST
U.S. Department of Education [Room XXX] Martin Luther King Memorial
Washington, DC Washington, DC

WHY: Cities across the country are experiencing the results of neglectful actions by the closing of schools serving predominantly low-income students of color including displacement and destabilization of children, increased violence and threats of physical harm as a result of re-assignment, and destabilization at schools receiving the displaced students.

Despite current research showing that closing these public schools does not improve test scores or graduation rates, closings have continued primarily because current federal Race To The Top policy has incentivized the closing and turnaround of schools by supporting privatization. However, the privatization of schools has resulted in unchecked actions and processes where the primary fallout is on those in low-income, minority communities. The devastating impact of these actions has only been tolerated because of the race and class of the communities affected.

Categories Closing schools, Education Reform, New Orleans, Students, Testing

The Secret Strategy of Corporate School Reform?

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
80

I want to test out a theory. I invite you to tell me what you think. It’s a thought experiment but very close to reality.

Suppose you wanted to destroy public education.

Suppose you wanted to make it so unpleasant to be a teacher or a student in a public school that everyone began to long for a way out. What would you do?

Let’s see. You would subject kids to tests repeatedly to the point that their parents complained bitterly. You would take away art and music, maybe physical education too, to make more time for testing. You would open a few charters, which would scoop up the best students, the strivers, and exclude the troublemakers. You would leave the public schools as refuges for the kids rejected or unwanted by the charters. Wouldn’t it be likely that all the motivated parents would clamor for a way to get their kids out too? Then there would be charters for the “good” kids and the public schools would be the dumping grounds.

Do the same for teachers but in different ways. Threaten them with termination if they don’t comply. Tell them their experience and education don’t count. Tell them their quality will depend on their students’ test scores. Watch their spirits droop as their best students leave for charter schools. Be sure to put non-educators in charge and lecture them regularly about how they are responsible if any child should fail. Snap the whip to keep them on their toes. Never treat them as professionals but as lazy time-servers who need constant reminders of their inadequacy.

In time, public education would be stigmatized and avoided by all who could get away. Is this where Race to the Top is going?

These thoughts, which have been percolating, were inspired by the following comments from a reader.

She wrote:

I was pleased to learn, thanks to Diane Ravitch, that the head of the principals’ association here in NC came out against testing last week. Ironically, my state superintendent just announced that NC will be paying (millions, I assume) to Pearson, a British company, to create tests that I and other NC teachers will have to give. NC is a nightmare to teach in right now. There have never been unions, so teachers have always been asked to do things administration could never get away with in a union state, but every work day this year is devoted to Race to the Top. My next semester begins on January 23 and the work day on the 22nd is occupied with RttT instead of finalizing my grades or planning for new students and courses. One of our RttT workshops involved using string, tape, spaghetti, and marshmellows to construct something. We also watched 30 second Disney/Pixar clips which were referred to constantly as “authentic texts.” I have been teaching English since the 1970s, and I have never seen anything like the direction public schools are going in now. I know Ms. Ravitch is strongly against charters, but I am for anything that is exempt from this madness that has over-taken public education. Public education is apparently for sale, and teachers and students are the victims. Like the Titanic, I am not sure it can be saved.

Categories Budget Cuts, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Good News: Major Re-Analysis of International Tests

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
30

Richard Rothstein and Martin Carnoy, both highly accomplished scholars, have reanalyzed the international test score data and arrived at some startling and important findings.

Their study is titled “International Tests Show Achievement Gaps in All Countries, with Big Gains for U.S. Disadvantaged Students.” It includes not only their major analysis of international test scores, but critiques by the leaders of OECD and PISA, and their response to the critiques.

This important study should change the way international tests are reported by the media, if they take the time to read Rothstein and Carnoy.

In every nation, students from the most affluent homes are at the top of the test scores, and students from the poorest homes are at the bottom. In other words, there is an “achievement gap” based on social class in every nation.

They point out that the big assessment programs—PISA and TIMSS—do not consistently disaggregate by social class, which creates “findings” that are misleading and inaccurate.

Rothstein and Carnoy note that American policymakers have been disaggregating by income and other measures since No Child Left Behind was passed, yet they gullibly accept international test score data without insisting on the same kind of disaggregation.

In other words, we know that a school where most of the students live in affluent, college-educated families will get higher test scores than a school in an impoverished neighborhood. But we don’t ask the same questions when we look at international testing data.

Rothstein and Carnoy diligently asked those questions and reached some very interesting conclusions.

*”The share of disadvantaged students in the U.S. sample was larger than their share in any of the other countries we studied. Because test scores in every country are characterized by a social class gradient—students higher in the social class scale have better average achievement than students in the next lower class—U.S. student scores are lower on average simply because of our relatively disadvantaged social class composition.” In other words, we have more poverty than other nations with which we compare ourselves, and thus lower scores on average.

*They discovered that “the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged children is actually smaller in the United States than it is in similar countries. The achievement gap in the United States is larger than it is in the very highest scoring countries, but even then, many of the differences are small.”

*The achievement of “the most disadvantaged U.S. adolescents has been increasing rapidly, while the achievement of similarly disadvantaged adolescents in some countries that are typically held up as examples for the U.S.—Finland for example—has been falling just as rapidly.” (I asked Rothstein whether the gains were attributable to NCLB, and he replied that the gains for the most disadvantaged students were even larger prior to NCLB.)

*The U.S. scores on PISA 2009 that so alarmed Secretary Duncan were caused by a sampling error. “PISA over-sampled low-income U.S. students who attended schools with very high proportions of similarly disadvantaged students, artificially lowering the apparent U.S. score. While 40 percent of the PISA sample was drawn from schools hwere half or more of students were eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, only 23 percent of students nationwide attend such schools.”

*If the PISA scores are adjusted correctly to reflect the actual proportion of students in poverty, the average scores of U.S. students rise significantly. Instead of 14th in reading, the U.S. is fourth in reading on PISA. Instead of 25th in mathematics, the U.S. is 10th. “While there is still room for improvement, these are quite respectable showings.”

*Because of PISA’s sampling error, the conclusions expressed by politicians and pundits were “oversimplified, exaggerated, and misleading.”

Rothstein and Carnoy identify important differences and inconsistencies between PISA and TIMSS, and between these assessments and our own NAEP. Taken together, these differences should remind us of the many ways in which the assessments confuse policy and policymakers, the media and the public.

As they note in their conclusion, “it is not possible to say whether the results of any particular international test are generalizable and can support policy conclusions.”

They conclude: “We are most certain of this: To make judgments only on the basis of national average scores, on only one test, at only one point in time, without comparing trends on different tests that purport to measure the same thing, and without disaggregation by social class groups, is the worst possible choice. But, unfortunately this is how most policymakers and analysts approach the field.”

Categories Accountability, International, Testing

Teachers at Roosevelt HS Support Colleagues at Garfield

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
1

Forty-Three Roosevelt High School teachers (colleagues in Seattle Public Schools with Garfield High School teachers) signed this Letter of Support (on Jan. 23, 2012) for GHS teachers and a call to for expedient dismissal of the MAP exam because it has not proven to be useful or reliable. (PDF of original with signatures available upon request).

This We Believe:

Teachers, parents, students, school board members and the administration of Seattle Public Schools owe Garfield High School teachers their gratitude and thanks for speaking the truth.

We believe that any reprimand or negative consequences imposed by Seattle Public Schools, the superintendent or administration on the truth-telling teachers of Garfield High School would be unjust. Garfield High School teachers should be given public commendations for rightly raising their professional concerns and specific critique of our district’s choice and misuse of the Measures of Academic Progress® [MAP] testing.

An unspoken truth is that most all Seattle Public School stakeholders already knew that the MAP test was expensive and of little practical use in supporting our students’ learning, or in evaluating their classroom teachers before the Garfield High School teachers spoke up publicly.

We believe that effective teaching and learning must utilize meaningful tests, authentic assessments, and multiple-measures to evaluative what a student knows and can do. These measures are also critical to improve teaching practice, reflect on curriculum, and to evaluate school and district-wide policies. We want students who are struggling and those who have mastered skills and content to be identified and to be offered meaningful support to succeed and excel. We want teachers who are struggling in the classroom to be identified, offered useful critique and professional support. We believe that after due process, if these teachers are unable to meet the high standards we hold ourselves to as educators these individuals should be removed from their teaching positions. We wish to continue to improve our schools which are already rated as one of the best K-12 public school districts in the state and nation. To quote Garfield High School teachers, “The MAP test is not the way to do any of these things.”

We support an expedient dismissal of the MAP exam because it has not proven to be useful or reliable in its given tasks. We ask Superintendent Banda to reconsider his call to wait for a general evaluation of all Seattle Public Schools assessments as that report is not due out until the end of the school year. If MAP testing is already paid for this school year shouldn’t we finish out the school year with the planned MAP testing days? Budgets are in some ways both complex and simple. Seattle Public Schools annual “operating budget” for this year is around $566 million; delivering 180 days of school to our students. Rounding down the cost is still over $3 million-a-day to operate our schools. If we end MAP testing now millions of dollars of this year’s district’s operating budget would be spent on school days of teaching and learning instead of on ineffective MAP-testing.

We believe that process employed by Seattle Public Schools administration, school board, and (initially) by our professional association (SEA) in accepting this testing regime was flawed. We request an administrative and public review of the procedures related to these kinds of important adoptions needs to be established that engages all stakeholders to help prevent unworthy, expensive, MAP-like mistakes in the future.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned Teachers of Roosevelt High School.

Categories Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Washington State

You Are Invited to a Webinar on High Stakes Testing

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2013 //
18

Parents Across America is hosting a Webinar on high stakes testing. Think about joining and meeting some of the leading figures in the opt-out movement.

Let’s Talk: A Webinar on High Stakes Testing and Opting Out

On January 27 at 1:00 PM PST, 3:00 PM Central and 4:00 PM EST, Parents Across America will be hosting an online seminar on high stakes testing and opting out of these tests.

Our guests will be:

Jesse Hagopian, teacher at Garfield High School and part of the MAP test boycott

Shaun Johnson, a former public school teacher, current teacher educator and online radio show co-host of At the Chalk Face who is a founder of United Opt Out National.

Monty Neill, Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). Dr. Neill authored Implementing Performance Assessments: A Guide to Classroom School and System Reform, and Testing Our Children: A Report Card on State Assessment Systems, the first comprehensive evaluation of all 50 state testing programs.

Tim Slekar, a former public school teacher and now an associate professor of teacher education. Dr. Slekar is also co-host of At the Chalk Face and a founder of United Opt Out National.

There will be a discussion on:
How high stakes testing got started.
Methods to fairly evaluate a teacher in the classroom.
Opting your student out of high stakes testing, why and how.
What’s happening in Seattle with the MAP test boycott.

Each guest speaker will have an opportunity to talk about these subjects and then it will be opened up for questions and discussion.

There will be a drawing during the webinar for two copies of Pencils Down: Rethinking High-Stakes Testing and Accountability in Public Schools during this webcast thanks to Rethinking Schools.

To sign up for this free event, go to Eventbrite.

Categories Parents, Testing

Stay and Fight?

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2013 //
20

I know that many teachers are demoralized. It is not just because I read your comments every day, but because national surveys by Scholastic/Gates and by the Metlife survey report that this is so.

Some of the newbie organizations founded and/or funded by Gates (like TeachPlus and Educators4Excellence) think this is wonderful. So does The New Teacher Project (TNTP), founded by either Wendy Kopp or Michelle Rhee, depending on whom you believe.  They see a new day coming, when teachers who don’t care about a pension or job security, who want to be evaluated by test scores, will fill the classrooms of America.

I say all this is nonsense. Ten years from now, the teaching corps in most districts in the nation will be drawn from the same pool as now. It is an absurd goal to want to push out or drive out experienced teachers and rely on a group of young people to change teaching into a job for short-timers. It could happen, but if it does, it won’t be good for students or for the quality of education.

Short term, there is good reason to be demoralized. Long term, I am convinced that the destructive trends of this era will pass. Failed ideas eventually are recognized as failed ideas.

That is why I urge everyone to stay and fight for what they know is right for their students. Signs of resistance are growing. The test boycott at Garfield High School in Seattle is the first sign of spring. There will be many more.

Here is someone who disagrees with me, or made her decision a while back:

“Maybe the greatest act of defiance is to stay and fight for what is right.”

Diane, I believe most teachers who have decided to leave the profession felt that way years and years before they left. These changes have been a long time coming. The writing was on the wall years ago and most teachers hunkered down and got the job done anyway. They stood up to bullying principals and insane edicts, more paperwork, much more testing, and more decisions being made by people who never taught a day in the classroom. They fought hard and were belittled, ignored, or forced out.

There comes a day when it becomes impossible to stay, when you feel you can no longer be a part of something that is directly harming children and that takes a little piece of your soul each day that you continue to play by someone else’s rules. I know because I was one of those teachers. I taught for 20 years and the district offered a buy out, hoping to get rid of their veteran teachers so they could hire cheaper, more pliable, younger teachers. That was almost two years ago, and most of the teacher friends I left behind are retiring this year. Like me, they reached a point where they had to leave.

Even though we’re no longer in the classroom, we continue to fight “from the outside.” Thank you for everything you do.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

G.F. Brandenburg: Is Poverty Destiny?

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2013 //
15

Blogger and retired math teacher G.F. Brandenburg deciphers the central claim of the corporate reform movement: Does poverty matter? Is it destiny? Can a young teacher with a few weeks of training and high expectations college overcome the effects of poverty?

He tests the proposition by examining the correlation between test scores and poverty rates in Wisconsin. What he finds will not surprise you.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Poverty, Testing

How Phony Reform Destroys Teacher Morale: “I Quit”

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2013 //
24

A reader sent this sad commentary on the state of education today. When you read dozens of letters like this from districts around the country, you have to wonder if the “powers that be” are trying to force experienced teachers out of the classroom, to make room for the young teachers who don’t know enough to think differently, who won’t stay around long enough to get a pension, who won’t question the New Order of testing and submission. Maybe the greatest act of defiance is to stay and fight for what is right. Because the end of the “reformers'” time in charge draws near:

 

I QUIT and I did not send a letter…One day’s notice ….as I have one life to live and had rather rake yards, mow lawns, and even clean houses thasn to walk in any of these schools..

I am exhausted from trying to figure out what to teach for the next county test……then state test.

I am tired of the CLAWS that come at you and the Ugly Faces of the Powers that be when your class of 33 can not make an A on one of those SO BAD BAD TESTS!!!.

Those “Frowny Powers that Be” people may not know it but they will die early and have so many wrinkles form those Ugly Ugly Facial Gestures!!!

I am so tired of the hiring of all of the coaches that nag and nag and nag the veteran teachers and pretend to know more…but they do not..

I am tired of the Professional Learning whatevers where teachers discuss TEST SCORES for a kid with a 58 I.Q….while an administrator that has never taught more than one year takes notes back to the Super Powers…or they have some person whose position has been created to sit there and take notes to take back to the Super Powers..

NY…..NC….should call those meeting-”TESTER MEETINGS”
I know that those States test and test and test and test and test and test!!!!

I am almost positive that the Powers that be will be in the future mandating Pregnant Women to test their Embryos for Gene Defects in order to get a Head Start on any problems the child may have for Future Testing…

I am tired of not having a book…but am asked instead to get all of the material on the web….run off enough material to kill all of the trees in Pennsylvania…..all of the trees in the National Forests.,…etc…

I can not believe that the State is asking for activities that the teacher creates to put on their website for this Common Core..
If I were that teacher..I would charge the state $500 for each and every activity after I had copyrighted the activity…

What the Educational Super Powers have done is to Drain teachers of any motivation and creativity…

The media has turned their heads on this one…unless someone comes to school with a gun or a knife, you never hear of any news of the Destruction of Public Education.

What a shame..

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

NEA Supports Garfield High School Teachers’ Boycott

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
38

Will the Garfield High School teachers’ test boycott go national? They now have the support of both the AFT and their own union, the NEA. Will other Seattle high schools join them? Will teachers in other districts follow their lead?

One source reported that the superintendent of schools in Seattle has warned that he will dock their pay. If that is true, we will have to raise money to help these brave teachers.

Here is the NEA statement:

Subject: Press Release – NEA President supports Seattle educators who refuse to give flawed standardized test

NEA President supports Seattle educators who refuse to give flawed standardized test

Standardized test takes away from student learning

WASHINGTON—National Education Association (NEA) members at Garfield High School in Seattle, Wash., voted to not administer the district-mandated Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) standardized test that is not aligned with state standards or the district curriculum. NEA has long urged for the careful consideration of the fact that these tests are being used to make decisions about students’ and teachers’ futures, and have corrupted the pursuit of improving real learning and effective teaching.

A rally event organized by the Seattle Education Association in support of Garfield High School educators will be held in Seattle on Wednesday, January 23, 2013, at 4 p.m. PST at the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence.

The following is a statement by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel:

“Today is a defining moment within the education profession as educators at Seattle’s Garfield High School take a heroic stand against using the MAP test as a basis for measuring academic performance and teacher effectiveness. I, along with 3 million educators across the country, proudly support their efforts in saying ‘no’ to giving their students a flawed test that takes away from learning and is not aligned with the curriculum. Garfield High School educators are receiving support from the parents of Garfield students. They have joined an ever-growing chorus committed to one of our nation’s most critical responsibilities—educating students in a manner that best serves the realization of their fullest potential.

“Educators across the country know what’s best for their students, and it’s no different for our members in Seattle. We know that having well-designed assessment tools can help students evaluate their own strengths and needs, and help teachers improve. This type of assessment isn’t done in one day or three times a year. It’s done daily, and educators need the flexibility to collaborate with their colleagues and the time to evaluate on-going data to make informed decisions about what’s best for students.

“If we want a system that is designed to help all students, we must allow educators, parents, students and communities to be a part of the process and have a stronger voice in this conversation as they demand high-quality assessments that support student learning. Off-the-shelf assessments that are not aligned with the curriculum or goals of the school are not the answer.”

Follow the Washington Education Association at http://www.washingtonea.org

Follow the Seattle Education Association at http://www.seattlewea.org

Follow us on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/NEAMedia

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers.

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Categories Testing, U.S. education, Unions, Washington State
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