Are Okla GOP Politicians Still For a Strong Supt?

Are Okla GOP Politicians Still For a Strong Supt?:

ARE OKLA GOP POLITICIANS STILL FOR A STRONG SUPT?

Joy Hofmeister, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction

Photo by Brett Dickerson

 There are Republican politicians in Oklahoma. And then, there is that Republican politician. You know – that Joy Hofmeister.

She’s the Republican who primaried and beat Janet Barresi, incumbent Republican sweetheart of the public school bashing bandwagon.

She then went on to take Barresi’s place on the state-wide education stage as the new and very popular Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Her presence stands to put pressure on Republican politicians here in a way that they didn’t expect way back in 2011 when they quickly passed sweeping changes that gave that position new powers, not only over the Department of Education, but the board itself.

And there is pressure.

According to some sources, all members of the board are up for either re-appointment or replacement before April 2 when appointments take effect.

The biggest question, which was raised by fellow blogger Rob Miller last night, is whether or not Governor Fallin will support this elected superintendent and appoint new board members who can acknowledge Hofmeister’s leadership.

Pressures mount

Yesterday the State Board of Education members, all appointed by Republican Governor Mary Fallin to support the last chief, finallycouldn’t hold their irritation in check any longer.

The Tulsa World’s account of the heated end of yesterday’s board meeting described it as a “tug-of-war” that “boiled over” between Hofmeister and several of the members of the board.

According to the report, three board members were especially upset when they thought that Hofmeister, who by law is the executive of the board, ran too quickly past the “New Business” part of the agenda and didn’t give them time to enter motions that they wanted discussed.

The report describes two of the three speaking in “raised voices” to Are Okla GOP Politicians Still For a Strong Supt?:

District makes testing opt-out information more prominent | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

District makes testing opt-out information more prominent | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

District makes testing opt-out information more prominent

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

 School officials have responded to demands that they be more explicit in letting parents know that they have a right to opt out their children from taking standardized tests.

The steps are small, yet opt-out activists say that they are significant.

For instance, when parents go to the District's website and click on a prominent box that says "PSSA and Keystone Parent Information," they are taken to a page on which it says in two places that they can find information on opting out at the next link.

In addition, said Christopher Shaffer, principals and test coordinators in 174 District schools and five charters this year were given "explicit instructions on documents that schools are required to send home to parents."  

Shaffer is the deputy chief for curriculum, instruction and assessment. He said the training "augmented our section on opt-out procedures so building test coordinators are familiar with that process and expectations."

The state Department of Education does not allow the District to disseminate any information on opting out other than a flyer with frequently asked questions that has been approved by the state, Shaffer said. So the web page that links to the state-approved flyer explains exactly where they can find opt-out information in the flyer. And, unlike the flyer itself, it uses the terminology "opt out."

The flyer has also been translated into eight languages other than English, and some schools have sent paper copies home with students.

Asked whether there has been more emphasis this year on letting parents know about opting out, Shaffer said, "Yes, but under the umbrella of more parent communication to our families, inclusive of everything that has to do with testing. ... It's not just opt-out, but the overall piece here is we're striving to be better communicators."

In various parent meetings, District officials heard that it wasn't easy to find information on testing, "and we took that to heart. ... Some of the feedback was accurate."

The state-approved flyer explains that parents have the right to review the test in advance (if they sign a confidentiality agreement) and if they find it "in conflict with their religious belief," can request in writing that their child be "excused."

Under Pennsylvania law, religious objection is the only official reason that parents can give for opting out. 

Kelley Collings is a member of the Caucus of Working Educators and a teacher at Feltonville School of Arts & Sciences. She and several colleagues made a concerted effort to tell parents at the school that they could opt out their children from testing, and they say that nearly 20 percent will do so when the tests are administered next month.

The teachers active in the movement have emphasized that they believe the tests are unfair, especially to special education students and English language learners, who are tested on their grade level even though by definition they are most likely behind. 

As a result, the teachers were summoned to investigatory conferences with the principal, but District spokesman Fernando Gallard said it would be wrong to consider this a District makes testing opt-out information more prominent | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Common Core Parental Refusal Act! - Sign the Petition

Sign the Petition:

 Common Core Parental Refusal Act!

Dear Governor Cuomo:

I am very concerned about the over-utilization of Common Core-based standardized tests on children in grades 3-8 and urge you to support the rights of parents to have their children refuse these high stakes tests.

Teachers are spending too much class time teaching to these flawed tests that only seem to measure how well students can take tests, that in many cases they are not developmentally ready for.  In essence testing what they don’t know, rather than what they do know.

Please support legislation, the “Common Core Parental Refusal Act” (A.6025/S.4161), to require school districts notify parents of their right to refuse to have their children participate in the Common Core standardized tests.  The bill provides a uniform notification for schools to send parents information that they have the right without penalty to refuse to allow their children to take the Common Core tests along with a uniform response form that parents can complete and return to the schools.  The legislation protects school districts and individual schools from having state aid withheld or any other punitive measures by the state. The bill protects teachers from being penalized in their evaluations due to a lack of student participation or performance on the exams.

I ask you to respect the rights of parents to make important decisions on the educational future of their children by supporting the Common Core Parental Refusal Act!

Sincerely,

Sign the Petition:

I DARE YOU TO TAKE A MANDATED READING TEST FOR A NINE YEAR-OLD. | Reclaim Reform

I DARE YOU TO TAKE A MANDATED READING TEST FOR A NINE YEAR-OLD. | Reclaim Reform:

I DARE YOU TO TAKE A MANDATED READING TEST FOR A NINE YEAR-OLD.

Posted on March 27, 2015by Ken Previti

“We took tests when we were kids, and…”
– commonly said by legislators and people who repeat TV talk show blather

STOP!!!

I DARE YOU TO TAKE A MANDATED READING TEST FOR A NINE YEAR-OLD.

Are you sick and tired of listening to this absurd comparison of tests from the past versus the reality of today’s high stakes tests? People the same age or older than the parents of tested school aged children never took the high stakes tests our children are being subjected to day after day.

Dare them to go to this Common Core SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) Practice Test site and answer the first seven questions of the 4th grade Common Core SBAC English Test. Tell them that they can go on to more questions or tests if they so desire.

TELL THEM: After answering seven questions, whether you are a young professional with advanced degrees or a senior who has earned your education in the school of hard knocks, please consider what you have learned about these lucrative for-profit tests. (You might even choose to answer the very short questionnaire at the bottom of this page.)

Directions: Please sign in and take at least the seven initial questions. This will be an eye opener for most people.

Here are the steps to access the 4th Grade Common Core SBAC English Language Arts Test

• Go to http://sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/
• Scroll Down and Click on Green Box – Students Interface Practice and Training Tests
• Click on Sign In
• Use Pull Down Menu to change to Grade 4, click Yes
• Go to Right Column, 2nd box down – 4th grade ELA (English Language Arts) – click
• Scroll Down and click on Select
• Scroll Down and click on Yes, Start My Test
• Click on Sound symbol – then Click Yes
• Scroll Down and Click on Begin Test Now
• Complete first seven (7) questions
• You can then stop and assess the test or move on

 
RECLAIM REFORM QUESTIONNAIRE:

What do you now realize about this test?

A) I am not a professional, but I DARE YOU TO TAKE A MANDATED READING TEST FOR A NINE YEAR-OLD. | Reclaim Reform:

This school paid teachers $125,000 a year — and test scores went up - Vox

This school paid teachers $125,000 a year — and test scores went up - Vox:

This school paid teachers $125,000 a year — and test scores went up

It's common to hear that teachers should be paid better — more like doctors and lawyers. In 2009, the Equity Project, a charter school in New York decided to try it: they would pay all their teachers $125,000 per year with the possibility of an additional bonus.

The typical teacher in New York with five years' experience makes between $64,000 and $76,000. The charter school, known as TEP, would pay much more. But in exchange, teachers, who are not unionized, would accept additional responsibilities, and the school would keep a close eye on their work.

Four years later, students at TEP score better on state tests than similar students elsewhere. The differences were particularly pronounced in math, according to a study from Mathematica Policy Research released in October. (The study was funded by the Gates Foundation.) After four years at the school, students had learned as much math as they would have in 5.6 years elsewhere:

(Mathematica Policy Research)

The gains erased 78 percent of the achievement gap between Hispanic students and whites in the eighth grade.

The results are important in part because TEP also appears to have sidestepped some common concerns about charter schools. They didn't expel or suspend students out of school in the first four years. There is no evidence that the school encouraged problem students to leave or transfer on their own. And the students who attended were roughly as likely to be low-income, and to have had similar levels of academic achievement before they arrived. They could still differ in other ways — they could have more involved parents, who get them into the charter school lottery, for example — but TEP doesn't present some of the obvious factors that help explain other charter schools' success.

How TEP hired and trained teachers

The $125,000 number was eye-catching, but it was just the start of the school's approach to teaching. Teachers were also eligible for a bonus of between 7 to 12 percent of their salary. The teachers, who are not unionized, went through a rigorous selection process that included a daylong "audition" based on their teaching skills. The typical teacher already had six years of classroom experience before they were hired.

Teachers at TEP also get more time to collaborate and played a bigger role in school decision-making than teachers in other jobs. Teachers were paired up to observe each others' lessons and provide feedback, collaboration that experts agree is important but happens too infrequently. During a six-week summer training, teachers also helped set school policy.

The workload at TEP, where teachers also take on administrative duties and had an average of 31 students per class, is fairly heavy even with the extra pay. But the school also had more teacher turnover than usual. Nearly half of first-year teachers didn't return for their second year, either because they resigned or because they were not rehired. Teacher turnover has been found to have a slight effect on student achievement.

Overall, though, the results are promising. The researchers caution that this is just one study of a small school. It's not meant to prove that TEP's methods can work in every school nationally. But it appears to suggest that, at least, the approach worked at one school.This school paid teachers $125,000 a year — and test scores went up - Vox:

Pearson Priority 1 Alert: American teenagers are tweeting the questions from nationwide standardized tests - Quartz

American teenagers are tweeting the questions from nationwide standardized tests - Quartz:

American teenagers are tweeting the questions from nationwide standardized tests

Revelations this week that American high school students were caught tweeting about questions on nationwide standardized tests have fueled fundamental concerns about the latest approach to measuring student achievement nationwide.

In Maryland, two 10th grade students tweeted essay questions that they had encountered on their Common Core standardized tests this month. Another student in New Jersey tweeted about a test question. And there were three instances of students sharing test questions in Ohio.

Since February, there have been at least 76 discoveries of students sharing test information on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, says Jesse Comart, a spokesman for Pearson, the testing company. It’s done in public forums, so students may not perceive it as cheating, he said, but it is: “It’s the equivalent of you standing on a street corner in New York and waving a test booklet around.”

This is a predicament that’s perhaps to be expected: Teenagers are used to sharing almost every experience on social media. But under the Common Core, a new system of curriculum and testing for US public schools that has been adopted in 46 states since 2010, there’s a greatly increased potential for social cheating to spread: As curriculum and testing are standardized nationwide, a leaked question or answer can also be shared nationwide.

Previously, tests were different in every state. But under Common Core, large groups of states have begun taking the same annual test for the first time this year. And since Common Core testing is mostly on computers, the testing period has to be spread out, because schools don’t have enough computers to offer all the tests at the same time.

For now, testing companies are playing a game of whack-a-mole with test information leaked on social media, monitoring as best they can with a test security company. Pearson reports incidents to the states and schools, who are responsible for taking disciplinary action.

Meanwhile, there are privacy concerns among parents and administrators about test companies monitoring student activity on social media. Caveon, the test security firm that Pearson uses, only looks at public pages and uses keyword searches, and does not follow individuals, says Steve Addicott, the company’s vice-president.

It remains to be seen whether such social cheating has had a major effect nationwide, said Derek Briggs, the chair of research and American teenagers are tweeting the questions from nationwide standardized tests - Quartz:

Former U.S. Education official backs test refusals - Press-Republican

Former U.S. Education official backs test refusals - Press-Republican: Local News:

Former U.S. Education official backs test refusals

PLATTSBURGH — When Diane Ravitch was a child, her teacher could determine her reading level by administering a 45-minute assessment. 

"Sometimes, she didn't even need a test because she saw my written work," the former U.S. assistant secretary of education told the audience gathered at SUNY Plattsburgh for a recent public forum to discuss education reform. 

The event, at which Ravitch appeared via Skype, was hosted by the North Country Alliance for Public Education and attended by numerous local parents, educators and community members. 

There, the education historian, policy analyst and author called on attendees to defend their schools and children by opting them out of the state's third-through-eighth-grade exams.

Based on the Common Core Curriculum, the tests cover English-language arts and math, as well as science, beginning in fourth grade.

The results are used to determine the effectiveness of both teachers and schools.

 'CURRICULUM NARROWED' 

“Children are spending anywhere from eight to 11 hours (taking tests) and even more hours on test prep," she said. 

And educators are now teaching to the tests, Ravitch noted, "which used to be considered unprofessional but is now considered routine and necessary."

That devotion to standardized exams, she continued, has resulted in a narrowing of curriculum in schools with less time for the arts, recess and physical education. 

"Tests do not close the achievement gap," Ravitch said. "If you have a high fever and you take your temperature every 10 minutes, it will not lower your temperature; if you want to gain weight or lose weight, it will not help if you weigh yourself more frequently.”

Testing has a place in education, she noted, "but it should be solely to diagnose children’s strengths and weaknesses so that they can get additional help if they need it."

'NO VALUE AT ALL'

The state's exams, however, are given in the spring, and results are made available in August, after the school year ends.

Teachers are unable to determine where students had difficulty, Ravitch said, as they are not permitted to see their answers. 

“They have no diagnostic value, which means they have no value at all," she said. 

And there's a good reason testing companies don't want people to see the exams even after they're completed, added Ravitch, who served on the Governing Board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

 "I saw test questions that had two right answers," she said. "I saw test questions that had no right answer; I saw test questions that were ambiguously worded."

While the multiple-choice portions of the exams are scored by computer, according to Ravitch, the testing companies "are hiring anyone with a bachelor’s degree" to score answers to the constructed-response questions.

“These are tests for determining the future of the child and his teacher and they (the scorers) can have no educational experience,” she said. 

'CAN'T PUNISH EVERYBODY'

The best way for parents to express opposition to the exams, Ravitch continued, is to opt their children out. 

"Refuse the test," she said, eliciting cheers and applause from the crowd. 

While there is concern that the state may label or withhold aid from schools that don't test 95 percent of test-age students, Ravitch noted, the more people who refuse the exams, the fewer the consequences will be. 

"In fact, the more people who opt out, the more certain it is that there will be no consequences at all," she said. 

If just 10 percent of a school's student body refrains from taking the assessments, she added, the school's results become invalid.  Former U.S. Education official backs test refusals - Press-Republican: Local News:

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

Click Here to go to the Website FairTest

#optout needs school leaders not politicians. | BustED Pencils

#optout needs school leaders not politicians. | BustED Pencils:

#optout needs school leaders not politicians.

When I first got involved in the opt out movement I regularly tried to engage  school leaders (principals, superintendents, assessment coordinators) in a positive discussion about the opt out motive.  Things didn’t always go very positively.  Check out an older post that seems incredibly relevant today.

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“If you oppose state testing, please contact your Senator and Representative… they can change, what we cannot.” Superintendent.

Since our district’s superintendent has decided to actively fight the opt-out movement I have tried to engage him by sending him articles that document the folly of high stakes testing and writing letter’s explaining the opt out motives. I thought that we might enter into a civil discussion concerning government mandated public school reform as defined by the corporate elite.

I came across a Marion Brady article posted by Valerie Strauss. The Brady article hit some excellent points so I decided to forward it to the administrators of our district — superintendent included. I received a response rather quickly to the Brady article from our superintendent.

The superintendent said that he agreed that research does not support high stakes testing and even mentioned listening to a Yong Zhao speech. However, according to our superintendent, the problem was our politicians. In fact he said, “The politicians are deaf to hearing about research.”

This is a super observation because it is absolutely true. At this point in time, I also have no faith that our politicians have any intentions of “listening” to research challenging the failing school narrative and halting the high stakes testing regime. Therefore I sent our superintendent the response below.

Dear Superintendent,

You are absolutely right. However, the bigger problem is that politicians are not going to start listening to research anytime soon. You’ve met with them. I’ve met with them. They’re not going to budge unless something forces them to budge. Take a look at their campaign contributors. All the major testing companies are funneling millions of dollars to the politicians. Research doesn’t stand a chance against a system that is designed to ignore research.

That is why I want you to understand that the parents that opt out are not doing it because they want to hurt you, the teachers, or the school. They’re doing it because politicians have taken you and the teachers out of the equation. You’re not allowed to

#optout needs school leaders not politicians. | BustED Pencils: