The other night we stumbled upon the movie Forrest Gump. Man, I forget what a great movie it is on SO many levels. The scene that really made me pause was when Forrest’s mother, played brilliantly by Sally Fields, is at the local public school and the principal holds up a life –sized graph with 3 sections. He points out the top section and says this is Above Average, then to the middle section indicating Average (duh!) and then to a point in the Below Average section stating, this is where Forrest lies. Her response is what I wish all of our responses are to the numbers we use to sum up our youth, our schools, our teachers and beyond. She looks at the Principal like he has lost his mind when he says Forrest will need to attend a special school where she retorts in her perfect southern accent, “Oh for God’s Sake, It is only 5 silly little points, the boy will be going to school here.” And that is the end of the scene. Soon after you see Forrest getting on the big yellow school bus.
Of course as you watch the embedded history lessons and how Forrest had a hand in so much that we never knew the one line that really sticks out is “Stupid is as stupid does.”
And that is where we are in education right now. Stupid is as stupid does. We are so caught up in those graphs and charts and data that we cant even see what is right in front of us. The more I hear the more stupid it all becomes and I think we need to be more like Mrs. Gump and stop giving these tests and everything that surrounds them so much energy and weight. Part of the problem is that there are so many stories, myths and misconceptions around the Common Core that nobody even knows what is going on.
See here to read “Ten Colossal Errors of the Common Core Standards: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/11/common_core_standards_ten_colo.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB
Did you know there are some schools here in New Hampshire who are saying “NO” to the Common Core? And while they ARE being penalized in terms of funding, losing about $100,000.00 they are looking forward realizing that to implement the tests surrounding the Common Core is going to cost their district over $200,000.00. Why are we so incredibly short sighted when it comes to these top down mandates. What are we so afraid of?
I have said it before and I will say it again, if my kids were starting in public school right now I would get them out! Or in the words of Jenny, “Run Forrest Run!” Run from the shackles of numbers and testing! Our kids are being used as lab rats and caught up in a sea of bureaucratic and political snares that have nothing to do with a better education for each. Our educational system is being bullied into the dregs of privatization where companies can and will dictate what happens in our schools.
Pearson already is! Pearson is an enormous conglomeration that has tentacles that reach into more areas of education than you cannot even imagine. This octopus of a machine has created the tests that children will take that are too hard on many levels. The other day I was sent a link to the Smarter Balance site where I could go in and “take” the test at many different levels. I chose 3rd grade and went to the LA section. Immediately, I thought of all of the hundreds of 3rd graders I have worked with and my anxiety level started to rise. The first question is about a Chinese child, Little Lang, who is learning his or her characters. I think of those who don’t have the background knowledge that Chinese characters are letters. This character goes off with his brush…how many 3rd graders “write” with a brush? And it just goes from there. At the end there were multiple questions to answer and of course lots of places for written responses.
As a highly analytical person I can often see at least 2 very distinct answers that “could” be true or right. And after that question I went on to the second one and then realized this was only 2 out of 50! And that is JUST the Language Arts section.
Here is a link to the test. See for yourself!!
https://sbacpt.tds.airast.org/student/
And once the numbers come out we will see exactly what these tests are designed to do, to create a new narrative of the epic failure of our public school system. But as with every magical story there will be the night in shining armor who will show up in shiny new textbooks wrapped in bubble wrap, a colorful collage of books and workbooks to fix all of your districts woes in one fell swoop. And the publisher will be….yes, you guessed it, Pearson. The one who set up the tests in the first place.
And even more disturbing is that if you are really worried about test performance Pearson has test prep materials ready for sale to get all of your little lemmings in line. In fact one teacher in New York City found one of the exact prep test questions on the “actual” test! The message again? If you want to do well on these tests then you must have Pearson test prep. Do you see the irony here? Do you taste the incredible conflict of interest?
There are many things that have started to rumble around the country that give me hope! One group of parents in New York State sent all of their kids test scores back to the school and the company. Great! But the kids still had to suffer through the tests! Other groups are opting out of these tests and the more we get on board with this the more likely is that we can take back our educational system and begin from the ground up to rebuild it. Top down…stupid is as stupid does.
A link to Fair Test listing the many ways to Opt Out locally and Nationally: http://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out
And although this video is showing up all over my Facebook feed I am going to link to it here as well because this kid has guts and makes some great points!! Again, he gives me hope. Imagine if more of our students stood up for what they think is right and just and fair.
http://youngcons.com/legit-tennessee-high-school-senior-decimates-common-core/
He is something huh? And as Forrest says “Momma always says life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” In this case, if you dig to the bottom of the box you can see quite clearly what we are gonna get, and it tastes nothing like chocolates!!
Conversation Education 
So guess who was reading your post while you were reading mine? I also read the Ten Colossal Errors piece, which was right on the money (though I haven’t had a chance yet to take the SmarterBalance sample test). I’m anticipating lots of powerful push back and regrouping at NCTE, where I’m hoping to catch at least part of the session you’re doing with Renee.
Great post. Our school piloted a sample of the SBAC and we were dropped-jaw surprised at its expectations. The students taking it most of been just as surprised because many of them left answers blank, some doodled in the answer blanks, and a few were so off base we wondered if the had recharged their brain cell that day or not. But here is the dichotomy of CCSS, while the current SBAC test leaves a bad taste in the mouth (yes, I’ve taken the grade 11) the curriculum is producing results–mainly critical thinking skills. So, let’s give it a beat and see if the twinks can get the kinks out before we start screaming about CCSS.
You make a number of great points here that I appreciate. It’s a miss to hook up CCSS with the amount of testing that we’re dealing with. It’s a bigger miss to sell that testing structure to private companies. They continue to prove inept at the job, and we continue to funnel money into their testing and now their curriculum. It’s a further miss – as you point out – to believe that these tests are going to measure learning with the specificity that’s being expected. I’ve taken a number of their tests and confirm ambiguity throughout answer choices. I’d offer up, though, an alternate narrative to the end result of these tests, something even worse than the perception of “epic failure” that you describe; these results over time will generate confusion and uncertainty. Failure would at least give schools a path on which to travel – even if it’s the Pearson curriculum. Confusion and uncertainty, however, will only create more infighting and increase the lack of trust in the profession. I’m a big fan of the amount of positive things I’ve been able to do with faculties and the CCSS, but there are also tremendous – and legit – worries with RTTT and its tendrils.