Showing posts with label FairTest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FairTest. Show all posts

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Testing reform in the news: June 6-12, 2013

From Fair Test:

Many major stories about assessment reform progress this week -- Texas significantly reduces standardized exam mandates; a rally in Albany opposes testing overkill, and major national groups call for a moratorium on Common Core tests.

All our weekly newsblasts are posted on the web at http://www.fairtest.org/news/other - this one will be up shortly.

Texas Governor Signs Bill Eliminating Two-Thirds of Required High-Stakes Exams

http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2013/06/perry-signs-bill-to-reduce-high-stakes-testing/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/10/texas-governor-signs-legislation-to-reduce-standardized-testing/
Rebellion Against a Culture of Testing Bubbles Over
http://www.summitdaily.com/news/6810995-113/texas-state-testing-bubbles

Thousands Protest Standardized Exam Overkill in State Capitol Demonstration
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20130608/NEWS01/306080043
Why we Rallied Against High-States Testing -- OpEd by a former school
superintendent
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/ricken-too-much-emphasis-on-school-standardized-tests-1.5424228
"Stop the Madness Song" Highlights Anti-Testing Rally
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Campus-Notebook-Testing-protest-meant-to-strike-4584931.php

North Carolina Governor: Public School Students Take Too Many Tests
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/06/05/2941170/gov-mccrory-public-school-students.html

Oklahoma Lifts Testing Requirement for Learning Disabled Students
http://www.news9.com/story/22553805/new-legislation-changes-testing-requirements-for-special-needs-students

MSNBC High-Stakes Testing Protest Overview
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755822/ns/msnbc-the_ed_show/vp/52151738/#52151738

Major Ed Groups Support Moratorium on Common Core High-Stakes Tests
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/06/common-core-supporters-back-moratorium-on-new-tests-high-stakes/
Unwrapping the Flawed Common Core Tests
http://andreagabor.com/2013/06/03/unwrapping-new-york-states-new-common-core-tests/
Common Core Collides with "Education Spring"
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/?p=716&preview=true
See FairTest Common Core fact sheet "More Tests, But Not Much Better"
http://www.fairtest.org/common-core-assessments-more-tests-not-much-better

Parents Bill Pearson for School Time Wasted on Field Tests
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rEIh17ceiWc/UbJVly6ntpI/AAAAAAAAMvI/JtgJVFbOOZ8/s1600/Invoice+to+Pearson.jpg

Teachers Open Letter to Pearson: Send Profits Back to the Classroom http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/06/05/33tanenbaum.h32.html

Pearson Field Tests Earn an "F"
 http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/An-exam-that-gets-an-F-from-critics-4581122.php

Great Neck School Board Adopts Resolution Blasting Over-Testing
http://www.theislandnow.com/great_neck/article_26cc3ec6-ceb4-11e2-af0a-001a4bcf887a.html
Read the Great Neck Resolution
http://www.greatneck.k12.ny.us/gnps/pages/TestingResolution2013.pdf
Sign the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing
http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/

Third Graders Slam School Time Wasted on Testing in Letters to New York
Governor
http://newyork.newsday.com/news/nation/rockland-kids-slam-state-exams-write-to-cuomo-we-re-only-in-third-grade-for-heaven-sakes-1.5415097?qr=1

Indiana Computerized Exam Should Fail Independent Test
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-istep-failure-shouldn-t-pass-outside-test/article_428d4d4f-1b90-5912-8add-c001b5f1fc81.html

Local School Board Opposes Rhode Island State Grad Test Plan
http://www.heraldnews.com/newsnow/x793338210/Tiverton-School-Committee-blasts-NECAP-requirement-in-meeting-with-state-officials#axzz2W0b62ss0

Jeb Bush's "A to F" School Grading Scam Hurts High-Poverty Districts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/07/superintendent-virginias-new-a-f-school-grading-system-will-hurt-high-poverty-districts/

Play the Value-Added Evaluation Game or Help Your Students?
http://edge.ascd.org/_Play-the-Evaluation-Game-or-Help-Your-Students-You-Must-Choose/blog/6532486/127586.html

More Ed. Leaders Should Fight Damaging School "Reforms"
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/06/why_arent_more_school_leaders_fighting_against_ed_reform.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS2

Asking the Right Questions to Close Achievement Gaps
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/210647341.html?page=1&c=y

An Alternative Vision of Real School Reform
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/civic_mission/2013/06/extraordinary_people.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-TW
Final Installment of Excellent Video Series "A Year at Mission Hill" --
The Impact of Testing Mandates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VduHn6GmVt4&feature=youtube

Sign a New Declaration to Overhaul Test-Driven Schooling
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2013/06/in_counter_to_joyless_schools_%20coalition_demands_supports_based_reform.html

Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
ph- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779
cell- (239) 699-0468
web- http://www.fairtest.org/

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Videos: FairTest Honors Diane Ravitch with the Deborah W. Meier Hero in Education Award, June 7, 2012

 Ravitch and Meier and Monty Neill plus Weingarten and Mulgrew in the same space, Plus lots of super attendees. So far the ed social event of the season for me.

Love was in the air to such an extent at this event, I even gave Randi Weingarten a hug. And smiled at Mulgrew. After all, being in the same space with Debbie Meier and Diane Ravitch is a very special occasion, especially as it was a fundraiser for a worthy organization. You know I just found buried in my archives a book by Debbie that I was reading around 1971 when I gave up my dream of an open classroom in frustration. I have followed her career since then but only got to meet her 5 years ago.

FAIR TEST has been leading the battle against high stakes tests for a quarter of a century and  its director Monty Neill has been a major voice in the struggle, which if you have been following this blog you know has been heating up (Police Estimate 400 at Pearson Field Test Protest). It was the best $75 I've spent in a long time.

It was just a few short hours before we found out Walker had won in Wisconsin. And though I think that big labor bears part of the responsibility, the evening of good feeling transcended it all. Feeling a great deal of labor solidarity I had a brief but nice chat with Randi.




The entire video is worth an hour of your time and you can watch it at https://vimeo.com/43587373.

I also cut it into 4 chunks for those short on time.

I'm embedding this 19 minutes piece when Deb and Diane did a version of their Edweek (Bridging Differencesblog to end the evening. Just priceless stuff.

Meier and Ravitch in Conversation



FairTest Award - Meier and Ravitch in Conversation from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Here are other segments:


Deborah Meier Introduces Diane Ravitch
https://vimeo.com/43747985
Diane Ravitch Acceptance Speech
https://vimeo.com/43748488
And in this segment I collated all the other speakers:
Michael Mulgrew, Ann Cook, Monty Neill, Randi Weingarten
https://vimeo.com/43759471

The battle against high stakes tests has been in the forefront of Ed Notes from way back to our print publishing beginnings in 1996 when I was still working at a school that had been led since 1979 by a test/data driven principal (yes, even in those days) and I saw first hand what that did to deform education as the ability of teachers to control what they taught was being taken out of their hands. Thus, the issue was a key when ICE, followed by GEM were formed. The GEM committee, Change the Stakes, which began as a teacher dominated group has shifted into much of a parent/teacher group, with the sensibilities of both points of view making it stronger. Of course many teachers are also parents.

Also, on June 7, the afternoon of the Pearson rally, the education committee of MORE, the new caucus in town, held a great session on chapters 8 and 9 of Ravitch's book, with a depth of analysis that delved into what Ravitch left out and what she nailed with an intellectual rigor I haven't experienced in a while. In the room were some new teachers and some veteran ICE people, along with some NYCORE and GEM. Quite a mix -- the next meeting is June 21 (which I can't attend because we are having a party in honor of my dad where we will serve samples all of his favorite foods -- and have a barf bag ready just in case).

One major group we have to convince to get involved are the very people we work with. Organized, teachers can fight back against this testing mania and while the UFT/AFT make noises, they do nothing at the school level to get some pushback --- like how about getting a movement going to boycott some of the crap teachers have to do that has little relation to the children -- the waste of time monitoring crap?