Just resigned last year after 25 years as a school psychologist..testing was my beat and there's so much of it it's mind boggling. Why it has taken this long to shake the legacy of Bush and Spellings is beyond me. For reference, our school years are 180 days. Some districts spend up to 6 weeks of testing each year. 30 days. That shortens the school year to 150 days. No wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world, not to mention making school a joyless place for children and teachers. NCLB was a horrendous law - any law which directs schools to fire the entire staff based on AYP (annual yearly progress) test scores puts more validity on the measurement than it will ever have. Lindsey Buckingham said it best "No one can be reduced to a simple set of labels." Or test scores.
1
Too little too late, but better than naught. I have been a teacher for 30 years, and I never get over how many people who have never set foot in a classroom like to dictate to me the standards of my very difficult and demanding profession. Only in education! Would any of these idiots, starting with Arne Duncan, dare to tell a medical Dr. (I have an actual Ph.D. in my subject area, so I'm also a Dr.) how to perform major surgery? But some jerk who's taught for three days and leaves to throw her hat in with the billionaires (like Ms. Rhee) can talk about how awful teachers are...only in this country. The President made his worst decisions in domestic policy at the expense of a generation of children--shame on him. We expected better from his after 8 years of Bush's messes. Diane, where are you? I'm waiting for her to weigh in. She's the only voice in this country who knows what she's talking about regarding schools.
3
Oh, they tell doctors what to do too. They noticed how well it worked for teachers and their bottom line that they have applied the same testing principles and now "quality" principles to payments for doctors. Pearson Vue and it's former heads of states consultants are making millions from these testing requirements for teachers, students and doctors. Disgustingly true!
1
Eliminating all unnecessary testing would be a significant legacy for President Obama. The overuse of testing in American schools is a major reason for the decline in education performance. As a thirty-seven year veteran teacher, I understand fully the limited place pencil and paper testing should have in the process of becoming educated. Unfortunately, the North American love of testing has completely validated Albert Einstein's belief that doing more of the same and expecting different results defines insanity. Simplistic mindsets and behaviours produce simplistic results. Space does not allow me to suggest more productive educational methodologies and policies, but one size fits all, fits no one. Differentiating to meet the needs of each student does. True professional teachers are able to do this when they are allowed to teach without meddling from in places of authority. It has been suggested that the payrolls of school divisions be turned over to Costco, quietly destroy the school division offices, and see how many years pass before anyone in the classroom notices that they have vanished.
2
When I taught in a secondary school in the Eastern Caribbean as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the late 1960s, I found the GCE tests (Cambridge exams) my students took at the end of the year that were given to schools in the British Commonwealth SO restrictive. I couldn't bring in any outside novels or readings if they were not on the exam. My students were very vocal with their objections.
In the 1970s I taught in an American high school with no annual exams. I really missed the GCE exams that forced students to be accountable and focused. Also, I missed the deep readings and discussions of Shakespeare that I had with my West Indian students.
In the 1970s I taught in an American high school with no annual exams. I really missed the GCE exams that forced students to be accountable and focused. Also, I missed the deep readings and discussions of Shakespeare that I had with my West Indian students.
As a college student & an older sister, I agree that education has become extremely overwhelming for students. It is bad enough that we are judged on our intelligence and ability to attend college with challenging SAT's. Are only able to graduate high school by passing unnecessary regent exams, and now more and more tests are being thrown at students. It is stressful! Children and other students should NOT have to feel this way. School should be for learning.
I owned a personnel agency in Manhattan for seven years and specialized in entry level jobs, many of which required only a high school diploma. After interviewing thousands of applicants, I can tell you why most major employers know: a HSG from a NYC public school will rank on the 8th grade level on a basic test. I myself gave entry level computer tests to applicants who told me they studied typing and computers and only 25% passed. In addition, every NYC public school has at least one guidance professional yet I rarely met a student who had met with one. And graduates from schools which specialized in office skills training were given no guidance, not even in a group setting, in preparing a simple resume even though almost all of them would be seeking employment after graduation.
I had to interview about 10 applicants for entry level jobs to find one person I could present to a client. It's not about testing; it's about learning. What is happening in our classrooms?
I had to interview about 10 applicants for entry level jobs to find one person I could present to a client. It's not about testing; it's about learning. What is happening in our classrooms?
7
There are too many students in our classrooms, and in areas of concentrated poverty, too many of them come to school lacking basic skills that they should have learned at home, and continue to live in homes that don't reinforce the skills they do learn at school. In addition, we've decided that teachers are low-level drones that can't be trusted, rather than the college-educated professionals they really are, so we demand that they follow scripted curriculum and don't allow them any decision-making power, which means that when they say some of those students should be failed for lack of effort or suspended for extremely disruptive behavior in school, we don't listen to them.
The problems we have with testing are, to a large degree, a result rather than a cause of those problems, but the tests certainly do nothing to address them.
The problems we have with testing are, to a large degree, a result rather than a cause of those problems, but the tests certainly do nothing to address them.
3
Teachers (and by extension, their unions) hate tests for one simple reason:
tests measure not only student performance but teacher performance as well.
Any measurement of teacher performance is an anathema to an "education" industry that insists that seniority = merit.
tests measure not only student performance but teacher performance as well.
Any measurement of teacher performance is an anathema to an "education" industry that insists that seniority = merit.
3
Teachers (and by extension their unions) have actually studied education, and so they realize that standardized tests can give a rough estimate of student performance, but are useless for evaluating teacher performance.
They are, quite rightly, rather annoyed that there are so many people who haven't studied education and don't know what they're talking about who nevertheless repeat misconceptions about what testing can and can't do, and that they're actually taken seriously.
They are, quite rightly, rather annoyed that there are so many people who haven't studied education and don't know what they're talking about who nevertheless repeat misconceptions about what testing can and can't do, and that they're actually taken seriously.
7
This is MRS. Tests became big business, and the materials used to teach the kids produced nothing but an anxious bunch of kids who learned little else but how to take the tests. I can remember a time when yes, we had standard tests, but we had enough tests and quizzes during our classes that we were well measured. Oh, I forgot, you can't ask children to do anything without fear of lawsuit these days. I also forgot, you can't expect the same standard because in most public schools, especially in the inner city, the children are so ill prepared to study, but DCFS is overburdened with the domestic problems of people whose priorities are not seeing that their children are ready to be educated, and who do not foster a home atmosphere that encourages that education.
1
If it doesn't get measured it does not get improved. Today public education is the worst in the history of this country. I believe the teachers, the schools don't want to continue with testing is because it reveals the sad state of affairs in our education system. California required a HS exit exam in order to enable a student to obtain a HS Diploma, our esteemed Governor removed that requirement and ordered that all students who failed to pass the exam be issued a Diploma retroactively. Why not just issue every newborn a college diploma and let it go at that.
7
There are too many variables to measure learning in any meaningful way. Especially so, if the principle means is by multiple-choice drivel.
Really? How many variables are there? Name three.
The teachers don't want to continue with testing because they've studied education and work in the trenches of the system, so they've seen that the tests as currently used serve no valid purpose and do a lot of harm. People who are ignorant of the way education works (especially if they weren't too bright and didn't do well in school, and so still harbor some resentment toward teachers) can argue that teachers are trying to hide results somehow, for some nefarious reason. Usually "greed," though that argument tends to fall apart, at least for sane people, when they compare what teachers are paid to what comparable workers make.
4
I have three children in the Florida public education system and can only concur that testing, while perhaps important for measuring outcomes, is taking up more and more of the school year.
I noted especially two paragraphs in the article "students . . . will take, on average, about 112 mandatory standardized tests between prekindergarten and high school graduation . . . " taking up to 20 to 25 hours, or 2.3 percent of school time.
To add to the problem, and not covered in this article, is the shift to online tests. This has led to a huge increase in the number of hours dedicated to exams that ends up not being counted in any statistic because it is time that students aren't being tested, but also not doing anything else. Computer problems and overwhelmed networks sometimes last 4 hours prior to test-taking session. Lack of computers leads to schools having to devote two weeks to testing, with groups of students taking turns using the computers while others sit around in classrooms doing nothing but waiting their turn.
Another test-taking load not mentioned are additional exams mandated by outside accreditation organizations.
The second paragraph is priceless, "There was no evidence, the study found, that more time spent on tests improved academic performance." I don't know who thought that test-taking would improve academic performance!!! Tests track results, they don't create them!
I noted especially two paragraphs in the article "students . . . will take, on average, about 112 mandatory standardized tests between prekindergarten and high school graduation . . . " taking up to 20 to 25 hours, or 2.3 percent of school time.
To add to the problem, and not covered in this article, is the shift to online tests. This has led to a huge increase in the number of hours dedicated to exams that ends up not being counted in any statistic because it is time that students aren't being tested, but also not doing anything else. Computer problems and overwhelmed networks sometimes last 4 hours prior to test-taking session. Lack of computers leads to schools having to devote two weeks to testing, with groups of students taking turns using the computers while others sit around in classrooms doing nothing but waiting their turn.
Another test-taking load not mentioned are additional exams mandated by outside accreditation organizations.
The second paragraph is priceless, "There was no evidence, the study found, that more time spent on tests improved academic performance." I don't know who thought that test-taking would improve academic performance!!! Tests track results, they don't create them!
5
The standardized tests we're currently using aren't necessary for measuring progress. They don't really do anything, actually, except generate profit.
And while it's obviously insane to believe that more testing will mean more learning, that's the assumption that underlies the entirety of national education policy under Bush AND Obama.
And while it's obviously insane to believe that more testing will mean more learning, that's the assumption that underlies the entirety of national education policy under Bush AND Obama.
4
Waaay before Obama and Duncan jumped on the moronic over testing bandwagon, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio implemented their war on public schools and teachers and their unions with vouchers, charter schools. Why you might wonder? The real loserbrother of the bunch and family have financial interests intesting and rext book companies. The Bushes care about their pockets and thats all.
7
I was educated in India. Class size 60 students. One teacher in each subject taught the entire class . Set curriculum. Two mid terms and a final each year. 6 -8 wk summer break. About a week off at Xmas and of course a day for major religious festivals. We studied hard for midterms and finals as final grades depended on these mains exams. Test and quizzes were for our benefit but did not contribute to final grade. We learnt to retain large amt of information from grade 1. Major state exams in grade 10 and 12 . Grade 12 determined college placement. Only academics mattered. I think it was not perfect but great system.
3
Clearly your families and society at large valued education. Can we say the same about the U.S.?
3
It has been over twenty years since the push for greater "accountability" in schools led to the imposition of more high stakes tests in order to provide data for states to more directly target expenditure for improvement of public education. Many in the public education system at the time, myself included, protested this imposition. Most of our predictions have since come true. It seemed to some a laudable goal that conservative politicians wanted to be able to hold people and institutions accountable for failure, especially if the public had to pay for it. The testing that came as a result, long predates Obama and Duncan. It's ironic that those who were so adamant about the necessity for so much "data gathering" are now among the most vocal against it. The sad part is, we've impacted a generation of students with our misguided efforts.
3
Independent schools are exempt from standardized tests yet they manage to turn out well prepared students and retain highly competent teachers. Why don't we put the money that is spent on creating, administering and grading tests into paying competent school principals who are capable of running a school that performs as well as independent schools? Principals would have to be permitted to fire incompetent teachers and mentor those who have the goods needed to teach effectively. Decentralization is required--independent schools rely on their reputations to retain and attract students/families. We need the same "independence" in our public institutions.
3
The reason we call private school teachers "highly competent" has a lot more to do with the carefully selected student population they teach than their instructional ability. Instructional quality is usually higher at public schools, but public schools have to take all students. They don't have a population composed solely of kids from stable homes where parents value education highly enough to pay a premium for what's perceived to be a better one.
You're right that the testing we're imposing on public schools is destructive rather than helpful, but you're repeating a very commonly held myth about the difference between public and private schools.
You're right that the testing we're imposing on public schools is destructive rather than helpful, but you're repeating a very commonly held myth about the difference between public and private schools.
6
Cognitive dissonance. Reading the title of the article "White House moves to limit school testing" and Mr. Duncan's designated successor, John B. King Jr. Mr. King, the former New York Commissioner for Education, is the poster child for botched design and implementation of education reform. From Common Core to state certification tests, this man oversaw rollouts of education reform and testing that the entire country recognizes as cautionary tales of how not to do education reform. What does this say about the extent of any change in thinking in Washington around education?
6
TESTS are depersonalizing! As a school psychologist, I say that without reservation. What children need in school is to establish strong, positive attachments to school staff. But if the kids feel judged and criticized by staff as a result of excessive testing, then the time and energy spent have not, as clearly shown, measured and achievement multiple times per year that was not measured once a year in the past. Testing has privatized educational standards and has proven, once again, that the free market cannot measure human progress. The profits of the test makers are evidence of the commoditization of children--their exploitation for the financial gain of test makers. In short, the system of over-testing has resulted in policies that have pushed all children behind and downward on long-term studies of school achievement globally. Arne Duncan's departure is long overdue, as he has been the enabler of the test companies and has shown that he clearly believes that beating up on teachers is going to produce better student performance. That is as inhumane as it is mindless. In my opinion, Duncan has been Obama's worst Cabinet appointment. His legacy will be his biased view of that persecuting teachers is a prime standard for improving education. Perhaps now school policies will reflect more closely Obama's humane and caring attitude toward children and toward balancing things between the 99% and the 1%.
8
Obama, Bill Gates, Arne, Broad et al-
...don't understand that linking test scores of students (some of whom don't care) with the teacher evaluation is very unfair... The students get a promotion, usually regardless of their score. The tests are firstly to weaken & punish teachers, many of whom are female. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Hope and change...not!
...don't understand that linking test scores of students (some of whom don't care) with the teacher evaluation is very unfair... The students get a promotion, usually regardless of their score. The tests are firstly to weaken & punish teachers, many of whom are female. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Hope and change...not!
5
I doubt public comprehend the real time taken up by testing? April, my school's students, grades 3-6 will spend 6 half days taking the PARCC. The testing stresses and tires them out so that the rest of each day is used for review and low stress activities. Only one class can test a time (not enough computers,) so that the entire month is used for testing. The principal spends the month setting up the technology and putting out fires when, for instance, a student's computer crashes. (We were told the child had to redo that day's test from scratch.) As a reading specialist I help to monitor and administer tests. Thus, I'm unable to teach my other students. A full month of instructionis lost. And this testing is only the "high stakes" part. Don't forget all the other pieces- monthly testing of reading and math for struggling students, weekly or bi-weekly "Probes" to supposedly determine if they are progressing at the desired pace.
The Common Core has a lot to offer. But students don't need to be tested like this. Two sessions, at the most three, should be enough to determine if they are learning, or if the curriculum is being taught. They shouldn't need to take the test for four years in a row, grades 3-6. Bring the requirements down to 2% of school time-all together- and make sure the tests are appropriate for children. This doesn't require throwing out the Common Core and should not be that difficult to do.
The Common Core has a lot to offer. But students don't need to be tested like this. Two sessions, at the most three, should be enough to determine if they are learning, or if the curriculum is being taught. They shouldn't need to take the test for four years in a row, grades 3-6. Bring the requirements down to 2% of school time-all together- and make sure the tests are appropriate for children. This doesn't require throwing out the Common Core and should not be that difficult to do.
3
The fact that it took Obama and Duncan seven years to reach the conclusion that there are too many tests in US public schools is telling. Clearly, they would have failed a critical thinking question about the consequences of too much standardized testing. And which multiple-choice answer would they have picked for this question: More tests equals more… a) kids who dislike school, b) test prep, c) stress, d) more good teachers who quit out of frustration, e) all of the above.
11
Much damage has come from assuming that a school should be run on the model of a business. Not just apples and oranges, but apples and dragon's teeth. How important is emotion in elementary school? Do you want someone understanding and caring? Do businesses deal with five-year-olds? Are students paid? Can we fire them? Do our young people need damning numerical assessments which follow them through their evaluated lives, or do they need encouragement? When you are coming of age, do you need someone who tries to give you confidence and support? Employees are mature individuals. Students are children. Just as cognitive science completely ignores emotion, so does the curriculum; science has always run away from it. One great source of emotional intelligence—the arts—is relentlessly cut in favor of dense non-fiction. While administrators are regaled, actual classroom teachers are considered simpletons. Since most teachers continue to be women, we ought to address the intense low esteem in which our society holds childcare in general, and our deeply, deeply, institutionalized sexism.
7
Standardized testing rank and files kids, predicts social status, family generational income. Standards like Common Core are what to teach/learn, not how to teach/learn. Learning clinical information is important but secondary in the critical literacy realm that is knowledge. Just because you can measure something does not mean you should.
As a teacher that left my loved profession of 20 years teaching in a public school, I sincerely hope this "apology" starts a conversation for our country to look at changing the system instead of always trying to fix the individual. Classrooms should not focus on competition like "Race to the TOP" where there are winners and losers at every turn. Education should be about cooperation where especially young children have the time, space and support to imagine a world they want to live in and then practice negotiating that world. Play is how kids learn. There is nothing wrong with a clinical test to accomplish a short term goal, but standardized testing has never improved schools but only replicates the "STANDARD" while our country professes individualism. Sending kids into the world with only focusing on the "Standard" and then expecting them to be creative and hard working is just crazy to me.
As a teacher that left my loved profession of 20 years teaching in a public school, I sincerely hope this "apology" starts a conversation for our country to look at changing the system instead of always trying to fix the individual. Classrooms should not focus on competition like "Race to the TOP" where there are winners and losers at every turn. Education should be about cooperation where especially young children have the time, space and support to imagine a world they want to live in and then practice negotiating that world. Play is how kids learn. There is nothing wrong with a clinical test to accomplish a short term goal, but standardized testing has never improved schools but only replicates the "STANDARD" while our country professes individualism. Sending kids into the world with only focusing on the "Standard" and then expecting them to be creative and hard working is just crazy to me.
3
The law of (maybe?) unintended consequences has greatly damaged public education.
MANY TIMES I (a master-teacher by all accounts) have been told to not be concerned if the kids don't get it but to stay on the (mandated) curriculum instead.
The fear of not following the misguided, top-down decrees of the pols and the phobic administrators permeates education. I'm on the verge of quitting but I will, instead, probably be fired because I will insist on teaching to the best of my considerable ability. I will not betray the kids or my colleagues.
As Diane Ravitch says, this 'reform movement' is for the destruction of our democratically based public education system, to be replaced with hype and smoke and mirrors... and profit, of course....
MANY TIMES I (a master-teacher by all accounts) have been told to not be concerned if the kids don't get it but to stay on the (mandated) curriculum instead.
The fear of not following the misguided, top-down decrees of the pols and the phobic administrators permeates education. I'm on the verge of quitting but I will, instead, probably be fired because I will insist on teaching to the best of my considerable ability. I will not betray the kids or my colleagues.
As Diane Ravitch says, this 'reform movement' is for the destruction of our democratically based public education system, to be replaced with hype and smoke and mirrors... and profit, of course....
6
(AKA) 2% inspiration, 98% indoctrination..
Nice had you've got there. Shiny.
1
One more try, please.
One nation-wide standardized test a year, without discounting for "regional differences" in Math and English. A couple of days, all country takes it at the same time, or close to it. Use the results to assess the kids' progress and to adjust the school's programs as needed. Stop the double-speak that the tests "assess the teachers and the schools, not the kids", and then use the test's results in high-stakes placement decisions. Just admit outright that the test is designed to assess the kids' knowledge, and every school district should be free to use the results as they see fit. Some may choose to factor it into the teachers' evaluation, some not, this has nothing to do with educating the kids.
1
It took seven years to figure out that standardized testing has little to do with teaching and learning? That is what happens when the Secretary of Education is chosen because of his basketball skills rather than any experience or knowledge of classroom teaching.
5
Words matter. Will the language include the type of tests included or excluded from the 2% cap? Which tests, specifically, are the target? Teachers ought to have control of the curriculum. As such they should determine the frequency and types of tests to administer in their classroom. An arbitrary cap on testing limits is not helpful. While it is necessary to have some global curriculum guidelines, ultimately the teacher, the person closest to the learner, should have control of the learning environment. Outcomes, or efficacy of the learning experience, to the extent it is possible to measure, should be based on demonstrable subject mastery. Sometimes that is best done with a memory recall test (multiple choice/short answer/essay) and at other times through practical (hands-on) labs. Ultimately our kids must graduate from K-12 with a useable skillset designed to give them the best opportunity for gainful employment and self-sufficiency. It seems we are blindly focused on matriculation rates, standardized test scores, and college acceptance rather than imparting real knowledge and skill to our youth.
6
Let's be clear: while perhaps the federal government shouldn't be placing an arbitrary cap on what teachers do, no educator in the world is going to say that students should be spending anywhere NEAR 2% of the school year on standardized tests. This is kind of like complaining that the government shouldn't warn you that your kids shouldn't eat more than a pound of candy on Halloween--unless you're a complete failure as a parent, you wouldn't let them do that anyway.
Well, really, this would be more like the government telling you not to feed your kids more than a pound of candy when they've got a history of giving your kids two pounds, but that's a digression...
Well, really, this would be more like the government telling you not to feed your kids more than a pound of candy when they've got a history of giving your kids two pounds, but that's a digression...
2
Such a move is long overdue. Having worked as a speech pathologist, on contract, last Spring, in an excellent elementary school in Maryland, I saw once again the terrible impact of "testing, testing, testing" on students and staff alike.
Often, when I would go to pick up my students for their mandated speech therapy sessions, they were unavailable - behind closed doors in the testing room.
This incessant testing, scripted teaching, and constant teacher evaluation - often supervisors arriving unannounced in a classroom - have driven some of the best of the best out of the profession. Principals, in their zeal, have at times become cruel to teachers as well. Friends of mine have bailed out - taking early retirement to avoid having serious health problems from stress.
When will this foolishness end? Here's hoping the plutocrats who want to privatize public education and continue to try to dumb it down will fail and we will retain an educated citzenry.
Often, when I would go to pick up my students for their mandated speech therapy sessions, they were unavailable - behind closed doors in the testing room.
This incessant testing, scripted teaching, and constant teacher evaluation - often supervisors arriving unannounced in a classroom - have driven some of the best of the best out of the profession. Principals, in their zeal, have at times become cruel to teachers as well. Friends of mine have bailed out - taking early retirement to avoid having serious health problems from stress.
When will this foolishness end? Here's hoping the plutocrats who want to privatize public education and continue to try to dumb it down will fail and we will retain an educated citzenry.
4
Having kids in public school, I see the downside of the disruptivness and time devoted to "testing." However, the backlash is taking some uniformed and arguably ill-advised turns.
Here in Montgomery County, MD. the local school board has just recently decided to abolish all semester final exams in high school and middle school. At a time when there's already concern that students aren't retaining enough of what they're "learning," you'd think final exams would be a useful requirement to help ensure students not only retain, but can apply, what they learn from one semester/year to the next.
What's especially frustrating is that this decision by the local school board appears to have been based on intuition — thereby providing yet another example of critical decision-making about our kids' education without any basis of evidence or facts. Conjecture doesn't cut it.
Here in Montgomery County, MD. the local school board has just recently decided to abolish all semester final exams in high school and middle school. At a time when there's already concern that students aren't retaining enough of what they're "learning," you'd think final exams would be a useful requirement to help ensure students not only retain, but can apply, what they learn from one semester/year to the next.
What's especially frustrating is that this decision by the local school board appears to have been based on intuition — thereby providing yet another example of critical decision-making about our kids' education without any basis of evidence or facts. Conjecture doesn't cut it.
1
This is only half the issue. Senseless testing has enriched for-profit Pearson with taxpayer dollars and championed tests over real thinking for sure while voraciously eating away at instructional time.
The other component is the use of the Danielson Model from the for-profit Charlotte Danielson Group that links test scores to teacher evaluation using a byzantine system developed by non-educators. And the system is entirely about removing collaboration between teachers and promoting open competition where new ideas and risk-taking is punished. A local school leader happily exclaimed to his fellow admins that the combination of PARCC and Danielson will afford the opportunity to "nail teachers to the wall." An actual quote.
The other component is the use of the Danielson Model from the for-profit Charlotte Danielson Group that links test scores to teacher evaluation using a byzantine system developed by non-educators. And the system is entirely about removing collaboration between teachers and promoting open competition where new ideas and risk-taking is punished. A local school leader happily exclaimed to his fellow admins that the combination of PARCC and Danielson will afford the opportunity to "nail teachers to the wall." An actual quote.
6
Of course educators, union leaders and policy makers want to eliminate testing--that way they remove the evidence of how badly our schools are doing, how poor most of our teachers and principals are, and how much education "leaders" work overtime to deceive the public about the quality of American education.
Luckily for children--and one can hope intentionally--this 2% cap move by the Obama Administration comes too late to affect most of its current policies--which admirably have built the flames for real improvement under the adults who benefit most from a lousy American education system.
Luckily for children--and one can hope intentionally--this 2% cap move by the Obama Administration comes too late to affect most of its current policies--which admirably have built the flames for real improvement under the adults who benefit most from a lousy American education system.
1
Our public schools are doing pretty well, actually, but there's ample evidence that they'd be doing better if the last two presidents hadn't presided over the worst education policy in the nation's history. Unions opposed the damage, you're right. But testing kids reveals a lot more about society's failings than those of the schools. What you're doing is pretty much like blaming the AMA and hospitals when people get sick.
3
In my day, tests and quizzes gave teachers and students a quick look at areas of knowledge, and understanding, that needed further effort. Standardized achievement tests should be given, once, at the end of every school year. Standardized aptitude tests might be given every couple of years, in lower performing schools. There is no excuse for further testing of this sort. I am speaking as the child, and occasional guinea pig, of one of the 1950's, and 60's, leading experts in standardized testing.
3
The Feds had the mistaken notion that they could regulate the intangible by giving tests. They were wrong and sent the educations system in the wrong direction. Instead of a broad curriculum to develop the talents of each student, we ended up with a bunch of test takers. Not many careers place a high value on the ability to take tests. You need skilled teachers to evaluate the unique abilities of student.
Obama and the education legislators need to watch or listen to the President's former pastor. Rev. Jeremiah Wright gave the most amazing, inspiring speech in history to the NAACP, and it dealt with learning. This pastor was condemned and silenced because of a misinterpreted sermon. The speech everyone missed described the problem with our European style education and it described the solution. Give the teachers freedom and range and we will produce amazing graduates.
Obama and the education legislators need to watch or listen to the President's former pastor. Rev. Jeremiah Wright gave the most amazing, inspiring speech in history to the NAACP, and it dealt with learning. This pastor was condemned and silenced because of a misinterpreted sermon. The speech everyone missed described the problem with our European style education and it described the solution. Give the teachers freedom and range and we will produce amazing graduates.
1
Finally! But will it be enough? When will teachers be able to teach again? Now they are teaching to the test, preparing for the test, practicing the test strategies. In San Antonio ISD elementary school teachers are required to be on the same page, same lesson at the same time all for test. Teachers used to love their jobs. Now they are stressed and unhappy. There is no joy in teaching, no time for creativity, no leaning outside those mandated guidelines. And forget about any social skills in this pressure-cooker.
2
President Obama's declaration is an empty gesture, because his administration said nothing about the need for high quality tests. The PARCC tests were rolled out without ever having been standardized, i.e. administered to a large number of children from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds in order to determine what a passing score for each grade level. Thus, administrators can and do set a "passing" score at whatever level they want, depending on their goal. Want lots of kids to fail, so that you can fire teachers, close schools, and turn them over to private investors? Set the bar higher than last year and voila, the kids aren't learning!
The Obama administration has given millions of dollars to states which implement policies to fire teachers and close schools based upon unproven, non-standardized, unfair tests. Parents and taxpayers, keep holding his feet to the fire!
The Obama administration has given millions of dollars to states which implement policies to fire teachers and close schools based upon unproven, non-standardized, unfair tests. Parents and taxpayers, keep holding his feet to the fire!
7
2.3 pct of class time? how about at least 15% - & often up to 40%... that's what I've observed in my brief checkered stint in several nyc schools.
1
So Mr. Petrilli's opinion on education policy is sought out for this article. His bio states he is an award winning writer and one of the nation's most trusted education analysts. Mr. Petrilli's bachelor's degree however is in political science. Mr. Petrilli became an expert on education, with not one minute of classroom teaching experience. Policy experts with no credentials or experience should leave the policy work to real education professionals.
4
How can American children learn, with or without testing, when the school year is 185 days compared to 205-235 days in other countries? Longer days don't guarantee better results but American teachers also spend an average of four weeks each Fall reviewing the previous year's work, losing more time.
I taught ESL in China for two years and like most countries, they have a common core curriculum, My classes had 35 students, an "accommodation" since I was an American; class size in many Asian countries is 50 plus. The failure of our public education system goes far beyond excessive testing.
I taught ESL in China for two years and like most countries, they have a common core curriculum, My classes had 35 students, an "accommodation" since I was an American; class size in many Asian countries is 50 plus. The failure of our public education system goes far beyond excessive testing.
Never being a peoples that does anything in half-measure or, at first, necessarily rationally, America eschewed seeking knowledge from any successful programs and studiously ignored the recommendations of our colleges and universities, instead choosing to reinvent a wheel.
Well, it was big, it was expensive, it was roundish, it was unwieldy and it bumped along haphazardly, confusingly and mostly ineffectually...which is about par for the course when the too many cooks in the kitchen are political and harbor competing agenda...and it was panned, denigrated and resisted by professional educators across the width and breadth of our land.
So...what, exactly, except for its age, was so bloody wrong with the teaching and testing methods that had so successfully elevated America from a backwater ignorant nobody to the most highly educated (excluding the illiteracy rate from the calculus) country in the World for a grand and glorious period in our history? (While foreign students still flock to American colleges and universities, No One is flocking to American secondary education, and why would they?)
Well, it was big, it was expensive, it was roundish, it was unwieldy and it bumped along haphazardly, confusingly and mostly ineffectually...which is about par for the course when the too many cooks in the kitchen are political and harbor competing agenda...and it was panned, denigrated and resisted by professional educators across the width and breadth of our land.
So...what, exactly, except for its age, was so bloody wrong with the teaching and testing methods that had so successfully elevated America from a backwater ignorant nobody to the most highly educated (excluding the illiteracy rate from the calculus) country in the World for a grand and glorious period in our history? (While foreign students still flock to American colleges and universities, No One is flocking to American secondary education, and why would they?)
So, will the San Francisco Unified School District cancel the "interim" SBAC tests and the interim district-created English and math tests teachers are required to administer in the next few weeks? And then again in the spring? The interim testing fails several prongs of the DOE's "Testing Action Plan," in particular alignment to what's going on in the English classroom and transparency. It also puts S.F. middle schools above the 2% mark when we add in the spring SBAC that takes up days and days of classroom time, the two Scholastic Reading Inventory tests, the 8th grade CST science test, and the 6th grade Integrated Writing Assessment (also district- created, also a multi-day assessment). We pull teachers out of the classroom twice a year so that they can "collaboratively score" the highly flawed district-created tests. This district doesn't care whether the tests are valid or valuable. Money rules. And testing is big money. Here in oh-so-politically-correct and forward thinking San Francisco, we do not stand up to the powers that be the way people do in New York, New Jersey, or Seattle, Washington. The reporters at Lowell High School's newspaper tried to, years ago, with an article called "Sub-standardized testing." Little changed. After all, it was just the students and the teachers speaking the truth.
http://thelowell.org/2012/04/30/testing/
http://thelowell.org/2012/04/30/testing/
1
Please remember that the Common Core tests are called called “Smarter Balance.” If the government now claims they have tests that are smarter, more balanced, it is an implicit admission that the earlier tests were dumber, unbalanced. But, remember, the rule-followers, the never-question-guys, were demanding that we bow down to the earlier tests. I’d feel better if people actually had an argument, based on evidence and details, for any of these tests. But generally the defense is, “this is what they told us to do.” Thoughtless rule-following. When I hear a school principal say “I’m data driven” (and mean “I’m test-score driven”) I know right off that he/she does not understand learning and teaching. They would be better suited to run a small business.
4
The talk here is about standardized tests, which suggests that in each discipline we could give a state or federal test running about 2.5 hours per discipline, per year. If we consider 5 disciplines (math, science, ELA, social studies, and world language), we have 10 hours available for testing. Reasonable, but this will not prevent schools and teachers from devoting time (a lot of it) to test prep, and to taking practice tests, since in many states the schools' and teachers' ratings will continue to depend on the student scores. In most grades, state standardized tests are confined to ELA, math, and occasionally science. Again, in many states the ratings of all other staff are indexed to either math or ELA performance. This means that in grades 3-8 (at least) we could administer annual tests running 3 hours, 20 minutes each. If a school administers only 2 tests (ELA and math), they could each run 5 hours.If you lay over this the age-old practice of administering unit or chapter tests that are often developed (standardized) by publishers, you see students being tested by their teachers conservatively 30 minutes a week or about 18 hours per year. Point? Isn't this a zero sum game that Barack is suggesting? Isn't it "A Road to Nowhere"?
Obama and Duncan continued the test and punish policies of the failed Bush administration. One would think that in the field of education, research would be used to make decisions. Instead, research was denied, and though there is NO statistical evidence that evaluating teachers on their students' test scores is valid, Duncan went ahead and did it anyway. He tied state education money to this failed policy.
Duncan is also responsible for fueling the testing Opt-out movement, as parents defied his mandate to test kids and punish their schools.
In the last decade of my 30+ years as an educator and school administrator, I saw my profession demeaned, professionals disheartened, and students demoralized by failing test scores on tests that teachers can't see and students don't get to review after testing. Every policy that Obama continued from the Bush Administration was an abject failure. Just like the failed mission in Iraq, Duncan has altered public education for every kid in America, and not in a positive way.
Duncan is also responsible for fueling the testing Opt-out movement, as parents defied his mandate to test kids and punish their schools.
In the last decade of my 30+ years as an educator and school administrator, I saw my profession demeaned, professionals disheartened, and students demoralized by failing test scores on tests that teachers can't see and students don't get to review after testing. Every policy that Obama continued from the Bush Administration was an abject failure. Just like the failed mission in Iraq, Duncan has altered public education for every kid in America, and not in a positive way.
1
Maybe it isn't useful to lump all kids together when we say there is an education crisis. Maybe there are different reasons for the education-related difficulties that different subsets of the population are experiencing. For example, what about the American underclass that, sadly, has its origins in slavery? They are generations behind in terms of social capital. Testing seems very far downstream of where their problems lie. Perhaps what is needed is something to help those families permanently resolve their specific difficulties and get on track. Then perhaps their children will be better equipped to do well in school. I wonder how much teachers and schools can do to improve those children's academic performance until that is done.
Take a look at the "action plan." There is absolutely no change in policy indicated here.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/obamas-testing-action-plan-su...
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/obamas-testing-action-plan-su...
There's no news here. Arne Duncan made almost identical announcements almost exactly a year ago
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/used-recycled-empty-course-ch...
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/used-recycled-empty-course-ch...
1
For once in my life, I agree with Obama. After all, it becomes embarrassing as a nation to see how poorly we fair against other poorer nations when it comes to proficiency on standardized tests. If we stop doing it, we can save face and maybe even eliminate the Department of Education altogether--another total failure.
If we stop doing it, we can save face and maybe even eliminate the Department of Education altogether--another total failure.
the real failure is education at the local level. Nearly all decisions of consequence, teacher hiring, school administration, etc. is made at that level. That is where the bulk of the blame needs to be, in proportion to real decision making, administration and authority
the real failure is education at the local level. Nearly all decisions of consequence, teacher hiring, school administration, etc. is made at that level. That is where the bulk of the blame needs to be, in proportion to real decision making, administration and authority
Arne Duncan and his buddies at Pearson probably has done more to damage our school system than anyone else alive. Tests are an ok system for evaluating students, although some students are held back by poor test scores. Let's get back to using the billions of $$$$ we spend on education for educating our children. We do not need bureaucrats and politicians micromanaging our schools
1
Every move a candidate to presidency does is a test. School should not imitate that. It's so weird.
The US Department of Education still doesn't get it. It's not the number of tests or the hours spent testing. It is the extent to which multiple-choice standardized tests are driving what is taught and how it is taught. There seems to be no recognition of the damage done, other than the time spent. And states and districts will continue to use off the shelf tests in teacher evaluation and other high-stakes decisions. The damage is done.
Obama was a bad student and by the grace of Affirmative Action zipped through
university and became President of the United States. However, he never had
a job, and what America needs is people who can hold good jobs. Testing is essential.
university and became President of the United States. However, he never had
a job, and what America needs is people who can hold good jobs. Testing is essential.
"Obama was a bad student and by the grace of Affirmative Action zipped through
university and became President of the United States."
is that a joke? where did he go to school? what were his recommendation (and from whom)? where did he work as a lawyer?
You are watching way too much fox.
university and became President of the United States."
is that a joke? where did he go to school? what were his recommendation (and from whom)? where did he work as a lawyer?
You are watching way too much fox.
The real elephant in the room? A lot of this was about continuing to weaken unions. Teachers are a bright and educated bunch. When organized they're a threat, and they're large in number. There's strategic reason to weaken them through job insecurity.
The other piece is the sheer size of the pot of gold it takes to educate millions of children. Privatizing education is ultimately about making money, not about preparing the next generation to be good American citizens.
The data (test results) has been clear for quite a while that the systematic movement away from old fashioned universal "public" schooling was a mistake.
Obama and company have gotten many things right and will be judged favorably in history, on balance. Sadly, on education, at least so far, they just followed their predecessors and got it really wrong.
The other piece is the sheer size of the pot of gold it takes to educate millions of children. Privatizing education is ultimately about making money, not about preparing the next generation to be good American citizens.
The data (test results) has been clear for quite a while that the systematic movement away from old fashioned universal "public" schooling was a mistake.
Obama and company have gotten many things right and will be judged favorably in history, on balance. Sadly, on education, at least so far, they just followed their predecessors and got it really wrong.
2
You are right on the money.
One other piece of good news that might come out of the decision to abandon the testing regimen imposed on American public schools: education policy might come to the fore in the forthcoming election— and I have to believe the party that embraces the abandonment of the testing regimen will gain the support of a huge bloc of voters. Most importantly and consequentially, the debate that ensues over the accountability system that replaces testing will set a new course for schooling in the years to come.
The entire debacle of No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top and now Common Core symbolizes the contempt in which teachers unfairly are held. Teachers, who were not consulted by the politicians and academicians that created these initiatives, could have told them what would happen.
A simple example is the lengthening of the school day. It "sounds" like a good idea. But if you ask any teacher, the will tell you much less gets accomplished by the end of the regular school day, when students are tired and cranky.
Note to Washington - next time, ask some teachers when you are ready to fix education.
A simple example is the lengthening of the school day. It "sounds" like a good idea. But if you ask any teacher, the will tell you much less gets accomplished by the end of the regular school day, when students are tired and cranky.
Note to Washington - next time, ask some teachers when you are ready to fix education.
2
Exactly which unnamed testing proponents are suggesting that teachers should not be evaluated partly on the basis of student scores? If a test is a legitimate assessment of learning, isn't it also a legitimate assessment of teaching?
No, it isn't. A teacher who teaches poorly but has a class full of kids with involved parents who supplement instruction at home will be an "effective" teacher while an excellent teacher with a class full of kids whose parents don't feed them, take care of them, or get them to school regularly and on time will be "ineffective."
The MAJORITY of what determines student test scores happens outside of school. This is well established. Student test scores are not useful for evaluating individual teachers, and they're of only limited use for evaluating schools. But that hasn't stopped politicians (after being bribed by testing companies) from mandating that they be misused in this fashion.
The MAJORITY of what determines student test scores happens outside of school. This is well established. Student test scores are not useful for evaluating individual teachers, and they're of only limited use for evaluating schools. But that hasn't stopped politicians (after being bribed by testing companies) from mandating that they be misused in this fashion.
Not if it's multiple choice. I have actually witnessed students taking standardized tests with the booklets closed. They randomly selected a column of "B" choices, a column of "C" choices, etc, and let the chips fall where they may. I do know of one who passed with a high score, but his sister who was seated ahead of him and diligently worked on the test, earned a much lower score.
I taught both in the same class. Which one actually "learned" from me? How can anyone tell?
Standardized testing is a boondoggle not worth the paper it's printed on.
I taught both in the same class. Which one actually "learned" from me? How can anyone tell?
Standardized testing is a boondoggle not worth the paper it's printed on.
A fascinating experience: I read a similar report in the Wall Street Journal immediately before reading this. I also read most of the comments, as I have done here. The contrast is striking.
I'm head of a school and have written extensively about tests and the practices they drive. From a neurobiological, motivational and intellectual point of view, standardized testing is generally useless and often harmful. But that's not the purpose of this comment.
WSJ readers were nearly apoplectic in their aggressive dismissal of the Obama administration. They touted charter schools and voucher programs. They referred to allegedly poor US results on international tests, citing Singapore and China as examples to emulate. (Next week I'm meeting with several Chinese investors who know that education in China is demeaning and shallow and are seeking to become more progressive!) WSJ readers blamed unions for poor results. They blamed black fathers. They wanted more tests.
In other words, the more conservative WSJ readers know almost nothing about education and assume that bombast, ridicule, and repeating tired old political tropes will win the argument.
It's just like the Republican Party!
I'm head of a school and have written extensively about tests and the practices they drive. From a neurobiological, motivational and intellectual point of view, standardized testing is generally useless and often harmful. But that's not the purpose of this comment.
WSJ readers were nearly apoplectic in their aggressive dismissal of the Obama administration. They touted charter schools and voucher programs. They referred to allegedly poor US results on international tests, citing Singapore and China as examples to emulate. (Next week I'm meeting with several Chinese investors who know that education in China is demeaning and shallow and are seeking to become more progressive!) WSJ readers blamed unions for poor results. They blamed black fathers. They wanted more tests.
In other words, the more conservative WSJ readers know almost nothing about education and assume that bombast, ridicule, and repeating tired old political tropes will win the argument.
It's just like the Republican Party!
2
I voted for Obama; however I fear the damage by his Education deparment has already been done. The curriculum we are given (and must use) that aligns with the Common Core standards is really a year and a half of learning packed into a year. The result is no time for engaging projects that help students make their own meaning of the lesson content and connect it with the real world. This means day after day of lessons with no way for students to apply it meaningfully.
It has led to students who hate school and don't retain the crammed-in information.
Add to that the demoralizing political climate our governor has created for teachers, and it is little wonder why neither teachers nor students enjoy school anymore. I never used to have trouble getting my students to like school and learning. Please someone, give me the freedom back to do what I think is best for my students.
It has led to students who hate school and don't retain the crammed-in information.
Add to that the demoralizing political climate our governor has created for teachers, and it is little wonder why neither teachers nor students enjoy school anymore. I never used to have trouble getting my students to like school and learning. Please someone, give me the freedom back to do what I think is best for my students.
1
Federal government, stay out of education.
2
yes, local govt is already doing a great job at screwing it up. Look at how the US has historically compared with foreign nations (with much stronger central govt roles in education).
The federal government is responsible for extending educational opportunities to all citizens. It was the federal government that said state and local governments couldn't continue with "separate but equal."
I don't want the federal government out. I just want them to go back to doing good instead of what they've been doing under Bush and Obama, which has been horribly destructive.
I don't want the federal government out. I just want them to go back to doing good instead of what they've been doing under Bush and Obama, which has been horribly destructive.
The reactions are coming in!! This is just a cover up over the fall out from John King taking Duncan's place!!
From Gadflyonthe wallblog.com
The Obama Administration must think the nation’s parents, teachers and students are pretty darn dumb.
President Barack Obama and his hand-picked Department of Education are solely responsible for the knuckle dragging academic policies strangling our public schools day in, day out. Yet instead of doing anything to reverse course to proven methods that might actually help kids learn, the department trudges out its annual apology.
From Gadflyonthe wallblog.com
The Obama Administration must think the nation’s parents, teachers and students are pretty darn dumb.
President Barack Obama and his hand-picked Department of Education are solely responsible for the knuckle dragging academic policies strangling our public schools day in, day out. Yet instead of doing anything to reverse course to proven methods that might actually help kids learn, the department trudges out its annual apology.
1
Not "solely." Bush was pretty horrible, too.
Obama's DoE could probably be described as "primarily" responsible for the problems he's paying lip-service to addressing, though.
Obama's DoE could probably be described as "primarily" responsible for the problems he's paying lip-service to addressing, though.
Eric if he wasn't a champion of NCLB I would agree with you. But he helped push it through with Kennedy. And so the mess began and then Duncan hammers the nails into the coffin then buries that coffin a mile into the ground. Then hands the reigns over to Gates and Coleman and low and behold Common Core and testing is tied into federal funding. Pearson made billions although now they have lost many of those initial contracts. No tears from me.
1
How, then, to assess teachers and hold them accountable? Remember, this all started because schools were considered underperforming and teachers unaccountable.
As for claims that teachers don't like teaching to the test, given the fads in education to which our students have been subjected, their satisfaction has not proven to be a good indicator or what works. Too often education programs were unrelated to outcomes.
As for claims that teachers don't like teaching to the test, given the fads in education to which our students have been subjected, their satisfaction has not proven to be a good indicator or what works. Too often education programs were unrelated to outcomes.
2
Assessing teachers based primarily on test outcomes "is" the current "fad" in education.
Children in districts with high incomes and "so called" excellent schools have outcomes that, based on "accountability", suggest excellent teachers. Children in areas of high crime, drug and gang activity, and low incomes generally have poor schools with poor outcomes therefore, based on "accountability", have teachers that are underperforming.
For those teachers able to secure positions in those excellent districts, good for them. For the teachers that work just as hard in the poorer districts, God bless them!
Children in districts with high incomes and "so called" excellent schools have outcomes that, based on "accountability", suggest excellent teachers. Children in areas of high crime, drug and gang activity, and low incomes generally have poor schools with poor outcomes therefore, based on "accountability", have teachers that are underperforming.
For those teachers able to secure positions in those excellent districts, good for them. For the teachers that work just as hard in the poorer districts, God bless them!
1
Testing students does not accurately assess teachers, nor does it hold them accountable for teaching. Mostly, it holds them accountable for parenting.
The system it replaced, where administrators observed teachers' practice, was actually pretty effective so long as the administrators themselves had significant teaching experience (it was, admittedly, undermined by the practice of hiring non-educators or teachers with only a few years' experience as administrators). But even if you deny that fact and insist that we need a way to hold teachers accountable for doing their jobs, TESTING DOESN'T DO THAT.
The system it replaced, where administrators observed teachers' practice, was actually pretty effective so long as the administrators themselves had significant teaching experience (it was, admittedly, undermined by the practice of hiring non-educators or teachers with only a few years' experience as administrators). But even if you deny that fact and insist that we need a way to hold teachers accountable for doing their jobs, TESTING DOESN'T DO THAT.
1
We need a single annual standardized test of reasonable length so that teachers, parents, and children know where a child stands academically -- in particular, whether they are on a college track. Such a test should include a college preparatory level like the common core, but it should also include a passing "business" level that would insure employers that a high school graduate can write a memo or calculate compound interest.
In other words, tests that reflect traditional standards for vocational and college tracks.
What we absolutely do not need are more than one standardized test a year, or perverse incentives that force teachers to waste instructional time by teaching to the test. Test scores should not be used for evaluation of teachers. We have tried that approach and it has failed miserably.
In other words, tests that reflect traditional standards for vocational and college tracks.
What we absolutely do not need are more than one standardized test a year, or perverse incentives that force teachers to waste instructional time by teaching to the test. Test scores should not be used for evaluation of teachers. We have tried that approach and it has failed miserably.
11
We don't need that. Teacher-assigned grades are much more predictive of college success than the SAT or ACT. Standardized tests aren't necessary for that purpose.
There's a limited niche for standardized tests, if they're responsibly used. We might use them to gain more info on particular students when teachers think there might be a problem. We might give them to selected populations for spot-checks and comparison purposes, always as a low-stakes information-gathering exercise. But we certainly don't need to test every kid or every year.
There's a limited niche for standardized tests, if they're responsibly used. We might use them to gain more info on particular students when teachers think there might be a problem. We might give them to selected populations for spot-checks and comparison purposes, always as a low-stakes information-gathering exercise. But we certainly don't need to test every kid or every year.
The four most disconcerting words in the English language . . . "President Obama weighs in". And in New Jersey, another expert in education has chimed in - Governor Christie.
As part of the effort to impliment national standards of excellence and make our children globally competitive, teachers have been required to teach to a test. They have spent months, no years, preparing for the standard. The results of the tests have an impact on their salary and, potentially, continued employment. Add to that the fact that the teachers are grossly underpaid especially when one considers the awesome responsibility they have.
The politicians are now pandering to the parents - another ill informed party - because the test is too hard and stressful for little Johnny and cuts into his laying around time. Some think, like fluoridated water, that these tests are a conspiracy of Big Brother.
The leaders should stay out of it and let the program proceed. They need harmless diversions. The President should golf more and Chrisie should go off his diet.
As part of the effort to impliment national standards of excellence and make our children globally competitive, teachers have been required to teach to a test. They have spent months, no years, preparing for the standard. The results of the tests have an impact on their salary and, potentially, continued employment. Add to that the fact that the teachers are grossly underpaid especially when one considers the awesome responsibility they have.
The politicians are now pandering to the parents - another ill informed party - because the test is too hard and stressful for little Johnny and cuts into his laying around time. Some think, like fluoridated water, that these tests are a conspiracy of Big Brother.
The leaders should stay out of it and let the program proceed. They need harmless diversions. The President should golf more and Chrisie should go off his diet.
7
The tests are expensive, useless, and destructive in their implementation. If Obama really did significantly reduce them (and I doubt he will; this is lip-service) to placate ignorant parents, he'd be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. But I could care less about his reasons--I just want him, for the first time in his presidency, to do the right thing on a question of education policy. Not holding my breath, though.
There is an election in 2016. People are up in arms over the testing that the Administration demanded by federal edict.
So the President wants another royal edict that slows down the first one -- while still pushing Federal control of your town's education system.
Stop electing amateurs!
So the President wants another royal edict that slows down the first one -- while still pushing Federal control of your town's education system.
Stop electing amateurs!
7
Don't be fooled by Arne's phony modification of his testing policy. This is nothing more than an effort to thwart the opt-out movement. He has changed nothing in his policy of using high stakes testing to advance the privatization of education and weaken teacher rights by crushing teacher unions. We must vigorously support the expansion of the opt-out movement until the era of test and punish is destroyed!
8
Yet another reason why I send my children to private schools. The whipsaw effect of constantly changing polices coupled with “teach to the middle” dumbing down trend leaves the top 5-10% of students in each classroom stuck in mediocrity and ultimately boredom.
Our local public schools (FL) seem to have figured out how to teach to the increasing number of under-performing students, but have little or no testing infrastructure in place to identify the top performers and teach them up.
Testing at least led to some accountability, ranking, and structure to a population that is increasingly getting less intelligent - as proven through years of decreasing national test scores and the restructuring (read: dumbing down) of the SAT exam a few years ago.
I do fear this is a race to the bottom and that the gulf between the haves and have not’s will continue to grow as their public education fails to hold them accountable.
Our local public schools (FL) seem to have figured out how to teach to the increasing number of under-performing students, but have little or no testing infrastructure in place to identify the top performers and teach them up.
Testing at least led to some accountability, ranking, and structure to a population that is increasingly getting less intelligent - as proven through years of decreasing national test scores and the restructuring (read: dumbing down) of the SAT exam a few years ago.
I do fear this is a race to the bottom and that the gulf between the haves and have not’s will continue to grow as their public education fails to hold them accountable.
21
It's not only that their education hasn't been dumbed down. Private schools are accountable. Bureaucracies, whether within schools, districts or states, are neither responsive nor accountable. It's very difficult for a parent to breakthrough the education bureaucracy. Parents have to get in line behind the interests of teachers, unions, etc.
A good part of the problem is unwillingness to spend what it would take to adequately educate all American children.
2
The declining SAT scores correspond to the advent of high-stakes testing.
Students aren't getting less intelligent; they're getting test-driven instruction so their teachers (who were foolish enough to take on the challenge of teaching low-income, inner-city kids) won't lose the jobs that pay their rent, feed their families and support local economies.
The gulf will widen as politicians trade children for campaign contributions. Both the politicians and the "reformers" all have their children in private schools.
Students aren't getting less intelligent; they're getting test-driven instruction so their teachers (who were foolish enough to take on the challenge of teaching low-income, inner-city kids) won't lose the jobs that pay their rent, feed their families and support local economies.
The gulf will widen as politicians trade children for campaign contributions. Both the politicians and the "reformers" all have their children in private schools.
1
One area that needs to be examined more closely is the huge industry of publishers and consultants that are now making considerable amounts of money selling tests, testing programs, teacher evaluation programs, and consulting services on how to use them to school districts all across the country. None of this money goes directly to teaching children, and it is often very difficult to see how it indirectly benefits children either.
14
Our President, leading from behind again! This administration brings back memories of lyrics from an Ella Fitzgerald tune. . . . "first you say you do, and then you don't, and then you say you will, and then you won't." Which way is the wind blowing?
6
The problem is the new grade 3-8 tests are not designed well and set kids up to do poorly (how else can Cuomo rate more teachers ineffective or developing?). They are not like final exams or regents that test the material taught. If the powers that be want grade 3-8 kids to take these types of exams ...fine. At least make them developmentally and grade level appropriate.
Students in my district always fared well on the old state exams - on the new tests fewer kids are excelling. The teachers are the same, the socio economic level of kids the same....what's different is ccss emphasis and the exams!
Our Kids always did well on SATs and got into great colleges...I'm not so sure what will happen when my current elementary students are in HS. CCSS forces us to accelerate (so kids will be ready for the tests they cannot pass anyway!) rather than lay an academic foundation. Kafka's Castle anyone?
Students in my district always fared well on the old state exams - on the new tests fewer kids are excelling. The teachers are the same, the socio economic level of kids the same....what's different is ccss emphasis and the exams!
Our Kids always did well on SATs and got into great colleges...I'm not so sure what will happen when my current elementary students are in HS. CCSS forces us to accelerate (so kids will be ready for the tests they cannot pass anyway!) rather than lay an academic foundation. Kafka's Castle anyone?
9
It seems like the government keeps changing their mind. It makes one wonder if anyone really knows what is the right thing to do. It seems as if education philosophy changes just like fashion, and may depend upon who has the best political connections. Another case of the feds telling locals what to do, and look at the messes the feds have created. How do you spell Vietnam?
3
tom, you are aware that real decision making in education (i.e,. teacher hiring, what is taught, administration, etc.) is made at the local level? Just look at who local governments hire to work as teachers.
Great...everyone is spending time arguing about test time or No child Left Behind or Common Core...etc etc. What is clear is that Kids are not being educated anywhere near where the must be to be competitive in the world. IN the 50's and 60' the US dominated. Today, The government, The Politicians, The Teachers Unions, the School Administrators, the Lobbyists for each of the groups sit around arguing, fine turning air. The air is polluted in the US in the past 4 decades and Kids are not even close to the standard of most countries. The kids cannot complete and are ill prepared....This has zero to do with the program it is about the parents and the kids being lazy!
3
The suggestion to limit testing is a red herring. We are in the midst of a public school crisis and as reductionist as it will read it is factually correct to say that the academic fundamentals - arithmetic, reading and writing - have been downplayed. Gosh to read that the current standardized tests should be reconfigured so they are less “onerous and more purposeful.” I mean like wow. Testing is the only metric extant which can measure a student’s progress or shed light on their deficiencies. There is a correlation between some colleges that have opted to be either test blind or test optional vis-à-vis the reliable SAT because the applying students have been scoring poorly. The real question is why are our public schools failing? I submit it has nothing to do with testing and more to do with the fact that arithmetic, reading and writing are being poorly taught. Strengthen these disciplines and instead of planning tests to be less onerous and more purposeful there will be a clarion call to make them more difficult.
4
You could not be more wrong. Colleges are abandoning the SATs because the results are so clearly correlated with family income.
Rich kids=high scores
Poor kids=low scores
Google the data if you don't believe me.
Kids are failing tests because we're giving 8th grade math exams to 2nd graders and then proclaiming that schools and teachers are failing.
And some people actually believe that.
Rich kids=high scores
Poor kids=low scores
Google the data if you don't believe me.
Kids are failing tests because we're giving 8th grade math exams to 2nd graders and then proclaiming that schools and teachers are failing.
And some people actually believe that.
It's about time! Testing has been used, wrongly, to measure school and teacher performance. The promoters of tests conveniently forgot that not all children are created equal and from year to year different groups of children perform differently on tests than other kids. The time wasted on teaching to the tests can never be recovered. The wrongful burden placed on students, parents, teachers and administrators needs to be lifted.
We've all forgotten that teaching encompasses the fun in learning and exploring new ideas and new ways of doing as well as understanding. No one has had any enjoyment preparing for tests that may negatively affect the future of all involved. Even a test that is given only once a year still commands too much emphasis to be placed on test performance rather that demonstration of real learning and understanding.
Let's restore a great deal more power back to teachers and parents. And let's give our kids a break too. Let's also take the federal government out of community and state schools. Local control is more effective than control from Washington DC. The teachers and parents are on the front line with our kids. Not the bureaucrats in DC.
Calling for limits is a good start. Now let's call for even greater limits including eventual abolition of national standards. Give the schools back to the states and local communities.
We've all forgotten that teaching encompasses the fun in learning and exploring new ideas and new ways of doing as well as understanding. No one has had any enjoyment preparing for tests that may negatively affect the future of all involved. Even a test that is given only once a year still commands too much emphasis to be placed on test performance rather that demonstration of real learning and understanding.
Let's restore a great deal more power back to teachers and parents. And let's give our kids a break too. Let's also take the federal government out of community and state schools. Local control is more effective than control from Washington DC. The teachers and parents are on the front line with our kids. Not the bureaucrats in DC.
Calling for limits is a good start. Now let's call for even greater limits including eventual abolition of national standards. Give the schools back to the states and local communities.
5
Hmmm...color me very skeptical. The administration is asking that no more than 2% of school time in K-12 be spent on testing, yet this article also cites the "excessive" testing in eighth grade, "when tests fall most heavily," consuming an average of 20 to 25 hours, or 2.3 percent of school time.
Two questions: If 2.3% is considered extreme, why is 2% acceptable? Is it just for public consumption to put the 2% figure out there, since it sounds so "incredibly low", but in reality it's not?
And, is the administration going to advocate any changes in the sheer amount of time our students are spending on "Test Prep", both within the school and at home, and on "post-testing evaluations" and everything else test-related?
They should---because this problem isn't just the hours spent while taking the test---it's that, added to all of the additional hours that are directly part of this Testing Madness.
As with other "improvements" Obama and Duncan promised us for our K-12 students, there appears to be some deliberate or accidental confusion here, mixed in with some possible "sleight of hand" techniques.
As a concerned and involved parent of a young child in a very good public school, I've been extremely disappointed with this administration, particularly regarding public education.
I'd love for them to prove me wrong and wipe away my skepticism and mistrust that they've earned over these past seven years. I'm willing to listen, wait and watch. But I'm not holding my breath...
Two questions: If 2.3% is considered extreme, why is 2% acceptable? Is it just for public consumption to put the 2% figure out there, since it sounds so "incredibly low", but in reality it's not?
And, is the administration going to advocate any changes in the sheer amount of time our students are spending on "Test Prep", both within the school and at home, and on "post-testing evaluations" and everything else test-related?
They should---because this problem isn't just the hours spent while taking the test---it's that, added to all of the additional hours that are directly part of this Testing Madness.
As with other "improvements" Obama and Duncan promised us for our K-12 students, there appears to be some deliberate or accidental confusion here, mixed in with some possible "sleight of hand" techniques.
As a concerned and involved parent of a young child in a very good public school, I've been extremely disappointed with this administration, particularly regarding public education.
I'd love for them to prove me wrong and wipe away my skepticism and mistrust that they've earned over these past seven years. I'm willing to listen, wait and watch. But I'm not holding my breath...
4
The problem with testing is the same as with public education in general we have too many "leaders" on the field. Teacher, local, state, and federal all have their own objectives, policies and solutions. There is not enough time to test for and meet all of them so we need priorities, and the other "leaders" need to leave the field.
I would like to see all the money block granted to our states each of which have unique populations with unique needs. Many if not most of our states also have education officials who are actually elected to make policies and prioritizes, unlike Washington’s DOE personal who are not elected at all.
Why should Washingtons unelected leaders be making education policy?
I would like to see all the money block granted to our states each of which have unique populations with unique needs. Many if not most of our states also have education officials who are actually elected to make policies and prioritizes, unlike Washington’s DOE personal who are not elected at all.
Why should Washingtons unelected leaders be making education policy?
2
There is a significant difference between assessment, which should be ongoing, and testing. One is used to inform instruction, the other is used to determine if the instruction was successful. The two words are often used interchangeably and erroneously.
3
Well over a decade of damage, and they're only figuring this out now?!
I wonder which well-funded pro-charter organization Duncan will end up at once he steps down.
And the New York Times has been VERY late to see the light on this issue. Many local papers, and even the Washington Post, have been covering the negative impact of excessive testing for years.
I wonder which well-funded pro-charter organization Duncan will end up at once he steps down.
And the New York Times has been VERY late to see the light on this issue. Many local papers, and even the Washington Post, have been covering the negative impact of excessive testing for years.
5
It takes a long time to see the results in education changes. Not to mention the severe underfunding of schools across the board and the large amounts of administration eating up funds.Private schools can cost as much as college tuitions and aren't necissarily superior ( especially religious schools) as well as the extreme bias of private schooling.
There is a place for testing. It measures achievement. It helps to measure accountability for the task of teaching. It undermines both objectives to "teach the test" since teaching the test skews the objectivity of the test results. Students and teachers deserve a more honest measure to test achievement. Both groups deserve a focus on the individual. We must recognize that educational standards must allow for individual distinctions whether in urban rural red or blue communities. This is not too much to expect from public school and to demand less undermines both student and teacher achievement to everyone's detriment.
There's no education crisis in this country. At least not of the magnitude that Arne Duncan and Andrew Cuomo would have us believe. There's a poverty crisis and a cultural crisis. When you compare the performance of U.S. children on PISA tests to that of children in higher performing countries, and omit the test scores of U.S. children who live in poverty, the U.S. children perform just fine.
Poor children in the U.S. do not arrive at school ready to learn at age 5, and it is tremendously costly to catch them up. The poverty issue brings with it a cultural issue as many poor children grow up in single-mother households with half-siblings from various absent fathers. This is a horrible situation in which to raise children, especially boys. Fix the families, don't punish the teachers. And by all means, don't entrust our schools, which in the main perform well, to vulture capitalists. The underclass in this country needs help, post-natal services as well as birth control.
Poor children in the U.S. do not arrive at school ready to learn at age 5, and it is tremendously costly to catch them up. The poverty issue brings with it a cultural issue as many poor children grow up in single-mother households with half-siblings from various absent fathers. This is a horrible situation in which to raise children, especially boys. Fix the families, don't punish the teachers. And by all means, don't entrust our schools, which in the main perform well, to vulture capitalists. The underclass in this country needs help, post-natal services as well as birth control.
15
I disagree. There IS an education crisis in this country, but it was caused by bad policy pushed by Duncan, Klein, Rhee and others like them, which they justified as a way to solve an imaginary crisis.
Get rid of what's been done in the name of "education reform" in the last twenty years, and we'd be back to a system that, honestly, wasn't much in need of reform.
Get rid of what's been done in the name of "education reform" in the last twenty years, and we'd be back to a system that, honestly, wasn't much in need of reform.
You've hit the nail on the head here, with this astute comment.
It is absolutely true that when you control for the students who come from the 20% of families with the lowest incomes, students from the United States are at or near the very top in all categories.
But Privatizers---those people who want to end public education, open charters and ultimately bring about a system where every child gets a "voucher" that can be used for the tuition at any private business that calls itself a "school"---don't WANT us to know the facts on this.
Privatizers---led by people like Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, and other vicious enemies of public schools---HAVE to keep this specious narrative of "failing schools" going because it's their only chance of bringing about the end of the local public school and helping private interests suck up our tax dollars to satisfy their own insatiable greed.
It is absolutely true that when you control for the students who come from the 20% of families with the lowest incomes, students from the United States are at or near the very top in all categories.
But Privatizers---those people who want to end public education, open charters and ultimately bring about a system where every child gets a "voucher" that can be used for the tuition at any private business that calls itself a "school"---don't WANT us to know the facts on this.
Privatizers---led by people like Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, and other vicious enemies of public schools---HAVE to keep this specious narrative of "failing schools" going because it's their only chance of bringing about the end of the local public school and helping private interests suck up our tax dollars to satisfy their own insatiable greed.
Bingo. Thats the un-politically correct thing that many in this country just will not admit. Add in the non English speaking students and you see how the schools are blamed for society's challenges.
As a teacher in one of those large urban districts I have been discouraged by the state-mandated linking of teacher evaluation and student performance.
Does that seem unreasonable?
Think about it this way: I work in a high poverty (80+%) school where a significant percentage of students entered my classroom not ready for first grade. They weren't ready for kindergarten either. No numbers, no letters, no colors, no shapes. They didn't even know the ABC song! Certainly no sight words and no independent reading.
Take me and my curriculum and place me in a less poverty-stricken neighborhood. I have a whole new classroom full of kids ready for first grade. Nine months later... WOW! by absolute MAGIC my new suburban class will score very well on the Spring tests. What an amazing teacher I am!!
It wasn't equitable that, as a first grade teacher in a high-poverty neighborhood, I had to get students ready for pre-school and kindergarten AND first grade in time for May testing. And when I didn't I was considered a poor teacher.
I wasn't leaving kids behind.
But the tests measure to the standard, it does not measure growth. Had it measured individual student IMPROVEMENT I wouldn't need to be typing right now.
Ms. Zernike's article sounds like good news. Less standardized testing may leave the door open for a useful measurement of student "growth goals" -- and in a wider array of subjects -- with input from students and their parents.
Does that seem unreasonable?
Think about it this way: I work in a high poverty (80+%) school where a significant percentage of students entered my classroom not ready for first grade. They weren't ready for kindergarten either. No numbers, no letters, no colors, no shapes. They didn't even know the ABC song! Certainly no sight words and no independent reading.
Take me and my curriculum and place me in a less poverty-stricken neighborhood. I have a whole new classroom full of kids ready for first grade. Nine months later... WOW! by absolute MAGIC my new suburban class will score very well on the Spring tests. What an amazing teacher I am!!
It wasn't equitable that, as a first grade teacher in a high-poverty neighborhood, I had to get students ready for pre-school and kindergarten AND first grade in time for May testing. And when I didn't I was considered a poor teacher.
I wasn't leaving kids behind.
But the tests measure to the standard, it does not measure growth. Had it measured individual student IMPROVEMENT I wouldn't need to be typing right now.
Ms. Zernike's article sounds like good news. Less standardized testing may leave the door open for a useful measurement of student "growth goals" -- and in a wider array of subjects -- with input from students and their parents.
7
We should just give up trying to fix the education system on our own. Let's go overseas and copy the model of one of the many countries that seem to produce smart, hard-working students who aren't afraid of a hard test and whose parents encourage and in many cases, really pressure them to do well on tests regardless of whether the federal government or their own teacher is devising them. The standards are set so high and students are constantly striving to meet them. Here, the message we send our kids is we'll write to our congresswoman if the test is too hard and opt out so our little ones don't have a meltdown. Nicely done. We are raising generations of mediocre students who will go on to become mediocre adults. In all the back and forth the kids are the real losers. Go overseas, find a system that's working, adopt it and don't change it for the next 50 years so at least we'll know if it's working.
1
There may be some people objecting to the tests because they're "too hard." There are many others objecting to them because they're expensive, the results are often misused, and they don't measure what the companies selling them claim they do.
If kids get the impression they're being opted out because it's "too hard," that's a misconception that should be fixed. They should still be opted out, in part to get rid of our excessive standardized tests and make our system MORE like the ones you say we should emulate.
If kids get the impression they're being opted out because it's "too hard," that's a misconception that should be fixed. They should still be opted out, in part to get rid of our excessive standardized tests and make our system MORE like the ones you say we should emulate.
The important thing is to do/say what the Teacher's Union wants done/said, and ask for more MONEY. Without that the Union might not give Democrats 97% of their political contributions.
2
If we did what the teachers' unions asked, we'd have much better schools. They're almost always on the side of every policy question that's best for kids (that's because teachers' interests and kids' interests overlap, but who cares why they're on kids' side so long as they're there?)
But by all means, just complain about the fact that the unions more often contribute to the political party that's consistently the lesser evil in education policy.
But by all means, just complain about the fact that the unions more often contribute to the political party that's consistently the lesser evil in education policy.
Anyone bashing teachers' unions is fighting against reality. The more unionized states generally have better schools. Public schools are more often unionized than charter or private schools, and (though few people are aware of this in the public/private comparisons, since private schools' hand-picked student populations hide it) publics are usually better schools. The countries that politicians scream are "beating" us (it's way more complicated) on international tests, for the most part, have unionized teachers.
All available evidence would make a reasonable person thing that unions are probably a positive factor in school quality (and, unsurprisingly, what research I've read has found it to be so). But they CAN'T be a negative.
Republicans can, though. They usually are. Which is why unions more often donate to Democrats.
All available evidence would make a reasonable person thing that unions are probably a positive factor in school quality (and, unsurprisingly, what research I've read has found it to be so). But they CAN'T be a negative.
Republicans can, though. They usually are. Which is why unions more often donate to Democrats.
Don't throw the baby out with the wash water. The problem is not testing per se, it is its use. In enlightened countries (I mean Finland and parts of Europe/Scandanavia not Asia), testing is used to give information to teachers to allow them to tailor their lessons appropriately. Any nation requiring "extreme testing" is prone to cause billions of dollars and a disproportionate amount of classroom time spent teaching to the test. The consequences are too great. A sample of 25 students is not diverse enough in most schools to be reflective of teacher quality and the lack of money spent on all the supporting services makes what teachers do irrelevant in many cases.
Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to spend a lot more on troubled student to insure they had a stable AND safe home, sufficient nutritional food to eat, and encouragement to do their best? Surely the cost would be offset by the damaged goods/people we create that are disproportionately needy (requiring public assistance) or in jail. And this does not begin to touch the lost potential. Have we missed out on the next Einstein due to poor nutrition and poverty? Do the math!
Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to spend a lot more on troubled student to insure they had a stable AND safe home, sufficient nutritional food to eat, and encouragement to do their best? Surely the cost would be offset by the damaged goods/people we create that are disproportionately needy (requiring public assistance) or in jail. And this does not begin to touch the lost potential. Have we missed out on the next Einstein due to poor nutrition and poverty? Do the math!
16
The spending on troubled students is already extremely high, at least in my state. No amount of money, though, will ensure that all those who do not have a stable and safe home, good food and encouragement to do their best get all that, unless you take all those students from their families and place them in state-run institutions. Providing all this is a job of the kid's family, not school's, not state's, and throwing taxpayers' money at this is a waste.
Comparing ua to Findland? Our schools have more children speaking different languages than Findland has people.
Notice that rich kids in private schools have not been subjected to the last 15 years of constant, standardized testing.
As a result, the rich now truly do have more skills and knowledge than the poor--because while the poor were taking countless standardized tests used to berate their teachers (the test companies in turn made campaign donations to both Repugs and Dims), the rich children were learning, exploring and creating with protected teachers. (Gates was also bribing politicians to let him have his way with American public education while he, and his own children, were safely ensconced in private schools).
Gates' children and the Waltons' offspring and Eli Broad's children/grandchildren have had the best education money can buy, because their patriarchs profited off of the exploitation of poor children.
Obama and Bush, like all 1%ers, sold out innocent children. For money.
As a result, the rich now truly do have more skills and knowledge than the poor--because while the poor were taking countless standardized tests used to berate their teachers (the test companies in turn made campaign donations to both Repugs and Dims), the rich children were learning, exploring and creating with protected teachers. (Gates was also bribing politicians to let him have his way with American public education while he, and his own children, were safely ensconced in private schools).
Gates' children and the Waltons' offspring and Eli Broad's children/grandchildren have had the best education money can buy, because their patriarchs profited off of the exploitation of poor children.
Obama and Bush, like all 1%ers, sold out innocent children. For money.
10
As a teacher, ten years now, in a private school, I disagree. We are constantly bombarded with standardized testing. If politicians and amazingly wealthy testing corporations would let educators do what we do best, we would see a positive change in results in true education.
Exactly right! If this ultra-testing is so "beneficial" and if charter "schools" are so good, then why aren't the precious children and grandchildren of Duncan, Obama, Gates, Emanuel, Cuomo, Rhee, King, Tilson, Walton, Broad, Christie, Bloomberg, Bush, and so many other cheerleaders for privatization attending these types of schools?
Why would the rich, connected and powerful elite ALL send their kids and grandkids to private academies while denying them the "tremendous benefits" of charter "schools" and Testing To Beat The Band?
Why have they chosen---for their OWN children---schools that are 180 degrees from the ones they're trying to impose on everyone else?
Why would the rich, connected and powerful elite ALL send their kids and grandkids to private academies while denying them the "tremendous benefits" of charter "schools" and Testing To Beat The Band?
Why have they chosen---for their OWN children---schools that are 180 degrees from the ones they're trying to impose on everyone else?
50 years ago we were teaching Greek and Latin to our middle and high school students; today, we teach remedial English in colleges and universities. The politicians of all stripes have miserably failed their people and we, the people have allowed them to get away with it.
10
Does this mean all the pre-test email spam telling me to "make sure your child gets a good night's sleep and a good breakfast" will stop now?
3
American students cannot compete with students from other nations. American students cannot hold the jobs that are being created because they lack the education to do so. American students will fail in the face of competition from other nations. American students refuse to compete at any juncture.
If testing and then retraining missing knowledge isn't the answer than someone better come up with another answer fast. America will continue to export jobs until American students develop the skills and knowledge to compete. The world will not provide for those who can't do for themselves.
The future looks dim. Just ask our business leaders.
If testing and then retraining missing knowledge isn't the answer than someone better come up with another answer fast. America will continue to export jobs until American students develop the skills and knowledge to compete. The world will not provide for those who can't do for themselves.
The future looks dim. Just ask our business leaders.
American students in schools with similar levels of child poverty to other nations outperform the students in their nations. Our poor kids outperform poor countries and our rich kids outperform rich countries. We've been tearing down our education system for years, so I'm not sure how much longer that will be true, but the system we had before we started overtesting kids and punishing teachers was better than other countries' schooling systems. We just have a much worse system of distributing wealth, resulting in way more poor (and therefore relatively low-scoring) kids.
Unfortunately, you and millions of other Americans have been fed these lies through media like the New York Times.
The truth is that scores for American students who are economically advantaged compare quite favorably to students in other countries. Our high achievers continue to do quite well. However, the percentage of our children in poverty has increased significantly since the Great Recession, and those children are, indeed, falling behind. Their parents often do not have the resources to support their child's learning outside of school. When we as a nation decide to support all children and the economic policies which provide more jobs for Americans, children will be better able to learn.
The truth is that scores for American students who are economically advantaged compare quite favorably to students in other countries. Our high achievers continue to do quite well. However, the percentage of our children in poverty has increased significantly since the Great Recession, and those children are, indeed, falling behind. Their parents often do not have the resources to support their child's learning outside of school. When we as a nation decide to support all children and the economic policies which provide more jobs for Americans, children will be better able to learn.
So Obama and Duncan have finally seen the light! But so much damage has been done not just to students, but teachers. As a result there is a teacher shortage.
And all the Federal and State $$$$ going to charters and vouchers?? Will that be addressed? Because billionaire Reformers calling for more charters and are paying to push this agenda.
And all the Federal and State $$$$ going to charters and vouchers?? Will that be addressed? Because billionaire Reformers calling for more charters and are paying to push this agenda.
6
Val in Brooklyn, NY to Linda in Kew Gardens
You just asked the 64 zillion dollar question, to which we all know the answer, unfortunately: not in their lifetimes.
Submitted 10-25-15@4:48 a.m. EST
You just asked the 64 zillion dollar question, to which we all know the answer, unfortunately: not in their lifetimes.
Submitted 10-25-15@4:48 a.m. EST
1
On top of that Val, there was no indication that VAM would be removed. This is just theatrics and something Weingarten can take credit for even though she was a champion of these Reforms from the very start! It's also going to be seen as a stepping stone for Clinton whose ed agenda is muddled in generalities. And knowing she has big Wall Street donors, the growth of charters good ones as well as bad ones, will continue.
1
What the tests don't teach or measure is creativity. Creativity is what America has always been good at. We say our schools are no good but where does most of the new innovation come from? America. All the tests do is make school boring and squash creativity. We should encourage creativity, not try to box it into cookie cutter tests.
8
The ideal, per teacher unions, is no testing at all. That would allow knowledge of what their little 'black boxes' were (actually 'were not') accomplishing, and create accountability. They've got a great thing going - a near tripling of inflation-adjusted per-pupil funding since the early 1970s, with no improvement in pupil outcomes at the 12th grade!
1
If you think teachers have such a great scam running, why aren't you a teacher?
There's a reason there's a teacher shortage, and the reason is that you have no idea what you're talking about. They don't have a great thing going. Unions are fighting bad policy (for the good of teachers AND students), but they've been so marginalized that they can't do all they should be able to. And while they don't oppose ALL testing, they do support returning testing to its rightful place--to be used diagnostically, not as an accountability measure to punish teachers, for the simple reason that it's not effective for that purpose. The way we're currently using testing, we're wasting billions of dollars.
There's a reason there's a teacher shortage, and the reason is that you have no idea what you're talking about. They don't have a great thing going. Unions are fighting bad policy (for the good of teachers AND students), but they've been so marginalized that they can't do all they should be able to. And while they don't oppose ALL testing, they do support returning testing to its rightful place--to be used diagnostically, not as an accountability measure to punish teachers, for the simple reason that it's not effective for that purpose. The way we're currently using testing, we're wasting billions of dollars.
2
Exactly the mindset that has made Arizona last in every single measure that matters for children's well being and education. AZ policy makers have cut K-12 by $1.7 billion dollars since 2008, refusing to pay the inflation adjusted money owed to us that you referred to.
I remember a test that was handed out in one of my high school classes. I do not recall the class; it may have been in math, perhaps history, civics. The subject is immaterial. The teacher announced this surprise exam as soon as the class was seated and quiet, then walked around the room laying the test face down on each student's desk. When done doing that he returned to his desk and said, "Begin."
Turning the page over one saw a standard numbered list of questions, some fill in the blank, some multiple choice, some matching items in one column to items in a second column. And students could be seen hurriedly working down the page.
The text at the top of the page before the questions started read: Read all questions before you begin. If one followed the instructions and read the page, the final numbered item read: Do not answer any of the questions above. Sign your name in the space provided and hand this paper in. You may leave class when you are finished. The more questions one answered, the lower the grade received. I honestly don't remember whether I aced this "test" or not. I want to think I did. But whether one received and "A" or an "F," the lesson was clear, and more so the further down the grading scale you were.
I graduated 50 years ago. I get the distinct feeling this would not be permitted today.
Turning the page over one saw a standard numbered list of questions, some fill in the blank, some multiple choice, some matching items in one column to items in a second column. And students could be seen hurriedly working down the page.
The text at the top of the page before the questions started read: Read all questions before you begin. If one followed the instructions and read the page, the final numbered item read: Do not answer any of the questions above. Sign your name in the space provided and hand this paper in. You may leave class when you are finished. The more questions one answered, the lower the grade received. I honestly don't remember whether I aced this "test" or not. I want to think I did. But whether one received and "A" or an "F," the lesson was clear, and more so the further down the grading scale you were.
I graduated 50 years ago. I get the distinct feeling this would not be permitted today.
3
As a graduate student, I taught English composition at the college level for a semester. It was enough to convince me that certain courses don't adapt to standardized tests. As standardized test isn't going to demonstrate if a student can write an essay any more than it would show if someone could bake a cake.
2
Believe me, tests, or the frequency of them, are not, and should not be an issue. There are a lot more important matters to deal with.
1
While I understand where the idea is coming from but we have to realize that this can be another misguided bandage on our issue. If you think about 2% of classroom instruction as the cap for assessment, as a math teacher, I can only give at most 3 tests in a entire school year. I don't think this is what people want either. Please let teachers teach.
4
More or less, elementary students are in class about 25 hours a week. So, 100 hours a month. 2% would be two hours of testing a month, one half-hour per week.
At this time of year, I give a multiplication drill three times a week. 100 problems in 5 minutes, another 5 for students to correct. That's 30 minutes, my whole 2%.
The level of math we are teaching requires complex tests, which are time consuming. Some 4th graders take an hour and a half to finish and check their work. Do you want me to cut them off, only allow my highest scorers to finish? Flunk the rest? Or should I never have a much certainly about what students know? And how do parents know how well their kids are doing? How do I create none-biased report cards if I don't have test scores to use as a reference? With 32 very diverse students in my classroom, I can not craft individual critiques of each student in the areas of math, language, social studies, history and science. There are not enough hours in the day.
Testing motivates most students. They also learn from their mistakes. If students write a response to literature in class, and I grade it, that was a test.
Are the people who advocate this actually sane?
At this time of year, I give a multiplication drill three times a week. 100 problems in 5 minutes, another 5 for students to correct. That's 30 minutes, my whole 2%.
The level of math we are teaching requires complex tests, which are time consuming. Some 4th graders take an hour and a half to finish and check their work. Do you want me to cut them off, only allow my highest scorers to finish? Flunk the rest? Or should I never have a much certainly about what students know? And how do parents know how well their kids are doing? How do I create none-biased report cards if I don't have test scores to use as a reference? With 32 very diverse students in my classroom, I can not craft individual critiques of each student in the areas of math, language, social studies, history and science. There are not enough hours in the day.
Testing motivates most students. They also learn from their mistakes. If students write a response to literature in class, and I grade it, that was a test.
Are the people who advocate this actually sane?
3
Michael, you seem confused by the term "testing." What is under discussion in this article is high stakes standardized testing, not teacher-created assessments. Are you actually a teacher in the public schools? You seem very poorly informed.
Let teachers teach their students the way that works best, since they know their students better than any federal or state politician or any bureaucrat
What works in NYC may not work in Choteau Montana. What works in San Francisco may not work in Salt Lake City.
So get out of the teachers way and let them do what they do best. Teach!
What works in NYC may not work in Choteau Montana. What works in San Francisco may not work in Salt Lake City.
So get out of the teachers way and let them do what they do best. Teach!
4
Having lived overseas many years as a military spouse, I can tell you this. Foreign children know more about our country than most of us do. They are all taught English, go to school on Saturdays, wear nice uniforms, (no peer pressure worrying about who has what) and are very respectful. As far as these tests go, the teacher's spend all their time teaching to the test here in our country. It is awful. They, the student's, the parents and unfortunately many grandparents who are raising their grandchildren are stressed to the max. Teaching and learning should be a fun and spontaneous. Yes, we should have class tests and achievement tests, but the schools and their districts should manage that. This is one place we definitely have too much government involved. Let the kids learn and have fun
5
Whoever comes out with breakthroughs in the workplace is stigmatized because the brains really belong to who is supposed to be the wunderkind (ever heard of politics). It's very ugly to point out the obvious when you are right and most of the employees know it but you are told in private "if you don't like it, there is the door". "So sue me" is really a funny joke. If you win, the media will hype that the system works although it's an aberration.
I wonder if President Obama has realized yet that his record on Education will be the downfall of his legacy. That the corrupt real estate deals from closed schools, the giveaways and outright fraud of unsupervised charters, the firing of thousands of minority teachers for ivy league edu-tourists, and the long, lasting damage to the nation and its children will mar his record for all of time to come. This white feather to parents and teachers, verbal but not substantive, is not even close to enough to undo the damage his policies have done.
7
Our kids are lazy. How else to explain the decline in math and science results?
Then they and their parents try go get around this shortcoming by eschewing testing.
Then they and their parents try go get around this shortcoming by eschewing testing.
3
Yes, too many American students are lazy.
But it's not just the parents of the lazy kids who oppose the current testing policies. It's literally EVERYONE who knows anything about testing or education (with the exception of the people selling the tests).
But it's not just the parents of the lazy kids who oppose the current testing policies. It's literally EVERYONE who knows anything about testing or education (with the exception of the people selling the tests).
1
Totally agree. We're also raising kids that don't know how to handle any kind of pressure. As they grow up and enter the real world, they'll be ill-prepared to respond to any sort of criticism or objective evaluation on the job. Then, their mommies and daddies will have to speak to their bosses.
For a very short while, Montclair was trying the obvious fix. Instead of one big and high stakes test, student and class progress would be viewed using a set of far smaller quarterly assessments. Alas, this did not survive, with a few people still calling this "high stakes" despite that it would often replace a single midterm and final - a set of tests of higher stakes than what was being fought.
...Andrew
...Andrew
1
It's not just the testing time that affects instruction. It's the time required to teach children how to take the tests online, and the time lost due to computer or power glitches. It's the time used to teach students how to take a test. It's the time required for the child to re-take an online test because they guessed so successfully the first time, their score doesn't reflect their classroom performance. It's the teacher's instructional time which is lost given additional individual testing while the rest of the class is taught by a paraprofessional. Repeat three times yearly, add in English testing for English language learners, math tests, social studies and science pre- and post-tests and you can imagine how teachers are scrambling to try to cover the entire curriculum.
Why aren't Obama's and Duncan's kids in public schools, where they would have to take the tests they've imposed on the rest of the country's children? Hypocrites! This is one of Obama's biggest failures as president. He has done his best to dismantle our public school system.
Why aren't Obama's and Duncan's kids in public schools, where they would have to take the tests they've imposed on the rest of the country's children? Hypocrites! This is one of Obama's biggest failures as president. He has done his best to dismantle our public school system.
5
This is more smoke and mirrors from the Obama Administration. None of this garbage is going away until people start getting voted out of office. They're taking in too much money from billionaires and Pearson to give up on destroying public education.
5
What's wrong with teaching to a test? If you need to know it, then let's make sure you know it. When teaching in two different colleges, I always identified "need to know" and "nice to know.' Sometimes I even said "this will be on an exam" and students didn't even bother to learn that information. The federal government has decided what and how much of certain types of food shall be on a student's lunch tray. Now they want stop watches in schools to determine that no more than 8.4 minutes out of a 420 minute day are spent taking tests. No wonder Bernie Sanders think a college degree is equivalent to a high school diploma. I'm sure the feds will soon be telling the SAT group that they may only ask certain questions.
2
Teaching to the test is not possible in grades 3-8. I wish what was being taught was tested! That would make my life as an elementary teacher simple (boring and uncreative but simple). The new exams are terrible.
Benjamin Disraeli stated there are 3 kind of lies, and the misuse of statistics to bolster bankrupt arguments is the greatest of all. This is categorically a "greatest lie;" it's playing with numbers which are purely symbolic. This reaction to enormous public pressure makes it seem as if something is changing when it isn't. No Child Left Behind and Common Core are unmitigated failures and so "the administration (has) called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests." Great, but this is entirely meaningless if you don't change the testing standards since testing time is the tip of the iceberg; the real issue is in-class test prep time and afterschool study, which aren't touched. You've balanced a spreadsheet. A "2 percent of classroom instruction" quota, pertaining to actual test time only, isn't exceeded. (Does anyone believe 8th graders spend only 2.3% of their time testing and prepping?) All this does is move a slight amount of test time out of classroom instruction time without actually reducing workload. It's like saying you've lowered the cost of Medicare by raising patient premiums. The National Assessment of Educational Progress finds that "there was no evidence more time spent on tests improved academic performance," something every other study has shown for 15 years. The question is will someone show real courage and change worthless testing standards as opposed to simply playing with numbers?
4
- Took them 15+ years to figure that out ...
- Do these guys ever met a student ???
2
I am divided on this news. Classroom instruction should never be about test prep. Instead, if teachers(and schools) are doing their job adequately, students should have no problem doing well on the test. Having just become a teacher I am surprised at how inadequately prepared some of my students are for their curriculum. How does a student get through to 7th grade without understanding how to do subtraction with decimal numbers? This is just one example.
I remember when substituting and assisting a teacher in a 8th grade Math class, the teacher could not answer a student's question "How do I put in a fraction into my calculator?" This was her first year of teaching but it astonished me that she could not answer this question, and the lesson she gave left the students confused. I was wandering around the tables and decided to help out one group understand, and very soon I was being asked to help by other student groups. I felt bad for her. But its surprising that she got the job with so little training .
I remember when substituting and assisting a teacher in a 8th grade Math class, the teacher could not answer a student's question "How do I put in a fraction into my calculator?" This was her first year of teaching but it astonished me that she could not answer this question, and the lesson she gave left the students confused. I was wandering around the tables and decided to help out one group understand, and very soon I was being asked to help by other student groups. I felt bad for her. But its surprising that she got the job with so little training .
3
The quality of teaching has definitely diminished. There seems to be a deficit in content knowledge. Teachers used to be very smart people who happened to go into teaching, a respected profession. They didn't need heavy supervision and could be trusted to do their job well.
Somewhere along the way that changed. Now there's so much intrusion into the classroom it's difficult to assess teachers' capabilities. The desire to measure them reflects a lack of confidence. The unions didn't help by fighting change so hard that they tarnished the teachers' image (ex., NYC rubber rooms).
Romney recommended only hiring the top 1/3 of education graduates. That sounded right.
Somewhere along the way that changed. Now there's so much intrusion into the classroom it's difficult to assess teachers' capabilities. The desire to measure them reflects a lack of confidence. The unions didn't help by fighting change so hard that they tarnished the teachers' image (ex., NYC rubber rooms).
Romney recommended only hiring the top 1/3 of education graduates. That sounded right.
2
Except the students capable of being in the top 1/3 won't settle for the pay and mistreatment doled out to American teachers.
A little thing called "reality" is often ignored. Teaching is so "easy" and so "overpaid" that we now have a nationwide shortage of teachers.
And yet the over-60 crowd persists in their belief that teachers have it easy.
A little thing called "reality" is often ignored. Teaching is so "easy" and so "overpaid" that we now have a nationwide shortage of teachers.
And yet the over-60 crowd persists in their belief that teachers have it easy.
3
If the teachers are doing their jobs adequately AND the parents are doing theirs AND the students put in adequate effort, the kids will have no problems passing the tests.
The teachers ARE doing their jobs adequately, by and large. But in reality, it doesn't follow from that alone that the students will pass the tests.
The teachers ARE doing their jobs adequately, by and large. But in reality, it doesn't follow from that alone that the students will pass the tests.
1
I always think the problem of American public education is not about test itself. The real problem in this country is in disparity of wealth. Good experienced teachers teach at selected schools, where excelled students learn, but new unexperienced teachers have to start at underperformed schools in impoverished areas.
Good teachers often start in urban, low-income districts but cannot stay because, if they do, THEY are blamed for the low performance of children who don't speak English, who live in their cars, who live with drug and alcohol-addicted parents, and move on a monthly basis.
8
The difference between the "good" teachers in affluent schools and the "failing" teachers in poor schools is mainly in the students they teach. The ones at the poor schools are probably better teachers, given that the ones at the rich kids' schools can skate through a career without ever really having to learn to teach.
The way we rate schools has enormously more to do with the communities they're serving than with the quality of instruction.
The way we rate schools has enormously more to do with the communities they're serving than with the quality of instruction.
8 tests a year is a lot? I had a weekly 20 minute test in each subject and then the main test at the end of the year. So that's what, 180 tests per year? They were quick and easy, and let the teachers know how well as learned that week's material. Seems like a perfect system to me.
Maybe those short tests don't count in what they're counting as 8 tests per year... Having nothing but a midterm and a final in each subject seems like a really stupid idea...
Maybe those short tests don't count in what they're counting as 8 tests per year... Having nothing but a midterm and a final in each subject seems like a really stupid idea...
2
There was not evidence that more time spent on testing resulted in improved academic performance. Is that not the key sentence in this piece? American students take 112 standardized tests from kindergarten through twelfth grade. In Finland, there is only one major test in high school. Yet the Finnish students outscore American students on international academic scores by a wide margin.
Teaching is a highly respected profession and is well paid, one of several major differences with the American system. This suggests that it's the quality of teaching and the attitudes about the school experience that are more crucial to academic achievement than is testing.
Teaching is a highly respected profession and is well paid, one of several major differences with the American system. This suggests that it's the quality of teaching and the attitudes about the school experience that are more crucial to academic achievement than is testing.
5
Look at what is successful in other countries. It is not using standardized tests. Does anyone really thing that is the only way to judge how students are learning? Finland currently has one of the top performing school systems and they spend less time in school, they feed all of the children a good hot lunch and they do not use standardized tests. Of course they do not have a huge percentage of the school age children living in poverty. In the US more than one fifth of the children of school age live in poverty Take a look at Pasi Sahlberg's book, Finnish Lessons to see how they improved their schools. We have plenty of other systems to look at because there are many countries who provide a very good education to their students at less cost.
6
As the father of a sixteen year old, I agree that there is a lot of testing, but the hands of the teachers' unions are dirty: they don't want teachers to be judged by any standard of effectiveness other than how long they have held on to the job. Testing can establish whether or not progress is being made with individual students. That's the dirty truth. Schools are currently run with the first priority being the welfare of the teachers. In my district the teachers' unions control the board of education and have done so almost continuously. Last year one of my son's teachers was clearly having a breakdown: he cursed in class and demeaned students in class, telling one he was going "to fix him." He was finally removed two weeks before the end of the year. His punishment? He was sent to a different school.
3
The dirty truth is that you don't know what you're talking about. Testing students cannot accurately evaluate their teachers. It's been tried, and it simply doesn't work. It seems intuitively to the ignorant that it would work, but it doesn't.
The unions are the only organized group pushing to make the schools better. The problem is that people like you believe anti-union propaganda and attack them for it.
The unions are the only organized group pushing to make the schools better. The problem is that people like you believe anti-union propaganda and attack them for it.
That was the principal's responsibility to remove the teacher. I belong to a union and trust me, we hate ineffective principals who, for whatever reason, do not remove ineffective and even abusive teachers from the classroom.
A part of this is often overlooked. Extremely talented and well qualified classroom teachers - those who regardless of each child’s personal capabilities, know how to advance our children’s educations - become so frustrated with tests against arbitrary and in many cases irrelevant standards that they simply quit. Teachers with years and years of experience, often recognized as among the best, are lost to other professions or to early retirement. And our children pay the price so that those who govern can have some sense of directing an enterprise they know very little about.
5
The Obama administration and the progressive movement have an interesting way to solve the problem of people not measuring up to expectations: they stop measuring. We can continue this folly that the President, Hillary and their progressive friends can shield us from global competition by government fiat and compensatory wealth redistribution. Unfortunately, aspiring peoples around the world will make no such bargain. Rather, they are intensifying their efforts to acquire and relocate to their home countries the prosperity that once existed here. Like most progressive solutions, this gambit sounds good and feels good, but only will make us weaker, poorer and more beholden. And there is still more than a year to go.
4
It sounds good. It is good. The way we misuse testing enriches testing companies and helps nobody else, least of all students. But Obama probably won't do it; you're wrong about progressive ideas being harmful, but you're also wrong about him being a progressive.
Low stakes tests, written by teachers as part of their lesson plans, have always been a staple of education, and they should remain. But It's wonderful that our President has finally come to his senses on the subject of high stakes, standardized testing. These tests have turned schools into toxic environments, for teachers and students alike. Teachers are burning out. Students are becoming disillusioned.
.
The only people who benefit from standardized tests, are bureaucrats. They like the data, and they're too lazy and not creative enough to find less disruptive ways of getting that data. It's sad that they've been given so much power.
.
The only people who benefit from standardized tests, are bureaucrats. They like the data, and they're too lazy and not creative enough to find less disruptive ways of getting that data. It's sad that they've been given so much power.
8
And of course the test writers, Pearson et al, are huge winners, too - even more than the bureaucrats who hire them.
1
I actually think most American are over schooled and over reached. Do we really need baristas to know geometry, SSI-lifer to know Magna Carta, supermarket shelfer to know the correlation between boiling point and pressure? You taught them the material and they forget it before you finish your next sentence. Face it, you cannot teach smart and a lot of American kids are not smart to begin with. This country would run just fine with 40% graduating high school and 20% college.
I am in New York, walk into any professional office: lawyers, architects, engineers, bankers and what do you see? Half are from upstates and out-of-state and half are from Asia, India and Europe. Only the best native New Yorkers are competitive with outsiders. Why? Because those people are motivated and determined. The best will seek out knowledge and opportunity anyway they can and the worst will still do poorly no matter the environment.
I am in New York, walk into any professional office: lawyers, architects, engineers, bankers and what do you see? Half are from upstates and out-of-state and half are from Asia, India and Europe. Only the best native New Yorkers are competitive with outsiders. Why? Because those people are motivated and determined. The best will seek out knowledge and opportunity anyway they can and the worst will still do poorly no matter the environment.
7
I've read that the only western government without a national education department or ministry is Canada. "There is no federal department of education and no national system of education" in Canada, according to the Canadian government. "Instead, each province and territory has its own system of education." Canadian students are doing fine without one. Why do we need one, whether to impose or try to eliminate testing?
6
I am a former teacher myself, and I prided myself on a strong, engaging, varied curriculum. All the NCLB requirements and the onerous repercussions based on those results were disastrous for the profession. It's hard to believe a Republican pushed that through, when the party prides itself on small government.
And as far as evaluating teachers based upon their kids' performance those tests - huge mistake. I cared a lot about my kids' learning. But I would have dropped about 30% of my curriculum if I were to be evaluated on a high-stakes test. I'm going to teach what is on that test, and nothing else. I'm not stupid. So you're wasting my time administering standardized tests, and you're forcing me to omit large portions of a strong course because of your intrusion into my classroom.
There is no place for the federal government in public education. It should be under the domain of States. Pretty sure the Constitution addressed that theme.
And as far as evaluating teachers based upon their kids' performance those tests - huge mistake. I cared a lot about my kids' learning. But I would have dropped about 30% of my curriculum if I were to be evaluated on a high-stakes test. I'm going to teach what is on that test, and nothing else. I'm not stupid. So you're wasting my time administering standardized tests, and you're forcing me to omit large portions of a strong course because of your intrusion into my classroom.
There is no place for the federal government in public education. It should be under the domain of States. Pretty sure the Constitution addressed that theme.
4
Actually, the Common Core State Standards were not developed by the states, but instead by Pearson and the National Governor's Association. The name "state standards" is a misnomer in that regard. States really had no input, however, they were offered significant financial incentives to adopt the untested standards through the Race to the Top initiative, of which Arne Duncan played a huge role in overstepping authority at the Secretary of Education. Numerous writers have noted this, notably education historian Diane Ravitch in her book, Reign of Error.
Unfortunately, significant damage has been done during this "test and punish" philosophy. Michigan is pushing a bill that will retain, against parent wishes, a child who fails to pass the third grade reading component to the MSTEP. Aligned to the Common Core "State" Stanadards, the test cut score is likely well above third grade level.
Unfortunately, significant damage has been done during this "test and punish" philosophy. Michigan is pushing a bill that will retain, against parent wishes, a child who fails to pass the third grade reading component to the MSTEP. Aligned to the Common Core "State" Stanadards, the test cut score is likely well above third grade level.
9
Talk about micro-managing the teacher. If a teacher thinks it is in the best interest of the students to do testing, why should the government get involved?
2
Perhaps to try to undo the enormous damage that's been done to education by the Bush and Obama administrations' irrational mania for testing?
I have no real confidence that Obama would fix the problem, and what's described here is, at most, a baby step at best (and probably just lip-service in the direction of a baby step), but the problem was created at the federal level and needs to be fixed there. Hopefully Sanders is elected after somebody takes him aside and explains to him everything he doesn't understand about education, since that's the only way I can see it really getting fixed.
I have no real confidence that Obama would fix the problem, and what's described here is, at most, a baby step at best (and probably just lip-service in the direction of a baby step), but the problem was created at the federal level and needs to be fixed there. Hopefully Sanders is elected after somebody takes him aside and explains to him everything he doesn't understand about education, since that's the only way I can see it really getting fixed.
Arne Duncan never spent a single day in the classroom as an educator prior to being appointed CEO of the Chicago Public Schools by Mayor Daley. Duncan's main qualification was the many contacts and personal connections he had made while playing pick-up games on the basketball court with his friends. He was exactly the kind of team player Daley wanted. As envisioned by Daley, the primary function of the CEO would simply be to award contracts to vendors and to monitor their performance. Education was strictly secondary. The hope was that the entire system would be privatized with Daley's friends receiving preferential treatment in the awarding of contracts. Academic testing was of critical importance not for its educational value but for the economic rewards it offered to educational testing companies which played along with Daley's game. I think it amounts to educational fraud which Duncan raised to the federal level when he was appointed Secretary of Education by Obama. That the entire country could be fooled by this scheme shows the extent of Daley's political influence. He had no respect for formal education because his own education was primarily in the wards and backrooms where the wheeling and dealing went on. He himself can't even speak grammatical English. There was no need for it.
9
Education policy is one of the significant and outstanding failures of the Obama administration. It would take a book to describe how those of us who are educators in urban and rural environments were under-supported and undermined by the administration's policies.
6
As a retired elementary teacher, my wife saw increased anxiety in her 4th grade students over the years of the magnitude of testing and "data collection". Her district even gave teachers an additional prep time (time without students) per week to collect data on student achievement. She found herself writing in test results on math data walls, clicking on every day results from reading groups while eating lunch and being overwhelmed by testing/data mania. It is so great to hear our country is finally waking up to the insanity of testing companies making millions of dollars to make and gather results of tests, not to mention the undue stress of testing which has taken away visual arts, vocal music, instrumental music, and social studies from students and put in "literacy coaches" and "math coaches" and basic skills instead of humanities.
4
Diane Ravitch in a recent book referred to a study that showed if you compare the top 90% of American school test scores with scores from around the world, the USA finishes in the top 3. Locally, we have a school district with 55% dropout rate. I doubt that the bottom 10% of schools in countries that we compare ourselves against are that bad. This basically means that we never had a problem with most of the American school system. We had a problem with the lowest 10% of schools, and I doubt this is the solution.
7
While there is merit in this thinking, each state has the primary responsibility for deciding what's best for its school systems.
1
As much as some oppose government’s intrusion in the education system, any such discussion to improve and keep our country at the edge of innovation is always welcome.
Standardized tests have many positives like testing for basic knowledge, analytical thinking and performance under stress. These are fundamental to preparing our children for the future, and should continue to be part of any future system.
And, that means not throwing away the baby with the bath water.
Standardized tests have many positives like testing for basic knowledge, analytical thinking and performance under stress. These are fundamental to preparing our children for the future, and should continue to be part of any future system.
And, that means not throwing away the baby with the bath water.
3
Return standardized tests to their proper role, the sort of role they filled thirty years ago, and I don't think anybody but the companies currently making a killing on their ill-advised, vastly expanded current role would object.
But there's very little baby and a heck of a lot of bathwater in the way we currently misuse the tests.
But there's very little baby and a heck of a lot of bathwater in the way we currently misuse the tests.
1
Last I checked, this his how Government should function. The American people demanded better standards for their children. Congress and the President gave us standardized testing. When this new curriculum of tests had gone too far, the American people said, enough's enough, so the administration is adjusting without abandoning the core goal. That's Democracy folks!
4
In theory, your comment is pertinent. The problem with it is that when you examine what really happened, you wills see the fallaciousness. There are many school districts including several in TX and GA which had district-wide abuse and cheating. The fact that you introduce a test does not mean that anyone actually rose to a new standard. Schools just tested a smaller percentage of their kids - like by classifying some as juniors or sophomores by credits and not years in school for example. In many cases, the standards were lower than a district would want. this was my primary complaint as a teacher. you're dumbing down my course. Furthermore, you're taking valuable instruction time away from teaching for these tests. You've got 180 days of contact, so missing classes translates into a large chunk of missed time. But the biggest cluster of all is the fact that you have bureaucrats in DC deciding what is worthwhile to teach in my classroom. While we all think politicians are wonderful, competent people - they should stay out of education as much as possible.
So again, less teaching happened, expectations were dropped, impossible benchmarks were established for many kids who are not capable of being proficient at certain levels, money was wasted. The list goes on. Government needs to step away from education.
So again, less teaching happened, expectations were dropped, impossible benchmarks were established for many kids who are not capable of being proficient at certain levels, money was wasted. The list goes on. Government needs to step away from education.
1
Overly rosy. A few of the most ignorant of the American people said we needed more testing, but only after crooked politicians, bribed by publishers, told them again and again and again that our schools were failing and we needed more testing. And then educators were ignored, their unions were marginalized, and that ignorant minority's misconceptions were used as an excuse to funnel billions to the publishers. That is definitely NOT the way democracy is supposed to operate.
You cannot measure your way to success.
3
2% is too much. It means one full day out of every 50, i.e., every 10 weeks a full day of testing. (It needn't be all in one day.) How about an upper limit of 2% of time on testing + test preparation? It should apply to all outside tests; it doesn't have to apply to the tests designed and given by the teacher for her or his own use. (See the NYT Pick by stacyh.)
1
When it comes to math, they should teach to the test and teach it well. High math test scores are a good thing and necessary today.
2
Thank God. The march towards standardization was one of the reasons I left the profession.
3
Much like the employment application and the separate I-9, race should not be a consideration on the standardized tests. A perforated sheet to glean the necessary demographics with a matching ID number c/would eliminate the arbitrary and capricious methodology of making everything an issue of race rather than focus on systemic failures in locales identified.
The Gov't loves to count beans and pigeonhole. The idea of an additional half sheet of paper to feed through a scanner and create those percentages may bring about bombast and glee.
The Gov't loves to count beans and pigeonhole. The idea of an additional half sheet of paper to feed through a scanner and create those percentages may bring about bombast and glee.
Students need a reason to go to school. Not every child is college-bound or should be. They should be encouraged to develop their individual skills and talents and to follow their natural interests. For some it could be traditional academic pursuits but for others it could be one of the arts or vocational training. Our schools have failed them by putting them all on the same track. The sad result is that they are neither college ready nor even job-ready when they graduate.
5
2% is still upwards of 20 hours per year on standardized testing. These are not tests that teachers or school departments design, targeted to their own students' learning, these are tests that giant, profit earning corporations design, for what purpose? So we can follow a pacing plan rather that teach material at a pacing our own students need?
4
Will someone please explain why the Catholic schools (in NYC) send 99% of their graduates to college despite much larger class sizes than the public schools and a common core curriculum? The old argument that the parochial schools pick and choose the best students from stable middle class homes was long since proved untrue when the head of the Diocese's schools offered to take 30 students of any race, ethnicity or economic background and produce the same results.
The then head of the teachers union, Albert Shanker,
accepted the challenge. A few days later, he changed his mind!
The then head of the teachers union, Albert Shanker,
accepted the challenge. A few days later, he changed his mind!
3
I attended a Catholic school in the 1960's with 40-50 kids per class. No one dared crossed the nuns. The teachers had a secret and magical teaching aid: Discipline.
When I moved to a public high school, the math teacher marveled at my mastery of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. She actually asked me how I learned them. Again, more magic: Rote memorization.
When I moved to a public high school, the math teacher marveled at my mastery of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. She actually asked me how I learned them. Again, more magic: Rote memorization.
2
Catholic schools have more than 34 children in one class in NYC? That is the size of the typical NYC public school class, btw. And, yes, they do pick their students and students that go there have more involved parents. Common core is very limiting. Not hard, just very, very limited and badly written.
2
Just because you say the truth has been disproven doesn't mean it has been.
With equivalent students, public schools outperform private schools. That's the truth.
With equivalent students, public schools outperform private schools. That's the truth.
1
My wife is unschooled. She never took a test nor set foot in a classroom in her life until she went to college. Her siblings are all unschooled. They are a vice president of a company, a veterinarian, a doctor, a chemical engineer and a nurse.
I dropped out of high school in 1998 due to the slow pace and emphasis, even at that time, in testing.
She's a doctor. I'm a pharmacist. Trouble with school is that is was already by design a very stifling environment creatively. When kids should be exploring their abilities and interests, developing their logical problem solving thought processes, drawing connections between disparate pieces of knowledge, they are instead forced into chairs, told to be quiet and do their homework.
It has only grown so much worse with testing. We want to do something about education so measuring things seems to be our solution.
Perhaps we need to look even deeper at where the system fails. Its a system designed to train worker drones in factories that are no longer here. We need a new way of doing things.
I dropped out of high school in 1998 due to the slow pace and emphasis, even at that time, in testing.
She's a doctor. I'm a pharmacist. Trouble with school is that is was already by design a very stifling environment creatively. When kids should be exploring their abilities and interests, developing their logical problem solving thought processes, drawing connections between disparate pieces of knowledge, they are instead forced into chairs, told to be quiet and do their homework.
It has only grown so much worse with testing. We want to do something about education so measuring things seems to be our solution.
Perhaps we need to look even deeper at where the system fails. Its a system designed to train worker drones in factories that are no longer here. We need a new way of doing things.
4
I respect your achievement. I wish you had set forth your opinions and suggestions in a manner that demonstrated s mastery of proper English grammar - it would have added to your credibility.
I am 73 years old and grew up when my teachers taught and wrote their own tests without any interference from Washington , D.C. AND I got a better education than the kids get today. And , that's a fact, Jack !
6
As a rule of thumb, any program with an 'aspirational ' name, (No Child Left Behind, Race To the Top), brought to Boards of Education from the Federal Gov't. should be put in the circular file.
A circular file, according to my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Lunsford, is a trash can.
A circular file, according to my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Lunsford, is a trash can.
7
What a mess ! To begin education is not an enumerated power and belongs with the states. Since President Carter raised education to a department in 1978 the federal government has spent billions of dollars and SAT scores have actually gone down. What are we spending our money on?
Second, almost without exception the politicians making education decisions never attended public schools and do not send their children to them. Yet they consider themselves the experts. Please explain why?
Finally, they refused to give the same opportunity to poor children Time and time again President Obama has rallied against charter schools and vouchers. The poor of DC must go to the local schools but not the children of the elite. It is called wealth privilege. We can do better. Both President Obama and President Bush's federal programs have been disasters and have contributed mightily to the current education mess.
Second, almost without exception the politicians making education decisions never attended public schools and do not send their children to them. Yet they consider themselves the experts. Please explain why?
Finally, they refused to give the same opportunity to poor children Time and time again President Obama has rallied against charter schools and vouchers. The poor of DC must go to the local schools but not the children of the elite. It is called wealth privilege. We can do better. Both President Obama and President Bush's federal programs have been disasters and have contributed mightily to the current education mess.
2
Arne Duncan, on his way out, sounds like Claude Rains in Casablanca when he declares that he is now concerned that there is too much testing going on in our public schools. Spare us, Mr. Duncan.
Conservatives have supported testing as a way of attacking educators and teachers' unions on behalf of the conservative right and other purveyors of school privatization, while progressives wanted to ensure that the needs of underprivileged groups were being addressed. Duncan was a willing participant in this strategy, representing the President's desire to show that he too, cared about the underperforming schools in urban areas and red states, some of which deliberately starve their schools and impoverished students. Wealthy parents in these places could care less and send their children to private schools in these places, preferring private school tuition to higher taxes that serve all children.
Sadly, children are excessively tested everywhere. My former high performing district gave additional computer based assessments because they weren't confident in the validity of PARCC. Politicians of all stripes should take a huge step back and think about what is best for students and teachers. That would be authentic, locally produced assessments that can be used to guide instruction, not vilify teachers and schools.
Conservatives have supported testing as a way of attacking educators and teachers' unions on behalf of the conservative right and other purveyors of school privatization, while progressives wanted to ensure that the needs of underprivileged groups were being addressed. Duncan was a willing participant in this strategy, representing the President's desire to show that he too, cared about the underperforming schools in urban areas and red states, some of which deliberately starve their schools and impoverished students. Wealthy parents in these places could care less and send their children to private schools in these places, preferring private school tuition to higher taxes that serve all children.
Sadly, children are excessively tested everywhere. My former high performing district gave additional computer based assessments because they weren't confident in the validity of PARCC. Politicians of all stripes should take a huge step back and think about what is best for students and teachers. That would be authentic, locally produced assessments that can be used to guide instruction, not vilify teachers and schools.
5
We need to test kids about three times--probably fourth, eighth and eleventh grades. The test battery needs two tests. One can be a mix of content and the second math. If you crunch the numbers on any of the tests in current use, you get one big first factor that accounts for about 90 percent of the variance that is general intelligence and probably a math factor accounting for about 10 percent. The first factor will tell kids about how far they will go in school and what the status of their profession might be, and the math test will tell them if a STEM field is realistic. That's about all you can do with standardized tests. Nobody in the multi billion dollar testing industry is going to admit this, but I suspect they know.
1
Could this insanity really be over?
Could we really be ready to bring back thinking and the wonderful messiness of playing with ideas.
It can’t come soon enough for this college professor.
The good news: Students are still pathologically curious.They know the world can’t be reduced to the brainteasers and arcane vocabulary.
But they’ve dutifully stayed with the program, listening to some drone of a test-prepper drilling arcane words into their head. And they also have figured out that the route of a train leaving at 5:00 PM from Wilmington traveling at 55 mph does eventually become an SAT question.
No big deal.
Oh yes, very big deal. Because I have a front-row seat watching some truly superb students, products of a standardized testing system, who show up assuming that learning is as joyful as field trip to ETS.
So try this experiment: When your transplant surgeon comes into the room for your pre-op conference, take just a minute to ask her about all the ways that standardized tests helped her learn how to deal with the unpredictable outcomes that such surgery can entail. Ask her how all those multiple choice questions got her all the way to your bedside, just moments away from saving your life.
Enough.
We’ve seen the enemy, and it is everyone who took a reasonable concept like accountability and let it grow into Victor Frankenstein’s monster, wreaking havoc on what should be the most enjoyable enterprise of a lifetime.
Could we really be ready to bring back thinking and the wonderful messiness of playing with ideas.
It can’t come soon enough for this college professor.
The good news: Students are still pathologically curious.They know the world can’t be reduced to the brainteasers and arcane vocabulary.
But they’ve dutifully stayed with the program, listening to some drone of a test-prepper drilling arcane words into their head. And they also have figured out that the route of a train leaving at 5:00 PM from Wilmington traveling at 55 mph does eventually become an SAT question.
No big deal.
Oh yes, very big deal. Because I have a front-row seat watching some truly superb students, products of a standardized testing system, who show up assuming that learning is as joyful as field trip to ETS.
So try this experiment: When your transplant surgeon comes into the room for your pre-op conference, take just a minute to ask her about all the ways that standardized tests helped her learn how to deal with the unpredictable outcomes that such surgery can entail. Ask her how all those multiple choice questions got her all the way to your bedside, just moments away from saving your life.
Enough.
We’ve seen the enemy, and it is everyone who took a reasonable concept like accountability and let it grow into Victor Frankenstein’s monster, wreaking havoc on what should be the most enjoyable enterprise of a lifetime.
8
As a now retired teacher, I gave those tests to literally hundreds, if not thousands of students during my nearly 20 year career. The large portion of teachers will tell you that taking the test proves what they know at the time they take that test, then move on. I've done the math and if I am doing it right, based on 180 days per school year, that would be about 23.5 per year spent on the standardized tests, which approximate the time I spent giving those tests. I would disagree with the commenter below who says that no time should be spent on preparing the students for the tests: If they are expected to take tests and hopefully do well, they must be prepared. One year a colleague and myself, who had many of the same students, he in English, me in Geography, spent about one class period each (88 minutes each) giving them tips and actually giving them a practice test, with a time limit to approximate the time they would have been given on the actual test. After the actual testing, to a student they said that the prep had helped them.
2
It is the time preparing for the tests and teaching to the test, whatever test it is that is destroying the way teachers teach and children learn, not the amount of time actually taking the test! DUH. The stakes matter also. If there's only one test, but the results of that test determine not only the child's future but the teacher's then preparing to do well on that test is going to take precedence over all other classroom learning. That's what is wrong.
1
Clearly too many tests AND too much time devoted to test preparation. There are probably too many subjects being test too. It's axiomatic in manufacturing or any repetitive process that you cannot "test quality into a product". Quality has to come from elsewhere.
3
Arne Duncan has to be the worst Secretary of Ed we have ever had.
9
Amen! As a classroom teacher and an administrator, I always found testing to be unnecessary as a determinant of student and teacher success. The enthusiastic participation by students during interesting lessons is the key measure for optimal learning.
I never gave "big" unit tests. Rather, short pop quizzes two or three times per week kept the students current on the material upon which the subsequent lessons were dependent. Both students and teachers must be actively engaged in the learning process, with brief periods of silence to contemplate whether the material is fully understood.
There is great joy in having a student request, "Could you please do one more. I want to be sure I really got this." And then again, "This stuff is cool...give us a quiz right now!"
I also always had students work together in twos and threes for practice after instruction, and taught them to ask each other, not what "the answer is," but "how did you find your answer?" And they knew I was listening in on their conversations during partner-practice, where they were encouraged to work independently but compare each others' work, then coach students in their dyads/triads who had difficulties.
The result was consistently 87-95% pass rate on those ominous state assessments Tests constructed by the teacher (myself) took up about 0.2% of instructional time. Short, but relevant,and never multiple choice.
I never gave "big" unit tests. Rather, short pop quizzes two or three times per week kept the students current on the material upon which the subsequent lessons were dependent. Both students and teachers must be actively engaged in the learning process, with brief periods of silence to contemplate whether the material is fully understood.
There is great joy in having a student request, "Could you please do one more. I want to be sure I really got this." And then again, "This stuff is cool...give us a quiz right now!"
I also always had students work together in twos and threes for practice after instruction, and taught them to ask each other, not what "the answer is," but "how did you find your answer?" And they knew I was listening in on their conversations during partner-practice, where they were encouraged to work independently but compare each others' work, then coach students in their dyads/triads who had difficulties.
The result was consistently 87-95% pass rate on those ominous state assessments Tests constructed by the teacher (myself) took up about 0.2% of instructional time. Short, but relevant,and never multiple choice.
4
Mr. Duncan made himself dictator in charge because 100% of students were not meeting the NCLB standard. He imposed the NOT internationally competitive Common Core State Dumb-down Standards and associated testing. He refused to give WA State an NCLB waiver, because WA refused to use testing in evaluating teachers. I see little to cheer about in his partial admission of failure. The Obama/Duncan/King leadership has and will be incredibly counterproductive and far too expensive. STOP the insanity. OPT-OUT your child from this nonsense. It seems opt-out is the only communication these clueless bureaucrats can hear. .... Ditch the Common Core fiasco !!
7
What's the matter with teaching to the test? Like prepping a student to read a paragraph and have an idea what it says? Teaching students basic math skills? I know it's embarrassing that many colleges admit students who can't read at the 8th grade level or who can't do basic arithmetic? California just abandoned a rule that a student could not graduate from high school if they could not read at the most minimal level. Now they get their diplomas but can't read them
3
The problem with teaching to the test is it distorts the whole process of education; that's not how tests are supposed to work, and they're being used to do things they can't do. The reason students graduate who shouldn't is NOT because of a lack of testing. The excessive testing, the misuse of testing, and the low skills of graduates all come from the same root cause: we don't trust, respect, and empower our teachers.
1
I've been teaching at a large public university for 22 years. So I have seen two generations (at least) come though.
In the past few years, my colleagues and I have had to "deprogram" freshmen off the multiple-choice testing regime they have grown up with.
It is not easy.
In the past few years, my colleagues and I have had to "deprogram" freshmen off the multiple-choice testing regime they have grown up with.
It is not easy.
9
Perhaps university faculty should suggest to their admission departments to place less emphasis on ACTs, SATs, APs and other standardized tests. Higher education must accept some responsibility for creating the testing monster.
1
He let his non-educator Sec of Ed promote endless testing, going against all education research. The result has been huge monies given to [mostly] Pearson for idiotic tests like PARCC that have virtually no reliability, no validity, and standards that are so unrealistically high that children who excel at everything do poorly on tests so ill-conceived. Linking teacher performance to testing was equally ill-conceived with teachers' (but rarely admins) pay or evaluations based upon students' scores. Scores that may be far more dependent on previous' teachers than their own. The entire Department of Education is truly "the Gang that can't shoot straight." Or perhaps they all sleep at Holiday Inn Express(es) and thus thought they were educators while ignoring research. Education under Mr. Obama has been far more punitive to teachers and students, disruptive to the learning process with huge numbers of days given up to pointless testing than even under GWB. And Budh was terrible for education with NCLB.
John Oliver recognized the horror of endless standardized testing and made huge criticisms of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
Here is a PARCC exam given to HS freshman that is suitable for college sophomores
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/cms/lib07/MA01906464/Centricity/domai...
It is no wonder teachers are leaving. Admins have Danielson and other ill-conceived methods to destroy teachers.
John Oliver recognized the horror of endless standardized testing and made huge criticisms of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
Here is a PARCC exam given to HS freshman that is suitable for college sophomores
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/cms/lib07/MA01906464/Centricity/domai...
It is no wonder teachers are leaving. Admins have Danielson and other ill-conceived methods to destroy teachers.
10
yikes! Read the test. Most kids don't have the historical background to not get lost during this very long speech. And the questions are pretty irrelevant to the actual content of the speech. I don't know any freshmen who could do well on this without a senior level vocab.
1
It's not that all testing, or all standardized testing, is bad. But if you went to school 30 or 40 years ago, you have no idea how much this has gone crazy. Something like 8% of the school year is often taken up with standardized tests. And then (surprise, surprise) kids do 8% worse because they are spending less time learning. Middle schoolers sometimes have to do testing for 7 or 8 days in a row. It's unhealthy and a waste of time.
This is not the way to get accountability. Accountability should come from real observations of classroom practice by real, expert teachers with at least 10 years in the field. Accountability for performance should involve mentorship by experts, like it does in pretty much every other field. Accountability should also include politicians and administrators, who should stop trying to push policies that have literally no research to back them up. And one such policy is over-testing. Most of the countries beating us in test scores test much less than we do.
This is not the way to get accountability. Accountability should come from real observations of classroom practice by real, expert teachers with at least 10 years in the field. Accountability for performance should involve mentorship by experts, like it does in pretty much every other field. Accountability should also include politicians and administrators, who should stop trying to push policies that have literally no research to back them up. And one such policy is over-testing. Most of the countries beating us in test scores test much less than we do.
38
I'm a Democrat and that said, I believe the Obama administration has done more damage to public schools than any other previous administration. Thanks to his policies and encouragement, a whole generation of bright young people will refuse to become teachers which will in turn lead to a shortage of high quality teachers in the near future as the current crop of educators near retirement. Obama and Duncan refused to listen to educators when they drew up their education policy, and let politicians and billionaires and "reformers" who had never spent a day in a classroom as a teacher rule the day. Nice job.
33
shaggy, how did Obama do more damage than Boy George Bush? How can anyone forget "NCLB"?
This is already a reality - there is a huge teacher shortage due to significant drops in enrollment in teaching programs nationwide. There is also a large substitute shortage, which means that children who need extra instruction in literacy don't get it, when the literacy teacher has to cover for the absent teacher.
If you've verbally bashed a teacher, you've contributed to this problem. Think long and hard about that.
If you've verbally bashed a teacher, you've contributed to this problem. Think long and hard about that.
1
Standardized testing became inevitable when progressive Americans became convinced, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary, that every child in every school should be a winner. The importance of heredity was ignored. Familial and social influences were downgraded. Experts such as Harvard's Robert Putnam (see "Our Kids") were not read. A kind of soft-Stalinist avalanche of policies and political rewards demanded that the impossible be achieved. If only success is acceptable then someone must be falling down on the job. No surprise that the culprits turned out to be a fifth column of incompetent teachers who will eventually be weeded out by giving cheap, impartial standardized tests to their students.
It would make much more sense to ban degree requirements that are irrelevant to success in a vast number of jobs and which would do away with a lot of bias against low income and minority youth. The first thing every fool blessed with diploma from an academic mill who finds a niche in the corporate, academic, or governmental bureaucracy does is to connive to insert a degree requirement for his or her position. The second is to demand a raise based on "superior qualifications".
It would make much more sense to ban degree requirements that are irrelevant to success in a vast number of jobs and which would do away with a lot of bias against low income and minority youth. The first thing every fool blessed with diploma from an academic mill who finds a niche in the corporate, academic, or governmental bureaucracy does is to connive to insert a degree requirement for his or her position. The second is to demand a raise based on "superior qualifications".
4
Standardized tests aren't cheap or impartial, and our misguided policy of firing teachers based on the results WILL get rid of teachers, but not the incompetent ones, since the test scores reflect mostly out-of-school factors.
Basically, almost everything you said is the opposite of reality.
Basically, almost everything you said is the opposite of reality.
1
"Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far"
He only acknowledged it had gone too far when teachers were fed up with the amount of time the testing took away from teaching. But he did not acknowledge that it was himself and his Department of Education that caused the mess to begin with.
He only acknowledged it had gone too far when teachers were fed up with the amount of time the testing took away from teaching. But he did not acknowledge that it was himself and his Department of Education that caused the mess to begin with.
9
I am a teacher and a liberal, yet all I can do is shake my head at the Dept. of Education. They really keep messing things up. This over-testing is mostly their fault, and yet "capping" testing at the federal level would be just as ridiculous. Arne Duncan is a joke.
Let's note, btw, that common core, though common throughout its states, is a state-adopted initiative undertaken by the governors.
Let's note, btw, that common core, though common throughout its states, is a state-adopted initiative undertaken by the governors.
8
We should draft a set of requirements and test the Department of Education.
2
The only people who have profited from this testing frenzy are the ones who write and score the tests. Period.
4
For Obama and Duncan to state now, after almost seven years of their "school reform" nonsense, that they've made a mistake is pathetic. It is exactly like Bush and Cheney admitting, after laying waste to all of Iraq, that their intelligence on WMDs was faulty.
9
I'm not impressed. Less testing is part of the answer, but a small part. What's needed most is an abandonment of the flawed notion that standardized test scores measure the effectiveness of a school or a teacher. Tests such as these should be used as diagnostic tools to guide teaching and learning, not to punish or reward schools and educators.
7
Surely this is sloppy reporting. I cannot possibly know what my students have mastered or not if only spend 2% of my time testing them, and indirectly, myself. If there are 180 school days, that means at most 6 tests full period tests. I sincerely hope this refers only to standardized testing given district-wide.
Otherwise we will see even more useless homework and meaningless group projects which only serve to obscure who is really learning and and who is riding the coat-tails of their peers, parents and tutors.
Otherwise we will see even more useless homework and meaningless group projects which only serve to obscure who is really learning and and who is riding the coat-tails of their peers, parents and tutors.
Now Obama wakes up after countless children have been subjected to Arne Duncan's flirtation with corporate Pearson testing and his hedge fund friends.
However, on 10/2 when Obama announced he is giving Duncan his walking papers...
""He's done more to bring our education system -- sometimes kicking and screaming -- into the 21st century more than anybody else... (Obama)."
However, on 10/2 when Obama announced he is giving Duncan his walking papers...
""He's done more to bring our education system -- sometimes kicking and screaming -- into the 21st century more than anybody else... (Obama)."
8
RIdiculously late, if you ask me. So far, in just the first quarter of school, we've tested students about 30% of the time. It's shameful.
5
"Everything in moderation."
--Aristotle
--Aristotle
2
Fine idea as long as he also puts a limit on test preparation.
My children are long past their school years, but I would have been as fed up as many parents have been these past few years had they been "tested" repeatedly. I can think of a couple of ways in which limited standardized testing can be useful, as for example, figuring out how much your incoming class of third or fourth graders has "lost" over the summer vacation. Those results provide a teacher with a better sense of who may need some extra attention for a few weeks, or whether everyone is weak in a particular area. But that is using a test as tool, not for grading purposes and most certainly not to assess a teacher's abilities.
We seem to be unable to keep in mind the purpose for which a test is actually devised, which is less about grading (or should be) and more about providing feedback to a teacher about a student's needs.
As for the idea of a 2% cap on testing prep time, please, spare me another prescription for our schools based on data from what has been happening. Does anyone in this country actually think that the past decade or so of public schooling is a good guide to a better system?
We seem to be unable to keep in mind the purpose for which a test is actually devised, which is less about grading (or should be) and more about providing feedback to a teacher about a student's needs.
As for the idea of a 2% cap on testing prep time, please, spare me another prescription for our schools based on data from what has been happening. Does anyone in this country actually think that the past decade or so of public schooling is a good guide to a better system?
2
Thank God for private schools that still teach music and art and focus on creative thinking and writing.
...and for public schools in affluent areas, where, since the test scores mostly depend on the kids' home lives and the educators know it, those things never had to disappear. The kids' scores would be fine no matter what, so the teachers were (mostly) free to continue to teach them.
But none of that helps the poor kids who've suffered under Bush's and Obama's horribly destructive education policy.
But none of that helps the poor kids who've suffered under Bush's and Obama's horribly destructive education policy.
1
Standardized testing is only an indication of the effectiveness of an educator until that educator finds that they are being judged by the results of the standardized test. At that instant, the focus of the educator changes from educating the student to preparing the student to perform well on standardized testing.
And also, what about "No adult left behind!".....Many people do not know that in many states the school system is required to serve the severely handicapped only until they are 21. Then at their 21st birthday, all of the BOCES, all of the efforts to assist and help these nearly helpless people abruptly ends and they are wheeled into a corner for the rest of their days
2
I don't believe this major cash cow will led to slaughter so easily.
12
As with everything else in America when profits become the main agenda, the alleged objectives become warped and ultimately lost in the haze. No wonder school systems are bankrupt and students forgotten and left behind in the rush to turn every aspect of life into a business transaction. It seems our educational system would actually work better today if students weren't part of the equation...
33
Thank goodness the government is finally seeing there can be too much testing and too much prep. Where is regular lesson time going to come from? If children were taught basic things, old fashioned things, like math facts, multiplication tables, spelling, vocabulary, phonics - things that most parents and grandparents can actually help their children with - students would have a better chance at success. Math has turned into an incomprehensible jumble and memorizing whole words before you know what sounds letters make doesn't seem to work very well.
18
English grammar is sorely needed...........
What I learned in sixth grade(65 years ago) is now having to be explained by university level foreign language instructors because students are leaving high school with no concept of the structure of their natal language. If they can't find indirect objects in English, how can they recognize and properly place them in French, Spanish, Polish sentences?
What I learned in sixth grade(65 years ago) is now having to be explained by university level foreign language instructors because students are leaving high school with no concept of the structure of their natal language. If they can't find indirect objects in English, how can they recognize and properly place them in French, Spanish, Polish sentences?
3
As if young people are not illiterate enough.
At my job in a large university, we can barely find interns who can spell, but they all have walls of trophies for being 'special'.
More recently, the cable guides that have short blurbs describing the plot of a movie or show have misspellings. Not typos, bad grammar.
Young people do not know the difference between, 'to' or 'too'. They cannot add in their head past the number 10 and even to do that, they have to take their mittens off.
But at least all the precious snowflakes will all be getting gold stars again!
At my job in a large university, we can barely find interns who can spell, but they all have walls of trophies for being 'special'.
More recently, the cable guides that have short blurbs describing the plot of a movie or show have misspellings. Not typos, bad grammar.
Young people do not know the difference between, 'to' or 'too'. They cannot add in their head past the number 10 and even to do that, they have to take their mittens off.
But at least all the precious snowflakes will all be getting gold stars again!
6
@FSMLives! I totally agree!
Another "every kid deserves a medal" mentality. Ugh. Just ridiculous. If the kids learn and study, they'll pass the tests. If they don't, they won't. It's pretty simple. But suggesting they stop testing - and make it more "fun" for students - will turn this new generation of kids into illiterate, uneducated adults. As you mentioned - we're already seeing it from kids in the texting generation, who don't know how to write, do basic math, or spell.
Testing is needed to determine if kids are having trouble learning - and if they are, then steps can be taken to fix it. But if tests are only done once or twice a year, it will be too late to help kids that are struggling. Do we then just give them all passing grades anyway so they don't "feel bad" about themselves - the way we do with school sports now?
Another poster suggested government get out of the education business. I'm all for that. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going to "baby" and "coddle" kids - rather than giving them an education that is backed up by testing to ensure they've truly attained the knowledge and skills.
Another "every kid deserves a medal" mentality. Ugh. Just ridiculous. If the kids learn and study, they'll pass the tests. If they don't, they won't. It's pretty simple. But suggesting they stop testing - and make it more "fun" for students - will turn this new generation of kids into illiterate, uneducated adults. As you mentioned - we're already seeing it from kids in the texting generation, who don't know how to write, do basic math, or spell.
Testing is needed to determine if kids are having trouble learning - and if they are, then steps can be taken to fix it. But if tests are only done once or twice a year, it will be too late to help kids that are struggling. Do we then just give them all passing grades anyway so they don't "feel bad" about themselves - the way we do with school sports now?
Another poster suggested government get out of the education business. I'm all for that. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going to "baby" and "coddle" kids - rather than giving them an education that is backed up by testing to ensure they've truly attained the knowledge and skills.
Get rid of all the standardized testing, and the teachers might be able to go back to teaching all the stuff you complain is missing from schools--which was largely driven out because we decided we couldn't trust teachers and had to implement incessant testing.
You're evidencing a fundamental lack of understanding of the issue.
You're evidencing a fundamental lack of understanding of the issue.
1
Every kid older than about second grade that I know -- and I work with them -- is well aware that certain tests are to measure teachers and schools, not students. They like to make patterns in their bubble answer sheets, like smiley faces. The entire experience further validates their ongoing suspicion that the purpose of school is to waste their time, manipulate them, raise their anxiety, punish them, and humiliate them. Standardized tests aren't remotely scientific for this and many other reasons. Thepurpose they allegedly serve is to crack the enigma of which teachers and schools aren't doing well. This is a false problem. We already know that by and large the problems are what they always have been: poverty, racism, distressed families, voter indifference. Provide teachers with support, not unachievable goals. Provide students with inspiration and knowledge. The wearying part is that these are such obvious points that some of us have been making forever, and probably won't be heeded, once again.
5
There must exist some means of objectively determining the efficacy of our schools and ensuring that all students, wealthy, poor, under-achieving and gifted, receive the educational services they require. Perhaps it is not the existence of standardized testing that is the problem, but the implementation of them. Tests can be measures of needs, if given early in the school year, and measures of progress and further needs, if given again midway through the year. They could be written and scored by a non-profit organization whose members consist of educators who are randomly chosen each year from among each state's teacher pool. The scores should not be utilized to reward or punish teachers, but to analyze and improve teaching methods and student progress. Schools should not be permitted to "teach to the test," by spending inordinate numbers of hours preparing students for them rather than simply teaching the subjects well. If all parents were supportive of the education of their children, all teachers devoted to their craft, all schools equally efficacious, there would be no need to examine how well our students are doing in comparison to one-another. In reality, educational quality is linked to socio-economical circumstances. I believe that standardized testing that is implemented as a tool more akin to microscope than a hammer could prove to be effective.
1
Obama remarked that school is where he learned to believe in himself. All well and good, but should school not be where students learn basic math and reading? Schools' failures to do so are unforgivable. If the only way to determine whether a school is performing at a minimal level of competence is a test, so be it.
3
Tests aren't "the only way to determine whether a school is performing at a minimal level of competence." They aren't a way to do that at all, "only" or otherwise. Since the test scores reflect mostly out-of-school factors, they can't tell you whether the school is performing well or poorly.
All the laws and policies passed requiring that they do so won't make it work.
All the laws and policies passed requiring that they do so won't make it work.
1
Another "every kid deserves a medal" mentality. Ugh. Just ridiculous. If the kids learn and study, they'll pass the tests. If they don't, they won't. It's pretty simple. But suggesting they stop testing - and make it more "fun" for students - will turn this new generation of kids into illiterate, uneducated adults. Then the country will be in even bigger trouble than it is now. Testing is needed to determine if kids are having trouble learning - and if they are, then steps can be taken to fix it. But if tests are only done once or twice a year, it will be too late to help kids that are struggling. Do we then just give them all passing grades anyway so they don't "feel bad" about themselves - the way we do with school sports now?
Another poster suggested government get out of the education business. I'm all for that. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going to "baby" and "coddle" kids - rather than giving them an education that is backed up by testing to ensure they've truly attained the knowledge and skills.
Another poster suggested government get out of the education business. I'm all for that. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going to "baby" and "coddle" kids - rather than giving them an education that is backed up by testing to ensure they've truly attained the knowledge and skills.
4
Nobody's suggesting that the kids should be tested only once or twice a year. Teachers test frequently, with tests they write themselves, and that's cheap and useful. But literally EVERYBODY who understands and values education is saying that the expensive standardized tests aren't very useful at all, and that giving them once or twice a year, which is the goal to which the Obama administration has retreated (having started, apparently, with "every day"), is actually far too often.
1
Saint Ronnie started the destruction of public education while Gov. Both Jebby and Georgie did the initial pilots for No Child Left Behind while Govs. Testing was the mechanism used to crater public education and teachers unions. For profit Charters run by Corporations that Jebby as Gov. Was allowed to award contracts to became part of his personal investment portfolio. By the time NCLB was put in place under Pres. Georgie it was a system invented by and managed by politicians for profit and votes from conservative religious schools.
7
"Still, he said: “We don’t think tests are the enemy. We think there’s an appropriate place for them.”
----------------
Indeed. In teachers' colleges it is taught that testing is necessary to know if the student has understood the lessons taught. Over time, of course, it's an evaluation of the teacher, all other things - i.e. the availability of good, new textbooks and the availability of books at home - being equal.
----------------
Indeed. In teachers' colleges it is taught that testing is necessary to know if the student has understood the lessons taught. Over time, of course, it's an evaluation of the teacher, all other things - i.e. the availability of good, new textbooks and the availability of books at home - being equal.
1
All other things AREN'T equal, and everyone except the people selling the tests will tell you that means the tests are useless for evaluating the teachers.
4
We have seriously got to get politicians OUT if schools!!!!! Put those who have the knowledge and degrees in charge! It us time to say NO to allowing those in power who have no knowledge on the subject to make decisions! !!!!
5
We now have the government beginning to dictate the education of our children. All of our medical care is being collected by the government. All of our phone calls, emails and other electronic communication is being monitored by the government. What next? The other shoes are drooping like flies because the government has no end of shoes and they can step anywhere they want. What happens when we don't seek goals for our children's education are lowered? Other countries are raising their standards. In China children must achieve to progress to higher level education. Look around you and you will witness the results education in other countries. What we will see here will be money being spent by those who have it, to make sure their children learn and achieve at the highest level. Many schools have stopped homework, stopped teaching cursive, and free play, when imagination is fostered, is being replaced by step by step defined physical education drills or calisthenics. It is concerning and may have significant results designing education for other goals that have little to do with education.
6
The tests are primarily reading comprehension where students are asked to read three paragraphs and answer questions about them. Where do the test creators get the three paragraphs? As a children's nonfiction author, my books were often excerpted by the testing companies. (I have a file of permissions I sold them to prove this.) I know that they also excerpted my fellow nonfiction authors' works. Interestingly, our well-crafted, award-winning books are not read in most classrooms where textbooks and worksheets rule the day. If kids had more time to read widely (learn from many voices) on subjects that interested them and read longer books where they had to read closely, they would probably do a lot better on these tests without any test prep. A real test of the test, however, would be to ask us authors, who wrote the excerpts, to take the tests. I have no idea how well or badly I would do. And I have no idea whether my score would give any information whatsoever to the test creators. What does that tell you?
2
That's actually been done at least one time that I've read about. The author got the question about his own writing "wrong."
Let's be perfectly honest: the only people winning from the massive increase in standardized tests are the testing and test-prep vendors. We have succeeded in enriching a few while making a generation of American kids hate and fear school. The sooner we unmask the hot neoliberal garbage underpinning Common Core, NCLB, Teach for America and charter schools in general, the sooner we'll be able to make something resembling forward progress. I'm not exactly holding my breath, but I'm thrilled to see parents rejecting it voraciously, regardless of party affiliation.
2
I once sat next to a guy in high school who was very smart, but didn't like taking standardized tests, so instead of taking them the usual way, he would make patterns out of the little boxes on the answer sheets. It didn't hurt him any, everybody knew he was smart, and he ended up being a prize-winning biologist at a major university.
3
Don't know much about the American education system, but standardized tests are the worst invention of mankind. It has led to a decline in productivity, has ruined and keeps ruining generation after generation by making education a rat race. We need a Renaissance 2.0 to radically fix education. So many inspiring souls get crushed under the weight of all the notes and books and parents and teachers and expectations and fear.
P.S. My exams start in a few days. :/
P.S. My exams start in a few days. :/
1
Please add "Home Work" and very early morning hours to catch the bus. Most mid level students stay up hours doing Home work, retire to bed very late and must awaken themselves at 5AM to catch a school bus?
"Teachers' union, which has led the opposition on the LEFT"....why do you categorize the opposition to these tests as"left"? ,(or right for that matter?) Why can't it just be common sense and the desire to have our children well educated?
1
After being thoroughly dispirited by the "reform" (read billionaire) driven "accountability" and standardized-testing mania so fully embraced by Arne Duncan, as President Obama stood silently by, I am heartened by this news. Just like with prison reform, there are areas when the Left and Right can join forces to challenge the conventional wisdom of the "experts".
1
We can simplify this over night if we choose. Shouldn't we let "Teachers" determine who is struggling and who is excelling in their own classrooms? Federal money spent on extensive and exhaustive testing can easily be moved to states who'll use that money to provide more classrooms and individual instruction. We can't have a one size fits all education policy anymore and endless debate on the merits of national testing and education standards is just taking more time away from the classroom and hindering the quality of student education. From K1-12, let's teach them to read, write and perform basic Math and Science. Anything less then we have the responsibility to correct- anything more should be viewed as icing on the cake and not a requirement.
2
That would be great if you didn't have states like Texas that want to revise history. States like my own, Kansas, that want to base teacher salaries on student test outcomes. That want to take money out of *public* education and put it into *private* education.
And yes, there should absolutely be more than reading, writing, and basic math and science! The more you expect from a child, the more they will give you. I speak as the mother of two children with Asperger's - they have their issues, they need extra help at times, but I still expect them to perform to the best of their ability. We should expect that of ALL our children.
And yes, there should absolutely be more than reading, writing, and basic math and science! The more you expect from a child, the more they will give you. I speak as the mother of two children with Asperger's - they have their issues, they need extra help at times, but I still expect them to perform to the best of their ability. We should expect that of ALL our children.
Testing is an integral part for learning. Testing on it's own is not wrong. How else can you assess how much a child has learned? But the frequency of tests, time spent on how to take take tests successfully is all wrong. Time spent on these endeavors should be time spent on teaching and learning. Test taking could be limited to bi-yearly. And no time should be spent on how to successfully take a test. Let the kids take the tests and let the chips fall as they may. Deficiencies discovered in their learning should result in helping those kids. If there is no improvement or minimal improvement, the child is held back and not promoted to the next grade. He has to learn the core sbjects relevant to his grade. The problems are parents, teachers, the auditing of a school based on test scores and the promotion of kids to the next grade. Forget about Math and Science, some of our High School kids cannot read and write at the 3rd grade level. Penalizing a school, it's teachers for low test scores is not the way to improve schools. But imparting discipline, learning along with high expectations from every child would make a tremendous difference. Besides, failing schools in crime prone districts, a child should be protected from the social ills by extending the school day when homework is supervised and he plays in a safe environment. And all this without much increase in the funding.
19
"The problems are parents, teachers, the auditing of a school based on test scores and the promotion of kids to the next grade"
How can you blame parents and teachers for the problems caused in public schools by federal government rules when the feds shouldn't be involved in public education. Testing should be done on what the teacher taught rather than some standardized one-size-fits-all government mandated test.
How can you blame parents and teachers for the problems caused in public schools by federal government rules when the feds shouldn't be involved in public education. Testing should be done on what the teacher taught rather than some standardized one-size-fits-all government mandated test.
There are so many different ways to assess learning, I can't even begin to list them all.....and I am a master teacher who would fight tooth and nail to teach anyone anything essential to know. But a written, multiple choice test reveals nothing other than the correct circles were darkened on the answer page.
No multiple-choice instrument can assess teacher effectiveness.
No multiple-choice instrument can assess teacher effectiveness.
I am divided on this news. Classroom instruction should never be about test prep. Instead, if teachers(and schools) are doing their job adequately, students should have no problem doing well on the test. Having just become a teacher I am surprised at how inadequately prepared some of my students are for their curriculum. How does a student get through to 7th grade without understanding how to do subtraction with decimal numbers? This is just one example.
I remember when substituting and assisting a teacher in a 8th grade Math class, the teacher could not answer a student's question "How do I put in a fraction into my calculator?" This was her first year of teaching but it astonished me that she could not answer this question, and the lesson she gave left the students confused. I was wandering around the tables and decided to help out one group understand, and very soon I was being asked to help by other student groups. I felt bad for her. But its surprising that she got the job with so little training .
I remember when substituting and assisting a teacher in a 8th grade Math class, the teacher could not answer a student's question "How do I put in a fraction into my calculator?" This was her first year of teaching but it astonished me that she could not answer this question, and the lesson she gave left the students confused. I was wandering around the tables and decided to help out one group understand, and very soon I was being asked to help by other student groups. I felt bad for her. But its surprising that she got the job with so little training .
You don't go to school to pass tests, you go to school to learn something. Passing a test only means you passed the test.
57
Sort of. if you learn the material, you'll be able to pass the test, and if you can't pass the test, well, you don't know the material. It's rather that testing focuses on a very narrow range of knowledge and skills. We all need to know how to calculate and analyze a passage -- but if that's *all* kids learn, they show up at college unable to solve complex, unscripted problems or tackle a larger project like a term paper.
DSS - "Passing a test only means you passed the test."
Wouldn't "passing a test" mean that you have learned whatever the test was testing? Or doesn't that matter?
Wouldn't "passing a test" mean that you have learned whatever the test was testing? Or doesn't that matter?
STUPID. Tests tell you what people know and what their skill set is. This does not mean that often the tests for the early grades are very flawed -- they are but so is American education. Tell me, are our children so much dumber than
German children who begin English in 3rd/4th grade and a second language-- French or Spanish in 5th> Think of all those Syrian children who will have to learn German and English and...
Why not ask people who teach what they teach (some teachers will not teach Columbus?) and what they don't teach?? I actually improved my teaching after I came into contact with the tests and what they required... but some of my fellow teachers simply abused the children (little teaching and lots of discipline) so yeah kids did poorly and hated school and teachers had tenure (say no to tenure) and could not be fired -- sweet deal for the teachers...
German children who begin English in 3rd/4th grade and a second language-- French or Spanish in 5th> Think of all those Syrian children who will have to learn German and English and...
Why not ask people who teach what they teach (some teachers will not teach Columbus?) and what they don't teach?? I actually improved my teaching after I came into contact with the tests and what they required... but some of my fellow teachers simply abused the children (little teaching and lots of discipline) so yeah kids did poorly and hated school and teachers had tenure (say no to tenure) and could not be fired -- sweet deal for the teachers...
The federal government is far too involved in local education. It was the federal government that set off this testing frenzy in the first place. Now they want to manage what % of time a student spends in testing. That kind of micro-control should be left to local school boards. Sure its a "recommendation", but soon it will be followed by threats of cutting funding if the "recommendation" is not followed.
2
New York City public school students applying to select middle schools and high schools will continue to be at the mercy of these tests unless the DOE enacts stronger rules against Principals and the DOE from using these scores as the central determination factor in acceptance. For example, the DOE actually choses the students who attend Christa McAuliffe middle school in Brooklyn, which is one of the best middle school's in the state, if not the best, based on these scores. The few new rules that the NYC DOE has implemented under Carmen Farina to change this formula, though commendable, do not really deter Principals from using these test scores as the most valued assessment piece of a student. If the tests are to assume less importance than let that be reflected in the admissions process in reality not just in words.
3
First, the NY Times reporter should have known that No Child Left Behind is not a "program." It is the title of the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which will hopefully be reauthorized soon in a way that ends the era where tests were the be all and end all of school. The Obama Administration is right to accept the blame for the current era of toxic testing. They were the ones who bribed states and districts to do more testing. When getting federal grant money is dependent upon doing more testing then that is a bribe.
There should be two purposes for tests. One is to be able to determine if students are making progress in their learning. The second, and far more important purpose, is to show teachers the standards each child has failed to master. It is doubtful that a single test...or even a couple of tests... is a good way to determine whether children have mastered standards. What is certain is that only test results that get back to teachers quickly can be used to help students learn what they have not yet learned. Generally, the tests take months to score, tabulate and get the results back to teachers. This is far too long for the results to be useful to anyone except those who expect to use the test scores to scapegoat teachers for the ills of society. Public schools are still the best mirror we have to see how well our society is functioning. Where students are succeeding then we can be sure the community is healthy.
There should be two purposes for tests. One is to be able to determine if students are making progress in their learning. The second, and far more important purpose, is to show teachers the standards each child has failed to master. It is doubtful that a single test...or even a couple of tests... is a good way to determine whether children have mastered standards. What is certain is that only test results that get back to teachers quickly can be used to help students learn what they have not yet learned. Generally, the tests take months to score, tabulate and get the results back to teachers. This is far too long for the results to be useful to anyone except those who expect to use the test scores to scapegoat teachers for the ills of society. Public schools are still the best mirror we have to see how well our society is functioning. Where students are succeeding then we can be sure the community is healthy.
4
Mr. Duncan,
Teachers were stressed out by over-testing, annual changes to curriculum and standards, the abysmal roll-out of Common Core, and the general anti-teacher attitude of the astro-turf "reform" movement, yet you bought into all those things, hook, line, and sinker. And why? The Chicago schools were a mess, before, during and after your tenure there. What Obama thought you bring to a conversation on improving education is baffling. Race to the Top, at once a bribe and a threat to states and school districts, was a failure. I'd respect Texas for not participating if it could do only one other thing correctly (As Sam Cooke said, "don't know much history, don't know much biology")
When you took the Secretary's job, everything I cited was apparent and you should have applied the brakes. Today's conclusions are 15 years too late. Or in other words, the educational life span of millions of students. More time wasted, more ridiculous theories promulgated, foolish policies instituted, TENS of MILLIONS of teachers, parents, and children frustrated and dismayed. For what? So consultants and testing companies could make billions? So the Eva Moskowitz's in privately run, publicly funded Charters could earn $400,000 per/yr? So teachers could be demonized thus preventing new grads from entering and causing seasoned professionals to exit the profession? So politicians who are epitome of ignorance like Scott Walker could push through anti-union and anti-public school legislation?
Teachers were stressed out by over-testing, annual changes to curriculum and standards, the abysmal roll-out of Common Core, and the general anti-teacher attitude of the astro-turf "reform" movement, yet you bought into all those things, hook, line, and sinker. And why? The Chicago schools were a mess, before, during and after your tenure there. What Obama thought you bring to a conversation on improving education is baffling. Race to the Top, at once a bribe and a threat to states and school districts, was a failure. I'd respect Texas for not participating if it could do only one other thing correctly (As Sam Cooke said, "don't know much history, don't know much biology")
When you took the Secretary's job, everything I cited was apparent and you should have applied the brakes. Today's conclusions are 15 years too late. Or in other words, the educational life span of millions of students. More time wasted, more ridiculous theories promulgated, foolish policies instituted, TENS of MILLIONS of teachers, parents, and children frustrated and dismayed. For what? So consultants and testing companies could make billions? So the Eva Moskowitz's in privately run, publicly funded Charters could earn $400,000 per/yr? So teachers could be demonized thus preventing new grads from entering and causing seasoned professionals to exit the profession? So politicians who are epitome of ignorance like Scott Walker could push through anti-union and anti-public school legislation?
3
Glad the President got this one right. I think he must be a dad who strives to bring out the best in his girls. He wants the same thing for this country. Global competition for academic supremacy had something to do with it too, I am sure. Glad he is flexible and willing to listen.
1
No need for testing, everyone knows that all American children are above average ..,,
1
Not all. About half. And no, we don't need expensive, repetitive, opaque standardized tests to tell us that.
1
How long have teachers been trying to say just this? To get a word in edgewise? To have a letter or op ed printed? When the attempt was made, teachers were attacked. We were accused of trying to evade accountability. We were union hacks. I'd like to think I was a dedicated teacher who proudly belonged to a union. I myself was educated in the New York City public schools by teachers who taught me subject matter but who also shaped me into the person I am. I want to thank all of them. And now that there is hope of getting testing under control, and having a broader, deeper vision of what education can be, let's turn out attention to the public school system, which is presently being undermined by charters that specialize in test prep in the narrowest sense.
117
First, you were perceived as being unaccountable. Second, the unions damaged your image.
Not really, not at all. AACNY. I do not believe very few in my school district agreed with the stereotypes that were unfairly propagated about unions in the media.. (The highest performing states on the tests you apparently value are teacher union states). As for accountability, parents and I communicated frequently, and they had lots of conversations with their kids about school. And they had the telephone number of my supervisor and the principal. And they could ask for an early morning conference any time. And they received their children's report cards. And the kids received grades. And so it went for 35 years, and most of those graduates are doing very well.
1
Here we go again. Dumbing down school standards to the lowest common denominator means dumbing down America at a time when former Third World/Developing countries are going ahead of us with more study hours, far less vacation time and stricter discipline. And Bill was right, make them wear uniforms and separate girls from boys until senior school age. There is enough fooling around as it is. Also make them study and learn want America needs not what the kids fancy. Enough pandering, enough.
24
No one is "dumbing down" anything. These tests are worthless. Thinking you will increase learning by constant testing is like thinking you will lose weight from constantly weighing yourself.
2
Yes, dumbing down schools is wrong. That's been caused, in large part, by the misuse and overuse of standardized testing and by the demonization of teachers.
I'm not sure Duncan or Obama mean what they're quoted as saying here. They've said the same things before, and yet their policies have continued to be incredibly destructive. But I can say with certainty that you don't understand the subject on which you're commenting.
I'm not sure Duncan or Obama mean what they're quoted as saying here. They've said the same things before, and yet their policies have continued to be incredibly destructive. But I can say with certainty that you don't understand the subject on which you're commenting.
2
And restore recess. It is proven to assist learning. And restore time for music and arts. They also assist learning. By the way, why are you in Israel? Do you know what's really happening here in the U.S.A.? Do you know what dumbs down the curriculum? It's those high-stakes tests tests tests.
1
Easiest thing to do, and the trap we have fallen into, teach them the test! Everything else out the window. Teach them the test! All that counts to the politicians is the numbers and my job depends on it. Teach them the test! No time for anything but teaching them the next test. Get the numbers! That's all our politicians care about, then they can go around crowing how they have "improved our schools" before the next election.
50
I was transferred to another school for refusing to "teach to the test." The principal thought I was incompetent or useless, or gawd knows what......and when the results came in, he apologized, but I had already been transferred for "non-compliance"
1
Complete bunk.
Teach them the material, and they will pass the tests.
Teach them the material, and they will pass the tests.
Duh! Who hasn't known that this testing mania is a boon for the companies who are raking in millions, and a crazy waste of time ( at the very least) for the students.
Think back on your school days and remember that maybe once a year you did a standardized test. Did the lack of testing harm you? It probably enhanced your educational experience as you did not have the constant anxiety about test, test, test. Shame on you Arnie, and so disappointed in you President Obama, for your promotion of the data, data, data educational experience.
Think back on your school days and remember that maybe once a year you did a standardized test. Did the lack of testing harm you? It probably enhanced your educational experience as you did not have the constant anxiety about test, test, test. Shame on you Arnie, and so disappointed in you President Obama, for your promotion of the data, data, data educational experience.
2
Is the 2% cap intended for standardized tests only? If it includes all testing, 2% means one day out of 50, which means, say, a high school mathematics teacher can give a one period test every two-and-a-half months, and no quizzes, which is tantamount to a midterm and final for each semester.
Teachers could assess students' progress by giving more weight to homework and projects, but then projects are often done by the parents, aren't they?
Teachers could assess students' progress by giving more weight to homework and projects, but then projects are often done by the parents, aren't they?
Yes, keep US high school grads as dumb as possible and graduation levels as low as possible. This way the US needs to import smart people from overseas, and US citizens will keep electing the worst politicians they can find.
Excessive standardized testing and the misuse of the scores never made anybody smarter. It never made anyone graduate.
There are two sorts of people who argue that we need to keep the glut of tests that's currently in vogue: those selling the tests and those who have no idea what they're talking about. You don't seem like you're selling the tests.
There are two sorts of people who argue that we need to keep the glut of tests that's currently in vogue: those selling the tests and those who have no idea what they're talking about. You don't seem like you're selling the tests.
1
About time. No child left behind is such an ironic twist. President George W Bush really pulled the wool over the late Sen Ted Kennedy in the latter's waning years
1
Anyone who actually has children in public school right now--as opposed to older people who really can't imagine the current regime--knows that the testing has gone into the realm of total madness. My children, in middle and high school, take tests 'regular' two to three times a week and 'special' tests every week or so. That, plus a homework load that consists of hours of useless makework, means they never, ever get enough sleep. Although straight A students, they are constantly stressed and anxious to the point that they're having stomachaches and headaches. Other children react by totally detaching from the whole ordeal and just giving up--most of the kids in their school have C or D averages and don't even try anymore. Thanks to right wing ideas that if kids aren't doing well in school, we should punish them by making it even more unpleasant and hard, an entire generation of kids are becoming totally turned off to the idea of education. It hurts me to see how much my bright, creative children hate and detest school and how bitter and cynical they are becoming. If I had the money I'd put them in a private school in a heartbeat. It shouldn't be this way!
55
Speak for yourself and not all children. I have 4 grandchildren in public schools; two in CT and two in KY. They are in 5th, 6th, 7th and 10th grade.
Yes, they have standardized tests, typically i the spring. In 8th grade, until this year, all students took the ACT Explore test in the late fall. This was a wonderful test as it showed students which areas needed to be strengthened in order to be college-ready after graduation.
Most tests are quizzes and major exams (for middle and high school students) on class work. If they are not given, how on earth can students be graded on their progress in the class? Or perhaps we don't want grades anymore - like Lake Woebegone, all the children will just be described as "above average".
My grandchildren range from extremely bright to having some issues in school, so I see all ability/performance ranges. None of them are having
"stomachaches and headaches" over the tests. That is unless they hadn't really studied for them!!!
If we expect little of children in school, then that is exactly what we will get. Yes, school is very unfair - those children from families that are so dysfunctional that the single mother often can't be bothered to get up and get her children to school, will surely suffer and never preform the way those with highly educated, involved parents. But then, life has never been fair and never will be. We are all individuals and God gave us Free Will, which some chose not to use appropriately.
Yes, they have standardized tests, typically i the spring. In 8th grade, until this year, all students took the ACT Explore test in the late fall. This was a wonderful test as it showed students which areas needed to be strengthened in order to be college-ready after graduation.
Most tests are quizzes and major exams (for middle and high school students) on class work. If they are not given, how on earth can students be graded on their progress in the class? Or perhaps we don't want grades anymore - like Lake Woebegone, all the children will just be described as "above average".
My grandchildren range from extremely bright to having some issues in school, so I see all ability/performance ranges. None of them are having
"stomachaches and headaches" over the tests. That is unless they hadn't really studied for them!!!
If we expect little of children in school, then that is exactly what we will get. Yes, school is very unfair - those children from families that are so dysfunctional that the single mother often can't be bothered to get up and get her children to school, will surely suffer and never preform the way those with highly educated, involved parents. But then, life has never been fair and never will be. We are all individuals and God gave us Free Will, which some chose not to use appropriately.
"But it also said that tests should be 'just one of multiple measures' of student achievement, and that 'no single assessment should ever be the sole factor in making an educational decision about a student, an educator or a school.' ”
Well duh. The emphasis on multiple-choice standardized tests as a measure of school and teacher "accountability" began with the Reagan administration. It was mean and stupid then and it's meaner and stupider now.
Emphasis on such tests simply forces teachers and schools to focus on what is easily measured. To give such mindless multiple-choice tests any influence in school funding or accreditation (as has happened in my home state of Missouri) is simply to reinforce society's injustices. And it doesn't even improve the education of the elite. It's a way of holding down nearly everyone who attends public schools and everyone who relies on an educated populace -- for their doctors, their teachers, their lawyers, their retailers, their political leaders and yes, the voters.
SCRAP the tests, period. Scrap the high stakes "accountability," which is used primarily to remove any strength or power from local schools that are trying to educate all children.
Well duh. The emphasis on multiple-choice standardized tests as a measure of school and teacher "accountability" began with the Reagan administration. It was mean and stupid then and it's meaner and stupider now.
Emphasis on such tests simply forces teachers and schools to focus on what is easily measured. To give such mindless multiple-choice tests any influence in school funding or accreditation (as has happened in my home state of Missouri) is simply to reinforce society's injustices. And it doesn't even improve the education of the elite. It's a way of holding down nearly everyone who attends public schools and everyone who relies on an educated populace -- for their doctors, their teachers, their lawyers, their retailers, their political leaders and yes, the voters.
SCRAP the tests, period. Scrap the high stakes "accountability," which is used primarily to remove any strength or power from local schools that are trying to educate all children.
20
The fact is America education is a mess. Test or no test, the lack of accountability is really what teacher unions want. Local Boards are elected by unions and as such do want the union want: complain about tests, fight any concept of a grade level standards, deny parents choice either to attend schools in the district or create Charter Schools, say tenure, is absolutely required ..... on and on ....
7
How easily you have fallen prey to propaganda. American education is not a mess and you fail to articulate how is true. If teachers unions were so darned powerful we would have stopped this nonsense years ago. Local boards are now overwhelmingly influence by right-wing corporate donors that undemocratically influence campaigns and election results. Tenure is due process and that is an essential component in a democracy. And if your choice is between schools that are supported by public trust and transparent oversight vs. corporate schools that are only interested in the profits your children generate and are not subject to child-welfare laws, you will get exactly what you deserve.
2
The fact is that the only reason American education isn't as bad as the Michelle Rhees and Arne Duncans of the world would like it to be is because teachers' unions have limited the damage. They haven't been completely successful. Teachers' unions don't have NEARLY the power that "wingate" imagines. If they did, our schools would be in much better shape.
2
Your reply lost any credibility when you stated that "Local Boards are elected by unions". Local boards are elected by citizens, who in small districts often vote for whoever promises to not raise taxes, in large districts they often don't know who they are voting for, simply due to large size. While unions support candidates, that can often backfire because many people have the same uneducated, negative attitudes you do and therefor,e vote against those candidates.
The fact that 5 people, at this reading, actually recommended your baseless diatribe shows there are others like you out there, to our country's detriment.
The fact that 5 people, at this reading, actually recommended your baseless diatribe shows there are others like you out there, to our country's detriment.
5
Testing constantly has failed our children, their education and the taxpayers who pay for it.
13
I've been a public school teacher since 1986. The environment has changed drastically over my career. The emphasize on standardized testing has completely altered the daily life of children and the adults who work with them. If it's not tested, it doesn't matter in the eyes of stressed out administrators and school boards who care only what the math and reading scores show. Individual learning--GONE. Art? Not important! Instrumental music? A frill that can be squeezed out of the day. Physical education? Replaced by test prep for low scoring students. If you're not a parent of a child in school right now, or if you don't work in one, you really don't know how the testing frenzy has sucked all the joy of learning out of our schools. This announcement is long overdue.
83
I taught from 1977-2007 in the public school. I also saw the joy of teaching and perhaps consequently, the joy of learning leave with the advent of No Child Left Behind. I truly hope the pendulum swings back for all you in the trenches. Teaching was so much fun for me! My now grown students have told me that is what they remember from my class. Hang in there!
Rose in PA, you are so right. I'm not a teacher, but my daughter is. With all of the testing, she finds that she is looking over her shoulder constantly. She loves to teach, but she hates to test. And with evaluations at least somewhat determining her own fate as a teacher, she is dependent upon a group of test-weary kids doing well on exams. She never knows how accomplished her students will be from year to year, which leads to teachers vying over who will get the more test-ready kids and who will get the kids who need to be coached up more. Notice I said "coached up", because that is what the teachers are faced with on the testing.
As a parent of a middle school child, I couldn't agree more with your comment that "the testing frenzy has sucked all the joy of learning out of our schools." Absolutely true, and very sad.
I'll reserve judgement until I see the details: I suspect that the "limits" will look better on paper than in practice. Remember, this is the administration who dismissed those who raised valid criticisms of the effects of its promotion of standardized testing as disgruntled "soccer moms". (Full disclosure, while I am not a soccer mom, I am swimming, crew, baseball, lacrosse and opt-out mom and a teacher.) At the very least, to appoint John King, a true-believer in the efficacy of testing after his disastrous tenure as NYS Commisioner of Education two weeks ago, and then to announce that testing should be limited THIS week, indicates at best that the Obama Administration lacks an educational policy that is coherent, rational, and effective. Or maybe it indicates that the Obama administration believes that its critics are soccer moms who are not only disgruntled but stupid enough to be easily snowed.
30
Maybe the real solution is to get the federal government out of education entirely. They consistently screw it up. So why 2% are we sure it is isn't say 2.5% or 1.5% and of course the schools will have to hire yet more bureaucrats to make sure that percentage holds and to fill out the inevitable government paperwork and the feds will hire more bean counters and then the diversity gang will get involved. Obama, so something smart and get the federal government out of education.
10
Finally President Obama is listening to experts instead of education privatizers who don't care anything about children as long as they can make a profit.
34
Has he really? These privatizes are big donors to the Dem machine.
The Times has coined a beautiful phrase: the "rampage" of the testing-industrial complex. Expect their lobbyists at the statehouses and in Washington to beat this back. Your kid's future could hinge on a $10 an hour temp working in a cubicle who didn't even major in the subject he is grading. Think about it.
48
Oh for heavens sake! Ones child's future hangs on their native ability, the family structure (or lack thereof), and the effort put into schoolwork. Your child thinks there is too much homework? Really? Should he really be the judge? Does he also decide how much sleep he needs (or doesn't!), what he eats, how he spends his free time? If you answer "yes" to all these things, then you have abrogated your responsibilities as a parent.
How about this? Counselors tell students who have failed these stupid tests to, next time, mark all the "B" bubbles? Flunked again? Next time all the "C" bubbles! Sooner or later you'll get the "right" test! I know a kid who flunked the math portion a couple of times, got the "right" test, and almost scored in the genius range. HAHAHA What a joke this whole thing is. Can we force our legislators and congressmen to take it too?
And you, my friend, are preaching to the already converted.
There are so many problems with high stakes testing that there is not enough room to cover them all, but the biggest failures of SBAC and PARCC is the lack of access. Teachers, parents and students do not have access to the details of their tests. The stakeholders cannot see how the tests are graded, what the test designers are testing, what needs to be re-taught, what the disconnect might be with the test language and how the stakeholders understand it. Furthermore, privilege has been granted to the testing companies to share the data they collect on our children outside the previously confidential relationship of the stakeholders and the testing company. What this privilege does is commoditize our children and violates the confidentiality of that data, legally. Just another outrage for parents.
50
Yep. Here in NJ the results for last year's PARCC tests came out just last week. What good is that supposed to do?
1
To add to your list, charter school teachers are allowed to grade in-house and tout their remarkable results, while teachers in regular public schools have to send their tests to grading centers or other schools. The same rules should apply to all schools.
2
Objective evaluations are so last century!
10
It's is not objective to make the teacher responsible for the test scores of the students who take the tests. I can be responsible for a test result if I take the test. I'm not responsible for the academic performance of children whose life, bedtimes, diet, screen time, health care and home and happiness I do not control.
61
I've said this before and why not say it again (I am a teacher, after all). Most teachers do not object to testing, even standardized testing. I absolutely believe students should demonstrate proficiency in the basics. What most of object to, however, are tests written by private companies at enormous expense, tests that require computers (another expense), tests that are needlessly difficult, tests that take months to get graded, tests that take up way too much school time (my school lost six full days last year), and tests that change nothing at the end of day when it comes to the students who need the help the most.
5
Your little, and I'm sure in your mind, pithy remarks only demonstrate how right wingers like to simplify complicated issues and provide slogans instead of solutions.
3
Again, the heavy hand of the Federal government trying to take our freedoms away. Local control of education has worked, keeping it small and close to the parents. To any sane person what is really going on is to get the teachers, and their unions, off the hook for accountability of to effect outcomes. To think otherwise, one needs but read what the mandate and mission of the NEA is. Go visit their web site and you will find they want to kill off all testing. Accountability will only come when we have a 100% voucher system, with the parents in charge. A parents 'testing' of their child's results will always be what matters. The ability to vote, and yes test, with their dollars is the answer. That is the truth.
1
Any sane person knows the NEA is right about testing and supports them.
Any sane person is not going to write anything remotely like what you've written.
Any sane person is not going to write anything remotely like what you've written.
1
Any sane person agrees with the NEA. They're consistently on the side of any policy question that's good for kids, as they are here.
In one state, it is calculated that a student, grades 1 through 12 will spend 176 days of mandated testing. That is 1/12 or 8.3 percent of their total days in school.
That figure does NOT take into account days off because other grades in the same school are testing, a very common practice. That does not take into any account of days spent prepping for those same tests.
A very conservative estimate of days spent in total would be one third of the total of all student days.
Since the extreme proliferation of these tests, mandated by state and federal government, there has been a steady and undebatable decline in all test scores.
These days spent spent and consumed by testing have stolen as much as 1/3 or all instructional time available.. AND teachers, school boards, are consistently and ONLY teaching to the tests.
No child left behind??? Our best and brightest ARE being left behind, because of this uninformed and ignorant of the facts mandated testing. These tests are harming our youth,, not helping, harming.
That figure does NOT take into account days off because other grades in the same school are testing, a very common practice. That does not take into any account of days spent prepping for those same tests.
A very conservative estimate of days spent in total would be one third of the total of all student days.
Since the extreme proliferation of these tests, mandated by state and federal government, there has been a steady and undebatable decline in all test scores.
These days spent spent and consumed by testing have stolen as much as 1/3 or all instructional time available.. AND teachers, school boards, are consistently and ONLY teaching to the tests.
No child left behind??? Our best and brightest ARE being left behind, because of this uninformed and ignorant of the facts mandated testing. These tests are harming our youth,, not helping, harming.
13
As the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan showed that he knew nothing about public education and cared nothing about educators. Because of the arrogance of his ignorance, he failed the test of leadership. Worse, he threw public education into confusion from which it will require years, if not decades, for recovery (if further "reforms" do not throw it into chaos). Any educational institution or textbook publisher which hires him should be avoided or boycotted, respectively. And President Obama does not escape censure for have appointed a crony and retained an incompetent.
33
The appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education was a magnifying glass that revealed in detail everything Barack Obama really is.
2% of class instruction time is 8.4 minutes in a 7 hour day. More time than this is wasted on taking attendance. Keep politics out of this. Let the educators decide.
8
But tests aren't given minutes at a time, and 2% of the year still represents several wasted days. By all means, educators should decide... but no competent educator is going to advocate that nearly as much as 2% of instructional time be wasted on standardized tests.
3
2% of 181 days represents 3.62 days... or four days... which is already one day more than my state spends on standardized testing. You did pass math, didn't you?
The 2% figure is based on total minutes actually taking the test. For example last year's PARCC tests incl math & engl took 9hrs each (2 sets of tests) which is within the 2%. The hidden problem is that tests must be taken on computer for correction & data compilation/ reporting. Public schools do not provide a laptop at every desk. Even at a well-off h.s. Near me in NJ, it took 5 days of disrupted schedules & class attendance to herd everybody in& out of testing areas-- meanwhile gym, library, & computer labs inaccessible for academic use. At elementary schools, 10 days. That's per test, for a total of 10-20 days testing-related disruption. And these are just the fed/state-reqd stdzd tests. They are inadequate to assess actual learning of actual matl taught, so you still have the complete spectrum of chapter tests, midterms, finals, etc.
1
The biggest problem with testing is the standards that are used. Children lear at different rates and yet we cram them all into a single standard for each grade. Worse, we evaluate teachers based on the ability of the children to meet the standard, which has caused teachers and even entire school systems whose State and Federal support can be at risk to 'teach the test'. This is, of course, absurd and hopefully will come to an end.
Our public schools are disaster areas. Go into one and the first thing you will notice is a lack of discipline. Discipline is the foundation of education so if you want a place to start a true reformation of the system, start there.
Our public schools are disaster areas. Go into one and the first thing you will notice is a lack of discipline. Discipline is the foundation of education so if you want a place to start a true reformation of the system, start there.
9
From a math teacher's perspective, this policy is a recipe for disaster. We spend approximately 20% testing, with every test cumulative, and we have some of the highest scores in the world, let alone for a school with non-selective admission. We are being ruled by morons who excelled in social studies, but failed math!
8
You spend 20% of your time testing? Good god. That's a very depressing figure. Please don't speak for all math teachers. "Some of the highest scores in the world." Pray tell, how did we graduate many fine mathematicians before the era of standardized testing?
I don't know what you guys are talking about with standardized tests. We have 3 days of AZ state testing each school year. Yet, we spend 20% of classroom time testing lesson material. Because of this, I know exactly which of my kids know the material, which ones do not, and even more so, which ones can think "outside the box."
Limiting testing in mathematics to 2% a year is a recipe for an innumerate population. Testing has been a problem, but this is an idiotic solution.
“'I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,' said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education."
And this just underlines the fact that Duncan is and has always been woefully unqualified for the posts he's held in education. We need to check MUCH more often than once a year to see if kids are on track or need more help, but the tests he's forced onto schools are often nearly as useless for that purpose as they are for teacher evaluation. There's a place for testing, perhaps, but we don't need to test every year, or every kid, and the proper amount of schooling time spent on standardized testing is far less than the 2% figure Duncan throws ignorantly out in his too-little, too-late attempt to burnish his shameful legacy.
And this just underlines the fact that Duncan is and has always been woefully unqualified for the posts he's held in education. We need to check MUCH more often than once a year to see if kids are on track or need more help, but the tests he's forced onto schools are often nearly as useless for that purpose as they are for teacher evaluation. There's a place for testing, perhaps, but we don't need to test every year, or every kid, and the proper amount of schooling time spent on standardized testing is far less than the 2% figure Duncan throws ignorantly out in his too-little, too-late attempt to burnish his shameful legacy.
22
'...There's a place for testing, perhaps, but we don't need to test every year, or every kid...'
So what?
Just push illiterate kids out the door after 12 years and hand them a broom?
And, of course, let the teachers judge their own abilities?
So what?
Just push illiterate kids out the door after 12 years and hand them a broom?
And, of course, let the teachers judge their own abilities?
Exactly. Do the math. Ina 180 day school year that is 3.6 days of testing. that is more than needed or wanted.
183 days in a school year, 10 chapter tests and one day review...163 days to teach...4 days out of the room for training relating to new test and electronic grading program..159 days to teach. 5 two day preparing for the standardized test. 149 days to teach..all school rallies and motivation for test. 148 days to teach. reasonable number of other special events or field trips, absences and of course the actual tests. about 140 days of teaching lessons minus time out for reviewing homework, or giving quizzes. The bottom line is too much time is taken away from instruction, measurement doesn't have to be a separate event. It can occur with questions and observations in a classroom. Every test I give , I run an estimate in my head how well students will do, on average I am pretty accurate. I suspect most teachers would be. We could incorporate standardized testing in the chapter exams and quizzes. Multiple assessments over the year would offer students an opportunity to improve. With computers and intelligent tests we could individualize assessments and homework, but we don't.
Schools need to adapt to modern technology as a way to help students. To do this effectively they must listen to the teachers who are in the classroom, not those who are hired to sell a product.
Schools need to adapt to modern technology as a way to help students. To do this effectively they must listen to the teachers who are in the classroom, not those who are hired to sell a product.
24
Parents and kids need accountability and transparency from teachers and principals, to know objectively how well students are learning. Fine-tune testing regimes where appropriate, but let's not throw out the baby with the bath water!
7
Testing kids doesn't produce useful data for teacher evaluation; that's false accountability. And what we know from college admissions tests suggests that teacher grades are far more accurate than the tests.
There's no baby. Just a lot of dirty bathwater.
There's no baby. Just a lot of dirty bathwater.
16
There's this thing - it's called grades. Any parent can and always has been able to go to any public school and ask to see the test and any other evidence that supported or did not support any student's grade. The idea that we need Congress, the Administration or state governments to make us "accountable" is one of the worst fictions inflicted on American public education in a long time.
1
Standardized testing accountability drives out more meaningful accountability. (And please don't forget such tests shape and narrow curriculum). The school where President Obama sends his children--Sidwell Friends--does not rely on standardized tests. Of course they give course exams and assign essays, etc, and give grades. But they look at the growth of the whole child. Do not be fooled by pseudo-scientific testing instruments. And don't forget that your children are developing, but not according to a standardized time-table. Be careful what you ask for.
1
It is not only the length and frequency of the tests that are a problem. If the tests continue to be used as part of teacher evaluations, the test driven instruction will continue. That is the real problem. Any attempt to lower test anxiety and time spent on tests will fail unless the tests are decoupled from teacher evaluations. If a teacher can be fired based on student performance on exams, teachers will understandably continue to spend most of their time on test prep.
148
Here's another thought: Stop funding schools as a reward for winning a contest as a "race to the top". And fund them according to their needs. Those most in need of funding are least likely to be able to spend resources, time, and labor jumping through hoops to "win" a bureaucratic game.
(The same kind of thing is done now at many workplaces, like mine. Instead of raises for experience or work achievement, "awards" are given to a few who fill out reams of paperwork and do extra bureaucratic chores that please the administration. And most of those who actually take time from other tasks to do all that will not "win" one of the "awards". That competition has let costs be cut, but at a greater price: wages for the hardest workers stagnate, loyalty on all sides has declined,morale is low, and the quality of the whole enterprise is declining.)
(The same kind of thing is done now at many workplaces, like mine. Instead of raises for experience or work achievement, "awards" are given to a few who fill out reams of paperwork and do extra bureaucratic chores that please the administration. And most of those who actually take time from other tasks to do all that will not "win" one of the "awards". That competition has let costs be cut, but at a greater price: wages for the hardest workers stagnate, loyalty on all sides has declined,morale is low, and the quality of the whole enterprise is declining.)
20
Good to see Obama getting on board~ The book, "More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing" is a must-read! It was so eye-opening and inspiring to learn that testing in this country originated out of white supremacy to separate the white student population out and over the Black/African heritage and other students of color and peoples. Our system is embedded with racism--systemic racism. Allowing teachers their creativity and humanity to bring their students along will heal and support systemic change. In California we are 94% students of color--we must eliminate systemic racism and support our schools to be a place of contradiction to systemic racism where our student populations can heal from internalized racism and be inspired again.
5
Good to see him getting on board? Obama isn't getting on board. He is abandoning a sinking ship that he has sunk. Amateur hour year 8.
Leslie - Don't kid yourself. For the past 8 years Obama and Arne Duncan have been the main promoters of the increase in high-stakes testing. They are the ultimate hypocrites.
It's going to be a tough sell, because a whole new industry has grown up around the testing phenomena. Millionaires are being made and that means lobbyists to maintain their source of income...which is tax payer dollars.
63
Politicians have campaign coffers to fill and what better place to feed than from the profits of the companies that make money from testing.
1
So the reign of terror is being reigned in. Rather than be allowed to resign and collect a fat federal pension, Duncan should be put on trial for child abuse. Good lord get the federal government out of the Education business. Close the Department of Education forever.
11
If only they applied the same logic to tests at the higher levels, like the GRE or the SAT. That success on these tests, which can often feel like they are determining ones future, is proportionate to ones income and correlates with race/social status is well documented.
Hopefully the administration (or the next) will look into eliminating this arcane requirement and joining leagues with the rest of the worlds graduate and postgraduate institutions!
Hopefully the administration (or the next) will look into eliminating this arcane requirement and joining leagues with the rest of the worlds graduate and postgraduate institutions!
5
This is good news. The only testing I found useful as an English teacher was that which I generated in the classroom: it enabled me to evaluate individual student growth, address individual struggles, and assess my effectiveness in teaching a concept or skill. Because of their one-size-fits-all nature, standardized tests do a poor job of that.
132
The teaching process itself is based on asking the correct questions to draw out the answer.
Plato, the famous Pholosopher used that method. This was later used in Computer Software Programs to help Students with their homework.
The only thing standarized tests do is provide information to the Government that Students ARE learning and not goofing off or dozing in the classrooms.
Plato, the famous Pholosopher used that method. This was later used in Computer Software Programs to help Students with their homework.
The only thing standarized tests do is provide information to the Government that Students ARE learning and not goofing off or dozing in the classrooms.
I don't completely understand your second sentence. You appear to be saying that you developed testing which involve the following: 1)evaluating individual student growth, 2) addressing individual student struggles, and 3) assessing you effectiveness in teaching a concept or skill. In other words , it doesn't seem as though you are testing the ability of the students to actually learn what you are teaching them.
Stacy - Are you suggesting that the teachers who spend all day, every day for 180 days per school year actually know whether their students are achieving? Are you suggesting that they know who has learned and who has not? Now that is a radical idea! You mean they don't need an expensive test produced by a for-profit company in a location far away that no one knows of to tell them how their students are doing? Who could have known!
3
Not only have the plethora of mandated standardized test taken away for teaching when the tests are give, but countless days have been spent on test-prep. Instead of reading real books and text books teachers were forced to to use test-prep workbooks in reading and math. Because the tests were only given in reading and math the other subjects were neglected. Some schools even dropped art and music instruction!
Students should be required to take only one standardized test per year.
Students should be required to take only one standardized test per year.
44
@David J.Krupp: Why should all students take even one standardized test per year? Please explain.
My kids are in school for 180 days per year. 2 percent equals 3 1/2 days of testing per year. For a 3rd grader? This is absurd. For a 5th grader? Also absurd.
What do high-performing private schools do? How many *days* of testing per year do Obama's children undergo?
It's not clear from the article if Obama is talking about any tests, or just NCLB-type tests. If it's the former, in high school, 3 1/2 days total testing is reasonable because the usual end of term exams take up 3 days themselves, leaving just 1/2 a day for the high-stakes NCLB-type tests. If it's the latter, then high school children could conceivably be subject to over a week of just tests per year. I hope this is not what's meant.
What do high-performing private schools do? How many *days* of testing per year do Obama's children undergo?
It's not clear from the article if Obama is talking about any tests, or just NCLB-type tests. If it's the former, in high school, 3 1/2 days total testing is reasonable because the usual end of term exams take up 3 days themselves, leaving just 1/2 a day for the high-stakes NCLB-type tests. If it's the latter, then high school children could conceivably be subject to over a week of just tests per year. I hope this is not what's meant.
11
I work as a substitute teacher's aide & it seems to me that there is ALWAYS testing going on!! Prior to my divorce, I opted my older kids out of the testing because of the stress put on my kids (my oldest suffered from migraines, nausea & vomiting because the teacher & principal told her that if she didn't pass the tests, her life "was over"). Unfortunately, my youngest lives with her father who is not cooperating with the joint parenting plan right now. As soon as I can remedy that situation (daughter lives with me &/or ex has to cooperate by court order), I plan on opting her out of the testing. In the meantime, I tell her that those "tests" are not something to stress over, to do her best, but if she can't answer questions or doesn't do well, then it is nothing to get upset over--her life will truly begin after high school when she goes to college.
4
When I was in the 3rd grade, I had a spelling test on Wednesday and again on Friday if I missed any. The same thing applied for math. How else does a kid learn? I agree that if he is talking about NCLB-type tests, 3.5 days is too long.
3 1/2 days of testing out of a 180 day year is 'absurd' and no testing is better?
No wonder so many children are illiterate and unemployable.
No wonder so many children are illiterate and unemployable.
Tests are not the problem. Legions of entrenched and incompetent teachers protected by their unions are the problem.
Consider the case of Michelle Rhee, who was driven from her job as Chancellor of the Washington DC schools, after making real, measurable progress in raising mathematics and reading performance of students there.
When she moved to dismiss under-performing teachers, the union simply drove her out, motivated as they are only by the need for protection of time-servers.
Teachers unions in this country are a disgrace, and the single biggest roadblock to student progress. This silly attempt to find another cause for inadequate students' failure to learn is pathetic.
Consider the case of Michelle Rhee, who was driven from her job as Chancellor of the Washington DC schools, after making real, measurable progress in raising mathematics and reading performance of students there.
When she moved to dismiss under-performing teachers, the union simply drove her out, motivated as they are only by the need for protection of time-servers.
Teachers unions in this country are a disgrace, and the single biggest roadblock to student progress. This silly attempt to find another cause for inadequate students' failure to learn is pathetic.
12
Incompetent teachers along with the same mind-numbing curriculum that public schools have been shoving down their students' throats for decades. Kids aren't taught how to think—they're taught to memorize endless facts that have absolutely no relation to succeeding in the real world.
1
Michelle Rhee is a hard-nosed administrator bent on testing the hell of students and punishing them and teacher if they did not live up to her standards. Teachers unions protest us against the whims of people like her and right-wing politicians. The unions also protect us against uninformed citizens like yourself.
26
Teachers' unions in this country are the only organized group pushing to improve schools and oppose bad education policy. Michelle Rhee was unqualified for the job she held and was a dismal failure at it; she slowed the learning of the students under her power. Lots of money has been spent to put lipstick on that pig, but for purely political reasons and at the expense of children. Only the ignorant have been fooled into supporting Rhee and opposing the teachers' unions, and students suffer for their ignorance.
19
As in so many articles about this topic, the word "testing" is used as an umbrella term for many qualitatively different activities. I teach third and fourth grade and use many informal and formal assessments all the time to guide my day-to-day instruction and tailor it more closely to individual kids' needs. By some definitions this is testing, but it has almost nothing in common with the high-stakes standardized New York State tests my kids will take in the spring in an atmosphere of stress and doubt (despite my best efforts to keep things in perspective). Those tests are poorly constructed and the results are vague (as well as unavailable until months after my kids leave my class). They are a huge and demoralizing waste of time for everyone, while my own assessments form the foundation of my educational planning.
88
A child should be given one standardized test each year - at the end of the school year. That one test should determine if they are eligible to graduate to the next grade level and their placement in the next grade level class.
If the teachers have taught each subject correctly, testing the student's knowledge to verify what they have learned, then each student should be able to pass the standardized test and graduate to the next grade level.
If the teachers have taught each subject correctly, testing the student's knowledge to verify what they have learned, then each student should be able to pass the standardized test and graduate to the next grade level.
In theory, Gorgegirl, if students always performed consistently and weren't affected by test anxiety, your idea might make sense. But there are lots of kids who perform differently (usually worse) on high-stakes tests than they do in normal, low-stakes schoolwork. If kids knew that that one test would determine their promotion and placement for the following year, I can only imagine the extreme anxiety and fear they would experience, no matter how well-prepared they were. This would inevitably lower many kids' scores (apart from the effects it could have on their love of learning and sense of purpose at school).
4
Teachers can do their jobs perfectly. Students will still exhibit a range of ability, a range of degrees of effort, and a big variety in the quality of the home lives they go home to after school. All of these things affect whether they'll be successful much more than whether the teachers do their jobs perfectly, and all of that means that there are some kids who won't pass no matter how great the teachers are.
3
It's nice to see some semblance of efficacy analysis happening instead of the usual process of pull out and pray. Let's hope this continues and they address the whole charter school abomination.
17
I don't trust them at all. Just a few weeks ago Duncan and this administration made changes to regulations to limit "Alternative Assesments" for Learning Disabled students to only 1% of Special Ed kids. Why did they do that???? The rest of our most vulnerable kids can just suffer, and not graduate in many states. If they were serious about meaningful reform they've had 7 years to do something. All they have done is make things worse at every turn. No Child Left Behind needs to be REPEALED not REAUTHORIZED. Trying to placate the now vocal teachers, parents and students who are up in arms isn't fooling anyone. REPEAL this mess. Don't try to put a band aid on this broken and insane system.
83
Why did they do that?
Because parents all decided that their child is also disabled and needs tutors and more time for tests and lots of expensive hand holding.
Because parents all decided that their child is also disabled and needs tutors and more time for tests and lots of expensive hand holding.
A good start, but nowhere near far enough. There should be two standardized tests per year, one on the first day to determine where the class is starting out with what they should have learned last year, and one at the end to determine how much more they learned this year. Beyond that, let the teachers set their own tests based on what they teach and how often they thing it necessary.
46
And meaningful Alternative Assessments for learning disabled kids. NOT LIMITED to only 1% of students.
3
Children aren't machines who can be programmed to learn at prescribed and preferred rates. They learn at different rates and in different ways. And let me tell you, most of them learn and develop because that's what children are doing, learning and developing. So to administer tests to tell us that is pretty much a waste of time and money. It's telling us what we already know.
1
This is welcome change, for sure, but the damage has been done. Many fine teachers have been driven out of the profession because they were no longer allowed to teach, but rather had to spend much of their time in test prep and assessments. Why did this change take so long, when it has been so obvious for years how damaging all of this testing has been to our students and teachers?
186
A step in the right direction. Now please cut out the "reformers" and the Corporate Education Complex and let teachers teach. School budgets should not be to reinvent the wheel every year and spend more money on a reworded program that is a rehash of what was used previously. High Staked testing is inappropriate for early elementary students and only needed for advancement into the upper grades. Non should be tied to teacher evaluations. Let the teachers teach!
Get. Out. and Vote!
Get. Out. and Vote!
80
As a retired teacher, I can say that the kids are not so much interested in learning. I studied my butt off in high school and college and learned a great deal about everything. As a teacher I watched student interest go down and the tests were dummied down to show better results for the district. Rather than teach to the test, JUST TEACH! If the kids do not get it, or do not want to get it, we will continue to import scholars from abroad to man our major industries.
30
If education is not important to the parents, it shows in their children's attitude toward learning. One can always tell parents who don't care about their children's education by those who show up for parent-teacher conferences.
1
The time spent in actual testing is only a small part of the problem. The bigger issue is how the tests are used. Because they are used in part to rank schools and teachers, reducing the number of tests will do little to reduce the pressure to teach to the test, and will do little to alleviate the pressure on children. Using tests to evaluate teachers is popular among "reformers" precisely because it does not produce reliable results. Thus, excellent veteran teachers are fired, and districts save money by replacing them with a revolving door of cheap, inexperienced teachers. This allows states to cut taxes still further, and inequity rises.
67
Agreed. The even bigger issue is how badly written some of the tests are.
Perhaps our PRESIDENT is out of touch and doesn't realize that not every family can afford nor qualify financially for their children to attend Sidwell Friends School. Children and teachers alike should be tested and evaluated for their work periodically and all should be held accountable. Parents, in turn have a responsibility to be an extension of the classroom and encourage good study and social habits so their children have opportunities to achieve a solid education. This is not rocket science... parents and teachers need to work in unison. Testing is important but in my day, your report card was the best measure of your learning experience.
15
Arne Duncan says "we check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track," as if teachers would never do that if it weren't federally mandated. Duncan says these tests are to "identify areas where they need support." He is leaving out the fact that low scores on standardized tests NEVER lead to greater support to students! Low scores = teachers fired and schools closed, reopening the school as a charter, which then operates as a pseudo-public school in that a charter does not have to accept every student and can get rid of any student, in an effort to obtain high scores.
And to the reporter, the teachers' unions DID NOT lead the opposition to the amount of testing! It has been pressure from parents. For the most part, teachers have been very compliant with the ridiculous demands politicians have made upon them.
Ms. Zernike, those of us opposing high stakes standardized testing are not "on the left." It isn't a left-right issue. In fact, the Opt Out movement is probably more politically diverse than any other grass roots movement this country has seen.
Please do your research.
And to the reporter, the teachers' unions DID NOT lead the opposition to the amount of testing! It has been pressure from parents. For the most part, teachers have been very compliant with the ridiculous demands politicians have made upon them.
Ms. Zernike, those of us opposing high stakes standardized testing are not "on the left." It isn't a left-right issue. In fact, the Opt Out movement is probably more politically diverse than any other grass roots movement this country has seen.
Please do your research.
187
And those of us on the "left" aren't just teachers in unions. We are parents that watch our kids have anxiety over all of these tests. We are parents that went to school and learned music and art along with our math and other core courses and wonder why now, our kids have to give up the arts so that we can compete with the world in math scores?
To heck with the competition. Give me a creative, well rounded, happy kid any day, and they will grow up and fly.
To heck with the competition. Give me a creative, well rounded, happy kid any day, and they will grow up and fly.
4
Unions not leading the campaign against testing?? Read the comment immediately below for an alternative view!
Please at this point in my district there are people whose full-time jobs are now essentially coordinating and organizing all the testing that has to be done throughout the school year. It's a huge boondoggle and it was promoted by Arne Duncan.
4
I cannot help but wonder how many children will be so discouraged, so demolished, that they won't graduate - or worse, commit suicide - before they get this fixed. Testing is the single biggest mistake made in education, and we allowed it nationwide.
19
as with everything these days ... follow the money. there's endless millions those education 'consultants' (parasites) have their eyes on... unfortunately, it looks like that bounty will have to be share with the lobbyists on the floor below who will ensure those millions keep flowing in their direction.
87
Good riddance Arne - Obama's worst appointee.
Teachers who can teach. Teachers who care about kids. Involved parents. Expectations and accountability (both teachers and students). School buildings in good repair. Neighborhoods and families that protect and inspire kids.
Not too hard to figure out.
Standardized tests play a minor role (and are a boondoggle for the test companies).
Teachers who can teach. Teachers who care about kids. Involved parents. Expectations and accountability (both teachers and students). School buildings in good repair. Neighborhoods and families that protect and inspire kids.
Not too hard to figure out.
Standardized tests play a minor role (and are a boondoggle for the test companies).
131
Arne Duncan has said America is overtesting before. His answer? Get rid of those other pesky tests. PARCC and Smarter Balance are rushed tests which have not been tested for reliability and validity. They deliver little helpful information, and score reports take a long time to arrive. Get rid of these tests, not the ones the schools a actually get useful information from.
7
At last, some thought is returning to education policy! Let's get back to encouraging knowledge and discovery, rather than teaching to the test. Let's acknowledge that scantrons are inadequate judges of either children or teachers. And let's bid farewell to the legacy of Arne Duncan, whose arrogance, rudeness and myopic beliefs knew no bounds.
97
We should abolish the department of education instead.
2
I suppose this is a start, and better late than never. But will the Obama Administration push to repeal its own "Race to the Top" program, which offered federal grant money to states that raised test scores, adopted Common Core standards, and encouraged privatization in their districts?
It's easy enough to write something with no force of law, acknowledging that maybe the overzealous testing has gone a little too far. But the money - both in the form of corporate investment and federal funding - is squarely behind the commodification of American education at all levels. In the face of that reality, what effect are mere words likely to have?
It's easy enough to write something with no force of law, acknowledging that maybe the overzealous testing has gone a little too far. But the money - both in the form of corporate investment and federal funding - is squarely behind the commodification of American education at all levels. In the face of that reality, what effect are mere words likely to have?
25
I am glad they have moved in this direction. But, it took 7 years of the Obama administration and 8 of Bush's to realize what most teachers and parents knew. To make matters worse they fought with the teacher's union and mocked parents who were concerned. Arne Duncan was unqualified and a disaster. They've replaced him with another unqualified person who thinks schools are or should be businesses. I think they will still be pushing Common Core. Education was not a successful area for the president.
129
There is nothing much wrong with Common Core. The testing regimen is not Common Core, it's a political ploy by people who care nothing about teaching or learning.
2
Common Core exists mainly to sell new tests, new test prep, and new computers for the computer-based tests. Where it differs from what it's replacing, it's often developmentally inappropriate. But it doesn't differ all that much.
There's a LOT wrong with Common Core.
There's a LOT wrong with Common Core.
2
Eric is completely wrong about the reason for Common Core. It's true that corrupt politicians and businesses have taken advantage of Common Core PLUS the ludicrous testing demands of the Bush and Obama education distortions (NCLB and RttT) to extract millions of dollars from education budgets, but it has nothing, literally nothing, to do with the Common Core standards themselves.
1
The 70,000 members of the Maryland State Education Association have been engaged in a campaign for Less Testing /More Learning. Educators understand that the time spent on both state and locally mandated assessments is taking time away from learning, narrowing the curriculum, and destroying the love of learning. The inappropriate high stakes uses of these student tests is driving passionate educators away from the profession. Enough is enough.
45
While you are at it, more time for learning might include fewer meaningless committee, faculty and department meetings, more support from admin, less fundraising—at my school, high school teachers must work with students over five years to raise over ten thousand dollars for their combined junior/senior proms—fire drills, earthquake drills, deranged gunperson drills, mudslide drills, pep rallies, field trips, walk-throughs, WASC Reports, the bureaucracy of the Williams Act, sport trips, workshops, professional development, on-line courses for various credentials, interventions for failing students, IEPs for the challenged and disabled—so much time is devoted to avoiding lawsuits in one way or another— technology updates and glitches, attendance records, make-up work, absences and tardies which entail repetition of instruction—and proctoring exams, yes. Drug searches, dress code violations—this list by no means reflects the daily interruptions teachers suffer. The buildings have no air conditioning, my room has no heat. Students become ill, forget materials, need to ask for restroom passes, lose their books, intentionally disrupt, suffer from uncontrolled anger, are damaged by early arrests. We try to address every case individually. We are here to help every child reach adulthood. Factor all that in, and I wonder how much time is genuinely spent on instruction. Instruction is not only academic. Eliminating these weeks of testing will definitely help.
2
I have watched the level of learning go down since my kids began school. I now have a freshman and a senior in high school. Most of their school career has been spent learning how to take a test and not actually learning. So how can we stay ahead of the world if we are not allowing our kids to be taught. No child left behind is a joke because they are leaving all children behind by not teaching them and only teaching to a test.
89
Thank you, President Obama, for listening. This will make a huge difference in the lives of teachers, administrators, parents, and most importantly, our children.
38
The elite private schools to which policy makers send their children do not subject students to these tests or to any of the rest of the bureaucratic nightmares to which public school students and teachers are subjected, and there lies the answer to the manufactured crisis of U.S. education: Let diverse public school teachers provide students with the nurturing, engaging, encouraging, non-standardized testing, small-class-size environment which the decision makers are providing for their own children.
Kitty Kelly Epstein, PhD, Professor of Education and Urban Studies