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Hooray for the Niagara PTA!

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2012 //
17

I hereby place the Niagara (NY) PTA on our honor roll. They are heroes of public education. They stood up for their children, their teachers, their principals, and their local schools.

These smart, independent, thoughtful parents passed an excellent resolution against high-stakes testing and against the state’s untried educator evaluation system, created hurriedly to justify Race to the Top requirements.

Many other PTAs are considering following the lead of the Niagara PTA.

This is democracy at work!

This is the American people telling the state officials, stop the misuse of testing. Stop ruining the education of our children. Stop demoralizing our teachers.

Here is a clear example where an upstate PTA makes more sense than the New York State Board of Regents or the New York State Education Department.

Here is the resolution written and adopted by the Niagara PTA:

Parent Teacher Association Resolution
November 16, 2012
Niagara Region Parent Teacher Association

Background:

There is now more than two decades of scientific research demonstrating that high-stakes testing regimes yield unreliable measures of student learning. Such tests cannot serve as a basis for determining teacher effectiveness. In fact, scientific research shows that high-stakes testing lowers the quality of education. Some of the documented harmful outcomes of high-stakes testing are: “teaching to the test”; narrowed curriculum opportunities; increased emotional distress among children and increased “drop outs”; corruption; the marginalization of both very high performing students and students with special needs; an overall lowering of standards and disregard for individual difference, critical thinking and human creativity. Thus, high-stakes testing has been proven to be an ineffective tool for preparing students for the 21st century.

The intent of this resolution is to ask the State Education Department to suspend its testing program until such time as it can create a new one that reliably measures educational progress without harming children and lowering the quality of education. We need a testing program that helps students and schools, not harms them.

Rationale for Submitting as an Emergency Resolution:

All of the following developments have occurred since April 15, 2012:

• In April, 2012, the New York State Education Department’s testing program’s relationship with Pearson, Inc. produced assessments that were judged by psychometricians, practitioners, parents, and students to be demonstrably flawed instruments, incapable of measuring student learning or teacher effectiveness.
• The New York State Education Department has published numerous memoranda and documents related to assessment and the Common Core Learning Standards, each of which add layers of unprecedented bureaucracy and great uncertainty, proving that there are many aspects of implementation, and the consequences of implementation, that NYSED can’t manage without causing great damage to our schools.
• The research of Walter Troup, of the University of Texas, and others, has demonstrated that the methodology used by Pearson to create the New York State assessments renders them “virtually useless at measuring the effects of classroom instruction” (New York Times, July 28, 2012).
• The United States Department of Education has granted the New York State Education Department a waiver from the requirements of No Child Left Behind (May 29, 2012), which technically lifts the federal testing mandate in grades 3 – 8. Finally, school districts have been informed as recently as September 19, 2012, that more field testing is necessary this October, requiring more testing and less learning.
• As of September, 2012, the curriculum associated with the Common Core Learning Standards still has not yet been fully developed (NYSED continues to ask vendors to write is curriculum modules), nor has it been has not been implemented fully in any part of the United States or New York State so that it’s effects on students can be measured or researched.
• To date, there has been no trial or testing to verify effectiveness of this student testing and teacher evaluation system, and no research to show that holding students or teachers accountable to the Common Core Learning Standards has been proven to increase the effectiveness of either.
• The Chicago teacher’s strike was a crisis that was primarily focused on the inappropriate role of standardized testing in evaluating students and linking these tests to teacher annual professional performance reviews. We should be aware of the very real possibility that the numerous controversies, implementation issues, and confusion may well cause considerable disruptions to the important work of educating our children.
• Why would we spend millions of dollars and subject children to another year of emotional distress when it has been determined that these high stakes tests yield no useful information?

Therefore we submit the following resolution:

1. WHEREAS, dating back to 1865, the New York State assessment program was historically a successful collaborative effort involving teachers, administrators and college and university faculty resulting in assessments that measured the efficacy of locally developed curricula in helping students meet state learning standards and yielded data that informed teaching and learning; and, the future well-being of each community in New York State relies on a high-quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, and strengthens the nation’s social and economic well-being; and

2. WHEREAS, the New York State PTA supports the health and well being of all children, and has voiced its concern regarding government over reliance on testing, stating that it has “tipped the balance of objectives, tasks, and assessments heavily toward standardized tests” resulting in consequences that can have a “profound impact on students, schools, and the community”, including subjecting students to “drill and kill” test preparation and less focus on curricular areas likely to develop the “whole child”; and

3. WHEREAS, when parents were asked about the high-stakes standardized testing and its negative effects for students from all backgrounds, and especially for low-income students, English language learners, children of color, and those with disabilities in a recent survey of 8,000 parents in New York State, it was found that 75% reported that their child was more anxious in the month before a test, and 80% reported that test preparation prevented their child from engaging in meaningful school activities. Sixty five percent of parents felt that too much time was devoted to test preparation, and 87% of them believed that too much time was being devoted to standardized testing. Ninety five percent of parents were opposed to increasing the number and length of tests causing many informed families to “opt out” of all New York State assessments; and

4. WHEREAS, all schools and school districts in New York State have been spending growing amounts of time, money and energy on high-stakes standardized testing to comply with state and federal accountability systems, in which student performance on standardized tests is inappropriately used to measure individual student progress and teacher effectiveness, which undermines educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools by hampering educators’ efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and deep subject-matter knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy; and

5. WHEREAS, it is widely recognized that standardized testing, in particular the New York State assessments developed by Pearson, Inc. and administered to children in grades 3 – 8 in April of 2012, provided no data that will help teachers improve their instruction for children, and were judged by assessment experts, school administrators, teachers, and families to be invalid and unreliable instruments to judge student learning or teacher performance, and are damaging the culture and structure of the systems in which students learn, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession, inhibiting the ability of schools to foster engaging school experiences that promote joy in learning, depth of thought and breadth of knowledge for students necessary for student success; and

therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the New York State Parent Teacher Association calls on Andrew Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, the Board of Regents of the State University of New York, and Dr. John B. King, Jr., Commissioner of the State Education Department to enact a moratorium on policies that force New York State public schools to rely on high-stakes testing due to the fact that there is no convincing evidence that the pressure associated with high-stakes testing leads to any important benefits to student achievement; and be it

RESOLVED, that the New York State Parent Teacher Association calls on Andrew Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, the Board of Regents of the State University of New York, and Dr. John B. King, Jr., Commissioner of the State Education Department to end its agreement with Pearson, Inc. and return to the inclusive practice of assessment design that included teachers and administrators, and engaged the college and university academic community, resulting in the development of tests that effectively measured each district’s progress in helping students meet state standards using their own locally developed curricula and will provide practitioners with data that can be used to improve teaching and learning; and be it

RESOLVED, that the New York State Parent Teacher Association calls on Andrew Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, the New York State Senate and Assembly and Dr. John B. King, Jr., Commissioner of the State Education Department to eliminate the requirement that 40 % of teacher and principal evaluations be based on New York State Assessments and an impractical and unproven Student Learning Objective(SLO) testing model, to develop a system of Annual Professional Performance Review which does not require extensive standardized testing, and requires districts to document that their Annual Professional Performance Review Process assesses the progress of each teacher in meeting the New York State Teaching Standards using multiple measures of teaching performance.

-END-
CONCLUSION : Given the Mission and purpose of the PTA which clearly states that the PTA is: “A powerful voice for all children, a relevant resource for families and communities, and a strong advocate for the education and well-being of every child.” We believe it is our duty and responsibility to be a voice and advocate for our children and our schools.
REFERENCES
For a general overview of standardized testing technology and the issues associated with high-stakes testing, See Daniel Koretz, Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008; and George Madaus, Michael K. Russell, and Jennifer Higgins, The Paradoxes of High-stakes Testing: How They Affect Students, Their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Pub., 2009.

The following studies and research briefs caution against using student test scores to evaluate teachers: Peter Schochet and Hanley S. Chiang, Error Rates in Measuring Teacher and School Performance Based on Student Test Score Gains. U.S Department of Education (NCEE 2010-4004), July 2010. Available online: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104004/pdf/20104004.pdf; Tim Sass, “The Stability of Value-Added Measures of Teacher Quality and Implications for Teacher Compensation Policy.” In Brief 4. Washington, DC: Urban Institute, November 2008. Available online: http://www.urban.org/publications/1001266.html; the following report represents the views of nationally leading education experts: Eva Baker et al. “Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers.” Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, August 29, 2010. Available online: http://www.epi.org/publication/bp278/. Note as well the letter sent by the National Research Council to the U.S. Department of Education warning it about the limits of so-called “value-added measures” of teacher effectiveness. See: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12780#

For a general overview of the relationship between high-stakes testing and corruption, see Sharon Nichols, Sharon Lynn, and David C. Berliner, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2007.

Research continues to draw a link between dropping out of school and high-stakes testing, see: Elizabeth Glennie, Kara Bonneau, Michelle Vandellen, and Kenneth A. Dodge, “Addition by Subtraction: The Relation Between Dropout Rates and School-Level Academic Achievement.” Teachers College Record 114, no. 8 (2012): 1-26., and Martin Carnoy, “Have State Accountability and High-Stakes Tests Influenced Student Progression Rates in High School?”, Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice 24, no. 4 (2005): 19-31. That high-stakes testing lowers the quality of instruction and narrows the curriculum to what is tested has long been documented, see, for example, Linda McNeil’s, Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing. New York: Routledge, 2000; Recent research on high-stakes testing and gifted students is reviewed here: Tonya Moon, “Myth 16: High-Stakes Tests Are Synonymous With Rigor and Difficulty,” Gifted Child Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2009): 277-279.

Recent work continues to reveal a limited relationship between test scores and economic performance, e.g., Henry Levin, “More Than Just Test Scores,” Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 137 August 20012. Available online at http://roundtheinkwell.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/more-than-just-test-scores-sept2012-2.pdf

A growing body of research documents the role of high-stakes testing in causing teachers to leave the field. See for example, Daniel Sass, Belinda Flores, Lorena Claeys, and Bertha Pérez, “Identifying Personal and Contextual Factors that Contribute to Attrition Rates for Texas Public School Teachers.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 20, no. 15 (2012): 1-25.

See: David Berliner, “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform,” Teachers College Record 108, no. 6 (2006): 949-95.

WHEREAS 2

• NYS PTA Where We Stand Position Paper on Standards, Testing and the Whole Child
• Recent work continues to reveal a limited relationship between test scores and economic performance, e.g., Henry Levin, “More Than Just Test Scores,” Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 137 August 2012. Available online at http://roundtheinkwell.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/more-than-just-test-scores-sept2012-2.pdf
• For a general overview of the relationship between high-stakes testing and corruption, see Sharon Nichols, Sharon Lynn, and David C. Berliner, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2007.

WHEREAS 3

• http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/HowTestsDamageEd.pdf
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-parents-say-testing-is-doing-to-their-kids/2012/05/30/gJQABJCz2U_blog.html
• Research Regarding Test Anxiety:
• Ryan, K. E., Ryan, A. M., Arbuthnot, K., & Samuels, M. (2007). Students’ motivation for standardized math exams. Educational Researcher, 36(1), 5-13.

• Zohar, D. (1998). An additive model of test anxiety: Role of exam-specific expectations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 330-340.

• Jones, M., Jones, B. D., Hardin, B., Chapman, L., Yarbrough, T., & Davis, M. (1999). The impact of high-stakes testing on teachers and students in North Carolina. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(3), 199-203.

• Carter, E. W., Wehby, J., Hughes, C., Johnson, S. M., Plank, D. R., Barton-Arwood, S. M., & Lunsford, L. B. (2005). Preparing adolescents with high-incidence disabilities for high-stakes testing with strategy instruction. Preventing School Failure, 49(2), 55-62.

• Paris, S. G. (2000). Trojan horse in the schoolyard. Issues In Education, 6(1/2), 1.
WHEREAS 4

• For a general overview of standardized testing technology and the issues associated with high-stakes testing, See Daniel Koretz, Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008; and George Madaus, Michael K. Russell, and Jennifer Higgins, The Paradoxes of High-stakes Testing: How They Affect Students, Their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Pub., 2009.
• http://www.mcte.org/journal/mej07/3Henry.pdf
• Baines, L. A., & Stanley, G. (2004). High-stakes hustle: Public schools and the new billion dollar accountability. Educational Forum, The, 69(1), 8-15.
• Behrent, M. (2009). Reclaiming our freedom to teach: Education reform in the Obama era. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 240-246.
• Johnson, D. D., & Johnson, B. (2002). High stakes: Children, testing, and failure in American schools. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Keefe, J. W., & Jenkins, J. M. (2005). Personalized instruction. Phi Delta Kappa Fastbacks, 1-2, 7-49
• Popham,James,W (2001), The Truth about Testing, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,Alexandria, VA

WHEREAS 5

• The following studies and research briefs caution against using student test scores to evaluate teachers: Peter Schochet and Hanley S. Chiang, Error Rates in Measuring Teacher and School Performance Based on Student Test Score Gains. U.S Department of Education (NCEE 2010-4004), July 2010. Available online: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104004/pdf/20104004.pdf; Tim Sass, “The Stability of Value-Added Measures of Teacher Quality and Implications for Teacher Compensation Policy.” In Brief 4. Washington, DC: Urban Institute, November 2008. Available online:

• A growing body of research documents the role of high-stakes testing in causing teachers to leave the field. See for example, Daniel Sass, Belinda Flores, Lorena Claeys, and Bertha Pérez, “Identifying Personal and Contextual Factors that Contribute to Attrition Rates for Texas Public School Teachers.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 20, no. 15 (2012): 1-25.

• Barksdale-Ladd, M., & Thomas, K. F. (2000). What’s at stake in high-stakes testing: Teachers and parents speak out. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(5-), 384-97.
http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.niagara.edu/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DA-SORT&inPS=true&prodId=AONE&userGroupName=nysl_we_niagarau&tabID=T002&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet=GALE|A66664668&&docId=GALE|A66664668&docType=GALE&role=&docLevel=FULLTEXT

• Baines, L.A., & Stanley, G.K. (2004). High-stakes hustle: Public schools and the new billion dollar accountability. The Educational Forum, 69(1), 8-15.
• Berliner, D. (2011). Rational responses to high stakes testing: The case of curriculum narrowing and the harm that follows. Cambridge Journal of Education, 41(3), 287.
• Bracey, Gerald,W (2002) ,The War Against America’s Public Schools, Allyn & Bacon A Pearson Company,Boston MA

• Hursh, D. (2005). The growth of high-stakes testing in the USA: Accountability, markets and the decline in educational equality. British Educational Research Journal, 31(5), 605-622.
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.niagara.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&hid=126&sid=3abc620f-8a26-4b3f-a827-9efd52fc6e45%40sessionmgr113

• McNeil, L., Coppola, E., Radigan, J., & Heilig, J. (2008). Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 16(3), 1-48.

Click to access EJ800872.pdf

Categories Education Reform, Honor Roll, New York, Parent Groups, Parents, Testing

Parent to Teachers: Speak Up!

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
50

This parent in Connecticut is furious that teachers didn’t tell her that the testing had gotten excessive. They didn’t tell her what the overuse and misuse of testing was doing to her children. She understands that they were just doing their job, but she wants them to stand up and shout that what’s happening is wrong. This is a terrific letter. Once the parents and the students begin to understand what is happening, there will be a grand alliance to take back our schools and rebuild education for the benefit of students and our society:

With all due respect to teachers–I’ve been hearing whispered rumblings from educators for at least 8 years (since my oldest entered public schools) that teachers knew/know these tests are a load of crap. Teachers SHOULD have been speaking up louder a long time ago. Look what silence/fear/going-along/intimidation has resulted in for a generation of our children. Instead of hearing whispered, whimpy rumblings, parents should have been hearing forceful denunciations of these useless tests a long time ago. Parents are not in the classroom every day. Parents have no idea how bad these tests are unless teachers make them aware. At least where I live (Connecticut), that wasn’t the case. In fact, the few times I’ve tried to bring up the subject in the past I got averted eyes and a changing of the subject. I get it–this is your livelihood and you have administration to worry about. But these are our KIDS we’re talking about here. Water under the bridge now, I suppose. But now is the time to make up for lost time. Now is the time to speak up forcefully and DEMAND a change to better practices. And if your unions aren’t supporting you in this THEY SHOULD BE. Union management works for YOU. If they aren’t leading the fight in this, hold them accountable!

Categories Connecticut, Parents, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Unions

Bill Moyers on ALEC

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
4

Because I was traveling in Texas over the weekend, I didn’t see Bill Moyers’ report on ALEC. I watched it last night, and I hope you will too.

If you want to understand how we are losing our democracy, watch this program.

If you want to know why so many states are passing copycat legislation to suppress voters’ rights, to eliminate collective bargaining, to encourage online schooling, to privatize public education, watch this program.

ALEC brings together lobbyists for major corporations and elected state officials in luxurious resorts. In its seminars, the legislators learn how to advance corporate-sponsored, free-market ideas in their state. Its model legislation is introduced in state after state, often with minimal or no changes in the wording.

Watch Moyers show how Tennessee adopted ALEC’s online school bill and how Arizona is almost a wholly owned ALEC state. Watch how Scott Walker followed the ALEC template.

Moyers could do an entire special on ALEC’s education bills. ALEC promotes the parent trigger, so that parents can be tricked into handing their public schools over to charter chains. ALEC promotes gubernatorial commissions with the power to over-ride the decisions of local school boards to open more charters. ALEC promotes vouchers. ALEC, as he noted, promotes virtual charter schools (Pearson’s Connections Academy and K12 wrote the ALEC model law). ALEC has model legislations for vouchers for students with special needs. ALEC has a model law to allow people to teach without credentials. ALEC has legislation to eliminate tenure protection. ALEC has model legislation for educator evaluation.

It is all so familiar, isn’t it?

ALEC wants nothing less than to privatize public education, to eliminate unions, and to dismantle the education profession.

Categories ALEC, Education Industry, For-Profit, K12 Inc., On-Line Education, Parent trigger, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Tennessee, Testing, Unions, US Education

The State Assessment Is Useless

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
6

This parent did not permit his child to take the state test. She opted out. But through a computer glitch (surprise, surprise!), the parent received a report on the assessment that his child did not take. As he looked at the component parts, he was reaffirmed in his conviction that the test is utterly meaningless.

The test was given in May, but the results arrive in September. What is the value of that? And there are no examples of test questions that a student was able to answer or not able to answer. In fact, none of the information on the report was informative.

His conclusion: Opt out. Don’t let your child take the tests.

Categories Accountability, New York, Parents, Students, Testing

New York City’s Absurd School Grades

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
7

I live in a wonderful neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. For years, the local public school struggled. It had a poor reputation. Then a new principal arrived, attracted a stable and experienced staff, and the school flourished. Neighborhood families that once sought private school alternatives enrolled in the public school. It became the pride of the community.

A few years ago, when the city’s Department of Education started giving out letter grades to every public school, our neighborhood school got an A. Everyone was very proud. The mayor and the chancellor attended a ceremony at the school to salute its stellar performance and to announce the building of an addition.

But six weeks after the ceremony, the new letter grades were posted, and the neighborhood school got an F. Nothing had changed: Same principal, same staff, same program, mostly the same students.

The next year, the school’s grade went up, but the after-effect of the yo-yo grading left parents disillusioned–not with the school, which they knew and trusted, but with the city’s grading system. They realized that it was meaningless.

Now the latest report cards are out. They are as meaningless as ever. As Leonie Haimson, our city’s leading parent advocate puts it, “no one in his right mind should believe the school grades or the teacher growth scores.”

Some schools plummeted from A to F; others, including highly respected schools, fell to C. No one knows why.

The grades are based mainly on the same test scores that are being used to evaluate teachers. The whole enterprise stinks.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, NYC, Testing

A Visit to Austin, Texas

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
7

I just concluded an amazing visit to Austin.

I love going back to Texas. It’s my native state. I am a graduate of the Houston public schools. I like the sounds of Texas voices. I like the twang, the earthiness. These are the accents I grew up with.

I like meeting with racially integrated groups. I attended segregated schools in Houston. I’m proud that public education led the way in creating a racially diverse society, a society where people of all colors interact as equals.

I like the friendliness and openness, the lack of pretense and stuffiness that characterizes Texans. I have lived most of my life in New York City, but my heart belongs to this crazy state.

I arrived on Saturday and was met by Sara Stevenson, the tireless librarian at O’Henry Middle School, who has written many opinion pieces and letters to the editor in support of public education. Sara brought me to my hotel, where I met Karen Miller, a vigorous parent leader from Cypress-Fairbanks, who frequently sends me links to important news articles about corporate raiders of public education. It’s people like Sara and Karen who are the front-line combat troops defending our public schools, and they do it out of a fierce devotion to the common good, a sentiment that corporate reformers don’t understand. People like Sara and Karen are our secret weapons.

After an hour of rest (tweeting and blogging), I met two of the “fighting professors” of the University of Texas, Angela Valenzuela and Carolyn Heinrich. These scholars have been warning about the inequity of high-stakes testing for years, and their careful work will eventually turn the tide against the high-stakes mania. (By coincidence–or not–Sandy Kress, the architect of NCLB and now a lobbyist for Pearson, had an opinion piece in the local newspaper extolling the success of NCLB. He and Margaret Spellings may be the last two living defenders of that failed law.)

Saturday night, I had dinner with about forty superintendents from across the state who told me how frustrated they are with high stakes testing, how much time is wasted every year. A group of them have been working for several years on what they call their “visioning project.” Working with Phil Schlechty, they’ve been trying to dream up the kind of education they want for the children in their districts.

Last year, the Legislature passed a law allowing 20 districts to opt out of the state accountability system, which gets more onerous every year. The legislators just keep piling on more and more tests. The superintendents plan to use their autonomy to reinvent accountability and reduce the burden of testing.

Phil Schlechty gave a passionate five-minute talk about how our idea of democracy depends on the connection between the community and its public schools. He warned that if we lose public education, our democracy will be at risk. Phil also talked about his grandson, who made a video for school on “the value of doing nothing. The value of lying on your back and looking at clouds. The value of watching a caterpillar crawl on a branch. The value of counting the leaves on a tree.” Beautiful.

On Sunday morning, I spoke to a general session of the annual convention of the Texas School Boards Association and the Texas Association of School Administrators. More than 800 school boards have passed resolutions against high-stakes testing. I encouraged them to stand strong and to carry their righteous protest to the next level.

I asked, What if an entire district said to the state, we are not giving the tests this year? If the whole district says no, they can’t stop you. What if many districts opt out? If everyone does it, they can’t punish you. They-the legislators and other officials–will have to pay attention. They will have to stop and think of better ways to monitor the progress of education.

There is power in saying “no.” The more people say it, the more powerful it is. Texans have a long history of independence. Texans don’t like to be bullied. I would love to see a bunch of districts try it.

Sunday afternoon, I spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of parents and teachers at Eastside Memorial High School. The district has already promised to give the high school to a charter chain, and the community is furious. They didn’t ask for a charter, and they don’t want to lose their school. They are angry about the way the Broad-trained superintendent of the Austin Independent School District insisted on giving their local elementary school to the same charter chain, over the loud objection of the parents and local community. AISD was not responding to local demand (most of the local students abandoned the school when the charter opened last month). The locals are still angry, and they intend to hold onto the high school if they can.

Austin has several activist groups that are working to stop the encroachment of privately managed charters into the district. They are mobilized to elect school board members in November who will support community sentiment in favor of public schools.

Sunday night I went for Texas barbecue with local parent leaders.

Monday morning, I met with legislative staff to discuss the big issues in Texas. One is funding: the state cut $5.4 billion from the schools in the past two years. Another is the growth of online for-profit charter schools, which take public dollars with minimal accountability and poor results.

I ended my visit with an interview by Evan Smith before a live audience, on his PBS show “Overheard.” Wonderful audience, great questions, a good opportunity to address issues that are important to Texas and the nation.

I had a wonderful time in Austin, experienced a whirlwind of activity, and enjoyed the chance to meet so many people who care about children and our future.

Diane

Categories Parents, Privatization, Ravitch, Diane, Testing, Texas

Testing and Accountability in the UK

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
0

Robin Alexander of the U.K. is a reader of this blog. He is director of the Cambridge Primary Review, a major independent evaluation of primary education in the U.K. The Reviews has published 31 interim reports between 2007 and 2009. Its final report is Children, their World, their Education, which appeared in October 2009.

He has shared some of the Review’s conclusions with us. We will, I hope, hear more from him about the lessons learned from his thorough study of British education and its implications for those of us in the U.S.

Here are some extracts that he forwarded to me:

TESTING, INSPECTION, STANDARDS AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN ENGLISH PRIMARY EDUCATION

(NB: in England the primary phase covers the education of children aged 4/5-11)

Extracts from the final chapter (ʻConclusions and recommendationsʼ) of Alexander, R.J. (ed) (2010) Children, their World, their Education:
final report and recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review, Routledge.

67. Test results are not the best source of data for the multiple functions they are currently expected to perform – measuring pupils’ attainment, school and teacher accountability and national monitoring. Despite government claims to the contrary, the use of aggregated test results as a basis for evaluating schools does not provide a fair picture, even when the disputed ‘contextual value-added’ scores are used. This high-stakes use of test results leads to practices that not only have negative impact on pupils but fail to provide valid information, being based on what can be assessed in time-limited written tests in at most three subjects. The use of the same data for national monitoring also means that we have extremely limited information, collected under stressful conditions, which provides little useful data about national levels of performance and even less about how to improve them. The aggregation of SAT results for monitoring national levels of performance fails to reflect achievements in the full range of the curriculum.

68. There is an urgent need for a thorough reform of the assessment system in England, going well beyond the May 2009 report of the Government’s DCSF ‘expert group’, to provide a coherent set of practices and procedures suiting the aims of education in the 21st century and to meet the needs for information about the performance of individual pupils, schools, local authorities and the system as a whole. At the heart of this should be the use of assessment to help learning, leading to the development of lifelong learners … Separate systems are also required for the external evaluation of schools and for monitoring national standards of performance.

69. No single assessment procedure, including statutory assessment, should be expected to perform both formative and summative functions.
…
…
73. The practice of publishing primary school performance tables (now known as primary school achievement and attainment tables) based on the results of statutory assessment in English and mathematics at the end of key stage 2 should be abandoned.
… …
75. The official evidence on whether standards in primary education have improved or worsened is unsafe. At its heart are two areas of difficulty: the validity and reliability of the chosen measures and procedures; and the historical tendency to treat test scores in limited aspects of literacy and numeracy as proxies for standards in education as a whole.

76. At the national level, the assumption that aggregating individual pupils’ test results in only three subjects enables trends in attained standards to be identified is problematic. Although the statistics can be computed, their meaning in terms of changes in attainment are brought into question by the limited range of what is tested, by limitations in test technology and by the impact of using the results for high-stakes judgements. We are left with little sound information about whether pupils’ attained standards have changed.

77. Subject to these substantial caveats, analysis of national test scores and international achievement surveys appears to show that standards of tested attainment in primary education have been fairly stable over the short period that usuable data have been available, with some changes up or down. Pupils’ attitudes to their learning in the tested areas are generally positive (though, as is generally found internationally, it appears to decline as pupils approach the end of primary education). There have been modest improvements in primary mathematics standards, especially since 1995, though different datasets tell different stories. The international data from 2001 show high standards in reading among English pupils by comparison with those from other countries, though the more recent data (from 2006 onwards) suggest that the 2001 results may have been misleading. England appears to be above the international average but not exceptionally so. The international data also show considerable improvements in primary science by comparison with other countries, though there have been methodological reservations about the studies in question.

78. However, gains in reading skills may have been at the expense of pupils’ enjoyment of reading. Similarly, there is some evidence of an increase in test-induced stress among primary pupils, especially at key stage 2, and much firmer evidence of pressure on their teachers. The primary curriculum has narrowed in direct response to the perceived demands of the testing regime and the national strategies, to the extent that in many schools children’s statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum has been seriously compromised; yet the national strategies have had, of themselves, a less pronounced impact on reading standards than might have been expected from the level of investment. The historically wide gap between high and low attaining pupils in reading, mathematics and science has persisted: it is already evident at a very young age and widens as children move through the primary phase. There is no reliable evidence on national standards in areas of children’s learning outside those aspects of literacy, numeracy and science which have been tested, other than that in many schools such learning appears to have been compromised by the standards drive itself.

79. Schools acknowledge the importance of being held accountable for their work and accept the need for periodic inspection. Ofsted [England’s national schools inspectorate] produces useful annual reports on the condition of the system as a whole and surveys on particular issues, on many of which the Review has drawn to its considerable benefit. The collation of evidence from inspections can be used to provide a reasonably valid, if partial, assessment of the quality of English primary education nationally at a particular time, assuming that the Ofsted criteria and procedures are accepted. However, Ofsted’s school inspection procedures attract a good deal of criticism in relation to their validity, reliability and impact; and because of frequent changes to inspection criteria and procedures, allied to the subjective nature of the process, it is much more difficult to say with confidence whether the overall quality of primary education has improved, deteriorated or remained the same over time. The same difficulty attends Ofsted inspections of individual schools. Such judgements are compromised by the successive changes Ofsted has instituted in inspection criteria and methodology and by its employment of different teams from one inspection to the next of the same school. Temporal comparisons and claims about long-term trends based on Ofsted data are thus highly problematic.

80. Teachers and schools can and should have a greater role in the assessment of their pupils and in the evaluation of their provision for learning. In the case of pupil assessment, there is an overwhelming case for extending the range of aspects of attainment that are included in reporting attained standards and in identifying the standards to aim for. At present the pupil attainment data reflect only a small part of the curriculum and within that only aspects which are easily measured by written tests. Greater use of information that teachers can collect as part of their teaching can help learning and, suitably moderated, can provide information which is a better reflection of performance acoss the full range of the curriculum. Similarly there is a strong case for moderated school self-evaluation across the full range of provision. Such evaluation should help the school’s own improvement agenda and not simply be instituted to meet Ofsted requirements.

81. Current notions of ‘standards’ and ‘quality’ should be replaced by a more comprehensive framework which relates to the entirety of what a school does and how it performs. The Review’s proposed statement of aims for primary education might provide the overall criteria for progress and success, combined with appropriate indicators for each of the proposed new aims and curriculum domains. However, we warn against moving from indicators of what can fairly be observed and judged to so-called measures of what cannot in fact be measured.
… …
85. We take it as axiomatic that in a public system of education teachers and schools should be fully accountable to parents, children, government and the electorate for what they do. We reject any suggestion that our proposals for the reform of assessment and inspection imply otherwise. For us, the issue is not whether schools should be accountable, but for what and by what means, and the evidence shows that current approaches are in certain critical respects unsatisfactory. By insisting on a concept of standards which extends across the full curriculum rather than part of it, we are strengthening rather than weakening school accountability. It is no less important that others involved in primary education, including central and local government, are fully accountable for their part in the process. When responsibilities are shared, accountability should be shared too in order that the precise cause of problems can be speedily and accurately diagnosed and appropriate remedial action can be taken. Governments and policy advisers have been too inclined to blame teachers and a mythical ‘educational establishment’ for problems which are as likely to have their roots in policy.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, International, Testing

My Speak-out in Austin: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
14

I spent the last three days in Austin and had a great time. I’ll write about it on the flight home. I’m sitting on the JetBlue flight and the doors will close in 3 minutes.

Thought you might want to see this interview with me and Evan Smith. Only 24 minutes.

I take it back. I posted this as the doors were closing. When I landed, I learned that the link didn’t work. I wrote the producer and found out that it won’t go live until October 18, when the show airs. At that time, I’ll post the link and make sure it works.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Ravitch, Diane, Testing, Texas, Unions, US Education

The Big Tradeoff: Common Core and the Budget

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
12

Mike Fair, a Republican legislator in South Carolina, worries about the cost and complexity of the new standards and tests.

When you read about the heavy spending that lies ahead, in a time when school budgets are being slashed and teachers laid off, you can see why the Common Core national standards/national tests movement is warmly endorsed by the technology industry.

This is an excerpt:

School districts will need enough computers to allow almost every student to take multiple annual exams. These computers must be suitable for the “innovative” test items and must be maintained and upgraded. Add to this the cost of increased IT staffing, and you begin to realize the problems of buying a Porsche test on a Ford budget.

A recent study projects that states will collectively spend $2.8 billion and $6.9 billion over seven years on technology alone for Common Core. And the authors cautioned that they were accepting the consortiums’ cost estimates at face value; analyst Ze’ev Wurman has predicted that South Carolina’s annual testing costs may skyrocket to $100 per student, compared with $12 per student today.

School districts that can’t afford substantial new technology will have to rotate students through the computer labs; Smarter Balanced recommends a 12-week testing window. But that creates significant security problems — how to keep the earlier-tested students from talking to the later-tested ones? — as well as inequity in results. The students tested late in the window will have almost three more months of instruction than those first out of the gate. Might this give an unfair advantage? And might teachers, whose evaluations depend on these test scores, resent having their students put at the front of the testing window?

These problems will have to be worked out, assuming the whole concept of nationalized standards, tests and curricula doesn’t collapse under its own weight. When that collapse or implosion happens, I hope it is before too much damage is done to our budgets, our schools and our children.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Technology, Computers, Testing

How High-Stakes Testing Harms Children

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
9

Parents and teachers know that high-stakes testing has negative consequences on students and the quality of their education. It causes narrowing of the curriculum, so students have less instruction in history, civics, the arts, and even physical education. Some schools have eliminated recess to make more time for test prep.

Anthony Cody published a guest column by Rog Lucido, an experienced teachers who is co-founder of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse (EPATA). In this excellent article, he describes the mental abuse of children. He writes: What is happening to many students is often not immediately apparent to them or their parents/guardians. It is insidious. Students are being seduced into believing they are just ‘going to school’, when in fact their hopes, dreams and aspirations are being taken from them by the systemic focus on high-stakes testing.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Testing
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