PARCC Season Brings Desperate Actions by NJ Administrators. Again.

This time last year, as the NJ Department of Education (NJDOE) was cracking down on districts with high refusal rates, administrators across the state started doing some truly crazy and not well thought out things to students. I wrote two posts about it. You can read those posts here and here. 

Unfortunately, this year, we are already hearing stories from all over the state. Let me remind everyone this test still has not been validated. It's still hasn't even been run two years in a row. And, the supporting "evidence" of validity NJDOE claims, are not. You can read about that here. 

The story below was brought to my attention by parents who are deeply troubled by their children being used as pawns. Parental word should have been enough. What occurred goes to the very heart of trust. In this case, trust is now lost. Our children deserve so much better than this. 

In preparation for administering the PARCC test, many schools are testing their systems to see if it can handle the technology before the actual test. If you have not sent your letter in yet, the Save Our Schools NJ's refusal form (found here) has been used by parents for the past few years and it clearly states:

"I/we, ______refuse to allow our child(ren), ______, to participate in the following: PARCC Performance-Based Assessments, PARCC End-Of-Year Assessments, (and) Any test-prep activities, computer- or paper-based, associated with or designed to prepare for PARCC assessments". 

There is a growing group of angry parents in Washington Township (Gloucester County). Last year, this school district was first in South Jersey to write a resolution against the PARCC test. Several parents have tried to use the refusal form from the Save Our Schools NJ website and it was rejected by some of the administrators within the district. In its place, the administration has handed out a form the district tried to enforce last year against parents’ wishes. 

During the 2015-16 school year, the district asked parents to come in for meetings. If they could not come in, a phone conference was needed and the district supplied the form for parents to sign. Many parents refused to sign the form due to its content. The Board of Education explained their stance at a Spring work session, stating that parents do not need a meeting, do not need a phone conference, and do not need to sign a form. This year it seems all of that is forgotten. 

This year, parents have been told the form letter is a directive from Central Administration. Parents have been receiving returned refusal letters along with the school supplied form letter stamped "Do Not Duplicate". The district is also claiming there is a March 1st deadline to refuse. Parents who refused last year are not being asked to come in and talk, but parents who are new to refusing are being asked to come in. All in direct contradiction to last year’s statement from the Board of Education.

A parent reached out to one of our organizers because their child was asked to participate in the practice testing even though the refusal letter was sent in. The letter clearly stated that the child was not to participate in testing the test and was not to log in. 
The student had to explain to the teachers that their parents refused PARCC and the practice tests. The teachers explained to the student that it was not counting towards anything.  The young student again had to explain to the two teachers this was not what their family wanted. 

The school administrator put the student in detention, which is usually reserved for students who are being punished.

Two things are wrong with this; 1. If a parent says no, two adults should not be pressuring the child to go against their parents’ wishes. 2. Why on earth would a child be placed in a punishment room for refusing?

The explanation given to the parent was the school did not put the student in detention to punish - they had to think quickly of a place to put the child before the test.
The school had the refusal already, so being unprepared for the child is a questionable response. Also, refusing children last week were told they were going to be placed in internal/restriction during the testing. That was changed after parents found out. Families were told the students were going to watch a movie in the drama room, but instead the refusing students sorted colored pencils. Does that seem like a good use of class time? 

Believe it or not, this parent's child got off easy. Other parents who refused for their children are now furious that their children were not with this student in the restriction room. Why, you ask? This may shock you, but their children were forced to take the test against their parents’ wishes.

NJ State Board of Ed Ignores Public Testimony

If the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) and the New Jersey State Board of Ed (NJSBOE) are not listening to the public, who are they listening to? What is their reaction to all of our testimony? NJDOE provided responses to testimony when they released the August 3rd agenda and this is what stood out for me.

In some cases they simply disagreed and said so. In other cases, they had some interesting citations to back up their claims related to validity. And, for the special education-related comments, clarification of just who is in control of the graduation requirements for students with IEPs.

One comment, in particular, stuck out (besides the ones that were aimed at me) because the testimony belonged to Dr. Eric Milou, a Rowan University professor, recipient of the Max Sobel Outstanding Mathematics Educator Award, former president of Association of Mathematics Teachers of New Jersey (AMTNJ) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This is exactly the kind of education professional this board should have been listening to, but this is their response:

40. COMMENT: The commenter stated there is no evidence the PARCC assessment is an improvement over previous standardized tests, raises student performance, provides useful diagnostic information, or indicates career or college readiness.  The commenter also stated only rigorous curriculum, instruction, and the use of formative assessments will have a significant impact on student educational success. (99)

RESPONSE: Several studies (e.g., National Network of State Teachers of the Year, 2015; Massachusetts Executive Office of Education, 2015; Center for American Progress, 2016; Fordham/Human Resources Research Organization, 2016; American Institutes for Research, 2016) have supported PARCC as an accurate measure of college and career readiness and endorsed PARCC as an improvement over previous assessments.

Dr. Milou got right to the heart of what's wrong with standardized tests in general and what's wrong with PARCC specifically. It doesn't actually provide the information that's being claimed. As we pour millions of tax dollars into a highly flawed testing system, shouldn't it, at the very least, do what NJDOE claims? Shouldn't someone, somewhere, define what college and career ready means?

Also relevant is how you go about determining validity and whom you choose to document those claims. Isn't that what we're allegedly trying to help our kids navigate? Knowing who is behind the research supporting your arguments, so you understand and account for undo influence? That's really important stuff, right?

Well, in this case, NJDOE is relying on information from sources that I would consider to be questionable because of where their funding comes from. I'm not going to tip-toe around that because when the same very deep pockets are quietly funding organizations that people trust, we all need to know where those organizations are coming from. I want data, information, opinions, from places where a particular and singular influence can be accounted for. In this case, NJDOE is clearly very happy with anything funded by the Gates Foundation. An entity with a very singular focus on the privatization of US public schools, on Common Core State Standards, and on the associated testing, like PARCC. Nothing the Gates Foundation does or supports is friendly to PUBLIC education. 

Let's look at who NJDOE and NJSBOE are listening to:

National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) From the Gates Foundation website: in 2015, NNSTOY was awarded a $1,000,000 grant "to improve student learning across the nation by defining, sharing and advocating for effective teaching practices and policies." 

NJDOE didn't bother to name any of the studies to which they refer, but I'll presume they are talking about "The Right Trajectory" study released earlier this year. Twenty-three Teachers of the Year took a look at PARCC, SBAC, NJASK, NECAP, DCAS, and ISAT at the 5th grade level. They applied Webb's DOK, along with other tools of assessing the level of challenge in each of the tests. The problem is, given how the questions were asked, they didn't appear to actually apply what they found. It reads more like an opinion questionnaire - which would be fine if you weren't trotting it out as evidence of validity. The study does not demonstrate PARCC as "an accurate measure of college and career readiness."

I was not familiar with this particular study and it's interesting to see what these teachers thought of the construct of these tests and, possibly, their usefulness. That said, there is nothing in the study that speaks to the validity of using PARCC to assess college and career readiness as a high school exit exam. I would argue the simple fact that they only looked a 5th grade, and they specifically left out consideration of students with disabilities, means the scope of the study doesn't include anything that supports college and career ready at the high school level. The study's conclusion is that PARCC is more challenging than NJASK. Ok. I'm good with that. NJASK was never written as "deep skills and knowledge" test, so I wouldn't expect them to find it was. 

Center for American Progress (CAP) is a heavily Gates Foundation-funded entity. From the Gates Foundation website: Since 2008, up to June 2016, they have been awarded $8,998,810 for everything from "to support Common Core implementation" to "enhance degree completion for low-income young adults through the publishing of new policy papers, stakeholder engagement, and media outreach" to "continue researching, understanding and promoting better human capital policies to benefit all public school students and to tackle the implications of developing education reforms".   

I have no idea which study NJDOE refers to in their response. CAP has many "reports" on their website, but nothing that either compares PARCC to anything or demonstrates value in a high school exit exam. If anyone knows or has the study, please send it to me.

Fordham/Human Resources Research Organization (Thomas B. Fordham Institute and HUMRO). This was an interesting way to cite two different studies that worked in parallel. The studies looked at PARCC, 2014 MCAS, ACT Aspire, and SBAC. From the HUMRO study summary, "A parallel study was conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (hereafter referred to as Fordham), which implemented the [The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment] Center’s methodology for grades 5 and 8 summative mathematics and ELA/literacy assessments. Taken together, HumRRO and Fordham were first to implement the Center’s evaluation methodology. HumRRO and Fordham conducted their studies separately; however, the two organizations communicated often about the evaluation methodology and collaborated on the steps to implement it." 

HumRRO also acknowledges who made their study possible: "This important work was possible from funding by the High Quality Assessment Project (HQAP), which supports state-based advocacy, communications, and policy work to help ensure successful transitions to new assessments that measure K–12 college- and career readiness standards. HQAP’s work is funded by a coalition of national foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helmsley Trust."  

I haven't poked into just how much money that is, but Thomas B. Fordham Institute has been awarded $5,214,650 between 2006 and 2015, "to support the activities of an emerging network of state level education advocacy organizations in support of a convening around strategic issues" and "for general operating support" and "to track state progress towards implementation of standards and to understand how what students read changes in response to the standards."  

Interesting to note the Fordham study looked at grades 5-8. Arguably, that has nothing to do with the validity of a high school exit exam for either math or English.

And, the HumRRO study looked at PARCC's PBA and EOY. New Jersey doesn't use their PBA (only the first year, after which they dropped it) and the EOY, starting this year, was allegedly some combo of the PBA and EOY. So what exactly has NJDOE extracted from a study that doesn't talk about PARCC in the form it actually uses?

American Institutes for Research (AIR) is also Gates Foundation-funded, although they are primarily focused on post-secondary education. Since 2009 they have been awarded $9,296,140 in grants. Since NJDOE didn't bother to name which AIR study they were referring to, I'll guess that it's the National Benchmarks for State Achievement Standards 2016 study. The purpose was to look at the quality of college and career ready standards in the test using grades 4 and 8.

From their "key findings," the standards for PARCC ELA are equivalent to NAEP "basic" and PARCC math is equivalent to NAEP "proficient."

Go to page 19 of the study and read the list of "caveats." My favorites?

"Second, in some states, some of the grade 8 mathematics students took an end-of-course test, such as Algebra 1. In this benchmarking study, this factor could have had the effect of making the state grade 8 mathematics standards appear higher."

"This should not be interpreted to mean that NAEP’s Proficient levels in grades 4 and 8 are the gold standards for deciding whether our students are on track to be ready for college. No evidence has been presented by NAEP that the proficient standard in grades 4 and 8 predicts college success."  

"Fifth, this report does not, in any way, address or evaluate the quality of the CCSS. The CCSS are content standards, while this report deals only with achievement standards. Content standards represent the curriculum that teachers should teach, and the scope and sequence of what students should learn in school. Achievement standards are cut-scores on the state test that represent performance expectations." Here's what Drs. Tienken, Sforza, and Kim found on the "quality" of CCSS. 

Again, grades 4 and 8 were used, not any of the high school grades. There is nothing to support the validity of college and career ready at high school level or as an exit exam. 

Massachusetts Executive Office of Education (MEOE) They are, presumably referring to the Mathematica study done last year, comparing MCAS and PARCC for MEOE. Why they didn't just say that, I have no idea. At this point, I have no idea why NJDOE does anything. Anyway, I saved this one for last because I've written about it and provided testimony that is contrary to how NJDOE has framed this study in their support of PARCC. You can read my whole piece here, but I will just share these two particular points in this post:

1. From “key findings” on page ix of the report, “Both the MCAS and PARCC predict college readiness. Scores on the assessments explain about 5 to 18 percent of the variation in first-year college grades…” What does this mean exactly? It means that 82 to 95 percent CANNOT be explained by the results of the PARCC test. 

2. Dr. William Mathis, managing director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the state of New Jersey, Director of its Educational Assessment program, a design consultant for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and for six states, had this to say about the Mathematica report in a Washington Post article on 27 May 2016, “A tour through the literature shows that predictive validity coefficients are quite low in general and commonly run in the 0.30’s. One conclusion is that the PARCC is just about as good as any other test — which is the report’s finding in regard to the MCAS. On the contrary, the more correct conclusion is that standardized tests can predict scores on other standardized tests (which this report confirms) but it cannot validly predict college readiness at any meaningful level.” 

You could probably write a book about how much these studies do NOT support using PARCC as a college and career high school exit exam. I think NJDOE and NJSBOE need a lesson in how to read studies like these and how to properly draw conclusions from them. 

I will say, again, that having public ed policy so constrained by standardization is nothing but lazy. It does not serve our children. It does not serve our society. I am furious that we all have to wait in hope of a Governor who will have much higher expectations of public education in New Jersey. And who understands that test scores are incredibly limited in their usefulness. Our kids deserve nothing less.

NJ State Board of Ed Fails. Again.

 Photo credit: Jesse Turner

In a business as usual move, the NJ State Board of Education (NJSBOE) voted this morning to use the PARCC exam, or, rather, multiple exams, as New Jersey's official requirement for graduation beginning with the class of 2020-21. A move that has been fiercely contested for a couple of years by parents, students, teachers, and local school boards. The vote was Yes (6): Mark B., Joe F., Andrew M., Jack F., Arcelio A., and Dorothy S. Abstained (1): Edithe F. Absent: 3 members. 

It should be noted, and probably screamed from the mountaintops, that high school exit exams are NOT a requirement of the old federal education law, No Child Left Behind, nor are they a requirement of the new federal education law, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). 

I'm sorry to say the vote was completely unsurprising. When NJSBOE released the agenda for today's meeting, they included the New Jersey Department of Education's (NJDOE) response to testimony on Standards and Assessments (item C) since April 6th.

There were 194 individual testimonies provided from students, parents, teachers, university professors, and local board of ed members. NJDOE responded to 96 comments (synopses), and with very few exceptions, disregarded the public's testimony. The overwhelming majority of testimony was against using PARCC as a graduation requirement and, in the end, was ignored. (more on that in another post)

Save Our Schools New Jersey, a grassroots, statewide parent organization, submitted a petition against the use of PARCC as a graduation requirement with 6,000 signatures. They were ignored.

On May 14, 2016, 88% of school boards at the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) Delegate Assembly adopted a resolution stating there should be multiple pathways to graduation. They were ignored.

27 individual school boards adopted resolutions asking the state NOT to make PARCC the only exit exam. You can find most of them compiled here. Highland Park, Hopewell Valley, Bloomfield, Washington Township (Gloucester), Clifton, East Windsor, Paterson, Middlesex Regional Educational Services, Princeton, Collingswood, Bridgewater Raritan, Livingston, East Brunswick, Wall Township, Montclair, Bordentown, Ocean Township (Monmouth), Linden, Palmyra, Bernards Township, Marlboro, West Windsor-Plainsboro, Watchung Hills Regional High School, Cranford, Montville, Teaneck, and Monroe (Middlesex County). They were ignored.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Earlier this year, with yet more testimony against PARCC, the public was ignored. I wrote about that here.  

Going back further, NJDOE assembled a Study Commission on Assessments in late 2014. There were over 200 public testimonies taken at three different hearings around the state in the early half of 2015. The final report has been removed from the NJDOE website. I'll post it when I get my hands on a copy. Again, the point is, the overwhelming majority of stakeholders said, "No." They were ignored also. 

The pattern is really clear. The public has little to no influence over what happens inside NJDOE. While they regularly pat themselves on the back for acquiring stakeholder input, they appear incapable of processing and utilizing information from outside their walls. They operate in a dangerously closed echo chamber and it shows, not only in the quality of their own work, but in their blatant disregard for what is actually happening inside our schools. 

This is hardly the end of this fight. However, it is also clear that playing nice and pretending their calls for public input is genuine, is a farce. Personally, I will be at every call for public input that is made available to us, because I refuse to be silent. I refuse to give them an opportunity to say, "But no one objected." The reason I refuse is because there is nothing less than the future of our public education system, and by extension, our democracy, at stake. 

The next NJSBOE meeting is on September 7th. There will open public testimony on that date. Probably would be a good idea to let them know just how awful you think this decision is. 

I leave you with Save Our Schools New Jersey's statement on today's vote to make proficiency on PARCC 10th grade ELA and Algebra 1 exams a requirement for graduation, for the class of 2021 and beyond.

"Despite unified opposition from parents, school board members, and teachers, the State Board of Education has chosen to endorse a graduation requirement so inappropriately difficult that it would fail 60% of New Jersey students.

As the Education Law Center and ACLU NJ noted, these new regulations also violate New Jersey laws and our state constitution.

Save Our Schools NJ's 31,000 members will be working to ensure that New Jersey's next governor:

- Eliminates the high school graduation standardized testing requirement, which hurts students and does not improve educational outcomes. Only 15 states still have this requirement.

- Reforms the process for selecting New Jersey State Board of Education members, so that they are accountable to the people of New Jersey rather than to the Governor who appointed them."

To: NJ State BOE: I Can't Believe We Still Have to Protest This Crap

Tomorrow, the New Jersey State of Education is taking its last public testimony on the use of PARCC as the graduation requirement. It took a long time to decide what to write about. What more can possibly be said that has not already been said by me and many, many others? A friend joked that he would simply state, "Please refer to my previous few testimonies" and then icily stare them down for the rest of the allotted speaking time. I was thinking along those lines, but this came out instead. 

1 June 2016New Jersey State Board of Education 
Testimony on PARCC for graduation requirement: I can’t believe we still have to protest this crap.

The title of this testimony is not meant to be disrespectful to this Board, merely a demonstration of my frustration with having to continually appear before this Board and provide testimony that will only fall on deaf ears. Whether that testimony is heartfelt, stemming from personal experiences that none of you currently sitting on this Board would have any first-hand knowledge of, because (1) you don’t have children in public school, and/or (2) you aren’t the parent of a student with a disability. There is barely a hint of recognition on your part that you are missing a great deal by not listening to and engaging with the actual stakeholders in this mess, namely, parents and their children. 

It also hasn’t mattered when testimony has been presented with hard facts and figures. Unbelievably, there appears to be no curiosity at all about why there is so much pushback on Common Core and PARCC testing. This isn’t just some little hiccup. This is a monumental policy failure that will impact schools, teachers, and students, actual people, for a very long time. Your response? Do more of the same. It is remarkably lazy policy.

So here it is. PARCC is a failure. All of that time and money for a failure. Last October, Mathematica released the results of a study comparing PARCC to MCAS, the Massachusetts state standardized test, and their predictive validity for college and career readiness. This is highly relevant since you are about to make PARCC the gatekeeper for a high school diploma in this state. The education policy that you endorse is only about that insipidly narrow focus on the yet undefined term “college and career ready” as determined by a score on PARCC.

The Mathematica study looked at Grade 10 Math II, Algebra II, and ELA. (Let me remind you here, that Drs. Tienken, Kim, and Sforza took a look at that grade in a study and found the Common Core Standards to be well below the former NJ standards. See my testimony from 10 February 2016. note: I wrote about it here.) The result, from “key findings” on page ix of the report, “Both the MCAS and PARCC predict college readiness. Scores on the assessments explain about 5 to 18 percent of the variation in first-year college grades…” What does this mean exactly? It means that 82 to 95 percent CANNOT be explained by the results of the PARCC test. So how can that possibly, validly, predict “college and career readiness”???  Answer: It can’t. It doesn’t. 

Dr. William Mathis, managing director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the state of New Jersey, Director of its Educational Assessment program, a design consultant for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and for six states, had this to say about the Mathematica report in a Washington Post article on 27 May 2016, “A tour through the literature shows that predictive validity coefficients are quite low in general and commonly run in the 0.30’s. One conclusion is that the PARCC is just about as good as any other test — which is the report’s finding in regard to the MCAS. On the contrary, the more correct conclusion is that standardized tests can predict scores on other standardized tests (which this report confirms) but it cannot validly predict college readiness at any meaningful level.” 

He also said, “With such low predictability, you have huge numbers of false positives and false negatives. When connected to consequences, these misses have a human price. This goes further than being a validity question. It misleads young adults, wastes resources and misjudges schools.  It’s not just a technical issue, it is a moral question. Until proven to be valid for the intended purpose, using these tests in a high stakes context should not be done.”

The response to Dr. Mathis, from the creators of the Mathematica study, “Mr. Mathis is also correct that the correlations are low enough that many students (and parents, and colleges) would overestimate or underestimate their true college readiness—if they relied only on the test score to make the judgment. Fortunately, students have lots of other information available to inform their judgments alongside the test scores (most importantly, their high school grades). We wouldn’t recommend that anyone rely exclusively on the test score for high-stakes decisions.”

So, why would this Board consider, even for minute, further wasting time and tax-payer money on PARCC? Let alone use such a faulty measure as an obstacle for the students in this state? It is your obligation to the public to not allow PARCC to be used as a graduation requirement. 

Thanks, Mike Simpson, for the picture.

Top Secret: "The PARCC Test: Exposed" (edited and updated)

The original publish date of this piece was 14 May 2016. It was removed on 16 May 2016 because it contained three partial questions from the then current PARCC test. A Columbia University professor had been sent PARCC questions by a horrified k-12 teacher and decided to share them in a blog post, which I republished below.

At the time, Blogger simply returned the published post to "Draft" and I decided to not repost. My Tweets were also removed from Twitter. Twitter did inform me of the decision to remove the Tweets, but I never heard a word from Google or Blogger - just the removal of the post. Later, a friend sent me this link and this link to Lumen, which does have some explanation. I still take issue with the decision because I believe the fair use doctrine of copyright law applies to the publishing of the partial test questions. 

Today (23 January 2017), I received this via email (with no specific information about what needs to be removed from the post) and decided to republish, per Blogger, removing the "offending content" (the PARCC questions). The email also provides no explanation for the reason why I received this email today. 

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status. (If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.) This means your post - and any images, links or other content - is not gone. You may edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again.

A bit of background: the DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. If you believe you have the rights to post the content at issue here, you can file a counter-claim. In order to file a counter-claim, please see https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_counternotice?product=blogger.

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Lumen at https://www.lumendatabase.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can search for the DMCA notice associated with the removal of your content by going to the Lumen page, and entering in the URL of the blog post that was removed.

If it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. DMCA notices concerning content on your blog may also result in action taken against any associated AdSense accounts. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

Affected URLs: http://elfasd.blogspot.com/2016/05/top-secret-parcc-test-exposed.html

The original post about what is so wrong with the PARCC questions, and why the Columbia professor was so astonished at the absurdity of the test questions, is still noteworthy and, I think, valuable. I have noted where text has been removed.  


Leonie Haimson is asking bloggers to post the original blog post, The PARCC Test: Exposed. The redacted version can be found here. PARCC has been removing posts on Twitter and auto-flagging posts of the blog on Facebook. 

As you read this, consider the absurdity of Pearson, PARCC, or any organization trying to keep secret the items on a test which is given to millions of students nationwide. Consider the awful quality of the test questions - what are we paying for? Then, think about all those written responses scored by a computer. Does this sound like something we should be paying millions of dollars for? 

The PARCC Test: Exposed

The author of this blog posting is a public school teacher who will remain anonymous.

I will not reveal my district or my role due to the intense legal ramifications for exercising my Constitutional First Amendment rights in a public forum. I was compelled to sign a security form that stated I would not be “Revealing or discussing passages or test items with anyone, including students and school staff, through verbal exchange, email, social media, or any other form of communication” as this would be considered a “Security Breach.” In response to this demand, I can only ask—whom are we protecting?

There are layers of not-so-subtle issues that need to be aired as a result of national and state testing policies that are dominating children’s lives in America. As any well prepared educator knows, curriculum planning and teaching requires knowing how you will assess your students and planning backwards from that knowledge. If teachers are unable to examine and discuss the summative assessment for their students, how can they plan their instruction? Yet, that very question assumes that this test is something worth planning for. The fact is that schools that try to plan their curriculum exclusively to prepare students for this test are ignoring the body of educational research that tells us how children learn, and how to create developmentally appropriate activities to engage students in the act of learning. This article will attempt to provide evidence for these claims as a snapshot of what is happening as a result of current policies.

The PARCC test is developmentally inappropriate

In order to discuss the claim that the PARCC test is “developmentally inappropriate,” examine three of the most recent PARCC 4th grade items.

A book leveling system, designed by Fountas and Pinnell, was made “more rigorous” in order to match the Common Core State Standards. These newly updated benchmarks state that 4th Graders should be reading at a Level S by the end of the year in order to be considered reading “on grade level.” [Celia’s note: I do not endorse leveling books or readers, nor do I think it appropriate that all 9 year olds should be reading a Level S book to be thought of as making good progress.]

The PARCC, which is supposedly a test of the Common Core State Standards, appears to have taken liberties with regard to grade level texts. For example, on the Spring 2016 PARCC for 4th Graders, students were expected to read an excerpt from Shark Life: True Stories about Sharks and the Sea by Peter Benchley and Karen Wojtyla. According to Scholastic, this text is at an interest level for Grades 9-12, and at a 7th Grade reading level. The Lexile measure is 1020L, which is most often found in texts that are written for middle school, and according to Scholastic’s own conversion chart would be equivalent to a 6th grade benchmark around W, X, or Y (using the same Fountas and Pinnell scale).

Even by the reform movement’s own standards, according to MetaMetrics’ reference material on TextComplexity Grade Bands and Lexile Bands, the newly CCSS aligned “Stretch” lexile level of 1020 falls in the 6-8 grade range. This begs the question, what is the purpose of standardizing text complexity bands if testing companies do not have to adhere to them? Also, what is the purpose of a standardized test that surpasses agreed-upon lexile levels?

So, right out of the gate, 4th graders are being asked to read and respond to texts that are two grade levels above the recommended benchmark. After they struggle through difficult texts with advanced vocabulary and nuanced sentence structures, they then have to answer multiple choice questions that are, by design, intended to distract students with answers that appear to be correct except for some technicality.

Finally, students must synthesize two or three of these advanced texts and compose an original essay. The ELA portion of the PARCC takes three days, and each day includes a new essay prompt based on multiple texts. These are the prompts from the 2016 Spring PARCC exam for 4th Graders along with my analysis of why these prompts do not reflect the true intention of the Common Core State Standards.

ELA 4th Grade Prompt [Deleted per DMCA]

The above prompt probably attempts to assess the Common Core standard RL.4.5: “Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.”

However, the Common Core State Standards for writing do not require students to write essays comparing the text structures of different genres. The Grade 4 CCSS for writing about reading demand that students write about characters, settings, and events in literature, or that they write about how authors support their points in informational texts. Nowhere in the standards are students asked to write comparative essays on the structures of writing. The reading standards ask students to “explain” structural elements, but not in writing. There is a huge developmental leap between explaining something and writing an analytical essay about it. [Celia’s note: The entire enterprise of analyzing text structures in elementary school – a 1940’s and 50’s college English approach called “New Criticism” — is ridiculous for 9 year olds anyway.]

The PARCC does not assess what it attempts to assess

ELA 4th Grade Prompt [Deleted per DMCA]

It would be a stretch to say that this question assesses CCSS W.4.9.B: “Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text.”

In fact, this prompt assesses a student’s ability to research a topic across sources and write a research-based essay that synthesizes facts from both articles. Even CCSS W.4.7, “Conduct research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic,” does not demand that students compile information from different sources to create an essay. The closest the standards come to demanding this sort of work is in the reading standards; CCSS RI.4.9 says: “Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.” Fine. One could argue that this PARCC prompt assesses CCSS RI.4.9.

However, the fact that the texts presented for students to “use” for the essay are at a middle school reading level automatically disqualifies this essay prompt from being able to assess what it attempts to assess. (It is like trying to assess children’s math computational skills by embedding them in a word problem with words that the child cannot read.)

ELA 4th Grade Prompt [Deleted per DMCA]

Nowhere, and I mean nowhere in the Common Core State Standards is there a demand for students to read a narrative and then use the details from that text to write a new story based on a prompt. That is a new pseudo-genre called “Prose Constructed Response” by the PARCC creators, and it is 100% not aligned to the CCSS. Not to mention, why are 4th Graders being asked to write about trying out for the junior high track team? This demand defies their experiences and asks them to imagine a scenario that is well beyond their scope.

Clearly, these questions are poorly designed assessments of 4th graders CCSS learning. (We are setting aside the disagreements we have with those standards in the first place, and simply assessing the PARCC on its utility for measuring what it was intended to measure.)

Rather than debate the CCSS we instead want to expose the tragic reality of the countless public schools organizing their entire instruction around trying to raise students’ PARCC scores.

Without naming any names, I can tell you that schools are disregarding research-proven methods of literacy learning. The “wisdom” coming “down the pipeline” is that children need to be exposed to more complex texts because that is what PARCC demands of them. So children are being denied independent and guided reading time with texts of high interest and potential access and instead are handed texts that are much too hard (frustration level) all year long without ever being given the chance to grow as readers in their Zone of Proximal Development (pardon my reference to those pesky educational researchers like Vygotsky.)

So not only are students who are reading “on grade level” going to be frustrated by these so-called “complex texts,” but newcomers to the U.S. and English Language Learners and any student reading below the proficiency line will never learn the foundational skills they need, will never know the enjoyment of reading and writing from intrinsic motivation, and will, sadly, be denied the opportunity to become a critical reader and writer of media. Critical literacies are foundational for active participation in a democracy.

We can look carefully at one sample to examine the health of the entire system– such as testing a drop of water to assess the ocean. So too, we can use these three PARCC prompts to glimpse how the high stakes accountability system has deformed teaching and warped learning in many public schools across the United States.

In this sample, the system is pathetically failing a generation of children who deserve better, and when they are adults, they may not have the skills needed to engage as citizens and problem-solvers. So it is up to us, those of us who remember a better way and can imagine a way out, to make the case for stopping standardized tests like PARCC from corrupting the educational opportunities of so many of our children.

What If Our Schools Looked Like This?

In New Jersey, we are currently in the midst of our "testing season." Opting Out (refusals) is the story of the day. Parents are pushing back on a system that has become largely impersonal and very standardized. 

While opting out is one way of expressing extreme displeasure of what our schools have become, the reason is because we have to have a new conversation -- one that includes teachers and parents and students -- about what schools should be like. 

I have no doubt if you asked a hundred people what they think it should be, you'd get a hundred different answers. However, I think you'd also find some very basic common threads in those answers. Fully funding all public schools. High quality pre-school for all children. Student-centered learning. Teachers who are well trained and can continue to hone their craft as their careers progress. Clean and safe physical environments. Field trips. Hands-on learning experiences. Unique learning experiences. Opportunities for students to demonstrate what they've learned. Authentic, teacher-driven assessments. Parent and community participation. Transparency. And, all of these attributes are for everyone. 

The Willow School would be a great example for many of these qualities. 

✔ Well-funded
✔ High quality pre-school
✔ Student-centered learning
✔ Well-trained teachers
✔ Clean and safe environment
✔ Field trips
✔ Hands-on learning experiences
✔ Students demonstrate what they’ve learned
✔ Authentic, teacher driven (not standardized) assessments
✔ Parent and community involvement

What is The Willow school? Well, it's a private independent school here in New Jersey, located on a 34 acre campus. Its founder is the New Jersey State Board of Education President, Mark Biedron. 

"At The Willow School, children discover who they are, the joy of learning, and the wonder of the environment around them." 

Sounds pretty great, right? 

The Head of School has this to say about student experience:  

"At Willow, our shared dedication to academic excellence thrives on the constant development of the intellectual capacities of our students. Academic preparation, without the intellectual muscle to think independently, deprives students from fully engaging in the challenging future awaiting them. Academic excellence at Willow means that our learning objectives not only include the mastery of content needed for the next level of academic challenge, but also includes conceptual understanding in the broader world, and the rich connections to our school culture." (emphasis mine)

This is from the overview of the school's curriculum:

"The integrated curriculum allows students to learn material in great depth as well as to see the connections that naturally exist among subject areas. The primary device for integration of the curriculum is the development of communication skills using the English language. Parallel to that usage is the study of French or Spanish from kindergarten through eighth grade, with Latin introduced in sixth through eighth grades. While the disciplines of mathematics and science, and of language and social studies, are often connected at The Willow School, it is also important for children to learn, for instance, how scientific and technological advances have shaped the ways humans relate to each other or how the use of mathematics determines the design of music and architecture. All learning is spiral; the child returns to skills and subject matter that becomes increasingly complex and challenging." (emphasis mine)

Ok, sign me up. I want to go this school. 

The teachers. What about the teachers? Who are the people guiding these students as they develop "intellectual muscle?" Take a browse through the teacher profiles. Mark, I have to give you mad props for your team. Masters degrees. Many years of both teaching and heading up similar schools. Not a TFA member in sight. 

One of the teachers answered a short, get-to-know-you Q&A on his profile page. I highlight these two questions and answers because every parent wants this, and I am sure every teacher does as well. 

What do you love about being a teacher at Willow?

I feel as though Willow affords me the opportunity to be flexible with my curriculum to create something new with my students every year.  Learning doesn’t happen in the same way for all children and Willow allows for changes to be made that benefit all types of learners in each class.  Willow inspires me to make learning come to life because I’m allowed to teach and learn with students among various themes/topics with a curriculum that I am truly passionate about.

What satisfies you the most about your work at Willow?

Being able to see examples of student actions and work that reflect deep and connected learning is the pinnacle of my teaching experience at Willow.

What about the physical environment? The Willow School has a long list of accolades. You can read all about them here. They have been recognized for their green buildings, earning the highest awards for USGBC LEEDS-certified buildings. I'm going to make a wild guess here and say you won't find lead in their drinking water, mold or peeling paint, rodents, or broken heating/cooling systems in those buildings. 

As you would expect, the price tag is pretty steep, like college tuition steep. The middle school grades are just shy of $30k a year. It is interesting though, that their pre-k program demonstrates what "choice" ought to be. You can send your 4-year-old to school for five half days, or five full days, or a combo of half and full days. 

Why am I telling you about this school? Mark Biedron and his cohorts are fully supporting PARCC as the testing requirement for graduation in New Jersey, beginning with the class of 2021. (I say "the," but really it's SIX PARCC tests to graduate.) He fully supports, at least publicly, Common Core State Standards and the aligned testing. Given the tenets of his school, CCSS and the aligned testing are for everyone else's children. Not for his. And not for the students at his school. 

I don't doubt that The Willow School's price tag is commensurate with what those parents are getting for their children. Heck, the 34 acres alone would be expensive to maintain. 
What I want to know is, why isn't Mark fighting like mad to have every school in New Jersey look more like his? He clearly believes very strongly in that kind of an education. It's a spectacular example of opting out of a standardized education. The disconnect is astonishing, and remarkably disappointing. 

On May 4th, the State Board of Education is having their monthly meeting. It's also one of the rare times when open public comment is allowed. I encourage beg you to attend and tell Mark what you want your children's education to look like. Sign up to attend here. 

Julie Goes to Washington with Jamy, Marla, and Melissa

Last Monday, the US Department of Education held the first of two public testimony hearings on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This hearing was held in Washington DC. The next will be in California. Short notice, with release just before the holidays, felt like timing was meant for parents and teachers to miss it. I was not off to a warm and fuzzy feeling about it. 

I didn't see the agenda for the day until after I checked in at USDOE. The speaking order and the approximate times for each of the three sessions were listed. The list of speakers was, predictably, the who's who of education reform -- just off the top of my head, several hundred million dollars or so in Gates funded associations. Disheartening to say the least. From what I can gather, only one other "just a parent" spoke that day and three actual teachers, two from New York (Jamy Brice-Hyde and Marla Kilfoyle) and one from New Jersey (Melissa Tomlinson). 

                                       

                                       

It really was difficult to decide what aspect of ESSA to discuss. From a special ed point a view, ESSA makes NCLB look lenient. The 1% cap on alternate assessments for students with disabilities is particularly cruel. It's also the fuel needed to continue to encourage opting out of these stupid tests. 

I decided, though, to talk about Social Impact Bonds. Sorry if you're getting bored with this topic, but I don't think it can be argued against enough. An experiment, which requires a negative outcome (NOT classifying students) to be considered a success, has no business sitting in the middle of a federal education law. 

Here is my testimony: 

11 January 2016

Testimony on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to US Department of Education  

My name is Julie Borst and I’m resident of Bergen County, New Jersey. I am a mother to a 17-year-old student with a disability. I am a parent advocate and an organizer for Save Our Schools New Jersey, Opt Out NJ, and for BATs in Special Education. My comments today are my own. 

I have to admit, it was difficult deciding which section of ESSA to address today. While many are cheering the change from No Child Left Behind (NCLB), I’m feeling much more cautious. As a family, we have not had good experiences under NCLB. It was clearly in serious need of revision, and I don’t believe that ESSA really aleviates the myriad problems with NCLB, particularly for students with disabilities. 

Among the worst, the onerous standardized testing continues. More students with disabilities will be required to take irrelevant, developmentally inappropriate tests. Local districts will continue to waste precious dollars on infrastructure to support these tests, and for what? That’s a conversation that could go on for weeks. Let’s just say, that from where I sit, as a parent and advocate, the tests are a waste of time and money. Well trained, dedicated professional educators are what’s needed. Not more tests. 

However, the reason I’ve come here today is to talk about Social Impact Bonds, otherwise known as Pay For Success (PFS)¹, ESSA page 797, line 17. The current landscape in special education is a dire one. In states like New Jersey, it has become increasingly difficult for parents to get appropriate identification, classification, and services for their children. OSEP and OCR have become yet another roadblock to appropriate services.
I believe the root of that difficulty is money. IDEA is poorly funded, as it has been since its inception. Money now is spent on everything related to high stakes testing – prep, massive curricula changes, computers, infrastructure, and teacher professional development geared to use of that technology instead of honing the skills of their profession.

In New Jersey, there is a more formalized process, Response to Intervention (RtI), on the horizon. A program that will make it even less likely for a student with a disability to get timely identification, classification, and services. There appears to be little, actual focus on identifying learning disabled students as early as possible and doing something about it. 

Preschool, “high quality” preschool, has become the new mantra in that vein. Studies show that high quality preschool can reduce the percentage of the students who go on to kindergarten and are then classified for special education. Those percentages are anywhere from a reduction of 10% to 50% of students who would have otherwise needed special education services. The impact is clearly a positive one. 

It does makes sense to support high quality preschool. What doesn't make sense is for private investors or Wall St. to fund those preschool programs with the aim of making money off students NOT being classified. 

Pay For Success is use of private money invested into public programs, in this case public preschool. The program, first tested in Utah and now in Chicago, was funded by Goldman Sachs. The program in Utah was claimed to have a 99% “success” rate. 109 of the 110 students identified as “at risk” or possibly needing special education, out of a group of 600 preschoolers, did NOT require special education. Goldman Sachs received money back for every one of those 109 students and will continue to do so for every year those 109 students are NOT classified for special education, through 6^th grade. 

To be perfectly frank, this raises a lot of questions. What was the starting criteria for those students? What diagnostic tests did they use? Medical history? Demographics? How many students would have likely had to have special education if they didn't have the "high quality" preschool experience? How many would they expect to classify even with the experience? What is "high quality" preschool? What does "high quality" preschool cost? How much does Utah spend on preschool? What is the threshold that has to be met for Goldman Sachs to earn its money back? Who would have covered the costs is the program “failed”? 

In Utah’s case, only one test, PVVT, was used. It’s not normally used, especially by itself, to identify students for learning disabilities. English language learners typically do not do well on this test because it is vocabulary based. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have a disability. From the outset, the criteria presumed all 110 “at risk”-identified children were going into special education without the high quality preschool. That is not a valid presumption.
There is also the issue of cost. High quality preschool costs are general 3-4 times what Goldman Sachs invested per student. It’s still not clear how the “high quality” label was actually executed, as some of the students were apparently placed in daycare.  

Utah set the rubric, but they also would have had no preschool at all without the program. Why were they allowed to set the bar so low and so obviously skewed to have this as a win for Goldman Sachs? Perhaps more importantly, what is Utah doing to ensure those “success” students were, in fact, properly NOT identified for special education? 

I understand that on the surface Pay For Success sounds wonderful. Public money, that is already so lacking, will not have to be used to fund preschool programs. However, “success” based on a negative outcome of our most vulnerable students demonstrates the loss of our moral compass. 

Pay For Success has no business being in a federal education law. There are too many unanswered questions. Too many ways for this program to go very wrong for our most vulnerable students – especially in the current environment. There is no magic pill to cure learning disabilities, but there are many well-documented, teacher-driven practices to address identification, classification, and delivery of services. We should be concentrating on those, not on making Goldman Sachs richer at our children’s expense. 

¹ p. 797
17 40) PAY FOR SUCCESS INITIATIVE.—The

18 term ‘pay for success initiative’ means a perform-

19 ance-based grant, contract, or cooperative agreement

20 awarded by a public entity in which a commitment

21 is made to pay for improved outcomes that result in

22 social benefit and direct cost savings or cost avoid-

23 ance to the public sector. Such an initiative shall in-

24 clude—

p.7981 ‘‘(A) a feasibility study on the initiative de-

2 scribing how the proposed intervention is based

3 on evidence of effectiveness;

4 ‘‘(B) a rigorous, third-party evaluation

5 that uses experimental or quasi-experimental

6 design or other research methodologies that

7 allow for the strongest possible causal infer-

8 ences to determine whether the initiative has

9 met its proposed outcomes;

10 ‘‘(C) an annual, publicly available report

11 on the progress of the initiative; and

12 ‘‘(D) a requirement that payments are

13 made to the recipient of a grant, contract, or

14 cooperative agreement only when agreed upon

15 outcomes are achieved, except that the entity

16 may make payments to the third party con-

17 ducting the evaluation described in subpara-

18 graph (B).’’;

Marla's Testimony:

Testimony of Marla Kilfoyle

Thank you for allowing me to offer my recommendations and advice on Title 1 of ESSA

My name is Marla Kilfoyle.  I have been a public school teacher for 29 years.  I have taught in Rural, Urban, and Suburban school districts.  I have a Masters in Education and am National Board Certified.  My proudest role, however, is  that I am a mother of a child with disabilities enrolled in public school in New York. 

Here are my recommendations and advice:#1 We need to fund Title 1 with more money.  We have seen, over the last decade, more and more of our children living in poverty.  I applaud that the bill increases funding for key formula grant programs. The increases overall of funding by 2 percent each year in 2018-2020 is hopeful. Increases in Title I ($1.2 billion over the 4 years of the authorization), a more than a 20 percent increase. We applaud the increase in authorizations for Title III (English Language learners), Title VI, American Indian and Alaska Native programs and Impact Aid are excellent. Increases in the Mckinney Vento leave us hopeful that our homeless children will be serviced and supported but we will need more.

#2 I have concerns that “personalized learning “ will be a vehicle for students to be placed in front of a computer screen all day or have them moved out of their public school to a school that is not housed in their community.  This school could be an online learning center or a charter school; both which have been proven not to be beneficial over a strong public neighborhood school.    Why should children have to move out of their community school to be educated?  We need to support strong sustainable public schools in the communities that our children live.

#3 I  am vehemently opposed to testing children each year in grades 3-8 and once in high school.  We are the only nation that demands this of our children.  Grade span testing by random sampling will allow more time for learning.  We have done this successfully using NAEP.  Testing has depleted much needed funds for our children in need.  The only people that testing every year benefits are the testing companies.

#4 I also do not agree that our ENL/ELL populations should be subject to multiple statewide interim assessments during the academic year.  This, once again, results in more testing and less learning for our non-English speakers.  What we are seeing for our ELL students is less time with their ELL teachers in instruction to teach them to speak/acquire the language.  The drive to get them ready for a test at the end of the year that they are not yet ready to take, due to lack of language, is abusive and inappropriate.  Although pushing them into classes with their English speaking peers is excellent, there must also be a balance of making sure that we are giving them the instruction that they need to acquire the English language.  This has been taken away from them in many districts across the nation.

#5 I am opposed to computer adaptive assessments listed in the Act.  I feel that testing and technology companies put together inferior products, sell them to districts to make money and now districts are left with inferior assessments and no money.  I am also opposed to the idea of  ‘innovative assessment system', as outlined in Part B Title 1, that could be used as assessments in school districts.  As educators, we have seen technology companies and testing companies pillage the coffers of public education with products that are inferior and do not enhance teaching and learning.  This is not what America wants for its children.  We do not want our classrooms to become places in which children sit in front of a computer for several hours a day and the teacher becomes just a facilitator.  We see a need for technology and to make sure that our students are using it to enhance learning but it should not replace the human interactions that they need in the classrooms to become productive global citizens.  

 #6  Finally from Part A of Title 1 I feel that allowing alternative routes to certification will only guarantee that our neediest children will get the least trained, for example, Teach for America.  We should require every teacher, in every classroom to be fully licensed and accredited from a strong college education program. 

In closing I would like to take a few moments to also address the letter that the USDOE sent on Dec. 22^nd  to the Chief School Officers in states that had high test refusal rates.  The letter, which threatened to withhold Title 1 money for states with high test refusal rates, was absolutely deplorable.  As Mr. King knows from his tenure in NYS, standing between a parent and the decisions that they choose to make for their children is not a good idea.   To create conditions where a local school district must pressure parents into making decisions they do not want for their child is not good for the positive relationships that school districts need to create in order to work cooperatively with parents. 

Thank you again for your time and consideration.