Testing Abuse

Deny them the Data

2011-08-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

It occurs to us that there’s a potentially important segment of the population that might be enlisted in the struggle to eliminate high-stakes testing.

We’re wondering about the merit of someone younger than us picking up the following bit of fictional dialog and circulating it. Of course, students whose H.S. graduation, grade advancement and/or course grades are dependent on their state test scores should be strongly cautioned to seriously consider the consequences of the strategies implied in the dialog. They should discuss the possible ramifications with their parent(s) before ‘denying them the data’ by refusing to be tested, having their parents opt them out of the testing (in states that permit it) or just marking ‘D’ for each answer.

If this cadre could get 50% of all students at each school site to participate it would send a significant message to the ‘reformers’ to change their reliance on testing as the driver for classroom learning and use other methods for accountability and educational decisions.

Rog Lucido (lucid4@cvip.net)

Marion Brady (www.MarionBrady.com) Send the dialog below far and wide:

“Hey, Hacker!”

“Hi, Bill.”

“Whazup?”

“The usual.”

“Oh? Who you messin’ with this time?”

“Not sure yet. Just thinkin’.”

“Tell me more?”

“Heard on the news this morning that a bunch of schools cheated on the big state test, the one we have to take next year.”

“So?”

“So, I’d like to know how they knew somebody screwed around with the answers. How many funny scores does it take to trigger an investigation?”

“Why do you care?”

“Matter of principle. I hate those stupid tests. Hate non-stop test prep. Hate being a sheep. Hate being told by somebody somewhere that doesn’t know me what I’m supposed to know.”

“Yeah, I don’t like that either. Who gave them that right? But what can we do?”

“Well, I just Christmastree the bubbles—make the answer sheet look like Christmas tree lights.”

“Yeah, that might explain why you don’t do so good. So?”

“So I’m trying to figure out how to bust the test without anybody gettin’ in trouble.”

“That possible?”

“I dunno. Maybe I’ll get a bunch of people to just mark the letter ‘D’ on the answer sheet.”

“Why D?”

“D. For ‘data.’ We were talkin’ about this in chem class the other day, and Mr. C has started calling us ‘data points.’ If everybody just bubbled in ‘D’s, they couldn’t rank us, which is all they’re doing anyway. ”

“The computer’d pick up the pattern in about a nanosecond and spit them all out.”

“Sure. But how many’d have to do that to make the average score useless and get the whole test dumped? And who’d get blamed?”

“Can’t answer the first question, but the second is easy. Everybody who bubbled ‘D’ would get blamed.”

“Then what? They gonna handcuff us? Put us in jail? Throw us out of school? We followed the rules and took the test. What can they say?”

“I dunno.”

“Neither do I.”

“How about if everyone just wrote across the answer sheet, ‘I choose not to take this test’?”

“I like that. Flat stand on our rights, like Ghandi or King. But nah, some teacher’d see that, call the office, and the principal would be on the horn with a threat that'd scare most kids into doin’ what the mayor or governor or president or somebody says we have to do. No, it’d be better to ship the tests back to wherever they come from. Then, big surprise!”

“Lemme know. I got ten times more friends on Facebook than you. I’ll spread the word.”

-Created by Marion Brady with some input from Rog Lucido

Our National Call to Action and Save our Schools March Experience

2011-08-12T15:36:00.000-07:00

It has been a week since our son took us to San Francisco Airport to take our United flight to Washington, DC. My wife Vincie and I drove up to his home from Fresno on Tuesday,8/26 to spend the night with him, daughter in law and granddaughter before leaving the next morning. We had planned this since March. We heard about the National Call to Action and the Save our Schools’ March earlier in the year. It would be our 45^th anniversary in July and my wife and I decided this was something we could not pass up. I had taught for over 38 years and my wife had been very supportive of all my teaching activities-especially during the writing of two books on the effects of testing on students and teachers as well as my activism in battling the high-stakes testing mania. She had always said, “We need to march!” and so we were off. We had a transfer in Chicago. Our plane arrived late so we had to get our 65+ year bodies moving to the next concourse to catch our connecting flight to DC. We barely made it, but our luggage didn’t. We had to wait in DC for an hour until the next plane delivered them.

As soon as we left the baggage claim to pick up a taxi to the airport it hit us. The humidity was stifling…not used to this in California..sure its hot in Fresno but we could breath and not feel oppressed. No sooner than we got in the cab then we asked that the air be turned on…a brief relief. Our first thought was that we hoped that our hotel room had adequate air conditioning. It did.

Being unfamiliar with DC we had planned on taking cabs wherever we wanted to go. This was a good decision. Cabs were plentiful but a bit more pricey than we had anticipated, but the confidence they afforded was well worth it. Had our first meal in DC at the hotel, which really was a forerunner of the great food we experienced at all of the eateries we chose. We left early for American University on Thursday, 7/28, where the National Call to Action convention was to take place-the kickoff to the Save our Schools march. The keynote speaker that morning was Jonathon Kozol. Most of his comments were repeated as a kick-off to the march on Saturday afternoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl8ESi_XPT0 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPDLiB3J2Wc

This is the first time I have ever heard him speak. His passion for students and teachers, his compassion for the poor and disenfranchised was clear. Early in his teaching career was fired from his job in Boston because he read a poem to his class by Langston Hughes. He marched with Dr. King through the streets of Boston and has been fearless in advocating for those affected by the educational apartheid in so many of our public schools. He brought me to tears often and opened my eyes to the critical nature of our current educational quagmire. He set the tone for my experience at the conference and the march.

In the morning session I attended the Parents Across America http://parentsacrossamerica.org/ presentation. I wanted to find our how to mobilize parents to see the damage this testing mania is having on their children. The key step is to gather with parents that are already organized under another banner-PTA, Site Councils,etc. and inform them of the national movement to have their voices heard in educational policy making. Other ideas included creating a carefully worded petition parents can sign at school sites and give out fliers of planned parent meetings.

The afternoon session we wanted to attend was canceled, so we decided to go back to our hotel and get the sleep we would need for the evening tour we wanted to take of ‘Washington after Dark’…all in an air conditioned bus, but with a guide and the opportunity to leave the bus at appointed stops. As the Congress and President labored at the debt ceiling issue we got a meaningful sense of the history and significance of those who formed our country and a system that permitted the interactions that were taking place beneath the lit-up capitol dome.

Friday morning we were off to the Longworth House Office Building to meet with a Fresno County congressman, Devin Nunes. I had made an appointment with him in the weeks prior to our trip and was looking forward to discussing some key ideas in the reauthorization of ESEA (NCLB currently) that our local valley Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse (EPATA) group had developed:

In a recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows that a strong majority of Americans support a major overhaul of No Child Left Behind or total elimination of the law. Among all respondents with opinions about NCLB only about a quarter said, "Keep basically as is." Democrats, Republicans and Independents share these opinions in very similar ratios. More precisely: 16% want to "eliminate law"; 41% said, "keep with major revisions"; 21% replied, "keep as basically is"; and 21% had no opinion or did not know enough to say.

We request that in your discussions and deliberations:

1. Recognize that it is unfair and immoral to demand equal outcomes while remaining silent about equalizing the resources at federal and state levels that create the opportunity for children to learn. Funding schools should go to those schools that are in most economic need not by competitive grants. Conduct school site inventories by qualified educational professionals of required educational materials, supplies and experiences and provide the funds in accordance with those needs. Educationally impoverished students require more help.

2. Address economic, social and cultural issues, which are outside the school day yet impair learning. The availability of nutritious food before school and at lunch, community health, and library services will give students the energy and resources they need to focus. It will help keep more students in school, and provide locations for reading, research and study.

3. Improve the most vulnerable schools rather than punishing schools that serve disadvantaged children. Eliminate "turnaround models" (required in Race to the Top) that have no basis in research. Rather help struggling schools by determining which particular site based issues exist that limit a school’s ability to provide for its students; then address those. Do not change the entire school carte blanche.

4. Focus assessments in ways that improve instruction, display real performance, and encourage exploration, imagination, and critical thinking. Eliminate standardized testing. Rather allow for multiple sources of evidence in determining student learning and growth. Respect teachers’ professional autonomy to modify and adjust lessons as dictated by the needs of their students rather than preparation for local, state and national testing regimens.

5. Create a national assessment program which uses sampling following the model of the NAEP and under the guidelines of The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, created by the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education. It must also be in accordance with the 1974 Research Act requiring informed consent on the part of any tested student.

6. Permit each school site to determine a workable school improvement timeline based on the specific needs of their student population to replace the 2014 dystopian deadline. Each site in conjunction with its state, county, and district staff should join with parents to develop this timeline, with specific goals and appropriate evidence.

7. Encourage funding of art, music, foreign language, career/technical education, physical education, geography, history, and civics in the curriculum, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

8. Evaluation of teachers should not be based on student test scores (value-added methods ) but rather comprehensive methods of looking at all facets of teaching and learning as evidenced in state professional teaching standards. School wide evaluations should be based on high quality accreditation processes developed just for this purpose.

9. Eliminate the use of accountability principles which employ threats and punishments at the site, district and state levels that are intended to prevent professional educators from expressing their views on programs and policies that are permitted under the reauthorized ESEA.

Wouldn’t you know that he was in meetings regarding the debt ceiling and had to cancel our meeting…so much for making an ‘appointment’. But, we did speak with his legal counsel in the stairwell by the congressman’s office. There was no place in the office or a conference room where we could meet. Even with a canceled appointment and relegated to the stairwell we did have a meaningful conversation about the points mentioned above. Wouldn’t you know it that Nunes’ office was right next to Speaker Boehner’s office! My wife would not let this opportunity pass so we went in and spoke to one of his aids regarding or NCLB/ESEA points…again well received. Since we still had time we found our congressional representative, Jeff Denham’s office. He was not there but we did speak with his legislative assistant. He seemed wary of us and had a very rigid and inflexible demeanor. After a while he did soften a bit but we could tell that he still was supportive of Arne Duncan’s education agenda. So in all of this we did what we thought we were called to do and then headed back to American University and the conference.

Our afternoon session was the one I was most looking forward to. Making Real Reform Stick: Crafting compelling messages for the school reform debate.

Who would not want to attend a session presented by Jim Horn, Marion Brady, Bob Schaefer and Sabrina Stevens Shupe? It was superb. All that I asked for and more. It began with Jim’s excellent details on how to make the connection between poverty and testing. His admonition that it is extremely difficult if not impossible to have a meaningful dialogue with corporate reformers. His conclusion is that power concedes nothing without demand. Time for talking is over, now we need action.

Bob suggested that when dialoguing with the public start where they are at. Use simple language, not ‘educationese’. Use public opinion poll results to begin the conversation http://fairtest.org/testing-public-opinion . In discussions proceed from the specific to the general. When discussing educational issues begin by talking about their children and then about all children…etc. Sabrina and Marion emphasized to keep the core of the message simple. Engage their curiosity by making them want to know more about what you are sharing. Use concrete examples that are vivid and memorable. Appeal to their emotions as to what really counts and where possible use real life stories to help them connect. When using numbers make it simple, eg. rather than saying ‘20%’ say ‘1 in 5’…rather than saying 15 million kids in US live in poverty say these kids can fill Yankee Stadium 300 times..like that. At the end of the session we were all ready to march….

On Saturday morning we met up with Jennifer Bredberg, a retired biology teacher from Madera, had breakfast and headed out to the march site-the Elipse- a park area in front of the white house. While there were some trees on one edge of this area the main speakers stage and the vast majority of us stood on the lawn in front of stage. The weather was not only blistering hot, the humidity was awful. We had brought not only umbrellas but also water. Neither would prove to be sufficient for the experience. Here are some pictures and commentary from Substance magazine: http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2494§ion=Article and a video clip from CNN : http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/05/sos.march.teachers/index.html

The most uplifting thing was the people-from all over the US and even some from Canada. Talking and sharing with them we knew we were not alone in this quest to bring sanity to our students, teachers and schools. It confirmed that we were not crazy in our passion for healthy and life-giving public schools free from the threats of testing and corporate management.

After nearly 2^1/2hours in the sun, listening and cheering we were ready to march. We were given a great sendoff by Matt Damon (his mom is a teacher) ,who flew in from Vancouver just for the march: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqOub-heGQc&feature=player_embedded#at=43 .

As the march proceeded along the hot street pavement for nearly an hour, amidst singing and chanting we arrived at the rear lawn of the Whitehouse and stood there for a while as we asked for changes in our national educational policies. We couldn’t help but notice two small but vociferous groups of Syrians who wanted their positions heard. Mounted policemen arrived to break up the conflicting groups. I admired the passion for their cause and wondered what changes we could effect if we had 500,000 rather than the estimated 5,000 if us. Could our advocacy be heard above the rancor over the debt ceiling taking place a few hundred yards away on that same Saturday?

We had some good media coverage:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teachers-march-on-washington/2011/07/30/gIQAz48zjI_story.html

http://www.americanindependent.com/196416/thousands-come-out-to-teacher-rally-in-washington-protest-obama-and-decade-of-bad-policies

Eventually we succumbed to the oppressive heat and near exhaustion and lumbered toward our hotel a few blocks away. My wife had near heat stroke and luckily we came across a Starbucks where we loaded up on cold drinks and the refreshing air conditioning before continuing the trek to our hotel.

Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! The organizing that the SOS planning team did was astounding. They covered every eventuality they could think of –even providing water and hand fans for all of us. The convention at American University was awesome. We had the opportunity to network with wonderful parents and educators across our country and Canada. This is a powerful beginning, which should spawn a national movement that will give our legislators and the President indication that the current state of affairs and the Arne Duncan’s plan to rewrite ESEA are not acceptable. Parents, educators and students want a say in this process.

Save Our Schools March 7/28-7/30

2011-06-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

I will be going to the Save our Schools March in DC, 7/28-7/30. I will try to meet with some of our valley legislators there also. Here is an update on the SOS March with accommodation and transportation info. at the end.

First is- why go? Here is what former undersecretary of education, Diane Ravich says why she will be there-it sets the tone:

WHY I AM MARCHING ON JULY 30
Education Week "Bridging Differences" Blog -- June 21, 2011
By Diane Ravitch

I will be marching with the Save Our Schools coalition
( http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org ) of teachers and parents on July 30
in Washington, D.C. I know you will be, too. I hope we are joined by
many thousands of concerned citizens who want to save our schools from
the bad ideas and bad policies now harming them.

I am marching to protest the status quo of high-stakes testing, attacks
on the education profession, and creeping privatization.

I want to protest the federal government's punitive ideas about school
reform, specifically, No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top.
Neither of these programs has any validation in research or practice or
evidence. The nation's teachers and parents know that NCLB has been a
policy disaster. Race to the Top incorporates the same failed ideas. Why
doesn't Congress know?

I want to protest the wave of school closings caused by these cruel
federal policies. Public schools are a public trust, not shoe stores. If
they are struggling, they should be improved, not killed.

I want to protest the way that these federal programs have caused states
and districts to waste billions of dollars on testing, test preparation,
data collection, and an army of high-priced consultants.

I want to protest reliance on high-stakes testing, which has narrowed
the curriculum, encouraged gaming the system, and promoted cheating.

I want to express my concern about the effects of 12 years of
multiple-choice, standardized testing on children's cognitive
development, and my fear that this reliance on bubble-testing
discourages imagination, creativity, and divergent thinking.

I want to express my opposition to an educational system devoted to
constant measurement, ranking, and rating of children, which validates
the belief that some of our children are winners, while at least half
are losers.

I want to speak out against federal policies that promote privatization
of public education.

I want to protest federal efforts to encourage entrepreneurs to make
money from education, instead of promoting open-source technology, free
to all schools.

I want to protest the federal government's failure to develop long-term
plans to improve the recruitment, preparation, and support of the
teaching profession.

I want to protest the ill-founded belief that teachers should be
evaluated by their students' test scores, which is a direct result of
the Race to the Top.

I want to express my disgust at the constant barrage of attacks on
teachers, principals, and public education.

I want to urge Congress and the Obama administration to recognize that
federal funding should support equity and benefit the nation's neediest
students. That was the rationale for passage of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, and it should be the rationale for
federal funding today.

I want to urge Congress and the Obama administration to acknowledge that
school reform cannot be imposed by legislative fiat, but must be led by
those who are most knowledgeable about the needs of children and
schools: educators, parents, and local communities.

I want to urge Congress and the Obama administration to recognize the
constraints of the Constitution and federalism and to stop using the
relatively small financial contribution of the federal government to
micromanage the nation's schools.

I want to urge Congress and the Obama administration to acknowledge that
our nation's public schools have played an essential role in making our
nation great. After many historic struggles, their doors are open to
all, regardless of race, economic condition, national origin,
disability, or language. We must keep their doors open to all and
preserve this democratic institution for future generations.

I want to urge Congress and the Obama administration to recognize that
our public schools are succeeding, not declining. Since the beginning of
the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the 1970s, our
students have made slow but steady gains in reading and mathematics.
Improvement has been especially notable for African-American students.
Progress was greatest, ironically, before the implementation of NCLB.

I call on Congress and the Obama administration to cease spreading false
claims of educational decline. Since the first international test in
1964, we have never led the world in test scores, and we have often been
in the bottom quartile on those tests. Yet, as President Obama said in
his State of the Union Address in January, we have the world's greatest
economy, the world's most productive workers, the most inventors, the
most patents, the most successful businesses, and the best universities
in the world. And all of these great achievements were created by people
who are mainly products of our nation's public schools.

I urge Congress and the Obama administration to support programs that
help children arrive in school ready to learn: assuring that every
pregnant woman has appropriate medical care and nutrition; that children
have high-quality early-childhood education; and that parents know they
have the support they need to help their children grow up healthy and
ready to learn.

I am marching because I want every child to attend a school where they
can learn not only basic skills, but history, geography, civics, the
sciences, and world languages, and have ample opportunity to engage in
the arts.

I am marching to support the dignity of the education profession and to
express my thanks to the millions of teachers, principals, and other
educators who are in the schools every day, doing their best to educate
our nation's children.

I hope the march will revive the morale of our nation's educators. I
hope it will remind the American people that the future of our nation
depends on our willingness to protect and improve our public schools,
the schools attended by nearly 90 percent of our nation's children.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/06/why_i_am_marching_on_july_30.html

Want to go by train?

According to a post from Rita Solnet on the Citizens for Public Schools
Facebook page, Amtrak is offering discounted fares to the Save Our
Schools march.

Amtrak will offer a 10% discount off the best available rail fare to ( Washington , DC ) between (July 25, 2011 – August 03, 2011).

To book a reservation call: Amtrak at 1 (800) 872-7245.
Ask for: Save Our Schools March Convention Rate-X08H - 929.
*** MUST BOOK VIA PHONE, NOT VIA INTERNET! ***

Some places to stay with more info:

Last Day to Get Group Rate at Embassy Suites in DC has been extended to July 1!

The rate is $199 at the Embassy Suites at Chevy Chase Pavilion for suites holding up to 5 people, including breakfast (but not tax). With 5 people to a suite, each one will pay only $40! Cut off to get group rate is 6/25/11. To view the hotel, click here. To make a reservation call

202 362 9300. The code to get the group rate is SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH. (We have asked Embassy Suites for an extension beyond

June 25 for the group rate, but so far we have not heard back.)

More information with links about these other two hotel options can be found at the end of this newsflash:

Washington Marriott Wardman Park - cut off for group rate July 11

Hilton Garden Inn -- cut off for group rate is June 28

NEWSFLASH!

The route for the march on Saturday, July 30, has been changed! We will now march to the White House instead of to the Department of Ed.

Why did we change the route?

The Department of Ed is closed on Saturday, so no one will be there to notice. But just as important is everyone's safety. It's hot and humid in DC in July. Our new route is shorter, and we'll have grass to walk on for part of the way.

The rally starts at 11:30 and will feature entertainment and speakers. At 1:30 we'll begin to gather for the march and head out toward the White House by 2:00. Cooling tents will be stationed along the route. After the march we'll return to Ellipse Park for more activities. You'll be glad to know that school buses will be available to transport people who are not able to walk back to Ellipse Park. Stay tuned for more about the march and rally.

Transportation

AMTRAK

Amtrak is offering a 10% discount on the best available rail fare to Washington, DC between July 25 and August 3. This offer is good only for those participating in the Save Our Schools events and is available only through the Amtrak phone line at 1 800 872 7245. Ask for the Amtrak Convention Rate - X08H - 929.

To make sure you are getting the best rate, contact your travel agent or go online and check just to be sure that there's not a better rate.

DELTA

For those of you who prefer to fly, we are negotiating a discount with Delta. As soon as we hear, we will contact you by email.

THE DC METRO

The American University stop for the conference and the congress is Tenleytown Station on the RED LINE. There is a free shuttle every 15 minutes from the station to AU, but it is less than a mile walk for those who enjoy exercise. The DC metro is safe, clean, and efficient. Transferring between lines is easy.

2 More DC Hotels!

The Washington Marriott Wardman Park in DC has given us a group rate of $129,which includes wi-fi but does not include breakfast or parking or tax. To view the hotel or to register online click here.

The code for registering online is SOSSOSA.

If you prefer to register over the phone, call 800 228 9290 and use the code SAVE OUR SCHOOLS ROOM.

Cut off for group rate is July 11.

To view the hotel, click here.

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

The Hilton Garden Inn in Bethesda, Maryland offers a rate of $113 for singles or doubles and $123 for triples. The rate includes breakfast but not tax. The code for the group rate is CELT.

Telephone: 1 301 654 8111. FAX: 202 686 3405

Cut off for group rate is June 28. We have requested an extension but have not heard back yet.

To view the hotel, click here.

The hotel is within walking distance to a metro station on the RED LINE and 2 stops from the nearest metro station to American University.

Anyone having trouble making a room reservation should email

Leila.Beltramo@hilton.com.

And finally from Educationa Week-if you want to stand up and fight back:

FRUSTRATED EDUCATORS AIM TO BUILD GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT
Education Week -- June 15, 2011
By Erik W. Robelen

Thousands of educators, parent activists, and others are expected to
convene in the heat and humidity of Washington next month for a march
protesting the current thrust of education policy in the United States,
especially the strong emphasis on test-based accountability.

Organizers say the effort aims to galvanize and give voice to those who
believe policymakers, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
and state governors, have gone astray in their remedies for improving
American schools. Leaders of the march---current and former educators
among them---say they're determined to build a grassroots movement that
has staying power beyond the gathering this summer and "restores" a
central role for educators, parents, and communities in policy decisions.

How widespread such sentiments are in the K-12 workforce is hard to
quantify. The nation has more than 3 million public school teachers, and
they're a diverse bunch. And a lot of teachers may not pay much
attention to national policy debates.

But march organizers and supporters suggest that many teachers have
become increasingly frustrated with the test-driven accountability
framework at the heart of the U.S. education system and look with alarm
at the wave of teacher-evaluation measures being enacted in some states,
pegged in part to student scores on standardized tests.

Such views are shared by Pat Graff, a 34-year teaching veteran who
co-chairs the English department at La Cueva High School in Albuquerque,
N.M., and is her school's testing coordinator.

"I think it's going down the wrong track fast," Ms. Graff said of the
main policy direction she sees. "It ramped up with No Child Left Behind
and the push for accountability and [adequate yearly progress]. And then
they just keep adding tests. ... Teachers lose the opportunity to teach
anything beyond how to fill in the bubbles."

Meanwhile, she said, teachers "feel like the scapegoat ... for
everything that's wrong with society."

Nancy Flanagan, a former classroom teacher of 30-plus years who writes
an opinion blog hosted on the Teacher section of the Education Week
website, said frustration with the federal No Child Left Behind Act's
pressure to boost test scores in reading and mathematics has mushroomed
among teachers.

"A lot of people were waiting it out," said Ms. Flanagan, a member of
the organizing committee for the Save Our Schools March and National
Call to Action. "States were complying. Teachers were unhappy. Huge
amounts of money were going to the wrong things."

She added: "When [President Barack] Obama was elected, I think it came
as a huge shock to people that he was not only going to continue the
policies, but exacerbate them."

By exacerbate, she pointed, for example, to incentives in the Obama
administration's Race to the Top initiative for states to link teacher
evaluations to student test scores.

Tony Bennett, Indiana's state schools superintendent and himself a
former teacher and school administrator, voiced skepticism, however,
about the aims of the Save Our Schools march, dubbed SOS. "Does it stand
for Save Our Schools or Save Our Status Quo?" he said. "They seem to
articulate very well everything they're against."

Mr. Bennett, a Republican, defended the need for test-based
accountability, suggesting it's vital to ensure students are no longer
shuffled through school without adequate preparation, even as he said
plenty of work remains in improving assessments. He also said that on
the issue of teacher evaluation, test scores are only part of the
equation, despite what he calls "fearmongering" from critics who suggest
that's all there is to it.

"We are embarking on a journey in education in this country that is a
dramatic shift from what we've done in the past," Mr. Bennett said, "but
it's the right shift."
Building a Network

Organizers of the Save Our Schools march say they expect 5,000 to 10,000
people to attend the Washington gathering on July 30. Ms. Flanagan, the
Michigan teacher of the year in 1993, said the size of the rally isn't
the point.

"The point is to start momentum toward a sea change, to bring
together---physically and virtually---a network of people who want
change," she said.

Social media have been key drivers of the march, with organizers using
blogs, an SOS Facebook page, and Twitter to promote it.

The four "guiding principles" for the march are: equitable funding for
all public school communities; an end to high-stakes testing used for
the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation; curriculum
developed for and by local school communities; and teacher, family, and
community leadership in forming public education policies.

Anthony Cody, one of the lead organizers and a former classroom teacher
who is now a science-content coach for teachers in the Oakland, Calif.,
district, said concern about the uses of standardized tests is at the
heart of the matter.

Sabrina Stevens Shupe, in downtown Denver, says she's alarmed to see how
testing-based accountability continues to increase. "We were very
excited that, 'Oh, we're going to get Obama in office,' ...and we get
this bait and switch with Arne Duncan and Race to the Top," says Shupe,
a Save Our Schools organizer and former Denver teacher.

"That's really the core thing driving this movement: The understanding
that learning is complex, and that it is not captured in a test score;
it is not captured in most of the data that is worshiped at the
district, state, and federal levels," said Mr. Cody, who, like Ms.
Flanagan, writes a teacher-oriented opinion blog at edweek.org. "We want
to be held accountable for things that matter, and we've seen test
scores create a system of accountability that has a very poor
relationship to what really matters for students."

A lot of the Save Our Schools leadership, he said, is drawn from people
who have been active "teacher leaders." Several of them, including Mr.
Cody and Ms. Flanagan, hold national-board certification.

Confirmed speakers for the rally include education historian Diane
Ravitch, who co-authors a blog hosted by edweek.org; the education
author and activist Jonathan Kozol; and Superintendent John Kuhn of the
Perrin-Whitt district in north-central Texas.

A two-day conference is scheduled before the march and a "congress" the
day after to discuss next steps.

Among the organizations to endorse the Save Our Schools march are: the
International Reading Association, the National Association of Secondary
School Principals, the National Council of Teachers of English, the
nonprofit group Parents Across America, and the Virginia School Boards
Association. Also, more than 30 state and local teachers' unions, plus
the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education
Association, have signaled their support.

Organizers say the effort originated with individuals, not unions.

"We are very happy they are on board, but they are not driving the bus,"
Mr. Cody said.

"What our union liked about this was these are rank-and-file folks from
across the country," said aft President Randi Weingarten, even as she
cautioned that the union may disagree on some "nuances" of the SOS
principles. "There is a frustration about the politics and the policy.
And a lot of it is about voice, and the lack of voice."
Interpreting Obama

Debates on the use of standardized tests have been swirling for years.
It's no secret that many educators and researchers have long been leery
of giving them too much weight in gauging student learning and meting
out consequences for schools, students, and teachers.

In fact, a major report just issued by the National Research Council
raised questions about the value of tying consequences for schools,
teachers, and students to test results. The evidence examined "is not
encouraging about the ability of incentive programs to reliably produce
meaningful increases in student achievement," it said.

Says Benjamin Van Dusen, a former science teacher and Albert Einstein
Fellow, "I'm not opposed to having standardized tests and having them be
important. ...I think we need better tests, more authentic assessment."

Some observers and advocates suggest that a variety of factors have
combined to ratchet up frustration. For one, more and more public
schools are facing sanctions under the NCLB law, as the levels of
proficiency required have climbed.Also, the recession has led to
cutbacks in aid to schools, with impacts on teacher pay, benefits, and
class sizes. And several states recently passed laws to scale back
teachers' collective bargaining rights.

Then there's the Obama administration. Some educators and activists who
campaigned for Mr. Obama in 2008 say they believed he was intent on
making a significant shift in direction on education from the Bush
administration, in part to counterbalance the weight of standardized
testing in schools. Now, they feel that is not happening.

Stephen H. Lazar, a teacher at the Bronx Lab School in New York City who
plans to attend the SOS march, said he's been disappointed with Mr.
Obama: "The president's education agenda is a symptom of the 'reform'
movement that has managed to capture the national narrative around
education." ("In War of Words, 'Reform' a Potent Weapon," March 2, 2011.)

"We were very excited that, 'Oh, we're going to get Obama in office, and
the ridiculous things about No Child Left Behind will go away,' " said
Sabrina Stevens Shupe, a former teacher in Denver who co-authors a blog
called Failing Schools and is on the SOS organizing panel. "And he comes
in there, and we get this bait and switch with Arne Duncan and Race to
the Top."

But Andrew J. Rotherham, a partner and co-founder of Bellwether
Education Partners, a nonprofit education consulting firm in Washington
and a former education aide to President Bill Clinton, suggests that
those who are upset with President Obama may not have been studying his
education plans closely during the 2008 campaign.

"It is hard to make a case that the president has somehow pivoted or
made a bait and switch," he said. "Either it was a Rorschach test, or
they weren't paying attention."

The U.S. Department of Education did not accommodate a request to speak
with Secretary Duncan or another official for this story. But in an
email, department spokesman Justin Hamilton wrote: "We believe that
teachers are America's unsung heroes. And while there are different
opinions on the best ways to boost student achievement, we all agree
that reforms are needed."

Mr. Duncan issued an "open letter" to teachers in May, timed to Teacher
Appreciation Week, in which he seemed to take pains to offer an olive
branch. He noted and echoed some of the concerns expressed by teachers,
such as that the NCLB law has prompted schools to "teach to the test"
and has led to a narrowing of the curriculum.

"And you are frustrated when teachers alone are blamed for educational
failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities,
misguided reforms, and underfunded school systems," he wrote in the
letter, published on the Education Week and Education Department websites.

Mr. Duncan pledged to work with teachers to improve the law and
strengthen the teaching profession. "I hear you, I value you, I respect
you," he wrote.

But the letter sparked an online backlash, including from some SOS
organizers. A common thread was the contention that Mr. Duncan's
conciliatory words were belied by his department's agenda, especially
with the Race to the Top.

"Your actions have spoken so loudly to America's teachers that we can't
hear your words," one commenter wrote.

The $4 billion grant competition has sparked controversy for, among
other measures, pushing states to tie teacher evaluations to student
test scores, create or expand their charter school sectors, and choose
from a set of prescriptive models for turning around the
lowest-performing schools, measured mainly by test scores.

Even though the Obama administration has not backed away from using
tests to drive accountability, it is pursuing efforts to change them.
With $360 million in additional Race to the Top money, it is backing
work by states to design new testing systems that it says will measure
student growth---rather than capture a snapshot of achievement---supply
real-time feedback to teachers to guide instruction, and include
performance-based items to gauge more types of learning.
Gauging Teacher Views

Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy
Institute, a Washington think tank, also sees a disconnect between the
administration's rhetoric and policy.

For example, he said that even as the administration has called for
wrap-around supports beyond schools---in areas like health and social
services---to help children succeed academically, the president's
blueprint for overhauling the NCLB law "holds schools accountable for
identical results, whether or not they have these [supports]. It's
completely incoherent."

Recent survey data provide some clues as to how educators feel about
testing and education policy.

Only about one-quarter of public school teachers believe their states'
standardized tests provide "good" or "excellent" information about
school quality, according to a 2009 survey co-sponsored by the journal
Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance at
Harvard University. More than two-thirds of teachers responding said
they "somewhat" or "completely" opposed basing a teacher's salary in
part on his or her students' academic progress on state tests.

Most of the 40,000 teachers who responded to a 2009 online questionaire
sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic said
that state standardized tests are far less important in gauging student
achievement than formative, ongoing assessments in class, class
participation, and performance on class assignments.

Benjamin Van Dusen, who taught high school science for five years and is
now working on a doctorate in education at the University of Colorado at
Boulder, said that while he believes standardized tests need to be
better and "more authentic," he sympathizes with policymakers who desire
measurable results.

"I'm not opposed to the idea of having standardized tests and having
them be important," said Mr. Van Dusen, who last year was an Albert
Einstein Distinguished Educator fellow.

As for teacher evaluations, Mr. Van Dusen said he doesn't object to
using tests as part of the equation.

"We need to figure out who is not an effective teacher," he said, "and
get them out of there, and figure out who is good and keep them."
Other Voices

Meanwhile, a new nonprofit group in New York City, Educators 4
Excellence, seeks to give teachers more voice in policy debates, but its
agenda parts company in some ways with the Save Our Schools march. For
example, the group backs tying teacher pay in part to test scores. It
also calls for ending "last hired, first fired" teacher-layoffs
policies. Morethan 2,600 New York teachers have backed the group's
"declaration" of beliefs, said Sydney J. Morris, the co-founder and a
former teacher.

Her group receives financial backing from the Gates Foundation and other
philanthropies. (Gates has been a funder of Education Week's nonprofit
parent corporation.)

For her part, Kaye Thompson Peters, an English teacher at Central High
School in St. Paul, Minn., and an active union member, said she hopes to
attend the Save Our Schools march. She's had enough of what she sees as
an overemphasis on standardized testing and suggests it impedes good
teaching.

"It's time someone said the emperor has no clothes," she said. "You need
to stand up and you need to fight back."

Ten things teachers need to reclaim their profession

2011-05-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

Ten things teachers need to reclaim their profession

Publication Date: 2011-05-21
By Horace B. Lucido

This is from Washington Post Answer Sheet, May 21, 2011, thanks to Valerie Strauss. Horace B. Lucido, a retired physics instructor, author and educational consultant, is a founding member of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse. He is the author of Educational Genocide: A Plague on Our Children .

Sports referees make split second decisions. Judges and doctors do too, sometimes decisions that are life changing. Despite the subjective nature of their judgments, they are given respect and trust because of their training and experience, and we most often accept their decisions as valid.

This was once the same type of respect given to our public school teachers, the professionals who work in the classroom. But since the onslaught of state and national high-stakes testing regimes, too many teachers have been relegated to mechanized assembly line workers who have little say about the process but are required to follow the company line. This is in direct conflict with the national Model Core Teaching Standards, which give the teacher responsibility to adjust, modify and pace the lessons according to the needs of their individual students.

In today's classrooms, though, teachers are taken out of the equation, becoming functionaries in a system of rigorous "manufacturing" controls by local, state and national directives. High-stakes tests are said by proponents to provide "objective" truth whereas teachers' opinions are classified as subjective and, thus, believed to be less trustworthy.

But test scores aren’t really objective. Who writes the test questions on these tests? People. Who chooses the test questions, the number of questions, the time allowed and when the test will be given? People. Who chooses the cut scores that decide where proficient or passing is? People. Who determines the meaning of these scores? People. These are all subjective not objective processes and most of these people are not even educators.

Teachers are trustworthy, trained professionals. Throughout the year they have a long sustained contact with strengths and weaknesses. Their judgments are based on multiple sources of information over the entire school year and are more valid than the results of a few hours of annual high-stakes testing. Why else would some states, like California, in their Testing Report to Parents, contain a clear disclaimer on the reporting sheet: A note on using this information: A single test can provide only limited information. A student taking this same test more than once might score higher or lower in each tested area in a small range. You should confirm your child's strengths and needs in these topics by reviewing classroom work, standards-based assessments, and your child's progress during the year.

California's Department of Education thus admits that assessments, assignments and progress provided by the classroom teacher should be the place to assess the real meaning and accuracy of standardized test results. But it doesn’t act like it really believes it because schools and districts are judged almost entirely by standardized test scores.

Which is a more valid predictor of student success in college: "objective" SAT and ACT college entrance scores or "subjective" teacher grades? Several studies have found that high school grades more accurately predict academic college achievement than any other factor. But still the standardized test remains dominant in admissions decisions.

In many detailed analysis of international tests such as the PISA and TIMSS, as well as our own national report card, National Assessment of Educational Progress, what is clearly evident is that poverty and the gap between the wealthy and the poor are the major contributors to test performance. Our top-performing students far outnumber other nations. They come from schools that have less than 10% poverty. When we compare these students to the other participating nations we are among the leaders. No analysis in any of these studies points to poorer teaching in America than elsewhere.

So what are some key elements in teachers regaining the professional respect and trust they deserve? State, district and site practices and policies should:

1. Allow our teachers to use best practices in lesson design and pedagogy rather than canned programs that require rigorous adherence to step-by-step procedures without flexibility.

2. Permit teachers to adjust and modify their lessons to fit their students' knowledge and skills rather than prepare them for high-stakes testing. Forgo all site and district high-stakes testing that is not required by state or national law. Do away with site and district tests used to prepare for more tests.

3. Test score 'data' can only become relevant when interpretation for individual students is corroborated by their teachers -- individually or groups -- who have evaluated said students using multiple sources of information. No judgments, placements or qualifications for individual students should be made solely on the basis of annual high-stakes testing.

4. Abolish all goal-setting based on annual high-stakes testing scores. This includes targeting students, teachers and schools for score improvement. Each should be evaluated using multiple sources of information before making plans for any corrective actions. Teams of educators, parents, psychologists and community members should be employed in developing helpful strategies.

5. Eliminate both scripted and paced lesson mandates. It is not in standardizing our classrooms that students learn to be creative and innovative-attributes that are highly prized in the world of work. Just as the diversity of plants and animals is the strength of the Earth’s ecosystem, our 'edusystem' should model that diversity in the manner in which teachers provide unique lessons using a variety of methods. Standardized sameness is not conducive to how students learn nor is it an attribute valued in our culture-otherwise we would all be driving only Fords and wearing only Levi jeans.

6. Eliminate all punitive policies that pronounce harsh judgments on students, teachers, schools and districts based on unchallenged interpretations of student test scores. Teacher evaluations of their students' knowledge and skills should be the hallmark and cornerstone of valid conclusions about what students know and are able to do. They are the professionals in the classroom.

7. Codify regulations against administrative use of direct and/or implied threats of repercussions to those teachers who follow their State Standards for the Teaching Profession rather than curricular and/or pedagogy directives which utilize a script-like pacing without allowing for teacher modification and adjustments to fit the classroom clientele.

8. State Standards for the Teaching Profession should be the guiding principles for all teacher evaluation protocols used by administrators. Terminate 'walkthroughs'. Thoughtful classroom visitations that respect the context of the lesson with pre and post discussion is vital to proper evaluation. Otherwise, walkthroughs become nothing more than "big brother" in a formal setting, keeping a critical eye rather than a supportive stance.

9. Teachers should have the freedom without fear of recrimination to express their professional opinions inside and outside of school sites regarding school practices and policies. Fellow teachers, parents and the larger community need to hear from the classroom professionals regarding the educational programs at their schools. This will provide open forums for discussion and the enhancement of the school environment.

10. Develop an enhanced parent-teacher communication protocol complete with translators for second language learner parents who are not fluent in English. Ongoing and frequent parent-teacher communication will both improve understanding and appreciation of the role each plays in the education of their students and also foster a greater mutual respect.

It will take a coalition of educators, parents and community members to take this agenda forward. Seeking changes in existing local, state and national educational mandates from school boards, legislatures and congress should be the focus of our actions. This should be of the highest priority. If we want the best for our students, then we need to have the best for their teachers. When they again have the highest community respect and when classroom autonomy is returned to them, students will then be able to experience the creativity of revived and energized instructors.

Stopping the culture of high-stakes testing will be the key step in initiating this process. How long will it take? That is up to us.

2010-06-05T09:41:00.001-07:00

---------------------------- Book Cover -------------------------- (click on this for a Facebook link)

2010-06-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Rowman & Littlefield Education announces the upcoming publication of (click on this for a Rowman and Littlefield flyer link)

2010-06-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Educational Genocide: A Plague on Our Children

by Horace (Rog) Lucido

"This is not just a smart book. It is also a touchingly personal narrative. Don't be fooled by the fact that this work is vital and informative. It is far more than that. It's genius, and what makes it memorable is Lucido's gift to speak to us, not just from the head but from the heart as well."—Elaine Garan, professor of literacy and early education, California State University, Fresno

Across our country educational policies and practices are killing our students' desire to learn and teachers' passion to teach. The central theme of this book is that high-stakes testing is having a critically deleterious effect on our students. The fallout impacts parents, teachers, schools, districts and states. Horace (Rog) Lucido uses language and supporting evidence that is clear and relatable to the reader. Rarely is the topic of teacher care and concern for students ever embedded in works on educational theory and practice, but here it is championed as the driving force for change, exposing the causes and chronicling the effects of educational malfeasance.

Horace (Rog) Lucido has taught physics and mathematics for over thirty-eight years. He is the California Central Valley coordinator for the Assessment Reform Network and cofounder of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse.

Rationale for Educational Genocide-A Plague on our Children (click on this for a Filed-by link)

2010-06-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Our children’s educational life is in peril. Their natural desire to learn is being compromised by the atmosphere created by high-stakes testing. Students only go through our school system once. Students do not know what their daily schooling is supposed to be like. For the most part they just accept what they are being asked to do and begin to define what school is in terms of their personal experience of it. We are in the midst of forceful attempts to change the motives for k-12 education. Most parents and teachers are in like accord in supporting the goal of life long learning for each individual student so as to give them the tools to begin to fulfill each student’s desires, hopes and dreams. The high-stakes testing milieu is endeavoring to change that. The drive is to prepare students to compete in the ‘global market place’ by fulfilling the desires of those in the corporate world who see students as human capital whose skills and choices are to be molded to fit the world of business. To this end education is being retrofitted to a rigid assembly line structure in which one size is to fit all. Individual student and teacher creativity, flexibility and choice are deemed unscientific and therefore suspect. It is predicated on a perverted view of science and its role in learning. It assumes all students are the same and react to stimuli in the same way. It squashes academic dissent of teachers and employs high-stakes testing as the henchmen that enforce where students, teachers and schools are to go. The result of this is outcome-based education, where the ‘outcomes’ are test scores determined only by once each year high-stakes testing.

Educational Genocide-A Plague on our Children is the result of over five years of intense research as well as twenty-five years of fieldwork on the impacts of high stakes testing on students, teachers, and schools. Educational genocide aptly describes what is currently happening to many of our students. This silent atrocity is taking place under our watch. Across our country educational policies and practices are killing our students’ desire to learn and teachers’ passion to teach. The central theme of this book is that high-stakes testing is having a critically deleterious effect on our students. The fallout impacts parents, teachers, schools, districts and states. It uses language and supportive evidence that is clear and relatable to the reader. Rarely is the topic of teacher care and concern for their students ever imbedded in works on educational theory and practice. Here it is championed as the driving force for change, exposing the causes of what I consider educational malfeasance, chronicles the effects, and also goes further to describe one possible solution: Forgiving Learning.

Endorsements

2010-06-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

“Education Genocide is much more than a wake-up call…Lucido’s exhaustive research and first-hand experience should ignite outrage and a ‘60’s era revolt against high stakes test abuse overtaking the nation’s public schools under the punitive politics of No Child Left Behind. Mind-numbing testing can no longer be ignored as a major source of escalating drop-out of students and teachers.”

-Jo Ann Rupert Behm, M.S., RN, Former President, Board of Directors, Public Policy Chair, Healthy Children Project Coordinator, Learning Disabilities Association of California

"This insightful book dares to challenge the world we offer children when we trumpet“ No excuses!”--and offers a better way."

-Susan Ohanian, author, education activist, longtime teacher, fellow at the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University and at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education, Winner of 2003 NCTE George Orwell award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language

"High stakes testing appeals to politicians and bean counters. Real educators, like Rog Lucido, use varying and creative methods to reach different kinds of children, and they judge their success by multiple measures. Which kind of students does America need--cookie cutter clones or critical thinkers? Educational Genocide describes the crisis in our public schools and offers remedies for parents, teachers, and administrators. "

-Angelica Carpenter, CuratorArne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature,California State University, Fresno

"As a long time educator who has witnessed first hand the harmful effects of test score hysteria, I appreciate the very readable in-depth research Rog Lucido has provided in EDUCATIONAL GENOCIDE - A PLAGUE ON OUR CHILDREN. As our government begins the "Race to the Top," this book is a must-read for anyone who has children, is a teacher, or is involved in education in any way. I wish every legislator would read this book before casting another vote on any test score related education bill! "

Helen Pitton, M.A.
Literacy Consultant
Founding member of Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse
1994 Primary "Teacher of the Year," Fresno Unified School District

"This is not just a smart book. It is also a touchingly personal narrative. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this work is vital and informative. It is far more than that. It’s genius and what makes it memorable is Rog Lucido’s gift to speak to us, not just from the head— but from the heart as well. "

Dr. Elaine Garan
Professor of Literacy and Early Education
California State University Fresno

Why 'Speed' Kills An Education

2009-12-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

The current trend in education is to get feedback about student progress instantly. Why? There’s a race going on, don’t you know? We have to be smarter, faster, and better than all other countries. Or so the thought goes. Handheld devices called iRespond created by EduTrax are designed to do just this with regards to testing in the classroom. They are given to each student so that when they press a button, they electronically give an answer to a question that is sent to a computer. These answers are then tabulated and compiled, which gives the teacher visual feedback in terms of graphs or charts that are supposed to ‘reduce’ the amount of time correcting student work or tests in the class. Supposedly, more teaching can then be done, but many teachers today would attest that this is just another layer of assessment that will not clarify what students know and are able to do. Is this really going to help with achievement, or is it another gimmick created to take advantage of schools who need to increase their scores on high stakes tests to comply with the No Child Left Behind Law?

If we backwards map the relationship of high stakes tests being given throughout the country along with what is being done in the classroom, the results would show an increase in dropouts, a stagnant NAEP trend regarding achievement gaps, and the lessening of teaching such important subjects such as social studies and science. High stakes tests do not increase learning. Using hand held electronic devices to give instantaneous results on practice tests and benchmarks that mimic these end of year exams would only increase the rate at which students don’t learn. Just because quiz responses are faster, doesn't make them better. Much of our community may be fooled into thinking they are---even teachers.

For example, I have a friend at my school who is a newer teacher and just loves using her scanner to score her company-made formative tests. It puts the percentages straight into her electronic grade book on a daily basis. She adores it because then she doesn't have to take home any work to grade; the work is done for her. So, I told her a story about me.

Years ago, I was a scantron junkie, and I'm here admitting it . We had just gotten it at our school and were taught how to use it. My tests would be bubbled in and corrected instantly, and then I could slide one of those 'data collecting' sheets through to tell me which numbers on the test the kids missed the most. I was set. The scores would be recorded quickly, and my grades were calculated more rapidly. Then parent teacher conferences came.

During a typical meeting, as I went through a student’s grades, all I found myself doing was giving average percents in each subject. When parents asked for more detail, I struggled greatly to find anymore. The anecdotal information that I needed to corroborate my numbers was missing because I had relied almost purely on the input of numbers into my computer. If a parent asked me, "What does he need work on? How can I help him?", what I found myself doing was looking for the lowest score and going, "Well, uh, he needs to work on math."

The truth was I didn't really know my kids. I had lost emotional and scholastic contact with them. I had relied on these numbers so much to tell me the truth, that in actuality they had blinded me from what was really happening. I had to change. I stopped using the scantron and decided that I would write letters to my students about their progress; they would then in turn write back to me. There was weekly assessment dialogues about how they did, what they thought about it, what they thought they could do to improve, and what they needed from me. Since I have initiated this method, my students have done very well on a longitudinal scale each year. The scantron machine was never used again by me. My teaching friend looked at me after this story and said, "You know what? You could be right about me needing to know my students better."

This teacher still continues to use her method, but is trying to change slowly as she learns what is really important about teaching. Like the scantron machine, this ‘assess faster to teach better’ ideology will create the opposite effect it was intended for. I find it concerning that technology like this is taking over what is really important in school, and that is the teacher-student relationship. To this day I am happy bringing home papers, which allows me to appreciate my students. That's the way it should be.

Student Rights Crushed By Testing Crisis

2009-11-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

One April evening, a husband and wife sat down at the table to talk about the day’s events.

“Oh, by the way did you see that letter in the mail today from the school?” the husband asked.

“Yeah. That’s the third one this month. Every one of them says the same type of thing. You know, ‘make sure your child eats’, ‘make sure they get enough rest’, and ‘have them focused for the test’ “, she responded.

“You know, it was never like this before they changed the law so Jessie’s scores were helping the teacher’s salary. She doesn’t even want to go to school anymore. She says it’s like a sweatshop that repeats the same type of work every day,” the wife complained.

“Well, I don’t like it. Who’s really doing the work here? I don’t like the idea of her school effort making his pay day. She’s there to learn, not be an employee,” the husband grumbled.

Every parent needs to ask themselves about whether they want to experience the above scenario on a regular basis, because it is likely to happen in the near future. The latest education charge, President Obama’s “Race to the Top”, is electric because it requires one to think about the new funds generated by the federal government to reward ‘innovative’ ways of judging teacher performance in schools, primarily on high stakes test scores of their students. $4.35 billion has been promised to states that comply with this proposed concept. For example, if California gets a likely 10% share, $500 million would be in its clutches, but half could be held by the governor for other purposes. Divide the remainder by 6.1 million school children in the state, you get forty one bucks per kid to 'race' with. The one-time money offer is not so enticing after breaking it down, yet some believe that this is the right road to take. It is not worth the casualties.

First off, if a child is given work or assessments to do in the classroom that will eventually determine the income of a teaching professional, that student is providing the catalyst for the pay. This breaches the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, which states that sixteen is the basic minimum age for employment. It also says, that when young people work, the work cannot jeopardize their “health, well-being, or educational opportunities.” With the current proposal, these will all be trampled on. Many instances of sickness and psychological problems from high stakes testing have been documented from the Alliance for Childhood. Rice University conducted a study that revealed an increase in drop outs as a result of high stakes tests. The increase in pressure on these students to legitimize a teacher’s salary will be unbearable.

Secondly, student rights must be acknowledged. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires that, “An educational agency or institution must use reasonable methods to ensure that school officials obtain access to only those education records in which they have legitimate educational interests. An educational agency or institution that does not use physical or technological access controls must ensure ... that it remains in compliance with the legitimate educational interest.” The key here in the law is ‘legitimate educational interest’. Tying test scores to teacher pay has nothing to do with educational interests of the student. These student rights protect the academic history of children for the purposes of individual instructional planning. Using student scores for teacher compensation is thus unlawful. People must acknowledge that education is about creating citizens by developing the human mind, body, and spirit to be beneficial in our society. Obama's proposal clearly ignores this ideal.

In a July L.A. Times article regarding the ‘Race to the Top’, President Obama stated, “This competition will not be based on politics, ideology, or the preferences of a particular interest group”. I beg to differ. The interest group that will be affected by this the most are children, and they do have a voice in all of this. While pay checks will be doled out on the backs of kids in this ‘competition’, the love of learning will be lost, and the desire to be treated as a full human being will grow desperately. The ‘Race’ money on the tree in the center of the Garden of Eden may look appealing, but we need to beware of the poison that it holds for our youth.

The Extinction of Thought

2009-07-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

A teacher wrote a math problem on the board for her class one morning. It stated, “As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats, and every cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?”

She then told the class to try and solve the problem using any means possible as individuals, and then to share their answers with each other. After a time, she asked for volunteers to share their solutions with the class. One girl came up and said, “2802, because there’s 2 men, 7 wives, 49 sacks, 343 cats, and 2401 kits.” Another boy argued vehemently against that saying, “There’s 2800 because the poem says to only count ‘kits, cats, sacks and wives’ in the last sentence.” Still, a third child raised her hand and argued yet again stating, “The answer is only 1 because it says the man was ‘on his WAY to St. Ives’. The other man and all the wives must have been coming from the other direction, so they don’t count as going to St. Ives.”

Fascinating. Just think of what goes into solving a problem like this. Multiplication, addition, subtraction, and even reading comprehension are all involved. Each student came up with a different answer, yet each one is valid in its own right because it depends on one’s point of view to justify the answer. This is critical thinking at its finest.

True critical thinking comes in the form of creative manipulation of information and divergent thinking of a problem. It is finding different ways of solving perplexing concepts. In today’s classroom, this has been exchanged for rote memorization and very low level skills. How did we get here? The federal No Child Left Behind law requires that all students take a one time, multiple choice, high stakes test each year that will determine how themselves, their school, and district have performed. There are no other ways that the law allows students to be evaluated, even though the testing companies themselves and the National Academy of Sciences dictate that there must be multiple sources of evidence used to determine student mastery of any subject area. Certainly, critical thinking problems could be explored and evaluated in an assortment of ways in reading, math, and science: oral response, projects, portfolios, presentations, etc. This is more helpful and fair to all children who show their understanding differently.

District policies often result in teaching methods that focus on narrow ways of thinking that allow only singular routes to solutions, and thus opportunities to show other valid ways are not encouraged. In computer scientist and artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky’s book, The Society of Mind, he states, “If you understand something in only one way, then you really do not understand it at all. This is because if something goes wrong you get stuck with a thought that just sits in your mind with nowhere to go.” This is what is happening to our kids. Over twelve long years they are being trapped into a mindless prison.

Now Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants to tie test scores to teacher performance and even have a national test linked to national standards. Just think of what this will do. Our children will now be forced to all look the ‘same’ and will be stuffed into a pressure cooker of test, test, test, score, score, and score to justify a teacher’s salary! What happened to the children’s learning and individualism? This is the reduction of human intellect on steroids. There has never been research that shows that more testing equals more learning. Parents should be outraged.

Minsky states that, “The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we have connected it to all the other things that we know. If you have several different representations, when one approach fails, you can try another.” What has made this country great has been our creativity and outside of the box thinking. The basic principle of unique thought will become extinct with our current educational policy. Think about it and say no.

Why the “Race to the Top” Will Lead Us to the Bottom

2009-07-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

The education pendulum has always been a fluid, moving force that oscillates with the current political tide and the will of ever-debating ideological adversaries . Lately, however, the lever is stuck in a harrowing, dangerous position that threatens to further erode the entire education system for the worse. Within the billions of dollars set aside for education in President Obama’s plan, is an incentive amount of $5 billion to be used to foster “a race to the top” for “innovation and reform” within a select few states. What does this mean? It indicates that the push for merit pay schemes is slowly becoming the darling of some “reformers” who say teachers should be judged using their student’s test scores. This is a highly corrosive and ill-begotten road that educators will face, and our children are in harm’s way.

Primarily doling out the orders for this is Obama’s right hand man, Education Secretary Arne Duncan. In a June 8, 2009 Associated Press article he stated that not linking “student achievement to teacher effectiveness is like suggesting we judge sports teams without looking at the box score.” Hardly. For example, isn’t it true that any seasoned basketball sports analyst might look also at defensive breakdowns, three point shooting, steals, turnovers, how tired or sick the players were, injuries, and who was thrown out of the game, etc. to determine the success or failure of a team? There is so much more to be gained by addressing the entire game in all of its aspects. That is what makes sports such a rich and entertaining venue. Teaching in a classroom is a likewise scenario in which a student’s performance needs to be addressed using multiple sources of evidence, such as portfolios, interviews, and presentations. Pay for performance plans, by primarily utilizing high stakes test scores for teacher evaluation, ignore the student’s fundamental right to be judged using the entire body of their human experience in school.

Merit pay plans have been tried in several places, but according to a May 2009 article in The Nation, none have yet to succeed that address the needs of the students. The merit pay premise assumes that if a teacher is paid to raise scores, instructional quality will increase. However, the only way to determine scientifically if the method works is to have the teacher teach a class using their current salary for an entire year and then assess them. Then the teacher needs to take the same class, reteach them a second year, but this time with merit pay attached to the results of their assessment. Then you could compare the scores from each year and see if they improved. Here’s the catch: if there was an increase you wouldn’t be able to tell if it was because of teaching the same curriculum a second time or because of the money enticement. No two class clienteles will ever be the same because of their individual human experiences, and no two sets of teaching methods will repeat exactly. Truly, the performance pay concept is impossible to implement accurately because every contaminating variable must be eliminated except for the teacher’s monetary incentive. However, even if all the variables could be known and excluded precisely, is this trivial concept justifiable in our school system?

A foreseeable problem is the increased abuse of high stakes testing and what it does to kids. The competitive nature of continually forcing test prep down students’ throats to increase one’s pay check is frightening. The Alliance for Childhood, which promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, has reported many instances of students becoming rife with anxiety, sickness, and overall depression because of the insane focus on testing. Also, The Sacramento Bee reported on April 25, 2009 that African American, Latino, and Pacific Islander students at Laguna Creek High School in Sacramento, California were forced to sit in groups by race to ‘pump them up’ for their state test. Each minority group was pushed to raise its test scores to help the school’s subgroup percentages increase, so they wouldn’t be looked at as underperforming. Such blatant racism would become rampant under Duncan’s plan.

Many students have even become so frustrated that they don’t bother to stay in school. In the Rice University report Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis it states “disaggregation of student scores by race does not lead to greater equity, but in fact puts our most vulnerable youth, the poor, the English language learners, and African American and Latino children, at risk of being pushed out of their schools so the school ratings can show ‘measurable improvement.’ High-stakes, test-based accountability leads not to equitable educational possibilities for youth, but to avoidable losses of these students from our schools”. Hence, it has been shown that a significant number of our dropouts have come from the inability to cope with continual pressure from high stakes tests.

Also, while it is widely known that cooperation and collaboration lead to increased lesson quality in the classroom, merit pay will lead to bitter disagreements and isolation between teaching professionals. What teacher would want to share their good instructional ideas with another if that meant that their coworker could use those same techniques, possibly get better results, and thus get a higher salary than themselves? Other countries, like Finland, have their teachers work as intense groups, assess students at the local level, and are simply paid very well for their efforts. Our teachers will be further separated and pushed to do things professionally unethical, like misusing class time for high stakes test preparation. This can lead, as it has in the New York City school system, to artificial increases in test scores, as reported on June 7, 2009 by the Daily News. There is no context with which to truly judge students’ performance. It becomes a numbers machine that ignores all educational justice.

Lastly, merit pay incentives would be enticing enough that the door would be wide open for school districts to manipulate data to make it appear as if test scores had risen, resulting in faulty reporting about student performance, and thus the improper allocation of merit pay would be a major problem. In Duncan’s own former school district, Chicago Public Schools, many schools were reconstituted because of their test score results. This means they were shut down, everyone was fired, and then they were reopened under new management. A report by the Consortium on Chicago School Research showed that test score gains in these locations, which Duncan touted, were inflated because student populations changed when more kids were referred to special education, and so their scores were not included; poor African American enrollment declined, many of whom previously had low scores; and students with limited English skills had their scores not tabulated in because of their language challenges. So, how can teachers be paid equitably in a system so flawed and rife with inequity?

What can be done to challenge the “race to the top” facade that threatens our public schools? Education professionals and coalitions need to press their local and national representatives to say that this merit pay reform path is immoral. A 2008 report from education advocacy group The Common Core stated that time in class could be, “better spent reading and discussing historical controversies, scientific discoveries, and literary works”, not “endless test preparation activities”. We need more people per child in schools to intensely focus and care for them. The state of Georgia has a High School Graduation Coach initiative that starts in the middle schools and heads off students from being lost in a huge crowd, keeps them engaged, and makes them feel important by a supportive net. This program has increased their graduation rate from 35% to 77% over three years, according to a May 2009 Parade magazine article. There is simply no merit in merit pay. The unraveling of decades of true classroom evidence and the erosion of public confidence in teachers by this faulty reform premise is creating unhealthy school environments. The race to the bottom needs to be stopped before it can start.

Does what is best for kids = What is best for test scores? by Rog Lucido

2008-05-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

CITIES GRAPPLE WITH LOW GRAD RATES….STRENGTH OF SCIENCE… TEACHERS: FUSD HOPES TO BOOST TEST - These headlines have grabbed readers' attention over the past few weeks. As a subtitle to the first- according to a study by America's Promise Alliance, Fresno graduated only 57.4% in 2004. To the second, despite the District claim for students to be scientifically literate, FUSD has eliminated its district science and social science coordinator positions — this was not reported in the Bee nor in Board minutes. To the third, boosting test scores does not mean boosting learning. Rather it condemns students to a narrowed curriculum and low-level thinking skills. In the best of all worlds, students want to learn, teachers want to teach, administrators want to support. Districts strive to provide the necessary resources. How is it that the good intentions and noble dreams of so many become corrupted?
All children do not begin school with equal advantages. Some come healthy and prepared to be successful. Others enter hobbled by limited or even negative experiences: poor nutrition, language skills and vocabulary. Some come from families just struggling to make ends meet. Some wake up each morning wondering if they can walk to and from school without encountering gang entanglements. Learning takes a back seat to survival. According to researcher Robert Marzano, over 80% of the variance in student academic success is determined by outside of school experiences. Only ten to twenty percent of their success is impacted by what is done in the classroom. So how are we taking advantage of this precious classroom time?
Student brains are wired for learning. The brain is a pattern seeker. In short, it wants to know. Parents want their children to love learning. Teachers want them to be lifelong learners. How do our current school policies and practices undermine this? They place the quest for higher test scores above the real goal of education: the development of our children into knowledgeable, responsible, productive adults. The role of parents has been redefined. They are now pressured to prepare their children to be tested while teachers are required to narrow their focus to what will be on the math and Language Arts tests. And worst of all, students see learning as a score and themselves as a proficiency level.
Testing companies, psychological organizations, state and national educational offices declare that the only valid conclusions about what students know and can do must come from multiple sources of evidence- the very types that are found in healthy classrooms like: projects, presentations, reports, experiments, classroom designed assessments, assignments, portfolios, discussions. Many are operating under the illusion that high test scores mean high learning. They don't. There is no corroborating evidence. But, there is significant evidence, most notably the recent study High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis that high-stakes tests increase the drop out rate and reduce graduations.

There is nothing in California or NCLB testing requirements that says that you must have additional district testing. We do. Nothing that says that lessons must be scripted so that it is read line by line rather than thoughtfully taught. We do. Nothing that says that lessons must be paced using a chart which directs by minute, hour and day regardless of the rate at which each child learns. We do. No evidence that says that teacher coaches should be hired to attempt to improve student score production. We do. Nothing that says eliminate and/or reduce support for, non-essential, untested, subjects such as science and social studies. We do.

Michigan, Virginia, Arizona and Minnesota are at various stages of legislation to opt out of NCLB. Here in the valley, Lincoln school district has opted out of NCLB saying, "We want to do a better job than we've been able to do and we want to do that by being flexible." FUSD school board or Superintendent has not even made a proclamation regarding the negative impact of high-stakes testing on its students and staff. Joining the chorus of many, a Texas superintendent, Michael Stevens, says, " Could we not reallocate the billions of dollars spent each year spent on testing and allow our wonderful educators to make learning fun, exciting and relevant. Children might actually learn!"

Good Things Never Die

2007-11-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

One day last week I took my three kids to the park during a beautiful morning. The energy with which they moved, and the creative thinking they displayed while playing “make-believe”, left me in a state of both thanks and joy. Children seem to develop such a clear sense of the world when left to their own devices. It also got me thinking about all of the other parents that were there. Were they filled with the same feelings of joy, guardianship, and hope for their children as I was for mine? I mean, what do parents really want for their kids? I can safely project that the answer would be to be happy, to learn and contribute to society, and have a heart to love others. And you know what else? I just want them to be regular. Regular people who live a life that is their own; one that has self-directed goals that give them the desire to make the world a better place.

Yes, yes. I know. They also have to be “competitive” in the global market place. It reminds me of a commercial where all the children are running around in suits, leading their busy CEO lives. Ah, the excitable rush of the marketplace---and with baby bottle in hand! While I believe that we must mediate that reality of the world to our children, there is an underlying sickness that wells up within me which screams that something is inherently wrong with this picture. I see the results of this “world” every day in my classroom. As the last five or so years have passed, the effects of monotonous, fill-in-the blank lessons pushed by curriculum companies tied to the testing regimen required by No Child Left Behind, have left me with students who frequently cannot explain their thinking. I have children who have lost the desire to KNOW, to LEARN for learning’s sake, and to CREATE. Parents are somewhat aware of this, yet are so confounded in their own minutia that they have no time to battle the corporate forces that impress such unscientifically supported methods of instruction.

I have students whose parents work extremely hard to give them an adequate place to live. Those parents also work very long hours and are very tired upon returning home from their jobs, and quite frankly have very little left in the tank. Many times, both parents work so the children are left at home to take care of themselves. Homework is often rushed to be completed and then left unchecked, so kids can wildly scamper for the video game console, this generation’s new “baby-sitter”. I know parents don’t want this to be the reality, but it IS the reality. The fact is, parents are working harder and longer, and most have salaries that are either barely keeping pace with inflation or sliding behind it. But are they really out of touch with their kids’ school lives, or are they just plain worn out?

The point here is that our strained economy, and the effort it takes to maintain the family structure within it, are negatively affecting the input of parents into the development of our educational system. Many are unhappy, but feel powerless in many instances over control being taken out of their hands by corporate interests. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has developed a system of grading schools from A-F, depending mainly on their standardized test scores. Many well-known academically successful schools received low grades, but parents haven’t been fooled by all of the hype. Many parents were “astonished” by the results and have stated that the program is, “part and parcel of the way students are treated--constantly barraging them with narrow, deadening tests and demoralizing them with meaningless scores” (NY times). Some also have said, “Get out! Are you sure they haven’t made a mistake?”, when referring to the grades a highly popular school received. One even said that the “methodology was confusing, problematic and flawed...it doesn’t mean anything.” And the letters continue to pour in.

England has similar issues. In a Cambridge University report, children are “stressed” and find high stakes tests to be “scary”. Parents were also anxious “about the current educational and social contexts” and were found to have more “pessimism about the world in which today’s children are growing up.” In a new poll by the Partnership for the 21st Century Skills, 88% of the people believed that our children are “ill-equipped in critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills”---all of which have been suffocated by the overemphasis on test taking. According to Linda Darling-Hammond, out of Stanford University, some of the most successful countries teach and assess their children using hands-on, oral, and real-world problem solving situations. The innate spirit and curiosity of those children have been inspired to their maximum.

Why is this not the case in the U.S. ? Who decides what and how our kids learn? Will the “marketplace” determine what is best for them? Surely, the cancer that is high stakes testing is no solution. Increases in dropouts and violence among our frustrated youths have proven that. Parents need to get involved and stand up for their children to ensure their natural gifts are developed correctly. It isn’t hard. Think of protecting your most valuable possession, and then multiply that feeling times ten thousand. I say to parents: love your children, and then see that love spirate into real learning and curiosity; meet with others who feel the same and share ideas and concerns; be impactful and an inspiration to others. As a parent who wants to see his children just “be regular”, I left the park that day with a sigh and this thought in mind:

“Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And good things never die.”---Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption.

Learning From the Past

2007-10-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

Education today is certainly not what it was years ago. Although some would argue that it may be worse, there are many elements that, in fact, are much better. The days of the one-room school house are gone and the times of children dropping out in the primary grades to work for their family’s survival are no longer existent. Teachers right now are better prepared than they have ever been. Future teachers must have four year college degree, along with 1-2 extra years in a credential program. They are trained to use high level technology in the classrooms, when school sites have it, and it is allowed. They are required to take the RICA and CSET tests, one which tests knowledge of how to teach reading, while the other demands an overall mastery of all curricular areas for multiple subject instructors. Even then, young teachers must go through two years of BTSA, a beginning support program that guides them under the tutelage of an experienced teacher. How is it, then, that corporate interests continually barrage the education community with statements that teachers are not prepared and are not doing a good job? If anything the bright, new, energetic future of teaching in America has been thrown under a bus called NCLB. This has stymied creativity in lesson planning and has forced children to learn in a box that allows very little original thought and insight.

The No Child Left Behind act, a federal law that is up for reauthorization, has been rife with both tangible and intangible damage to our student population. In a research report done by the University of Chicago, named “Left Behind By Design”, the authors strongly state that the NCLB law has forced schools to focus on the nearly proficient, or “bubble” kids. As a result, the most gifted and most poverty stricken students have shown a significant drop in overall achievement since NCLB’s inception. The law’s original intent was to assure that ALL students receive equal treatment, but with the over-reliance on standardized test scores, high quality, meaningful lessons have been squelched in favor of test prep and drill and kill lessons. Thus, many children have been left in the lurch. The National Research Council, in their report “Lessons Learned About Testing” states that “test scores are not perfect measures: they must be considered with other sources of information when making important decisions about individuals and schools”. Yet, so many administrators, business folk, and politicians have failed to realize this basic flaw.

Many teachers have experienced the negative impacts of NCLB in the classroom. Children being physically sick and depressed because of the stress of continual assessments being used to gauge how they will “perform” on the California STAR, is one of the most common observations. Also, the continual droning focus on math and reading, with little else, has drained the spark of learning from many students. Some schools have either cut back, or completely eliminated recess to increase instructional time. This has resulted in higher levels of student aggression and discipline at even the lowest grade levels. It does not take a brain surgeon to point to the fact that these are children, not robots. Children have physical and emotional needs that must be met through the social processes of play .

One current draft of the NCLB reauthorization states that teachers will be judged and paid by test score results. If this passes, the afore mentioned unhealthy elements will be significantly increased. With so much evidence showing that test scores prove very little about what students know and are able to do, how can so much weight be put on them? The National Academy of Sciences has warned against using scores as the only measure of achievement. Varying types of assessments, including portfolios and performance tests must be considered. The integrity of the teaching profession will be compromised, and its duty to help all children learn will be cast into continuous speculation over what a teacher’s real motivation is.

The education of the past teaches us that human beings should be recognized as universal learners with a passion for discovery. Contact your local representatives, superintendents, and school boards to demand a change in policy. Multiple sources of evidence must be used to determine student mastery, and the funding for the research and creation of multitiered assessments which demonstrate a student’s complete knowledge must be guaranteed. Sometimes common sense is just what we need.

EPATA Newsletter August '07

2007-08-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

EPATA Newsletter

Hello, all! I hope your summer vacation has been restful. I am sending this email out to let you know that I appreciate all of your involvement in this group. It is your passion for children that lights the fire of our profession. I don't know if you read it, but the op-ed piece by Maria Salinas in today's Fresno Bee struck a chord with me. I sent her an email below and I encourage you all to do the same according to the REALITY of your work with ELL students.

We have been gathering at churches and/or stores to spread our message and it has been fruitful. However, we still need more venues (schools? church communities?) and volunteers to simply sit and talk to parents while handing out information. I messed up the URL for the NCLB packet by Elizabeth Yaeger. You can print this out directly, make copies, and pass them out:
http://oaklandea.org/front_page_docs/may_07/NCLB%20Jaeger.pdf

Please email me if you can help.

We will probably have a meeting near the end of August, although I will email you on that. NCLB reauthorization is being HIGHLY debated right now, although the national media won't touch it. George Miller wants "multiple measures", but I don't think he truly knows what that means. Margaret Spellings and the Business Roundtable supported Ed in '08 (a 60 million dollar campaign to "improve" schools) still want the testing measures and want to use them to judge YOUR performance in the classroom. We need to say that this is wrong. Go to Fairtest.org to get the latest on legislation. Your representatives are on break right now. Go see them. Have confidence in what you need to say about the law. It IS having an effect.

(Don't forget to read my letter and send one to her)

Thanks,
Joseph Lucido
EPATA
Educator Roundtable----->

Dear Ms. Salinas,

Thank you for writing your op-ed piece on education and the desires of the Hispanic community. While there are many good points to it, I am deeply concerned with your implied support of the "Ed in 08" campaign. This 60 million dollar campaign, financed primarily by billionaires Eli Broad and Bill Gates, has the intention of suggesting that schools be graded only by using test scores alone. It states that teachers will be paid according to their "ability" in the classroom. Their focus is not on learning improvement, but test score improvement, and these two items are FAR from being the same. This campaign is truly designed to fool the public into believing that test scores are what tell the truth about what students know and are able to do. To judge any professional or student by one measure alone shows a lack of knowledge about student learning
processes. These two "philanthropists" have one goal in mind: to push for an end to public education and to privatize it, sending billions of tax payer dollars to for-profit school systems who claim to do a "better job" but have no oversight or general proof of their effectiveness. Just look at the Reading First and student loan scandals. Many people, ESPECIALLY the poor and ethnic communities, were hit hard by these schemes that claimed to help financially or educationally, but have turned out to be poison to those on the receiving end of the stick. Reading First schools, have either declined or flatlined according to Stephen Krashen, an international expert on English Language Learners.

The Council of La Raza has been very foolish of its support for this campaign and NCLB. While the law itself claims to focus on the wellfare of poor and minority children, it does just the opposite. These children come from usually very poor areas that are forced to use scripted curriculum and have all but abolished enriching science, art, music, and social studies all in the name of drilling for tests. Within the school year, these kids are tested over and over and over to see where they would land on the state tests. Very little authentic learning is going on in many of these places because of the forces of
the law. Many students and many great teachers are absolutely burned out on the non-creative, smothering curriculum. La Raza, while well intentioned, appears to support ANYTHING that says it will focus on the Hispanic community without recognizing the disastrous consequences.

Truly, we need to re-research the NCLB law and make it an effective piece of legislation that works for all. A recent study out of the University of Chicago has shown that the students in the lowest percentiles have made horrifying drops
in their academic results as a consequence of this law's drill focus. There are many ways to decide how a child has mastered a standard, and these need to be looked at and incorporated into the law. Nebraska has done an excellent job of
this and should be a model for you to look at.

Below you will find a press release from selected civil rights groups AGAINST the NCLB test and punish policies that Ed in '08 (with its many Business Rountable partners) supports. Please notice (to name some) the involment of the Civil Rights Project, League of United Latin American Citizens, NAACP, National Association for Bilingual Education, and the National Coalition
of ESEA Title I Parents. La Raza is the only Hispanic rights group to support Ed in '08 as of now. Why is this? You might want to discover what their motives really are by following the money of that campaign as it unfolds. Our group was created to protect the innocent from the terrible damage of standardized testing. All students deserve the right to learn in a healthy atmosphere. Please email me for anymore questions.

Thanks,
Joseph Lucido
Fifth Grade Science Lead
Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse Co-founder
Educator Roundtable

Forum on Educational Accountability
for immediate release Tuesday, August 7, 2007
CIVIL RIGHTS, DISABILITY ORGS. CALL FOR “MULTIPLE MEASURES”
IN “NO CHILD” OVERHAUL LEGISLATION;
FORUM ON EDUCATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY PRAISES GROUPS’ LETTER
AND REP. MILLER’S LEADERSHIP ON THIS ISSUE

Nearly two dozen major civil rights and disability advocacy groups today
called on Congress to include “multiple forms of assessment” and
“multiple measures or indicators of student progress” in legislation
currently being drafted to overhaul the controversial “No Child Left
Behind” (NCLB) federal education law. In a letter delivered to members
of the Senate and House education committees, the groups wrote, “If
education is to improve in the United States, schools must be assessed
in ways that produce high-quality learning and that create incentives to
keep students in school.”
Signers of the letter included the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC), Learning Disabilities Association of America, National
Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE), ASPIRA Association, NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Alliance for Bilingual
Education, National Urban Alliance, Council for Exceptional Children
(CEC), Civil Rights Project, Asian American Legal Defense and Education
Fund, National Indian School Board Association and ACORN.
The groups’ letter continued, “A number of studies have found that an
exclusive emphasis on (primarily multiple-choice) standardized test
scores has narrowed the curriculum. An unintended consequence has been
to create incentives for schools to boost scores by keeping or pushing
low-scoring students out of school. Push-out incentives and the narrowed
curriculum are especially severe for special needs students, English
language learners, and students without strong family supports.”
Among the arguments made for including multiple measures:
* attention will be given to a comprehensive academic program and a more
complete array of learning outcomes;
* higher-order thinking and performance skills can be assessed;
* checks and balances will be added to ensure that emphasizing one
measure does not come at the expense of other important educational
goals; and
* schools will be encouraged to attend to the progress of students at
every point of the achievement spectrum, not just those near a test
cut-point labeled “proficient.”
The letter concluded, “A multiple measures approach that incorporates a
well-balanced set of indicators would support a shift toward holding
states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that
improve student achievement. This is a necessary foundation for genuine
accountability.”
The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA), a group formed to advance
the proposals made in the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB (now
signed by 138 national education, civil rights, religious, disability,
parent, civic and labor organizations), praised the letter and cited a
recent National Press Club speech by House Education Chairman George
Miller as indicators of the wide support for making multiple measures of
achievement an important part of any federal education law.
“Clearly, there is an emerging consensus that judging our schools
largely on the basis of simple-minded reading and math tests undermines
educational quality and equity," said FEA Chair, Dr. Monty Neill.
Two of the Joint Statement's principles explicitly support the use of
multiple measures:
* “Provide a comprehensive picture of students' and schools' performance
by moving from an overwhelming reliance on standardized tests to using
multiple indicators of student achievement in addition to these tests.”
* “Help states develop assessment systems that include district and
school-based measures in order to provide better, more timely
information about student learning.”

The full list of organizations that have signed the letter: ACORN,
Advancement Project, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund,
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, ASPIRA Association, Civil Rights
Project, Council for Exceptional Children, Japanese American Citizens
League, Justice Matters, League of United Latin American Citizens
(LULAC), Learning Disabilities Association of America, National Alliance
of Black School Educators (NABSE), National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), NAACP Legal Defense & Educational
Fund, Inc., National Association for Asian Pacific American Education,
National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), National
Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and
Vietnamese Americans (NAFEA), National Coalition of ESEA Title I
Parents, National Council on Educating Black Children, National
Federation of Filipino American Associations, National Indian Education
Association, National Indian School Board Association, National Pacific
Islander Educator Network (NPIEN), National Urban Alliance for Effective
Education (NUA).

The Broken Heart

2007-07-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

A heart is a terrible thing to waste...

The world to me is always an amazing place. I am frequently intrigued by the emotional reactions that the public has to the realities of horror. The latest insanity has been the Michael Vick case where it has been alleged that his property was used for dog fighting. Vick and his cohorts have been accused of, “knowingly sponsoring and exhibiting an animal fighting venture.” (AP) When these animals are not prepared or aggressive enough to fight, they are often disposed of. The report states that dogs were “killed by hanging, drowning and/or slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.” Can you imagine the reality of actually seeing that happen? To watch a dog suffer in pain and to physically see its life ended in such a grisly manner? And thus what has happened almost immediately: PETA and the ASPCA held demonstrations demanding for the immediate firing of Michael Vick from the Atlanta Falcons for his involvement. They organized to show their outrage.

Another situation that I have seen the public grow in strong levels of discontent over the last few years is the Iraq war. So far, the United States has lost 3636 soldiers and has acquired 26,558 casualties since the invasion. Outside of the extreme sadness of death, the injuries sustained by some of the soldiers include lost limbs, eyesight, and brain damage from severe head injuries. Whether its been Fox, CNN, MSNBC, or CBS, the pictures of destruction and mayhem have been graphic and disturbing. Many times, these images make imprints on the brain that last forever. Although some may disagree with her plight, Cindy Sheehan began a crusade to end the war because of the death of her son in Iraq and her belief that the war was started under false pretenses. She has felt the pain and seen the results of the carnage as a parent. Her anguish has been mirrored by countless others who have experienced the same. Thus, she and many others have marched around the country, demanding justice from the government and congress. The ultimate results of her efforts will not be known for some time, but the dialogue has at least initiated in congress to pull out of Iraq.

One might ask, then, what do these situations have to do with each other? The answer defines much of who we are as humans. It is our nature that when we physically see or hear of extremely painful situations, our gut instinct is to protect that which is valuable to us from it. Whether it be our children at war or our precious animals who are often defenseless, the notion that they could be “next” is real because the pictures, sounds, and graphics have proven the danger to us in the media. The question is posed then: WHY HAVE WE NOT, AS A SOCIETY, RALLIED TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN FROM AN UNJUST EDUCATION LAW? I propose that the main reason is that not enough parents have SEEN the pain, HEARD the cries of their children, and FELT the hopelessness that many teachers have felt since the inception of the No Child Left Behind education law. If they saw their child sobbing the day of the “big” exam, or crushed because they were labeled as “basic” on some bar graph hanging for all to see, or knew their school could be closed, the masses of folks would be out in droves.

Human thinking and emotion is often silent during times of distress. It is kept in the dark because of embarrassment, shame, worry, and fear. Students worry about being “smart” enough or not being a good addition to the classroom because they haven’t performed well on a standardized test. A study out of Chicago shows that NCLB has literally failed to work for students in the lowest performing ranges. They have actually done much worse. Many of these kids come from the poorest areas where parents have been incarcerated or on drugs, maybe even have died as a result of violence. This AFFECTS children negatively. At any given time, up to 5% of all kids 9-17 struggle with depression (National Institute of Health). These children often have failure in school, and the pressure to be “proficient” scoring on a bubble test over, and over, and over, and over can only add to the problem. In the teen years, these types of students are more prone to truancy, substance abuse, and suicide.

So, WHERE ARE THE PARENTS MARCHING? How do we MAKE VISIBLE the anguish of our children and teachers? How do we get the message out that NCLB is KILLING our kids’ minds? Must we wait until they have suffered an entire 12 years of poorly researched assessment and forced curriculum such that they turn out unable to think with reason and have a desire for life long learning? Talent and joy have been purged from many classrooms and will continue to be unless the pain is VISIBLE. Teachers need to share their agony and report their students’ feelings to school sites and congressmen. They need to reach out to parents and let go of their fear. Parents will protect what is valuable if they know the danger. Which is worse: To eliminate NCLB and start over, or to bury the future of the child that died of a broken heart?

Decimated Democracy and the Harlot

2007-07-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

(Fictional Account)
(but not that far off!)

The year is 2050. After decades of struggle, the public school system has been eradicated. Hewlett-Packard High schools, the Broad Foundation Elementary Network, and the Gates Conservatory for Education Production are the primary schooling institutions across the country. At first these elites were in the same corner, brothers against teachers’ unions and the freedom of thought and creativity. As time has passed, however, now they battle each other. Using test scores and rhetoric as their weapons, these near-monopolists use whatever means necessary to compete for the public’s money. Although the federal government, once a protector of young children, has tried to monitor the uses of funds and programs, it has been nearly impossible. These privatized firms have moved and shifted voucher money about with such varying patterns, that it has been next to impossible to track how it has been used. A Packard representative stated, “We hold the right to privacy of our company’s holdings and stock owner’s portfolios.” Without oversight, any and every scheme has been used to publish the differences between the schools. Possible inflation of graduation rates and test scores, along with inaccurate dropout numbers have been alleged by opposing sides. No one knows the truth. Even though many of the employees secretly disagree with the teaching methods used, they must follow orders to keep the fragile positions they hold.

It wasn’t always this way. In 2007, public school educators had the chance to do away with the highly controversial No Child Left Behind Law. With many voices calling for its dismantling, it was thrust into the spotlight. Many teachers and parents were tired of the droning test preparation in classes that caused their kids to hate school and thus leave for less restricted charter or private schools. However, many more stayed and attended board meetings trying to let their voices be heard. In that same year, merit pay became the buzz word. Teachers would be paid primarily on their ability to raise the test scores of their students. Most teachers balked. But some gave into the system, sacrificing the solid educational pedagogy that they promised to uphold as a professional. As harlots for money, they “collaborated” to come up with the best practices for getting students to pass standardized tests. Some parents saw that teachers liked the idea, so they too, began to support the experiment by raising taxes to fund it.

The years that followed were tumultuous. As the initial surge in some test scores appeased the public, more people began to buy into the “fair-playing field” ideology of the private workplace when determining a teacher’s quality. The National Education Association, stuck in its own political quagmires, was unable to organize and was unwilling to see the carnage that lay ahead. Many teachers argued that children were not toasters to be bargained for. The draw for higher pay caused continual fighting that broke up many unions, a soothing sight to corporate roundtables. Union after union fell to the new idea, hoping for better pay.

Some schools scored better than others, and those who did poorly were taken over by the state, had their school board eliminated, and had oversight by private corporations. Parents, believing in the almighty test score, wanted to trust in this new way of running schools. They thought that the low scoring schools were “bad”, and thus voted for vouchers. As the law came into effect, tens of thousands of parents of all races and socioeconomic levels began to apply to the schools of their choice. The wealthier schools, in a desperate measure to maintain a higher scoring student populace, began selecting children on the basis of their test results. They also raised the cost of the attendance to several thousand dollars higher than the vouchers given out. Some parents realized what was happening as spouted, “racism!” and “favoritism!”, because many impoverished students were left out, unable to make up the difference in cost. Large numbers were forced back to their old schools, most of which were taken over by the state.

As the Annual Measurable Objectives began to climb, with each school’s goal to be 100% proficient on standardized test by 2014, more schools began to struggle to pull all students up. The ten percent raise in the bar every year was horrendously difficult, if not impossible, to match in the rate of improvement. School after school closed and was harnessed by corporations. The Heritage Foundation, Eli Broad, and Bill Gates continued the public mantra of “teacher accountability” without any for themselves. Schools began firing teachers by the droves and rehiring people who would follow the format. With so many teachers out of jobs, the market was flooded with educators, allowing the controlling companies to hire for lower wages. Test score improvement “bonuses” made very little difference in their overall pay. The poorest children were taught the lowest skills, no parent being the wiser, as the school boards no longer existed as a voice of reason.

Schools began sending recruiters out to the highest scoring households to try and get them to change schools. Often, these people arrived at the same house at the same time, getting into verbal and even physical confrontations over the “rights” to the student. Meanwhile, in the poorest neighborhoods, the children were wrought with constantly rotating staffs. This instability caused many students to hate and leave school for work, many as young as 12 years old. Some would work directly for the company who ran the school, doing odd jobs for minimum wage. Others joined gangs and lived on the street selling drugs. Parents who were mired in their own low paying jobs, had no energy or will to change what seemed impossible to face. There was no support. Military recruiters came to these neighborhoods to give a “way out” for many unfocused people.

The test score phenomena began to unravel, but it was too late. Private groups already had the school system under wraps. With continual competition for the best scores, millions of children were set aside except for the elite test takers. The remainders were prepared for menial service labor as their future. In 2040, only a few companies remained in control of the vast fortune of federal dollars awaiting them.

Now in 2050, the unemployment level of the country has hit an an all time high of 17%, the number of incarcerated youths under 18 has skyrocketed, and most parents are working two jobs apiece to make ends meet. Outsourcing has all but eliminated high profile positions at utility, software, medical, and many other well paying jobs. The number of good paying service sector jobs has also dropped significantly. Remaining are the simple, low wage tasks that are required of people trained to think that way. The corporate thread runs through everything now, some speculating it controls congress completely. The time for revolutionary ideas came and went in 2007 when democracy was shattered.

Except that it’s not too late.

EPATA MEETING NOTES: June 28th

2007-06-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

1.) As a group we have decided that JULY 10th will be a call in day to Congressman George Miller and Senator Kennedy’s offices. We need to all let them know that NCLB is damaging and that it is not working. I have attached a quick sheet (PDF file) that you can pass out to parents by making copies, AND use for your phone call. Their numbers are as follows:

Miller: (925) 602-1880 or (510) 262-6500 or (707) 645-1888 or (202) 225-2095
Kennedy: (202)224- 4543 or (617) 565-3170 or (877) 472-9014

I will try to contact other national groups so maybe we can make this a national day of action! WE NEED ALL OF YOU.

2.) We have also decided to do presentations to community and parent groups. They will be given a power point presentation along with action steps, such as writing and signing our petition. The following will be contacted in the near
future:
a.) League of Women Voters
b.) First Five
c.) Hope Lutheran Church
d.) Unitarian Church

These are only a start. We can contact many others to get them educated and moving on stopping NCLB. If you know any more SEND ME THE INFO!

3.) It was decided that we would contact supportive private businesses and have a booth out in front with our members meeting with the public. At the location, we would have our quick handout, Elizabeth Jaeger’s NCLB booklet for parents who
want more, and our petition for them to sign. YOU can print out her booklet too at :
http://oaklandea.org/front_page_docs/may_07/NCLB%20Jaeger.pd
We would love to have volunteers email and either sit at a booth OR send the name of a business that would support this action.

4.)Saturday, July 14, 11:00 AM 12:00 Noon

There will be a Town Hall Meeting with Congressman George Miller.
Location:IBEW Hall, 1875 Arnold Drive, Martinez, CA

Congressman Miller will discuss Iraq War, Energy Independence and No ChildLeft Behind for 30 mins., and then take questions for 30 mins. or so.
For further information, call Congressman Miller¹s office at (925) 602-1880. I am VERY interested in going. Who would like to car pool? Emaill me back!

5.) Some members will be meeting with Californians for Justice to connect on NCLB and hopefully, with their support, we will have more man power to improve communicating with parents.

6.) We have not decided on our next meeting date, as we are into an “action” mode right now, but a date will be chosen after July, more than likely. Continue to visit WWW.TESTINGABUSE.BLOGSPOT.COM and WWW.EDUCATORROUNTABLE.ORG for
information. Below is a letter to us from Monty Neil of Fairtest.

Thanks,

Joseph Lucido
EPATA
Educator Roundtable

Ensure U.S. House Really Overhauls NCLB

The House Education Committee is about to adopt language for the next version of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)/No Child Left Behind (NCLB). It could approve a bill in early July, with the full House voting later in July!

Now is the time for assessment reformers like you to act. The next steps include:

1) Keep pressure on the leadership, especially Chairman George Miller.

Demand they make needed major improvements (as outlined below) and allow substantial time for discussion and
amendments. Tell your Rep. to deliver this message to Mr. Miller. (See contact info at the bottom.)

2) If your Representative is on the Education Committee, ask her or him to vote “No” to any bill or parts of the bill that do not make sufficient changes in the law. Ask them to propose amendments to advance the key changes and to take leadership on these issues.

3) Focus on key changes needed in the law:

• End unrealistic "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) requirements. Expect schools to make reasonable progress based on real-world rates of student improvement.

• Require testing once each in elementary, middle and high school, scrapping requirement to test in grades 3-8. Over-testing takes time away from real teaching and learning.

• Assess academic progress using multiple sources of evidence, not just standardized test scores. Provide funding to help states and districts develop locally-based, performance and classroom assessments to improve teaching and learning as well as accountability.

• Replace the test-and-punish approach with support for improving educational quality. Expect all schools to take reasonable steps to improve, including use of high-quality professional development and strong parental involvement. Replace current sanctions-based system with a focus on targeted assistance.

4) Get other people and organizations to fax, call, or write Congress. Tell your Representatives and Senators to rely on the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB and the legislative recommendations of the Forum on Educational Accountability to guide their votes on reauthorization of NLCB.

http://www.fairtest.org/FEA_Home.html.

A Collection of "Us" Needed for Hope

2007-06-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

This is our response to the latest article on the "restructuring" of 2,300 schools.
SEE IT HERE: http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/06/20/failing.schools.ap/index.html

Last night me and my wife were watching “Lord of the Rings”. Two hobbits were forced into a forest of trees, which they realized were intelligent beings, but under the threat of being burned by nearby enemies. There was a point in the story where the Ents (tree like creatures who protected the forest) did not want to battle these dark forces because they hadn’t yet affected the forest directly. They told the little hobbits to return to the Shire and enjoy the good life. One hobbit gave in and started to turn back home, located hundreds of miles away. The other explained to him in exasperation that if they went home and did not withstand the ensuing battle that, “There won’t be a Shire to go home to.” He realized that the insanity of destruction that lie ahead would swallow their entire world whole if they did not meet its challenge. The story focuses on hope in the most perilous of times, when all hope is gone, except for the narrowest sliver of light.

The AP story from yesterday only magnifies a struggle similar to this one that many find hard to deal with, yet has a glimmer of hope. Teachers need to educate parents about what is happening to their schools, but many are tired and fearful. The future of public education hangs in the balance, as those who would profit from destroying it wait in the wings. 2,300. That’s the number of schools, with more to come, that will be up for “restructuring”. It is always curious to me how people in government and administration want to reconfigure these schools based on test scores that give no specific indices of how students came to their answers. Superintendent Joseph Ferraina stated, "There are people working with data every day now," he said. "They're sitting down with people and saying, 'You know what, your class seems to not be doing well in whole numbers. We need to add a lesson in whole numbers.'" How does he know EXACTLY what to focus on in that area? How does he know the teaching methods that were used originally? Was there an original observation of this teacher and student reactions to the lessons? Would there be any continuing focus on the metacognition of those students at all? His remark shows complete ignorance of the value of multiple methods of assessment and proof that standardized testing tells you nothing of the student context or mindset when answering. It is a hodgepodge experiment that asks teachers to keep manipulating their teaching methods such that they FINALLY get the reproduced answers that the test asks for. This is not good teaching and learning, and limits the creativity and uniqueness that exists in all students to examine and respond to math and other problems from divergent points of view.

I find it quite interesting that a principal mentioned, "Instruction wasn't happening...Schools have failed them.", as the explanation for gang violence and dropouts. This statement is outrageous. Teachers are not responsible for creating or solving the social ills that affect students! It is irresponsible to ignore the deprived lifestyle, lack of parent support, little motivation, and severely limited vocabulary exposure of these students as possible culprits for dropping out or joining gangs. What was the first thing she did (beside firing 3/4 of the staff and hiring younger, easier to manipulate teachers) ? She painted the school bright colors and bought brand new books, while getting rid of the "moldy" ones. Now, why did she do this? Because she knew that the environment that the students were in AFFECTED THEIR LEARNING. In general, the students were still struggling a year later. So, I guess it wasn't 75% of the staff that was the problem. We have to start addressing the surrounding poverty of the neighborhoods as a whole and heal the entire thing. It takes vision and will of all citizens to do this.

Poverty absolutely does NOT mean that those afflicted in it can’t learn. However, it DOES mean that the methods that are used to teach those children have to be rich, even richer, in hands on experience and vocabulary than their wealthier counterparts. Superintendent Deasy stated, “...testing goals have to be very targeted”, and, “ there often isn't time for electives and free play like at other schools.” By “other schools”, does he mean the well-off, “higher-scoring”, and thus free-to-teach-as-they see-fit-for-their-community-schools? The horrific part is, electives and physical play are just what those poorer students need. Structured P.E. lessons are valuable in making a balance with the mind and body. These children need varying courses to give them the real life experiences that they have sorely missed in their early childhood. Science experiments, field trips, and presentations of self-created models can show their knowledge of standards. At Arrowhead Elementary “math worksheets were on the desks, and kids were sounding out vowels...” in the afternoons instead of something that could teach depth and meaning. This is NCLB’s vision of a “restructuring” plan. It does not meet the needs of those kids, is forced upon them by this law’s punitive make-up, and is thus creating more inequity than before.

The truth is that while NCLB’s intent was to balance the playing field for all children, the effects have been disastrous for many children and teachers. The statement, “The most obvious sign of the pressure is in a public hallway near the school's main entrance where graphs hang in full view of passing students and teachers.” This practice is morally wrong, should be considered harassment, and probably is illegal since it divulges private student data.

Scripted programs, the punishment for most “restructured” schools, suck the soul and life from children and creative teachers. These have been challenged by many scholars to have invalid research and only continue to hold the poorest children hostage with transmissive teaching techniques that don’t allow them to think critically. A teacher from Portland, Oregon wrote in the Nation periodical, “Teachers soon begin to pass that message along to students: Don't think; just do what's in front of you. There are two choices for educators like myself: Teach public school and teach the poor how to follow orders, or teach private school and teach the rich how to think for themselves. I can't say this publicly because I would lose my job. We all have to watch what we say.”

This idea of squashing professional judgement is definitely clarified in the AP article when it states, "The administration also wants the federal law to override provisions in collective bargaining agreements to ensure failing schools have complete control over who works there." And so the attacks are mounting. But, as in Lord of the Rings, there is hope. We absolutely need a collective “us” to speak up for our profession and say that these things are wrong. Teachers are leaving the profession in alarming numbers and at a huge expense, from experience to monetary cost. Upon the many letters I have read on this matter, the joy of teaching is being lost. It is the kids who will lose in the end. If a return to the “status quo” and doing “what’s comfortable” means to allow the freedom of learning and exploration, then I’m all for it.

Study: Testing firms 'buckling' under NCLB's weight

2007-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

by Staff

To motivate juniors on last year's assessment exams, central Illinois' Springfield High School offered coveted lockers, parking spaces near the door, and free prom tickets as incentives for good scores. But the incentives went unclaimed until this March, when Illinois finally published its 2006 test scores--more than four months after they were due. Critics pounced on Harcourt Assessment Inc., which lost most of its $44.5 million state contract over delays that made Illinois the last state in the nation to release scores used to judge schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But experts say the problems are more widespread and are likely to get worse. A handful of companies create, print, and score most of the tests in the U.S.--and they're struggling with a workload that has exploded since President Bush signed the education reform package in 2002.

"The testing industry in the U.S. is buckling under the weight of NCLB demands," said Thomas Toch, co-director of Education Sector, a Washington-based think tank.

When Education Sector surveyed 23 states in 2006, it found 35 percent of testing offices in those states had experienced "significant" errors with scoring, and 20 percent didn't get results "in a timely fashion."

Illinois saw more problems in March, when students took achievement tests that contained as many as 13 errors, officials said. But Illinois isn't the only state that has experienced difficulties:

•Oregon's Education Department complained that a computerized test was plagued by system problems. Test company Vantage Learning later terminated its contract with the state, claiming it was owed money, and the state sued the company for breach of contract. Now, thousands of students who haven't completed online exams will take them in May the old-fashioned way, using paper and pencil. •Connecticut last year fined Harcourt $80,000 after a processing error caused wrong scores for 355 students in 2005. While that's a fraction of the state's 41,000 kids who took the test, state officials had to notify 51, or nearly a third, of all districts that some of their students got the wrong scores. The problem came a year after the state canceled its contract with another firm, CTB/McGraw-Hill, after scoring problems caused a five-month delay in reporting scores. •The Texas Education Agency passed 4,160 10th-graders who initially failed the math section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in 2003 after officials discovered a test question had more than one correct answer.

•Pearson Educational Measurement apologized last year after it reported more than 900,000 Michigan results weeks late. In 2003, previous vendor Measurement Inc. delivered 3,400 MEAP scores months late and nearly 1,000 results went missing. The number of students tested has risen sharply since NCLB took effect. Illinois, for example, used to test only third, fifth, and eight graders but now tests students in third through eighth grades.

To meet NCLB requirements, states administered 45 million reading and math exams last spring. At the end of the 2007-08 school year, they will give about 56 million tests because they must add a science exam at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

What's more, each state has its own test, and many want them customized, said Michael Hansen, chief executive officer of Harcourt Assessment, which no longer administers Illinois' tests but still is involved in developing and grading them.

"Not only [have] states wanted different content in terms of the tests, but they also have very many different requirements as to logistics, delivery, look and feel, color, how the questions are organized, horizontal, vertical ... you name it, it was on the table," Hansen said.

On top of that, experts say, are rigid, NCLB-driven deadlines.

"That means March and April we are completely ... at peak capacity, and so is every one of our competitors," Hansen said. "But also then when the test results come in, [schools] need the test results back as soon as possible ... so the turnaround from the time that the test is taken, to [when] we need to report the results is extremely tight--and it's getting tighter and tighter."

Others say the problems are exacerbated by little competition or regulation.

The NCLB testing industry is dominated by four companies: Harcourt of San Antonio, Texas; CTB/McGraw-Hill, based in Monterey, Calif.; Pearson Educational Measurement of Iowa City, Iowa, and Riverside Publishing of Itasca, Ill.

"It's not entirely a monopoly, but it is an oligopoly, with very little regulation," said Walter Haney, professor at the Center for the Study of Testing Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College.

Both state education departments and testing companies are "overtaxed and bursting at the seams," said Becky Watts, former chief of staff at the Illinois State Board of Education.

From 2002 to 2008, states will spend between $1.9 billion and $5.3 billion to develop, score, and report NCLB-required tests, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. However, states spend less than a quarter of 1 percent of school revenue--or $10 to $30 a student--on testing programs, even though federal, state, and local spending per pupil adds up to more than $8,000 a year, Toch said, adding: "That's not enough to produce high-quality tests in the tight timelines that NCLB requires. It's ludicrous."

The U.S. Department of Education must be more active, Toch said; instead, "Secretary [Margaret] Spellings has largely washed her hands of this problem, said it's a state problem, which is a peculiar ... response because it's the federal government that has required the states to take these actions."
— Staff
eSchool News
2007-05-01

A Call for the Protection of the Innocents

2007-06-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

A war is coming. This battle is currently silent to the general public, and yet it will rage with the intensity of a mass forest fire. Except this inferno will be poised to consume public education, a cornerstone to our democracy. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), with testing as its oppressive tool, has left the door open to those that would abuse the school system: corporate America. Privatizing education would mean billions in tax dollars for them and a nonstop business training ground. The cost for U.S. citizens? Our children.
The current fear based message by big business is that schools are not being productive enough for their tastes. It is the frightening notice sent by CEO’s such as Bill Gates and Eli Broad that as a nation we are competitively and economically falling behind the rest of the world. Yet in an interview on National Public Radio, Vivek Wadwha from Duke University, addresses a study that was done there that refutes Gates’ claims that there are not enough highly skilled engineers to support the high-tech industry. He stated,” We researched exactly what was going on in India and China and the USA. We looked at the graduation rates of all three countries. What we found was that India and China have no real advantage in the quantity or the quality of the graduates they produce. In fact, the USA is far ahead by almost any milestone. We also asked companies why they’re going overseas and the number 1 reason was cost, cost, cost. It’s not about a deficiency in the U.S. worker or shortag e over here. It’s about the economic benefit that they get in India and China.”

The report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, “Tough Choices or Tough Times”, is supported by many CEO’s. The report suggests that public schools could be overseen by private companies and that students, when reaching tenth grade, will be directionalized using a standardized test to see if they can stay in school, or pushed to move to the private sector to work. If they pass, they can go to a university. There will be very little choice in the matter. Researcher Dr. Gerald Bracey has stated, ”There is a cottage industry in this country that generates reports devoted to keeping Americans anxious about the future and laying the responsibility for that future on the schools which are never working as they should be.”Public schools have been taken over in many parts of the country already, such as in Oakland and New Orleans. An EdWeek report states that Cristal-Rey schools in Chicago, another Gates supported operation, has already crossed a dangerous line. A proposal to the labor department has 14 to 15 year old students working up to eight hours a day week at banks or law firms contracted with the schools, while still going to class. This scheme would currently violate child labor laws.

The focus of where education is heading is clear: Children are being setup to be trained to enter the work force younger and younger--and at a dear price. The pressures and nonsense thinking of standardized tests are preparing many for thoughtless tasks that fit in perfectly with the corporate mold. If one isn’t taught to think critically, one can’t challenge. If one can’t challenge effectively, then one can be controlled easily. It is about power and the silencing of the innocent. A report from the Alliance for Childhood’s 300 physicians and educators out of Maryland, suggests that children have become more and more violent at younger ages due to, among other things, the “culture of high-stakes testing, standardization, and scripted ‘teaching’ that has overtaken so many schools.”

What is good for the health of our children? Is it acceptable for them to be put in a high-stress exam environment and “measured” against others--a mirror of the vicious, profiteering, dog-eat-dog corporate world? A child’s heart and humanity cannot be measured, and their creativity should not be ignored. Think about who really has children’s interests at the center. Many citizens are asleep, but Paul Revere is riding and he’s screaming,”The corporates are coming! The corporates are coming!”

Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse
Educator Roundtable
Fresno, CA

Teacher Letters on Testing Abuses

2007-06-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

Letters: Second-graders
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, June 18, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B5

Standardized tests gone too far
Re "A test worth keeping," editorial, June 12: The Bee asserts that without a state test, we won't know if students can read until fourth grade. Actually, informative, classroom-based assessments can meet the educational and emotional needs of young children and enable teachers to communicate more effectively with parents.

Most psychologists and educators agree that children in kindergarten and first and second grade should not be subjected to rigid standardized testing. Potential benefits are few because of the unreliability of the test data.

The National Academy of Sciences warns against overreliance on standardized testing, concluding, "Problems of test validity are greatest among young children, and there is a greater risk of error when such tests are employed to make significant educational decisions about children who are less than 8 years old or below grade 3 ... or about their schools."

STAR testing of second-graders wastes hundreds of thousands of hours of instructional time for test preparation and administration in classrooms throughout the state.

Because of the unreliability of standardized testing at this grade level, and because of the wasted instructional time, wasted dollars and harmful effect on children caused by these tests, 42 other states have rejected state testing of second-graders.

- George Sheridan, Garden Valley

Making reading enjoyable
Preparing for technical, lengthy test format questions takes time away from the proactive process of creating an interest in reading. Second-graders do not need to be subjected to this kind of intimidating, grueling task that they will associate with reading.

Many second-graders are in what educators refer to as the "learning to read" stage. They haven't reached the "reading to learn" stage. Teachers in my school keep a close look at these students by checking their fluency (speed of recognizing words) monthly and giving them a variety of comprehension tests related to the current state reading series. The children are moving from stories with lots of pictures to the ultimately prestigious chapter books without pictures. This requires a big change in their reading instruction.

Beginning readers need a literature diet rich in phonics, teacher read-alouds, pleasure and shared reading to nourish their appetite for reading. This requires lots of enjoyable reading experiences. The best way to learn how to read is to love reading.

- Cindy Sage, Orangevale

A 'black eye' for teachers
Sometimes The Bee just doesn't get it! The second-grade test only shows how a particular student fills in bubbles, which is not a math or reading skill. The test asks second-graders to sit and focus for long periods of time, which is not a math or reading skill.

The Bee gives all teachers a black eye by citing one instance where a teacher said one thing while a test said another. Teachers see the students over long periods of time. They know what the students are capable of better than a developmentally inappropriate test.

As a third-grade teacher I know from experience the second-grade tests are of little value.

Give teachers credit for the great and difficult job they do. Don't blame them and decide a one-time test is better than daily observation and ongoing assessment. No Child Left Behind (as wrong as it has proven to be) doesn't require a second-grade test. Why should California?

Oh, by the way, did you mention how much money those stupid tests cost? Remember the constant budget woes?

Get it right next time!

- Thomas J. Carroll, Sacramento

George Will's whacked logic
Re "Newark's lesson about schools," commentary, June 7: Comparing the New Jersey state teachers union to a gang of thugs and murderers is not the most inane part of George Will's column, just the vilest. What really whacks logic is Will's reasoning for likening teachers to the mob made famous by "On the Waterfront."

After holding up Newark as proof that greater spending on education does mean greater results, Will then slams teachers for objecting to the mayor's plan to spend even more money on education. Will approves of this spending plan because it would be funded by businesses in exchange for tax breaks, and it would go to scholarships for private and public schools. Scholarships to free public schools? I need Will to explain that logic.

- Michael Mahoney, Sacramento

Our Mission

2005-02-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

EPATA is an organization of parents and educators who are concerned with the impact of high-stakes testing in California and the Central Valley. We recognize that high-stakes testing harms children and impoverishes education. Together we are working to educate policy makers and the public about the dangers of the current trend in educational reforms, and to promote authentic assessment and reform efforts which work towards equity, democracy, academic excellence, and social justice.

It's not just kids who hate tests-Bee Article

2005-02-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

Fresno instructor Rog Lucido thinks there's a better way.
By Doug Hoagland / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Sunday, February 19, 2006, 7:06 AM)

Rog Lucido blinked back tears of frustration as he sat outside a Fresno coffeehouse. Surrounded by a dozen strangers talking, laughing and warmed by a bright winter sun, Lucido focused on one thing: a conviction that standardized testing in public schools is destroying teaching and learning.
The Fresno physics teacher believes the tests carry too much power and should be thrown out of schools.
"When you know what it can be like in classrooms and you see what it is today, it causes you pain," Lucido says. "If I'm a rebel, I'm a rebel in pain, and I'm in pain for what I see is happening to students and teachers."
Lucido says teachers scrambling to raise test scores can be so stifled in class that their students lose interest in learning, and he's looking for allies to join his cause.
He started a fledgling group, Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse, which is sponsoring a two-day conference March 24-25 at California State University, Fresno. Educators will speak against what they call high-stakes, standardized testing.
It's high stakes because important decisions on students and schools are made from a single test, says Elaine Garan, associate professor of education at Fresno State.
For example, some students may miss out on graduation if they don't pass the California High School Exit Examination. And teachers and principals at schools getting federal money can be replaced in the fifth year their schools fail to meet goals on another standardized test, Garan says. Government accountability programs set the goals.
Garan, who opposes such testing, will speak at the conference.
Fresno County schools superintendent Pete Mehas is not a conference speaker. He believes testing, while not the only way to evaluate students, has a place in schools today.
"Testing is the one of the most efficient ways of finding out whether a large number of students have mastered a body of knowledge," says Mehas, who knows of Lucido but has never met him.
Lucido, 61, retired two years ago after teaching in the Fresno area for 18 years. He is the grandson of Sicilian immigrants, the first in his family to go to college, a father of five and grandfather to three. He remembers being a boy who wanted to learn because good teachers ignited his curiosity, and he worries that is being lost today.
"We were tested when we were kids, but there wasn't the insanity associated with it," Lucido says.
He believes the emphasis on testing teaches students something insidious: "They get the message that the reason for learning is to do well on the test."
Mehas asks, however, "What's wrong with that? If a student has mastery of something, it builds their self-confidence."
And the effect of testing on teachers? Says Lucido: "It kills their creativity, it kills their spontaneity and it kills their enthusiasm to teach. It tries to sanitize learning. Learning is very messy."
Mehas counters: "Good teachers … don't simply focus on the test. It doesn't stifle their creativity."
But, Lucido says, some teachers are being told exactly what to teach on which day: "It's the one-shoe-fits-all mentality."
Lucido started teaching at 21 in the mid-1960s. He left the Bay Area in 1986 to teach physics in Fresno, where he didn't give written tests and he asked his students to call him "Coach." He wanted kids to think of him as being on their side in learning physics, not someone they had to endure.
Lucido tried to emphasize learning, not testing, in his classes. He would divide students into teams of four to work on written assignments and class projects. Every four to six weeks, teams would meet with him to "master." He would pose questions on key concepts; teams would answer, and could go away and learn more if they didn't get the answer right or they didn't know enough. Students could try to master as often as they wanted. Final grades were based on the number of units mastered.
"In the classroom, we have to create an atmosphere where students keep trying over and over and over again until they get it right," Lucido says. It's what athletes do, and it builds "an attitude of persistence," he adds.
Bouakham Sriri of Fresno, one of Lucido's students in the early 1990s, says she valued mastering: "We took ownership of the learning process and we had a sense of responsibility. We didn't want to let our teammates down."
Sriri now uses mastering at Fresno's McLane High School, where she teaches physics. She says the system works even under the pressure of standardized tests.
Lucido works with Sriri and other Fresno Unified physics teachers as one of his part-time jobs with the district. Off the job, he tries to spread his views on testing.
Says Lucido: "My goal is not just to change things in Fresno. This is a national experience. I am one of many, many people across this country working to change the insanity."
The reporter can be reached at dhoagland@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6354.

A Teacher, Parent and Board Member Respond-Wow !

2005-02-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

#1
I have been concerned with the use of simplistic, standardized tests myentire teaching career (30+ years). NCLB has made things even worse! FUSDis now totally involved in teaching to the test with little regard for itsclientele. We have the largest pockets of poverty and second languagespeakers of English in the entire nation! We are told we can't use thesethings as "excuses" and THAT is total insanity! The vast majority of teachers agree with Rog Lucido that standardized testing and scripted reading programs are destroying teaching and learning!Reading can be taught with ANY subject, so why not use science or socialstudies and other real topics that motivate students? All of this "drill andkill" didn't work 30 years ago, when scores were posted in school offices,what makes anyone think these methods and testing insanity will work nowwhen we have such a different population of students? I advise all teachersand parents to go to Lucido'website: www.testingabuse.blogspot.com andbecome involved in our children's education. We all need to have input, notjust blindly follow what the politicians tell us is right. Pete Mehas iswrong! We ARE simply teaching to the test and that is counter to ignitingcuriosity and creating students who THINK and become productive citizens.Help "change the insanity"! Hopefully with more media attention like this, parents and teachers will start speaking up beforeEVERY child is left behind!Thank you!Susan Schmale

#2
My children were educated in the Clovis Unified District. I, however, was not the model Clovis parent. Mainly because I do not agree with the Clovis "way of learning" which incidentally, involves taking certain parental duties and rights out of the hands of parents.Although I believe my children received a better education than I did many moons ago, I saw a disturbing trend. I saw the emphasis in their education shift and critical thinking skills deemphasized as the emphasis was directed towards standardized testing performance. This school district begins weeks before the actual test by distributing letters to the home instructing the parents on "do's and don'ts" in preparation for the tests. The memos even instruct the parents on what and when to feed the child to "achieve the optimum test results." As the years went by, I noticed more and more time and attention was focused on the schools' expectations for the tests. Less and less time was spent on developing a love of learning, critical thinking skills, and "hands on" application of learning. I never pressured my children to do well on the standardized tests - in fact, I often told them, "no matter what pressure they try to place on you at school over this test, don't worry about it - a single test does not tell me what your capabilities or accomplishments are." My daughter's scores on the tests often merely reflected what I already knew - higher scores in those areas which came easier to her, and low scores in those areas which she did not enjoy.My daughter applied for and attended CART her senior year. She earned straight "A's" for the first time in her 12 years of education. But, more importantly, she displayed an interest in learning. She came home everyday excited to talk about what she had done in school that day. The "hands-on" approach at CART, and the de-emphasis on testing, was the way she learned best. How sadly ironic.I see a parallel between the environment that our children now live in within their schools, and another testing situation which has plagued adults for years here in California - the California Bar Exam. There are many quite intelligent individuals who graduate law school yet fail to pass the state bar exam. The pass rate is always less than 50%, sometimes closer to 46%. I have met and opposed many practicing attorneys who passed on their first try who coincidentally appear less than competent. And, I know many more individuals who are still taking this test, not able yet to achieve a passing score, who are quite capable and would be excellent, ethical, competent attorneys. The only difference? One achieved a certain score on a test. Does the test insure competency or ethical character? No. From my own personal experience, the first time I took the Bar Exam I knew the law more competently and completely than I did on any subsequent attempts. The time I passed the exam? I simplified my knowledge. I paid a "tutor," not to refresh my knowledge on the law, but to tell me how to write on this exam in order to receive the most points. I had to "simplify" my knowledge in order to give the examiner what he wanted, and thus in order to receive "maximum points." In other words, it wasn't what I knew, or what kind of lawyer I would make that was important. Passing the test came down to learning how to present what I knew in a different manner which would satisfy the examiner. Did I possess more knowledge when I passed compared to when I did not? No. What I did was spend my time studying testing approaches rather than the law. Certainly not what I want to see children endure in their public education.Generally, my children's performance on standardized tests reflected what I already knew from my own schooling - it does not accurately reflect what one has learned in a given subject. Nor does it accurately reflect one's capabilities in academics or life. The lowest grades I ever received on law school exams were in courses from which I gained the most knowledge. Go figure.

Chris Black

#3
I am a board member with the Visalia Unifies School District and I, too, am concerned with this testing madness. Not only does it put a great deal of unfair pressure on the students, but it the system currently in use unfairly demeans the efforts of schools and districts. Like you, I am not convinced that the current system actually tells us what really is happening education wise with our students and like you I believe that it stiffles the innate curiosity that students all have making "school" a chore rather that an exciting adventure. So good luck with you rebellion. If more and more people start to say something, maybe we came start to tame this beast.
Rodney Elder

EPATA Goals

2005-02-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

To Raise Awareness about high-stakes testing in California:

Students in grades 2-11 take the CST and 3rd and 7th take the CAT/6 every year and must pass the CAHSEE in order to graduate.
These tests do NOT measure a child's overall academic ability.
They pretend to be scientific. They are not.
These tests are filled with errors and are not standardized
The results are not valid; multiple measures are.
The classroom curriculum is structured to pass the tests.
High-stakes testing is taking the genuine desire to learn and fun out of school for children.
They lower classroom student expectations
They make schools into test prep centers
They emphasize rote memorization and regurgitation of disconnected bits of information.
They reduce academic rigor and dumb down genuine learning
They are making many children sick.

To Empower Parents and Teachers:

All parents will know that their child can opt out of CST and CAT/6 testing.
Parents and teachers will provide insight on deciding future educational policies.
Teachers will not be discouraged from voicing their opinions about high stakes testing.
Legislators will value the expertise and concerns of parents and teachers. Parents, teachers and students will show legislators the consequences of high stakes testing .

Declaration of Independence from High Stakes Testing

2005-02-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

The Declaration of Independence from High-Stakes Testing

The Declaration of Independence of Students, Parents, Teachers, Educators
The Unanimous Declaration of all those affected by High-Stakes Testing

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any law of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new laws, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that laws established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute educational malfeasance , it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such laws, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these students, parents, teachers and educators; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Obedience. The history of the present governmental supporters of High-Stakes Testing is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over all those affected by our educational system. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Government has refused to validate multiple imbedded assessment strategies for students, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Government has prevented educators from passing laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless they pretend to employ quantifiable measurements.
The Government has taken a stance of mean spirited accountability which uses coercive measures--incentives and sanctions--to ensure that educators teach and students master specific content, namely by:
-Forcing upon schools arbitrary rating and scoring standards developed by politicians and business co-operatives rather than parents and professional educators.
-Not establishing accountability for standards of accountability. So, schools are being held accountable to standards that themselves meet no standard of accountability. The standards in the law are arbitrary and punitive.
-Penalizing schools with children from diverse backgrounds. Schools with children of both lower socioeconomic status and second language learners will be at a disadvantage in almost any rigid standard of accountability.
-Penalizing schools with children having diverse learning skills. Schools having many children with learning disabilities or other diverse learning needs.-Encouraging schools to promote dropping out. In this way, those students’ test scores will not reduce scores for the school. Student dropouts among low scorers actually have been increasing, arguably as a direct result of the legislation. -Operating on the assumption that what matters are factoids that students should know rather than having to explain how they use it. As a result, the emphasis in schools regresses to that of the drill-and-kill education instead of meaningful understanding and use of the knowledge students learn.
-Creating a system where children, more and more, are being deprived of learning in art, music, history and social sciences, physical education, special programs for the gifted, and the like. In general, anything that might enrich children’s education in a way that would make the children knowledgeable as well as wise and ready to make complex decisions in today’s complex world is largely gone. -Specifying that educational practice be guided by good, rigorous science without adhering to the tenets of real scientific investigation. The results of their definition of rigorous educational research does not meet the criteria of validity and reproducibility as standardization is impossible.-Turning our schools into test-preparation centers.
-Deluding students and parents into believing that classroom instruction that is focused on test score results is preparing them for the real world.-Dividing rather than unifying the world of education. Forcing upon students and their schools standards dreamed up by politicians never has been, and never will be, the right way to create the best education for our children.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A law whose character is thus marked by every act which may define as tyrannical, is unfit to be the guide of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our politician brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our teaching and learning here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Parents, Students, Teachers and Educators of the United States of America, in General Agreement, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of America , solemnly publish and declare, That WE are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent of these Laws; that WE are Absolved from all Allegiance to These Laws, and that all political connection between them and the US, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Citizens, WE have full Power to ignore those elements of the law which operate under coercion and threat, use educational strategies which are not in the best interest of our students and to the detriment of our country which Independent Citizens may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of this Declaration of Independence from High-Stakes Testing are as follows:
( Feel free to sign just for yourself, to give to school/district officials, join with others to distribute)

Important Testing Abuse Links

2005-02-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

California Coalition for Authenic Reform in Education ( CalCARE ):

We are a grassroots organization of educators, parents, students, and concerned citizens working together to promote high quality teaching and learning in all classrooms.

http://www.calcare.org/index.html

Fair Test:

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) works to end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial.

http://www.fairtest.org/

The Search for the Truth:

This is a terrific PowerPoint presentation that could be used for both parents and teachers which exposes the horrors of High-Stakes testing. With some modifications of some slides it can be used in other states rather than California. If you do not have PowerPoint resididing on your machine you can go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7C404E8E-5513-46C4-AA4F-058A84A37DF1&displaylang=EN and download the player for free.

For the The Search for the Truth Power Point first go to:

http://www.fairtest.org/whatsnew.htm

then scroll down to Feb. 8, 2005, until you find:

"The Search for the Truth: How High Stakes Testing is Ruining Your Child's Education"

Mothers Against WASL

This is a parent based group that is working to say the truth about Washington Assessment of Student Learning and how it is affecting students, teachers and parents. It has a number of good refernces focused directly at and for parents. While some of the details are only applicable to the WASL most can be related to all high-stakes testing:

http://www.mothersagainstwasl.org/

Testing Satire by Peter Campbell

As part of my attempts to broaden the anti-NCLB message, I created the following scenario in Flash. It's a satirical attempt to illustrate how the best intentions of a good school can go awry and wreck what makes it a good school. It features a series of memos over the course of the academic year from a principal to the teaching staff at an elementary school as the school prepares for the state tests.

http://netdrive.montclair.edu/~campbellp/NCLB_memo.html>>

Bee Editorial to Keep Exit Exam is Flawed

2005-02-13T18:20:00.000-08:00

The editorial on maintaining the Exit Exam is flawed on many fronts:
1. The CAHSEE is not a valid assessment of what a student knows and is able to do. In its own testing guide the Dept. of Education ( as well as The Joint Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing ) says," A decision or characterization about a student should not be make on the basis of a single test score." National PTA & McGraw Hill and 27 other organizations call for multiple measures, not just one.
2. Parents and students are not informed by the state of the random and systematic errors in each test administration which could easily invalidate an individual score.
3. An independent study by the Educational Policy Studies Laboratory concludes by saying, " the implementation of high school graduation exams results in a decrease in academic achievement. It was found that after high-stakes graduation exams were implemented, ACT, SAT and AP scores declined."
4. States with a graduation exam requirement averaged a 64% graduation rate, 8% lower than the 72% for the states without the requirement. Lower achieving students were 25% more likely to drop out of high school than comparable peers in non-test states ( EPSL)
5. The cut off scores for graduation are not made on educational grounds ( it takes 55% on a test to pass ) but rather what is politically expedient : What should the cut off score be so that we do not have a revolt on our hands?

Be Like Mike

2005-02-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

Be like Mike

Be like Mike. That is the mantra for basketball wannabes. Find someone who was successful in what they do. Determine what elements of success are in their life. Modify those elements to fit your life and almost like magic , you , too, can become successful. This is a common process in weight loss with the myriad of diets which people follow trying for the same results. Just do what I did and you, too, will lose weight. Does success mean more money for you? Then follow those who have made it big. Do what they did, invest, start a business, be wise, be frugal, but in any event follow the winners. Many parents use this modeling idea with their children. If you want to be successful, do what mom and dad do. Go to school, keep your faith, have a family…whatever the formula is that we think works. It’s the same the world over- find those who did it right and follow their lead, making improvements along the way. We call this progress.
Lets apply this to an ordinary Fresno Unified student who wants to be ‘successful’ as defined by California testing results. They would have to look at other successful students in the district. Let’s be ‘scientific’ and go and get some data from the 2003 STAR testing for Fresno Unified as reported on the California Department of Ed. web site. By doing some simple averaging for grades 2-7in both Language Arts and Mathematics, here is what we find when we compare reported parents educational level and percent ( rounded off ) of students at or above the ‘proficient’ level:

The pattern is clear. If you want to be considered a ‘proficient’ student and do well on your STAR testing make sure your parents are as educated as possible. As you might guess, this relationship is not just true of Fresno Unified students but it holds true across the country. More educated parents have students who do better on these tests. English language development is a critical component. Given that about 22% of FUSD parents reportedly have no H.S. diploma ( this statistic will surely increase as more students will not graduate because of the California High School Exit Exam ) and another 20% only have a high school diploma, with only 12% of college graduates, is it any wonder that many of our students struggle on these tests? When you couple this with the fact that over 80% of our students in grades 2-7 are classified as economically disadvantaged the % differences in levels of ‘proficiency’ are even more radical.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics men and women with four years of college earn nearly 45 percent more on average than those with only a high school diploma. The more educated parents make more money, have better health care and have students who fare better on testing. A quick check of the SAT web site shows the same patterns. Why are some so willing to permit this data to judge students and schools, yet so unwilling to believe what that same data says about who scores higher?
While it is the intent of the No Child Left Behind legislation to close this test-score gap, focus first on closing the parent education gap, the economic gap, and the health care gap. Having more tests with scripted lessons that turn our schools into test prep centers is not the answer. This was quite evident last week when the Associated Press reported:

‘...The National Conference of State Legislatures wants changes in the fundamental parts of the No Child Left Behind Act: how student progress is measured, how schools are punished if they fall short and who decides when the rules are waived for struggling districts...The new report contends the law leads to unintended consequences and that the federal government is indifferent to them — the lowering of academic standards, increasing segregation in school, and the driving away of top teachers from needy schools. It claims the government is also violating the Constitution by coercing state compliance....’

This is a serious issue. Whether student, parent, educator or community member we need to raise our consciences and seek justice for those who are suffering the most in their quest to ‘Be like Mike’.