Test’ m till they learn, dammit!

Sep 28

jonpeltoBridgeport, Education Reform, Paul Vallas, Standardized Testing , , , 45 Comments

Today’s homework assignment:  Call your local school district and ask them for the entire list of standardized tests that they give to students in your community.

In Bridgeport, for example, rather than waste time learning, students will spend next week taking the new round of standardized “bench-mark” tests that “education reformer” and Superintendent of Schools, Paul Vallas, has ordered.

But Bridgeport is not alone; Cities and towns all across Connecticut have dramatically expanded the number of standardized tests they give to our children.

Along with the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT), Bridgeport is adding three new rounds of “CMT-like” tests.  Together, these four tests will disrupt more than 3 weeks of instructional time.

But those tests are just the tip of the iceberg.

Make the call and you’ll find that your town suspend actual teaching activities in order to have their students take many of the following tests, or tests similar to the following.

There are the Direct Reading Assessment (DRA) or Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) tests.  There are the Northwest Evaluation Association Measure of Academic Performance (NWEA MAP) tests.

Then there are the LAS, LAU and NOCTI tests.

Add in PSAT and SATs for high school juniors and seniors.

And, of course that doesn’t even count all of the practice tests and reading prompts that begin as early as 1st grade.

A seasoned veteran estimated that, during the period from 3rd grade through 12th grade, students and teachers devote upwards toward 30 or more school days a year taking these standardized tests.

The newest initiatives are adding even more standardized assessments, this time for children in Kindergarten through 2nd grade.

All this means that Connecticut’s students are spending as many as 300 days taking standardized tests during their primary and secondary education.  300 days being the equivalent of at least a year and a half of what would otherwise be learning time.

These 300 days don’t even count the real academic testing, the tests that measure whether the student has learned the particular curriculum; the tests that are actually needed to give students their grades.

Meanwhile, the costs of the myriad of tests are astronomical.

An employee of the Connecticut State Department of Education estimated that the CMT/CAPT tests cost about $24.5 million a year.  The federal government picks up about $6 million of that, with the rest paid for by Connecticut’s taxpayers.

Add in all of the other standardized tests and we are probably paying well over $50 million a year on standardized testing in Connecticut schools.

So on Monday, when the students of Bridgeport spend their day taking a Reading Comprehension test, or on Tuesday, when it is Editing and Revising, or on Wednesday, when it is Mathematics – Part 1, or on Thursday, when it is Mathematics – Part 2, take a moment to appreciate the irony that, thanks to Bridgeport’s “Education Reformers,” Bridgeport’s students, and our tax dollars, are being spent for even more testing, rather than on actual teaching.

I think they call it – Made in America.

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  • buygoldandprosper

    2200BC– China has first recorded use of testing
    1900–College Entrance Exam set up
    1915–Multiple choice test invented
    1920–Multiple choice SAT designed
    2010-Dan Malloy elected.Has visions of catching up to China.Travels to Davos and China while Connecticut children fill in little dots with a #2 pencil. Hopes it translates to a citizens ability to fill out a ballot.
    The rest is history.

  • buygoldandprosper

    All this testing leads to:
    http://nymag.com/news/features/cheating-2012-9/
    Come on folks! Start revealing the nastier side of this nonsense! It is not just a NYC thing!

    • Apartheid First

      Thank you for this! Absolutely amazing.
      I am waiting to hear about cheating on the PISA test, or whatever that international exam is. Of course, the biggest cheaters are the school reformers. Adamowski routinely fixes the numbers and distorts the facts in order to justify his reforms. He also lies outright–and he’s rewarded for this! Allan Taylor, Stefan Pryor (a major offender in the rigged numbers game, as are most charter school operators), the State BoE–they blithely cheat or abet cheaters.

      • Linda174

        RTTT renamed CYTP…cheat your way to the top. Survival of the fittest and the kids be damned.

  • buygoldandprosper

    Wow! What a great student newspaper!
    You do not learn to publish something like this by filling out
    dots on a page.
    http://stuyspectator.com/2012/09/09/stuyvesant-cheating-ring-exposed/

    • Apartheid First

      Not bad. I can’t condone the uber-elitism of Stuyvesant High School, nor the ultra competitiveness and glib assurance that all is well in the world just because you attend this school (or Avon, or Darien… etc). While standardized tests are a seriously flawed measure of a person’s overall intelligence, college admissions policies (especially at the Harvards and elite private schools) are almost worse. The links in the chain that ends at the Ivy League school are tarnished throughout by racism, classicism, and privilege. How many of the George Bushes and their progeny do we think ever sweated over an exam? Do we think Yale was going to turn down Bush 1, 2, or 3?

  • http://twitter.com/nora9999 Nora Matthews

    One thing people don’t realize about all this testing in a high need school is that during testing times support staff is often pulled to provide accommodations to students who need them. The tests need to be proctored by someone who is certified. So that means you may effectively lose ELL, special ed, for weeks during testing period, especially if some of those staff are only part time.

  • JMC

    Take the tests, Dannel! Show us the way! Be a leader!

  • msavage

    I think the root of the evil comes down to this one sentence: “Meanwhile, the costs of the myriad of tests are astronomical.”

    Unethical people are making MAJOR money off of these tests. They care not whether the tests are actually providing measurements that are useful, that can be used to improve education for our children. They care only that they are making piles of dough off of the tests and associated publications, computer programs, personnel, etc. And the folks making decisions for our districts are either:
    1. Profiting in some way as well.
    2. Too stupid to think for themselves and realize that they are being sold a load of crap by these profiteers.

    On a brighter note–I attended my son’s middle school open house last night. Two of his teachers actually spoke fairly openly about problems within public education. One spoke about new mandates from the state and the way they interfere with creative learning. The other mentioned ramped-up testing and how she disapproved. This is the first time I can remember ever hearing teachers speak openly about their discomfort with the trends. I took it as a good sign that at least conversations are happening out in the open now.

    • Sleepless in Bridgeport

      Not even a question…….follow the money. Forgive them father…..they know exactly what they are doing!

    • Magister

      I recently told parents about how the excessive tech is interfering with real learning and that I would be focusing on “19th Century skills” this year.

      • Castles Burning

        Great response. (I cannot stand to hear the phrase “21st century skills). I might decide to focus on 19th century skills as well. I love your brilliance.

      • Magister

        I can’t stand it either. “21st Century Skills” means pushing buttons and staring at flickering screens. As I say to my students, you can train a parakeet to do that.

      • Apartheid First

        Yes, thank you. I wish my children could have you as a teacher (and Linda). I would jettison most of the tech. At my child’s open house, several teachers very proudly displayed all their web-this, e-that, and I had to bite my tongue. Other teachers very matter-of-factly mentioned exams–not at all critically. It surprised me. I would have expected a more critical–and informed!–response.

      • msavage

        Yes–thank you for speaking openly about it. Talking about it will help to counter the load of crap that parents are being sold from politicians and administration.

  • Linda174

    When will find out how much the new testing, completed on computers, is going to cost? Has anyone at the SDE figured out if all districts have the capacity to test all students….hardware, software? What about the loss of computer lab time for projects and technology? If twelve weeks need to be set aside for all schools and all districts, how much is this going to cost? The new test starts in 2015 and if Malloy doesn’t have a magic wand (CT Mirror article), then where is the money for the test and all the computers coming from?

    • Luv2Teach

      I have 3 out of the 4 computers in my classroom out of order since MARCH! Work orders put in various times. Vacations passed, summer passed, first month of school passed… still no IT person has shown up. Vallas plans next 2 benchmarks to be all on computers. Not sure how this is even possible with many, many computers OOS. But, I’m sure a wave will come in to fix everything just in time for the next benchmark… meanwhile, I guess we’re not worthy enough of benefiting from using this technology now:( Such a disgrace! And the printer issues are a mess! I wonder how much Xerox has made off this deal!! Sharing 1 copier/printer between 25/30 teachers! – exclusively from Xerox! HOW does this benefit our students in ANY way? Man, I wish parents would take a stand on this ridiculous, unnecessary , painful, destructive & disruptive abuse of standardized testing in Bpt!!!

      • Linda174

        The testing on computers will turn out to me the clusterf*#% or all clusterf#%*s!

      • Magister

        The new rheeform motto: “you can’t have a clusterf**k without a cluster”

      • Apartheid First

        May they all crash!

    • msavage

      The plan is probably to squeez it out of the middle class. Can’t have those 1 percenters paying for anything.

  • Linda174
    • Apartheid First

      What is so disgusting about Malloy and his “reforms” is that so many of those dollars from the state are going to charter schools, like Pryor’s Achievement First, Jumoke, Apartheid First, etc.

  • I Love Teaching

    I just finished the first round of testing and can finally teach my second graders. I am required to administer the DRA, DSA, CREC, Dolch and Dibels testing in the first month of school.

    • Apartheid First

      I choked when you wrote–second graders!
      I am not sure if this is not becoming something akin to forced child labor.
      What is this about, anyway? Further enriching the Broads, the Gateses, the Waltons? Keeping Malloy in office, and promoting Pryor? I am just outraged

  • apartheid First

    Check it out, you can “grade” Christina Kishimoto on her performance in Hartford–she ain’t doing too well. We had better call Gwen S. and Students First to round up their “supporters” and offer them some subway sandwiches in exchange for their vote (no i.d. required!). http://www.ctnow.com/news/connecticut/hartford/hc-grade-kishimoto-20120927,0,7711570,post.poll

  • Linda174

    Please read the full article, but the new testing coming up is going to be very costly:

    School districts will need enough computers to allow almost every student to take multiple annual exams. These computers must be suitable for the “innovative” test items and must be maintained and upgraded. Add to this the cost of increased IT staffing, and you begin to realize the problems of buying a Porsche test on a Ford budget.

    A recent study projects that states will collectively spend $2.8 billion and $6.9 billion over seven years on technology alone for Common Core. And the authors cautioned that they were accepting the consortiums’ cost estimates at face value; analyst Ze’ev Wurman has predicted that South Carolina’s annual testing costs may skyrocket to $100 per student, compared with $12 per student today.

    School districts that can’t afford substantial new technology will have to rotate students through the computer labs; Smarter Balanced recommends a 12-week testing window. But that creates significant security problems — how to keep the earlier-tested students from talking to the later-tested ones? — as well as inequity in results. The students tested late in the window will have almost three more months of instruction than those first out of the gate. Might this give an unfair advantage? And might teachers, whose evaluations depend on these test scores, resent having their students put at the front of the testing window?

    These problems will have to be worked out, assuming the whole concept of nationalized standards, tests and curricula doesn’t collapse under its own weight. When that collapse or implosion happens, I hope it is before too much damage is done to our budgets, our schools and our children.

    Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/09/28/2459190/fair-sc-could-regret-new-student.html#.UGbQJ5G9KSM#storylink=cpy

    • msavage

      Wonder how Bill Gates will profit from all of this? I’m sure he has his finger in the pie somewhere–promoting the testing agenda and profiting from it at the same time through some back door.

  • Linda174

    Another very good article:

    Educators are being duped into following strategies that are being touted as the latest advancement in learning when the truth is closer to indoctrination. Students want to do ‘well’ in school. The word ‘well’ is being redefined as scores on annual high stakes tests, spawned by NCLB, and now to be enhanced by Common Core Standards which will increase testing by many times over. Curriculum is being narrowed to fewer and fewer options. Science, social studies, art, music and physical education are being radically reduced in favor of math and English test prep. Teachers are having their autonomy and creativity taken away by canned lessons and pacing student learning to prepare for testing. These strategies are bought by districts that bring in outside ‘consultants’ who nurture the testing mania. How can we expect our students to think outside the box when their teachers are being crammed into a corner by threats, intimidation and coercion to go along with site and district policies and practices that are at the center of student mistreatment? Frightening teachers to conform to the corporate desire to control schools does nothing more than instill fear into their students so that they will also comply in becoming a generation of mindless workers, genuflecting at the behest of the likes of the Walton family, Bill Gates, and Eli Broad.

    Are we to dismiss these as isolated events or does the high-stakes testing atmosphere provide the motivations and opportunities for these and other ways of harming our students? This should become a wakeup call to look at each of our states/districts/schools for evidence that high-stakes testing is a silent disabler of our students, the effects of which they will bear in both their educational and personal lives. But I want to caution that some readers may not want to believe what is happening in these situations or be prone to dismiss it as trivial and of little consequence unless it can be validated that it is always and everywhere. All it takes is for one student to be so petrified as to throw up that I would wish that all detractors would spend that moment within that student’s inner being to experience what this testing mania is doing to just this one person. I think that would be enough.

    http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/09/rog_lucido_how_do_high_stakes_.html

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rich-White/100000066062155 Rich White

    While I’m not a big supporter of many of the new testing regimes there’s a case to be made that the teachers union had plenty of chances to introduce technology into classroom evaluation and management and to use technology to decrease costs and increase productivity and outcomes.
    The Luddites must die. Don’t defend the indefensible

    • Linda174

      You are ignorant on so many topics related to education. You don’t even know what you don’t know. What exactly is your experience in the teaching profession or are you merely bloviating again? Introduce technology for classroom management? Care to elaborate and enlighten all of us lowly public school teachers?

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rich-White/100000066062155 Rich White

        I’ll leave you to your abacus, 10 fingers and 10 toes to count your unon dues.
        Clearly there’s room for technology evangelists.
        My mission is clear. I’m off to watch Glenn Ford in “Blackboard Jungle” and heed the warnings on the perils of Rock and Roll and the Boob Tube as they replace Jazz and Books in the hearts and minds of youth. We are turning into a generation of Juvenile Delinquents we are.

      • Linda174

        You are a moron and you know nothing about any of us. Your stereotypes are nonsense and you are a fool.

      • Magister

        I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but most of his posts are just to get someone’s goat rather than to have a real debate.

      • Linda174

        You are very kind. I am not. He gets no benefits from me. I will ignore instead. I save my patience for the children…I have none left for bloviating, ignorant, pompous jerks. Goodnight.

      • Magister

        As opposed to Smart Board Jungle.

      • msavage

        Rich White likes to spout rhetoric and throw out insults, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him engage in intelligent debate or provide any kind of useful information/statistics. Kind of pathetic, in my opinion.

    • Magister

      Excessive technology gets in the way. Kids are already glutted on it to their detriment. Read The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein.

    • Sue

      If we had printers and computers with something newer than Microsoft 1900 your idea might be defensible.

  • begtodiffer

    If these reformers could witness the glazed eyes of students sitting in our classrooms day after day, getting spoon fed by rigourous curriculum mandated by the top heavy chiefs, leaving no room for creativity, leaving teachers burdened with neverending paperwork and documenting and analyzing test scores to drive instruction….blahblahblah…and our students are seeing that the only way out is to devise new, ingenious ways to cheat on these tests. There is too much pressure on everyone under the corporate masters whose agenda is to control and amass wealth, taking the taxpayer’s money away from where it needs to go…to enhance a child’s learning not by forcing tests on them, but by allowing them to learn and most importantly, allowing teachers to TEACH.

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