Colorado resistance continues, as new billboards promote resistance... Veteran Resistance website explains multiple reasons for opting out
Once again as the testing season begins, the Colorado resistance has purchased billboards to promote opt out. The billboards stand high above Colorado highways as the season of testing begins. For nine years, these billboards providing families with Opt Out information have been a part of the testing season in Colorado thanks to the Coalition for Better Education (CBE).
Colorado Resistance billboard above 88th and York. Photo by Don Perl.The coalition for better education (CBE) continues its work as the name of the test changes, but the problems remain the same. Here is some material that is currently up on the CBE website:
We call for the elimination of CSAP for a variety of reasons. The following are some of those reasons and we generate more of them as we hear more from teachers, parents, and students all over Colorado. Thus, this feature is not intended to be all inclusive at this time. Please write us and share your CSAP anecdotes. The primary reasons for our opposition are stated on this page following the commentaries by teachers.
One teacher has commented on the loss of instructional time to the tests: This came today from a current teacher at Greeley West today....after getting an all staff memo below..
So let make sure I understand this correctly, we are going to �sacrifice� yet another class block of instructional time to the the District #6 deity of data collection after 2 weeks of CSAP?! Let me remind you we lost 27 class blocks out of 90 total class blocks last year. Roughly one-third of our instructional time is habitually swallowed up by District testing, surveys, and mandates.
Below is some additional commentary by a retired teacher on how destructive CSAP and/or Race to the Top is to student learning.
That is how much instructional time is lost by the students:actually taking the test. Don't forget to add in the hours that the students NOT taking the test lose in instruction time as well. At Northridge when my sons were in the grades not taking CSAP, they received an alternate schedule during CSAP testing asking them to come to school later in the morning because all teachers were needed as proctors. They started later in the morning and had shortened classes during the days the testing was going on, so they lost out on regular instruction time as well as those being testes. My kids had a car and could drive to school at a later time. I'm not sure what kids did that had to ride the bus. I guess they just hung out while the testing was going on. Or maybe just stayed home.
I might also add that in one of my conference with my son's HS geometry teacher, I asked how much time was spent preparing for CSAP testing. She told me the District had given her a packet of problems to practice for CSAP. She was required to stop her regular instruction instruction for 2-3 weeks to do the problems in this packet to prepare the kids for the test. She was very upset by this as she would not be able to cover the regular material needed to complete this course and have kids adequately prepared for math class following this course.
This is what is happening from the earliest levels on. As an elementary teacher myself I was presented with practice materials to get kids ready to take the CSAP. The time I spent doing this was time away from the regular curriculum which meant I didn't adequately cover the set curriculum. We crammed in material so the kids were exposed to problems similar to those on the test, but which they really did not understand. Hopefully they got a few more questions right on the test, but without a firm foundation in the concepts being taught, they ultimately were behind the next year. The result of this cramming for the test was students moving along year after year ill prepared for what was being taught at the next level. The cumulative result of all these years with instruction time being spent collecting data and preparing kids for tests was that that students knew less than ever before with scores on tests stagnant or declining. No wonder our students are scoring lower than other countries. Other countries especially Japan cover fewer concepts each year and cover them in depth so kids are building on a firm foundation of understanding as they move through school. US students who have teachers forced to focus on test scores cannot do what they are asked because they don't have the in depth understanding that comes with teachers being allowed to focus on good teaching. By high school US students are hopelessly behind. And who wants to be a failure? Hence a 50% drop out rate in our country.
As for teachers, those frustrated by not being able to really teach the curriculum instead of spending time preparing kids for a test and exhausted by current demands to collect mountains of data from local testing to make sure the kids are ready for the state tests are leaving the profession or moving on to charter schools. Many qualified and dedicated teachers are throwing in the towel and leaving teaching through early retirement or moving to another career. I was one of those teachers. I could not bring myself to reduce teaching to getting ready for the next test, teaching only what was to be tested, in a scripted format that was hopelessly boring for students and which cut out the creativity, problem solving, independent thinking, and thirst to discover that is at the heart of genuine education. Students in District 6 for example who cannot read fast enough on the DIBELS test are excluded from science and social studies and must have further word decoding interventions to get their phonics skills up. Specialists in the arts are having their instruction time cut to go in and help with reading interventions to get the scores up. This is insane! Good teachers armed with best practice teach reading skills through science and social studies--not at the expense of instruction in these vital subjects. We are crippling our kids minds by sacrificing the very things they need the most to be ready for the world in which we now live so they will score well on tests. The current Race to the Top effort to tie teacher salaries to test scores will be the final nail in the coffin of public education. What teacher would want their pay tied to test scores when they have no real opportunity to follow good teaching practices in classrooms mandating scripted curriculums, hours of data collection, and packets of test preparation materials all of which prevent the teachers from actually doing their job of preparing students for success in the 21st century and a global market place? And what student would want to be in an environment so toxic to authentic learning?
Pat Kennedy
"Not everything that counts can be counted." Albert Einstein.
ADDITIONAL REASONS TO OPPOSE CSAP:
Psychological Harm to Children
Children are now being tested far more often than in the past. Teachers in most districts are being advised to stress the importance of the CSAPs to both the children and their parents. Many children are getting very anxious about CSAP well in advance of the tests. It has also been reported to us that in a few cases students get so anxious that they have vomited on the test. CSAP has become so important to schools that we have also been told that administrators have cleaned up soiled tests and submitted them anyway.
Students are also being asked to take Achievement Level Tests (ALT) in most districts. In addition, most teachers also use classroom assessments as well. This adds up to a lot of testing days in school and a lot of anxiety for some very small people. Test days are also days lost to instruction, further shortening the actual school year.
High Stakes Testing is Inherently a Bad Idea
A high stakes test is one which measures how well a school and its students are performing and uses the scores to make important decisions. Sometimes the schools� test scores are used to decide if the school will receive additional funding or not. The scores have also been used to decide to convert low-performing schools into charter schools. This is what happened to Cole Middle School in Denver. In addition, when we base school funding, teacher salaries, or bonuses on students� test scores, it is difficult to say what aspect of testing to use. If we were to use the tests as a measure of achievement, what indicator should we use? An absolute standard of performance? Student improvement over time? Competitive comparison with other schools in the district? Depending on what choice we make here, we will reach different conclusions about what should be done with the schools. We believe that no community should base important decisions about their schools on the scores of one test.
In general, in this system, too much emphasis has been placed on �punishing� low-performing schools and not enough on helping those schools improve. Many of the factors that cause students to not perform well are beyond the teachers� control. For example, health, nutrition, family background, frequent moves, and home language are all factors in performance. Holding teachers accountable for all aspects of students� lives is only likely to increase antagonism between teachers and students.
Finally, CSAP testing costs Colorado between 14 million and 16 million a year. We argue that this money would be better spent in instruction than testing.
What about the Charter schools? Aren �t they an improvement?
Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are intended to be freed from many of the rules and regulations that some people believed were holding regular public schools back.
Cole Middle School in Denver has just been converted to a charter school. We will have to watch what happens there.
In 2003, a report from the federal Department of Education compared tests given to fourth-grade students in public schools and charter schools. Overall, charter school students did not do any better than traditional school students and performed significantly lower in math. In addition, they compared achievement of fourth-grade students from similar impoverished backgrounds and found that the public school children did considerably better than the charter school students. So far, charter schools have not delivered what they promised.
High-Stakes Testing invites Corruption
Much of this area is just coming to light now. News reports from December 2004 indicate that much of the supposed gains in achievement in the Texas schools were the result of organized, educator-lead cheating on their version of the test known as Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. This is extremely important news because Texas education policies were the model for this entire system of using high-stakes testing to evaluate schools. At this time, it appears dozens of Texas schools were involved in the cheating scandal and there are suspicious scores in �hundreds of other schools�.
Another news item that concerns us is that Armstrong Williams� company, the Graham Williams Group, was paid $241,000 by the U.S. Department of Education to advocate this form of testing. You heard right, the Bush administration paid a prominent commentator to support the educational reform of the No Child Left Behind legislation. NCLB is the legislation that mandates testing of the students. The U.S. Department of Education has defended its� decision to use taxpayer funds for this purpose. What do you think of that? If this legislation is so vital to education, why do they need to bribe people to support it and tout it?
We�ve also been provided with information suggesting that some Colorado schools have engaged in an unofficial �push-out� program. Schools currently receive a -.5 if a registered student doesn�t take the CSAP. Therefore, low-performing students must still take the CSAP. So, marginal students are encouraged by teachers or administrators to drop out of school before CSAP testing occurs. Rather than discouraging school drop-outs, we�ve been advised that many schools do indeed encourage adolescents to leave school.
We envision an education system where students feel welcome and are encouraged to stay. And whatever else our children should be learning in schools, we do hope it isn�t that cheating is a necessary ingredient to success.
CSAP Encourages Narrowing of the Curriculum
From a teacher�s point of view, it only makes sense to teach what you will be evaluated on. Thus, teachers and school districts are encouraged to �teach to the test�, that is, to tailor instruction to what is on the CSAP. CSAP tests 3rd to 5th grades in reading, writing, and math. Thus, science curriculum is already falling behind because one needs to find the time for instruction somewhere and science isn�t being tested yet!
Other complaints from science instructors concern the fact that the emphasis is on testing, not thought, and that students now focus on answers rather than the scientific process used to obtain those answers.
In 2006, science will be added to the CSAP for 5th and 10th graders. However, as we hope we�ve already demonstrated, this may not help the real issue. When we allow tests to direct instruction, the tail is always wagging the dog.
Several people have talked to us about wanting an enriched curriculum, to perhaps include subjects such as Art, Music, Latin, and other foreign languages. We would have to say that under the current system this will not happen. Schools are falling behind as it is, and if one�s whole goal is getting high marks on just a few subjects on the CSAP, then just those few subjects will be taught or emphasized.
We also fear for the future of gym, as it is hard to see how it will be tested on CSAP. We know how it is tested in real life: currently one-third of our children are seriously overweight and heavily at risk for diabetes and heart disease.
CSAP labels Children
With CSAP, we have winners and losers. Some children will be labeled slow learners, some will be labeled gifted. Children often internalize those labels and there is even research indicating they live up to them. For the losers, we have a negative self-concept, for the winners we may have a sense of smugness, superiority, and entitlement.
Our position obviously is that schools should be for learning for all students, not for the further marginalization of some.
NCLB Legislation places Education under Federal, not Local Control
A provision in the NCLB Act of 2001 is supposed to ensure that federal officials do not control state or local school boards. However, with the specificity of some of the sections and the way these are being implemented, it appears the federal government is making decisions previously reserved for local communities.
At this time New York City may be the test case for local choice. School boards there decided to use Month by Month Phonics but this choice may not be in line with the federal program of Reading First. We�ll keep you posted.
NCLB is Expensive for the States
We have made this point in other places, but this testing costs Colorado about 15 million a year. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Other states have had financial consultants estimate what they would need to spend to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Legislation. Base costs in Montana would increase between 34% and 80%, Nebraska�s were estimated at 45%, and South Carolina�s would increase 84% (see CSAP bibliography, Mathis, 2003). In New Hampshire, it was estimated that they would receive 17 million dollars from the federal government in return for 126.5 million in new obligations. Small wonder that Nebraska�s legislature called for full Federal funding of the mandate.
