Tag: standardized tests

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A new plan for U.S. schools; testing likely to remain key in New Jersey

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DECEMBER 9, 2015, 11:43 AM    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2015, 11:18 PM
FROM STAFF AND NEWS SERVICE REPORTS |
WIRE SERVICE

In New Jersey, the federal education reform bill that seems certain to get the president’s signature Thursday means local and state educators, not the federal government, get to determine what to do to save a failing school, and the threat of costly sanctions for slumping schools would go away.

What’s unlikely to end in New Jersey, education experts said on Wednesday, is the reliance on students’ test scores to evaluate how well teachers are performing, a point of fierce dispute between New Jersey administrators and unions that the reform legislation relegates to the states.

The Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly, 85-12, to approve legislation rewriting the landmark No Child Left Behind education law of 2002.

It was hailed as a “Christmas present” for 50 million children across the country by Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who leads the Senate Education Committee.

One key feature of No Child remains: Public school students will still take the federally required statewide reading and math exams. But the new law encourages states to limit the time students spend on testing, and it will diminish the high stakes for underperforming schools.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that failed to meet annual progress targets could be shut down or converted into charter schools, a policy that critics said led schools to focus too heavily on tests.

Schools that don’t meet annual progress targets, under the new legislation, no longer will be considered to be failing and won’t be subjected to federal sanctions.

States will be required to intervene in the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, in high schools with high dropout rates and in schools with stubborn achievement gaps.

David Hespe, the state education commissioner, said the biggest change under the reform legislation would be the new flexibility permitted to states to help struggling schools. “We can develop our own interventions,” Hespe said.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/education-law-rewrite-passes-congress-1.1470503

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The unanswered PARCC question: How many N.J. kids opted out?

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The question buzzed throughout New Jersey schools for months. As the state prepared to administer new standardized tests in English and math last spring, parents, teachers and administrators wondered how many students would refuse to participate, the hallmark of a small but growing “opt out” movement in New Jersey. Adam Clark, NJ.com Read more

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There’s good reason to opt out of PARCC

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MAY 8, 2015    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

There’s good reason to opt out

To the editor:

On April 2, all district parents received from our Superintendent of Schools a status update on the first round of Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) testing.

The letter tallies the students whose parents refused the PARCC tests (opting out is not technically an option): 1,135 out of a total of 4,111 students, or nearly 28 percent. The refusal rate for grades 3-8 was over 11 percent.

In line with NJ Education Commissioner David Hespe’s recent threats, the letter states that Ridgewood Public Schools may suffer ill effects as a result, including losing federal grant money and losing our status as a high-performing school district.

The letter does not mention that no district has ever lost federal grant money as a result of low participation, nor does it question why a brand-new assessment should carry such weight in terms of evaluating our district’s schools.

I, along with no doubt all Ridgewood residents who are shouldering 95 percent of the $101 million school budget via property taxes, wish to maintain Ridgewood’s status as a high-performing district. I do not think that the way to do this is to sit by as corporate-led reform, the stated goal of which was to create a “national uniform market” for standardized tests and prep materials, attempts to convert our public schools into profitable test factories without corresponding benefit to students.

We’ve always had standardized tests. However, the low-stakes, sporadic CAT and Terra Nova tests took up a fraction of instruction time as compared to the high stakes, annual standardized testing that began in 2001 with NJ ASK under NCLB.

PARCC and PARCC test prep take excessive standardized testing to a new level.

Further, like other standardized test results, PARCC scores will not tell teachers what they don’t already know. The delay in receiving them exacerbates this: Results from the March testing won’t be out until October 2015 at the earliest. Relying on such data for student placement or special needs or anything else seems more than a bit delayed.

The bottom line is, as Dr. Fishbein stated in an op-ed piece last summer, ever-increasing state mandates including PARCC are objectionable because they displace instruction time and shunt teachers into offices and behind desks to fill out reports and pore over data.

Many parents agree and are acting, in a lawful and respectful way, to try to roll back the intrusion of corporate “reformers” and politicians under their influence in the classroom.

I understand that Commissioner Hespe has directed administrators to encourage participation in PARCC. The Department will view such attempts as a “mitigating factor” in how districts with high non-participation rates are evaluated, as Commissioner Hespe stated at an April 29 hearing in Trenton.

At the same hearing, the Commissioner claimed not to understand why parents are refusing permission. Rather than merely carrying out the Commissioner’s directives, our administration would serve us well by helping to explain that to him and the Department publicly.

Anne Burton Walsh

Ridgewood

https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/letter-to-the-editor-there-s-good-reason-to-opt-out-of-parcc-1.1329244

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PARCC testing takes toll on some N.J. schools

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By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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on April 19, 2015 at 7:30 AM, updated April 19, 2015 at 9:21 AM

The A-H fiction section at Union High School’s library offers about 3,000 titles, according to the school librarian.

There are classics, such as Agatha Christie’s crime novels, and popular teen books like the coming of age tale “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

But during March and early April, when the library was used for the computerized Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing, most of those books were off-limits to the school’s students, librarian Doris D’Elia said.

“About half of my fiction section is blocked because of the way they put my tables in and the wiring they installed for a temporary lab for PARCC,” D’Elia said. “We can’t even get to the books.”

PARCC, standardized math and English tests for New Jersey students in grades 3-11, has drawn the ire of some parents and teachers for a variety of reasons, including concern about the validity of the tests.

But there’s an underlying problem with PARCC regardless of its effectiveness, those parents and teachers say — in the weeks it took schools to administer the tests, students’ daily learning was continually interrupted in some schools.

Libraries were closed, schedules flipped upside down and teachers pulled from regular assignments, educators said. Some mixed-grade high school classes were missing different groups of students each day or week, forcing teachers to alter lesson plans.

https://www.nj.com/education/2015/04/parcc_testing_takes_toll_on_daily_learning.html

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PARCC tests are not good for children

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PARCC tests are not good for children

MARCH 27, 2015    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015, 8:27 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Print

New tests are not good for children

To the editor:

The Common Core State Standards and PARCC testing are expensive: lots of new technology, increased bandwidth, lots more technical support personnel, more administrators – and we the taxpayers are footing the bill.

That would be fine if all this were good for our children, but it’s not. Our children are learning less: they’re reading less classic literature because they’re reading more informational texts; they’re doing less math because they’re writing essays about math; they’re doing way less social studies and science because they’re spending endless hours practicing for the PARCC.

Younger children are on keyboards practicing their typing skills instead of using paper and pencil which research shows leads to enhanced cognitive development.

They’re also watching lots of movies. Presumably their teachers are too busy to teach as much as they used to.

During the testing season, libraries resemble test prep centers more than they do traditional libraries. And now the giant publishing firm Pearson, the makers of the test, is employing a company in Utah, Caveon, to spy on children’s social media sites to see what the kids are saying about the PARCC test they’ve just taken.

Teachers are stressed, passing the stress onto the children. Teachers are afraid to say what they really think about all this for fear of losing their jobs. The teaching profession has been degraded and will continue to be degraded as long as this regimen prevails.

Turmoil is the word I most frequently hear. Is this the tradition of excellence in education that we brag about here in Ridgewood?

Interestingly, the people who most vociferously support the Common Core State Standards and PARCC testing do not send their kids to schools that use either the Common Core State Standards or PARCC testing, yet they want the rest of us to do so. How does that make any sense in a democracy? In an oligarchy, yes, a system of government in which the monied elite dictate to the masses what to do for the financial benefit of the monied elite.

The children of Silicon Valley executives go to schools which not only do not use the Common Core State Standards or PARCC testing, but also use NO technology – that’s right – NONE – and why? Their tech-free teaching methods are designed to foster a lifelong love of learning and to teach students how to concentrate deeply and master human interaction, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. Isn’t that what we are trying to do? How did we get it so wrong?

Increasingly, we parents and grandparents in Ridgewood want the Board of Education to figure a way out of this mess. It’s unsustainable. In the short-term we want the Board of Education to provide our children a “technology-lite” alternative to the heavy duty technology path it has charted.

We have done all this for all the wrong reasons. It is time to think about the children. Let’s eradicate the stench of corporate greed from our fine Ridgewood schools.

Marlene Burton
Ridgewood

https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/letter-to-the-editor-new-tests-are-not-good-for-children-1.1297340

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Readers challenge idea of a private corporation abridging students first amendment rights

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Readers challenge idea of a private corporation abridging students first amendment rights  

“The Ridgewood Public Schools guards our data and only shares with state and federal officials the information that is required by law. We make every effort to teach our students about good digital citizenship and with the beginning next school year, we will teach it more formally through a Digital Citizenship Curriculum, from kindergarten through Grade 12.”DANIEL FISHBEIN

Students in New Jersey were told repeatedly that they had no choice about taking a test(PARCC) which then resulted in their private information being given to Pearson and also restricted their first amendment rights.

I love how all the NJ DOE apologists are glossing right over the fact that our schools were being asked by a private corporation to discipline a student. What’s next? If a kid tweets that the school lunch is disgusting, will the school punish him on behalf of Aramark??
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N.J. to review student privacy concerns about test monitoring

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N.J. to review student privacy concerns about test monitoring

March 19, 2015, 12:53 PM    Last updated: Friday, March 20, 2015, 12:29 AM
By HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
The Record

New Jersey’s education commissioner will review alleged cases of test-question leaks on the Internet to see if the state’s contractors violated student privacy when monitoring exam discussions online, officials said Thursday at an Assembly hearing.

The announcement follows days of public outrage over reports that the Pearson testing company scanned students’ comments and reported question leaks to the state Department of Education in what some people believe was a violation of student privacy.

At the hearing, legislators grilled education officials about the monitoring.

“I just find this to be unacceptable, to say we should monitor the social media of every student in New Jersey and to delegate it to a third party we don’t control,” said Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr., D-Middlesex, chairman of the education committee.

He added, “I think the response is disproportionate to find two or three questions.”

But education officials continued to defend the actions Thursday at a hearing before the Assembly Education Committee.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/education-officials-defend-monitoring-of-social-media-over-standardized-tests-1.1292328

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Pearson Spy Scandal : New furor over N.J. tests as student privacy concerns raised

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Pearson Spy Scandal : New furor over N.J. tests as student privacy concerns raised

MARCH 17, 2015, 2:35 PM    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015, 10:35 PM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

The security of the state’s standardized tests is clashing with parents’ privacy concerns in the latest battle over the new exams.

Critics accused Pearson testing company of “spying” after it alerted the state Department of Education that a student leaked a test question on Twitter. Pearson said it was protecting test integrity and fairness, and an assistant commissioner of the state Education Department wrote a letter to school officials Tuesday strongly defending the practice, saying that Pearson is tracking content of posts not the students’ accounts.

Pearson’s reporting of the breach has generated a firestorm that’s tied to the larger controversy that has seen parents refusing to let their children take the tests amid growing concerns about student data privacy and overstressed children.

In the latest controversy, parents have flooded social media with complaints about the “spying” incident, news outlets have covered it and the chairman of the state Assembly Education Committee called for the company and the state education commissioner to explain their actions at a hearing Thursday.

“I find the accounts as reported very disturbing,” said Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr., D-Middlesex, who asked state Education Commissioner David Hespe and Pearson to attend the 10 a.m. hearing. “This type of event has a chilling effect on parents and kids.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/new-furor-over-n-j-tests-as-student-privacy-concerns-raised-1.1290700

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NJEA rep slams Hespe testimony on PARCC exams, calls it ‘frustrating’

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NJEA rep slams Hespe testimony on PARCC exams, calls it ‘frustrating’

TRENTON — Leaders of New Jersey’s largest teachers union weren’t convinced by Department of Education Commissioner David Hespe’s testimony on PARCC exams in front of the Senate Education Committee this morning.

In fact, they’ve still got “real concerns” about the test’s roll out. (Brush/PolitickerNJ)

NJEA rep slams Hespe testimony on PARCC exams, calls it ‘frustrating’ | New Jersey News, Politics, Opinion, and Analysis

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State education leader, Ridgewood parents to meet

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State education leader, Ridgewood parents to meet

MARCH 4, 2015    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2015, 1:21 AM
THE RECORD

RIDGEWOOD — Mark Biedron, the president of the state Board of Education, will meet next week with village residents to address questions and concerns about Common Core standards and the computer-based PARCC tests.

Marlene Burton said she will open her Liberty Street home to accommodate Biedron’s visit to Ridgewood on Tuesday.

Burton said she’s moving furniture out of her house to make room for the 60-plus residents expected to attend the forum with Biedron. State education officials also confirmed the event.

Burton said Biedron agreed to the Ridgewood meeting following an email exchange on Common Core issues and the controversial PARCC tests.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at 123 Liberty St.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/state-education-leader-ridgewood-parents-to-meet-1.1281878

 

PROFILE: STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION PRESIDENT BRINGS UNIQUE PEDIGREE TO POST

JOHN MOONEY | JANUARY 7, 2015

Mark Biedron cofounded a progressive private school that’s a far cry from the testing-centric culture of public schools

Mark Biedron, president of the state Board of Education.

Name: Mark Biedron

Title: President of the State Board of Education, 2014 to present. Appointed to the board in 2011 by Gov. Chris Christie.

Why he matters: Biedron has taken an activist role in leading the 13-member board that is responsible for reviewing and approving state administrative code and school regulations. He has traveled the state to query stakeholders and pressed the administration to explain its policies, from testing to school monitoring.

Where he comes from: The board president is a cofounder of the Willow School in Gladstone, a small independent school that focuses on ethics and language as the cornerstones of its curriculum. Founded with his former wife in 2002, the school’s progressive model is quite a bit different from the testing-focused culture of the public education system that Biedron is now charged with overseeing.

Not incongruous: Biedron maintains that for all the evident differences, he feels that public schools are moving toward a more holistic approach to education via the new Common Core State Standards and the advent of PARCC (Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) testing.

Quote: “In the old way and my way of learning, it was to put answers on paper. But your look at PARCC and Common Core, while not perfect, it is about how you got to the answers.”

Not happening fast enough: “I am the first person to say that testing doesn’t show everything about a student, but we have to take a lot of steps moving from Point A to Point B … This big behemoth called education moves slowly.”

How he started a school: Biedron said he was looking for a school for his children that would address both personal virtues and academic rigor, and finding none, he and his former wife were left with the decision to either move or start their own school. They decided on the latter.

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/01/06/profile-state-board-of-education-president-brings-unique-school-pedigree/

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PARCC: More New Jersey Students Opt Out of Tests

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PARCC: More New Jersey Students Opt Out of Tests

As New Jersey schools began administering new online state exams on Monday, a few affluent communities reported large numbers of students opting out.

In Livingston, the suburb where Gov. Chris Christie grew up, school officials said about 1,100 students declined to take the tests, more than a quarter required to take them.

In Princeton, more than half of the high-school students who are scheduled to take them in coming days said they wouldn’t.

These districts appeared to be among the biggest pockets of resistance to the tests aligned with the Common Core, a set of expectations adopted by most states that spell out what skills children should master in each grade. (Brody/Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-new-jersey-students-opt-out-of-tests-1425348219

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Judge strikes down federally funded Common Core testing consortium: ‘Illegal interstate compact’

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Judge strikes down federally funded Common Core testing consortium: ‘Illegal interstate compact’
Victor Skinner
February 26, 2015

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Missouri judge this week ruled that a testing consortium designed to administer Common Core exams is an “illegal interstate compact not authorized by the U.S. Congress.”

Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green ruled Tuesday in favor of Gretchen Logue and Anne Gassel, editors of the Missouri Education Watchdog site, who argued that the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced multi-state testing consortium is “an unconstitutional interstate compact that was not approved by Congress, in violation of the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3, Clause 10,” Breitbart.com reports.

Gassel wrote on the Missouri Education Watchdog site that “the suit also alleged that Governor (Jay) Nixon and (Education) Commissioner (Chris) Nicastro’s course of conduct in committing Missouri to Common Core was in violation of numerous federal and state statutes.”

https://eagnews.org/judge-strikes-down-federally-funded-common-core-testing-consortium-illegal-interstate-compact/

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A Letter from Dr. Fishbein on PARCC, Policies and Procedures

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A Letter from Dr. Fishbein on PARCC, Policies and Procedures

February 24, 2015

Dear Parent or Guardian:

Next week, we will begin the implementation of the New Jersey state-mandated PARCC assessments in our schools. Although we have been administering state-mandated assessments for decades, these particular required assessments have been subject to much debate and controversy.
Simply, all New Jersey public school districts are mandated by the State of New Jersey to administer these assessments and students are required to participate. On Monday, February 23, 2015, the Ridgewood Board of Education updated Policy #2622 – Student Assessment. (A link to the policy is provided below.)
The State of New Jersey does not recognize parents who do not permit their children to take the PARCC assessments. However, in preparation for the administration of PARCC in the Ridgewood Public Schools, we have developed an administrative process we will follow under Procedure #2622 – Student Assessment. Because this is a procedure, it is not subject to Board of Education approval. (A link to this procedure is provided below.)
Below are links to relevant FAQ information from the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) and from the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE). In addition, significant PARCC information may be found on the Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment page of our district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us. The link to the PARCC information is located on the right side of the page.
I hope you find this information to be helpful.
Sincerely yours,
Daniel Fishbein, Ed.D. Superintendent of Schools

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Are You Smarter than a 3rd Grader ?

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Are You Smarter than a 3rd Grader ?

New Jersey’s new test for third-graders tough even for reporter

FEBRUARY 17, 2015, 9:44 PM    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015, 9:46 PM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

With two weeks to go before New Jersey schoolchildren face new tests that have sparked outrage and panic in some parents and teachers, it fell to me as The Record’s education reporter to determine if these exams are as tough as they have been made out to be.

As a parent of a third-grader, I had an added incentive for getting an early look at the source of all the angst – both the English and math tests that are going to be given to third-graders.

I talked to experts, educators and parents to get their opinions, and I took the test myself to see how I would do — first with about 50 educators and parents at a forum on taking the test, then at the office, answering multiple-choice questions, typing short answers on a computer and writing an essay.

It wasn’t a cakewalk. The 13 third-grade practice questions in English language arts and the 17 questions in math were challenging, and the answers were almost never obvious. Still, I’m happy to report that all my hair is still intact on my head, I did not dissolve into tears, and I got all but a few answers right. Although to be fair, I’m not in third grade.

The new tests will be given to students in Grades 3-11 beginning in March. They are the result of New Jersey adopting new standards of what students should know at each grade level. The exams are designed to be more rigorous than previous tests, but they will not count against students until 2019, when they become a graduation requirement for 11th-graders.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/new-jersey-s-new-test-for-third-graders-tough-even-for-reporter-1.1272921

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Ridgewood refines policies as opt-out movement gains steam

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Ridgewood refines policies as opt-out movement gains steam

February 14, 2015    Last updated: Saturday, February 14, 2015, 9:30 AM
By Darius Amos
Staff Writer |
The Ridgewood News

Elisabeth Rose’s daughter used to enjoy going to school. She loved to read and loved to learn.

But all that changed once her child’s third-grade class began preparations for the state-mandated PARCC exams.

“She couldn’t understand the text and the questions … she’s not liking school anymore,” Rose said, speaking candidly at Monday’s Board of Education (BOE) meeting.

She further described her daughter’s transformation as one that “breaks my heart,” particularly after days when the student came home crying.

“It’s really sad because she can’t be the only one who’s having trouble in the elementary school setting. There was a time when [students] weren’t taught to test; they had the freedom to learn,” Rose added. “Please put something in place so the students have an option.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/opting-out-option-gaining-steam-in-ridgewood-1.1271578