Pearson imposes gag order on teachers about test.
This will probably be one of my last posts about education at DU. Not worth the ugliness it brings out. Quite frankly I want to smile when someone says both the far left and far right are united against Arne Duncan's policies. It is just not true.
The far right is adamantly opposed to the new "reforms", but the left simply doesn't care enough to oppose them. Since the privatization of education has become a Democratic policy, those on the left seldom speak against it. Teachers and parents are getting very outspoken, but liberals in general don't really think it matters. It's really mostly a teacher/parent thing.
But I do think I will call attention to the fact that one of the largest testing companies has put a gag order on teachers.
The Backlash Against New York’s Standardized Tests Is Getting Serious
Last year's exams, designed by Pearson, which has a $32 million contract with the state and were the first to adhere to Common Core requirements, garnered lots of heat for being overly long, riddled with product placement, and including confounding questions that, to many educators, were "inappropriately difficult."
This year, says Schroeter, they're even worse. "Last year, everyone was ready for it to be a fluke. People thought, okay, first year, first time out, it's going to be a mess. And by the time this year rolls around, people thought, 'Oh, they've had time to get it together and make a better assessment," she says. "But it just wasn't. You're skimming through the booklet and going, 'What? Wait a minute.'"
She said her teachers reported that students found the exams "demoralizing" and "frustrating." Rather than evaluating reading comprehension skills, Jenny Bonnet, principal of P.S. 150 in Tribeca says they were "more about having students have to flip back and forth and look at structural things versus having a deep understanding of what the passage is about ... When I first looked at the test, I was just in shock. I was having trouble with my fellow teachers — we sat around and tried to answer some of the questions — and I thought, This is ridiculous. I'm an adult, I should be able to answer these questions. If it's hard for me, these poor kids — they must be incredibly confused."
Principals and their staff can't discuss specifics of the test because they're barred from doing so by a "gag order" — another major concern. Neither teachers nor parents see the results in their entirety. The stakes are higher this year, too, because not only do results determine, in some cases, where kids can apply to middle schools, but they're also linked to school and teacher evaluations. "The level of agitation is growing," says Schroeter. "Not only were the expectations and the standards raised, and the tests made more difficult, the stakes attached to them became higher and higher."
A principal speaks out in the New York Times:
We Need to Talk About the Test
I’d like to tell you what was wrong with the tests my students took last week, but I can’t. Pearson’s $32 million contract with New York State to design the exams prohibits the state from making the tests public and imposes a gag order on educators who administer them. So teachers watched hundreds of thousands of children in grades 3 to 8 sit for between 70 and 180 minutes per day for three days taking a state English Language Arts exam that does a poor job of testing reading comprehension, and yet we’re not allowed to point out what the problems were.
....At Public School 321, we entered this year’s testing period doing everything that we were supposed to do as a school. We limited test prep and kept the focus on great instruction. We reassured families that we would avoid stressing out their children, and we did. But we believed that New York State and Pearson would have listened to the extensive feedback they received last year and revised the tests accordingly. We were not naïve enough to think that the tests would be transformed, but we counted on their being slightly improved. It truly was shocking to look at the exams in third, fourth and fifth grade and to see that they were worse than ever. We felt as if we’d been had.
For two years, I have suggested that the commissioner of education and the members of the Board of Regents actually take the tests — I’d recommend Days 1 and 3 of the third-grade test for starters. Afterward, I would like to hear whether they still believed that these tests gave schools and parents valuable information about a child’s reading or writing ability.
We do not want to become cynics, but until these flawed exams are released to the public and there is true transparency, it will be difficult for teachers and principals to maintain the optimism that is such an essential element of educating children.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I know you're surprised but while I don't always agree with the past practices, I sure as hell DISAGREE STRONGLY with these asshats. Starting from the TOP.
- Just remember: ''The fish stinks from the head.''
K&R
because the teachers are gagged about speaking about them. I think before it's over there will be some leaking of some of the problems. And then of course teacher heads will roll. It will probably never be Pearson's fault.
Your point that tests must be valid needs to be emphasized. A secretive test which gags teachers and principals can not be considered valid. 
The fact that they cause dissent is exactly why you should not stop.
I am dismayed at how much time is devoted to teaching students exactly what they need to pass these tests,
which I think are deliberately made overly broad so that they can claim students are learning about every single topic
imaginable - but there's no time to go in depth on anything. And very little freedom for the teacher to do what he/she wants. 
My kid learns a lot of new material during the fall, but very little during the spring because of the $&^#! testing. She has testing every frigging morning next week, and it's far from being the first or last "test day" she's had since January.
I think you stay on their ignore list. 
You are one of DU's treasures. Someone who actually gives solid information and data.
DU has kind of sucked lately but you are one of the "good ones" I look for when I finally get on DU.
Keep the faith. You have a lot of support here. More than you know obviously.
Of course, you could never get all of them to do that, but it would be interesting. 
Join the "A" Team as a Form of
Protest Against
Testing as a Replacement for Teaching!
Joining is simple. Just select "A" for all your test answers.
As a kid, I would have done it, but I knew a lot of kids who wouldn't.
Seems to me we have been on the same page on many issues through the years.
education. I rarely comment on these threads, but I assure you I read them all. You are a very valuable resource on the topic and we need you and your threads.
