"Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3..."
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This collection has been gathered to raise awareness about concerns related to high-stakes standardized tests and related assessments and as a research tool to organize online content. There is a grey funnel shaped icon at the top right corner of the screen (in desktop view mode) where one can enter keyword searches of content (such as PARCC, SBAC, Smarter Balanced, CAASPP, SAT, Pearson, validity, etc.). The following is the link for the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) subset of posts: https://www.scoop.it/topic/testing-testing?q=SBAC. Readers are encouraged to explore related links within each post for additional information. Views provided here are for information only and do not necessarily constitute an official position of the curator nor her employer. For more updates, see Educator Resources tab at http://EduResearcher.com [Links to external site].
Curated by
Roxana Marachi, PhD
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By Jonathan Pelto It should be impossible to believe that any Connecticut public official would propose a plan to punish your neighbors if you opt your child out of the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core SBAC testing scheme, but when it comes to “My Way or No Way” Governor Dannel Malloy, the level of arrogance and vindictiveness is unmatched.
When it comes to their new proposed education agenda, it is bad enough that Malloy and Wyman plan to give more money to the privately owned but publicly funded charter school industry while making the deepest cuts in state history to Connecticut’s public schools, but in a little understood piece of proposed legislation, the Malloy administration is trying to sneak through legislation that would give his Commissioner of Education and the political appointees on his State Board of Education a new mechanism they would use to punish taxpayers in certain communities where more than 5 percent of parents opt their children out of the wasteful and destructive Common Core SBAC testing program. Until now, the Malloy administration’s primary mechanism to try and force parents to have their children participate in the SBAC/NEW SAT testing was to mislead and lie to parents about their rights, while at the same time, threatening that the state would withhold Title 1 federal funding that is supposed to be used to help poor children if a school district’s opt out rate was greater than 5 percent. But now Malloy and his team are going a step further. Their newest proposal is hidden inside Section 4 of Senate Bill 175. The bill would allow the Malloy administration to repeal a form of local budget flexibility that was granted to certain cities and towns during last years’ legislative session if that school district was unable to persuade 95% of parents to make their children take the Common Core aligned standardized testing that take place in grades 3-8 and 11. No really – it’s no joke. If more than 5 percent of parents in one of these targeted districts refuse to allow their children to take the SBAC test, the town’s taxpayers would lose local budget flexibility that they were granted by the legislature. In his latest column in the CT Mirror, John Bestor, a recently retired Connecticut school psychologist, public education advocate and regular contributor to Wait, What? lays out more about this issue. CT Senate bill 175 stifles parents’ right to dissent on standardized testing (By John Bestor) There is no rational explanation to support SB 175, a newly-proposed bill with the innocuous title “An Act Concerning Recommendations of the Department of Education”. There is no excuse for elected officials to take away a citizen’s right to peacefully protest and dissent. Vote NO on SB 175! Our state legislature needs to take this opportunity to tell the Connecticut State Department of Education and Connecticut State Board of Education that: – It will no longer support expensive mandates that unnecessarily impact local school budgets. – It will NOT support a bill that is simply a backhanded attempt to coerce and punish parents by attacking the local education institutions on which they rely and that they generally trust. Connecticut students are consistently among the top 5 percent in student achievement on “The Nation’s Report Card” as measured by demographic sampling of school children by the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP] since 1969. Yet, there is no denying the persistent and troubling student achievement gap in our state. However, years of statewide assessments have failed to significantly close that gap; in fact, as income inequality grows across the state, the student achievement gap continues, pointing out the lack of fairness and access for all Connecticut’s students to equal educational opportunities. The “test-and-punish” methodology under No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top initiatives has been an outright failure. Recognizing this, our federal legislators overwhelming passed a new bi-partisan education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act,that gave decision-making authority back to the states signaling that individual states could better determine how to address their own educational needs. The proposed SB 175 bill will be considered at public hearing before the Education Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb. 24. It is complicated, convoluted in its language, and ultimately not transparent to anyone unfamiliar with legal terminology. It has been devised by the Department of Education and state board of education to give them the authority to require that all students and parents comply with state assessment practices by punishing school districts for their failure to reach the95 percent test participation rate requirement. With such short notice given for this public hearing, tell your legislators to vote NO on SB 175 and show respect for their constituents and move the state in a more meaningful direction. Less than a year ago, Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell testified in favor of a bill which provided flexibility for MBR (Minimum Budget Requirements). Now, if more than 5 percent of parents refuse to have their children take the state SBAC test, SB 175 would take away that flexibility and the control that local boards of education have over their budgets. As long as the SBAC test protocol remains mired in controversy; unavailable for verification by independent research as valid, reliable, or fair; with excessively high predetermined passing levels; based on unproven instructional standards; such contested results should never be used in determining school effectiveness. Nor should such unsubstantiated test results ever be used to rate school districts or impact how local school districts choose to allocate its funds. Never mind that federal law only requires (in grades 3-8 and once in high school) one reading test yearly, one math test yearly, and one science test (three times total). This requirement could be essentially addressed by administering one 45-minute reading comprehension test, one 45-minute math reasoning test, and one 45-minute science test rather than immerse our students in a week-to-ten-days of expensive, unproven, computer-adaptive testing while disrupting the routines and schedules of everyone else in school not taking the tests.
Once again, tell your legislators to respect their constituents and move the state in a more meaningful direction. Tell them to VOTE NO on SB 175.
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By Phil Manker "The long-awaited changeover to computer-based standardized testing in Tennessee won't happen this year. "Like you, we are incredibly disappointed," Tennessee education commissioner Candice McQueen wrote to superintendents around the state. In an email, McQueen told administrators that Monday's system failure caused her to lose confidence in the system operated by an outside vendor. Students will revert to pencil-and-paper tests this year, previously described as a "worst case scenario." Unfortunately, issues have continued to arise with the online platform. The new nature of the issue this morning has highlighted the uncertainly around the stability of Measurement Inc.’s testing platform, MIST. Despite the many improvements the department has helped to make to the system in recent months and based on the events of this morning, we are not confident in the system’s ability to perform consistently. In the best interest of our students and to protect instructional time, we cannot continue with Measurement Incoporated’s online testing platform in its current state. — Candice McQueen Reported earlier: This was not how Tennessee education officials hoped the first day for online testing would go. What is described as a "major outage" occurred at 8:25 a.m. Monday just as many students logged on, leading the state to suspend testing until further notice. Tennessee education officials blamed their vendor. "We are urgently working with Measurement Inc. to identify the causes and correct the problem. At this time, we are advising that schools experiencing problems with the test discontinue testing, and return to their normal classes," Education Commissioner Candice McQueen told superintendents in an email. In Metro Nashville Public Schools, spokesman Joe Bass said a half dozen principals reported testing trouble. Only about 20 schools were scheduled to start taking the new TNReady since the testing window runs until early March. Rutherford County Schools sent a statement to parents, telling them testing had to be suspended and pointing the finger at "a technology failure at the state level." Districts had been warned by state officials to make sure their own Wi-fi networks weren't going to be the problem. School leaders have voiced concerns about just this kind of thing happening. That's why Williamson County Schools delayed the start of testing by several days. At the end of January, the 1,000 students at Republic charter schools in Nashville took a practice test on the new system. And it crashed. Founder Ravi Gupta sent a letter to state officials, who responded by saying the problem was fixed. But after Monday's system failure, Gupta says he’d prefer to just use the backup pencil and paper version."... For full post, click on title above or here:
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By Rachael Stickland and Leonie Haimson, co-chairs, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy
"High schoolers hate waking up early on Saturday mornings, especially to take high-stakes tests like the College Board’s SAT or the ACT. Next Saturday, January 23, 2016 marks the last time that U.S. students are able to take the current SAT before the new test comes online on March 5.
Just moments before administration of the exam officially begins, or upon registering online, students may be asked to answer questions on a student questionnaire and to check off a box agreeing to participate in the Student Search Service ™ program if they want to receive information from colleges or scholarship organizations. See below or here for more information: According to POLITICO, “Depending on the exam, at least 65 percent — and as many as 85 percent — of test takers check that box, according to the College Board and ACT. Parents do not have to give their consent, as this is only required by federal law while collecting personal data from children under 13.” Students will be asked their Social Security number; other questions may include their grade point average, religious affiliation, ethnicity, family income, interests, citizenship, disabilities, and more. Under immense pressure to perform well on the test, and often not aware that answering these questions is fully voluntary, students may be enticed to offer up this information, especially if they believe it will increase their opportunity to be recruited by elite colleges or offered scholarships. They may not even realize that this information may be used to help colleges decide who not to recruit or admit as well."...
Screenshot above is from: https://collegeboardsearch.collegeboard.org/pastudentsrch/support/licensing/pricing-payment-policies For full post, click on title above or here: Also check out the great updates and resources on the Student Privacy Matters website: http://www.studentprivacymatters.org
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By Valerie Strauss "For years now, private foundations run by the very, very wealthy have been pouring money into their pet school reform efforts, many of them taking the view that traditional public education is broken and that it should be privatized. Education activists have called out these foundations, but now, in Idaho, it’s the school superintendents who are are speaking out.
They are taking on the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, which consistently portrays traditional public schools in a negative light and pushes for alternatives, and their public statements underscore growing opposition around the country to school reform efforts that support the the privatization of public education."...
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By Andy Nguyen Issues have come to light with California’s new form of state mandated testing. Weathersfield Elementary in Thousand Oaks issued a statement to parents and community members this month saying some of its results from last spring’s Smarter Balanced assessments— the state’s first scored Common Core test—were recorded incorrectly by the state Department of Education, causing the typically high-achieving school to achieve below-average scores. More than half of the math and English scores from the school’s third- and fourth-grade classes were not counted, lowering its overall results significantly, said James Marshall, Weathersfield principal. According to results posted last spring, 47 percent of Weathersfield test-takers scored proficient in language arts and 43 percent scored proficient in math. Marshall said rather than ignore the missing scores, the state marked them as zero when determining the schoolwide average. “The main implication of (the lower score) is it’s going to affect our brand and reputation, even though we were designated a Distinguished School in 2014,” Marshall said in an interview. “This information is viewed through Realtor websites and could possibly impact enrollment.” Over 3 million students took part in the new test last year. Testing is now done entirely on the computer rather than having students use Scantron sheets and pencils. Marshall said there was a two-week lag between the time it took for the scores to be submitted and for the district to be able to check the results. He said attempts were made by Conejo Valley Unified to contact the state Department of Education once it noticed the results were incorrect for Weathersfield. “By that time, the state had already purged the scores off its main system,” he said. “As a result, there was no way to know why the scores weren’t determined.” It’s unknown how many other schools in California or if any other sites in Conejo Valley Unified were affected by this issue. Marshall said the state has assured him steps are being taken to prevent it from happening again. Instead of a two-week delay, school districts will now be able to check scores within 24 hours of them being entered into the system to look for errors. Marshall said the missing scores will not have any effect on current students. The California Department of Education did not return calls for comment as of press time."... For full post, click on title above or here:
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By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
“We had some difficulty with keys sticking, we had – definitely – problems with getting on the internet, and then getting students into certain accounts,” said Kelley Brown, a sixth grade teacher at Los Amigos Elementary School in Palmdale. Brown’s school district isn’t the only one that had problems with the test-taking technology. The 20,000 thousand-student Coachella Valley Unified School District tried to head off tech problems by purchasing iPads for every student. About sixty percent of students who took the test last year used their school-issued iPads for the test. But that wasn’t foolproof either. “The test was not totally compatible with screen size, enough for students to answer some of the problems,” said Coachella Valley Superintendent Darryl Adams. "There were also problems with students not being familiar with the keyboard." California requires students in grades three through eight and grade 11 to take the tests. The kind of technology students use to take the tests is up to the school districts. Some schools use desktops, laptops, or tablets of various kinds like Chromebooks or iPads. Many educators worry that the technological glitches lead to more serious problems than just logistical ones. Teacher Brown believes tech problems last year led to lower test scores for some of her students. “Some kids are very resilient and they’ll bounce back and they’ll problem solve and they’ll really do well with that, [but] for some students it just shuts them down,” she said."... For full post, click on title above or here: http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/12/29/56557/new-year-brings-a-focus-on-tech-problems-with-stan/
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To view, click on title or video above, or here: https://youtu.be/BxswF6d-CQY The entire video is worth viewing. For those short on time, be sure to watch from 2:12:18 2:13:08 2:19:19 2:20:03 2:20:42 2:21:08 2:21:41 2:24:00 2:34:40 - 2:35:28... 2:37:34 2:46:31
For more, please visit: http://Oversight.House.Gov
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By Dr. Mercedes Schneider "The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is one of two owners of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). In fact, former CCSSO CEO Gene Wilhoit approached Gates in the summer of 2008 to ask Gates to fund CCSS. Despite the reality that CCSS has not taken American education by the standardizing storm that its schemers had hoped, Gates continues to fund CCSS as a pet project.
Furthermore, in January 2016, Gates has decided to do something he had not yet done: Pay CCSSO handsomely for “general operating support”:
Council of Chief State School Officers Date: January 2016
Gates’ paying the rent to the tune of $15.4 million (likely over 30 months) for CCSSO equals a decidedly obvious purchase of that organization– and the state superintendents who belong to it. And the nebulous designation of “general operating support” helps to conceal any detailed expectation behind that money. (I dare Gates and CCSSO to tell the public that giving CCSSO $15.4 million has no strings. Double dare.)
In its press releases, CCSSO fails to mention that it is taking $15.4 million from Bill Gates. However, on its “Our Promise” page, CCSSO does state that it “promises” “to lead chiefs and their organizations” in CCSSO goals “though decisive leadership.”
Interestingly, one of those CCSSO “decisive leaders” is board member, New Mexico Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera, who cunningly and quietly replaced Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester as PARCC chair. In that case, there was no press release either. (PARCC– Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers– is a floundering CCSS testing consortium. Down to a handful of states, PARCC is trying to survive by, uh, “expanding” into vending test items.) Not only does PARCC have a new chair (as PARCC chair, Chester failed to hand Massachusetts completely over to PARCC and instead peddled a compromised MCAS-PARCC hybrid); the Gates Foundation also will have a new director of K12 grantmaking. The same month that Gates announced his plans to keep pushing his teacher-measuring and CCSS agendas– October 2015– Gates Foundation Director Vicky Phillips announced that she would be resigning in December 2015.
Phillips did not resign with a new job lined up, nor did the Gates Foundation have a director chosen to replace Phillips in December 2015. But what the Gates Foundationdid have was Bill publicly stating on October 07, 2015, to the USP Educational learning Forum in Seattle that he would remain faithful to (fixated upon?) CCSS"....
For full post, click on title above or here: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/gates-gives-common-core-owner-ccsso-15-4-million-just-to-keep-em-in-business/
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From
epic
"EPIC Warns Education Department of Research Database Privacy Risks https://epic.org/2016/01/epic-warns-education-departmen.html
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By Valerie Strauss "The U.S. Education Department’s new planned system of records that will collect detailed data on thousands of students — and transfer records to private contractors — is being slammed by experts who say there are not adequate privacy safeguards embedded in the project.
(1) collecting irrelevant and unnecessary information and (2) not clearly stating the purpose of the proposed routine use disclosures. EPIC recognizes the need to evaluate educational programs, including professional development of teachers. However, this particular study appears to be one more effort by the agency to transfer sensitive student data to private contractors without any meaningful privacy safeguards."... For full post, click on title above or here:
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[Selected quotes from original blogpost at Exceptional Delaware]
... ..."Similar bills went through in other states, and nearly all of them had the same amendments added and the lobbyists swarmed in to make sure the following language was added, which is taken from the final legislation for Senate Bill 79: (6) Nothing in this subsection prohibits an operator from using student data for any of the following: a. Maintaining, delivering, supporting, evaluating, or diagnosing the operator’s Internet website, online or cloud computing service, online application, or mobile application. b. Adaptive learning or customized student learning purposes. (7) Nothing in this subsection prohibits an operator from using or sharing aggregate student data or de-identified student data for any of the following: a. The development and improvement of the operator’s Internet website, online or cloud computing service, online application, or mobile application, or other educational Internet websites, online or cloud computing services, online applications, or mobile applications. b. Within other Internet websites, online or cloud computing services, online applications, or mobile applications owned by the operator, and intended for school district, school, or student use, to evaluate and improve educational products or services intended for school district, school, or student use. c. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the operator’s products or services, including their marketing."... ______ "A company called IMS Global Learning Consortium has ALL the major players involved. They are an umbrella company for data to be shared between all of these companies"...
"Contributing Members Act, American Institutes for Research, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Blackboard, California State University, Data Recognition Corporation, ETS, EduCause, Harvard Business Publishing, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, IBM, Indian River School District, Intel, Learning.com, Lumen, McGraw Hill Education, Measured Progress, MediaCore, Microsoft, National Student Clearinghouse, Northwest Evaluation Association, Pacific Metrics Corporation, PARCC, Pearson, Public Consulting Group, Qualcomm Education Inc., Questar, Samsung, Schoology, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and numerous other companies and universities in the United States and around the world. Affiliates ACE Learning, College Board, Google, Red Clay Consolidated School District, Scantron, Scholastic, SunGard K-12 Education (houses Delaware e-school and IEP Plus), WestEd and many more. And then they have hundreds of Alliance Participants. You can see what all the members get for their dues to IMS."... ### For original full post on Exceptional Delaware, please click on title above or here: For additional background about data sharing: http://colohub.weebly.com/data-connect-the-dots.html
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"Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and his State Department of Education are engaged in an unethical effort to spin their new “mandate” that every Connecticut High School Junior (11th grader) MUST take the NEW SAT test on March 2, 2016. Driven by their support for the Common Core, the Common Core testing scheme and their desire to use the test scores to rate students and evaluate teachers, the state is on a mission. However, parents, students, teachers and the public should be aware that their effort is a disgrace and that their lies will not go unchallenged. To repeat a common refrain here at Wait, What? – There is no federal or state law, regulation or legal policy that prohibits parents from opting their children out of the unfair, discriminatory and inappropriate Common Core testing program – and that includes the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) tests for grades 3-8 and the new SAT for grade 11. Even Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman has admitted to parents that they have the right to opt their children out of the test, although she remains silent in public about this fundamental issue. Local school superintendents and school administrators also know the truth. If they are telling students and parents that children must take the SBAC or SAT in order to graduate or move on to the next grade they are lying! The SBAC test is designed to fail students, in part because it includes content that the majority of students have not be taught. Proponents of the NEW SAT claim that it too is aligned to the Common Core, but it isn’t even being released until March 2016 so those Connecticut students who do take it on March 2, 2016 are nothing short of guinea pigs for the corporate testing industry. It is parents – not the state – that have the inalienable right to decide whether their child should take a test that is designed to label tens of thousands of students as failures when they are not failing by any honest definition of that word."... For full post, click on title above or here: http://jonathanpelto.com/2016/01/26/the-lies-in-the-new-sat-by-wendy-lecker/
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CT State Department of Education meeting with CT Superintendents with high SBAC refusal rates. Monday, February 29, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA3cX3Z8Qnk&feature=youtu.be
..."After claiming that the meeting was actually a workshop, the State Department of Education told numerous parents and members of the public that they could not participate or even attend the “roundtable discussion on family and community engagement strategies.”
The state agency was clear – family and community were not welcome to attend or participate in a discussion about how to promote family and community engagement.
Finally, hours before the meeting was to begin, the State Department of Education reversed course or “clarified” its position saying that the public could come and watch, but would not be allowed to participate."...
For full post, please visit http://jonathanpelto.com/2016/03/04/incredulous-watching-ct-department-education-officials-lecture-school-administrators-mislead-parents/
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... also see: http://jonathanpelto.com/tag/sbac/
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By Richard Phelps "The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has released a report, Evaluating the Content and Quality of Next Generation Assessments,[i] ostensibly an evaluative comparison of four testing programs, the Common Core-derived SBAC and PARCC, ACT’s Aspire, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ MCAS.[ii] Of course, anyone familiar with Fordham’s past work knew beforehand which tests would win. This latest Fordham Institute Common Core apologia is not so much research as a caricature of it.
1. Common Core’s primary private financier, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pays the Fordham Institute handsomely to promote the Core and its associated testing programs.[iii] A cursory search through the Gates Foundation web site reveals $3,562,116 granted to Fordham since 2009 expressly for Common Core promotion or “general operating support.”[iv] Gates awarded an additional $653,534 between 2006 and 2009 for forming advocacy networks, which have since been used to push Common Core. All of the remaining Gates-to-Fordham grants listed supported work promoting charter schools in Ohio ($2,596,812), reputedly the nation’s worst.[v] The other research entities involved in the latest Fordham study either directly or indirectly derive sustenance at the Gates Foundation dinner table:
The Common Core’s grandees have always only hired their own well-subsidized grantees for evaluations of their products. The Buros Center for Testing at the University of Nebraska has conducted test reviews for decades, publishing many of them in its annualMental Measurements Yearbook for the entire world to see, and critique. Indeed, Buros exists to conduct test reviews, and retains hundreds of the world’s brightest and most independent psychometricians on its reviewer roster. Why did Common Core’s funders not hire genuine professionals from Buros to evaluate PARCC and SBAC? The non-psychometricians at the Fordham Institute would seem a vastly inferior substitute, …that is, had the purpose genuinely been an objective evaluation. 2. A second reason Fordham’s intentions are suspect rests with their choice of evaluation criteria. The “bible” of North American testing experts is the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, jointly produced by the American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, and the American Educational Research Association. Fordham did not use it.[x] Had Fordham compared the tests using the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (or any of a number of other widely-respected test evaluation standards, guidelines, or protocols[xi]) SBAC and PARCC would have flunked. They have yet to accumulate some the most basic empirical evidence of reliability, validity, or fairness, and past experience with similar types of assessments suggest they will fail on all three counts.[xii] Instead, Fordham chose to reference an alternate set of evaluation criteria concocted by the organization that co-owns the Common Core standards and co-sponsored their development (Council of Chief State School Officers, or CCSSO), drawing on the work of Linda Darling-Hammond’s SCOPE, the Center for Research on Educational Standards and Student Testing (CRESST), and a handful of others.[xiii],[xiv] Thus, Fordham compares SBAC and PARCC to other tests according to specifications that were designed for SBAC and PARCC.[xv] The authors write “The quality and credibility of an evaluation of this type rests largely on the expertise and judgment of the individuals serving on the review panels” (p.12). A scan of the names of everyone in decision-making roles, however, reveals that Fordham relied on those they have hired before and whose decisions they could safely predict. Regardless, given the evaluation criteria employed, the outcome was foreordained regardless whom they hired to review, not unlike a rigged election in a dictatorship where voters’ decisions are restricted to already-chosen candidates. PARCC and SBAC might have flunked even if Fordham had compared tests using all 24+ of CCSSO’s “Criteria.” But Fordham chose to compare on only 14 of the criteria.[xvi] And those just happened to be criteria mostly favoring PARCC and SBAC."... For full post, click on title above or here:
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By Valerie Strauss "The College Board is about to unveil its newly redesigned SAT college admissions test, with the first students set to take it next Saturday. We already know a lot about the new exam, which was designed to align heavily with the Common Core State Standards and looks a lot more like the knowledge-based ACT test than the previous SAT version.".... ..."But there is something you probably don’t know about the new SAT, which is explained in this post by James S. Murphy, director of tutoring for the Princeton Review in New England. He has almost two decades of experience in test prep. I asked the College Board for a response to a key part of the post, and got an email that provided very little information. The email exchange is at the end of this post."... For full post, click on title above or here:
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Staff editorial If state lawmakers follow the recommendation of a task force, Iowa school districts will no longer use the Iowa Assessments, formerly known as the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, to measure student achievement. The task force, mandated as part of statewide education reform, determined the tests currently given to all third through eighth grade students and high school sophomores are not adequate, despite revamps, to accurately and reliably provide the level of information schools require. The group recommends the state instead move to a collection of online assessments that have been developed by group of states operating under a federal grant. The new tests, a product of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, offer “computer adaptive” assessments of individual students, align to federal Common Core standards and promise to incorporate state education standards. The Smarter Balanced assessments also carry a price tag nearly double that of current tests — it’s not yet clear whether that burden will be shouldered by the state or individual school districts — and would require significant investments in technology for some schools. Clearly, mandated assessments should be aligned to Iowa Core standards — they should, in fact, measure what we want our students to learn. Cost, alone, would not be reason enough to reject the task force’s recommendation if the investment would directly lead to better instruction and better school performance. We are not convinced it would. And we worry that doubling down on assessment would lead to redoubled focus on test outcomes — what some call “teaching to the test.” Test scores never should be an end in themselves, but one tool among many to help schools better prepare students for work, citizenship and adult life. Therefore, the question state leaders should be asking is not whether the Smarter Balanced assessments are better tests, but if, in a world of limited resources, they’re an investment that will reap proportionate rewards. WHY A NEW TEST? Federal education officials have long stressed a need for a new type of student assessment to set a consistent and higher bar for the nation’s schools. The officials wanted tests that would go “beyond the bubble” and could measure student progress through open-ended and research-based questions, and funded development of such through the Race to the Top initiative. After several states, including Iowa, applied for Race to the Top grants and promised to implement common academic standards and assessments, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that groups of states with at least 15 members could receive part of $362 million in federal funds to craft assessments based on federal Common Core standards. Two groups came forward — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) with 26 member states, and SBAC with 31 member states, including Iowa. The two received $170 million and $160 million respectively to begin development. “As I travel around the country the number one complaint I hear from teachers is that state bubble tests pressure teachers to teach to a test that doesn’t measure what really matters,” Duncan said when the awards were announced. “Both of these winning applicants are planning to develop assessments that will move us far beyond this and measure real student knowledge and skills.” In Iowa, students in third through eighth grades and high school sophomores have been taking the Iowa Assessments (formerly the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Iowa Tests of Educational Development) as part of state and federal testing mandates. These tests are developed by the Iowa Testing Programs at the University of Iowa, and are used throughout the nation. A lengthy report was released by the Iowa Department of Education in the fall of 2013, charging the Iowa Assessments were not aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Iowa Testing Programs did question the accuracy of the report while noting it already began the process of revamping its assessments in 2010. The grouppromised new tests in 2015 with “a fully-aligned, valid, reliable and research-based assessment” known as New Generation Iowa Assessments. But the stage had already been set. As a part of an education reform package passed by Iowa lawmakers months before, a task force was established to research K-12 assessment options and a window was opened for a possible switch to begin in the 2016-17 school year. The task force released its recommendations at the first of the year, suggesting state officials name Smarter Balanced as their statewide testing suite for math and reading. No recommendations were given regarding science testing, which is currently done as part of the Iowa Assessments, but the task force asked to be reconvened once new state science standards are approved. The Next Generation Iowa Assessments were the task force’s second choice, and Iowa Testing Programs likely will continue as the provider of the science tests even if math and reading are moved to Smarter Balanced. How is it different? The end goal of the Smarter Balanced Assessment is to have all students take a computerized test based on national standards, although a pencil and paper option will be available for a three-year period. The online environment is critical for the “computer-adaptive” aspects of the test. That is, as a student completes the assessment, answers provided guide the program as to what questions should be next presented. “The computer adaptive platform will benefit Iowa’s students as compared to traditional fixed-form assessments … [because it] is better able to pinpoint the performance of students performing at both high and low levels of performance,” the task force noted. The technology-based Smarter Balanced Assessments must be given to students within a 12-week window at the end of the school year. The timing is a disadvantage for some districts that have previously chosen to test in the fall or midyear. Some have questioned whether scores, likely to arrive in the summer, can effectively be scrutinized and applied. Will there be time to use the test scores as part of the access criteria for specialized reading programs, gifted programs or Advanced Placement courses? Smarter Balanced also scores tests using a four-point scale, which differs from the existing three-point assessment. Districts have yet to determine how the new levels will be aligned with current tracking of student progress. WHAT is THE COST? Setting aside ongoing controversies surrounding Common Core standards, the most publicized concern regarding the move to Smarter Balanced is the increased price tag of the suite. According to estimates provided to the task force, the New Generation Iowa Assessments, which would include math, reading and science, would cost about $15 per student. The Smarter Balanced Assessments, which only include math and reading, are estimated at $22.50 per student. And, as Wisconsin state officials can attest, there is reason to doubt the cost estimate. Although Wisconsin schools budgeted for a cost of about $26 per student, the actual price tag was more than $33 per student — about $7.2 million more than what had been appropriated. Wisconsin administrators also learned that the ability of the test to adapt to student response is a feature not expected to be functioning when they first test their students this spring."... For full post, click on title above or here:
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"Now, I could have called this article "Follow the Money." But I have already used that title on many other past reports about Common Core and the SBAC test - so I am using a different title this time to change things up a bit. But this report is about learning how to follow the money.
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For full document, click on title above or here: http://www.harborhouselaw.com/articles/highstakes.togut.htm I. Introduction VI. Grade Retention and Social Promotion
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By Mercedes Schneider GED Testing Service …recommends that states apply retroactively the 145 passing score to test-takers who have tested since January 1, 2014. When a state approves applying the passing score retroactively, students who earned scores between 145-149 on the new GED test launched in January of 2014 would be eligible for their state’s high school equivalency credential. “The scoring enhancements are based on an extensive analysis of test-takers’ performance data from the past 18 months, conversations with state policymakers and elected officials, and external validation with experts,” said GED Testing Service President Randy Trask. “This is part of our ongoing commitment to make data-based decisions, and continually improve the efficacy of the GED program.” Even as GED Testing Service promotes this change as positive because it is based on research showing that GED students were faring better than traditional high school grads on that all-too-oft-heard “college readiness,” what it also reveals is the power of cut scores to drive individuals’ lives... " For full post, click on title above or here: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/the-retroactive-lowering-of-the-ged-cut-score/
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"This collection includes research, updates, and resources related to EMF/RF Radiation and screen time. For an excellent website with extensive documents for safe technology advocacy, please visit the National Association for Children and Safe Technology at http://nacst.org. For additional resources and updates in Education, please visit http://eduresearcher.com.'
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By Bernard Marr "2015 was a tumultuous year for Big Data, with highs continuing to dazzle us with the potential world-changing power of data and analytics.
January 2015 was the first year that started with more of us using our phones or mobile devices to connect to the Internet than computers or laptops. The number of mobile Internet users worldwide overtook the number of deskbound ones late in 2014, and this change in user behavior has huge implications for how app developers, corporations and even governments will collect data about us. The year also started with the news that Microsoft MSFT +0.00% was purchasing Revolution Analytics, developers of R. The open source programming language said to be the most popular in the world for statistical computing and predictive analytics. Large scale data breaches – which have increased in size and frequency exponentially over the last decade – show no signs of abating. The US Government starts the year by announcing that details of four million of its employees have been stolen from its Office of Personnel Management."... For full post, click on title above or here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/12/27/big-data-12-amazing-highs-and-lows-of-2015/
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