Teachers Must Have Parents' Help to Protect Children from Testing Abuse

Read this if you are a parent or grandparent.  And then act.

Opting Out of Testing Continues to Expand

From Penn State professor and parent, Timothy Slekar, at Huffington Post:

"I'm not opting my kids out of testing again this year to bring focus to the tests. I'm doing it to take away the data from the advocates of choice and privatization. I'm saying NO! You will not use my kids in your attack on public schools. You will not use my kids to dismantle the entire public school system." -- Me.

"Cant we all just along?" "Don't we want a "big tent?" "Shouldn't we be "inclusive?" Yes. Sometimes. But there are moments when some issues must remain divisive.

My ultimate goal as an advocate for public schools is to make sure that the institution (American public education) survives the ruthless attack by market-based reformers that only have an interest in taking advantage of the money that remains locked up in the public system of education. Make no mistake about my position. Market-based reforms being pushed by a crowd of people unfamiliar with teaching and learning are trying to destroy the American public school system. And if they succeed democracy will soon follow. If public education is dismantled our last barrier to free thought will be gone. This is a horrible prospect. Therefore, a group of committed advocates has decided that "opting out" of state testing is a way to save public schools.

In less than a week, United Opt Out has recruited over 600 members, developed a website, created a Twitter account, launched a blog campaign. And somehow managed to irritate "choice" advocates who also want to end high stakes testing.

You might wonder how the same objective -- ending high stakes tests -- can be met with disagreement. I mean, shouldn't we take this momentum and target "big testing," Democrats for Education Reform, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan? Maybe. Maybe not. You see, it is possible to have the same objective but have an entirely different goal. 

Ending high stakes testing is an objective for United Opt Out. Ultimately, our goal is to take back public schools from advocates for a "choice" based system of education. However, according to some of the advocates for "choice," they would like to join with United Opt Out because of their hatred of standardized tests.

United Opt Out is not promoting "opting out" as a form of civil disobedience to just stop standardized testing. We are targeting testing and the misuse of the data testing provides because these are the weapons being used by market-based corporate reformers to dismantle the public school system. We want to Save Our Schools and give them back to the students, teachers, and Parents Across America. However, it seems that some "choice" advocates would like to end standardized testing as a way to show their distrust of government intrusion into the education of their children. They are advocates for a "choice" based system of education. This is an unacceptable end game and joining forces makes absolutely no sense.

United Opt Out has been specific enough and has said that parents, homeschoolers, teachers, students and even Klingons are all welcome as long as it is understood that our passion is being directed at state tests because the tests and the data are the tools being used by corporate reformers to dismantle public schools. We are not focused on opting out to further the cause of more choice -- which will ultimately lead to privatization.

I do respect a parent's right to direct the education of their children. However, when they advocate a "choice" movement and market-based reforms to take the place of a system of public education, my tolerance evaporates. When it comes to schooling in America, if you do not see a thriving, community-based public school system situated within diverse settings then "we can't get along," "there is no room in the tent," and "you are not included."

"And that is what so scares those of us who see traditional public schools as vital to democracy: that they will become repositories for the poorest, most troubled children." -- Michael Winerip.

By Any Means Necessary: Stop Sanctioned Child Abuse in Schools

The testing hysteria has reached levels in schools that require parents and teachers to take action to protect children from further harm.  Teachers, parents, and children should feel justified to take whatever nonviolent actions are necessary to promote healthy learning environments and healthy children and to stop the testing abuse that is destroying the capacity of children to grow and learn.

From Zahra Lightway:

As you are getting ready to go back to school, you may be feeling pleased that your child is going to a school with high test ratings. Before you decide if that's a good thing or not, read this story. You may be shocked at the lengths many schools and districts will go to, to raise their test scores.  After reading, go to your child's school and start asking some hard questions. Need help with the questions. Contact me.

My last assignment in a public school was in Houston, TX where I worked at the Aldine Independent School District.  I worked on a 5th/6th grade campus.  The children began the school year by spending their first two days of school taking practice tests in all the tested subjects under test conditions.  Welcome back to school kids.

Then throughout the year, every three weeks, the children take short practice tests in math, reading (which no one is even pretending to call English or language anymore), science and social studies.  Teachers are then to take those results and aggregate, disaggregate, vomigate them and submit them to the administration on the school level.  This alone takes their "planning" time for that week. If students do not score well, teachers are threatened immediately by the principal.

So with one day used for the practice test questions, one day used for going over the test questions and really all the other days used to prepare the kids for the practice tests, there are 0 days from August to the end of April, when children are not preparing for tests.

Then come the tests. Children arrive at school and are given snacks (only on test days) so they can think better...these are snacks that contain food colorings and preservatives etc..a whole other topic. Then the grueling day begins.  In Texas the test is untimed. All students must sit all day long.  If a child finishes early, they must sit at a desk in silence with nothing to do for up to the next 5 hours.  They cannot read a book or otherwise engage in activity. They can put their heads on their desks. Period. There is one break for lunch.  Children are not allowed to speak at lunch for test security purposes.

If I asked a parent what they would do if they discovered that their babysitter had forced their child to sit at a desk in silence for six hours with one short break, they would fire the babysitter and possibly press charges for child abuse. Let us not kid ourselves. What is being perpetrated on children in the name of "excellence" and "high standards" is nothing short of child abuse.

And it gets worse.

If a child fails a test, the school has one month to prepare the child for the "re-take". In that time, the child is removed from physical education and their elective classes and instead spends three hours a day preparing for that next test.  On top of preparing for upcoming tests in the other subjects.

If the child fails again...the same is repeated for another month.

Another failure results in summer school which is again spent preparing for the test.  By the time a child is held back, they have been totally demoralized and probably pretty much destroyed psychically, emotionally and mentally.

Of course that’s in Texas.  The truth is though that the testing movement is a political rather than an educational move in every state. It sounds good on the surface, but the reality is that it’s destroying your children’s chance at a real education.  When local Colorado school district staff at the top levels agree that the system is broken and that testing is not working…it’s time for Coloradoans to pay attention too.

FCAT Child Abuse

From an entirely self-serving perspective, we have to wonder if this generation of the abused will be become the next generation of abusers and anti-empathy zealots.  After all, when I was a kid . . .

From the Miami Herald (ht to Monty Neill):

The FCAT test defines, among other things, whether students pass from third to fourth grade and ultimately whether they graduate from high school with either a standard or special diploma, or whether they will eventually have to take the GED elsewhere. All of this can determine their income range for the rest of their lives. Not only is it risky to place so many eggs in one basket, it is also unfair to evaluate all students with the same measure regardless of their disabilities (though there are some accommodations), income level and social circumstances. Margaret Cox, special education teacher at Henry F. West Laboratory Elementary School in Coral Gables, remembers a third-grade student with severe dyslexia. Even so, no changes were made except for extended time to accommodate his specific disability. He flunked, of course, but he did not have to repeat the grade because he had already been retained in kindergarten. ``This boy cried so much it broke my heart,'' she told me. ``He could not read the material, but if the text had been read aloud to him his strong comprehension abilities would have allowed him to pass.'' This accommodation is not allowed in the reading FCAT exam. Cox has seen students who in the days prior to the test have lost their hair, suffered emotional breakdowns, vomited or developed psychosomatic symptoms. A test to measure the learning achievements of students is important. But a one-size-fits-all exam cannot define their intelligence, especially if they are stressed. There are other alternatives to evaluate children's progress throughout the year. A student's value is much more than a grade on a test. That is why this FCAT imbroglio -- and its emotional consequences -- calls for a more human approach to public education in Florida. If we want our future leaders to be innovative and empathetic, we have to start training them early, making students aware that we value -- besides their academic knowledge -- their creativity, perseverance, responsibility and initiative.

Congressman Miller: Will You Now Sponsor a Bill to Protect Children from Testing Abuse

The Honorable Congressman touts his work on stopping abuse and seclusion of children:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Education and Labor Committee today passed bipartisan legislation to make classrooms safer for students and school staff by preventing the misuse of restraint and seclusion. The Committee passed the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4227) by a vote of 34 to 10.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report released last spring exposed hundreds of cases of schoolchildren being abused as a result of inappropriate uses of restraint and seclusion, often involving untrained staff. In some cases, children died. A disproportionate number of these victims were students with disabilities. In some of the cases GAO investigated, ropes, duct tape, chairs with straps and bungee cords were used to restrain or isolate young children.

“This bill makes clear that there is no place in our schools for abuse and torture,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “The egregious abuse of a child should not be considered less criminal because it happens in a classroom -- it should be the opposite. I’m proud that this bill has bipartisan support and I hope the full House will vote on it soon.”

And yet Miller is one of the most adamant and enthused supporters of non-stop testing in schools, a practice that has done more damage to children and their abilities to learn and live than all other abuses against them combined. Harold Berlak has been an active supporter for such a protection act for years, going back to 2000 when Paul Wellstone was the only true advocate for children in Congress.

Will you, Congressman Miller, support a resolution similar to the one below that I first posted in 2007?:

I am neither attorney nor legislator, but here are some ideas that need to be included in any state bill that takes a moral stand against the most socially-corrosive education policy in history. Use what you want of it--no charge, no copyright.

Updated March 30, 2007

The Paul Wellstone Memorial Family and Students Testing Protection Act, in Honor of the Experience, Insight, and Courage that Enabled Him to See What His Peers in Congress Could Not—the Ultimately-Disastrous Consequences of High-Stakes Testing*

WHEREAS, high-stakes standardized testing of children constitutes the year-round focus in public schools classrooms; and

WHEREAS, the over-reliance and continued emphasis on high-stakes tests has a corrosive effect on preparing children for citizenship in a representative democracy; and

WHEREAS, many high stakes standardized tests administered to children are neither reliable nor valid; and

WHEREAS, emphasis on testing math and reading has resulted in the de-emphasis and disappearance of other important subjects and learning activities; and

WHEREAS, high-stakes testing of young children is inappropriate and harmful to their emotional and intellectual health; and

WHEREAS, results on a single test have been used to justify retention policies that ignore scientific evidence regarding the harmful effects of such practices, and

WHEREAS, poor, non-English speaking, and special education students bear the brunt of disproportionate failure on standardized tests; and

WHEREAS, the preponderance of high stakes standardized tests has neither closed the achievement gap, nor has it altered the economic and social factors that are responsible for those gaps in achievement; and

WHEREAS, failure to meet unrealistic testing targets undermines public support for their schools, thus opening the door to privatization; and

WHEREAS, the institutional stress of high-stakes testing undermines the supportive and challenging school climate required for children to learn and grow; therefore be it


RESOLVED, that schools will develop and use multiple forms of assessment to make high-stakes decisions regarding students, teachers, and the curriculum; and be it further

RESOLVED, that all standardized tests administered to school children will be psychometrically valid and reliable; and be it further

RESOLVED, that standardized tests will not be used as the sole criterion to make student promotion or retention decisions or as determinants of the curriculum and/or the operations of the public schools; and be it further

RESOLVED, that student scores on standardized tests will be used to help to help teachers address student knowledge gaps; and be it further

RESOLVED, that all testing of children will strictly follow ethical guidelines of the education profession and the professional recommendations of licensed psychologists and pediatricians; and be it further

RESOLVED, that standardized tests will be used to measure individual student gains over time, rather than arbitrary target scores that ignore the disadvantages that accrue from poverty, disability, or language status; and be it further

RESOLVED, that no test results will be used to justify punitive sanctions against individuals or schools; and be it further

RESOLVED, policymakers, classroom teachers, school officials, and parent representatives will constitute the appropriate body of stakeholders to make and to modify testing policies for schools; and be it further

RESOLVED, that school systems will have funded public awareness programs to gather public feedback and to disseminate information on the purpose and limitations of assessment programs.

*Use of Paul Wellstone's name in association with this effort approved by the Wellstone Action Network.

Where Will Be the 1st Class Action to Challenge the Testing Abuse of Children?

Which group of child psychologists or pediatricians will get the ACLU interested in pursuing the first class action against a district, a state, and the U. S. Government? The courts will have to deal with this--the legislators are owned by the testing industry, and the one who aren't are too much the coward to stand up against the madness.

From Emax Health:

Submitted by hareyan on Mar 30th, 2009

Posted under:

• Child Health and Safety

Molly Holloway, a mother of twin kindergartners in Bowie, Maryland, can’t understand why her children must take standardized tests every month in math, reading, social studies, and science.

“One of the teachers has told me that the kindergarten curriculum is what used to be the first-grade curriculum,” Holloway wrote. “What evidence do we have that this pushing is beneficial? While some children can handle the pressure, others cannot. One of my daughters struggles to keep up and hates school.”[1]

A mother in Illinois writes, “In order to prepare kids ahead of time for the state tests, hard core curriculum must start in kindergarten. Our kids are not actually getting smarter. The scores are not increasing. And the rates of children with anxiety issues are increasing rapidly.”[2]

Recent studies in New York City and Los Angeles confirm what these and other parents have observed: standardized testing and test prep have become daily activities in many public kindergartens. Teachers say they are under pressure to get children ready for the third-grade tests. The 254 teachers surveyed in the studies said they spent an average of 20 to 30 minutes per day in test-related activity.

The findings are documented in a new report, Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, released on March 20 by the nonprofit Alliance for Childhood (www.allianceforchildhood.org). The authors, Edward Miller and Joan Almon, say that kindergarten testing is “out of control.”

High-stakes testing and test preparation in kindergarten are proliferating, as schools increasingly are required to make decisions on promotion, retention, and placement in gifted programs or special education classes on the basis of test scores. In New York City, for example, kindergarten children take a standardized I.Q. test to determine whether they qualify for “gifted and talented” classes. The city is also implementing a plan to test kindergarten, first-, and second-grade children as part of schools’ performance evaluations. The test scores are used to assign letter grades, A to F, to all of the city’s public schools. The grades are then used to determine rewards and punishments, including cash bonuses for teachers and principals and whether principals will be fired and schools shut down.

“Rigid testing policies do not make sense in early childhood education,” states the Alliance for Childhood report. “Standardized testing of children under age eight, when used to make significant decisions about the child’s education, is in direct conflict with the professional standards of every educational testing organization.”

Young children are notoriously unreliable test takers. They can do well one day and poorly on the same test on another day.

“A major problem with kindergarten tests is that relatively few meet acceptable standards of reliability and validity,” says the National Association for the Education of Young Children. “The probability of a child being misplaced is fifty percent—the same odds as flipping a coin. … Flawed results lead to flawed decisions, wasted tax dollars, and misdiagnosed children.”

The National Association of School Psychologists agrees, saying that “evidence from research and practice in early childhood assessment indicates that issues of technical adequacy are more difficult to address with young children who have little test-taking experience, short attention spans, and whose development is rapid and variable.”

It’s not just parents who are up in arms over the tests for tots. Anthony Colannino, a Waltham, Massachusetts elementary school principal, is upset that his kindergartners are now required to take fill-in-the-right-bubble tests. “Now we’re all the way down to 5- and 6-year-olds taking a pencil and paper test,” he told his local newspaper. “My students and others across the state are being judged on reading material above their grade level.”[3]

Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor early childhood education at Lesley University, said,
“The vast majority of kindergarten teachers now spend some time each day on testing and test preparation, an activity that would have been considered irrelevant and even harmful in the past.”

In Las Vegas, Nevada, kindergarten teachers report that last year they lost more than 30 days of school to mandatory assessments. They have organized to lobby the county school authorities to reduce the number of tests and “return to the implementation of developmentally appropriate standards.”[4]

And a kindergarten teacher in Zanesville, Ohio, wrote to her local paper, “All we are doing is stealing childhood from innocent children. Shame on our government for making us be thieves. Shame on them for not listening to what children really need.”[5]

Crisis in the Kindergarten calls for the use of observational and curriculum-embedded performance assessments in kindergarten instead of standardized tests. The argument that standardized testing takes less time and is therefore more efficient is called into question, argues the report, by the new data suggesting that teachers are now spending time each day prepping children for standardized tests.

The combination of unrealistic kindergarten standards and inappropriate testing results in two to three hours per day being devoted to teaching literacy and math in many of the kindergartens in the N.Y. and L.A. studies. As one Los Angeles teacher said, ““Our students spend most of the time trying to learn what they need in order to pass standardized testing. There is hardly enough time for activities like P.E, science, art, playtime.”

These practices may produce higher scores in first and second grade, but at what cost? Long-term studies suggest that the early gains fade away by fourth grade and that by age 10 children in play-based kindergartens excel over others in reading, math, social and emotional learning, creativity, oral expression, industriousness, and imagination, write the authors of the report.

The report makes the following recommendations to educators, policymakers, and parents for ending the inappropriate use of tests in kindergarten:

1. Use alternatives to standardized assessments in kindergarten, such as teacher observations and assessment of children’s work. Educate teachers in the use of these alternatives and in the risks and limitations of standardized testing of young children.

2. Do not make important decisions about young children, their teachers, or their schools based solely or primarily on standardized test scores.

[1] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/03/extra_credit_dam...
[2] http://www.themotherhood.com/post.php?sid=339832
[3] http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/x1537600536/Waltham-educators-not-h...
[4] http://uktlv.org/about.html
[5] http://www.journal-news.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/lakota...

The Joyless Club: The Changing Brains of Children in Kindergarten

HT to Monty Neill at ARN:

Kindergarten Playtime Disappears, Raising Alarm About Children's Learning and Health

College Park, MD, March 20, 2009-Time for play in most kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, according to results of three new studies released today by the nonprofit Alliance for Childhood. Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared in the 268 kindergarten classrooms studied. The findings are documented in Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School.

Researchers from U.C.L.A. and Long Island University found that, on a typical day, children in all-day kindergartens in Los Angeles and New York City spend four to six times as much time in literacy and math instruction and taking or preparing for tests (about two to three hours per day) as in free play or "choice time" (30 minutes or less). A third research team, at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, found that most of the activities available to children during choice time (a popular euphemism for playtime) are in fact teacher-directed and involve little or no free play, imagination, or creativity.

Child development experts have been raising alarms about the increasingly didactic, test-driven, and joyless course of early childhood education. "These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching," states the Alliance report. "It is increasingly clear that they are compromising both children's health and their long-term prospects for success in school."

The report summarizes recent studies and reports showing long-term gains from play and focused, playful learning in early education. It also critiques kindergarten standards, scripted teaching, and standardized testing and makes recommendations for change.

David Elkind, author of The Power of Play, calls the research findings "heartbreaking." In a foreword to the report, Elkind writes, "We have had a politically and commercially driven effort to make kindergarten a one-size-smaller first grade. Why in the world are we trying to teach the elementary curriculum at the early childhood level?"

The full text of Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School is available at www.allianceforchildhood.org.

Corporate Corruption Comes to Pre-School in (Where Else) Texas

In 2003 Susan Landry was appointed by Governor Rick (the-Market-Solution) Perry to head up a statewide effort called TEEM (Texas Early Education Model). Besides the more obvious goal of privatizing Headstart, TEEM aims to bring the same rigid chain gang instructional methods and materials to Texas preschools for the poor that have become standard fare in the elementary testing camps that house older children of the poor across Texas. That's right--scripted pre-school, cognitive decapitation, and testing for our tiniest brown and poor children.

And for Landry's efforts to control the behaviors and learning potential of 52,000 little ones far into the future, she is paid $269,535 per year (more than twice the Governor's salary). Landry and her staff have also soaked up at least another $500,000 in royalties from outfits like Sopris West and SRA/McGraw-Hill, who supply the "learning" materials for Landry's outfit. Here's a clip from a nice piece of reporting from the Houston Chronicle on the latest edu-industrial waste site to be exposed:

AUSTIN — An experiment to better prepare low-income youngsters for school has cost taxpayers more than three times the typical pre-K curriculum and raised questions about payments to educators who commercialized the program.

Staff members at the State Center for Early Childhood Development have received about $500,000 in royalties from vendors and book publishers whose products are used in classrooms participating in the Texas Early Education Model, or TEEM.

Critics fear that the $80 million program is little more than an effort to market research and products through a variety of commercial vendors.

"This preschool scheme is not about preparing these little ones to be ready for school," said Jay Spuck, a retired Houston-area school administrator and former teacher. "It is about advancing a political agenda of implanting corporate interests into nursery schools."

But the staffers say they only receive royalties from pre-K products sold outside the TEEM program.

The Texas Early Education Model evolved from a 2003 state law to improve pre-kindergarten coordination among public schools, Head Start programs and child-care centers.

The approach, which champions training teachers and early literacy instruction, was developed and studied as part of a highly competitive federal grant program conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and The National Science Foundation, founders say.

"I really expect these kids to show effects of this program long term," said Susan Landry, director of the State Center. "It is probably not an inoculation against everything bad in education, but it gives them a fair shot. They get to start on the same footing. These kids are writing their names, they are writing letters, and they are so proud of it." . . . .

So far the results have been, shall we say, pathetic. This is from an independent evaluation submitted to the Texas Education Agency in 2007:

There was considerable variation both between and within communities with regards to student performance and teacher outcomes. For about half of the communities, students in the treatment groups improved more than students in the control groups, and for the other half of the communities students in the control groups improved more than the students in the treatment groups on the student outcome measures (e.g., mCLASS subtests). TEEM did lead to overall improvement for teachers, although there was considerable variation, with teachers in both control and treatment groups obtaining both positive and negative difference scores on the
teacher outcome measure (i.e., Teacher Behavior Rating Scale.)(p. 2).

Which brings us to the whole issue of testing children as young as 3 years old an ongoing experiment: Unethical, immmoral, and abusive, all at public expense. And even though Roland Good's name is not on it, TEEM uses the same 60-second testing methods and PDA technology that Good manufactured for his DIBELS empire.

Here is a small chunk of a lengthy report by Landry's own staff (An Experimental Study Evaluating a State Funded Pre-Kindergarten Program: Bringing Together Subsidized Childcare, Public School, and Head Start) that details some of the regimented training to prepare teachers for their regimented teaching. And remember: No middle class children allowed:

Child assessment. Assessors were trained during a four-day workshop by a Ph.D. level trainer that included didactic training and practice after which assessors participated in a graded certification process. Standardized certification procedures evaluated general administration procedures including following verbal and behavioral scripts detailed in administration manuals, administering practice items, establishing basal and ceiling items, recording children’s responses, and managing children’s behavior. Following obtainment of full certification, assessors were evaluated again during the initial stages of testing while they worked with children enrolled in the project. Specifically, project coordinators sat next to an examiner and observed administration of each subtest. If any difficulties were noted, then follow-up training/supervision was provided (p. 18).