Mom spells out problems with PARCC Common Core test

By Valerie Strauss;  January 8, 2015; Washington Post

Sarah Blaine is a mother, former teacher and full-time practicing attorney in New Jersey. She just testified to the New Jersey Board of Education urging members to pull out of PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, which is one of the two multi-state consortia designing new Common Core standardized tests with some $360 million in federal funds. PARCC has been losing members as one state after another has withdrawn, choosing to use its own tests.

Blaine wrote on her blog, Parenting the Core, about the board meeting where about 100 parents, students, teachers, school board members, and other New Jersey professionals gathered at the River View Executive Building Complex in Trenton to “prove just how out of touch New Jersey Commissioner of Education David Hespe is with New Jersey parents, students, teachers, and community members.” She wrote:

In particular, as you may recall, David Hespe claimed that there was no opt-out or test refusal movement in New Jersey. Today, we proved him wrong. For those who don’t recall, on October 30, 2014, then Acting Commissioner Hespe issued guidance to school districts and charter school leaders in which he suggested (but did not require) that they institute punitive measures in an attempt to squelch New Jersey’s opt-out/test refusal movement before it got started. Hespe’s guidance backfired. Instead, he just pissed me — and countless other New Jersey parents — off…. (Hespe’s real boss is Governor Chris Christie, and there is no doubt in my mind that regardless of what the NJBOE does next, Hespe will continue to dance to PARCC’s tune until Governor Christie tells him to change course).

Blaine has written several popular posts published on this blog, including “Pearson’s wrong answer–and why it matters in the high-stakes testing era,” and “You think you know what teachers do. Right? Wrong.” Her daughter, 10-year-old Elizabeth Blaine, testified before the Montclair school board about the PARCC test, which you can read about here. She gave me permission to publish her testimony and other material.

Here’s her testimony (and you can watch the video of her delivering it below):

I am here today to urge New Jersey to join the other states that have pulled out of the PARCC consortium. Because my older daughter is a 4th grader, I have reviewed the 4th grade PARCC practice materials. I urge you to do the same. Based on my review and the detrimental test prep I’m seeing, I stand here today to tell you that the PARCC does not support the goals of taxpayer-funded public education.

Why do we pay for public education? We pay for education because democracy cannot function effectively unless citizens are sufficiently educated to conduct the business of democracy. Educated citizens evaluate issues within their broader historical and political contexts when they enter the election booth or the jury box.

Now, a happy by-product of educating citizens is that educated citizens are also prepared for college and career. But we taxpayers don’t pay to educate other people’s children because we want to educate the next Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet: rather, we pay for the education of all kids because when we are elderly and today’s kids are voting, we want them to vote thoughtfully.

The PARCC evaluates future employees; it does not educate citizens. Why?

Beyond appearing from its sample questions to be a terrible test, the PARCC only purports to test a narrow subset of what our children should be learning: their reading, writing, and math skills. In addition, New Jersey has attached high-stakes consequences — including teachers’ evaluations — to kids’ scores. This combination pressures teachers and schools to teach to the PARCC.

But when school time is spent on test prep, school time is not devoted to other, more worthy endeavors. When tests are high-stakes, if a topic won’t be tested, it isn’t taught. That is why the PARCC harms citizenship education.

So what don’t our kids do in school because of high-stakes testing such as the PARCC?

Well, I’m a New Jersey native who was educated in the Millburn Public Schools. When I was a 4th grader, our social studies theme was New Jersey. We were each assigned a county, and we spent weeks researching and writing about our counties. I had Cumberland County, which is why I know about New Jersey’s cranberry bogs. We studied Lenni Lenape society and built a model Lenni Lenape village. We learned a then-candidate for New Jersey state song — don’t worry, I won’t sing. We studied New Jersey colonial history and took a field trip to Allaire Village, where we learned about smelting iron. We even created a giant latchhook rug of a map of New Jersey’s 21 counties. Miss Shades’ fourth grade helped me on the road toward thoughtful citizenship.

I now have a fourth grader in the Montclair Public Schools. Her teachers are dedicated and caring. And their fourth grade social studies theme is also New Jersey. However, we’re now about halfway through the school year. My daughter hasn’t studied the Lenni Lenape or memorized New Jersey’s 21 counties. She hasn’t learned about cranberry bogs or iron ore. She hasn’t written a research report on a New Jersey county or latchhooked a map of New Jersey or learned a New Jersey song. She hasn’t taken a field trip to Allaire State Park or learned about colonial settlement of New Jersey.

Instead, she had a generic unit on map skills because reading a map might be tested on the PARCC. She gets to bubble in answers on “Common Core aligned” Scholastic News pamphlets. And she’s learned the states that comprise the Northeast. In half a school year, that’s been it for social studies.

But she’s had hours of PARCC preparation. She and her class have given up 6 class periods — with more scheduled — to learn how to drag and drop and use the PARCC protractor, even though they haven’t gotten to the study of angles in math class yet, so the kids don’t know what a protractor is. She’s brought home formulas for essay writing, which she’s required to follow, regardless of how bad the resulting writing is. She isn’t allowed to use the essay formulas as guides rather than rules, because Pearson’s essay graders will be looking for formulaic essays rather than compelling content.

PARCC test prep is not preparing her to be a thoughtful citizen. PARCC test prep is not using my tax dollars to ensure that she will be prepared to vote thoughtfully. PARCC test prep is not teaching her the American history she needs to know who FDR was, and why he said:

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

Testing: How Much Is Too Much?

Testing: How Much Is Too Much?   NOVEMBER 17, 2014 8:03 AM ET 

by ANYA KAMENETZ             NPR Ed

"In some places, tests — and preparation for them — are dominating the calendar and culture of schools and causing undue stress for students and educators."

The quote comes not from an angry parent or firebrand school leader but from Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Of course, he's the guy currently in charge of a big chunk of those tests: the No Child Left Behind requirement of annual standardized testing in grades 3-8, plus once during grades 10-12.

And those tests are just the start. Lately everyone from the president on down has been weighing in on the question: Are kids really being tested too much? And their answer, mostly, is a big "Yes."

President Obama said last month that he "welcomes" a pledge from state and big-city school leaders to work together to "cut back on unnecessary testing and test preparation."

The groups, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Council of the Great City Schools, announced the initial results of an attempt to quantify the current state of testing in America.

Their survey of large districts showed students taking an average of 113 standardized tests between pre-K and grade 12, with 11th grade the most tested.

Another recent study by the Center for American Progress looked at 14 school districts. It found that students in grades 3-8 take an average of 10, up to a high of 20, standardized assessments per year. That doesn't count tests required of smaller groups of students, like English-language learners.

What may be a little trickier is defining just which tests qualify as "unnecessary." The CCSSO survey describes testing requirements that have seemingly multiplied on their own without human intervention, like hangers piling up in a closet.

They found at least 23 distinct purposes for tests, including: state and federal accountability, grade promotions, English proficiency, program evaluation, teacher evaluation, diagnostics, end-of-year predictions, or to fulfill the requirements of specific grants.

They also found a lot of overlap, with some of these tests collecting nearly the same information.

Resources 'Sucked Up'

Kathleen Jasper left her post as an assistant principal of a Florida high school in early 2014 because, she says, of her mounting frustrations with testing. "I was being forced to implement bad education policy, especially with respect to testing," she said.

Florida is one of at least 36 states, by NPR Ed's count, that require or plan to require high school end-of-course exams in an array of subjects, as a condition of graduation.

If you want a high school diploma in the Sunshine State, you must pass tests in algebra, geometry, civics and U.S. history. That's on top of the state standardized tests (the FCAT) in math and reading, and every other test on the list.

These end-of-course tests are given throughout 10th, 11th and 12th grade, and each year there is time set aside for retakes. Schools, naturally, want to give students as many chances as possible to pass the tests, because the students need them to graduate.

The result? "I watched tests take up 40 to 50 percent of the year," says Jasper, who now maintains a blog and podcast about education. "Media centers were closed for the entire month of January. Laptops, every resource was sucked up into testing."

Debbie Brockett reports the same scenario unfolding on the other side of the country. She is the principal of Las Vegas High School, a 3,000-student, predominantly Hispanic and low-income school.

Nevada is another state that requires end-of-course exams, two each in reading and math.

"Thirty-seven percent of the month of October was taken up with testing," Brockett said. "And the same is true in March. January is another heavy testing month. But the test prep may kill us even more." She estimates one day entirely devoted to prep for every day of testing.

The average pass rate for an end-of-course exam at Brockett's school is 33 percent. That means most students have at least one retake, which are given several times a year. They may retake as many times as needed to pass, even as the material covered on the test fades farther and farther behind them.

"The kids who retake are the ones who need more instruction, but the more they retake, the less instructional time they get."

- Debbie Brockett, high school principal

"The kids who retake are the ones who need more instruction, but the more they retake, the less instructional time they get," she said.

These tests are not graded quickly. In some cases, a student who fails a test may have just a few days before the next retake — not enough time to work on what he or she got wrong.

Both Brockett and Jasper said test days disrupt an entire school. Even students who aren't sitting for a specific test may find themselves moved all over the building, or they may end up marking time watching movies for several days.

Signs Of Change

There may be a glimmer of change on the horizon. Individual districts, such as Palm Beach County in Florida, are voting to simplify testing requirements. And states including Rhode Island have adopted moratoriums on high-stakes, end-of-course exams.

The Center for American Progress report suggests that the shift to Common Core assessments, which are designed to be better aligned with instruction, could help eliminate duplication. Brockett is optimistic about that idea too.

"If we do this right, good instruction should lead to higher test scores, where every day that you teach, you're preparing," she said. "I can put that 30 to 40 percent [of time spent on prep] back into sound instruction."

But in the meantime, she says, testing is defining the school experience for thousands of students, and not in a positive way:

"Two weeks ago I talked to a kid who had just walked out of exams. He was very frustrated. He had tears in his eyes. He has Bs and Cs in chemistry, but he can't pass the science exam. If he doesn't pass, he doesn't graduate."

Flexible deadlines for student work????

Note: this piece is a lot longer than the piece which appeared in the Independent, which has a limit of 750 words                          

by Jim Buxton            

              I know of a number of schools which are adopting flexible deadlines for student work.  This seems to mean that homework due Tuesday could also be handed in on Wednesday, with “no charge”.  The logic seems to be that hard deadlines impact certain kids unjustly.  We’re asked to imagine the student who goes home from school, and then has to manage all the younger siblings while the single Mom works the night shift.  Wouldn’t it be more fair if that student could hand in homework on Wednesday if his Mom is home on Tuesday nights, and he can get work done then?   I would certainly agree in this case.  It is a reality that some students have much less support at home than others.  Although, some students get far too much help at home!

                Another argument in support of flexible deadlines is that kids learn at different rates.  What takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another student 90 minutes.  The first student may be able to complete it by Tuesday, while the other student will need the extra day and hand it in on Wednesday.  Another related argument is that it doesn’t matter whether they got it in on Tuesday or Wednesday, the important thing is that they learned the material, right?

                Although the aforementioned arguments do carry some weight, I wouldn’t recommend basing my classroom policies on these “exceptions to the rule.”  For most of my 32 years at South Kingstown HS, my policies were directed to the “flock”, and not to the “lost sheep.”  This may sound like a pretty insensitive policy coming from a pretty sensitive guy.  Let me explain my policies dealing with deadlines which I would employ in a “college prep, non-honors” class (perhaps 2/3 of the SKHS students during my tenure).

                Firstly, in regard to minor homeworks, they could not be turned in late.  However, I would drop the lowest homework each quarter.  So, if a student tells me that their dog ate their homework, I’d say (sensitively) that I was sorry they had such an insensitive dog, but lucky for them, they could drop their lowest homework.  In regard to more significant homeworks, essays and papers, they can be turned in, but they lost 2/3 of a grade per day late.  Therefore, if a student turned in a paper, valued for 100 points, one day late, the most they could get was a 93.

                Why the difference between minor homework and papers, for example?  This can be seen by looking at the problems resulting in accepting minor homeworks late:

                                1) Let’s say I’m teaching the causes of World War 1 on Monday, and on Monday night the students had homework relating to the assassination of the Archduke, and the declarations of war which were to follow.  On Tuesday, I had planned to review the course of the war, leading to a debate as to which country was most at fault for World War 1.  However, on Tuesday morning, I collect homework and only 5 out of the 20 students did it.  Only one quarter of the class understands how the war broke out.  What do I do?  Do I carry on with the Tuesday plan, or do I go over the Monday night content?  If I go over Monday night’s homework in class, doesn’t this do a disservice to the 5 kids that completed the homework?  If I carry on with the original plan, then 15 out of the 20 kids are lost.  Either way, because of the flexible homework policy, I don’t know what to expect on Tuesday.

                                My policy was that a deadline was a deadline, and if it was late, it was a zero.  As a result, I would say that I averaged 80 – 85% completed homework over my final 20 years of teaching.  (It took me a decade to get to this level)  Note:  a typical homework might be worth 30 points in a 700 point quarter.  It’s not the end of the world if you get a 0/30, but it does have an impact!  I would show the students the Mathematical impact, and most responded by getting the work done regularly.

                                2) Another problem I have is this.  My goal was to hand back the homework the next day.  I think most educators would agree that prompt feedback is crucial for student learning.  However, if I have loose deadlines, if I hand Monday night’s homework back on Tuesday, then couldn’t Johnny copy Mary’s returned homework, and hand it in on Thursday? Additionally, doesn’t that put Mary in a tough spot when Johnny demands she share her returned homework.  One could say that Johnny could also do this if Monday night’s homework was due on Tuesday, with no lateness allowed.  However, the difference is that I have both Mary and Johnny’s homework with me on Monday night, and I can check if there was any copying.  With flexible deadlines, the only way to ensure there was no copying is if I photocopied all homework handed in so I can tell if someone copied later on (that month??)

                                3) Another problem occurs when dealing with # 2 above.  Teachers will delay handing back homework until everyone has done it.  By the time the work is returned, students don’t even recognize it!!

                                4) Another problem resulting from flexible deadlines is that we cannot flip the classroom, as many suggest.  We can’t make class more interactive and dynamic because they didn’t do the work at home.  Student homework output drops, and teacher centered teaching is the result during class time.

                So, why do I have different lateness policies for papers, for example?  Firstly, papers might be weighted out of 100 in a 700 point quarter.  Getting a zero out of 100 would hurt one’s grade too drastically.  Thus, you can hand it in late, but for 7 points off per day.  I would note that major papers are not returned the next day, therefore the copying issue is not a concern.  Additionally, the paper is a culminating (summative) activity, whereas the minor homework is formative, therefore the formative assessment (homework)  can be used to track the progress of the class as a whole or of individuals within it.

                Now there are some that argue that formative assessments should not count for your grade.  I disagree with that policy as it would lead to all the problems mentioned earlier.  For more on formative assessments, see the Blog post on that topic.

                Lastly, perhaps the most important reason for hard deadlines is because that’s the way the world is!  For the most part, if your boss says get it to me by Tuesday, he/she means Tuesday, not Thursday or next Tuesday!  If the first class at your high school is supposed to start at 7:35, you’re not going to be looked on with favor if you frequently show up at 8 AM.  Additionally, if a high school senior has flexible deadlines, then what happens when he goes to URI where a deadline is a deadline?  I heard that one principal said that it’s not the high school’s job to prepare the kids for URI.

                 Having stated my case, I have to acknowledge that this policy may not work as well in a culture where students just do not do homework.  Therefore, I would accentuate that the policies above worked well for me with the top two tiers of SK classes (which covered about 80% of SKHS students during my tenure.)  With the lowest of the three tiers, these policies did not work as well.  I grant you that.  However, if this is so, then I think it is unwise to make policies geared for the lowest tier which would be applied for the entire student body.

                 Homework deadline policies should be made with the flock in mind, and separate policies should be, sensitively enacted for the "lost sheep."