Video: Kids with severe disabilities taking mandatory standardized test - The Washington Post

Video: Kids with severe disabilities taking mandatory standardized test - The Washington Post:

Video: Kids with severe disabilities taking mandatory standardized test

This video  shows children with profound disabilities taking a standardized test called the Florida Alternate Assessment as required by the state but opposed by many of their teachers and parents. And below is a letter from the principal of another school serving students with similar disabilities explaining why forcing these youngsters to take the test is wrong.

I’ve been writing a lot about this issue recently because it is one of the ugliest consequences of the current obsession with standardized testing in the era of test-based school reform and “accountability.” I wrote (here andhere and here, for example) about Andrea Rediske, who fought a long battle with the Florida Department of Education over a requirement that her blind and brain-damaged son, Ethan, who also suffered from cerebral palsy, take state-mandated standardized tests. Rediske won a waiver for her son in 2013 but while he was dying earlier this year she was required to fill out paperwork proving that he couldn’t take the 2014 exam. Ethanpassed away on Feb. 7. Legislation called the Ethan Rediske Act is awaiting action in the state legislature; it would make it easier for children with profound disabilities obtain waivers. I also have written about a boy named Michael, who was born without a complete brain yet still must take the Florida Alternate Assessment (here and here, for example).

Florida’s commissioner of education, Pam Stewart, declined to talk with me about this issue.

Michael and Ethan are not the only two children with severe disabilities who have to take inappropriate standardized tests for the sake of “accountability.” The video above shows students who attend Karen M. Siegel Academy in Lake Alfred. The video was done by the Florida Education Association, which has been vocal in its opposition to the state’s requirement that all children take some form of standardized test for accountability purposes. It opens with a statement from the FEA President Andy Ford, who states unequivocally that the Florida Alternate Assessment is unfairly used and most be stopped.

Here’s the letter to Florida Education Commissioner Pam Stewart from Mark Cashen, principal of Mt Herman Exceptional Student Center in Jacksonville. Stewart recently released what can only be described as a bizarre open letter to teachers defending the use of the alternate assessment and accusing critics of staging a “political attack” on her. Andrea Rediske wrote a letter to Stewart in response, and here is Cashen’s letter:

Commissioner Stewart:

As the principal of Mt Herman Exceptional Student Center in Jacksonville, I appreciate your effort to directly share your thoughts on assessments with our teachers through your letter to teachers dated March 3, 2014. Unfortunately, your letter had the unintended consequence of making the Mt. Herman teachers and support staff (myself included) feel unappreciated and disrespected. The reality is, however, our intentions in our questioning whether the Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA) is an appropriate measure of the growth for students with severe, profound and multiple disabilities are probably misunderstood.

I would like to take this opportunity to offer our point of view:

• In your letter you state “I have the deepest sympathy for any family and child who is suffering due to a disability or traumatic event and the utmost respect for the strength required of the family”

o In our experience, our families do not want our sympathy, they want our assurance that we will WORK with their son or daughter in order to help them grow into the best possible 

Video: Kids with severe disabilities taking mandatory standardized test - The Washington Post:

The Latest Big-City School Testing Scandal Exposes Everything That's Wrong with the Standardized Approach | Alternet

The Latest Big-City School Testing Scandal Exposes Everything That's Wrong with the Standardized Approach | Alternet:

The Latest Big-City School Testing Scandal Exposes Everything That's Wrong with the Standardized Approach

It's not surprising that educators would cheat in order to meet goals that are impossible to achieve.

Eleven Atlanta educators, convicted and imprisoned, have taken the fall for systematic cheating on standardized tests in American education. Such cheating is widespread, as is similar corruption in any institution—whether health care, criminal justice, the Veterans Administration, or others—where top policymakers try to manage their institutions with simple quantitative measures that distort the institution’s goals. This corruption is especially inevitable when out-of-touch policymakers set impossible-to-achieve goals and expect that success will nonetheless follow if only underlings are held accountable for measurable results.

There was little doubt, even before the jury’s decision, that Atlanta teachers and administrators had changed answers on student test booklets to increase scores. There was also little doubt that Atlanta’s late superintendent, Beverly Hall, was partly responsible because she had, as a state investigation revealed, “created a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation” that had permitted “cheating—at all levels—to go unchecked for years.”

What the trial did not explore was whether Dr. Hall herself was reacting to a culture of fear, intimidation, and retaliation that her board, state education officials, and the Bush and Obama administrations had created. Just as her principals’ jobs were in jeopardy if test scores didn’t rise, her tenure, too, was dependent on ever rising test scores.

Holding educators accountable for student test results makes sense if the tests are reasonable reflections of teacher performance. But if they are not, and if educators are being held accountable for meeting standards that are impossible to achieve, then the only way to meet fanciful goals imposed from above—according to federal law, that all children will make adequate yearly progress towards full proficiency in 2014—is to cheat, using illegal or barely legal devices. It is not surprising that educators do just that.

And demanding that all students be proficient, by any date, was an impossible and incoherent demand. No Child Left Behind required that states make their proficiency standards “challenging.” But no goal can simultaneously be challenging to and achievable by all students across the entire achievement distribution. A standard can either be a minimal standard, which presents no challenge to typical and advanced students, or it can be a challenging standard, which is unachievable by most below-average students. Some states ignored the “challenging” requirement and lowered their standards so most students could pass a meaningless test. Others succumbed to hectoring by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his colleagues in the Bush and Obama administrations to raise their standards, essentially guaranteeing the cheating scandals that followed. Now, with tests coming online that are aligned with the tougher “Common Core” standards, along with new demands that educators jobs are at risk if all students don’t achieve proficiency, we can be sure that Atlanta’s cheating scandal will not be the last.

Certainly, educators can refuse to cheat, and take the fall for unavoidable failure in other ways: they can see their schools closed, their colleagues fired, their students’ confidence and love of learning destroyed. That would have been the legal thing to do, but not necessarily the ethical thing to do. As one indicted teacher told the judge before the trial, “I truly believed that I was helping these children stay in school just one more year,” something from which they would have benefited far more than being drilled incessantly on test-taking strategies so they could pass tests legally.

Attempting to protect children from curricular corruption by changing test answers may have been an option chosen by many teachers in Atlanta. A The Latest Big-City School Testing Scandal Exposes Everything That's Wrong with the Standardized Approach | Alternet:

Bill Gates' 40th anniversary email: Goal was 'a computer on every desk' | Money - WPBF Home

Bill Gates' 40th anniversary email: Goal was 'a computer on every desk' | Money - WPBF Home:

Bill Gates' 40th anniversary email: Goal was 'a computer on every desk'

It's been 40 years since Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft.

 To mark the anniversary, Gates reportedly sent an email to Microsoft employees Friday. The message, which made the rounds on Twitter, invokes the origin of Microsoft, which opened it doors on April 4, 1975.

"Early on, Paul Allen and I set the goal of a computer on every desk and in every home. It was a bold idea and a lot of people thought we were out of our minds to imagine it was possible," Gates wrote. "It is amazing to think about how far computing has come since then, and we can all be proud of the role Microsoft played in that revolution."

In the email, Gates also looks toward the future, supporting the leadership of Microsoft's current CEO, Satya Nadella.

"In my role as technical advisor to Satya, I get to join product reviews and am impressed by the vision and talent I see," he said, specifically pointing to products like Cortana, Skype Translator, and HoloLens.

Gates, 59, has undergone a transformation himself in that time. Now worth nearly $80 billion, he is now the world's richest man and has become a major figure in philanthropy.

He wrote to employees: "I hope you will think about what you can do to make the power of technology accessible to everyone, to connect people to each other, and make personal computing available everywhere."

Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft last year, after leaving his day-to-day role in 2008.

Allen has also become a noted philanthropist, making headlines last year for pledging to donate $100 million to combat Ebola.Bill Gates' 40th anniversary email: Goal was 'a computer on every desk' | Money - WPBF Home:

LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO

I know its reaching, but I thought I’d give everyone a little Easter reference with this surprise post.  

Before I left LDOE 3 years ago I was asked to help assemble some de-identified data for a research outfit named CREDO.  At the time most of my colleagues didn’t know who CREDO was or what they were all about.  (It turns out they are a pro-charter funded propaganda machine masquerading as legitimate researchers.)   We had a standing policy not to provide this type of data to anyone. . . except a few local research universities like ULL we had established contracts with – to provide analysis services to LODE for specific grants.

Then came John White and CREDO.  We’d been telling CREDO “No” for years because the amount of data they wanted was excessive and the time involved with compiling it was also going to be pretty steep.  John White was not the State Superintendent when he started giving orders through Erin Bendilly, a Jindal appointee.  This request was one of those, and it was coordinated, reviewed, and delivered by Kim Nesmith, the “Data Quality Director” and department’s FERPA enforcer.  (The fact that this request was  being forced through quickly on John White’s behalf was confirmed by both Kim and Devora Davis, head CREDO researcher, in a conference call.)

FERPA tidbit:

US DOE requires State agencies to select a number between 1 and 10 to mask all their student level data to conform to FERPA. Kim actually required the department go one step further.  She insisted we mask by using less than (<) and greater than (>) symbols in the ones digits in most numbers reported.  (We can still derive the specific numbers from the LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog: 

How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? | The War Report on Public Education

How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? | The War Report on Public Education:

How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform?

The following is a point by point summary by Dr. Deborah Owens, whose book, The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy is the main focus of a War Report on Public Education mini- series that begins today, Sunday, March 29, 2015.

We here at War Report encourage our audience to listen to the series, read this synopsis, and respond in the comments section. We will have a new blog post from Deborah each week, a live internet radio show, and a podcast. We will address questions from our audience and we urge listeners and readers to please call in, respond to the blog post, and then listen and read ahead in preparation for next weeks show on the Common Core and the Corporate Ed Reform Agenda.

by Dr. Deborah Owens

How did anti-public school corporate reformers become the dominant force in education reform?  Here’s what I learned in researching and writing my book:

• The campaign to end public education has been a decades long venture.  There have been forces that for at least the last 80 years have been engaged in an assault on the institution of public schools, claiming that they are socialist institutions and actively seeking to label public schools as “government” schools.  Vouchers are not a new idea — they were born in an era of Cold War mentality, anti- New Deal rhetoric, and Jim Crow resistance to integration.  Charter schools are nothing more than an extension of this idea and we are seeing the ramifications of this misguided so-called reform effort now.

• The book, The Origins of the Common Core: How the Free Market Became Public Education Policy, and the series, is one of unity around the preservation of the institution of public schools.  The goal is for the public and the education community to cast aside any political or ideological beliefs that distract from an ultimate goal.
  That goal is the preservation of the public school system and local control of this systemwithin each community.

• How can we accomplish this goal?  First of all, acknowledge that there are differing ideological views about education in the U.S.  Very importantly, we must acknowledge that many are militantly against the CCSS for various reasons; most are against high-stakes testing and the data mining that has resulted from the testing movement; and others are equally opposed to charter schools.  But what unites us?

• Underlying all of this is the reality that corporations are dominating education policy decisions in a new environment of corporate and governmental mutualism that is out to usurp locally controlled public schools and that envisions children merely as a source of profit.  We must unite to stop this corporate assault. Do you want to defeat the Common Core? Stop the profit machine associated with these national standards.  Do you want to put an end to Draconian high stakes tests that are sucking the life out of education?  Stop the profit machine associated with high-stakes tests.  Do you want to reclaim public schools and end the incursion of the charter school movement?  Stop the profit machine associated with charter schools.

• If we are able to accomplish this, we will reclaim the sacred ground of public education for all children, for all families, and for all communities.  Holding teachers accountable for the test scores of their children will become history.  We will realize that true societal transformation begins with the communities in which children and families live and that the schools within those communities are a part of a larger societal system.  Make it known to every federal, state, and locally elected official that they will lose their elected offices if they do not listen to the UNITED pro-public school forces.  

Author Bio:

Deborah Duncan Owens Elmira, New York

I am a product of public schools. My father’s career in the Coast Guard provided me with the opportunity to live in different states and communities within the U.S. Armed with the education I received in the various public schools I attended, I was able to earn a teaching degree at Mississippi State University and serve as a public school teacher for several years before earning a Ph.D. and joining the ranks of teacher educators — first at Arkansas State University and currently at Elmira College in upstate New York. Deborah Duncan Owens, Associate Professor of Literacy Education Elmira College

To learn more and read a complete Bio about Dr. Owens, please visit her website Public Schools Central for up-to-date information on the Common Core and the Corporate Ed Reform Agenda. Here is the link for the BBS Live Radio Show and Former and Future Podcasts: The War Report on Public Education Here is the link to The War Report Facebook Page: The War Report on Public Education Facebook Group Twitter: @WarRepPubEd

Here is the podcast link from today’s show: How did Anti-public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? Hosted by Dr. James Avington Miller, Jr and Special Guest Dr. Deborah Owens. This is the first in a three or four part series based on Dr. Owen’s book. If you missed today’s show please listen to the podcast, read the summary from the blog, and then leave feedback in the blog comments section.

Also, hot off the press! United Opt Out has an activist handbook that is now available for purchase: An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution

Thank you UOO and Test Resisters everywhere. You are true heroes battling against the War On Public Education.

In Solidarity,

Team War ReportHow did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? | The War Report on Public Education:

The Gorilla in the Room: Part 2 in the Series: How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform?

Welcome to Part 2 of The War Report’s Back to the Future Series on the Common Core. In this episode, Dr. Deborah Owens will answer questions from our previous blog and address what she calls “the gorilla in the room.” The following is Dr. Owen’s synopsis of the upcoming show:

By Deborah Owens

The Common Core represents the “gorilla in the room.”  This gorilla has further facilitated a raft of pro-corporate education reform initiatives that support charter schools, Teach for America, Draconian high stakes testing, VAM models for teacher accountability, and data mining of students’ personal and academic information — each of which lines the pockets of Wall Street entrepreneurs at the expense of our locally controlled public schools and, most importantly, our nation’s most precious resource, our children.

The following excerpts from The Origins… illustrate the third way of governance as it was developing in the 1990s.

In a first-rate example of how the corporations began their full-out assault on public education, here’s a quote from former IBM corporate superstar Lou Gerstner — the corporate superstar who sponsored the Palisades conference of corporate and gubernatorial CEOs that birthed ACHIEVE — in his opening remarks at the 1995 National Governors Association (NGA) meeting where Gerstner was an honored guest. He said, “I’m here because of Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton robbed banks, the story goes, because he realized that’s where the money is. I’m here because this is where the power is – the power to reform – no, to revolutionize – the US public school system.” (The Origins of the Common Core, p. 118).

In February 1996, one month before the IBM sponsored Palisades conference, Lehman Brothers sponsored the Education Industry Investment Conference. According to Douglas Dewey, “Conferees were regaled with new opportunities in a $600 billion industry, including preschool, K-12, post-secondary, and training and development.” For Dewey, writing for “The Freeman,” corporate entrepreneurship in the education field held the promise of finally eliminating government from education completely, “as public confidence in government schooling continues its inexorable collapse, and the whiff of billions begins stirring in the air, the savvy investor will focus his attention on the greatest emerging market in decades and treat government schools as just another competitor to blow out of the water.” (from The Origins of the Common Core, p. 129)

In summary, this series will suggest ways for all Americans who support their locally controlled schools to unite in efforts to reclaim the sacred ground of our democratic and locally controlled public schools.  The conclusion of the first two programs will set the tone for the third part of the series in which diverse forces, which are heroically challenging corporate education reformers and their governmental allies, engage in collaborative discussion that will unite and energize America in its efforts to marshal a unified front to reclaim America’s democratic locally controlled public schools.

To learn more and read a complete Bio about Dr. Owens, please visit her website Public Schools Central for up-to-date information on the Common Core and the Corporate Ed Reform Agenda. Here is the link for the BBS Live Radio Show and Former and Future Podcasts: The War Report on Public Education Here is the link to The War Report Facebook Page: The War Report on Public Education Facebook GroupTwitter: @WarRepPubEd

Here is the podcast link from last week’s show: How did Anti-public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform? Hosted by Dr. James Avington Miller, Jr and Special Guest Dr. Deborah Owens. This is the first in a three or four part series based on Dr. Owen’s book. If you missed last week’s show please listen to the podcast, read the summary from the blog, and then leave feedback in the blog comments section. Thank you!

Please join Deb Owens and James Avington Miller Jr. this Sunday, April 5, 2015 to discuss the Willie Sutton-like takeover of public education in America.

War Report Team

Reporting from the Front Lines

Boots on the Ground

The Gorilla in the Room: Part 2 in the Series: How did Anti-Public School Corporate Reformers become the Dominant Force in Education Reform?

PROGRAM ARCHIVES

Part 2 will be posted soon

Check Back @ The War Report on Public Education bbsradio.com/thewarreport

The War Report on Public Education on March 29, 2015	Guest, Dr. Deborah Duncan Owens
The War Report on Public Education on March 22, 2015	Guests, Leonie Haimson, Ken Previti and Bob Braun
The War Report on Public Education on March 15, 2015	Guest, Bob Braun
The War Report on Public Education on March 8, 2015	host Lucianna Sanson, and guests Michael Elliott, Sarah Blaine and others
The War Report on Public Education on March 1, 2015	Guest, Jia Lee

James Avington Miller, Jr., Ph.D

E-mail: jamfilm@yahoo.com

Facebook

Occupation:

Public Advocate, Activist, Professor, Teacher, Independent Scholar, Radio Talk Show Host

Biography:

James A. Miller, Jr., PhD is a public education advocate, activist, professor, teacher and independent scholar. For most of his life, he has been involved in and with public education, either as a student, university professor, researcher, substitute teacher and full-time classroom teacher K-12.       

Dr. Miller has held Professorships in Sociology/African-American Studies at Wayne State University, the University of Detroit, California State University at Northridge and Los Angeles, and the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), and has been a Senior Research Associate at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Washington, DC – focusing on creating a five year national research program on the social and cultural foundation of education.

Currently, Dr. James Miller is a radio talk show host on BBS Radio with his new show “The War on Public Education” starting Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 2:00pm PST on Station 1. The format of the show focuses on the corporate war on public education and the rising public resistance movement to the war.

James email address: jamfilm@yahoo.com, and he cordially invites people to write him and express their thoughts.

Rev. Jackson, Dolores Huerta, Cornel West rally for Jesus “Chuy” García ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Rev. Jackson, Dolores Huerta, Cornel West rally for Jesus “Chuy” García | Chicanísima Chicago:

Rev. Jackson, Dolores Huerta, Cornel West rally for Jesus "Chuy" García

Some of the nation’s most prominent civil rights leaders came out this weekend to support Jesus “Chuy” García for mayor of Chicago.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, and author and activist Cornel West joined hundreds of enthusiastic García supporters at a Saturday rally at New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church on the West Side.

Chicago Teacher’s Union President Karen Lewis, who called on García to run after she became ill with cancer, also spoke. She slowly entered the church using a walker and sat down to speak with hundreds of supporters who gave her a standing ovation.

“I was ready to go and my body said no,” Lewis said of her decision not to run. So he reached out to "her friend" García.

She dismissed some of the polls that show Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuelwith a lead.

“They did not count our notion of what grass roots, participatory democracy looks like,” Lewis said.

The Rev. Jackson reminded people that Saturday was the 47th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Jackson recalled King’s dream of ending poverty.

“We have the power. This city is our city,” Jackson said.

Jackson also said we should not let talk of racial tension divide voters.

“If you build a wall between us, we can’t see each other,” he said.

Huerta, the most revered Latino civil rights leaders in the U.S., said that the nation is watching Chicago.

“We are on the eve of making  history,” she said. “This is not just  going to be about Chicago. This is going to be about the United States of America.”

West criticized Emanuel’s leadership.

“Brother Rahm is not a brother of integrity. He’s too mean and arrogant. He’s too condescending. He’s too paternalistic. That day is over. It’s a new day in Chicago,” he said.

He said this election is about pushing aside the neoliberal agenda of privatization and militarization.

The crowd was full of energy when García spoke at the pulpit.

"This past week, Rahm Emanuel made a comment to the effect that you can't protest a problem," Garcia said. "And it really flies in the face of everything that Dr. King stood for, and for the civil rights movement in this country, and the women's rights movement in this country, and the immigrant rights movement in this country, as well as the Fight For 15movement in this country.

"It's time to fire Rahm Emanuel," Garcia added.

Posters popped up around the church with that message - Fire Rahm.

The rally drew a diverse group of people, African American, Latino and white,  teachers, cab and bus drivers and lots of union members.

John Hall, 66, a Greyhound driver with Local 1700, lives in Auburn Gresham.

“This type of political fight only comes around once in a lifetime,” he said.

He said he supports García and thinks he will bring everybody together.

“He’s for the people. He’s down to earth. He’s old school and I like that because I’m old school,” Hall said.

Mark Meinster, 41, of Pilsen, supports García’s advocacy for worker’s rights.

“He supports workers and fighting for higher wages,” he said.

Vanessa Kotesky, 44 of Wicker Park, is a preschool teacher who said she was angry at Emanuel for the school closings and how he has treated teachers.

“He doesn’t represent us at all. He’s bold about his arrogance,” she said.

After the rally, Rev. Jackson marched with a group of voters to vote early on the West Side.

At the rally there was energy, excitement and unity, the kind that surrounded Harold Washington, elected in 1983.

Washington was this city’s first African American mayor. And García could become Chicago’s first Latino mayor.

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Hocus Pocus and the History of High Stakes Tests - Living in Dialogue

Hocus Pocus and the History of High Stakes Tests - Living in Dialogue:

Hocus Pocus and the History of High Stakes Tests

By John Thompson

Did you hear the one about “Voo Doo Economics?” President Ronald Reagan said that his “Supply Side Economics” would cut taxes, increase spending, and reduce the deficit!?!?

If a 22nd century historian were to uncover Reagan’s claim, and yet discover that all of the physical and digital records of the 1980s and several subsequent decades had been lost, it might be hard to prove that Reaganism didn’t raise the deficit.

Perhaps the same agnosticism could apply to claims that No Child Left Behind boosted student performance as measured by the reliable NAEP tests – except for one reason. NAEP records are readily obtainable by a quick Google search.

NAEP data may not prove what I believe to be the best summary of the evidence – that NCLB and subsequent NCLB-type testing caused more harm than good for students. But, NAEP metrics do prove the intellectual dishonesty of the true believers who claim that high stakes testing has improved so-called “student performance.”

In fact, NAEP scores were increasing before NCLB and their growth slowed after NCLB testing took effect.  The American Institutes of Research’s Mark Schneider, known by the conservative Fordham Institute as the “Statstud,” is just one scholar who documented this pattern, concluding “pre-NCLB gains were greater than the post-NCLB gains.”

Curiously, Schneider was also one of the true believers who first pushed the silly claim that NCLB deserves credit for test score gains that occurred before the law was enacted. Illogically, reformers claim test score increases from 1999 to the winter of 2002 were the result of a law that was enacted in the winter of 2002. The actual passage of NCLB high stakes testing was the tail of a “meteor” that was dubbed “consequential accountability.” And that brings us to the latest convoluted spin trying to deny that test-driven reform has failed. The most recent example is Tom Loveless’s “Measuring Effects of the Common Core.”

At least Loveless’s  approach to the pre-NCLB effects of NCLB is much more modest. He claims that it is “unlikely” that accountability efforts and increased reform-related spending did not “influence” pre-NCLB NAEP scores. Even so, Loveless offers no credible reason to believe that increases in 1999 test results should be attributed to stakes attached to tests that were imposed three years later.

So, what evidence does Loveless offer for his conclusion that NCLB might deserve credit for the test scores that preceded it? He cites Derek Neal and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach who reported that “’with the passage of NCLB lurking on the horizon,’ Illinois placed hundreds of schools on a watch list and declared that future state testing would be high stakes.”

Neal and Schanzenbach were studying Chicago schools, however, and they concluded the opposite.  They report that “ISAT performance played a small role in the CPS rules for school accountability over this time (1999 to 2001).”  Neal and Schanzenbach explain that “in one year, the ISAT went from a relatively low-stakes state assessment to a decidedly high stakes exam.” But, “in the springs of 1999, 2000, and 2001, CPS took the ISAT with the expectation that the results would not have significant direct consequences in terms of the state accountability system.”

By the way, Neal’s and Schanzenbach’s title of “Left Behind by Design,” is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Schneider’s and Loveless’ spin in favor of No Child Left Behind.

Loveless cites two other papers in his footnotes, but a careful reading of provides evidence for both sides of Hocus Pocus and the History of High Stakes Tests - Living in Dialogue: