Thursday, April 26, 2012

Getting Testy About Tests

---after I sent the parents and teachers on our shared community-based listserve the reports about testing errors and the new directions that were shipped out... A teacher responded referring to the 32 million Pearson contract... "So now we are at 32 million plus shipping and handling!?"--- NYC teacher

The NY Daily News was right. There is a Pineapple in charge of state testing.
---- Diane Ravitch

Or maybe a Yam in charge ---- see below

Did you hear Merryl Tisch on Brian Lehrer today? Boy an I increasingly disappointed in Brian who basically let her filibuster her way through the interview. She put down cosmetology as a legit career --- she must be a beauty school dropout.

Brian didn't challenge her on aiding and abetting the closing of so many vocational programs and schools by the BloomShmucks though he did raise the point about going back to different diplomas. On the global studies he let her get away with saying they have to complete the course work, an obfuscation of the talk about dropping the regent test requirement. Sure, do away with the high stakes test that make your policies look very bad indeed but "require" the course -- with a bit of credit recovery I can see 100% grad rates -- and 100% remediation rates. Good call-in from Verne though (who I've met) on the fact he is sending his kid to private kindergarten due to high stakes testing. Wouldn't it be great if Tisch ran for mayor?

Here are some reactions today to the statewide tests today. More fun and games. And 2 more days to go.

NYC elementary school special ed teacher

1. The city scheduled tree pruning complete with mulching machines on our school block during testing time today. The noise was ridiculous and not conducive to testing to say the least. Can't make this @#*! Up.

2. This one is truly unbelievable: I serve children who have intellectual disabilities and therefore take alternate assessments as dictated by their IEPs. The alternate assessments are required/scheduled according to their birthday. This year I had 4 children who are technically third graders, but only two reached the date cut off for the alternate assessment age requirement. So, what comes in the mail for the two that are too young still for the AA? 3rd grade state ela and math grids of course! Why? Well bc they are 3rd graders and "there has to be some form of accountability for them at the school level". Obviously we did not give them the tests, but no one, anywhere, apparently knows how to fix this glitch and if it is not fixed before the various accountability reports are due and done we will be "penalized" with two non-scorers. The amount of time just spent on this one issue has been tremendous.

The inefficiency, mismanagement, and down right stupidity astounds me.

Also, I thought this was a chuckle worthy comment after I sent the parents and teachers on our shared community-based listserve the reports about testing errors and the new directions that were shipped out... A teacher responded referring to the 32 million Pearson contract... "So now we are at 32 million plus shipping and handling!?"

Would be funny if it wasn't reality. But don't worry, the folks Tisch talks to says all is well... Right, for other people's children and the middle class taxpayers who are footing the bill.

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It is far more likely that the 8th grade error was mathematical than it was typographical. (consider, if you will, the number of typographical errors that NYSED has claimed for reading and ELA exams - none in my lifetime, and the number they claim for math.) --- ---Jonathan

They claim every error is typographical. Both NYSED press guy and Merryl Tisch today on WNYC said, of course there are going to be mistakes when you are giving exams to 5 Million students; as though each test was separately typed.
----Leonie Haimson

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Steven Katz, Director of State Assessment gets a 0 as his DSA Data Report

Re 4^th grade math: “Question 58 on all test forms has two correct answers. If during this test any student asks about Question 58, proctors may advise the student that there are two correct answers to this question.”

And:

Re 8^th grade math: “Due to a typographical error, there is no correct answer to Question 13 on this test form. Proctors may tell students before the test begins that there is no correct answer for this question and students should mark any answer to this question on their answer sheets. Because it is an embedded field test question, Question 13 does not count toward students’ scores.”

From a principal:

In latest email to principals from state ed (last night after 5pm) there were two attachments re mistakes in the 8th and 4th grade math. I am attaching the attachments here. One thing that is completely puzzling is that in the case of the 8th grade exam it says you should announce in advance that there is one question with no answer, but in the 4th you are only allowed to tell that there is a question with two answers if a child asks! …..

Included in Houghton-Mifflin test prep materials. Reportedly some kids cheered when they heard the “listening” passage.

After controversy over pineapple question on city schools test, a question about a yam stirs new troubles

Some students had seen the story that the question was based on

Comments (5)

By Rachel Monahan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 10:18 PM

Description:
Tuber troubles on city schools test.

Photo by AP

Tuber troubles on city schools test.
Move over pineapple -- the yam talked, too.

The state’s fourth-grade reading test included an African folk tale about a talking yam, even though versions of the story appeared in test prep books used in city schools, the Daily News has learned.
While the passage isn’t confusing like one about a talking pineapple yanked from the tests last week, critics charge that using a listening-comprehension passage that was required reading at some schools offered an unfair edge to those students.
“That’s very lazy and sloppy on the part of the testing company,” said education historian Diane Ravitch. “Two big mistakes of this kind — the talking pineapple and the talking yam — makes a strong argument for public release of all the test questions.”
RELATED: TALKING PINEAPPLE QUESTION ON STATE EXAM STUMPS ... EVERYONE!
The folk tale involves a farmer startled by his talking yam. Everyone he meets dismisses him as crazy and insists the tubers can’t talk -- including, amusingly, other mute objects like a fish, melon and chair.
But a version of the yam story appears in a fourth-grade Houghton Mifflin reader and other test prep material available for city schools to purchase, officials said.
State Education spokesman Jonathan Burman strenuously dismissed the criticisms of testing contractor Pearson for using the passage, noting the questions were unique to the state exam.
“It is absurd to suggest that a passage cannot be used on an exam simply because some students may have previously read that passage,” he said.
“Using that logic, we would be unable to ask children to read and answer questions about Dr. King's ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.”
Brooklyn’s PS 273 principal Melessa Avery said one of her fourth-grade classes used a test prep book with the talking yam story, but she said the test questions required a lot critical thinking.
rmonahan@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/controversy-pineapple-question-city-schools-test-a-question-a-yam-stirs-troubles-article-1.1066971#ixzz1t4GmCoqk

No comments:

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Extended