PTA Believes in Unicorns
While local PTA's have been feisty and dedicated engines of resistance against the giant testing machine of modern education reformsterdom, the national organization has been more interested in playing ball with the Masters of Reformy Nonsense (could be the infusion of Gates-flavored moneyinto their finances).
Witness their two-page "factsheet" that borrows its title from a speech that Arne Duncan delivered at the national PTA convention in 2010-- Moving Beyond the Bubble.
Witness their two-page "factsheet" that borrows its title from a speech that Arne Duncan delivered at the national PTA convention in 2010-- Moving Beyond the Bubble.
This particular Sheet O'Facts celebrates that "Improved Tests Are Finally Here!" Yes, "in 2014-15, schools will replace their old tests with new assessments built to let parents and teachers know how well students are learning the skills and knowledge they need to success in today's world." Phew. That's sure a load off my mind.
So what's new about these new tests of newly renewed newosity? Well, here's what the "new tests are trying to accomplish." (Trying? So, will students be getting points on these tests for trying? Or will the have to do, instead?)
Measure real-world skills. Those skills are, apparently, critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem solving. How do we know that these skills are required in the real world? We just do. How do we know that the test actually measures them? I'm particularly curious about a test for analytical writing, because I'm thinking that would involve doing actual analytical writing, and that can be rather a time-consuming operation, prone to a wide, world spanning variety of responses (so wide, I'd say, that judging them would be highly resistant to any sort of standardized process).
End teaching to the test. The idea here is that the tests somehow "mirror" activities that students are learning in class. The tests are supposed to be great because students have to "show and apply" instead of picking the right answer from a multiple choice question. Except that this is simply wrong. Take a look at the sample PARCC-- it is almost entirely pick an answer activities. CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Believes in Unicorns: