"Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?" - Isabel Paterson
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." - George Santayana
Croydon Village School Board Meeting, tonight, at the little white school house, at 6:45 p.m.
Cathy
“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled
with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of
paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish
waters through a marsh, without either honour or observation.”
Walter Scott
The follow was sent to Fosters.com, by a PhD level researcher. Smarter Balance Testing should be an opt-in testing. Have you asked your school board members for an opt-in rather than opt out process?
Cathy
"Great cycles of history began with vigorous cultures awakening to the
needs of children, but collapsing with frayed family ties. Have we
failed to learn lessons which Ancient China, Greece and Rome learned too
late - about day care and death houses for old folks? Do we without
protest accept accelerating preschool and nursing home cultures which
warn ominously that the earlier you institutionalize your child, the
earlier he will institutionalize you!" - Raymond S. Moore, Ph.D.
School Test Unethical and Invalid
Posted Apr. 7, 2015 at 3:11 PM
To the editor: I am writing to
commend Shawna and David Coppola of Madbury for their decision to opt
their children out of the Smarter Balanced assessment at the Oyster
River School District, and to invite other families to follow suit. It
is my intention to do the same with my own children.
I
am a PhD level educational researcher who studies learning. My
opposition to Smarter Balanced is driven by two main reservations: (1)
U.S. families have, since 2001, been unwitting participants in a
educational research project at an unprecedented scale, with activist
reformers and legislators pushing market-based reforms underwritten by a
punitive system of testing. Smarter Balanced represents the latest wave
of data collection in this widespread experiment. As a researcher, I am
subject to Institutional Review Board scrutiny anytime I use
psychometric assessments of learning, and it is required practice to
secure consent from research participants and to let them opt out at any
time with no penalty. Smarter Balanced is such an assessment and should
be held to the same ethical standard as all research on human subjects,
in which seeking consent is mandatory.
(2)
Smarter Balanced is claimed to be a valid assessment of learning. This
is false in one crucial respect: Standardized tests have been shown
repeatedly to lack ecological validity. In educational research,
validity refers to a test’s ability to measure what it claims to
measure, and not something else. Above all else, standardized tests
measure children’s ability to take standardized tests. There is little
correspondence between this ability and the ability to proficiently
learn and perform complex tasks in normal environments. I do not
necessarily fault the designers of Smarter Balanced for this problem, as
it is a common mistake in educational research due to inadequate
training. Nonetheless, because Smarter Balanced – and all similar
metrics – cannot approximate real-life situations in which people are
called upon to learn, it lacks validity in precisely the domain it
purports to measure.
I regard Smarter Balanced
as part of a nationwide system of compulsory participation in
unethically managed, invalid research. The Coppolas are wise to exercise
their rights to opt out.
Special Education Department publishes list grading parents on ‘cooperativeness’
TEWKSBURY-
Tewksbury Public Schools face angry parental backlash following the
release of private student information online last week. A document
included in a 222-page School Committee packet remained online for the
better part of a week, before being taken down Monday.
Awareness of the data, which details private
information for the out of district placements of 83 students and rates
their parents according to their “cooperativeness” with the district,
raised outrage on social media over the weekend.
In December the district blamed a projected $2
million shortfall for FY2016 on ‘skyrocketing’ out of district costs,
and said that it could not implement a proposed free full-day
kindergarten program as a result. That action generated distrust and
backlash by the special education community, and this most recent
release of data has parents ready to file complaints at the state and
federal levels.
The seven-page memo from Rick Pelletier, Director
of Student Services, to the Superintendent was included in the School
Committee packet as part of its budget justification package last week.
The memo includes a spreadsheet that listed all the students with out of
district placements – and also included a ranking on ‘parental
cooperativeness.’ The amount of data included could indicate a violation
of state and federal law.
The list, which replaces student names with
numbers, remains in alphabetical order. Information included the
student’s current grade, the out-of-district school, the last school
attended, the year the student began attending the new school,
information on whether or not the decision was made by the IEP team, a
legal settlement (typically kept strictly confidential), or if the
student moved in from another town, and miscellaneous detail such as the
involvement of the Department of Children and Families, passage of MCAS
assessments, and more.
The office of Student Services also published its
rating of parents according to their ‘cooperativeness with the
district.’ Parents rated a ‘1’ are cooperative, ‘2’ somewhat
cooperative, and those rated ‘3’ are ‘not cooperative.’
The Town Crier could easily identify seven
families included in the list, and was contacted by others that could
identify more families based on the material in the sheet. The Town
Crier will not publish the names of the families, nor the document, out
of consideration for the privacy of the families and in accordance with
state and federal law.
I hope parents soon realize that many school employees just think of you as a money source, and pawns in their little jobs program that they want to maintain for themselves. They are not as concerned about education as they are about keeping their cushy jobs, benefits package, and retirement packages. They just want people to shut up and do as they say.
1) Number 1: It’s a really bad test… See here for yourself… Take your child’s test….
2) 70% of children will fail this test because they won’t be able to
understand what the test is asking… or get past the horrendously
complicated computer skills necessary to add and subtract.
3) This test will be permanently etched on your child’s school record
and will carry from employer to employer for the rest of your child’s
life. It will be part of their official transcript, and sold to vendors
interested in your child’s data.
4) Forcing children to undergo testing for very high stakes, is
damaging in itself, They are not adults. But to do it for the sole
reason to make them “think” they are under-performing, is simply cruel..
No religion of today, can endorse any child taking these tests. These
tests are immoral.
5) There are no accommodations worthy of mention for children with
disabilities. They may be geniuses, but not being able to manipulate a
keyboard, they will turn in zeros. This is due to design. The testing
regime does not want handicap children to succeed because it deflates
the value of the test.
6) The English portion of this test uses the north-midwestern dialect
to determine all right from wrong. When taking these tests, the South
does bad (both white and black), inner cities do bad, the West does
bad, immigrant cultures do bad, simply because they do not use the same
accent as do north Midwesterners (mealy mouths) and therefore tend to
use pauses (commas), and word choices that appear more natural and
ascetic to us with the dialects we’ve grown up under. ( The test has
four fully correct responses; You are to guess which of the four is the
“best” answer, a fully subjective exercise).
7) The test is divisive. Those who pass can go onward to the rewards
of a good life. Those who fail, must undergo retraining and more
retraining, and are marked down as permanent laggers with no hope for a
well paying job.
8) The test has nothing to do with children. It’s sole excuse is to
provide a reason to privatize public schools. By making public schools
look horrible, they open a market for private investment which can offer
something better. One needs to look at two schools in Delaware for
proof.. Two of the famed priority schools were rated exceptional by an
independent agency out of the University of Delaware, which under old
law, was charged with the responsibility of determining if failing
schools were improving… Two that were, were included in the priority
schools. And get this… The Secretary of Education is refusing to accept
that independent agency’s verdict? Why? BECAUSE THEY PROVED HIM WRONG FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD TO SEE!!!
If he accepts their verdict, it would prove to all he accepted his
vision and path are the wrong path for education to go down.. (They
are; but don’t expect him to ever admit it… he’d then be fired)…
9) Child psychologists across this nation almost to the tune of 100%
have said this test is child abuse… They have likened it to making
toddlers who can’t jump a 3 foot high jump bar, be forced to jump a 5
foot bar… Then use intimidation, fear, brutality, high-stakes
punishment, and other forms of psychological trauma and force them to
fail. Then fire their coach because they didn’t meet (a brand new,
ridiculous) standard. The Smarter Balanced Test is set two grades
higher than what your child has learned… If he is in 3rd grade, his test
will reflect the level of a 5th grade test… If in 5th grade, he is
being tested on a 7th grade level…
10) This test is actually in spirit, breaking the law… The US
Department of Education is forbidden by statute to interfere with
curriculum of any school. So they farmed it out to private
corporations. These curriculums are copyrighted and only those private
companies sanctioned, may use the material. The Feds then withheld
money to schools and districts, unless districts acquiesced to acquiring
the curriculum. Very few districts, (we have one in Christina) had the
balls to refuse the money and the strings attached. So whereas the
Fed’s did not “imposed” their curriculum on schools, the arrangement is
such, that the curriculum the Feds wanted used, due to situations
created by the Feds, are being used under the name of Common Core.
11) This test is damaging to children’s learning… As previously
mentioned herein, scientists have said that Common Core attempts to
teach at levels too advanced for a developing young child’s brain. The
brain builds a core and that core stores basic facts… Such as one plus
one equals two… If those principles are not put in at that particular
time, the brain is forever deficient of being able to perform that task…
Basically the child goes through life never knowing that one plus one
equals two; but will always have to use another method everytime he
needs to calculate to determine every new time that one plus one will
equal two… Scientists warn that Common Core will make the next
generation completely mathematically illiterate because everything in
life depends upon the relationship between numbers. There is a
biological reason we memorize things as unrelated facts. Without that
memorization at the proper time, that core never exists.
12) This test is unconstitutional.. The Constitutionality of this
nation is solidly based upon the fact that “We, the People” in order to
form a more perfect union, elect representatives to make policy that
affects our lives. If they do wrong, we replace them with someone who
will undo that damage. No elected representative ever had any imput on
this test. No elected representative ever saw the test, and said, yes
that is a good thing…. What did happen, was that private companies
created the test without allowing teachers, parents, or trained
educators to input opinions. Those few educators hand picked to give the
test credibility, all said that they and other educational experts were
ignored in the making of the test., Every single one has spoken out
against this test. Every single one said their opinions were ignored,
dissed, and the test makers did what they wanted to do anyways… The
creator of the test, had never even raised children…
13) This test was never debated in public. There are some things
very wrong here. But required legislation was maneuvered through
legislature with no debate… Using all tricks at a speaker’s disposal,
this was pushed into law before anyone other then a handful of people
even knew what it was about… One legislator who voted for it, said he
never even read the bill. It was too complex. He just took them at
their word… As with being rushed into a marriage with a groom you do
not know, sometimes the best option is to just say no….
Opt out of this test.
14) if this test were a good test, one that did really good things…
despite all the other secondary arguments, we would not be having this
argument about implementing it… Maybe some people out there would still
object, but not absolutely every one who has taken this test and experienced it firsthand. You
really need to see what the fuss is all about… You need to take the
test… Once you do, you will join us and opt out your child from taking
the Smarter Balanced Assessment… I’m almost guaranteed that… Because no
one really HATES their own child so much as to purposefully subject them to this,… what has realistically been called, … a form of torture.
Many parents are having their children opt out of standardized test. The following letter appears in full on Google.com.
Many parents are opting out for many reasons, for more information about common core and standardized testing in New Hampshire visit Stop Common Core in New Hampshire.
Letter to my Daughter’s Teacher: Why We’re Opting her out of the State Tests
Dear Grace,
It is with the highest level of respect for you that I’m writing to inform you that Haven will not participate in the state mandated standardized tests this April. Using student test scores to rate and rank students and teachers is an ethically unsound practice and is degrading to the profession of teaching.
This year I have been in awe of your incredible skills as Haven’s teacher, and I know that no standardized test can come even close to capturing what she has learned in your classroom. Furthermore, your bravery and resolve in the face of the top down pressures from the State of New York may weigh on you, but you do not let that determine your curricular decisions. Instead you teach with your heart and soul, and your excitement has ignited Haven’s passion for social studies, reading, writing, and mathematics. No standardized test can measure the spirited dinner conversations Haven has initiated this year about immigration, thanks to your elaborately designed integrated social studies curriculum. I listen carefully as Haven describes class field trips in New York City, her excitement about historical fiction, and her deep analysis of primary sources and questions regarding privilege, prejudice and access. I cannot count the number of times Haven has greeted me at the door with, “Mom, did you know…?!” No test could possibly be designed to measure the multitude of ways in which she extends the investigations you start in class, or document the initiation she has taken to write her own books at home about the immigrants living in her mind. Her learning is demonstrated in her written work, performance of role-plays, various conversations, not to mention your regular curriculum newsletters, extensive and detailed narrative reports, and personal emails. Watching Haven learn this year has deepened my own commitment to preparing teachers to design integrated curriculum that examines enduring questions and takes up multiple perspectives. Haven’s learning is travelling far beyond the walls of your single classroom. I do not need a test score to validate her learning this year.
Everyone needs an option other than public schools. The following article appeared on EAGNews.org
STUDY: Black home schooled students outperform white public schoolers Kyle Olson
Kyle founded Education Action Group in 2007.
Find Kyle on Twitter.
SALEM, Ore. – A new study proves all students can learn – provided they’re in the right setting.
A new analysis of standardized test data
conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute reveals
black home schooled students outperformed white children in public
schools.
“The Black homeschool children’s high achievement test scores were
remarkable. Parents without teaching certificates helping their children
from a traditionally low-achieving minority group excel this way should
cause all educators and social advocacy groups to take special note,”
Dr. Brian Ray, the researcher and president of NHERI, says in a news release.
Ray looked at black home schooling families nationwide and children
who learned by that educational option for more than half their
school-age lives.
According to NHERI:
These Black homeschool students’
achievement test scores were quite high, all things considered. They
scored at or above the 50th percentile in reading (68th), language
(56th), math (50th), and core (i.e., a combination of reading, language,
and math; 58th) subtests. By definition, the 50th percentile is the
mean for all students (of all ethnicities/races) nationwide in
institutional public schools.
After controlling for the gender and family socioeconomic status of
students, Ray’s analysis found home schoolers had an effect size in
reading scores of about 42 percentile points higher than children
educated in a government school.
For language, home schoolers outpaced public schooled whites by about
26 percentile points. For math, being homeschooled had an effect size
of about 23 percentile points higher than if they attended a government
school.
NHERI reports some of the top reasons black parents gave for home schooling their children:
* “Prefer to teach the child at home so that you can provide religious or moral instruction,” * “Accomplish more academically than in conventional schools,” * “For the parents to transmit values, beliefs, and worldview to the child,” * “To customize or individualize the education of each child,” and * “Want to provide religious or moral instruction different from that taught in public schools.”
Other research indicates black families have increasingly been moving
towards home schooling. Rates have increased 127 percent over the last
four years, according to the Heartland Institute.
“I wonder how teachers unions, African American advocacy groups,
certified teachers, public school administrators, and professors of
education will look at these findings. Will they start encouraging Black
families to homeschool?” Ray asks.
I have never understood why more teachers are not busted for racketeering. I was glad to see these teachers finally get convicted.
Teachers in Atlanta cheating scandal hear verdicts
Last Updated Apr 1, 2015 4:09 PM EDT
ATLANTA -- Eleven former Atlanta public
school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role
in a wide-ranging conspiracy to inflate scores on students'
standardized tests.
Only one teacher was acquitted of all charges.
The 11 convicted represented teachers, testing coordinators and other
administrators who were accused of participating in the conspiracy
dating to 2005, motivated by pressure to meet federal and local
standards to receive bonuses or keep their jobs in the Atlanta Public
Schools district of about 50,000 students.
Former
Dobbs Elementary school teacher Dessa Curb and her defense attorney,
Sanford Wallack, listen in Fulton County Superior Court March 19, 2015.
AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson
The
teacher acquitted of all charges, Dessa Curb, was found not guilty of a
racketeering charge and two charges of false statements, CBS Atlanta affiliate WGCL-TV reports.
When
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter asked for the guilty
teachers to be taken into custody, their attorneys were quick to argue,
but the judge held firm.
