Cancel the Tests and More! - Network For Public Education

Cancel the Tests and More! - Network For Public Education

Cancel the Tests and More!

Join NEA’s national campaign to cancel the tests. Here is what they suggest.

1. Take Action. Submit a comment to the Department of Education. The proposed waiver template does not go far enough to offer states and districts the flexibility we believe they need to support students and rebuild schools. 

2. Spread the word.  Help get as many folks as possible to sign onto the open letter at www.nea.org/CancelTheTests. Signing on begins with you. 

Keep in touch with what is happening. Sign up for our new blog. 

The best blogs of the day will be delivered to your mailbox every day when you sign up at: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/best-posts/

Charter schools are underfunded? Ummm, this new report from Class Size Matters Leonie Haimson says, “not so fast.”

Read about how New York City charter facilities are overfunded with enhancement grants, while co-located publics are underfunded here.

NPE’s latest report, Chartered for Profit, is in the news.

Read this excellent analysis of our report by Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post here. If you have not read our report, click this link:https://networkforpubliceducation.org/chartered-for-profit/

Cancel the Tests and More! - Network For Public Education

“March Madness” and “Spring Stupidity” | The Merrow Report

“March Madness” and “Spring Stupidity” | The Merrow Report

“March Madness” and “Spring Stupidity”

Because the annual NCAA men’s and women’s basketball championships are underway, I’d like to draw an analogy between Basketball’s “March Madness and the “Spring Stupidity” of Standardized Testing, which the Biden Administration is bent on enforcing.

Let’s start with what’s likely to be on the tests. This sample problem was offered by the University of Wisconsin/Oshkosh to high school math teachers and was designed to help ‘Close the Math Achievement Gap.’

Jack shot a deer that weighed 321 pounds. Tom shot a deer that weighed 289 pounds.   How much more did Jack’s deer weigh than Tom’s deer?

Here’s another question, whichI found on a high school math test in Oregon:

There are 6 snakes in a certain valley.  The population doubles every year. In how many years will there be 96 snakes?

a. 2

b. 3

c. 4

d. 8

These high school math problems require simple numeracy at most.  With enough practice, just about anyone can solve undemanding problems like that–and CONTINUE READING: “March Madness” and “Spring Stupidity” | The Merrow Report

Get rid of the damn test! | Teacher in a strange land

Get rid of the damn test! | Teacher in a strange land

Get rid of the damn test!

Guest blog from Jodi Mackley. Jodi is an advocate for public education, BLM curriculum, and creative writing for all students.  She taught secondary English in the same public school district for 30 years, and now enjoys “retirement” in a much smaller (though public) school setting. 

Next month, I may have to give the MStep test to my high school students, most of whom are English Language Learners. This is my first year teaching them. I don’t need to spend a week or more discouraging them with badly written test questions (which I did not create, do not see ahead of time and won’t get to see afterward). %#*!? is what I have to say about that.

Do ELLs really have to take this test? 

Can ELLs get support? 

Are ELLs scored the same as non-ELLs? 

Heck, who is the bottom-line-authority forcing all kids to take this test? And why can’t caring adults cry out for transparency, change, revolution? For some answers, I went to the Migration Policy Institute for some facts. Only one statement stuck with me: 

“Michigan administers the MStep for accountability purposes.” 

Accountability? Sounds like someone has been naughty. Is it me? I know it’s not my students. They are the last ones to complain about tasks thrust upon them. It’s true. They are happily embracing their American freedoms. 

We expect language learners to be English proficient within six years. Really? Are the test makers fluent in other languages? Can they read culturally biased questions, CONTINUE READING: Get rid of the damn test! | Teacher in a strange land

Don’t force schools to give standardized tests this pandemic year, research scholars ask Education Secretary Cardona - The Washington Post

Don’t force schools to give standardized tests this pandemic year, research scholars ask Education Secretary Cardona - The Washington Post

Don’t force schools to give standardized tests this pandemic year, research scholars ask Education Secretary Cardona

More than 540 education researchers and scholars are asking Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to reconsider his department’s decision requiring school districts to administer federally mandated standardized tests this pandemic year, saying the exams will “exacerbate inequality” and “produce flawed data.”

A letter signed by 548 members of the academic research community was sent to the Education Department on Monday, urging that Cardona award states waivers from federal testing mandates. It also urges the department to invest in “more holistically evaluating school quality” by “developing new measures of educational opportunities.”

The Education Department announced in February — before Cardona was confirmed by the Senate — that public school districts had to administer exams in math and English Language Arts required annually by the federal 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.

One month in, Biden angers supporters who wanted him to curb standardized testing

And as late as last week, Cardona said at an education forum that the department was planning to go ahead with its testing decision.

The high-stakes tests are given every spring as a central part of the two-decade-old school reform movement. Testing advocates say the exams provide vital data on how all student groups are performing in school. Student test scores are used — at least in part — by some states to evaluate teachers and by states to evaluate districts and schools.

The academics’ letter notes that critics of high-stakes testing have warned for decades that “the high-stakes use of any metric will distort results,” and that documented consequences include “curriculum CONTINUE READING: Don’t force schools to give standardized tests this pandemic year, research scholars ask Education Secretary Cardona - The Washington Post

Cancel the F**king Tests! | The Merrow Report

Cancel the F**king Tests! | The Merrow Report

Cancel the F**king Tests!

Last week in this space I put forth nine reasons why it was absolutely essential that students be required to take machine-scored, multiple-choice bubble tests once they return to school. This was an entirely facetious essay that maintained, among other things, that NOT giving tests would cause an economic recession but that GIVING tests would make it easier for students to social distance because they would be chained to their desks for hours.

Because a few readers thought I was being serious, I thought it might be helpful to try to state directly and clearly how I really feel. Let me put it in caps, the typed equivalent of shouting from the rooftop, to make things perfectly clear: REQUIRING TESTS THIS SPRING WOULD BE CHILD ABUSE! Because this school year has been unpredictable, abnormal, and inconsistent, why would anyone expect anything but skewed (screwed up) data from mandatory tests, particularly because students who have been ‘remotely schooled’ all year do not have to take the tests, and no one is clear yet about how the tests would be administered to students now attending CONTINUE READING: Cancel the F**king Tests! | The Merrow Report

Wayne Au: The futility of standardized testing in a crazy pandemic year - The Washington Post

The futility of standardized testing in a crazy pandemic year - The Washington Post

The futility of standardized testing in a crazy pandemic year

Critics of federally mandated K-12 standardized tests were upset when the Biden administration recently said it would require states to administer them this year. They raised pre-pandemic questions about reliability and validity of test scores — as well as concerns about how scores would be affected by the instability of the school year during the coronavirus pandemic.

In this post, a longtime testing critic looks at why giving standardized tests after a year in which children were educated during a pandemic is nothing but an exercise in futility. The author is Wayne Au, a professor in the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington at Bothell. He is also an editor for the social justice magazine Rethinking Schools.

One month in, Biden angers supporters who wanted him to curb standardized testing

By Wayne Au

The Biden administration’s decision to require schools across the country to administer high-stakes standardized tests this spring caught many parents, students and teachers by surprise. It contradicts President Biden’s campaign promises to cut back on testing — and seems to ignore the deep inequities and wild inconsistencies associated with remote schooling over the last year.

What the administration and testing advocates seem to miss is that any data generated by high-stakes standardized testing this spring will be invalid and, therefore, useless. Even in non-pandemic years, high-stakes standardized tests don’t accurately and objectively measure teaching and learning.

I am a longtime critic of high-stakes standardized testing for reasons including:

• The racist history of standardized testing in the United States, including a direct lineage to our country’s eugenics movement. Over 100 years ago, U.S. psychologists used I.Q. tests to claim that intelligence and other traits were genetically based, and subsequently cast the poor, people of color, and immigrants as biologically less intelligent.
• Our high-stakes test scores today basically mirror the race and class inequalities produced by the racist and classist I.Q. tests created a century ago.
• For decades, research has shown that test scores do not accurately reflect teaching and learning. Rather, they overwhelmingly reflect levels of poverty and other non-school factors such as housing insecurity, food insecurity and access to health care.
• These tests do not work as promised. In the roughly two decades since high-stakes, standardized testing was federally mandated by the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, there has been virtually no decrease in test-score inequality between major racial and economic student groups, and in some cases, the gaps in scores may have increased.
• High-stakes testing narrows the curriculum to tested subjects, restricts the amount of space for multicultural curricula and culturally relevant teaching, and has resulted in cuts to important time spent at recess and lunch.

These are all concerns I have about high-stakes, standardized testing in a normal year, let alone during CONTINUE READING: The futility of standardized testing in a crazy pandemic year - The Washington Post

College Deans Speak Out Against High Stakes Testing | Diane Ravitch's blog

College Deans Speak Out Against High Stakes Testing | Diane Ravitch's blog

College Deans Speak Out Against High Stakes Testing

Scores of education deans signed a letter to Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), chair of the House Education Committee, in opposition to the recent announcement by the Biden administration that it would not grant waivers to states from the annual testing mandate in the Every Student Succeeds Act, which originated as part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. The letter was written before the confirmation of Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. The signatures were gathered by Kevin Kumashiro as spokesman for the group.

Dear Chairman Scott,

I am writing as a leader of Education Deans for Justice and Equity (https://educationdeans.org), an alliance of hundreds of education deans across the country with expertise in educational equity and civil rights.

We, in EDJE, are deeply concerned by the recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that it will not grant state waivers of ESSA mandates for 2021 student testing, as it did in 2020. Two weeks ago, we sent the attached letter to Secretary-Designate Miguel Cardona, signed by over 200 deans and other leaders, that outlines what we believe the research makes clear, namely, that there are fundamental problems with these tests, that the administration and use of these tests widen CONTINUE READING: College Deans Speak Out Against High Stakes Testing | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bowman and education experts blast Biden admin for mandating standardized tests amid pandemic | Salon com

Bowman and education experts blast Biden admin for mandating standardized tests amid pandemic | Salon.com

Bowman and education experts blast Biden admin for mandating standardized tests amid pandemic

"It's a mistake that reflects a broader problem in American education," Rep. Jamaal Bowman wrote in a statement

Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Tuesday joined progressive education experts in criticizing the Biden administration's decision to mandate standardized testing in schools despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

Bowman (D-N.Y.)—a former teacher and principal—argued that "prioritizing testing in the middle of the pandemic is a big mistake."

"It's a mistake that reflects a broader problem in American education," the first-term congressman said in a statement. "We have an obsession with arbitrary testing metrics above all else, even in the middle of a pandemic that's dislodged every facet of American life. We've forgotten that testing is one useful tool, and should not be the goal of education in and of itself."

"The pandemic created the world's largest education crisis," asserted Bowman. "All students were impacted, but we know which students took the hardest hit... We must empower educators to provide the best learning environment possible for students. This is not the time to waste time. Let's dive into action to fix the problems we already know exist."

Bowman's statement follows a letter sent Monday by acting Assistant Education Secretary Ian Rosenblum to state school superintendents informing them that the department will not invite state requests for "blanket waivers of assessments" required by the Every Student Succeeds Act, even though such waivers were granted last year CONTINUE READING: Bowman and education experts blast Biden admin for mandating standardized tests amid pandemic | Salon.com

Rep. Jamaal Bowman & Randi Weingarten: America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students - NBC NEWS

America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students

America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students

After the year our children have had, we must consider their well-being above all else when making decisions about schooling.

By Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Democratic U.S. representative from New York’s 16th district and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers

On Feb. 22, the Biden administration released its guidance for our country’s schools on how to manage standardized testing this spring. In an attempt to accommodate the extreme measures that schools and teachers have had to take to meet students’ needs during the pandemic, the Department of Education offered schools some flexibility but failed to offer a blanket waiver for all testing this year.

While we appreciate the effort to give schools and educators some leeway, and to make standardized test results less consequential overall, we fear that maintaining testing requirements for this spring will cause more harm than good.

As two former educators whose predominantly Black and brown students not only had to take these tests in “normal times” but often excelled at them, we understand why they exist: to collect nationwide educational performance data to effectively allocate resources to the students that need them most. But the data is not in and of itself a solution.

As we surpass this morbid milestone of half a million lives lost to this pandemic, the challenges faced by students across the country must be addressed. That starts with getting the pandemic under control, shots in people’s arms and more students back into classrooms. But standardized testing will not help the national effort to asses student needs and monitor their social, emotional and academic progress. CONTINUE READING: America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students

Call Congress Today to Stop Testing - Network For Public Education

Call Congress Today to Stop Testing - Network For Public Education

Call Congress Today to Stop Testing

In December of 2019, candidate Joe Biden promised that if elected, he would stop standardized testing. His Department of Ed, however, said that we should have testing in the middle of the pandemic.

We pushed back and today, we have good news! Some members of Congress are asking the U.S. Department of Education to change its mind about testing! Read about it here. Let’s give them our support TODAY!

We need more members of Congress to get on board. We can’t give up.

1. Call Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office at: (202) 225-4965.

Here is a suggested script.

My name is (name). I am calling to request that Speaker Pelosi ask the President and Secretary Cardona to grant waivers from annual testing. Forcing schools to administer annual tests undermines the administration’s call to support our students’ social-emotional and mental health in this time of crisis. We need to put children, not data, first. Thank you.“

2. Then call your Representative and Senators. You can find their numbers here and here.

Here is a suggested script.

“My name is (name), and I am a constituent of (name). I strongly oppose the Department of Ed’s recent letter that forces schools to administer annual tests this year. All of our schools’ efforts must be used to support our students’ social-emotional and mental health in this time of crisis.  I am requesting that (name) speak with the President and Secretary Cardona and ask them to grant waivers from the annual testing mandate. Thank you.”

Call Congress Today to Stop Testing - Network For Public Education

Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel. | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel. | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel

When the Biden administration announced that schools across the nation would have to give standardized tests during the global Coronavirus pandemic this year, America’s teachers let out a collective sigh of disgust.

If it had to be put into words, it might be this:

“I can’t even.”

Imagine a marine biologist being told she had to determine if the water in the dolphin tank is wet.

That’s kind of what the demand to test is like.

Determine if the water is wet and THEN you can feed the dolphin.

Imagine a person on fire being told to measure the temperature of the flames before you could put them out.

Imagine a person staving in the desert being required to take a blood test to CONTINUE READING: Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel. | gadflyonthewallblog

#COVIDTestingNotStandardizedTesting: Schools Need #VaccinationsNotExaminations – I AM AN EDUCATOR

#COVIDTestingNot StandardizedTesting: Schools Need #VaccinationsNotExaminations – I AM AN EDUCATOR

#COVIDTestingNotStandardizedTesting: Schools Need #VaccinationsNotExaminations

An earlier version of this article was published by The Progressive
by Jesse Hagopian

Last year, the United States learned a great lesson from its public schools: The onslaught of federally mandated standardized tests could be canceled, and it would not trigger the collapse of society. 

In fact, during the early months of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the absence of the spring testing season provided a welcome relief to students and families coping with extreme stress. 

But that was then. 

Now, we are gearing up for another spring testing season, and on Monday, February 22, the Biden Administration decreed that standardized tests outlined in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act shall be required. No ifs, ands, or looking at your neighbor’s answers. 

Keep in mind: Betsy DeVos, one of the worst people to serve as Secretary of Education ever, managed to cancel the punitive and educationally destructive spring testing requirements. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is marching forward with a standardized testing regime that happens to be the centerpiece of corporate education reform.

In a letter to state schools chiefs and governors, the Biden Administration did CONTINUE READING: #COVIDTestingNot StandardizedTesting: Schools Need #VaccinationsNotExaminations – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Biden administration's push for standardized tests irks teachers unions, state leaders - POLITICO

Biden administration's push for standardized tests irks teachers unions, state leaders - POLITICO

Biden administration's push for standardized tests irks teachers unions, state leaders

The Education Department is resuming standardized testing requirements after a one-year pause.

President Joe Biden came into office with millions of kids learning remotely, teachers afraid of getting sick and parents balancing too much at home. Now, they also have to worry about standardized tests.

Biden’s administration surprised some schools last week by resuming standardized testing requirements after a one-year pause. The Education Department is offering substantial “flexibility” to states, but critics see the underlying order as an unwelcome stressor after a chaotic school year.

The conflict puts a new spin on the standardized testing debate, which swelled in classrooms and school board meetings during the Bush and Obama administrations. Biden, by contrast, was a sharp critic of the exams during his presidential campaign. He once told a crowd of educators he’d end the use of standardized tests in public schools and suggested it would be a “big mistake” to attach teacher evaluations to student test scores.

So the Biden administration’s decision to press ahead with testing has irked the national teachers’ unions that supported his candidacy — and left some school leaders and testing skeptics worried any 2021 test results won’t offer a complete, meaningful or fair accounting of how childhood education has really fared during the pandemic.

“We have to be really careful,” said Ryan Stewart, New Mexico’s public education secretary, in an interview. “There are some definite concerns we have with regard to validity and reliability, and we have to be measured in the kinds of conclusions we draw from this year’s assessments.”

Georgia school Superintendent Richard Woods offered harsher criticism. CONTINUE READING: Biden administration's push for standardized tests irks teachers unions, state leaders - POLITICO

Don’t Punish the Students! | Live Long and Prosper

Don’t Punish the Students! | Live Long and Prosper

Don’t Punish the Students!

TESTING, TESTING, TESTING

Anyone who has been paying attention to education news knows that the Biden administration has, at least at the time of this writing (Mar 2, 2021), refused to cancel the required federal testing for this school year despite the pandemic and despite Candidate Biden’s promises to the contrary. In her blog, Diane Ravitch reminded us…

 

The Biden administration chose a pro-testing advocate, Ian Rosenblum of Education Trust New York, to announce the decision that states must administer the federally mandated tests this spring. Miguel Cardona has not yet been confirmed as Secretary of Education nor has Cindy Marten been confirmed as Deputy Secretary. Who made this decision? Joe Biden? Jill Biden? Ian Rosenblum, who has not yet been confirmed as Deputy Assistant Secretary? (The Assistant Secretary has not even been announced.) Is the Obama administration back?

Joe Biden said unequivocally at a Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh when he was campaigning that he would end the federal mandate for standardized testing. Denisha Jones, lawyer, teacher educator, board member of Defending the Early Years, and the Network for Public Education, asked candidate Biden if he would end standardized testing. Watch his answer here.

[Note: Cardona was confirmed on March 1, 2021]

If you’re interested, surf the internet to find other stories about how Biden has CONTINUE READING: Don’t Punish the Students! | Live Long and Prosper