Archives for category: Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Indiana: Students Who Transfer from Public Schools to Charters Lose Ground Academically

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2018 //
24

 

Researchers at Indiana University reviewed state test scores and found that students who transferred from public schools to charter schools lost ground academically for the first few years. Eventually, if they remained in the charter school, they caught up to their public school peers, but nearly half transferred back to their public school. It may be, as in the case of voucher studies in I Diana, that the weakest students were likeliest to leave the charters.

”Researchers from the Indiana University School of Education-Indianapolis examined four years of English and math ISTEP scores for 1,609 Indiana elementary and middle school students who were in a traditional public school in 2011 and transferred to a charter school in 2012. The main findings were that students who transferred had lower math and English score gains during the first year or two in their new school than if they had stayed in a district school.

“The researchers were able to draw the conclusion by using a type of statistical analysis that enabled them to compare students’ actual score gains at the charter school to potential gains had they not transferred from a traditional school.

“But for the students who stayed in charter schools for three years or more, some of those gaps disappeared, and students caught up with where they would have been if they hadn’t transferred. Both of these results — the dip in score gains after transferring and the increase over time — are consistent with other studies, researchers said.

“Overall, these results indicate that the promise of charter schools as a vehicle for school improvement should be viewed with some skepticism,” said study co-author Gary R. Pike, a professor of education at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. “Our results suggest that charter school experience for most students does not measure up to expectations, at least for the first two years of enrollment.”

“The researchers also found that of the original number of students who transferred to a charter school in 2012, 47 percent returned to a traditional public school by 2016. Only about a third of students remained enrolled in charter schools long enough to see their scores catch back up. The study called the mobility “problematic,” and suggested other researchers look into it further.”

The study contradicts an earlier CREDO study of Indiana charters.

However, the researchers cautioned not to draw national generalizations from the study of one state.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Indiana, Privatization, Testing

Online Testing Disrupted in 7 States By “Deliberate Attack”

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2018 //
34

 

State officials in seven states reported that online testing was disrupted by breakdowns. The vendor, Questar, said the system was brought down by a “deliberate attack.” 

“One of the nation’s largest online assessment providers, Questar Assessment Inc., experienced a potential cyberattack this week that affected at least seven statewide K-12 assessments across the country — and state officials have more questions than answers as some districts struggle to recover.

“On Tuesday, what officials called a “deliberate attack” affected tests in seven states that Questar is contracted with, including South Dakota, Mississippi, New York, Missouri and Tennessee. Two other states were not as “negatively affected,” said Questar COO Brad Baumgartner, who testified in front of Tennessee lawmakers on Wednesday in a special hearing dedicated to the testing woes.

“It appears Questar’s data center may have experienced a deliberate attack this morning based on the way traffic is presenting itself,” Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen said in an email announcing the incident Tuesday.”

Every electronic system is vulnerable to hacking. Even the nation’s highest security agency, the National Security Agency, has been hacked and vital secrets stolen.

It is reasonable to assume that ETS, the College Board, ACT, Pearson, and other testing organizations are not as secure as the Pentagon or the NSA. It is reasonable to assume that clever hackers will disrupt state assessment systems in the future, stealing test questions and disrupting testing.

 

 

Categories Testing

Pennsylvania: Teacher Threatened with Termination for Making Pancakes During Testing

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2018 //
67

 

A middle school social studies teacher in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was threatened with disciplinary action, either suspension or even firing, because he made pancakes for his students while they were taking the state tests. He was suspended without pay for his infraction, although he said he never heard of a rule against cooking pancakes during testing.

But students rallied for the popular teacher, Kyle Byler, and the school board turned on a dime and said he was reinstated. No, no, they never intended to fire him, where did anyone get that crazy idea?

These days, kids seem to have the most finely tuned sense of justice and injustice. The kids are alright. The adults need counseling.

Categories Discipline, Testing

#WhyIRefuse: A Brief History of the Contemporary Testing and Opt Out Movements

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
3

Deborah Abramson Brooks, a parent activist and lawyer in Port Washington, New York, wrote this excellent overview of the testing movement and the backlash to it. She originally wrote it in 2014, but updated it to the present.

Brooks is a co-founder of Port Washington Advocates for Public Education; and a member of the board of New York State Allies for Public Education and the National Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.

You will find this interesting and informative.

Read the entire document here.

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Resistance, Testing

BATS: What Is DFER? Why Does It Matter?

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2018 //
30

 

Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson of the BadAss Teachers Association wrote this analysis of the organization called Democrats for Education Reform, known as DFER. It was organized in 2005 by a small group of hedge fund managers. Its purpose is to promote charter schools by funding candidates for Office who share its goal. It also supports test-based evaluation of teachers and high-stakes testing of students. Its inaugural meeting was held at a luxurious apartment in New York City in 2005, where the speaker was Illinois Senator Barack Obama (as recounted in Stephen Brill’s admiring account “Class Warfare”).

During the Obama campaign of 2008, the candidate’s spokesperson on education was Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University. It was widely assumed that she would be Obama’s Secretary of Education. But DFER recommended Arne Duncan, a charter enthusiast known by DFER, and Duncan it was. Obama and Duncan’s Race to the Top embodied DFER’s principles. It propelled the proliferation of charter schools, school closures, Common Core, VAM for teachers, and high-stakes testing for students. It was a complete failure when judged by its announced goals of closing achievement gaps and lifting test scores to the top rank on international tests.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Obama, Privatization, Testing

Tom Loveless: Billions Have Been Spent on Standards Based Reforms: Was It Worth It?

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2018 //
25

 

Tom Loveless taught fifth grade in California, then earned a doctorate in educational policy, taught at Harvard, then landed at Brookings where he wrote reports on the condition of American education and analyzed international assessments. He recently retired from Brookings but continues to write.

He is one of the few original thinkers in the education think tank world. Neither the right nor left claims him. He is a straight shooter and brings a fresh perspective. He was one of the first to knock down the Great Shanghai Myth by pointing out that the student population of that city is not typical of China. Meanwhile the media and Arne Duncan ranted and raved about the superiority of Shanghai, as proven by its ranking on the international tests, which Loveless debunked.

I recently learned that Loveless had written a new paper evaluating the value of standards-based reform, the approach that is central to No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.  

He presented his findings at a conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative D.C. think tank.

It is, as I expected, original and important.

Unless there is breaking news today, this will be the only post.

Please read the paper and feel free to comment.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), International, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

How Tests May Be Used to Privatize Public Schools, for Fun and Profit

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2018 //
18

 

A blogger who is a middle-school teacher with 30 years of experience writes here about how tests are the entry point for privatization. The privatized schools won’t get better schools but once they get their clutches on public schools, they don’t let go. The rewards of privatization are considerable. The private sector gets to seize the assets and resources of the public sector at no cost. What a deal. Entire communities have been gobbled up and disappeared.

“How can parents and communities end the insanity? Be informed. Click on the links to supporting materials if you want to know more. Go to nysape.org run by and for parents. Have your children opt out. Refuse consequential use of scores… including evaluating your child’s teacher, impacting your child’s access to gifted programs or remediation, your school’s report card. Demand that tests be used diagnostically not as a tool for stack ranking or predatory take over of public institutions. And, like all important things, remember that involvement is the key. The best school is not the creation of an external entity, but the product of the living partnership of a community. Instead of investing in high stakes testing, invest in a relationship with your child’s teachers. Partner with them and with the other stakeholders in the community. Together, we are responsible for the education of our children and for protecting a future in which they can participate fully. Be part of a thriving real community.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: John White, Hypocrite

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2018 //
3

 

Mercedes Schneider noted that John White, Louisiana’s Commissioner of Eduxation, got an advance copy of the NAEP scores, saw that his state was a disaster, and loudly complained about the switch to computer testing.

She observes that only a year earlier, a friend complained about computer testing to White, and he brushed off the complaint. Get used to it, he said. Hypocrite, she says.

Categories Louisiana, NAEP, Technology, Testing

James Harvey: Don’t Be Fooled By NAEP “Proficient”

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2018 //
12

 

James Harvey, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable, warns parents and the public not to be fooled by the “proficiency” standard of NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP scores for 2017 will be released today, and you will hear loud lamenting about how many students are “not proficient.”

Under the leadership of Chester (Checker) E. Finn, Jr., the National Assessment Governing Board adopted “achievement levels” in 1992. The levels are: Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Below Basic. They have been “provisional” since that time. They are determined by the subjective guesswork of adult panels who decide what students in fourth and eighth grade “should know and be able to do.” Sometimes these panels include teachers, but not always.

Before 1992, NAEP results were reported only as “scale scores” on a scale of 500 (they still are). One could see if the scores went up or down but not deplore their rise or fall because the scale scores tell you what is, not what ought to be. Checker has long been a critic of American schools, and he pushed for an easily understandable way to gauge the slow progress of the schools. Progress on a mass test is always incremental. When it is not, the measure is suspect.

Achievement levels provided a way to make simple (and simplistic) judgment calls. Most often, in this time of lamentations and chest-pounding about the younger generation, the achievement levels have turned into a cudgel with which to beat teachers, students, and public schools, usually by ignorant politicians who want to pass laws to ensure that “no child will be left behind” and that “every student succeeds.” Laws don’t teach children, nor do bluffs and fake threats.

My term on NAGB, the NAEP governing board, did not overlap Checker’s. I served later, from 1998-2004. I came to believe that the Advanced level represented A+ performance; Proficiency was a solid A, A-, even a B+; Basic was a B to C- level, where the plurality of students scored, and Below Basic was D and F. That was my judgment, not the policy of the board. When anyone asserts that all or almost all students should score in the Proficient range, I think of this as massive grade inflation. Reaching Proficient is a very high bar. It is entirely unrealistic to use NAEP Proficient as a passing standard, as the Common Core Tests do. Any school in which every student scores an A or A- or B+ must be a school for gifted students.

James Harvey writes:

NAEP TERM “PROFICIENT” IS MISLEADING

STATEMENT OF JAMES HARVEY

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

NATIONAL SUPERINTENDENTS ROUNDTABLE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEATTLE, April 9, 2018 – As the U.S Department of Education prepares to release the latest findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the American people should understand that the misleading term “proficient” sets a performance benchmark beyond the reach of most students in the world.

A detailed analysis released in January concluded that the vast majority of students in most countries could not demonstrate proficiency as NAEP defines the term.

The authors of the analysis, the National Superintendents Roundtable and the Horace Mann League, linked NAEP’s proficiency benchmark to the performance of students around the world on international assessments such as TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study).

The report on this work (How High the Bar?) concluded that:

In no nation do even 40 percent of students meet the NAEP Proficient benchmark in Grade 4 reading.

Only one nation has 50 percent or more of its students meeting the Proficient benchmark in Grade 8 science (Singapore).

Just three nations have 50 percent or more of their students meeting the Proficient benchmark in Grade 8 math (Singapore, Republic of Korea, and Japan).

Citing U.S. Department of Education documents, the report criticized the Department for misusing the term “Proficient.” The term, as the Department acknowledges, does not mean performing at grade level. Surprisingly, according to the Department’s statements, it does not even mean proficient, as most people understand the term.

Roundtable and Horace Mann League officials have insisted that the problem can be addressed without lowering standards by changing the term “proficient” to “high.” Without such a change, they maintain, the misuse of the term will continue to confuse both the public and educators, as in the past it has confused U.S. Secretaries of Education.

CONTACT: JAMES HARVEY: Office (206) 526-5336
Cell (206) 579-9272

******************************************

National Superintendents Roundtable
9425 35th Avenue, NE, Suite E
Seattle, WA 98115
*****************************************
National Superintendents Roundtable
9425 35th Avenue, NE
Suite E
Seattle, WA 98115
206-526-5336

Web: superintendentsforum.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ntsupsrt
Twitter: @natsupers

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, NAEP, Testing

NPE Action: Why Opt Out Matters

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2018 //
6

 

Opting Out is the best way to say NO to the machine. 

It is the only way to stop the machine from sorting and processing your child.

When you opt out, you join a mighty force of determined parents. Determined to protect their child.

Carol Burris writes for NPE Action:

“The NYS Common Core exams begin this week. Although we are glad that the tests are shorter in length, there is no indication that the content of the tests and the proficiency levels have changed.

“When content is too difficult and curriculum is developmentally inappropriate, learning is negatively impacted. This is especially true for young children. The result is not higher achievement but rather frustration and stress. While you can excessively test prep to produce high scores, that does not mean that a deep understanding has occurred.

“That is why Opt Out is still important. It is how New Yorkers send a powerful message that they want curriculum that fosters a love of learning and intellectual growth. They do not want skill and drill pressure for inappropriately set benchmarks.”

Opt out.

Categories Education Reform, Opt Out, Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »