"Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3..."

[Published July 6th, 2015] 

..."A recent description of results from a Public Policy Institute report reveals that the majority of California’s Public School parents are uninformed about the new tests their children took this year. And despite numerous concerns regarding technological barriers, biases, and testing problems, it appears that in a matter of weeks, “test scores” will be released to the public.

It is important to consider that unless assessments are independently verified to adhere to basic standards of test development regarding validity, reliability, security, accessibility, and fairness in administration, the resulting scores will be meaningless and should not be used to make claims nor conclusions of student learning, progress, aptitude, nor readiness for college or career."...

For full post, click on image or title above:  

https://eduresearcher.com/2015/07/06/critical-questions-computerized-testing-sbac/ 

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-essential-education-updates-southern-california-s-standardized-test-score-1503703716-htmlstory.html   

"The California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education recently released a research brief documenting concerns and recommendations related to the Common Core State Standards Assessments in California (also referred to as the CAASPP, California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress or “SBAC” which refers to the “Smarter Balanced” Assessment Consortium).  A two-page synopsis as well as the full CARE-ED research brief may be downloaded from the main http://care-ed.org website.  The following is an introduction:

“Here in California, public schools are gearing up for another round of heavy testing this spring, including another round of Common Core State Standards assessments. In this research brief, the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education (CARE-ED), a statewide collaborative of university-based education researchers, analyzes the research basis for the assessments tied to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that have come to California. We provide historical background on the CCSS and the assessments that have accompanied them, as well as evidence of the negative impacts of high-stakes testing. We focus on the current implementation of CCSS assessments in California, and present several concerns. Finally, we offer several research-based recommendations for moving towards meaningful assessment in California’s public schools.

Highlights of the research brief are available for download here.
The complete research brief on CCSS Assessments is available for download here.”

Background from the 2 page overview includes the following summary of concerns:

• “The assessments have been carefully examined by independent examiners of the test content who concluded that they lack validity, reliability, and fairness, and should not be administered, much less be considered a basis for high-stakes decision making.
• Nonetheless, CA has moved forward in full force. In spring 2015, 3.2 million students in California (grades 3-8 and 11) took the new, computerized Math and English Language Arts/Literacy CAASPP tests (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress). Scores were released to the public in September 2015, and as many predicted, a majority of students failed.
• Although proponents argue that the CCSS promotes critical thinking skills and student-centered learning (instead of rote learning), research demonstrates that imposed standards, when linked with high-stakes testing, not only de-professionalizes teaching and narrows the curriculum, but in so doing, also reduces the quality of education and student learning, engagement, and success.
• The implementation of the CCSS assessments raises at least four additional concerns of equity and access. First, the cost of implementing the CCSS assessments is high and unwarranted, diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from other areas of need. Second, the technology and materials needed for CCSS assessments require high and unwarranted costs, and California is not well-equipped to implement the tests. Third, the technology requirements raise concerns not only about cost, but also about access. Fourth, the CCSS assessments have not provided for adequate accommodations for students with disabilities and English Language learners, or for adequate communication about such accommodations to teachers.”…
  
  

And the following quote captures a culminating statement:

“…We support the public call for a moratorium on high-stakes testing broadly, and in particular, on the use of scientifically discredited assessment instruments (like the current SBAC, PARCC, and Pearson instruments) and on faulty methods of analysis (like value-added modeling of test scores for high-stakes decision making).”…

For the full research brief, including guiding questions and recommendations, please see: http://www.care-ed.org

As of February 2, 2016, the following university-based researchers in California have endorsed the statement.
University affiliations are provided for identification purposes only.

Al Schademan, Associate Professor, California State University, Chico
Alberto Ochoa, Professor Emeritus, San Diego State University
Allison Mattheis, Assistant Professor, California State University, Los Angeles
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Professor, San Francisco State University
Amy Millikan, Director of Clinical Education, San Francisco Teacher Residency
Anaida Colon-Muniz, Associate Professor, Chapman University
Ann Berlak, Retired lecturer, San Francisco State University
Ann Schulte, Professor, California State University, Chico
Annamarie Francois, Executive Director, University of California, Los Angeles
Annie Adamian, Lecturer, California State University, Chico
Anthony Villa, Researcher, Stanford University
Antonia Darder, Leavey Endowed Chair, Loyola Marymount University
Arnold Danzig, Professor, San José State University
Arturo Cortez, Adjunct Professor, University of San Francisco
Barbara Henderson, Professor, San Francisco State University
Betina Hsieh, Assistant Professor, California State University, Long Beach
Brian Garcia-O’Leary, Teacher, California State University, San Bernardino
Bryan K Hickman, Faculty, Salano Community College
Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University, Monterey Bay
Christine Yeh, Professor, University of San Francisco
Christopher Sindt, Dean, Saint Mary’s College of California
Cindy Cruz, Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz
Cinzia Forasiepi, Lecturer, Sonoma State University
Cristian Aquino-Sterling, Assistant Professor, San Diego State University
Danny C. Martinez, Assistant Professor, Universityof California, Davis
Darby Price, Instructor, Peralta Community College District
David Donahue, Professor, University of San Francisco
David Low, Assistant Professor, California State University, Fresno
David Stronck, Professor Emeritus, California State University, East Bay
Elena Flores, Associate Dean and Professor, University of San Francisco
Elisa Salasin, Program Director, University of California, Berkeley
Emma Fuentes, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Estela Zarate, Associate Professor, California State University, Fullerton
Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco
George Lipsitz, Professor University of California, Santa Barbara
Gerri McNenny, Associate Professor, Chapman University
Heidi Stevenson, Associate Professor, University of the Pacific
Helen Maniates, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco
Cynthia McDermott, Chair, Antioch University
Jacquelyn V Reza, Adjunct Faculty, University of San Francisco
Jason Wozniak, Lecturer, San José State University
Jolynn Asato, Assistant Professor, San José State University
Josephine Arce, Professor and Department Chair, San Francisco State University
Judy Pace, Professor, University of San Francisco
Julie Nicholson, Associate Professor of Practice, Mills College
Karen Cadiero-Kaplan, Professor, San Diego State University
Karen Grady, Professor, Sonoma State University
Kathryn Strom, Assistant Professor, California State University, East Bay
Kathy Howard, Associate Professor, California State University, San Bernardino
Kathy Schultz, Dean and Professor, Mills College
Katya Aguilar, Associate Professor, San José State University
Kevin Kumashiro, Dean and Professor, University of San Francisco
Kevin Oh, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Kimberly Mayfield, Chair, Holy Names University
Kitty Kelly Epstein, Doctoral Faculty, Fielding Graduate University
Lance T. McCready, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Lettie Ramirez, Professor, California State University, East Bay
Linda Bynoe, Professor Emerita, California State University, Monterey Bay
Maren Aukerman, Assistant Professor, Stanford University
Margaret Grogan, Dean and Professor, Chapman University
Margaret Harris, Lecturer, California State University, East Bay
Margo Okazawa-Rey, Professor Emerita, San Francisco State University
Maria Sudduth, Professor Emerita, California State University, Chico
Marisol Ruiz, Assistant Professor, Humboldt State University
Mark Scanlon-Greene, Mentoring Faculty, Fielding Graduate University
Michael Flores, Professor, Cypress College
Michael J. Dumas, Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Miguel López, Associate Professor, California State University, Monterey Bay
Miguel Zavala, Associate Professor, Chapman University
Mónica G. García, Assistant Professor, California State University, Northridge
Monisha Bajaj, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Nathan Alexander, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco
Nick Henning, Associate Professor, California State University, Fullerton
Nikola Hobbel, Professor, Humboldt State University
Noah Asher Golden, Assistant Professor, Chapman University
Noah Borrero, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Noni M. Reis, Professor, San José State University
Patricia Busk, Professor, University of San Francisco
Patricia D. Quijada, Associate Professor, University of California, Davis
Patty Whang, Professor, California State University, Monterey Bay
Paula Selvester, Professor, California State University, Chico
Pedro Nava, Assistant Professor, Mills College
Pedro Noguera, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Penny S. Bryan, Professor, Chapman University
Peter McLaren, Distinguished Professor, Chapman University
Rebeca Burciaga, Assistant Professor, San José State University
Rebecca Justeson, Associate Professor, California State University, Chico
Rick Ayers, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco
Rita Kohli, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside
Roberta Ahlquist, Professor, San José State University
Rosemary Henze, Professor, San José State University
Roxana Marachi, Associate Professor, San José State University
Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath, Adjunct Professor, San Francisco State University
Scot Danforth, Professor, Chapman University
Sera Hernandez, Assistant Professor, San Diego State University
Shabnam Koirala-Azad, Associate Dean and Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Sharon Chun Wetterau, Asst Field Director & Lecturer, CSU Dominguez Hills
Sumer Seiki, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco
Suresh Appavoo, Associate Professor, Dominican University of California
Susan Roberta Katz, Professor, University of San Francisco
Susan Warren, Director and Professor, Azusa Pacific University
Suzanne SooHoo, Professor, Chapman University
Teresa McCarty, GF Kneller Chair, University of California, Los Angeles
Terry Lenihan, Associate Professor and Director, Loyola Marymount University
Theresa Montano, Professor, California State University, Northridge
Thomas Nelson, Doctoral Program Coordinator, University of the Pacific
Tomás Galguera, Professor, Mills College
Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen, Adjunct Faculty, University of San Diego
Uma Jayakumar, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
Ursula Aldana, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco
Valerie Ooka Pang, Professor, San Diego State University
Walter J. Ullrich, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Fresno
Zeus Leonardo, Professor, University of California, Berkeley

_______________________

California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education. (2016). Common Core State Standards Assessments in California: Concerns and Recommendations. Retrieved from http://www.care-ed.org.

##

CARE-ED, the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education, is a statewide collaborative of university-based education researchers that aims to speak as educational researchers, collectively and publicly, and in solidarity with organizations and communities,to reframe the debate on education. 

___________________________________

For main post, see: 

http://eduresearcher.com/2016/03/16/sbac-moratorium/ 

For Washington Post coverage of the document, see: 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/03/16/education-researchers-blast-common-core-standards-urge-ban-on-high-stakes-tests/

For related posts on EduResearcher, see here, here, and here.
For a collection on high-stakes testing with additional research and updates, visit “Testing, Testing, 1,2,3…”
http://bit.ly/testing_testing 

"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. 

So let's get right to it. With real scientific educational research, a group of independent researchers, not bought off by any billionaire, would select a large group of representative students, such one thousand 8th graders randomly chosen from an urban school district. These students would be randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. A survey would be given to each group to make sure that the groups were matched on important characteristics such as free and reduced lunch status and ELL status. Each group would be given a series of tasks such as completing the 8th grade NAEP Math test, the 8th grade SBAC Math test, the 8th Grade MAP test, the 8th Grade MSP test and/or the 8th Grade Iowa Test of Basic Skills. These would then be compared against comparison measures such as teacher grades in their previous and current year math courses. The actual test questions of every test would be published along with student scores for each test question on each test. Objective analysis and conclusions could then be made about the reliability and validity of various measures using these carefully constructed norming studies. This results and conclusions would be peer reviewed and quite often the entire study could and would be replicated by other independent researchers at other major Universities. 

By sharp contrast, fake Common Core reports are conducted by a private for profit consulting firm that receives funding either directly or indirectly from the Gates Foundation, the originator and promoter of Common Core and Common Core tests."...

For full post, click on title above or here: 
https://coalitiontoprotectourpublicschools.org/how-to-tell-real-scientific-research-from-fake-common-core-swamp-gas 

"Results from a 2015 survey of more than 1500 NEA members teaching the grades and subjects required to be tested under No Child Left Behind (grades 3-8 and 10-12 in ELA and math) indicate that a vast majority of these educators – 70 percent – do not believe their primary state assessment is developmentally appropriate for their students. Only 13 percent agreed that the NCLB-required state standardized test their students took met that standard.

Teachers learn during their training and through experience that each child’s readiness to learn new skills and concepts varies by many factors in addition to age. They also know that each child’s ability to learn something new depends on both the individual child’s prior experiences and skills and on the particular concept being taught. While one child may be developmentally ready to learn multiplication, another child of the same age may not. However, the child who is not ready for multiplication may be ready to learn to play a musical instrument while the other child may not. New learning requires that a child has the background and prior skills to learn.

Unfortunately, standardized tests based on a narrowly prescribed curriculum and linked to specific grade levels are not a good way to judge student or teacher success.

The survey also found that while a majority of teachers did not think any of the state tests (i.e. PARCC, SBAC, and state-specific tests) were developmentally appropriate, there were statistically significant differences among the tests. Specifically, PARCC was seen as the least developmentally appropriate with Smarter Balanced and other state tests somewhat less so.

Educators working at different school levels also viewed the appropriateness of state tests differently. Teachers in elementary and middle schools were more likely to say the tests were not appropriate (77 and 75 percent, respectively) while a smaller majority (58 percent) of high school teachers said they were not.

Developmental appropriateness, according to the NEA survey, is just one of many requirements a standardized test must meet to be “most useful.” Such assessments should also assess content that students have had the opportunity to learn, provide feedback to students that helps them learn, and assist educators in setting learning goals.

The survey also revealed that school demographics resulted in no significant differences in how teachers viewed the tests. A school’s percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch, a school’s student-teacher ratio, and the percentage of Black students in the school were not associated with differences in teachers’ perceptions of the developmental appropriateness of state tests.

Teachers’ expertise about their students’ needs and abilities is critical to the successful implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in December, ESSA abandons the top-down accountability and testing regime of No Child Left Behind, replacing it with by a more inclusive system based on collaborative state and local innovation.

In addition to providing funding for states to audit, streamline and improve assessments, ESSA creates a pilot program for state-designed assessment systemsthat are driven by teaching and learning, rather than accountability. By calling for decisions to be determined by collaboration between educators, parents and other community members, ESSA guarantees that educator voice will play a role in shaping future state tests.

In her testimony to the Department of Education in January on ESSA implementation, NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said the success of these new assessments depends on this greater engagement.

“We know that there are innovative performance assessment systems out there that were just waiting for the necessary flexibility to flourish. We know that there are educators and principals who have tapped into the best ways to engage students with integrated curriculum and they were just waiting for the necessary flexibility to make it work in their schools,” said Eskelsen García.

Get the latest news and updates on ESSA implementation

Rex Costanzo, Ph.D., contributed to this story"...

For full post, click on title below or here: 

http://neatoday.org/2016/02/18/standardized-tests-not-developmentally-appropriate/ 

"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/ 

By Alan Singer 
 

"Last week the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to jettison penalties for schools, districted and states mandated by the Bush era No Child Left Behind law. NCLB was signed into law by George Bush in 2002 and was supposedly designed to expose and solve "achievement gaps" in American education. It did this by mandating the continuous testing of students and required that all gaps be eliminated by 2014. While the testing industry has overwhelmed American schools, achievement gaps have not disappeared. The Senate is expected to pass the new bill, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA, this week, maybe as early as Tuesday.

In the last fifteen years a lot of children have been left behind. A recent study published by the National Center for Education Statistics based on 2011 middle school math tests found that Black student performance was significantly lower than the performance by White students and the gap increased for Black students who attended racially segregated schools with large numbers of children from poor families. The scoring gap between Hispanic and White non-Hispanic students was not as high, but it continued to be large. NCLB forced almost every state to apply for a series of waivers from requirements because they could not possibly ensure that no child was left behind.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that established his signature educational program, Race to the Top. Obama-ED promised states educational grants if they imposed Common Core-aligned skill-based tests on public schools and used student scores to evaluate students, teachers, schools, and school districts. To get the competitive federal grants states made impossible promises that stirred up deep resentment from teachers and led to open rebellion by parents opposed to the high-stakes testing regime. It also became an excuse not to address the fundamental problems causing poor academic performance by Black and Latino youth, racial and ethnic segregation, persistent poverty and unemployment in their communities, and inadequate school funding. Even the federal Department of Education had to concede that RTTP was not working. In 2015, student performance declined on math tests for the first time since 1990.

Finally, with bipartisan support in Congress, there is a new educational miracle drug, the Every Student Succeeds Act. There are, however, three very quick questions I need to ask. (1) In the highly charged partisan politics dividing the United States as it enters a Presidential election year, how can any bipartisan bill be more than a conglomeration of pay-offs that will have very little impact on education or the achievement gap? (2) Why are supporters of the bill pretending that every student is ever suddenly going to succeed and what are they going to succeed at? (3) Will there ever be national discussion of what is important for students to know and why or what is meant by college and career readiness?

Major provisions of the ESSA include repeal of annual federal yearly progress reports that will be replaced by individual state-designed accountability systems. ESSA transfers responsibility to states to identify and provide support for struggling schools and prohibits the federal government from interfering in state and local decisions. There will be continuing annual, statewide assessments in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school and science tests three times between grades 3 and 12, but states will develop their own standards and have greater "flexibility to develop and implement innovative assessments." Basically, under ESSA states are free to develop pretend standards and assessments while the federal government kicks in dollars to support teacher development and improved education for at-risk students, but there will be minimal to no oversight how states spend the funds. I will be glad to see NCLB left behind and RTTT stopped, but I do not see how ESSA is a victory for education in the United States. Does anyone believe that low-funded poorly performing states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, New Mexico, and West Virginia will create meaningful accountability systems and tests that will expose the low quality public education they offer Black and Latino students?

Other problems emerge as well when you do a close read of the bill. Buried in the new law is a provision lobbied for by private and religious schools. State education officials will be required to set aside funds for "equitable services" for eligible children who attend private and religious schools. The bill also requires that state education departments create an ombudsman position to ensure private and religious schools get what they consider to be their fair share of federal dollars.

Kenneth Zeichner, a professor of teacher education at the University of Washington at Seattle, believes that ESSA lowers the standard for teacher preparation. He uncovered provisions in the legislation for establishing "teacher preparation academies" designed to promote "entrepreneurial programs like those funded by venture philanthropists. These include fast-track teacher education programs such as Teach For America, Relay and TNTP, which place individuals in classrooms as teachers of record before they complete certification requirements."

In her blog, Mercedes Schneider points out that ESSA largely keeps the high-stakes testing regime in place and poses a new threat to parents and communities that want to opt-out of the testing. According to Schneider "ESSA pushes for that 95-percent-test-taker-completion as a condition of Title I funding and leaves states at the mercy of the US secretary of education to not cut Title I funding in the face of parents choosing to refuse the tests."

ESSA, as did NCLB and RTTT, avoids any discussion of meaningful content so as not "offend" rightwing ideologues and religious fundamentalist. The biggest criticism of American education may be the gaggle of Republican Presidential candidates who do not believe in science, reject global climate change, and argue positions on economic policy, immigration, and war without any apparent need for supporting evidence. But an even bigger criticism may be that people actually plan to vote for them.

Teacher unions endorsed ESSA praising new federal flexibility but mostly they welcome changes in how their members will be evaluated. I suspect they will abandon opposition to high-stakes testing once teachers will no longer be penalized. TheNational Council for the Social Studies is ecstatic that there may be more money to support social studies education and is rallying its membership to support authorization, but has not addressed other issues. The National Governors Association supports ESSA, but they also took credit for Common Core.

Civil Rights activists have been much more wary about ESSA and share many of my concerns. According to a coalition of civil rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the New York chapter of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, federal oversight of education will be much too weak to ensure education for Black and Latino students in many of the "red states' and ESSA does not address disparities in school discipline procedures and suspension policies that target minority boys. Gary Orfield, an education and law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, who has documented increasing racial segregation in United States schools, charges that "Now we're going to get something that's much worse -- a lot of federal money going out for almost no leverage for any national purpose.

"Let's be clear," a catchphrase frequently used by President Obama, this is not a law that will improve education in the United States. It is a mishmash of compromises between political parties that agree on almost nothing. It rewrites bad laws that made things worse, but offers little that will make education better and hidden in the recesses of the 1061-page law are new toxic arrangements, some that may take years to completely emerge.

I am not a fan of Common Core and a big opponent of the high-stakes testing regime, but I suspect in the end ESSA will stand for Excusing States for Student Abandonment."...

For full post, click on title above or here: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/will-every-student-succee_b_8730956.html 

https://www.cabinetreport.com/curriculum-instruction/data-flap-could-lead-ca-to-drop-test-consortium 

 By Jesse Hagopian "Corporate education reformers who seek to reduce teaching and learning to a single score are beginning to realize they are losing the public relations battle. Hundreds of thousands of families across the country are opting out in what has become largest revolt against high-stakes testing in U.S. history.  

Because most of their arguments are increasingly discredited because of this uprising, they are desperately attempting to cling to one last defense of the need to subject our students to a multibillion-dollar testing industry.  

Charles F. Coleman, Jr. supported this last ditch effort for the “testocracy” when he took up former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s argument that opposition to standardized testing was only from out of touch “white suburban moms.” Coleman has in the past written pieces in support of making black lives matter, but in this careless piece he dismissed the opt out movement as a privileged white effort:

Boycotting standardized tests may seem like a good idea, but hurts black learners most….White parents from well-funded and highly performing areas are participating in petulant, poorly conceived protests that are ultimately affecting inner-city blacks at schools that need the funding and measures of accountability to ensure any hope of progress in performance.

Here are six reasons why Coleman’s belief that opting out hurts students of color is fundamentally flawed and why his belief that accountability and academic success require high-stakes standardized testing is just plain old wrong.

1. Extreme over-testing disproportionately harms students of color.  Coleman admits in his essay, “there should be concerns raised over excessive testing and devoting too much classroom instruction to test prep.” But he doesn’t acknowledge how destructive excessive testing has become (especially for children of color) or credit the opt out movement for revealing the outsized role that testing is playing in education. No one—certainly not the media—would even be talking about the excessive testing in schools if it wasn’t for the opt out movement. And the amount of testing in the public schools today isn’t just excessive—it’s extreme. The average student today is subjected to 112 standardized tests between preschool and high school graduation!

But the crux of the issue is that the highest concentration of these tests are in schools serving low-income students and students of color. Schools that serve more black and brown students have become test-prep factories rather than incubators of creativity and critical thinking. The corporate education reformers behind high stakes testing, like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton family want their own kids to have the time and support to explore the arts, music, drama, athletics, debate and engage in a rich curriculum of problem solving and critical thinking. Rote memorization for the next standardized tests is good enough for the rest of us.

2. Communities of color are increasingly joining and leading the opt out movement.

While it’s true that currently the students opting out are disproportionately white, to portray opting out as a white people thing is to make invisible the important leadership role that people of color have played around the country. Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis, a black women, is one of the most important leaders in the country against corporate education reform, and she led the union in the “Let Us Teach!” campaign against high-stakes testing. The Black opt out rate reached 10 percent in Chicago last year. PTA co-chairs Đào X. Trần and Elexis Loubriel-Pujols at New York City’s Castlebridge Elementary School (comprising 72 percent students of color) led the opt out movement there. They gained national prominence and helped to ignite the opt out movement across the country in 2013 when more than 80 percent of families refused to allow their kids to take a standardized test. The school had to cancel the test altogether.

One of the largest student protests against high-stakes testing in U.S. history occurred last spring when many hundreds of students in New Mexico—at schools that served 90% Latino students—walked out of school and refused to take the new Common Core exams. In Ohio, a recent study shows that communities of color and low-income communities opt out at nearly the same rates as whiter and wealthier ones.

In my hometown, the Seattle/King County NAACP hosted a press conference last spring to encourage parents to opt out of the Common Core tests. As Seattle NAACP president Gerald Hankerson put it, “…the Opt Out movement is a vital component of the Black Lives Matter movement and other struggles for social justice in our region. Using standardized tests to label black people and immigrants ‘lesser,’ while systematically under-funding their schools, has a long and ugly history in this country.”

Or check out the brilliant podcast, “These Tests Will Go,” The Opt-Out Movement in Urban Philadelphia, which documents the uprising of African American parents determined to make their kids more than a test score and fighting for the programs their kids deserve.

3. The federal government hasn’t punished schools for opting out. Coleman argues that if the number of students taking the required standardized tests drops below 95 percent, the government can cut funding to schools, and that will be most damaging to students of color. However, the federal government has never—not even once—cut funds to a school district for its high opt out numbers. While No Child Left Behind initially had a provision for penalties against large opt out numbers, which carried over to the new Every Student Succeeds Act, the “testocracy” seems to be too afraid to use this clause.

Moreover, the opt out movement holds the potential to actually increase the amount of school funding. The many millions of dollars wasted on ranking and sorting our children with standardized tests every year could be spent on tutoring programs, counseling services, art teachers, nurses, librarians, music programs, ethnic studies classes, and many services our children deserve.

4.Test-and-Punish policies are cruel and inequitable. High-stakes tests are being used around the country to label children and schools as failing, to prevent kids from graduating, to fire teachers, and to close schools. Chicago Board of Education voted in 2013 to close some 49 of the city’s public schools—schools that served approximately 87 percent black students. In   71 percent of the schools had a majority of teachers and staff were African-Americans. The standardized tests the students take register racial and class bias, measure the lack of resources available to schools, and then provide cover for shutting them down.

A review by the National Research Council concluded high school graduation tests have done nothing to lift student achievement, but they have raised the dropout rate. African American, Latino, American Indian and low-income students are far more likely to be denied a diploma for not passing a test. High stakes tests often inaccurately assess English language learners—measuring their understating of English and the dominant culture rather than the subject they are being tested in. Boston University economics professor Kevin Lang’s 2013 study, “The School to Prison Pipeline Exposed,” links increases in the use of high-stakes standardized high school exit exams to increased incarceration rates.

5) Standardized testing was invented by white supremacists and maintains institutional racism today. Once you know the history of standardized tests in public schools, you can never fall for Coleman’s absurd assertion that, “boycotting standardized tests may seem like a good idea, but hurts black learners most.” Standardized tests first entered American public schools in the 1920s, at the urging of eugenicists whose pseudoscience proclaimed that white males were naturally smarter. As Rethinking Schools editorialized, “high-stakes standardized tests have disguised class and race privilege as merit ever since. The consistent use of test scores to demonstrate first a ‘mental ability’ gap and now an ‘achievement’ gap exposes the intrinsic nature of these tests: They are built to maintain inequality, not to serve as an antidote to educational disparities.”

One of these early eugenicists was Carl Brigham, a professor at Princeton University and author of the white supremacist manifesto, A Study of American Intelligence. Brigham developed the Scholastic Aptitude Test, known as the SAT. Some of the most important early voices in opposition to intelligence testing—especially in service of ranking the races—came from leading African American intellectuals such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Howard Long. Horace Mann Bond, in his work “Intelligence Tests and Propaganda,” noted in 1924 what today we call the “Zip Code Effect”—what standardized tests really measure is a student’s proximity to wealth and the dominant culture.

6. There are better ways than high stakes testing to improve education for children of color. Coleman asserts that, “Standardized testing, albeit imperfect, remains one of the best ways to ensure that teachers, schools, and school districts are held accountable for making sure children are succeeding.” A huge body of evidence contradicts this statement, and points to the power of an inquiry based pedagogy, coupled with authentic forms of assessment. Take, for example, the New York Consortium Schools for Performance Based Assessment. These fully public schools have a waiver from state tests and instead use performance-based assessments. Students work with a faculty mentor to develop an idea, conduct research, and then defend a body of work to a panel of experts—including school administration, other teachers, and outside experts and practitioners in the field of study.

If the testocracy is right—if it’s true that high-stakes standardized testing is the key to improving accountability and performance—then these New York consortium schools that don’t give the state standardized test should be the very worst schools in New York City. However, comprehensives studies show Consortium Schools have higher graduation rates, better college attendance rates, and smaller gaps in outcomes between students of color and their white peers than the rest of New York’s public schools.

Conclusion: Hold the system accountable

Coleman’s arguments lamenting students of color score worse on the tests than their white peers—without acknowledging the ways in which systematic underfunding of schools, poverty, and institutional racism have disfigured our school system—end up pathologizing communities of color rather than supporting them. The U.S. school system is more segregated today than at any time since 1968. The majority of students attending public school in the U.S. today live in poverty. The school-to-prison-pipeline (including disproportionate suspension rates and the use of high-stakes testing) has contributed to the fact that there are now more black people behind bars, on probation, or on parole than were slaves on plantations in 1850. As education professor Pedro Noguera has said, “We’ve developed an accountability system that holds those with the most power the least accountable.”

Our task must be to build multiracial alliances in the opt out movement that can produce the kind of solidarity it will take to defeat a testing juggernaut that is particularly destructive to communities of color—while causing great damage to all of our schools. And while must begin by standing up to the multibillion dollar testing industry by opting out, we must also create a vision for an uprising that opts in to antiracist curriculum, ethnic studies programs, wrap around services to support the academic and social and emotional development of students, programs to recruit teachers of color, restorative justice programs that eliminate zero tolerance discipline practices, and beyond.

Now, back to writing that opt out letter for my son.

Jesse Hagopian is the Progressive Education Seattle Fellow. Jesse teaches history and is the co-adviser to the Black Student Union at Garfield High School–the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test in 2013. 

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/pss/six-reasons-why-opt-out-movement-good-students-and-parents-color#sthash.WMYOhePi.dpuf 

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."...

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http://www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/staff-editorial/smarter-balanced-recommended-assessment-for-iowas-k-12-students-carries-a-hefty-price-tag-and-for-what-20150301