Culture of Testing II
Diane Munoz and Anne Carlson, both highly accomplished CPS educator-parents, gave some pointed testimony during the Raise Your Hand event last night. I'll let their words do the talking.
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Diane Munoz
The thing to remember is that the testing epidemic is visible most clearly to these people--- the people who work
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Diane Munoz
As a parent, unfortunately I got to experience this with my own child, and it's heart-wrenching when a first-grader says, "I'm stupid, and I hate school!" due to the results of (his) DIBELS test.Anne Carlson
Why are we continuing to take the temperature all the time….Our students aren't sick: it's the system that is sick.
The thing to remember is that the testing epidemic is visible most clearly to these people--- the people who work
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| Raise Your Hand |
Culture of Testing III
The great Julie Fain, CPS mom and longtime Chicago activist, spoke from the heart about her own kids' brush with the testing machine that is CPS. It sounds like something out of a science fiction story, but it's all true.
You really can't read the text of NCLB, of the Blueprint for Reform, or the requirements of Race To The Top and expect anything other than a barrage of soul-killing tests, inflicted as I've said over and over and over, on other people's children. And in the places where the pressure is the greatest, where people are lined up open their own schools with public money, where the political establishment is aligned with these so-called reformers, you see a barrage of "accountability" measures that are in fact designed to hasten an end to public education.
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Julie Fain
The Highlight Reel
You really can't read the text of NCLB, of the Blueprint for Reform, or the requirements of Race To The Top and expect anything other than a barrage of soul-killing tests, inflicted as I've said over and over and over, on other people's children. And in the places where the pressure is the greatest, where people are lined up open their own schools with public money, where the political establishment is aligned with these so-called reformers, you see a barrage of "accountability" measures that are in fact designed to hasten an end to public education.
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Julie Fain
My fourth grader, now… they're testing in PE and art and music and library and Spanish and every
The Highlight Reel
Here's a little highlight reel from the Culture of Testing event. Many of the people in this video are very well known--- I haven't included names in the clip because I didn't know everyone's name. I'll have some things to say afterwords-- just know that a lot of these parents--- indeed, parents that I talk to all over the city-- are interested in "opting out" of some of the more excessively abusive tests. So that's what a number of them are talking about.
Also, I know it isn't fair for me to cut off the CPS person at the end; I did it for the sad humor value of it. She was nice enough to go to the event and she probably has good intentions and a lot of training.
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Some notes from my own observations.
One parent-educator, at the beginning of the clip above, talks about her kids not being taught how to write because there was so much emphasis on test preparation. I know there are people who feel that writing instruction fell by the wayside when Illinois dropped the writing portion of the ISAT; however, I think these people are crazy. The way to teach writing is to value it, not to reduce it to this horrible formulaic, timed task. I knowone bartender who disagrees, I'll say that much.
Noah Sobe of Loyola said a number of interesting things about assessment during the evening, and I'm working
Also, I know it isn't fair for me to cut off the CPS person at the end; I did it for the sad humor value of it. She was nice enough to go to the event and she probably has good intentions and a lot of training.
Popout
Some notes from my own observations.
One parent-educator, at the beginning of the clip above, talks about her kids not being taught how to write because there was so much emphasis on test preparation. I know there are people who feel that writing instruction fell by the wayside when Illinois dropped the writing portion of the ISAT; however, I think these people are crazy. The way to teach writing is to value it, not to reduce it to this horrible formulaic, timed task. I knowone bartender who disagrees, I'll say that much.
Noah Sobe of Loyola said a number of interesting things about assessment during the evening, and I'm working
