Comments on: Weinberg: Myths about standardized testing

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:55:54 +0000

Based on my discussions with the California Department of Education, I’m afraid they would consider that a violation of the security agreement teachers sign, and might take punitive action against the teacher.

By: Ms. McLaughlin

Ms. McLaughlin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:56:10 +0000

Mr. Weinberg, I am so glad you raised the issue of the tests being thrown together in a hurry. When teachers find errors in the booklets, my suggestion would be to write the CEO of Educational Testing Service, which publishes the tests:

Kurt Landgraf
ETS Corporate Headquarters
Rosedale Road
Princeton, NJ 08541 USA

Send your feedback via paper snail mail, and mark it urgent.

Publishing companies exist to make money. It is true that some of them are lobbying heavily for all these tests. (Be on the lookout for new ones that you haven’t yet heard of yet.) The overall market for bound books is shrinking, so expanding the testing market is one of the publishers’ remaining avenues for corporate growth.

And since many publishing companies are seeing decreased revenues, they will indeed cut corners on time, fact checking, and other editorial necessities if nobody demands better quality. They also know that the students are a captive audience who may not notice any errors and probably won’t stand up for their own testing needs. It’s up to us to advocate for our kids and keep the publishers honest.

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:45:34 +0000

Jenna, As I have said in a different posting on this site, I do believe that there are too many standards at each grade level to cover well and reducing the number of standards would improve education for all students. (http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2009/11/06/too-many-standards-too-little-time/)
I am not an expert on elementary level benchmark tests, but I am pretty sure that even without those tests a teacher would not be allowed to skip teaching reading in the first or second grade.

By: Jenna

Jenna — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:45:29 +0000

Mr. Weinberg: I agree with you that testing is not the answer. However, I do not know what to do about teachers who use the tests to teach content and who have stated they would not teach the curriculum without the tests.

Specifically, we have elementary teachers who would not teach children to read until they are 8 years old because they personally believe that is the age that is most developmentally appropriate, yet in third grade classrooms, a student who cannot read at age 8 is at a disadvantage for learning the material that needs to be learned.

My older son’s science teacher personally believes that too much is required to be taught in a year. He only teaches the content because of the benchmark tests.

What would you do to ensure that ALL students are taught the content, not just what a teacher feels they should teach – not worried about my sons as I will send them to summer, fall and spring camps to make up the deficit, but I am worried about the parents who cannot or will not make up the deficit.

By: Fancy_Nancy

Fancy_Nancy — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:08:33 +0000

Thanks for the education campaign…

If enough people would put their actions where their mouths are perhaps it would be easy to “shut up” and “put up” like forfeiting taking any Federal or State money as payoffs to maintain the “High Stakes Testing Economies…” that have supported many people’s current and previous (6 Digit) salaries, including yours…The same people who hide behind Non-Profits providing “PD” and other items, purportedly, as well as the people with the authority to issue such “professional services contracts…” and other “contracts…” who are no better than any other quasi-Government contractor on the hustle for kickbacks or other things that never are prosecuted or otherwise enforced…

“put-up…or SHUT-UP!!!” Oh…I forgot, how unprofessional in the same circles of people on the hustle…

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:57:06 +0000

I appreciate the praise from David Cohen. He is a National Board Certified Teacher from Palo Alto High School. He and 2009 California Teacher of the Year Alex Kajitani wrote an excellent column for the Sacramento Bee on the same issue. Here is the link:http://www.sacbee.com/2009/09/03/2156879/david-b-cohen-and-alex-kajitani.html

By: David B. Cohen

David B. Cohen — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:46:56 +0000

Excellent review of the issues, Steven. The chorus of testing experts, social policy experts, educational research and measurement experts, economists and teachers couldn’t be much clearer on this issue, and yet politicians bow to the will of the people. We have to keep shouting, loudly, until politicians begin to hear us above the sound of those who substitute intuition for facts.

Regarding the errors and defects on the tests themselves, the confidentiality agreement is essentially coercive. Those of us closest to the situation are required to carry out the testing, required to sign agreements, and prohibited from airing the truth that would reveal more convincingly how poorly some of these test items are designed.

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 01:52:25 +0000

Hot R, you are correct that standardized tests are being used widely by the state and federal government, but that is hardly a reason to stop challenging their efficacy, and I am certainly not alone in doing so. Daniel Koretz, Professor of Education at Harvard, explains in this excellent book “Measuring Up” that when standardized tests are used for high stakes measures they lose their validity and presents data to support that assertion. Debbie Meier, founder of New York’s famous Central Park East School, has a chapter in her book “In Schools We Trust” entitled “Why Tests Don’t Test What We Think They Do.” Todd Farly, whose book “Making the Grades” I reviewed on this site earlier this year, describes the ridiculous lack of professionalism in the standardized test grading industry.
In future postings I hope to show you some of questions from the CSTs (I am, of course, limited to those questions the state has seen fit to release, and they generally don’t release their biggest screw-ups, and then you can tell me if everything on them is “teachable.”
Finally, my motive in criticizing these tests is not to defend Oakland Unified. The problems of this district were well known before there were any CSTs. I dedicated 40 years of my life to improving education in Oakland, and the sad truth is that the CSTs, which have taken so much of the time and energy of Oakland teachers, have not helped to make those improvements.

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 01:24:10 +0000

Peter, You raise some interesting points. As a parent I used standardized test scores in just the way you described. I was happy when the results confirmed my impressions that my sons were doing well, but I don’t think I ever learned anything meaningful from them.
There is a place for standardized tests, and that is when they are used as part of a diagnostic process for helping a student with learning disabilities, but the battery of tests needed for that process are far more intensive than the CSTs, and they require a trained person to analyze them.
You mention the tests being a useful way for parents who are trying to pick a school to assess the student bodies of various possibilities. You could probably get all the information you need by just looking at the demographic section of the API report and ignoring the scores completely. That gives you plenty of information about the student body. However, no parent should select a school without visiting first and observing the classes.
Finally you asked what I would do about standardized tests. First, I would try to make sure that everyone understands their limits. That is the main reason I wrote this article. Secondly, I think any standardized tests that are used need to be error-free, and the state needs to allow teachers or students who discover errors to report them. Thirdly, the high stakes connected to these tests need to be scaled back and a more holistic approach taken to evaluating schools and students.

By: Nextset

Nextset — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:45:27 +0000

Hot R: How was the SAT designed to keep Jewish kids out of Ivy League??

Jewish kids have an (huge) advantage on tests such as the SAT. They did start to overwhelm the Ivy League schools after WWII to the point that the schools put in place Jewish Quotas. That lasted about as long as it took for the name changing to take effect (John Kerry, Madeline Allbright, etc etc…).