Tag: parcc

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics

The Swift Fall of Testing – What Comes Next?

I’ve been in the education business for 31 years and I’ve seen many a fad come and go, from Teacher-proof curricula to shared decision-making to Differentiation to Cooperative Learning, Curriculum Mapping, Goals 2000 and various reading programs that focus on inventive spelling, phonics, whole language and learning vocabulary in context. Many of my colleagues didn’t believe me when I said that our present testing fetish would also shuffle off the educational stage at some point. What caught me by surprise was just how quickly that would happen.

The focus on testing and corporate-style accountability began with the publication in 1983 of A Nation at Risk, a report that essentially regarded the American education system as having failed our students, our economy, and our values. It repudiated many of the reforms that liberals had foisted on the system in the 1960s and 70s and said that if we didn’t correct those flaws we would fall behind other countries whose schools were beginning to produce students who knew more math, science and analytical skills. Conservatives adopted the report as the clarion call for privatization, a back-to-basics curriculum that stressed factual recall, and of course, tests to measure not just students, but teachers, with the secondary goals of loosening the grip that the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers had on school policy and defeating Democrats who relied on union support.

And they almost succeeded. The testing movement – which reached its pinnacle last year and is now under more assault than what we are using to fight ISIS – is in rapid decline. Last year, 44 states gave the PARCC tests which measure how thoroughly students have learned the Common Core Curriculum Standards. This school year 7 states, including New Jersey, will be giving those tests. The rest will be giving a test adopted by their own Education Departments. Further, some states, most notably New York, won’t be using the tests to evaluate teachers. The retreat is notable.

Is the assault over? Not by a long shot, but it is weakening. Conservative groups are still trying to get states to funnel money to Charter Schools, which, on average, do no better than public schools. Many charters do better within certain geographic areas, but much of that has to do with state governments that are abandoning public schools that are in poor urban centers. The fight to limit collective bargaining for teachers and other public workers reached its height in 2013 and has since paused, although the damage done to teachers’ pay and benefits has been significant. And although New York is backing away from using tests to evaluate teachers, more states need to follow them for the good of education everywhere.

The bottom line is that teachers are doing a magnificent job with the dwindling resources and increased scrutiny that came with the rise of the know-nothing conservatives. Aligning teacher evaluation with student test scores only illustrated that the overwhelming majority of teachers were effective. Clearly, the know-nothing’s intent was to use the test scores to fire teachers they thought were failing our students. That hasn’t happened because their assumption was incorrect. They won’t admit it, but it’s true.

The next fight will now be on the state level as we return to local standards and local tests. In the past, most states created tests where 90% of the students scored in the proficient range. That’s just not statistically feasible. We do need national standards and we do need to measure how students are learning. The reaction to the Common Core and PARCC will not make this possible, and that’s to the country’s detriment.

Have no fear, though: If history is any guide, this reaction will only last a few years and something else will come along and replace it. Will it be better or will it be worse?

My answer? Yes.

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey

Pearson Jumps the Shark on PARCC

We are truly in deep PARCC mode now. Perhaps the April/May test administration should include readings from the Pentagon Papers.

Pearson Education, the company that produces the PARCC tests, and is reportedly being paid over $22 million dollars in New Jersey alone, is monitoring social media to check for security breaches and other untoward activity.  The latest example is in the Watchung Hills Regional school district, where evidently a student tweeted a test question and Pearson was able to flag it. The company then contacted the New Jersey Department of Education, which then contacted the school district. A fuller discussion is here. I can certainly understand test security because every teacher in New Jersey is warned annually that any data breach can result in the loss of their teaching license.

In the new testing world, though, the students may control the balance of power. Think about it: The new tests are being given exclusively on computers to an audience that, shall we say, is less than enthusiastic about sitting for hours to complete them. Students also have access to the Internet on their own devices. Mix in the politics of test refusal and the widely acknowledged fact that these tests count for zilch to the people who are taking them, and you have a messy brew that was just waiting to foam over. And think again if you think this is only happening in New Jersey.

Testing has always been a part of education and the PARCC is just another in a long line that stretches back decades. What’s upset many more people about these particular tests is that they are tied to the Common Core Curriculum Standards, which are unpopular on both the right and the left, and which most school districts just implemented formally this past September. That means that students in grades 3-11 have only had six months with which to work with some new, sophisticated concepts. How are these tests going to do anything except tell us that we have more work to do? What’s worse, many parents and teachers with college educations and advanced degrees have taken the practice tests and have been flummoxed by what PARCC says are the correct answers.

The tests are also unpopular because they are being administered over a couple of weeks in two separate time frames; one now and one during late April or early May. This is taking an extraordinary amount of time away from classroom teaching and learning that is, presumably, the point of having children go to school and hiring teachers to instruct and mentor them. As someone who teaches Advanced Placement courses, I can tell you that this schedule has put enormous pressure on me to find time to properly prepare students for the early May AP tests while they are also taking the PARCC.

Then there is Pearson Education (remember Pearson Education? This is a column on Pearson Education). They will be paid about $22 million dollars for the tests in NJ, which is below the original estimate, but it’s still a great deal of money. Now the company is trolling through social media, monitoring student behavior and expecting that nobody will ever talk about the tests in a world where we are all connected.

This will not help schools and states that are trying to limit the number of students who are refusing to take the tests, and could possibly lead to more students not taking them in April/May. In the high school where I teach, approximately 35% of eligible students are not taking the tests. When I was proctoring the tests last week I did notice that a number of students were logging on to the test program on their computers, cycling through the pages in about 30 seconds, then taking out a book to read. Civil disobedience is alive and well.

Every social movement has its tipping point. This could be the one for Pearson and PARCC.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey News Politics teachers

PARCC Storm II: Sunshine Peeks Through

Another week, and more snow is expected in the northeast. There’s more over the PARCC testing storm as well, but this time, there is a ray of sane sunshine.

Here in New Jersey, State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly’s education committee, has introduced a bill that would detail a procedure for how parents could opt out of the tests. He’s working on another bill that would delay the use of the tests to evaluate students and teachers for up to three years. Not that using tests for such evaluation is ever a good idea, whether it’s now or in 2018, but a delay might give testing opponents, which include most educators who work in classrooms, an opportunity to put the movement out of our misery.

The other good news is that another bill sponsored by state Assemblyman David Rible (R-Monmouth) would put limits on how student data is used and disseminated. The Christie administration has said that student privacy protections are in place, but that’s quickly becoming the most laughable line in any industry, much less in education. See Target, Home Depot, and anyone involved in The Interview. Plus, Christie can’t even keep his political operatives from talking about their political contretemps. How is he going to safeguard the privacy of all the schoolchildren in New Jersey?

New FAQs about the PARCC tests released by the state Department of Education do say that the tests are not mandatory even though many districts are sending the implicit message that they are. Other districts and organizations are sponsoring evenings where members of the community can come and take a sample test to see what their children will experience. These evenings are being presented as informational sessions, but clearly if parents don’t like what they see, they could take action.

Right now, the opt-out movement is small, but it is growing. As we get closer to the March administration, I would expect that more parents will take their children out of the tests. There might even be more opt-outs after the March tests once students go home and tell their parents/caregivers about their experiences. The final administration is in late April or early May.

For all the talk about the procedural aspects of PARCC, the real issue is what the tests actually measure and whether students are doing their best, either because they’ve decided that they don’t want to bother or are flummoxed by technology issues.

These are high stakes tests for only one group: teachers, because student scores can determine whether one is retained or fired. The ultimate irony is that the people who will be most affected will be the ones with the least amount of control on test day.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics

Salting the PARCCing Lot

Educators, are you getting excited? No, not about the next snowstorm, which looks like a whopper, but about the PARCC tests? You’d better be, because they are on the way and the impact will be measurable and unpredictable.

For those non-educators, the PARCC tests are the standardized tests that students in grades 3-11 will take in two administrations; March and April/May. They are tied to the Common Core Curriculum Standards and claim to be the newest, latest, greatest, most bestest tests to evaluate teacher performance and to prepare our students for further leaning, college, and the working world. Parents, teachers, administrators and politicians have debated whether these new tests, and the Common Core, are appropriate or will even measure what they purport to measure. Some states adopted the Common Core and the tests, then un-adopted them.

The bottom line, though, is that they are almost here.

I’ve taken some sample tests, and so can you. Go ahead and give it a try. Notice what students are being asked to do and how they are being asked to do it. My assumption is that it’s different from what you were asked to do in school. This is the point: The standards and tests are asking educators and students to approach education from a different perspective. In some ways, it’s a more productive, intuitive approach, and in others, it’s downright confounding.

One of the main issues in New Jersey and, I suspect, in most other states, is the availability and reliability of the school’s technology. All of the tests are taken on computers and all of the students will probably log on to their school’s systems at the same time. This will probably cause some networks to slow down and/or crash. Also, many schools do not have enough computers for all of their students, which will result in significant disruptions to the school schedule as students will need to test in shifts.

And as much as adults like to fool themselves into thinking that children are all adept at using computers, the facts are that many students can’t keyboard quickly, do not understand how technology works, or how to manipulate the screens as these tests require. There is a section of the high school language arts test where students will need to read and manage three sources on three different windows with three different scroll bars and write an essay using all of the readings. That can be a challenge. For younger students, actual keyboarding will be a problem. There are no computer bubble sheets or booklets on these tests. A slow typist will have trouble.

The actual testing, though, is still only part of the issue. These tests will be used to evaluate teachers, which is, and always has been, a terrible idea. Using any high-stakes test, especially one given for the first time on unpredictable technology by students who haven’t had a full school year of Common Core instruction, is folly.

Besides, the tests really are only high-stakes for the teachers, not the students. How’s that for sound policy? If a student decides the test is too difficult or they can’t type or didn’t eat a good breakfast that morning, then a teacher could get fired. This is what you get when know-nothing politicians decide, without significant teacher input, what’s best for education.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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