Time Out From Testing

Time Out From Testing

Affiliated with PerformanceAssessment.Org Contact us at info@timeoutfromtesting.org
Time Out... Articles - 3 new! Testimonies Press Releases Data and Charts Article Archives  Mayoral Control Testimonies: - Time Out From Testing - NY Performance Standards Consortium - Center for Immigrant Families - Deborah Meier  Protest K-2 Testing Articles - 1 new! Klein/Bloomberg  Responses to NYC School Reorganization Response to Klein City Resolution Garodnick Letter Disastrous Reforms Improving Schools  DOE's New Testing Plan K-2, 8th retention What's the plan? Get the facts Testing definitions What DOE says DOE Survey CPE Letter to Klein  Regents Review Panel Reports & Reviews Panel Bios  3rd Grade Retention Policy What it is Articles Documents Take Action! Testimonies  About Time Out     From Testing: Mission Timeline Bios		Time Out From Testing is a statewide coalition of parent, educator, business, community, and civil rights organizations in New York State committed to a "time-out" from excessive and high stakes exams. We call for a comprehensive review of the Regents exams and state-initiated standardized tests and the impact they have had on our children, our schools, and our communities. New-- 1,000 rally to protest PBC School District academic changes New-- CUNY's got math problem: Report shows many freshmen from city HS fail at basic algebra New-- North Carolina: No Test Points for Cash Read all articles from 2009 Read articles from previous years		Help stop K-2 standardized testing in our schools! Download and copy the parent protest letter and SLT & PTA resolutions, and gather signatures today! + Letter for School Leadership Teams and PTAs + Letter for Parents + Letter for Parents, spanish--- The Alliance for Childhood has issued a report on the need for creative play, not testing or test prep, in kindergarten. + Read the flier + Read the 8-page summary. --- Stop K-2 standardized testing! Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg are considering a policy to bring mandated standardized testing to kindergarten through 2nd grade. We must stop them! Sign the online petition today, and pass on the link. NCLB is up for reauthorization NOW! Read about it in THIS BOOKLET Then contact your congressperson Join the TOFT mailing list: First name: Last name: E-mail: Optional: Click to enter more details... Music Video: "Not on the Test" Produced by: Public School Test Records and Grammy Award-winner Tom ChapinSchools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math Sam Dillon, New York Times As Test-Taking Grows, Test-Makers Grow Rarer David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times Principals Face Review in Education Overhaul Elissa Gootman, New York Times "No Child Left Behind: The Test" Stan Karp, Rethinking Schools National Education Association: More information against NCLB. "Test Question No. 1: Why Have These Tests?" NYT article on one of Time Out'sstrongest activists: Jane R. Hirschmann
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Budget Games Playing To Appearances, Not to Reality As Cuts Deal Moves Forward | California Progress Report

Budget Games Playing To Appearances, Not to Reality As Cuts Deal Moves Forward | California Progress Report

Democratic state senators pushed the first budget cuts of 2010 through a key committee Wednesday, slicing government payroll costs by 5% and cutting $811 million from the prisons' healthcare budget.

The votes were the first on budget matters since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called a special session last month to address California's roughly $20-billion deficit. Lawmakers deferred decisions on how much to cut from California schools and social services -- the state's costliest programs -- until summer budget talks. (LA Times)

The easy part apparently involves going to the federal prison receiver and begging for help, because if they haven't done that already, they better start doing it now.  As the healthcare system has been the center of the prison receivership, you don't just cut money from under a federal court's nose.

Meanwhile, the Assembly spent their time hamming it up "for appearances," don't you know? Like the waste of having safe airports, and the waste of having serviceable state vehicles. The airports one is my favorite.

The Department of Transportation was asked about a single-engine plane it bought for nearly $1 million. Mike Miles, operations director, said the plane is needed for inspections of public airports and other required aerial duties. It will replace one that is more than 40 years old, and, because of the fiscal crisis, delivery is not planned until 2010-11.

Oh, did the Assembly Panel nail them or what?! Can you believe they want to replace their 40-year-old single engine plane? Why, they don't make them like they used to back in 1970. It is clear that the DOT is just "tone-deaf" to the people!

"We've got to answer to our constituents - and they're screaming at us," Assemblyman Tom Berryhill, R-Modesto, said of state spending.

"They need to realize that to the general public and to us, the Legislature, they sound a little tone deaf," Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, a South Gate Democrat who chairs the committee, said of the millions spent for seemingly routine items. (SacBee).

So, as I have it, the public is "screaming" for unsafe airports and dangerous state 

We Need Finland’s School System - Get In The Fracas

We Need Finland’s School System - Get In The Fracas

We Need Finland’s School System

Finland has an education system with its priorities in the right places and the results to match. It’s time for our leadership to take a look over there and say, “Yes! I’ll have what they’re having.”

Linda Darling-Hammond’s indispensable new book The Flat World and Education profiles three countries-Finland, Korea, and Singapore— that had struggling education systems in the 1970s but have aggressively revamped them into superior national systems. I plan to blog more on Darling-Hammond’s opus, but for now, I want to focus on Finland.

Eduflack Teacher Quality Showdown in Houston's Corral

Eduflack

Teacher Quality Showdown in Houston's Corral

Looking at the headlines coming out of Houston last night, it was a regular showdown at the school improvement corral.  Teachers versus parents.  Reformers versus status quo.  Process versus outcomes.  And in the words of far too many Simpsons episodes, we can't possibly forget about the children!

For those late to the rodeo, last evening the Houston Independent School District School Board voted (unanimously, 7-0) to approve HISD Superintendent Terry Grier's teacher quality efforts.  The plan allows the school district to terminate (as a last resort) teachers whose students are unable to make the grade on standardized tests.  According to the numbers being circulated, about 3 percent of the HISD teacher force, or 400 teachers, could be effected by this new initiative.  For those who want more on this, the full story can be found here in the Houston Chronicle.

Most see Grier's efforts as a direct response to the current calls for teacher quality and accountability coming from Arne Duncan and the folks at the US Department of Education.  Student performance remains the king.  Effective teachers are the path to student performance.  Ergo, students whose test scores don't improve have ineffective teachers who may not be suited for the classroom.  Or so the SAT logic goes.  Grier is moving a real, tangible plan aligned with Duncan's teacher quality pillar.

This vote has been brewing for weeks.  As part of his negotiations with the teachers union, Grier tried to use AFT President Randi Weingarten's speech from nearly a month ago (Eduflack's analysis here) as grounds for the union to support his efforts.  His argument was straightforward.  If Weingarten was serious about rhetoric to fix a broken system and focus on effective teachers and student achievement, she should side with him on his teacher quality efforts.  Why should 97 percent of HISD teachers be tarred by the student test scores of just 3 percent?  And don't forget, Weingarten embraced the idea of using student test scores as part of teacher

Parents praise, teachers protest firing plan | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Parents praise, teachers protest firing plan | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

At a contentious meeting pitting parents against teachers, the Houston school board gave final approval on Thursday to a policy allowing the firing of instructors whose students fall short on standardized tests.

Dozens of parents spoke in favor of the decision, while more than 750 teachers packed the school district's headquarters to protest the policy, considered among the most aggressive efforts in the nation to improve teacher quality.

Starting next year, the Houston Independent School District will include a measure of student progress, called value-added, in teachers' job evaluations. Those teachers whose students fall far below expectations for multiple years could be at risk of losing their jobs.

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier and the school board, which passed the policy on a 7-0 vote, have promised to provide training and mentoring to struggling teachers and to use termination as a last resort. Trustees Carol Mims Galloway and Manuel Rodriguez Jr. were absent.

District data show that more than 400 teachers — about 3 percent of the teaching corps — could be at risk if they don't improve. The policy affects only teachers of core academic subjects in grades three through eight.

New Analysis Suggests Teachers' Voices Do Not Have A Strong Influence On The Policy Agenda | Public Agenda

New Analysis Suggests Teachers' Voices Do Not Have A Strong Influence On The Policy Agenda | Public Agenda

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 26, 2010) — Educational reformers of all stripes have focused tremendous energy on thinking of ways to identify effective teachers and in turn recruit, retain, compensate and support them. But what do teachers think of their ideas? The Retaining Teacher Talent study, a nationwide study conducted by Learning Point Associates and Public Agenda suggests that what teachers think are good indicators of effectiveness—and what they think will make them more effective—are not always aligned with current priorities in education policy.

This third release of data from the Retaining Teacher Talent study, Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers' Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas, seeks to draw teachers into the debate, to bring nuance and experience to the conversation. This report describes the implications of the results of the nationwide survey for policymakers and teachers who want to influence policy.

“As we enter this new decade, teachers stand at the center of this policy vortex,” said Sabrina Laine, Ph.D., chief program officer for educator effectiveness at Learning Point Associates. "Democratizing the national policy conversation by getting teachers involved provides a bridge between policy and practice. Ultimately, grounding this debate with the voices of experience and evidence is of critical importance. The success of these reforms rests in large part on the support of those who will be most directly affected—teachers.”

“There’s a conventional wisdom that teachers uniformly resist the idea of measuring teacher effectiveness, but in fact, teachers are open to a number of different ways of doing it, including looking at how much their own students learn compared to other students. And most teachers agree that making it easier to take ineffective teachers out of the classroom would improve education,” said Jean Johnson, director of Education Insights at Public Agenda. “It’s way past time to get teachers themselves involved in these crucial discussions about how to judge teacher effectiveness.”

Although education policy reform has focused on dramatic changes to teacher evaluation and compensation, this report suggests that these reform ideas are not the most popular among teachers. This study explores the attitudes of all teachers toward how they would measure effectiveness, examines how they perceive themselves to be effective relative to their teaching conditions and indicates what they believe will improve overall teacher effectiveness.

Top findings include the following:

1. The majority of teachers agree on four possible ways to judge teacher performance: Nearly all teachers (92 percent) rated the level of student interest and engagement as an excellent or good indicator of teacher effectiveness. Teachers also gave excellent or good ratings to: how much their own students learn compared with other students (72 percent); feedback from principals and administrators (70 percent) and how well students 

All the scholar ladies, all the scholar ladies | The Education Report

All the scholar ladies, all the scholar ladies | The Education Report:

All the scholar ladies, all the scholar ladies

"A little diversion for your Friday. Warning: The following song might get stuck in your head for much longer than you’d like to admit."

This Week In Education: Video: "To Be Or Not To Be...That Is The Question... Yeah."

This Week In Education: Video: "To Be Or Not To Be...That Is The Question... Yeah.":

"Video: 'To Be Or Not To Be...That Is The Question... Yeah.'

This video of Brian Cox teaching a cute little boy some Shakespeare has been going around the Internetz not just because the kid learns the soliloquy but also because he interjects some of his own delightful meaning into the process."

It's been a long day, you deserve a little break.

Local Students Awarded Medals at 30th Annual Sacramento County Academic Decathlon — The Rancho Cordova Post

Local Students Awarded Medals at 30th Annual Sacramento County Academic Decathlon — The Rancho Cordova Post

Local Students Awarded Medals at 30th Annual Sacramento County Academic Decathlon

by MICHELLE VENTRESS on FEBRUARY 11, 2010 · 0 COMMENTS

in VIEWPOINTS

Individual and team winners of the 30th Annual Sacramento County Academic Decathlon, held February 6 at Inderkum High School, have been announced by Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools David W. Gordon. Modeling their efforts after the Olympic Decathlon, close to 300 local students competed for awards in ten demanding academic events: Mathematics, Art, Music, Language/Literature, Economics, Science, Essay, Speech, Interview and Super Quiz. Contestants represented 25 schools in Sacramento County. Only one high school will advance to state finals.
The top scorers were honored February 9 at the Academic Decathlon Awards Banquet presented by the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) at the Sacramento State College University Ballroom. KCRA Channel 3 Anchor and Political Reporter Kevin Riggs served as emcee of the awards banquet. Students received gold, silver or bronze medals for their efforts.
SAFE Credit Union provided $10,000 in scholarships to be distributed among top-scoring students. The top three school teams are as follows:
1st Place – Folsom High School (Folsom Cordova Unified School District)
2nd Place – Bella Vista High School (San Juan Unified School District)
3rd Place – Franklin High School (Elk Grove Unified School District)
Folsom High School is now eligible to

Elk Grove Citizen :What Super Bowl?

Elk Grove Citizen : 

What Super Bowl?

Local high school students show off smarts in annual academic decathlon, “Super Quiz”

By Cameron Macdonald - Citizen News Editor

Published: Thursday, February 11, 2010 4:06 PM PST

The French Revolution was a cause of exuberance, nail-biting distress, relief, triumph, and countless hours of memorizing flashcards – for students from six local high schools that competed in the 30th Sacramento County Academic Decathlon on Feb. 6.

They competed against teams from 25 schools from across the county at Sacramento’s Inderkum High School during a day of delivering speeches and taking numerous written exams that mainly challenged them to show their knowledge of nearly every nut and bolt of the French Revolution.

They were given thick study materials and were assigned to read the Charles Dickens classic A Tale of Two Cities.

Monterey Trail High Coach Kevin Williams said that his team enjoyed trying to follow how political power moved during the revolution. He noted the infamous Guillotine.

“I think they enjoyed trying to track where all the power went back and forth, and who started popping heads off and who started getting other 

Alameda Education Board Expected to Renew FAME School’s Charter - Bay Area Blog - NYTimes.com

Alameda Education Board Expected to Renew FAME School’s Charter - Bay Area Blog - NYTimes.com

The FAME charter school in Fremont appears to be heading toward a five-year renewal of its charter in March, after the Alameda County Board of Education voted unanimously at a meeting on Tuesday to continue offering its provisional support.

The school has been the subject of controversy since a critical state audituncovered questionable financial practices and the Fremont Unified School District voiced its opposition to the renewal of the school charter. The audit findings were the subject of an article in The New York Times on Sunday.

A vocal opponent of FAME on the county’s Board of Education, Yvonne Cerrato, was not present for the Tuesday vote. The board appeared to move past some of the concerns voiced by Fremont officials, as several board members and officials — including the Alameda County official in charge of the FAME investigation, Carlene Naylor, an associate superintendent — sounded firmly in support of the school.

The school must meet several conditions by March 1 to have its charter renewed. The conditions include discontinuing the practice of taking high-fee, high-interest short-term loans from either relatives of the director or the school’s board members.

During the meeting, Milt Werner, superintendent of the Fremont Unified