Major education, civil rights, and religious groups launch nationwide solution to roll back high-stakes testing; seek sign-ons from organizations, individuals

From Education News.org-Click Here

April 26, 2012 

"Inspired by a statement adopted by more than 360 Texas school boards, major national education, civil rights and parents groups have launched a resolution calling on federal and state policymakers to reduce standardized test mandates and, instead, base school accountability on multiple forms of measurement.

The initial signers include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Parents Across America, National Education Association, United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Advancement Project, National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Forum for Education and Democracy. Other supporters include educators such as Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch as well as community-based education groups in New York, Chicago and Charlotte.

The groups are seeking endorsements from other local, state and national organizations as well as individuals concerned with the rapid increase in time, money and energy devoted to exams used to make major decisions about students, educators and schools. Supporters can sign on at http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution
 
Dr. Monty Neill, Executive Director of FairTest who helped coordinate drafting the resolution, explained,“The over reliance on high-stakes standardized testing is undermining

educational quality and equity across the U.S. The collateral damage includes narrowed curriculum, low-scoring students pushed out of school, and teaching to the test.”

“”By teaching to the test, we are depriving a generation of youth, particularly youth of color growing up in low-income communities, from developing the critical thinking skills they need, and our country needs, to be competitive in this global economy,” added Matt Cregor, Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

“Parents are fed up with constant testing,” concluded Pamela Grundy from Parents Across America, who helped lead a community revolt against expanding testing in Charlotte, North Carolina last year. “We want our elected leaders to support real learning, not endless evaluation.” 

The resolution urges state officials to “reexamine school accountability” and develop a system “which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools.” At the federal level, it calls on the U.S. Congress and Obama Administration to overhaul “No Child Left Behind” and “to reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.” The full text is online at http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution"
 

High-Stakes Testing and U.S.-Mexican Youth in Texas: The Case for Multiple Compensatory Criteria in Assessment

Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy - Click Here

"With the recent re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA) that calls for testing at virtually every grade level, a growing debate is taking
place regarding the utility of mass, but especially high-stakes, testing whereby schools,
principals, teachers, and students are held accountable for increased children’s
achievement (e.g., Scheurich et al. 2000; Scheurich and Skrla 2000; Valencia et al.
2001).1 Proponents of the current system of accountability in Texas, which does have
high-stakes testing as its linchpin, see the system as bringing attention to previously
under-served African American and Mexican American children, the majority of whom
are poor (Scheurich et al. 2000; Scheurich and Skrla 2000; Skrla et al. 2000a, 2000b).2
“High stakes” testing extends beyond the concept of standardized testing to denote the
attaching of high-stakes consequences (like retention, promotion, or graduation) to test
performance (Heuber and Hauser 1999).

Opponents take issue not with the concept of accountability, but rather with the
high stakes that are attached to the tests themselves, as well as to their collateral effects,
including the marginalizing of curriculum, children, or both (McNeil 2000; McNeil and
Valenzuela 2001). Sloan (forthcoming) reconciles these perspectives by suggesting that
while proponents have an “outside-in” view, critics possess an “inside-out” perspective.
In other words, proponents view the classroom from the outside (i.e., a “top-down”
perspective) and note that previously under-served children have been accorded greater
teacher and administrative attention. Critics, on the other hand, look at high-stakes
testing policies from the perspective of the classroom where they witness the collateral
effects brought about by such high pressures to generate positive performance. These
include narrowing the curriculum by “teaching to the test”; marginalizing children, their
languages and cultures; and “gaming” the system such as by retaining children in grade
or relegating them to test-exempt status categories to produce positive test results and
school ratings."

More Here

Lew Blackburn approved the high stakes testing resolution for the April 12th board briefing agenda - then refused to allow a vote at the April 26th Board meeting - Why?

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: Agenda Request -- Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardied Testing - TASB
Date:	Wed, 4 Apr 2012 16:54:49 +0000
From:	Dr. Lew Blackburn
Reply-To:
To:	Carla Ranger, Alan King
CC:

Carla,
I approve adding this item to the Board Briefing agenda for discussion and possible action at the Regular Board meeting this month. Thanks for your request.

Lew Blackburn, Ph.D.
President
Dallas ISD Board of Trustees

---

From: Carla Ranger

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 12:58:58 -0500

To: Alan King

Cc: Lew Blackburn

Subject: Agenda Request -- Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardied Testing - TASB

Good afternoon,

At the Texas Association of School Boards Board of Directors
Spring Meeting this past week-end, the Resolution Concerning
High Stakes, Standardized Testing of Texas Public School Students
was adopted. 

As you are aware, the resolution was initiated by the Texas Association
of School Administrators during the recent TASA convention.

This is to request placement of the resolution on the Dallas ISD Board
Agenda for the April 26, 2012 Board meeting for adoption after
review and approval by the legal staff.

A copy of the Resolution is attached.

In addition to being adopted unanimously by the TASB Board of Directors
on Saturday, March 31, I believe the Resolution has been adopted by over
100 Texas school districts.

Please include a copy of the Resolution in the Friday Board update so all
Trustees will be able to review it.

Thank you.

CR

Ken Zornes: Resolution on testing deserves DISD vote

Dallas Morning News-Click Here

Published: 18 April 2012 10:37 PM

“Imposing relentless test preparation and boring memorization of facts to enhance test performance is doing little more than stealing the love of learning from our students and assuring that we fall short of our goals.”

The above quote is excerpted from a resolution protesting the overuse of high-stakes standardized tests in our public schools. Instead of being lukewarm about signing onto this resolution, as reported by The Dallas Morning News , Dallas ISD trustees should be hot to get all of their names on the document as soon as possible.

Forget the fact that Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott believes that Texas’ testing regimen has become “a perversion of its original intent,” or that more than 250 other school boards (nearly 30 of them in North Texas), the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School Administrators have finally said they’ve had enough. It’s time to put real instruction back into the classroom.

Dallas ISD board members would be hard-pressed to find even a few — if any — students, parents, teachers or administrators who believe that the current overemphasis on testing is the right path toward preparing our students for post-secondary education and the workforce.

Board President Lew Blackburn suggests that the resolution may not meet legal standards and that he cannot support it as it is written. Nothing in the resolution supports breaking any laws, state or federal. It supports holding our public schools accountable for student performance and merely asks that the Texas Legislature re-examine the current accountability system and develop a system that is more efficient, easier to understand and provides a truer picture of a student’s academic achievement. Nowhere in the resolution does it advocate doing away with testing.

No one can argue that high-stakes standardized testing has played a major role in how we hold our students, teachers and administrators accountable for more than a decade and that we have seen some benefits. However, the misplaced emphasis on these tests has caused many excellent teachers to simply narrow their instruction to preparing students for tests at the expense of preparing them to become productive and responsible citizens.

Much more than they serve students and teachers, high-stakes tests serve the needs of legislators who wish to convince the public that they are holding our public school system accountable and are being good stewards of their tax dollars.

Blackburn is reluctant to place the resolution on the agenda for a vote at the April 26 board meeting, stating that if three trustees ask to have the item on the agenda, he will do so. The board president should assume the leadership role to which he was elected and place the item on the agenda, regardless of how many other trustees want it there.

Having it on the agenda will allow the trustees to find out what teachers, administrators and the public, including DISD parents, think of the resolution. Listening to constituents is never a bad idea.

To read the resolution, go to tasanet.org/sites/tasa/files/gr/2012/sampleresolution.pdf

Ken Zornes is the executive director of the Texas Business and Education Coalition and former DISD board president. He may be contacted at kzornes13@hotmail.com.

Board Agenda Request -- Resolution concerning high stakes, standardied testing

"School boards in school districts as small as Iowa Park ISD and as wealthy as Highland Park ISD have adopted the Resolution Concerning High Stakes Standardized Testing of Texas Public School Students, saying that testing has gone too far.

"Assistant Superintendent Tim Powers (Wichita Falls ISD) didn't mince words when he voiced his opinion to board members ..."

"Testing is getting way out of hand," he said. "There needs to be more consideration taken to what are the successes of our district — not just a one shot, one test deal."

 TimesRecordNews - Wichita Falls-April 11, 2012

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Email Request

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Second Board Agenda Request -- Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardized Testing - TASA and TASB
Date:	Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:09:29 -0500
From:	Carla Ranger
Organization:	Dallas ISD
To:	Lew Blackburn , Alan King
CC:

Good morning,

This is to again request placement of the Resolution concerning High Stakes Testing
on the Dallas ISD Board Agenda for the April 26, 2012 Board meeting for adoption. 

The first request was sent on Monday, April 2, 2012.

A copy of the Resolution was previously provided for the Board Briefing.

Both the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) and The Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) have approved the Resolution.

As of April 17, 2012, 304 Texas school districts have already adopted the resolution,
including the third largest school district in the state - Cypress-Fairbanks ISD.

In our area, school trustees in Highland Park, Mesquite, Plano, Richardson,
Sherman, Rockwall, McKinney, Waxahachie, Frisco, Coppell, etc., have
adopted the resolution.

Under Dallas ISD Board policy, the Superintendent and Board President prepare
the agenda. There is no requirement other than the Superintendent or Board
President place the item on the agenda.

This is a very important matter at a crucial time in the history of education in Texas.

I am requesting that you place the item on the Thursday, April 26, 2012 Board Agenda
and allow a vote - up or down.
.
Awaiting your reply,

Carla Ranger
District 6 Trustee