Cuomo Hails Obama Administration's Call For Less Testing

I know, I know - you're thinking there's no way that the guy who just increased the test score component in his APPR teacher evaluation system to 50% and imposed a school receivership program on the state that will turn "struggling" and "persistently struggling" schools to charter operators if they don't turn their test scores around in either a year (for "persistently struggling schools") or two (for "struggling schools") would hail the Obama administration's "We want less testing!" PR statement today.

But that's just what Cuomo did:

Today the Obama administration took an important step toward improving our nation’s education system. Statement: https://t.co/x0Wv4qjAoH

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) October 24, 2015

Here's the Cuomo statement in full - try not to drink anything while reading it so that you don't pay homage to Danny Thomas:

“Today, the Obama administration took an important step toward improving our nation’s education system. I agree with President Obama and Secretary Duncan that we must reverse the overemphasis on testing that has become the norm in too many of our schools, and that is exactly what we have been doing in New York. In 2014, we banned standardized testing for students in pre-kindergarten through 2nd grade, capped test preparation to two percent of learning time, and required the State Education Department to help districts eliminate unnecessary standardized tests for all other students. However, I believe that we need to do more, and that is why I have asked the State’s Common Core Task Force to examine ways to reduce the anxiety of our students by reducing the number and length of tests, as well as making sure that tests are appropriate for the age and education level of all of our students. Their review will be central to how we build on our past accomplishments. I commend President Obama for this action, and I am hopeful that this lead to a higher quality education for all American children.” ​

Here was my twitter response to Cuomo:

.@NYGovCuomo You increased tests to 50% of teacher's eval. Who do you think you're kidding? https://t.co/Y6LbqwQGV2

— rbe (@perdidostschool) October 24, 2015

Now for the blog response:

Cuomo's doing his best to make it look like he's listening to parents upset that so much time, energy and resources are spent on high stakes standardized tests and test prep for their children, but the reality is, this is just another education dog and pony show in a long litany of education dog and pony shows put on by Cuomo to make it look like real change is coming to education when no change is coming at all.

First, Cuomo himself was the one insisted test scores become 50% of his APPR teacher evaluation system.

Next, Cuomo himself insisted that a school receivership plan be imposed that gives NYSED the power to take over schools based, in part, upon test scores.

Both these moves came just last spring in the budget - Cuomo forced them through, saying legislators either had to take the budget whole or vote it all down.

Then he called for a Common Core Review right before school started in September, but refused to add his APPR system to the review, thus ensuring that teachers will continue to have 50% of their evaluations based upon state tests, with two years of "ineffective" ratings possibly resulting in 3020a incompetence charges and three years of "ineffective" ratings definitely resulting in 3020a incompetence charges.

In fact, in the past when Cuomo was calling public schools a "monopoly" that needed to be broken, he was claiming his APPR teacher evaluation system was the "bedrock" of his education reform agenda.

This would be the same APPR teacher evaluation system that is in the court system, btw, because one teacher's test score component went from 14 out of 20 one year to 1 out of 20 the next year even as her students got almost the same scores on their state tests (the next year, her test component jumped back to 11.)

And yet, despite the inexplicable and irrational jumps in how test scores measured, Cuomo refuses to allow the system to be a part of his Common Core Review.

Now all of a sudden he's hailing the Obama administration so-called call for less emphasis on testing even as he has imposed more and more emphasis on testing here in New York and refused to have his evaluation system that so emphasizes testing be part of his Common Core Review?

Please, governor, your statement hailing President Obama for doing nothing other than issuing some rhetoric that a testing re-do is coming (which Peter Greene points out was done last year by the Obama administration as well) is as laughable as your claim you couldn't see Zephyr Teachout at the Labor Day Parade last year.

You fool few with this jive, just as Obama, Duncan and King fool few with their empty rhetoric over a testing cap.

When parents see that, despite the call for less testing coming from the Obama DOE and you, the same amount of time, energy and resources are spent on testing in the coming years because teachers will be fired and schools closed if the scores are "bad" and you refuse to change those mandates, they'll know who is to blame.

Quinnipiac Poll: Two Thirds Say Teacher Tenure, Pay Should NOT Be Based On Test Scores

Politico NY on the Quinnipiac Poll released this morning:

Voters also sided with unions on teacher pay and tenure, with 69 percent saying pay should not be based on how well the students perform on state tests and 26 percent saying it should.

Similarly, 67 percent say teacher tenure should not be based on test scores, with only 28 percent believing it should. This goes against the new teacher evaluation system pushed by Cuomo, which bases half of teachers’ scores on students’ performance on the exams.

...

The majority of voters - 65 percent - said state tests are not an accurate way to measure how well students are learning, compared to 31 percent who said they are.

69% opposed to merit pay based upon test scores, 67% opposed to tenure based upon test scores, 65% say standardized tests are no the best measurement of student learning.

The question wasn't asked, but you'd have to htink based upon these numbers that voters would not support Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system that bases 50% of a teacher's rating upon test scores.

And yet, here we have the system based upon just that and the teachers unions in the state helping Cuomo tweak it with an appeal process instead of just working to get the thing shelved outright.

The poll numbers against testing are about two to one against using them for merit pay, tenure or measurement of student learning.

Isn't it time NYSUT and the UFT ran ads touting these numbers and calling for the end of APPR as we know it and instead of helping Cuomo try and save it with some minor tweaks?

Another Andrew Cuomo Lie In His Education Ad

Last night I posted how people shouldn't be fooled by Andrew Cuomo's new education ad.

In the ad, Cuomo claims the following:

“Education is the gift we give our children, and they deserve the very best,” Cuomo narrates in the ad. “Over the years, I’ve helped my kids by just being there. That’s why I want real teacher and school evaluations; to stop over-testing our children; not to use Common Core scores for at least five years, and then only if our children are ready. I want to invest $2 billion dollars to build the new technology classrooms of tomorrow. And I still believe the best education equipment is the kitchen table, and the best teacher is the parent.”

In yesterday's post I took on the "not to use Common Core scores for at least five years, and then only if our children are ready" line.

There is no five year moratorium on anything in New York State.

The budget agreement last spring brought a two year moratorium on using test scores from the Common Core assessments for students:

As part of the state budget approved in March, Cuomo and the Legislature approved a number of changes to the state's implementation of the Common Core, including a two-year pause on using standardized test scores as the basis for promoting students to the next grade level.

In addition, the legislature passed a bill shielding teachers who teach students who take the Common Core assessments from the worst effects of having those scores used in the state test component of Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system:

ALBANY – Legislative leaders and Gov. Andrew Cuomo struck a deal Thursday that would largely hold teachers harmless from poor student scores on Common Core-based exams for two years.

A bill introduced Thursday would essentially exclude Common Core test results from some teacher evaluations through the 2014-15 school year, which starts July 1, shielding them from the negative consequences of a poor review caused by the scores.

Both the moratorium for students and the moratorium for teachers run through the 2014-2015 school year - this year - and then things go back to the way they were before, with districts able to use the test scores to hold children back.

Nothing actually changes for teachers because Cuomo never signed the so-called teacher safety net into law - teachers still have the CCSS test scores used in their APPR teacher evaluation ratings without the shield devised in the legislature bill.

So when Cuomo says he has pushed to "not to use Common Core scores for at least five years, and then only if our children are ready," he is looking voters directly in the eye and lying to them.

That's Pathological Lie #1 in the ad.

Here's Pathological Lie #2 in the ad:

That’s why I want...to stop over-testing our children

Right before that lie, Cuomo brags about bringing "real teacher and school evaluations" to the state - which in practice means he added to the batteries of tests that were already in place so that teachers and schools could be evaluated using student performance and test data.

Cuomo's vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system (vaunted in his own mind, at any rate - nearly everybody else seems to hate it) works this way:

A) 60% of a teacher's rating comes from "subjective measures," like classroom observations and student surveys
B) 20% comes from "state measures," based upon state tests that students take
C) 20% comes from "local measures," based upon local tests and assessments devised by districts.

There was an immense amount of testing even before the new APPR teacher evaluation system was put into place, but that "immense amount" has now gone to "insane amount" in many schools.

For example, some districts have students taking "pre-assessments" early in the school year and "post-assessments" later in the year in every grade in every subject in order to evaluate their teachers via Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation mandate.

These local tests and/or performance assessments come on top of the state tests mandates - math and ELA Common Core tests in 3rd-8th grade, Regents exams in high school - the field testing that is done by NYSED to try out new test items on students, and the PSAT test that sophomores and juniors take at their schools in some districts that are used as pre-assessments for APPR as well.

Cuomo is once again looking voters directly in the eye and lying when he says he wants "to stop over-testing our children."

His APPR teacher evaluation system has taken the Endless Testing regime that was already in place pre-APPR and shot it up with steroids.

That Cuomo feels the need to lie so blatantly twice in this election ad shows you how desperate he is feeling in this election.

It would be interesting to see what his internal polling is telling him that he felt the need to dress up all in white, pull his daughter into the ad to help her with her "homework" (or maybe it's her taxes - she looks old enough to be filing a 1040A form) and claim there's a five year moratorium on Common Core consequences when there isn't anything of the sort while saying he's against "over-testing" even as he pursues policies that force "over-testing."

John King Thinks New York Has "Very High-Quality Common Core Assessments"

Yeah, he really does.

He said so when he was asked by Gotham Schools if New York would be moving to the PARCC consortium assessments any time soon:

“I suspect that we will perhaps move more slowly than some other states since we know that we have in place very high-quality Common Core assessments,” King said.

Let's see, what were the complaints about those state tests last April?

(NOTE: I refuse to use the "assessment" euphemism all these reformers sling around to fool people into thinking these things are something other than what they are - "standardized tests")

Oh, yeah - I remember what those complaints were now:

Not enough time for students to complete the tasks.

Badly written questions meant to confuse students.

The use of trademarked products in the ELA exam readings for no apparent reason other than to advertise for the trademarked products. 

Using questions similar to ones on the 10th grade tests on the 8th grade tests, but not making sure students have prepared for, or indeed, even seen the new material.

Basically all Commissioner John King and his merry men and women in reform did to their "very high-quality Common Core assessments" was increase the difficulty of the questions on the tests, increase the quantity of the questions on the tests, and decrease the time allotted for students to complete the tests.

Kings call these "very high-quality Common Core assessments."

Many students, parents and teachers around the state beg to differ.

When the individual grades for students are available in two weeks, NYSED Commissioner John King is going to hear from students and parents what they think of his "very high-quality Common Core assessments."

I bet Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is going to get some feedback then too.

As will elected officials around the state.

Let's see what Tisch and King think of their "very high-quality Common Core assessments" after a  outraged parents contact their elected officials and demand something be done about the testing regime.

Why Are Tisch And King So Afraid To Reveal The Common Core Test Contents?

The scores from the Common Core tests - the one's the kids didn't have the time to finish - are going to be released this week and NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King says they are really, really bad:

State education officials will drop a bomb on thousands of city kids and parents Wednesday when they release scores from the controversial and tougher reading and math exams.

State Education Commissioner John King sounded the alarm for disastrous results with a letter sent to principals Friday afternoon.

“Scores are expected to be significantly lower than the 2011-’12 scores,” he wrote, adding that principals should use the scores “judiciously” when making decisions about whether to fire teachers.

King and his buddy in corporate reform Merryl Tisch cannot wait for these scores to be released and for parents to freak out so they can use this moment to scapegoat teachers and schools and further their privatization goals for the public school system.

But let's recall that these vaunted new Common Core tests developed by Pearson have been kept secret by the state so that parents cannot get a look at them and teachers cannot point out the problems with them.

Let's remember too that Pearson is the fine, fine company that brought us the Pineapple and the Hare debacle a year ago and brought us not one but two sets of egregious errors on the Gifted and Talented test that only got resolved because parents found the problems.

King and Tisch are going to try and use these tests to scapegoat teachers and schools and mobilize horrified parents to jump on board their reformy bandwagon.

But before that happens, it behooves the taxpayers in this state - the one's who pay the salaries for King and his NYSED reformers - to get a look at the tests and see just how valid and fair these were.

King and Tisch do not want that because they know the tests will not stand up to public scrutiny.

That's why they threatened to fire any teacher who released any of the test questions publicly.

We know the timing of these tests was ridiculous and many students were not able to finish them.

We know that they did that on purpose in order to set up just the kind of results we're going to see on Wednesday.

We also know Pearson screwed up the Gifted and Talented test results twice.

We know that after the first screw up, Pearson did some "quality control" and assured parents there were no more problems with the tests - but parents found more errors anyway!

If Tisch and King are so certain that these test scores are "disastrous" and demonstrate the reason why the education system is in need of drastic and disruptive reform, then why are they so afraid to reveal the test contents so people in this state can see them for themselves?

What are they afraid of that they need to operate in secrecy?

Light and air are healthy for a good many things in life - and they're especially healthy when state officials with pro-charter/pro-privatization agendas say "Trust us!" on test scores they're using to further their pro-charter/pro-privatization agendas.

Tisch and King cannot be trusted and the test contents need to be revealed.

It's that simple.

Pearson Owns Public Education In NY State

Here's a quote of the day:

“If Pearson is writing the tests for the children and writing the tests for the teachers and writing the textbooks, isn’t it Pearson that owns our public education, and not our Regents and not our commissioner of education and not the people that we have entrusted to make these serious decisions?” -- Willa Powell, a Rochester school board member 

Will the attorney general's investigation of former NYSED Commissioner David Steiner for accepting largesse from Pearson before handing them a multi-year testing contract ever be completed?

It seems Pearson really does own public education in NY State - as well as many state officials...

NYCDOE Loses State Tests, Punishes Students With Summer School

This is outrageous:

A Brooklyn intermediate school flunked an entire eighth-grade class and told the kids they’d have to attend summer school — because bungling education officials lost their state English exams, The Post has learned.

Panicked 13- and 14-year-olds at IS 227 in Bensonhurst said their dreams of a fun summer were dashed yesterday when they were handed letters that barred them from attending their graduation this Friday.

The letters, written on school stationery, said students wouldn’t be promoted unless they attend summer school and pass a city-issued English exam in August.

“The Board of Education should take responsibility for losing our tests. It’s not fair that we have to give up our summer because of something that wasn’t our fault,” said 13-year-old Mindy Tong.

“My family has summer-vacation plans, and it isn’t right that we might have to change them,” she added.

“I was sure that I did well and that I was going to graduate. Now I’m unsure of everything.”

To make matters worse, the letters home make no mention of misplaced exams — even though a half-dozen students told The Post their guidance counselor said they couldn’t graduate because the city had lost their results.

Instead, the letters pin the blame squarely on the students’ allegedly poor results.

“Your child’s performance on assessments . . . indicates that your child has not met the New York City Promotion Standard for English Language Arts,” reads the letter from Principal Brenda Champion.

After inquiries from The Post, Department of Education officials insisted that 25 students had been mistakenly handed the notices of failure.

They said the tests weren’t lost, but that the answer documents were accidentally packed into the wrong box — so that they hadn’t reached the scoring site yet.

Students took the exams back in the middle of April.

“We are communicating with these families that this letter should not have been sent due to the delay in scoring for this class’ [English] exams,” said DOE spokeswoman Erin Hughes.

“The exams will be scored by [today], and families should receive the appropriate promotion communication before the moving-up ceremony on Friday.”

Again, classic Bloomberg administration M.O. - screw something up, blame someone else, only try and right the wrong when caught in public.

This travesty happened to eighth graders, but just wait until all the NYCDOE and McGraw-Hill incompetence with the Regents exams scanning and scoring process plays out next week.

There will  be thousands of students in high schools facing this same travesty.

The Regents Exam Scores Cannot Be Trusted

I wrote earlier about the problems with the Regents grading.

ICE-UFT and NYC Educator have also written about the problems.

Now Gotham Schools has.

The system is so buggy and error-riddled this year that the scores cannot be trusted.

Any parent whose son or daughter fails an exam ought to call for an audit of that exam.

If the NYCDOE refuses the audit, then they ought to sue (or band together with other parents and file together.)

Between the computer glitches, the scanning issues, the norming issues, the teachers grading out of license and the other assorted Regents problems, the scores cannot be trusted at all.

At all.

Note To Randi Weingarten On Her Moratorium Call

You can call for a moratorium on teacher evaluations and school closures tied to Common Core tests all you want.

David Coleman and Merryl Tisch can sit in the audience and hear your entirely reasoned argument.

They're not going to put a moratorium on anything here in NY State.

Both the governor and the NYSED Commissioner want every school district in the state to use the APPR evaluation system to fire teachers next year.

They told us that last week when they warned Buffalo about a memorandum of understanding between the district and the union that no teachers would be fired using APPR the first year because it is untested and unpiloted.

Buffalo has since rescinded that agreement under threat of losing RttT and Title 1 money.

And Merryl Tisch and John King both said after your speech that there will be no moratorium in NY State from APPR.

They say they've taken all potential problems into account, so teachers in NY State will be fired using the new teacher evaluation system based upon Common Core tests.

Thanks for the free coffee and donuts at the speech though, Randi.

They were swell.

And I know you just loved getting all the attention you got today for this speech, you attention hound you.

But nothing will happen as a result of this speech.

The powers that be in NY State have told us so already.

The firings based on Common Core commence next year.

Merryl Tisch Says No Issues With ELA Tests - Except For The Timing Issues, The Product Placement...

According to Gotham Schools, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch made the following claims:

Tisch said this year’s English exams, the first to be aligned to the new standards, “had none of the issues that we had last year.” But she said Pearson didn’t deserve all of the credit. Following last year’s issues, the state cracked down on Pearson, ordering the publishing giant to agree to make changes to the way it administers the tests moving forward.

“I’d remind everyone that Pearson didn’t do those alone,” Tisch said. “We had our team working with them and overseeing it"

Actually there have been plenty of issues with the exams already, including the timing issues (many students had nowhere near the time needed to complete the tests) and the issue of product placements in the tests, including trademarks, in footnotes that amounted to nothing more than advertising for companies like Mugs Root Beer ("Mugs Root Beer is the leading brand of rootbeer!" the kids learned via Pearson/NYSED.)

In addition, many teachers said there were questions on the tests with two more more possible answers.

But because NYSED and Pearson have put an embargo on the tests - any teacher who divulges test contents will have her/his license revoked by the state for violation of contract - many of these issues will never see the light of day the way the Hare and the Pineapple debacle did last year.

The fix is in here, with teachers and administrators having to keep quiet even when they see problems with the tests because the Regents and the NYSED have bullied them into submission.

As I wrote last week, Tisch can strap on her flight suit and parade around the flight deck up in Albany with the gigantic "Mission Accomplished!" banner behind her all she wants - she's still full of crap when she says the tests have been issue-free.

The fact is, they have kept the contents secret to make sure that problems like the Hare and Pineapple do not become public as they did last year.

You can be sure the incompetents at Pearson, who brought us not only the Hare and the Pineapple mess last year but also the gifted and talented" test debacle this year, didn't pull these tests off error-free, even with the state watching over them.

Until somebody sues to get these tests opened to the public, we'll never know just how many problems there are with them.

But you can be sure there are problems - we already know of two in the timing issue and the product placements.

These Tisch claims are just another example of how the education corporatists rig the game, then claim victory via their propaganda.

New Corporate Motto For Pearson

The corporate motto Pearson uses these days after the company name is "Always Learning."

Given the prevalence of screw-ups Pearson has made in New York State since given contracts by both the NYSED and the NYCDOE, the motto takes on a whole new significance these days.

Perhaps they're "always learning," but they never actually seem to finish learning anything - like how to score tests right, or how to time the tests, or how to develop passages for the tests or how to make sure there is only one answer for each question or how to make sure the Chinese language test doesn't offer questions in Korean.

I'm thinking that, given all these mistakes Pearson has made over the two years, they should change their corporate motto to Pearson - "Always Screwing Stuff Up, But Never Getting Our Contracts Revoked!"

It's a long motto, I know, but this is the Era of the Common Core.

We can no longer sacrifice accuracy for brevity.