Showing posts with label Massachusetts Public Schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massachusetts Public Schools. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Common Core's Standardized Tests

The article below was written by Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post.  I'm embedding the article and also providing the link to where it can be found on The Post's website.

Any parent reading this should know that they're well within their rights to pull their children out of any field test.  This comes from Sandra Stotsky, a former member of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

Dr. Stotsky worked with the people developing Common Core's English Language Arts standards but refused to approve the new standards because, as she saw it, they were providing children with far less of an education in literacy than previously.  James Milgram, a retired Stanford University math professor, worked with the people developing Common Core's math standards and, like Dr. Stotsky, he also refused to approve the new standards, saying they would put American high school students further behind their peers outside of the United States in math.

In fact, when Common Core's advocates presented this new curriculum to the Massachusetts Board of Education about four years ago, the leading math expert for Common Core, Professor Jason Zimba told the Board that Common Core's math standards were designed to put high school student math skills on a level that's acceptable to a non-selective college, i.e., something on a par with a community college.

Seven school districts in the Massachusetts -- Worcester, Norfolk, Peabody, Wachusetts, Mendon-Upton, Tantasqua and Cambridge -- have recognized the rights of parents to have their children opt-out of the new Common Core tests, often referred to as PARCC.

The upcoming PARCC tests are just that, a test.  The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is saying they want to see how this new test compares to the MCAS, the standardized test Bay State children have taken since 1998.

The plan, according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, is to replace the MCAS with the PARCC test, which is also being used in many states around the country.  It's important to know that the MCAS was designed to reflect Bay State's standards only.

More on this in the coming days.


Seven facts you should know about new Common Core tests

By Valerie Strauss, Updated: September 4, 2013 at 2:21 pm

The Common Core State Standards now being implemented in most states and the District of Columbia will soon be accompanied by new standardized tests being developed by two multi-state consortia — the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) — with $360 million in federal funds. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said repeatedly that he expects these exams, due to be rolled out in 2014-15, to go beyond the familiar multiple-choice standardized tests students have been forced to take for more than a decade and to be an “absolute game-changer in public education.”
Is he right? Not so much. Here are seven myths and realities about the new tests, from FairTest, or The National Center for Fair & Open Testing,  a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the misuse of standardized tests. You can find more here on FairTest’s website.
Myth: Common Core tests will be much better than current exams, with many items measuring higher-order skills.
Reality: The new tests will largely consist of the same old multiple-choice questions.
Proponents initially said the new assessments would measure — and help teachers promote — critical thinking. In fact, the exams will remain predominantly multiple choice. Heavy reliance on such items continues to promote rote teaching and learning. Assessments will generally include just one session of short performance tasks per subject. Some short-answer and “essay” questions will appear, just as on many current state tests. Common Core math items are often simple computation tasks buried in complex and sometimes confusing “word problems.” The prominent Gordon Commission of measurement and education experts concluded that Common Core tests are currently “far from what is ultimately needed for either accountability or classroom instructional improvement purposes.”
Myth: Adoption of Common Core exams will end No Child Left Behind testing overkill.
Reality: Under Common Core, there will be many more tests and the same misuses.
The No Child Left Behind law triggered a testing tsunami over the past dozen years, and the Common Core will flood classrooms with even more tests. Both consortia keep mandatory annual English/language arts (ELA) and math testing in grades 3-8, as with NCLB. However, the tests will be longer than current state exams. PARCC will test reading and math in three high school grades instead of one; SBAC moves reading and math tests from 10th grade to 11th. In PARCC states, high schoolers will also take a speaking and listening test. PARCC also offers “formative” tests for kindergarten through second grade. Both consortia produce and encourage additional interim testing two to three times a year. As with NCLB, Common Core tests will be used improperly to make high-stakes decisions, including decisions involving high school graduation, teacher evaluation and school accountability.
Myth: New multi-state assessments will save taxpayers money.
Reality: Test costs will increase for most states. Schools will spend even more for computer infrastructure upgrades.
Costs have been a big concern, especially for the five states that dropped out of a testing consortium as of August 2013. PARCC acknowledges that half its member states will spend more than they do for current tests. Georgia pulled out when PARCC announced costs of new, computer-delivered summative math and ELA tests alone totaling $2.5 million more than its existing state assessment budget.States lack resources to upgrade equipment and bandwidth and provide technical support, at a cost likely to exceed that of the tests themselves. One analysis indicates that Race to the Top would provide districts with less than 10 cents on the dollar to defray those expenses plus mandated teacher evaluations.
Myth: New assessment consortia will actually design the tests rather than well-known test manufacturers who have made mistakes in the past. 
Reality: The same profit-driven companies,  including Pearson, Educational Testing Service and CTB/McGraw-Hill, are producing the tests. These firms have long histories of mistakes. The multinational Pearson, for example, has been responsible for poor-quality items, scoring errors, computer system crashes and missed deadlines. Still, Pearson shared $23 million in contracts to design the first 18,000 PARCC test items.
Myth: Common Core assessments are designed to meet the needs of all students.
Reality: Not yet. The new tests could put students with disabilities and English-language learners at risk.
Advocates for English-language learners have raised concerns about a lack of appropriate accommodations. A U.S. Education Department’s technical review assessed the consortia’s efforts in July 2013 and issued a stern warning, saying that attempts to accommodate students with disabilities and ELLs need more attention (Gewertz, 2013).
Myth: Common Core “proficiency” is an objective measure of college- and career-readiness.
Reality: Proficiency levels on Common Core tests are subjective, like all performance levels.
Recent disclosures demonstrate that New York state, which last spring gave students a Common Core-aligned test designed by Pearson even before the consortia-developed tests have come out, set passing scores arbitrarily. There is no evidence that these standards or tests are linked to the skills and knowledge students need for their wide range of college and career choices.
Myth: States have to implement the Common Core assessments.
Reality: No, they don’t.  
High-quality assessment improves teaching and learning and provides useful information about schools. Examples of better assessments include well-designed formative assessments, performance assessments that are part of the curriculum (New York Performance Standards Consortium), and portfolios or Learning Records of actual student work. Schools can be evaluated using multiple sources of evidence that includes limited, low-stakes testing, school quality reviews, and samples of ongoing student work.
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Monday, March 31, 2014

A Massachusetts School Superintendent Speaks Out Against Testing and Mandates

The URL below leads to a blog piece written by Todd Gazda, superintendent of schools in Ludlow, Mass.  He writes a very passionate piece about standardized testing and mandates coming from the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.  It's worth your time:

http://superintendentlps.blogspot.com/2014/03/enough-is-enough.html


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Friday, March 28, 2014

Parents be damned


In case you missed it, the Los Angeles Times, one of the country’s top five newspapers by circulation, weighed in earlier this month on Common Core, the latest reform program for the country’s public schools.  Here’s a sum up of the paper’s arguments:

  • ·      California K – 12 public schools are so bad there are more reasons to enact Common Core than do away with it.  This view is similar to that of Harvard University Education Policy Professor Paul Peterson, who I interviewed last summer when covering Common Core’s implementation in Massachusetts.  He described Common Core as a step up for California schools but said if he were a Bay State parent with kids in Massachusetts’ public schools, he’d be very disappointed in the program.
  • ·      Common Core’s standards were adopted voluntarily, an Orwellian argument.  More than 20 years ago, when Massachusetts reformed its public schools – making them the best in the nation – the effort that it was going to take, along with the money that would be used, was put to a vote in both houses of the state legislature.  It was a highly contentious debate but, as it played out in newspapers and on radio and television stations, it gave parents time to digest the arguments, pro and con, and, at the very least, understand what their children would be facing.  With Common Core, in comparison, we have a vote taken by a subset of state officials, not representatives of the public body at large.  So it’s all in how the word “voluntarily” is defined.  As Common Core advocates see it, it means limited to what most voters would likely consider an obscure set of state officials.  It also shows what Common Core’s supporters think of parents and teachers and anyone responsible for bringing up and teaching the country’s youth (Not a lot!)  Why are Common Core supporters so opposed to democracy and putting their program up for a vote?  Why no discussion?  One should fear the manner in which Common Core is being implemented and what this means for democracy, that little idea we fought a Revolution over more than 200 years ago.  (Hint:  The Continental soldiers weren’t looking for more government in their lives.)
  • ·      High school math standards are coming down – and that’s a good thing, says the Times.  Really?  Apparently this doesn’t strike the editors as odd.  They likely weren’t great math students anyway (which is why they’re in journalism).  They quoted the Mathematical Association of America as saying they’re okay with lowering the country’s math standards.  What this means – if the editors had bothered to think this through – is that the math standards expected for earlier generations, even mine, were far more demanding.  Thus, by lowering Johnny’s math requirements, we’re giving him a confidence boost.  This proves the theory that every kid’s a champion, no matter the performance.  As my neighbor (a mother of two boys) likes to say, “Every kid earns a cupcake.”
  • ·      The editors are under the impression that those against Common Core are only Tea Party Republicans.  Let me clear that up:  I’m not a Tea Party Republican.  In fact, I’m not a Republican.  The only party I ever joined (more than 30 years ago) was the Democrats.  I’ve lived long enough to see that was a mistake.  I’m not registered with any party and haven’t been so for more than 25 years.  What I am – first and foremost – is a concerned parent bringing up, with his wife, two boys, in the 5th and 4th grades, respectively.  I wondered, as I read the editorials in the Times, whether there’s a parent among the editors.  It appears doubtful. 
  • ·      Both editorials in the Times raise questions about the current state of American journalism.  The news business, which is all too ready to search for a scandal in private enterprise or among politicians, refuses to consider the possibility of one in education.  If someone comes along, saying they’ve got a great new way to teach kids, newspaper editors see a saint and readily accept their arguments.  David Coleman, in the vanguard on behalf of Common Core, heads up The College Board, the owner of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, taken by high school students interested in attending college.  The College Board’s test competes with the ACT, which is gaining considerable traction against the SAT.  Common Core gives every appearance of being nothing more than an attempt to start prepping kids for the SAT as early as the 1st grade and is also a means to push against the ACT’s success.  Why this hasn’t been investigated and discussed – as a possible conflict of interest by The College Board or as its attempt to dominate and takeover public education – in mainstream newspapers is a mystery.
  • ·      The standardized testing industry in the United States – if limited to just The College Board, the ACT and the Educational Testing Service – is worth about $2 billion.  Based on my review of their tax documents, that’s about $750 million for The College Board, a little more than $300 million for the ACT and just over $1 billion the Educational Testing Service.  And, of course, that’s before taking into account each state’s standardized tests that someone must be paid to create, write and grade.  Reporters and editors should examine whether Common Core and, essentially, its subsidiary testing group, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, is really about propping up the standardized testing industry or, at the very least, The College Board.  Here’s another example of where it appears to be.
  • ·      Who among us was career-ready, as the proponents of Common Core like to say, when we graduated from high school?  Other than the kids who held babysitting jobs, worked as a cashier at the local drug store or another retail outlet, maybe stocked shelves, or the ones who cut lawns – none of whom planned to turn those jobs into careers – I didn’t know anyone who was “career ready” once they finished high school unless, possibly, they attended Rye Tech in Stamford, Connecticut.  Those kids learned how to be plumbers, electricians and carpenters, perhaps other jobs, and, likely, were ready for their careers.  But, of course, Rye Tech students were likely facing an apprenticeship for a few years once they graduated, which would actually make them “career ready.”
  • The world is flat, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.  That means any job can be done anywhere around the globe so long as that country's political and economic system allows it.  In other words, an accountant in Singapore can complete the tax forms for U.S. citizens.  A South Korean scientist can do what one does in California.  When executives think about opening an office in a distant city or a foreign land, they certainly consider the kind of employee they're likely to hire in that location.  So if Common Core really is bringing down standards -- and by every appearance it seems to be -- then there's every reason to believe that U.S. children will become far less competitive than their peers overseas.  So how is that career readiness argument holding up?  Again, this is a question that needs investigation.  
  • ·      In spite of what some might believe, this isn’t the first time someone’s come along saying they’ve got a curriculum to prepare kids for either college or career.  As the late, great historians Richard Hoftstadter and Charles Beard (hat tip to the fellow DePauw alum) write in their books – Anti-intellectualism in American Life (Knopf, 1963) by Hofstadter and The Rise of American Civilization (Macmillan 1930) by Beard and his wife, Mary – there are plenty of examples of anti-intellectualism in American history.  Common Core is just the latest one.  This new fangled system, if we’re to accept it at face value, isn’t about pushing kids up; it’s about lowering standards.  Common Core’s proponents say it’s about reducing lessons in math and reducing the amount of literature studied in K – 12.  It’s no wonder one of Common Core’s biggest supporters includes a Harvard dropout, Microsoft founder Bill Gates.  His “lack of education hasn’t hurt (him) none,” as Paul Simon sings, and, as the billionaire sees it, it won’t hurt anyone else’s son or daughter either.
  • ·      The single largest issue facing public schools is that it’s a stressed system.  It is required to teach every child, no matter their issues, because it’s supported by tax dollars.  This means schools need to be just as engaged in teaching – for lack of a better term – typical children as well as ones with special needs.
  • ·      When it comes to reforming education, it is surprising what’s off the table for consideration, like lengthening the school day for an hour, maybe more.  Instead, today’s teachers are doing the same thing their predecessors did – cramming as much stuff as they can into a six-hour day, and that’s before we eliminate time spent on music, art, physical education, health, recess and lunch, which means we could be down to about three hours, on average, of real teaching any given day.  If the country’s public schools are failing, especially compared to their peers overseas, then it’s time to undertake the debate about lengthening the school day, even the school year.  Why are we wedded to 180 days?  Well, there’s a union issue to deal with when it comes to many public school teachers and, apparently, no one wants to tackle that challenge.  It’s easier throw out one curriculum so another can be put in its place.
  • ·      Finally, there’s an issue of what kind of student is showing up at college these days.  For that insight, I turned to Emory University English Professor Mark Bauerlein.  When he joined Emory 20 years ago, they had 350 students majoring in English.  Today, that number’s down to about 150 majors.  I sought out Dr. Bauerlein’s expertise when writing about Common Core for baystateparent last summer and, unfortunately, couldn’t use his quotations due to space limitations.  Here are his views on today’s students and Common Core:  

    • .. the issues I’ve observed.  It’s part of a trend, a 15-year trend.  There are far fewer bookish students than there were.  I mean the ones who do reading on their own.  They’re not interested in grades and career, but they have interesting minds.  They’re 19-year-old freshmen.  They’re reading Nietzsche, looking at Freud.  Dostoyevsky hits them hard.  That kind of student is disappearing. It’s partly the digital age, the decline of books and the spread of cable that’s bringing this around.  It’s not a book-based world anymore.  Common Core doesn’t stop the process.  It doesn’t do anything to maintain books.  Unfortunately, it gives license to bringing newspaper clippings and blogs into the classroom.  It doesn’t compel it.  But it doesn’t stop it.





Sources:

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/topofthetimes/opinion/la-ed-common-core-one-20140313,0,1799302.story#axzz2xGdJXUdE

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-common-core-two-20140314,0,919887.story#axzz2xGdJXUdE

The College Board’s 2011 Tax Forms:

http://207.153.189.83/EINS/131623965/131623965_2011_094afe72.PDF

The Educational Testing Service’s 2011 Tax Forms:

http://207.153.189.83/EINS/210634479/210634479_2012_09dad785.PDF

ACT Inc’s 2011 Tax Forms:

https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2013_08_EO/42-0841485_990_201208.pdf

Interview with Dr. Bauerlein was conducted in July 2013.

Interview with Dr. Peterson was conducted in July 2013.
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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Education Policy -- Made Secretly

A great story in The Washington Post about how education policy is made in secret.  This particular reporter, Valerie Strauss, is one of the best around.  She's worked on a number of different stories but, lately, has been full time on education.

The URL below is well worth your time.  It'll take you to her story in The Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/12/secret-policymaking-on-school-reform-is-on-the-rise/


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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Common Core & the SAT


The most surprising news about the changes in the Scholastic Aptitude Test is that some leading media outlets failed to link the reforms to the one man working hard to prop up revisions he’s already made to American education.

Neither The New York Times nor Time magazine, in their main stories announcing the reforms to the SAT, mentioned that the changes were coming from Common Core’s leading advocate, David Coleman, who runs the College Board, which owns, produces, writes and publishes the SAT test, taken by nearly 2 million high school students annually.

In other words, the question that remains unanswered is the combined commercial interests of Common Core and the College Board; if they're both linked -- and they give every appearance they will be soon -- what sort of money is at stake?

Common Core, nothing more than an all-out assault to dumb down American education, is Coleman’s baby.  He’s successfully pushed it – or, as he likes to say, it was “voluntarily accepted” – by 45 states, some of which are now pushing back against this latest reform effort.

Coleman is a former McKinsey & Company consultant.  His educational background is impressive, including a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale University, and he was a Rhodes Scholar, earning another bachelor’s degree from Oxford, in English Literature, and a master’s in ancient philosophy from Cambridge.[i]

Coleman never spent a day teaching kids.  He may have made appearances here and there in a classroom but he’s never been held accountable, professionally, to make sure (the proverbial) Johnny can read, do math or understand science.

In other words, when it comes to day-to-day instruction and how kids go about learning in a classroom setting, he’s clueless.

For that matter, from what I can gather on the College Board’s website and others discussing his background, he doesn’t appear to be a father.

I’m not going to go off on a tangent that one needs to be a parent to fully understand public school education or what it’s like to teach kids; but as a dad closely involved in his kids’ education, I’m here to say it helps – big time!

Yet Coleman’s gained the ear of the high and mighty interested in education, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, President Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the National Governor’s Association as he’s peddled Common Core.

The whole basis of Common Core, from key critics at places like Harvard and Stanford universities, is that it slows math education, putting American kids further behind their peers overseas, and it spends far too much time on “informational texts” rather than literature and, as a result, logical thinking skills are diminished. 

Coleman is all about evidence-based education.  In other words, he wants American kids to consider, when it comes to literature, whether or not an author proved their point.  What evidence did they provide, in other words.

Ask yourself, did Harper Lee, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, and the many other leading authors in American literature, ever prove a point? 

Of course they didn’t.  They weren’t supposed to!

Their job was to tell a story rich in detail that captivated readers’ imaginations, making them stop and think about their own lives as well as the lives of the characters. 

Since Coleman is such an advocate for evidence-based education, we should wonder why he never proposed so much as a modest test, in some community somewhere, where Common Core could be assessed and compared to another community not using this latest reform effort. 

Probably that’s due to his ego or he feared the worse – his baby would fail.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/education/major-changes-in-sat-announced-by-college-board.html

http://time.com/12985/sat-college-board-test-prep/


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Saturday, January 04, 2014

From an expert witness on education

I'm sharing an op-ed article written by Sandra Stotsky, who was a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education and heard the sales pitch on behalf of Common Core.  Her article appeared in the Friday, Jan. 3, 2014, edition of The Wall Street Journal.  This link will take you to it:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020704579278060483138096?KEYWORDS=sandra+stotsky

I interviewed her, at length, for an article I wrote about Common Core for a monthly parenting magazine in Massachusetts, Bay State Parent.  Sandra brings sharp insight -- and much criticism -- to this latest reform effort in public education.  Her views are not to be dismissed.




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Monday, December 02, 2013

Wondering about reading skills & The Catcher in the Rye




Perhaps I should take Harvard University Professor Paul E. Peterson’s advice:  Common Core is just the latest reform movement in education.  There’ll be others, so there’s no need to sweat this one.

But as a concerned dad, with kids in Massachusetts’ public schools, it’s anathema to me to simply leave their education in the hands of the professionals.  I reserve the right to step in. 

And so my biggest worry, after math instruction, is how reading is coming along for my fifth and fourth grade sons.

Last year, when my elder son was in the fourth grade, he was required to produce a book report each month.  He read Wonder; Hoot; Steve Jobs:  Thinking Differently; A Wrinkle Time; and Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets, among others.

Our younger son, when he was in the third grade, also read Wonder as well as many of the Harry Potter books.

But, so far, a book report has yet to show up for either boy.

Still, that hasn’t stopped their school district from implementing another standardized test – the Benchmark Reading Assessment – as a means of determining the kids’ reading abilities.

Louise Snyder, principal of the Dale Street School in Medfield, described the test in her email (provided to you as it showed up in my inbox):

“Irene Fountas and Gay Sue [sic] Pinnell, highly respected teachers of reading and leaders in reading research developed this program to meausre [sic] the many aspects of what makes a person a reader.  This test has students read a passage from a short text aloud.  Teachers record when a student misreads, repeats, or corrects him/herself as he/she reads.  Then the child is asked to read the rest of the passage silently.  The teacher takes note of the student's fluency and grades him/her according to a rubric.  The teacher also calculates the students [sic] correct words per minute. Aftere [sic] the student has completed the reading, he/she has a comprehension conversation with the teacher.  Students are asked literal, inferential and evaluative questions that are within the text, beyond the text, and about the text.  The teacher then grades the student using a comprehension rubric.  All of this information is used to determine a student's reading level.  Some students will read 2-3 levels of books while being tested and others will need to read more to determine the appropriate instructional level.”

The school is checking out this new test, Snyder wrote in her email, on a select sample set of kids:

“First, this endeavor takes time, modeling and conversation for teachers to learn the procedural aspect of the system.  [sic] Secondly, [sic] we have a lot of other new initiatives on the plate this year. (new schedule, new evaluation system, new math tools) so that we did not want this to take a back seat or become too overwhelming and fail.  Thirdly, [sic] we wanted time for teachers to be able to interact with the tool and ask as many questions to feel comfortable with what information the test gives them about their students as readers.”

I responded to her note, saying if the school required more book reports, there would be less of a need for another standardized test.  I also mentioned that my elder son read The Catcher in the Rye during the summer.

Snyder's response is what I should have expected:

“We do need to keep in mind that reading the words and
being able to comprehend the meaning of the story both within the text and
beyond it are critical to developing a strong reader. This new test will
help teachers to better hone their skills to find those books that do all
that for each reader in their class.
Thank you for your feedback.”

Sure, it’s an insulting reply but that’s to be expected when you’re challenging the education industry’s wisdom. 

She’s saying my son just scanned the words, if that much, when I thought he was reading J. D. Salinger’s great novel. 

A far more appropriate response might have been something along the lines like good for you.  Keep up the good work. 

But an acknowledgement like that just might signal parents know their children better than their teachers. 

And heaven forbid that should be the case!

For the record, I’m fully aware of what my son understood when reading The Catcher in the Rye because on more than one occasion he needed my assistance to comprehend the text.

But by reading the book, he disproved the idea that kids can only comprehend “age-appropriate” texts.  He understood most of the story. 

When his reading skills were assessed recently, his fifth grade teacher told me, he scored as reading at the 7th grade level; another test showed him reading at the 9th grade level, she says.

Our younger boy is also reading above grade level, so we’re thrilled.

The problem with Common Core, as least how it’s being implemented in our little Burg, is that the thrust of English education – this year – is vocabulary.  I’m not about to knock vocabulary instruction but it’s limiting.  It’s about spelling and definitions.

The broader education – learning how words are used to describe people, situations and settings – is missing.  Literature, like a good history book or a biography, can make a kid think.  That’s what’s not happening now.

So in accepting Common Core, our school system traded the opportunity for teaching kids how to use their minds and imagination for rote memorization.

I suspect that’s good if you’re bringing up robots, but I don’t know any parents who are.

From time to time, especially lately, I wonder how our kids’ literacy skills would measure up if they hadn’t read challenging books, like Wonder or The Catcher in the Rye. 

Not nearly as well, I say!

P.S.  Can someone please edit Ms. Snyder's emails -- before they're sent?
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