HB306 – You Might
Want to Opt Your Child Out of PARCC Testing, But The Bill to Do So Might Not
Opt Out of Rules Committee
HB 306, the bill
allowing students and parents to opt out of testing has been moved to the Rules
Committee, where Barbara Flynn Currie (D – Chicago – 36 years incumbency) will
take orders from Party Leadership to float or torpedo the proposal.
Governor Rauner, fearing fiscal retaliation from the Feds
opposes the bill.
The IEA, fearing fiscal retaliation from the Feds, opposes
the bill.
Political charmers do indeed make strange bedfellows.
We’ll find out what Madigan wants Currie to do later. Thy will be done.
Meanwhile, most parents, teachers and many school boards
support the bill.
Why?
For IEA delegates like Conrad. Floeter, the answer is
clear. “PARCC and other high stakes tests are just another weapon
in their (corporations) arsenal to label teachers and schools as failing,
paving the way for privatization through charter schools and dismantling our
union. The opt out parents are the best allies we have right now and we need to
build on that.”
During the recent Illinois Education Association
Representative Assembly, delegates Conrad Floeter and Region Chair Marsha
Griffin offered a New Business Item calling for the IEA to organize
anti-testing partner ships with parents; it was shot down. Nobody from Leadership spoke in support.
According to Mr. Floeter, “We got our answer
Saturday morning when our President, Cinda Klickna, told us that she had heard
those questions and that our legislative platform amendment did not support any
specific legislation (like HB306). That opting out students could put us at
risk of losing funding and that members were vulnerable if they spoke to
parents about their opt out rights. So what exactly does our support of opt out
mean?”
In response,
Fred Klonsky noted, “The answer is that their claim of support for parents and
teachers means nothing.”
See Klonsky’s full
post:
Meanwhile, in classrooms from Maine to California, educators
are witnessing the brutality exacted on children taking these tests and the
injury for even those who opted out.
I remember a time when my students built learning calendars
on the walls of our classroom through out the year, leaving mementos and
descriptions of events, projects and learning encountered and accomplished
through the year. We used to walk along
the walls at the end of the year ,looking back at our growth and achievements. Now,
I imagine a swath of black construction paper during the weeks we might have
suffered through such mandated testing.
From New York: see R.Ratto’s observations of what has
happened this spring in his classroom.
“Over the past two weeks, I was ordered to administer
New York States Common Core assessments to 44% of my 5th grade class, while 56%
of my students refused to take the test. They were all in the same room during
the assessments, so I designed a quiet independent Language Arts activity
for those not taking the test. I didn’t want to waste any potential ‘learning
time’ for any of my students. They worked silently, without disturbing those
struggling with the test, and afterwords they reported to me that they enjoyed
the assignment and they were excited to share what they learned.
A parent complained and I was advised, after the first
portion of the test, to not have the other students working on anything
else because it may be a violation of testing rules and that the Superintendent
stated we couldn't. So, for the last 4.5 hours 56% of my class was told that
they can only read silently from their own novel while the others in the room
struggled with the assessment. Under these conditions, I observed many of the
students had a difficult time remaining silent and often disturbed those
struggling with the tests.
Those children, who I had to order to sit quietly for 9 hours
the past week while their peers struggled with their purposely confusing
questions, were basically under arrest. Metaphorically handcuffing them to
their desks, they were forced to sit quietly for an extremely long time (even
those with attention deficit issues or hyperactivity issues). How many adults
would subject themselves to that nonsense?
Those taking the test struggled with questions, day after day,
that were unfair assessments of their capabilities. The Language Arts section
of the tests consisted of way too many boring reading selections and were above
a typical 5th grader’s reading level. The questions focused on
minutia, lacked clarity, and played with the nuances of plausibility.
Over the past several years the Language Arts portion of the
assessments always had poetry included in them. Often poems that were difficult
and could be interpreted in many different ways were part of every assessment.
Poetry has always been an integral part of my Language Arts curriculum. I
thought I met the challenge and that my students were well prepared to analyze
just about any poem place in front of them. After all, that is part of our
curriculum. I was shocked to see that this year’s 5th grade
assessments had no poetry in it. Why?
My students were prepared, but the evidence is mounting that
these assessments are not about seeing if my students were prepared or are
learning. There is a more sinister reason coming into focus.
The Math portion of the tests included multi- step problems that
were beyond the capability of most 5th grade students. My students
are capable of doing a typical 5th grade multi-step problem, but
these questions were purposely misleading, often included a misdirecting clause
and were often nonsensical and unrealistic.
We know that a student needs to use some background knowledge to
understand a word problem. I wonder how many students were confused when
the star of a softball team hit the softball a towering 2 yards and the
others measured their distances against his. Realistic? Hardly! I
wondered if my students really thought that knowing the fraction of the volume
of a cubby used to store a teachers’ papers was a really something adults
calculate.
A typical 5th grade math word problem in Pearson’s
own Common Core aligned textbook has 3 or 4 steps that must be completed to
solve. This year’s Pearson’s tests blew the lid off that. Students had to
complete many more steps to solve these test questions. About as far from
fair as you can get.
More evidence that these assessments are not about seeing if my
students were prepared or are learning, that a sinister reason is coming unto
focus.
I have been shouting that these tests are institutional child
abuse and this week Cuomo confirmed my declaration that yes, the New York is
using our children in a sinister way.
Read these excerpts from a Times Union Article:
“The grades are meaningless to the students,” Cuomo said in a
brief press gaggle following an Association for a Better New York breakfast
event in New York City.
“Cuomo said he believes they haven’t done a good job of
publicizing the fact that the tests, for at least the next five years, won’t
count at all for the students.”
“They can opt out if they want to, but on the other hand if the
child takes the test, it’s practice and the score doesn’t count.”
Meaningless? Children subjected to headaches, anxiety, upset
stomachs, a feeling of failure for meaningless tests!
Cuomo also says these tests are supposed to be used to evaluate
teachers. That is using 9 hours of a child’s labor to do an adult’s job. Let’s
not forget the imbedded field test items that Pearson sneaks in there to help
them boost their corporate profits.
The evidence is overwhelming. The New York State Education
Department and Governor Andrew Cuomo are guilty of abusing their authority and
the children of our state.”
For the entire illuminating post, please go to:
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