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Score! It's All About the Children

5/31/2015

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I recently came across this article from Education Week. It made my blood boil. There is so much wrong with it, that I felt that just posting it on my Facebook wall and commenting wasn’t sufficient. So I decided to do what’s becoming my habit when something about the privatization of our public education system makes me really, really, mad: write about it here. 

The piece begins by talking about the vast number of students (12 million according to the article) who are taking either the SBAC or PARCC assessments this year and the need for many items on these tests to be hand scored. According to the article 42,000 people have been hired to do that scoring. The article is about testing behemoth Pearson, which is training scorers for PARCC states and “permitted a rare visit” to one of it’s scoring centers where the author was able to glimpse the process that is “typically shrouded in secrecy”. 

The writer spoke to “Launica Jones…(a) 23-year-old (who) taught elementary school for a while, but now she's going to law school at night, and scoring the PARCC exam by day for extra cash.” I found myself at this point wondering how long “a while” was, considering that Ms. Jones is only 23 and the typical elementary education program around the country requires 4 or 5 years of college in order to become a certified teacher. I’m no math wizard, but most students graduate high school around 18, so “a while” cannot possibly be more than one year. I found myself wondering if it were even that long. 

The article then goes on to describe the training process for scorers, which involves multiple trainees scoring the same anchor items in order to assure that all are scoring in about the same way. This is something that I, as a teacher, have participated in many times. Oregon used to provide training to all teachers, during our in-service days (which the public has already paid for with their tax dollars) to do the exact same sort of scoring calibration. The major difference here is that many of those doing the scoring are not teachers. According to the article, they are also “accountants, technology geeks, lawyers, unemployed corporate executives”. And almost jokingly, “oh, yes, teachers”, some of whom may have taught for “a while”. 

The article states that Pearson requires that all scorers hold a bachelor’s degree. That could be in Business, or Art History or Underwater Basket Weaving, I guess, as there is no requirement for scorers to be in any way trained as educators. The requirement of a four year degree is something that Pearson and PARCC states have agreed on. States using the Smarter Balanced test choose their own “vendor”, not necessarily Pearson, to do their test scoring. But Pearson is driving the train in this brave, new world of outsourcing K-12 assessment. 

As blogger Hyung Nam discovered, in Oregon the hiring of test scorers, just as in PARCC states, is often done off Craigslist or through temporary services like Kelly. Those scorers work in various locations around the country. But they don’t work in Oregon. Oregon's students' tests will be scored, according to ODE official Derek Brown, “somewhere in the midwest”.  The Oregon Department of Education has contracted with a company called DRC (Data Recognition Corporation). They are advertising here for scorers. This is their recruiting flyer for jobs. 

The EdWeek article says this about California, another SBAC state: 

“Through its contractor, the Educational Testing Service, the state is hiring only scorers who have bachelor's degrees, though they can be ‘in any field,’ according to an ETS flyer. Teaching experience is ‘strongly preferred,’ but not required. Certified teachers, however, must be paid $20 per hour to score, while non-teachers earn $13 per hour. As of late April, only 10 percent of the scorers hired in California were teachers, according to the state department of education.”

And, “Pearson reports that among the scorers hired as of April 30, 72 percent had one or more years of teaching experience, but only half are still teaching. Any teaching experience—not just that obtained in mainstream public or private K-12 classrooms—is acceptable…” 

Teaching first aid classes? Providing fire extinguisher training? Lean production training? Does that count as being a teacher? Does it count same as spending years working in an actual classroom with actual children? 

As members of Oregon Save Our Schools were told in an email from ODE Assistant Superintendent Doug Kosty, “DRC follows industry standards and best practices for scoring large-scale assessments.” Calling this “best practices” is laughable. 

The article also talks about not only those temp workers hired off  Craigslist, Monster, et. al. that work out of central locations,  but also those who “train and work from home—three-quarters of those scoring the PARCC tests for Pearson”. I wonder how secure students’ private data is when just any one who has any 4 year degree and is hired off Craigslist uses their home computer to rate student work? 

But of course not just the “quality” of the raters’ answers is monitored by Pearson or DRC or ETS or whichever corporation is checking your child’s work, but also their “productivity” (a.k.a. speed) because, of course, time is money. Again from the article: 

“Pearson staffers monitor raters' productivity. Acceptable scoring speeds are based on Pearson's past experience scoring tests. Those reviewing 3rd grade math, for instance, are expected to score 50 to 80 answers per hour, while raters for 3rd and 4th grade English/language arts responses are expected to complete 20 to 40 per hour, and those scoring high school English/language arts responses are expected to complete 18 to 19 per hour, Pearson officials said.” 

Wow. That’s pretty darn fast! Makes me feel like I’ve been wasting a lot of evenings and weekends when I could have been watching "Dancing with the Stars" fretting too much over just what score to give something a child has done his or her very best work on. 

But don’t be concerned about someone who doesn’t know your child and may or may not be an actual educator scoring his or her answers. You can rest easy in this assurance from the Center for Assessment, a testing industry center in New Hampshire: 

“Joseph Martineau, a senior associate at the center, said his worry isn't focused on the subjectivity of 42,000 human scorers.” (God forbid we should have subjective human scorers evaluating the efforts of human children.) 

“Established practice in the field ensures careful training and monitoring, making hand-scoring ‘much more of a science than people think it is,’ he said. But he questioned the assessment industry's capacity to supply a key component: the supervisors who train and oversee those scorers.”  (We used to call "supervisors who... oversee scorers" principals.)

“ ‘[Hand-scoring the Smarter Balanced and PARCC tests] requires a major increase in scoring capacity of the vendors,’ said Mr. Martineau, who used to oversee testing as a deputy state superintendent in Michigan. ‘You have to have table leaders, team leaders, who are really good. Those may be few and far between.’ ”

“If the vendors who are training raters adhere to best practices… (Chris) Domaleski, (senior associate at the Center for Assessment) is optimistic that the scores will be reliable and valid. Some of those practices include requiring appropriate qualifications of scorers, creating a rigorous process to qualify them as scorers, and monitoring whether they're scoring within expected ranges. ‘At the same time, though, I don't want to minimize the risk of how difficult it's going to be, given the extraordinary scope of these operations,’ (Domaleski) added.”

So there’s “risk”? I thought that high in the upper echelons, where this was all created, they were so sure this was all going to be the perfect system! And that’s IF they adhere to best practices.  But then, why wouldn’t they? After all, the only thing involved is their company’s profits. And heaven knows, we couldn’t continue to trust teachers who know the children to rate the work, for how on Earth would we be able to keep them honest and hold them accountable? (It doesn’t mention in the article how those test centers will be held accountable for anything at all).

No one asks these questions: Why are we spending even more money that we don't have paying to train temporary workers to do a job that teachers are already trained to do? In Oregon during the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Oregon teachers hand scored student work at the state level as part of state testing. And the training that they received scoring that work, usually over spring break, was brought back with them to their classrooms to help students understand how to formulate better methods and explanations for solving math problems and write better essays. And that training was often propagated in their schools and districts by having those teachers train and work with other teachers on those skills. Why did we stop doing that? We were told it was “too expensive”.  Why was that “too expensive” but THIS isn’t? What could we have done with the amount of money we are spending on that? Would it pay to restore Music and PE to all Oregon elementary students? How much is it? And exactly how will the evaluation centers be evaluated? 

And now comes my favorite line from the article, right at the end: “Coverage of the implementation of college- and career-ready standards is supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

As Iago, the parrot sidekick of evil Jafar in Disney’s Aladdin says, “Oh, now THERE’S a big surprise!” 

Does Gates funding of media taint objectivity?  That’s a great question. What do you think? Bill Gates is a major driver of Common Core standards and big proponent of new tests. Certainly Gates wouldn't be doing this just for profit! Certainly Gates and Pearson couldn’t have any common financial interests . I’m sure it’s all about the children. 

And if you click on the original article, don’t forget to read the comments at the end. They are the best. This was my favorite: 

“For an innocent child to worry, fret, and do their best on these tests, only to have their carefully crafted answer shipped off to a call center employee, is unimaginably undignified. I cannot conceive of submitting my child to this, and I can't believe that any well-intentioned parent would.”

Had enough of Gates and Pearson control over education? Join Oregon and Washington BATs in Portland to protest Pearson influence!


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How's It Goin'?

5/16/2015

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“So, you had to give the test?”

Yes, I did give the test despite my very public objections. Following the request to my school board be excused from administering based on my professional objections, I was informed by my superintendent that although he did share many of my concerns, refusal to administer the test would be considered insubordination which could result in discipline “up to and including termination”. I need my job, and I am still hoping that we can stop this madness, so I ultimately decided to administer the test. I plan now to bear witness to what is happening and continue to report on it.

“How was it?”

That’s a question lots of people have been asking me, specifically people who are not required to give the test such as parents and, frankly, most teachers in Oregon. In Oregon, the Smarter Balanced Assessment is only given in grades 3 through 8, and again in grade 11. If students are in a middle school or high school, only their English Language Arts or Math teachers might be administering the test, or maybe a trained proctor. 

When people ask me that question, sometimes it’s followed by, “My son (or daughter) said it wasn’t that bad.” I have heard this from parents of upper primary and middle school students. High school parents are usually aware of the way that testing has affected the schedule of the entire high school for weeks, not just the Junior class, due to the fact that most high school classes include a mix of grade levels. They don’t ask that question. They are frustrated by the level of disruption that their kids are experiencing in their regular schedules. 

This year, when I took my sixth graders to Outdoor School, the staff there informed me that they have never had so much trouble getting high school counselors, due to the new tests. A week of testing versus a week of working as an Outdoor School counselor: Which one makes a student more “career ready”? 

And from what I’ve seen, the test is pretty bad for third graders. On the first day of third grade testing, I walked by our school office and saw a third grader coming out crying. She clearly had been sobbing, judging from the appearance of her nose and eyes. I thought she might have gotten in trouble, as I had seen her sitting and talking to an administrator. When I asked what had happened, the adult she had been speaking to said, “The test.” 

Yes, that’s right: a little girl was in the office sobbing because of Smarter Balanced. She had reached a level of frustration that had caused her to burst into tears. What a great learning experience, huh? That’s sure to make her love school. 

When I asked her teacher about it later the teacher said, “Everyone was crying.” Now I’m sure she doesn’t mean every single child in the class was crying. I took it more as, “Everyone likes chocolate.”  Clearly not every single person likes chocolate, but a whole lot of people do. So I guess a whole lot of small children were crying out of frustration in the teacher’s room. 

Third grade testing was supposed to last one week. It took two. And this is only for Language Arts. Their math testing starts next week, after a one week reprieve from testing. One child took 13 hours to finish the test. Let’s remember, these are eight and nine year old children. The longest test I ever had to take as a graduate student was somewhere between two and four hours. 

At sixth grade, no one cried. I’m chalking that up to maturity. Sixth graders are twelve, not eight. That’s half a lifetime more mature than a third grader. I know who was frustrated, but they have learned better coping skills. I’ll bet most sixth graders who were frustrated just guessed on the multiple choice answers. Heaven knows what they wrote in the blank spaces on the short answer questions they couldn’t understand. 

One thing I know was the same in both third and sixth grade: many kids sat in front of a computer and felt stupid, day after day, for an entire week. Or two. 

I just read a Facebook post by a friend who was sitting in a professional development session. She was quoting Dr. Stephen Krashen’s theory regarding Affective Filter in language learning: “A student’s feelings and emotions, such as stress, anxiety or boredom, may interfere with language acquisition and learning.” In my experience, this is true not only for students who are learning language, but for students who are learning anything. Stressful testing is not only not a learning experience, it is an anti-learning experience

And how are their scores? Even for the kids who said, “It wasn’t that bad”? No one knows yet. And even if some kids did okay, this still doesn’t address the inappropriate length of the test and the multi-month disruption in schedules and learning we are experiencing. 

So how was it? I guess that depends on who you are. And on results that aren’t in yet. Stay tuned for that. Some people who think “it wasn’t that bad” may change their minds. 

Photo credit Leah-Anne Thompson at Daily Kos, where you can read more about the problems with testing. 

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Teacher Appreciation

5/7/2015

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I just want to thank all the fantastic teachers I know out there: those I have taught with in the past, those I teach with now, those I have never taught with but who I know because we are working together to try and save public education for our children and our grandchildren. 

None of you are getting rich. In fact, many of you probably barely get by. I know I and many colleagues of my generation qualified for free or reduced lunch when our children were little and we were just starting out. I know some of my colleagues hold a second job in order to make ends meet.

These days, it’s not for the respect that you do this job. Teachers are constantly being maligned in the media. If only we could get rid of “all the bad teachers” our education system would be perfect. Teachers need to be “held accountable”. Sounds as if we have committed some sort of crime. When I started teaching in 1987, teachers were well respected. The corporate campaign to devalue and de-professionalize teaching in order to hire on the cheap hadn’t begun yet. 

And you don’t do it for the job security. When I started teaching that was one of three major reasons I chose that career path. I knew I wouldn’t get paid as much as I would in some other fields, but I’d always have a secure job. I didn’t foresee that nearly 30 years later the security of our public schools themselves would be threatened by a hedge fund managed privatization movement. 

I don’t know about you, but those are two of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher: job security and respect. And back then, I was thinking about being a young mother. I wanted to be able to spend as much time as possible with my future kids. I knew I’d always have to work, but at least I’d be home when they were home from school and I could have summers with them. And I was. And I did. Even though we never got rich. It was totally worth it. 

And that’s the final reason I decided to become a teacher, and the reason why all of you I appreciate so much did, too: we love kids. A lot more than money. We want to do what’s best for kids; not just our kids but everyone’s kids. We want to contribute to making the world better and do a job that matters. 

So in spite of the lack of resources, respect, and financial rewards you receive, you keep doing it. I admire you so much. I truly appreciate you. You humble me every day with what you do. Thank you, thank you, thank you! It is an honor to know you. 

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 
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A Watched Pot Never Boils

5/2/2015

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Last week I attended the Network For Public Education conference in Chicago. It was inspiring to be with so many people who are standing up for our kids and our schools and against test based “reform” and privatization.  

As I was passing through the airport, I made it through security before my traveling companion. I sat and watched people moving through the massive security check and I thought back to when we flew easily around the country without all that and wondered: When did we become so afraid? How have we allowed ourselves to get to this point? How did we go from walking right on the plane to x-raying our bags to the virtual strip search? I know about 9/11 of course, but in the 1970s there were many highjackings and no such invasion of our privacy was resultant. And all the expense and security systems seem to have resulted in zero to few actual arrests for attempted terrorist plots. 

I believe there are parallels between airport security and the testing system in our schools. Both were implemented out of fear. (Our test scores aren't the highest! OMG, we aren't globally competitive!) Both are massively expensive and intrusive systems with little tangible return on investment of time and resources. Both seem to be influenced by the profit motive and the current crony/revolving door government in DC. Both have evolved over time, and we have been like the proverbial frog in the pot of water set to boil. Little by little, we have allowed ourselves to become accustomed to things we would never have allowed if they were introduced all at once. 

If in 2001, when No Child Left Behind was passed, if we had been told that we would be implementing tests that required a high level of secrecy, that teachers would receive no usable feedback for instruction nor be able to comment on or discuss test items, that the tests would take between 8 and 20 hours for a third grader (or even an 11th grader) to complete, and that based on the results of those tests which no one could see or comment on, important decisions about children, teachers and schools would be made, I like to think that the outrage would have completely eliminated the possibility of implementing such a system.

Or maybe not. I am often surprised by the people who are willing to accept the system. But maybe I shouldn’t be. They seem to fall into the, “Whatever,” category: “Whatever, I need to get where I’m going,” “Whatever, we need to be safe from terrorists,” “Whatever, I’m not doing anything wrong,”  “Whatever, I still get paid,”  “Whatever, we’ve always had testing,” “Whatever, everyone already knows which kids are failing,” “Whatever, my kids will do okay”. 

I wish I could be a “whatever” person but I just can’t. It still makes me mad when I have to let the machine scan me and look under my clothes. And it still makes me mad when we label kids failing as young as eight years old. My kids are out of school. I’m close to retirement. “Whatever” would be a far easier road for me to walk. But I care about the kids who are “failing”. I don’t view them as failures. Every child has talent in some area and every person has worth and I don’ t think we are doing the right thing.

I don’t believe in making kids feel bad about themselves if their area of talent isn’t reading or math. I don’t believe that the only things we should be teaching children are reading or math. I don’t believe we should be demanding that every child achieve the same things at the same time. I don’t believe in a system where every child must conform or be labeled “not meeting standards”. I don’t believe in fake “reform” that really means privatizing our public school system. 

I believe in a public education system that meets the needs of every child. I believe that every child should graduate from high school with not only basic skills for life in place, but a good self-concept in place as well. I believe everyone needs basic math skills; not everyone needs to take calculus. I believe everyone needs basic reading skills; not everyone needs to be able to close read and analyze The Aeneid. I believe everyone needs to find their own talents, not fit into one of two boxes or be rejected. 

I believe in choice for students and parents, and that the word “choice” should not apply only to the “choice” to remove your child from your neighborhood school and place them in a private school if you don’t like the system the neighborhood school is forced to use. I believe parents, teachers, students, and a locally elected school board should determine how our schools are run with our tax dollars, not people far away who don’t know our kids and might love for some of those dollars to be deposited into their bank accounts.

I am jumping out of the boiling pot. Join me. Join us. Jump. Don’t be afraid. We need true school reform that works for every child. 

Demand an end to a test focused education system. Opt out. Write your senators and congressional representatives and tell them no annual testing in the new reauthorization of ESEA. Say no to test based accountability systems. Make a difference. Do one thing. Do it today. 

Know the issues. Pay attention. Keep an eye on that pot.



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    Kathleen Jeskey

    I have been teaching for 28 years in a variety of settings but primarily in Title I schools and bilingual programs.

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