Photo by Laurie Udesky/EdSource Today
Photo by Laurie Udesky/EdSource TodayCalifornia’s efforts to dilute the dominant role of testing in schools – prominently led by Gov. Jerry Brown – are getting support from some of the same players responsible for entrenching it in the national education reform agenda over the past decade.
In recent days, both President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have called for reducing the standardized tests children have to take to 2 percent of their instructional time.
In California, that would amount to no more than 3.5 days per year out of an average school year of 180 instructional days. That would be in addition to the quizzes, tests, Advanced Placement exams and local district “benchmark” tests that students take on a regular basis throughout the year.
In a videotaped speech yesterday, Obama said tests shouldn’t take up so much time that they “crowd out teaching and learning.”
“We need to make sure we are not obsessing about testing, that kids are enjoying learning, and teachers are able to operate with creativity,” he said. “Learning is a lot more than just filling in the bubble.”
But California has already moved aggressively in reducing mandatory standardized tests. In fact, State Board of Education President Michael Kirst, one of Brown’s closest advisors on education, said that as a result of Assembly Bill 484, passed in 2013, the state has eliminated half of the standardized tests students were taking. In shifting to the new Smarter Balanced tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards, the state dropped nearly all previous state standardized tests.
Among the tests eliminated by the state were standardized tests in 2nd-, 9th- and 10th-grade math and English language arts, end-of-course math tests in Algebra I, Algebra II, geometry, general math and integrated math; all history tests; and end-of-course tests in high school in biology, chemistry, physics and integrated science.
And that was before the latest test-cutting action signed into law by Brown this month – the suspension of the high school exit exam for the next several years – and awarding of high school diplomas retroactively to all students denied one as a result of failing the exam going back to 2006.
Kirst said that the state is now essentially only administering standardized tests required by the federal government under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, including 3rd-through 8th-grade and 11th-grade English language arts and math, as well as science in grades 5, 8, and 10. These are tests that are not optional if California still wants to receive federal education aid. “We are basically down to federal requirements,” he said.
However, Smarter Balanced also offers – and the state has paid for – interim tests in math and English language arts, which are modeled after end-of-year tests and can be given up to three times during the school year. While time-consuming, they are not state-mandated. Districts can decide if they are beneficial.
AB 484 also asks Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to recommend a new system that could include additional state standardized tests, district tests in some subjects and other ways of measuring student achievement, such as portfolios of student work. Working with the research agency WestEd, Torlakson will present a comprehensive plan to the State Board and the Legislature next March.
Just last May, sounding strikingly like President Obama yesterday, Brown said “There has to be a balance to measurements.” He cited one of the favorite aphorisms of his government, attributed to Albert Einstein: “Not everything in life can be measured, and not everything that can be measured is worth measuring.”
He spoke disparagingly of standardized tests that begin in kindergarten and “get little children at the age of 5 infected with this idea that everything is measurable, and that they are accountable every day to improve.”
“I can tell you that the idea that you can improve every day for the rest of your life is not true,” he said. “I just think there is a bit of a life cycle. Things go up and go down.”
President Obama’s backtracking on the excessive use of test scores comes after years of California battling his administration on that issue. The most visible instance was the state’s opposition to using standardized test scores as a significant part of a teacher’s evaluation.
The state’s refusal to use test scores for teacher evaluation purposes disqualified California for extra points in its two failed applications for a share of $4.3 billion in the Race to the Top competition intended to promote school and district innovation.
Two years ago, Duncan insisted that California also administer the old California Standards Tests even though it had chosen to give a Smarter Balanced field test instead. He threatened California with the loss of possibly billions of dollars in federal aid if it didn’t do both. But the Legislature balked at Duncan’s demand for double testing, and Duncan backed down.
Yesterday Torlakson welcomed the reduced testing plan put forward by the Obama administration but noted that California “has been a leader in trying to limit testing. ”
Over the weekend, Duncan took some responsibility for placing too much emphasis on testing in the reforms advocated by the administration. “It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he said. “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation. We can and will work with states, districts and educators to help solve it.”
Yet when it comes to California, there are still unresolved tensions. California is the only state to have had its application for a waiver for some of the most onerous requirements of the No Child Left Behind law denied by the Obama administration. As a result, California is one of a handful of states that must still meet virtually all the requirements of a law that even Duncan has denounced as “outmoded and broken.”
It is still far from clear what impact the issues raised by President Obama and Secretary Duncan, who will be stepping down from his post at the end of the year, will have on the testing debate, or on California. “I have not seen any data to support the magic number of 2 percent,” state board president Kirst said, referring to President Obama’s call to reduce testing to 2 percent of instructional time.
Even more fundamentally, he said he wasn’t even sure “what the definition of tests being used in this debate is.”
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Kristin Jensen Storey 8 years ago8 years ago
I was elated upon hearing President Obama and Secretary Duncan speak about reducing testing in our schools. As is stated in the last sentence of this article, I too am confused about what the 2% refers to. As an 8th grade Language Arts teachers, my students are subjected to over 2 1/2 weeks of testing outside of the SBAC. Depending on the students' levels, this can mean from 10-25% of instructional time these students will … Read More
I was elated upon hearing President Obama and Secretary Duncan speak about reducing testing in our schools. As is stated in the last sentence of this article, I too am confused about what the 2% refers to. As an 8th grade Language Arts teachers, my students are subjected to over 2 1/2 weeks of testing outside of the SBAC. Depending on the students’ levels, this can mean from 10-25% of instructional time these students will lose in an academic year in my subject area alone. I want to know if the union will support those of us who would like to refuse to administer district benchmarks that we are being asked to give up to three times a year. Especially now that we have SBAC data from last year, the data we would get from these benchmarks would be of little use. Whereas the instructional time lost would be approximately 9 instructional days, or +/-20%. I am happy to provide my district with portfolios for every student that demonstrate their progress toward achieving the common core standards. I want to be held accountable, but I am done subjecting my students to redundant tests that do not help to inform my instruction.
Doug McRae 8 years ago8 years ago
It may surprise folks that my reaction as a (former) test maker and test provider is that the feds new advice to limit mandated testing to 2% of instruction time is -- that too generous. For more than 30 years, I've advised states not to exceed 1% of instruction time for statewide end-of-year summative tests. That is roughly 9 hours per year for any grade tested. And I'd advise districts not to exceed an additional … Read More
It may surprise folks that my reaction as a (former) test maker and test provider is that the feds new advice to limit mandated testing to 2% of instruction time is — that too generous. For more than 30 years, I’ve advised states not to exceed 1% of instruction time for statewide end-of-year summative tests. That is roughly 9 hours per year for any grade tested. And I’d advise districts not to exceed an additional 1% of instruction time for district-wide testing for their individual schools, preferably used for during-the-year instructionally focused tests rather than end-of-year summative tests.
CA’s statewide assessment program indeed has been reduced to only federally mandated grades and content areas, but the reductions have been at the expense of eliminating valuable data for grade 2 early reading status, more appropriate middle and high school end-of-course tests than can also function as efficient minimum statewide achievement standards for a HS diploma, and History-Social Science data. SSPI recommendations for replacements to address these data needs are due early 2016, but replacements likely won’t be implemented until 2018-20 at best. Meanwhile, the current Smarter Balanced tests [and English Learner Development tests (CELDT to be replaced by ELPAC (say) 2018] already account for most of the new time limits now being advocated.
Two other quick points: (1) test providers such as Smarter Balanced should be required to report actual testing times, not likely inaccurate undocumented estimated testing times, for their clients; and (2) folks need to make a sharp distinction between actual testing time and test prep time. Unfortunately, test prep practices are wildly excessive in many schools, motivated by teach-to-the-test activities that are a cancer that degrades both quality instruction and quality large scale assessment practices. Appropriate test prep for K-12 large scale tests need not take more than an hour or so from instruction time.
Bruce William Smith 8 years ago8 years ago
The Obama administration has no credibility on this issue, and California has long been right to resist its bullying, even though it resulted in California's money being transferred to states like New York that did its bidding, leading to a disaster in undermining support for state education there that led to John King, President Obama's new appointee to replace Secretary Duncan, being run out of the state, only now to be promoted at the federal … Read More
The Obama administration has no credibility on this issue, and California has long been right to resist its bullying, even though it resulted in California’s money being transferred to states like New York that did its bidding, leading to a disaster in undermining support for state education there that led to John King, President Obama’s new appointee to replace Secretary Duncan, being run out of the state, only now to be promoted at the federal level. But Californians are still not free of the feds’ testing mania, because only Congress can remove the outdated federal mandate of tests in grades 3-8 and once in high school, in English and mathematics, required by George Bush’s No Child Left Behind. That should be repealed; a useful start would be for California’s congressional delegation (Democrats in the House are especially needed) to press the ESEA reconciliation committee negotiators to support the Student Success Act’s support for families wanting to opt out of test-obsessed state schooling, before we need an opt-out movement in this state as well.
Replies
Fred Weller 8 years ago8 years ago
“required by George Bush’s No Child Left Behind.” Please read this as Congressman George Miller, D-CA, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, and George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind . . .
Bruce William Smith 8 years ago8 years ago
Constitutionally speaking, a president's vote is worth one-third of a congressional chamber, since that's how many votes are required to override a veto. Besides, I wanted to point out the irony of Barack Obama, a man elected arguably because he was the most unlike President Bush of any of the candidates running for president in 2008, being virtually the last major American political figure standing up for Mr. Bush's signature domestic policy "accomplishment"; there is … Read More
Constitutionally speaking, a president’s vote is worth one-third of a congressional chamber, since that’s how many votes are required to override a veto. Besides, I wanted to point out the irony of Barack Obama, a man elected arguably because he was the most unlike President Bush of any of the candidates running for president in 2008, being virtually the last major American political figure standing up for Mr. Bush’s signature domestic policy “accomplishment”; there is no particular irony, or even surprise, when President Obama is on the same side of an issue that Senator Kennedy and Congressman Miller were on, but staying the course with any aspect of this Bush-era law is increasingly untenable.
Jason Roche 8 years ago8 years ago
This is an important and long over due recognition by the disastrous Obama education department, but, practically, reducing testing will have little effect on the lives of real students. As long as the tests are part and parcel of an accountability system rooted in carrots and sticks, kids will spend a perverse amount of time test prepping. We need revolution, not reform.