Fred Smith on David Abrams' resignation: No Mas!

Fred Smith is a former senior analyst for the NYC Board of Education and an expert on testing. Here he comments on the sudden resignation of David Abrams, who led the NY State Education Dept. testing office into one preposterous blunder after another over many years, the most serious of which was  test score inflation -- but my favorite was the ridiculous 4th grade reading test of 2006 which featured Brownie the Cow.  (You have to see this to believe it; here is the story and questions archived.) This article in the Daily News was probably the final straw: about a prematurely released state plan to lengthen 3^rd grade standardized exams to four hours.  

Susan Crawford asks whether the SED might actually hire a trained psychometrician in Abrams’ place. "Does there exist a "lever of change" we can push somewhere to insist that SED put someone in charge of testing who has the appropriate credentials?" 

Fred responds: 

I'm reminded of a statement by Abba Eban: Men behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.

 Surely wisdom has not guided the NYS Testing Program.  Maybe there's a slight opening for it now.

The spirit of OWS comes to mind as a force for change: With the ridiculous longer testing that was about to be sprung on everyone; followed by Abrams' (who must know where the bodies are buried) resignation; and the rebellion of principals against teacher evaluations--perhaps, the moment is ripe for principals, teachers and parents to unify in a massive OPT OUT of the testing.  No Mas! 

There's no need to rush ahead on the next runaway test train--to perpetuate obsession with high scores, misuse of the data to justify dubious decisions and consequent cheating, institutional lying about the results, destruction of the curriculum, mad giveaway money to publishers and other attendant evils.

NY Charter schools join the pushback vs. teacher evaluation and data systems promoted by the corp reformers

Today the NY Charter Schools Association sent a letter to the state’s charter schools, rejecting the demand from the State Education Department that they provide information that can link teachers to student test score to enable the creation of a statewide data system designed to evaluate teacher effectiveness.

It is ironic that the charter school lobby, which has been strengthened and supported by Arne Duncan and Gates and the rest of the corporate reformers, is resisting  the sort of reductionist teacher evaluation system that was required for states to compete for federal Race to the Top funds, at the very same time that RTTT led to an increase in the numbers of charters.

Thus, charters could grow to significant part of the overall school system but remain exempt from the damaging prescriptions that the corp reformers want to impose on our public schools, and their teachers, no matter how “ineffective”, could continue teaching in charters indefinitely. 

Here, the NY charter school community joins the growing pushback vs. the rush to adopt deficient teacher evaluation systems being pushed by the US DOE and Gates Foundation,  joining the NY state teachers union, hundreds of Long Island principals, and the educators of Tennessee.

Meanwhile, the California State Education Department has estimated that adopting a new teacher evaluation system, along with the Common Core standards, would cost the state $3.1 billion; funds it clearly doesn't have, as school budgets have been scraped to the bone.

I believe charters also consider themselves free from having to adopt the Common Core standards, developed by the Gates Foundation and promoted by Race to the Top. I guess what’s good for the goose is NOT good for the gander.