PARCC Testing Season started in Ohio this month (February, 2015) and will run through May. I have a Master's Degree, passed National Boards, have a Reading Certificate (K-12), and believe in High Standards (vigor, not rigor, thank you). The public can (and should) hold my feet to the fire when it comes to accountability (taxpayers pay my salary and I consider them my employers) and my former students' past test records will prove that our Value Added Measure (VAM) gains have been high. However, Ohio is playing a dangerous game with the new PARCC standardized tests (in addition to all the other legislated tests) and students are truly starting to be harmed in the name these tests "informing instruction." Never, in all my 25 year of teaching, have I ever received a graded test returned (and it won't happen with the new testing, either). Never have I ever received scores from the state in time to adjust instruction. (The PARCC scores our students have already taken this month in February aren't predicted back until November.) The state hasn't released past test questions to the public in years. Teachers have to sign a gag order not to release any questions that we happen to see (we are supposed to avert our eyes) to anyone (including the most important people in our students' lives: their parents). And parents are never given anything other than a printout of phantom scores which mean absolutely nothing when not connecting those scores with the original questions being asked. Now, to make matters worse, with PARCC testing, students are losing out on increased, and crazy, amounts of valuable instructional time (year after year after year) and are taking tests based on developmentally inappropriate questions (some too easy; and most, GRADE LEVELS AHEAD on the test company's own maturity matrix and readability scales; no rhyme or reason). Do your homework, please! Take my students' fifth-grade PARCC Practice Tests in English Language Arts and research them yourself. http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/
History is going to judge who stood up for the children on their watch during this political addiction of mass standardized testing. Let it be known that with the articles I've written, the education forums I've spoken at, and now with sharing this video (though I detest being on video and my heart is pounding with how scared I am to share this information; although my own district, thank God, has been supportive), I am standing on the side of children. Please, please join me in speaking out for our nation's boys and girls and help them to get their precious childhoods and classrooms back.
History is going to judge who stood up for the children on their watch during this political addiction of mass standardized testing. Let it be known that with the articles I've written, the education forums I've spoken at, and now with sharing this video (though I detest being on video and my heart is pounding with how scared I am to share this information; although my own district, thank God, has been supportive), I am standing on the side of children. Please, please join me in speaking out for our nation's boys and girls and help them to get their precious childhoods and classrooms back.