Epic Fail of Last Week's State Testing; Parents Demand Commissioner's Removal

NYSUT -- the state teachers union -- also sent out a message today entitled "This year's tests are a disaster!" explaining:

 

"Last week's disastrous foray into computer testing, coupled with ongoing concerns about the benchmarks and developmental appropriateness of the tests, left children frustrated and teachers angry that their warnings were ignored. If SED wants to restore the trust and confidence of parents in its testing system, this isn't the way to do it.  NYSUT asks members to Email the Commissioner and the Regents and share your experience with this year's first round of state testing.

 

For more on the experiences of students and observations of teachers about last week's ELA exams, check out the comments on my blog posts and comments here and here..

 

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 17, 2018

More information contact:

Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com

Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com

NY State Allies for Public Education - NYSAPE

Link to Press Release

Commissioner Elia and the Board of Regents Continue to Fail New York’s Children; Parents Demand the Immediate Removal of Commissioner Elia

Parents across the state demand that the Board of Regents act immediately to remove Commissioner MaryEllen Elia. It is time the Board of Regents exercises control over the State Education Department to stop the runaway train of anti-public school “reform” that the commissioner represents.

Last week’s 3rd-8th grade ELA testing was an epic--and avoidable--fail for the children of New York State. The problems began before the tests were even administered, continued during their administration, and will persist unless there is a radical shakeup in the leadership of the State Education Department; in the way in which information about the tests and participation in the tests is communicated to families; and in how the tests themselves are constructed, administered, and scored.

The twin disasters of this year’s botched computer-based tests and an even more flawed than usual ELA test design prove that Elia is unequal to her duties and lacks the competence to helm the education department. Our children deserve better.

Leading up to the tests, some districts sent letters to parents asking whether their children would be participating in the assessments. Others, including the state’s largest district, New York City, sent home testing “info” riddled with spin, distortion, and outright lies regarding test refusal and its consequences. Many disadvantaged communities told advocates that they did not know they had a right to refuse the tests, even though it is their children who are most likely to suffer the negative effects of school closure.

Amy Gropp Forbes, a mother active in NYC Opt Out, wrote in a letter addressed to Chancellor Betty Rosa, “I urge you to issue a formal statement that clarifies a parent’s right to refuse state testing for their children. If the state allows some parents the right to opt out of state exams, it MUST give ALL parents this right, and consequences to schools and districts across the state must be equitable.” Gropp Forbes received no reply.

That the BOR and SED stood by and let this situation transpire despite having been made fully aware of the inequity--a statewide NYSAPE letter writing campaign generated over 200 complaints of “misinformation and intimidation”--is inexcusable. The absence of state-issued guidance also allowed some schools and districts to intimidate potential test refusers by instituting “sit and stare” policies.

Further evidence of a dereliction of duty on the part of BOR and SED came last week during the state ELA exam. The problems far exceeded the typical complaints associated with the state’s standardized exams. In fact, the problems were so egregious that one Westchester superintendent felt compelled to apologize to his entire community for what students had to endure. Social media flooded with teacher and proctor reports of children crying from fatigue, confusion, angst, hunger, pain, and more.

“Any good teacher knows how to judge time in lessons and assessments,” stated Chris Cerrone, school board trustee from Erie County. “As soon as I saw the format when I received the instructions I knew something was wrong. Day 1 would be short. Day 2 would be too long.”

Jeanette Deutermann, founding member of NYSAPE and LI Opt Out questioned, “Who was actually responsible for the construction and final version of these assessments? SOMEONE is responsible; that someone is Elia and the Board of Regents. The worst test since the new rollout has happened on their watch. Until a more capable leader is in place, we demand that all work on the construction of future tests be suspended immediately.”

Ulster County parent, educator, and NYSAPE founding member Bianca Tanis attributed last week’s fiasco in part to the state’s adoption of untimed testing. “Both SED and members of the Board of Regents continue to ignore the egregious consequences of untimed testing, misleading the public by claiming that the tests are shorter. For many educators, administering this test was the worst day of their career. The truth is out, and it cannot be ignored.”

“Enough is enough,” declared Dr. Michael Hynes, Superintendent of Long Island’s Patchogue-Medford district. “Not only are children and educators suffering, but with this untimed policy the state is in violation of its own law, which caps testing at no more than 1% (9 hours) of instructional time. Where’s the enforcement?”

“For a decade or more, SED and its vendors have proved themselves incapable of creating valid, well-designed, non-abusive exams that can be reliably used for diagnostic purposes or to track trends in student achievement over time,” said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters.

“Since the Common Core was introduced, these problems have only gotten worse, with tests so difficult and confusing that teachers themselves are at a loss as to how the questions should be answered. A recent report from the Superintendents Roundtable revealed that the NYS exams were misaligned to excessively high benchmarks, meaning far too many students are wrongly identified as low-performing,” said Marla Kilfoyle, Long Island public school parent, educator, and BATs Executive Director.

Brooklyn public school parent and founding member of NYC Opt Out, Kemala Karmen, is calling on SED to notify every single parent of their right to refuse May’s upcoming math assessment. She added, “The state can and should halt its hellbent race towards computerized testing, for which it is clearly ill-prepared; stop farming out test construction to dubious for-profit companies; truly shorten the exams; and, most important, remove high stakes attached to the assessments.”

Here’s a compilation of observations made by parents, administrators, and teachers about the numerous problems with this year’s NYS ELA state test, and the suffering it caused students.
NYSAPE calls on the Board of Regents to stand up for equitable and authentic learning & assessments and immediately remove Commissioner Elia.

#OptOut2018 Test Refusal Letter: English & Spanish

NYSAPE is a grassroots coalition with over 50 parent and educator groups across the state.

###

3rd day of ELA testing; please add yr comments! And "impossibly improbable" reading passage found!

Thanks to eagle-eyed Fred Smith, we have now found the passage in which the phrase "impossibly improbable" used, in yesterday's 6th grade ELA exam.  In a piece called "Weed Wars: Farmers fight unwanted plants among crops" published in 2011, the article describes how weeds are developing resistance to a chemical called glyphosate, and how new strategies will have to be found to kill weeds.

In its context (see highlighted below), the phrase seems to mean impossible, because it is then contrasted with the fact that  over time, it is indeed possible for weeds to build in resistance to the weedkiller called glyphosate, but it is certainly a tricky question and who knows how exactly it was phrased? Fred gives it "half a Pineapple"; what do you think?

Aside from the fact that there are plenty of ways for food to be grown organically without the negative impact of chemical weedkillers and genetically engineered crops, a position that that the article appears to ignore. Glyphosate, also called "Round Up", is made by Monsanto and is banned in many countries for its potentially damaging effects on human health.

An excerpt follows below.  If anyone knows what which particular questions followed, and if the passage was changed in any way, please put this in the comment section below.  Also please offer any observations you have on the 3rd day of ELA testing. thanks!

Weed wars: farmers fight unwanted plants among crop

When Stanley Culpepper was a kid, he spent hours pulling weeds on his family’s farm. “We pulled and pulled and pulled,” he says.

Culpepper started weeding when he was only about 5 or 6 years old. As a teenager, he chopped big weeds down with a hatchet.

Culpepper loved working on the farm, but he didn’t like weeding. He became a scientist to figure out easier ways for farmers to control weeds. “I decided there’s got to be a better way than pulling weeds all your life,” says Culpepper, now a weed scientist at the University of Georgia in Tifton.

A lot has changed since Culpepper was a kid. About 15 years ago, many more farmers started using a chemical called glyphosate to kill weeds. It worked so well that many farmers thought their problems were solved. But recently, some weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, meaning it’s harder for the chemical to kill the unwanted plants.

Resistant weeds are a big problem. Some can grow 10 feet tall! Scientists have discovered that weeds use all kinds of tricks to fight glyphosate. If the problem gets worse, farmers might not be able to grow as many crops, or they will have to spend more money controlling weeds. Then food could become more expensive.

...In the 1990s, something big happened: Scientists made crops that couldn’t be killed by glyphosate. They changed the plants’ DNA, the genetic instructions that tell cells which molecules to make. If farmers planted these glyphosate-resistant crops, they could spray the herbicide all over the field anytime and kill weeds without harming crops.

“It became very simple,” says Steve Duke, a plant scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Oxford, Miss. “Just spray once or twice, kill everything [but your crops].”

Farmers loved those glyphosate-resistant crops. They started planting more and more of them and using more and more glyphosate.

Winning the lottery

Some people thought glyphosate would work forever. But the weeds were evolving. That means their DNA was changing.

Once in a while, changes to a weed’s DNA would allow that weed to survive the glyphosate. The chances of changes like this were very, very small. But when farmers used glyphosate year after year on millions of hectares of crops, “what seems almost impossibly improbable becomes more probable,” Duke says.

Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University in Ames, compares the process to a lottery. If one person buys a lottery ticket, his or her chances of winning are tiny. But when millions of people play, chances are good that at least one person will pick the winning combination of numbers. As weeds were sprayed with glyphosate every year, it was like billions of plants were buying lottery tickets over and over, trying to “win” resistance to glyphosate. Eventually, some weeds were going to hit the jackpot.

It didn’t take long for that to happen. In 1996, Australian scientists found a weed called rigid ryegrass that couldn’t be killed with normal levels of glyphosate. In 2001, a researcher in the United States reported another resistant weed, called horseweed. Now at least 21 weed species have evolved glyphosate resistance.....If farmers can’t control weeds and insects, they can’t grow as much food. And if they grow less food, food prices could go up.

NYS educators agree: Flawed, confusing and misleading ELA exams

This week, NY students in grades 3-8 are in the midst of taking lengthy ELA exams, which in NYC, will help determine whether they will be held back, and what schools they will attend in the future, as well as what grades their schools receive and how their teachers will be evaluated.  See this article by Juan Gonzalez, about how our kids this year are  spending 270 minutes on the ELA exam and 270 minutes on the Math exam — 90 minutes over each of six days.  No wonder a growing number of parents are choosing to opt their kids out of these exams. ( For more on this, see With Test Week Here, Parents Consider the Option of Opting Out – NYT/SchoolBook and Parents keeping kids out of state reading exams - NY Daily News.)

What follows are comments from teachers and principals throughout the state about how this year's ELA exams are flawed, and contain many ambiguous and misleading questions.  Unfortunately, parents will NEVER be allowed to see these tests as the state is determined to keep them secret from this day forward.  And yet, NYS taxpayers are paying $32 million to Pearson for these exams.  If you are a NYC parent or a teacher, and want to get active on this issue, please email changethestakes@gmail.com  Please also add your comments below if you have thoughts or observations about these exams.

3^rd grade test:

From a NYC teacher: A couple of crazy things I've noticed: one really misleading fact/opinion question on the 3rd grade test (question asks "which sentence from the story is an opinion?" and the correct answer choice has the opinion embedded within a piece of dialogue. There's another that asks "what is the best way to remember what is in this ad?" that is highly subjective (different people have different strategies for recalling information, and each of the choices has some validity). 

NYC principal: The listening selection for grade 3 has MANY questions (multiple choice, short response, extended response) that follow this incredibly thin selection and aren't necessarily answered in the selection.

4^th grade test:

 From a literacy specialist [in a district outside NYC]:  I proctored the fourth grade test today. I thought that the test was terrible and not a true measure, in my opinion, of reading comprehension. First, some of the early passages in the test were very long (more than two pages) and meandering, making it difficult for 8/9 year-old readers to clearly discern the principal problem among several - or the problem the test-maker thought was the principal problem. These long passages put an undue burden on young reader's stamina during the early part of the test. Even though I am an adult who reads a lot (I am currently finishing my doctoral dissertation),  I found getting through the long passages and questions mentally tiring. This was in part due to the fact that the questions were convoluted and designed to "catch" students in test traps.

In addition, some of the test's print features were inconsistent (i.e., same exact phrases were bolded in some question and not others). The word choice both in the question stem and in the answer choices was meant to obscure meaning, choosing at times arcane vocabulary to refer to text information in the correct choices.  I have been a teacher for 19 years and a literacy specialist for 13, and I can say with some degree of confidence that this test was unfair and not a good instrument to measure students’ ability to read proficiently and use complex text to think critically and learn about the world. I feel sad for my wonderful and hard working students who sat for 90 minutes running through an unfair reading rat maze for political antics and for the benefit of corporate profiteers. I am afraid for the profession I love and for the future of public education.

From a principal, outside NYC:  This morning I had a fourth grader who told me that yesterday’s test was “hard.”  She then went on to explain that the stories were fine and the questions were easy, but that the answers didn’t match the questions.  Sometimes all the answers seemed right, other times all the answers seemed wrong, and sometimes the answers were just confusing.

5^th grade test:

NYC principal: As angry as I was before, seeing the tests today (which we are not allowed to quote in any way) has sent me over the edge!  I haven't even read all of them yet but the fifth grade test is unbelievable.  There were easy reading selections and lots of trick questions--more than I have ever seen before--that are absolutely no indication of any kind of 5th grade level reading comprehension.  My APs and I can't even figure out what answer they are looking for in some questions!  I think we absolutely need to fight that these tests be made public.  People will be shocked to see them.  

NYC teacher [at another school]: I completely agree with that principal.   Passages were dense, though reasonable.  What was irritating was how many questions were trick questions, and don't really test comprehension, they test your ability to answer tricky questions.   There were definitely questions in which my kids were just making silly mistakes all on their own.  But there were also plenty of questions in which the wording was meant to lead you astray, or there were 3 perfectly viable answers for which you had to use really developed reasoning to distinguish which was best, and honestly, I don't think a 9 year-old should be told they aren't worthy of passing fourth grade just because their reasoning hasn't reached an adult's level of analysis, or because they took a different perspective on a question than a test monger.

6^th-8th grade tests:

NYS middle school principal [outside NYC]: As I reviewed the exams for the sixth through eighth grade yesterday, I was appalled. I felt that sixth grade was the most difficult of the three exams, followed by eighth and with the fairest exam being the seventh grade. There were so many questions that contained answer choices that the ELA teachers said they could not decide which answer would be 'best' (By the way - weren't they getting rid of using that in the question stem?). I felt terrible for my children, especially for my English Language Learners and my special education students. They were extremely frustrated by the ambiguity of the answer choices and the questions that required them to synthesize several different pieces of information to come up with one answer that was mysteriously lurking among the four choices.

I had one student in an ESL class, who I was told was bright and could do well (whatever that means since the cut off scores are manipulated each year), tell me he was finished at 8:30 AM - the test started at 7:50 AM. As we strongly encouraged that he go back into the test to check his answers - his eyes began to well with tears. He was frustrated and gives up easily to not deal with the frustration. My heart broke. I can't imagine his willingness to now sit for another two days with each day bringing him more and more frustration. That's like me sitting for an IB language assessment. I'm motivated to learn the language, but I know I'm not proficient, I know I'm going to fail and I have to sit for it any way. Why should I try?