Monday, May 21, 2012

Schools Matter: NYC Parents Infuriated Over "Valueless" Test

Schools Matter: NYC Parents Infuriated Over "Valueless" Test:


NYC Parents Infuriated Over "Valueless" Test

There's a lot of talk of VAM (value added measures) these days as the new tool and solution to closing the achievement gap. VAM is popular with corporate ed deformers because it's now obvious the ones being used over the past decade under NCLB  used to declare students, teachers and schools failures, have actually been a huge failure. Unfortunately for the architects of this brilliant education policy, the economic crisis is causing the entire testing craziness to crumble under its own weight. With huge budget gaps and deep cuts to programs, services, and teachers at the same time class sizes have increased across city and across the country, we might be in the midst of a perfect storm strong enough to blow the cover off these valueless, worthless, measuring tools and bogus formulas once and for all.

Today it has been reported that parents in NYC are the latest group to organize, protest and stand up to the child abuse being perpetuated by the explosion in standardized tests costing taxpayers millions of dollars and