Research increasingly shows that young children are not ready for the types of questions presented in the Common Core Assessments and practice exercises. At a conference held at Notre Dame in September 2013, Dr.Megan Koschnick explained how the Common Core questions are causing stress and harm to young children.
Assessments – MSP, HSPE, Smarter Balanced
Improving Math and Science Assessments
In 2007, the Washington State Legislature, with the prodding of the parent group Where’s the Math, passed 2SHB 1906 which contained a requirement to improve the math and science standards. (CURE supported math improvements, but we opposed HB1906 due to the other measures in the bill.)
Redesigning the WASL
In 2008 while Dr. Terry Bergeson was still Superintendent, beseiged by parent and education group complaints, the Washington State Legislature passed ESSB 5414 which called for a redesign of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). The Superintendent of Public Instruction was required to revise the current WASL to reduce the number of open-ended/extended response questions at all grade levels. The assessments were to give timely results, and were to be more usable for diagnosing strengths and weaknesses. ESHB 3166 also called for the development of End-of-Course assessments for high school math and science, and provided a phase-in schedule for requiring passing the End-of-Course assessments in order to graduate.
Will the legislative mandates work?
We now have a new superintendent of public instruction, Superintendent Randy Dorn. Math standards were improved; however the panel chosen to implement the improved math standards tried to resist. Also, the standards in the subjects other than math and science have not undergone the same scrutiny and revision. Thus, the new assessments may not be a substantial improvement over the old WASL.
Online assessments
To comply with the requirements of timeliness of results, the state has moved to online testing. There are advantages and disadvantages with online testing. Besides the complications brought on by the computer itself, a key concern is the question of data storage and privacy, especially if the questions are attitudinal rather than knowledge-based. Time will tell.
As we said before, robo-graders just evaluate whether a piece of writing contains complex sentences, long words, observes the punctuation and grammar conventions, and has other writing features which can be programmed into a computer. The computer can’t tell if the writer has made factual errors. According to Les Perelman, Director of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “E-Rater doesn’t care if you say the War of 1812 started in 1945.”
To prove his point, he and three students from Harvard and MIT created an app which generates essays that the robo-grader will deem well-written, according to the algorithms of its programming. They call their program BABEL– Basic Automatic B.S. Essay Language Generator.
Read their hilarious essay. The essay received a top score of 6 points.
Now, because of Perelman’s criticisms–which the assessment company cannot refute–the Educational Testing Service is refusing to cooperate in further verification trials. See the article about Mr. Perelman being censored.
“Automatic Scoring Engines” are the growing rage among education “reformers” as a tool for grading writing assessments. What are they? “Robo-grader” is a more understandable description. Some may point out that computers have been used to grade tests for years. Yes, but the tests in the past were normed, standardized, multiple choice tests with right or wrong answers. Now we have assessments with open-ended response and essay questions.
We have been told repeatedly that the old multiple choice tests are inaccurate and inferior; essay questions help assess the higher order thinking skills.
So please explain, why are my child’s higher order thinking skills being assessed by a computer which has absolutely no higher order thinking skills????
Les Perelman, a research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been critical of robo-graders, one example of which is the Educational Testing Service’s (ETS’s) “e-rater Engine” which is part of the Criterion online writing evaluation service. Students taking the Graduate Record Exam would be evaluated by this capability. Other companies such as Pearson Educational Technologies are also developing similar capabilities. Pearson’s is called “WriteToLearn.”
Perelman says, the problem is–the computer cannot discern truth from falsehood; it can only evaluate the length and difficulty of words in the response, the lengths of paragraphs, the grammatical rules followed, and other programmable elements of writing. The essay could contain glaring factual errors or complete nonsense yet still follow the writing conventions required.
The Educational Testing Services is using the e-rater for students taking the Graduate Record Exam to enter grad school. In the future, this type of robo-grading technology could come to Washington State K-12 Schools. It was referenced in the Memorandum of Understanding between Washington State and the Federal Department of Education when Washington State signed on to be the lead state in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
Read the article, “Facing a Robo-Reader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously”.
It’s not about what Johnny can learn from his e-tablet; it’s about what the e-tablet can learn about Johnny.
Early in October (2014) the federal agency, the National Science Foundation (NSF), awarded $4.8 million to a consortium of universities whose task it will be to develop an extensive data collection, storage, and sharing system. The purported goal? To collect massive amounts of data on students to improve instruction.
The data project is called LearnSphere–a typically ambiguous name. What is being learned? It appears that faceless bureaucrats and researchers will learn information about the students that the students and parents have no idea is being collected–and without parents’ or students’ permission. Data will be collected on teachers as well. Will they have the option of refusing? Most likely not.
A senior advisor at the NSF states, “”We’re now able to collect massive amounts of information on individual students we weren’t able to collect 10 years ago.”
Education Week writer Benjamin Herold writes that the data “would likely include, for example, records of every mouse click a student makes when using a software program and information demonstrating a student’s thought process..” and quotes the lead researcher as saying, “we have shown some pretty interesting results in being able to detect different [emotional] states from keystroke data.” (emphasis added)
This grant is only one of several NSF grants dedicated to data-collection.
Although data collection is not found within the Common Core Standards themselves, other federal initiatives mandate the extensive collection of personal student information, and the two Common Core Assessment Consortia must allow the federal government access to the data. In addition, there are many other data-collection initiatives, some of the begun many years ago before the Obama Administration. Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project explains data collection under the Common Core.
Kindergarten used to be a place to paint pictures, play with clay, make friends, and learn a few social graces. Now it is a place to be assessed and started on the path to be molded into human capital. What has happened to common sense?
Some teachers are beginning to speak out in defense of their students. Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post writes about a Florida teacher who refused to administer one of the Florida kindergarten assessments, the FAIR test. See the article.
Although she feared she would be fired, she just couldn’t bring herself to subject her students to the assessment. Her gutsy stand led to the principal’s decision to drop the assessment. Read the follow up story.
This trend of early assessments started before the appearance of the Common Core Standards and Assessments. Now that data collection through the Race to the Top and other mandates has become a priority, the assessment machine starts in kindergarten or earlier, giving rise to such non-governmental organizations as the Early Childhood Data Collaborative. The assessments drive the curriculum and facilitate the data collection. It isn’t even clear whether the assessments reliably or validly measure what they’re supposed to be measuring, or whether constantly assessing students actually improves education. We appreciate people like this brave teacher who speak out against them.
Some students taking Utah’s SAGE assessment this spring experienced what they described as “weird” colors and sounds while taking the math assessment. SAGE is Utah’s new computer adaptive assessment. From interviews with students, it seems that not every student took the version of the assessment that subjected students to the weird colors and strange voices. Some students appeared to be taking a different version.
Washington State also has a computer adaptive assessment. Washington’s assessments are being developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), one of the two assessment consortia for the Common Core. It is not known yet whether the Washington state assessment resembles the Utah SAGE assessment.
Parents, if your child took the Common Core Assessments this year, please ask him or her to tell you about it. If your child had a similar anxiety-producing experience, please contact the person who produced the video below, and also contact us. Our e-mail is cure@curewashington.org. A sample opt-out form can be found along the top bar of our website.
Please watch the entire video.
Click to download a sample Opt-out form which you can adjust to fit your situation.
Even the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction acknowledges that you may opt out your child from assessments. See the third question on their assessment information page.
Also, read the commentary from our friends at “Stop Common Core in Washington State”.
The Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has produced an excellent video explaining the Common Core. Featured in the video are James Millgram and Sandra Stotsky, the only two content experts on the Common Core Validation Committee. Along with three others validation committee members, they did not sign off on the Common Core State Standards.
For more information about the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, see their website.
Back in the days of the WASL, and even before that, parents had the right and ability to opt their children out of assessments, surveys, and other activities. You can still opt out your child from the Smarter Balanced Assessment which assesses the learning of Common Core State Standards. The Smarter Balanced Assessment, meant to […]