Testimony to the Board regarding Common Core testing

To members of the Board of Education,

My name is Diane Aoki. I am a 5th grade teacher at Kealakehe Elementary School in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii. I understand you will be discussing the Smarter Balanced Assessments at your Tuesday, May 6th Board meeting. I am submitting testimony to ask that you seriously consider the harm being done in the implementation of the Common Core Standards and it's accompanying "Smarter Balanced Assessments." 

As you evaluate the implementation of Common Core in our school system, I ask that you consider the reality of life in the classroom versus what you have been told should be happening in theory. I ask that you not base your decisions on what some highly paid "reformer" lobbyist has told you (someone possibly funded by the Gates Foundation), but consider in your heart of hearts, what type of education you would want for your own child. 

Wouldn't you want your child to thrive in a school that offered small class sizes, a well-rounded education, a school with a mission to encourage social and emotional development, that offered art and music, that made sure science was inquiry based, that put a high priority on civics and civic engagement. That's what I would want for my child, and it is not happening in our schools. The reason it is not happening in our schools is because of test-based accountability. Test scores go up when the test is made the priority above all else, above a well-rounded approach to education.

I have seen the released items for the SBAC. I can only imagine, since my school did not pilot the test this year, how most students would have done. Very few would have done well, even my good students. Most would probably have turned off just glancing at the wordiness of the problems. You may say that it is something they need to learn how to do. Who says that these tests correlate with anything worthwhile ?  Who says that they are valid in anyway? And perhaps with enough training, we can get some improvement over time, but at what cost? 

The cost is a well-rounded education. The cost is time, energy, and money going into test prep, when it could go into assuring that all children are valued and nurtured for their individuality, be it in art, music, science, writing, or academics. 

The only people who are advocating for staying the Common Core SBAC course seem to be people who don't have their heart, soul, and their own children in the system. Isn't that ironic? Isn't that telling? People, like business folk, who tell you to stay the course, ask them what school their child attends. If they say a private school, then ask if that private school has adopted the Common Core. If not, why are they trying to tell us what is the right thing to do? Oh, they're trying to make sure they have a skilled work force. If that is their answer, don't take it at surface level, ask them what skills they need. And then think, is this Common Core and SBAC, really relevant to those needs? 

Too many decisions have been made without this type of relevant analysis. What was the debate in the adoption of the Common Core? Was it pressure from the federal government, in securing Race to the Top funds? Or was it the Common Core public relations rhetoric that convinced you? It definitely was not brought to public forums for debate and discussion. 

You, Board of Education, have the power. You have the power to turn this ship around. After a decade of test-based accountability, you must realize that it does not work. You may say that it's not the same as No Child Left Behind. You may say that now that you are making teacher evaluation tied to student test scores, it will be a tactic that hasn't been tried yet, in Hawaii. Yes, it will be different, it will be worse. You will have spent all this time and resources, on something that is doomed to fail. 

End this madness. Open up the adoption of the Common Core to scrutiny. Consider that it may not be in the community's best interests to forge ahead. Standards themselves can be helpful, but tying it to high-stakes testing destroys any possible positive benefits.

Be brave! Make the implementation of a well-rounded education for children the priority. 

Progressive educator, John Dewey, said it best in 1900 and it remains true today: " What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.  Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.“

Thank you for seriously considering my thoughts, 

Diane Aoki

Kona, Hawaii

Testing Week: Fraud and Quiet

      Standardized testing week is a mixed bag. Here's the up side. My load is easier because I don't teach during the week, and I give very little homework. Because I don't have stacks of papers to grade, I have more time to plan, which is the part of teaching that I enjoy. Only a few of my students are stressed out by testing, because I don't make it a big deal. Only the ones who put pressure on themselves or pick up the pressure from other sources, stress out. I give them snacks. It is quiet for a change. Aw, peace and quiet. Afterwards, when everyone is done they had free time on the computers. There is still a sense of optimism because they know there is another chance in May. And if they improve, which most do, we are happy, even if they don't make that magic 300.

Now, the down side, aside from connectivity issues.

        We are not supposed to look at the questions. We are not supposed to read them the questions because there is, in math, a text-to-speech feature to do that, even if many students don't use it (it sounds weird, it sounds fuzzy, it sounds like a robot, I hate that voice). I am not supposed to tell them to use the text-to-speech even if I notice that they are not using it, I know they are poor readers, or there is a lot of difficult text. I am not supposed to remind them to use the formula chart if they forget what volume or area is. I am not supposed to tell them to go back and check their work even though I know they rushed, and know they randomly clicked clicked through it. All I am supposed to do is teach them what I can beforehand, teach them the tools that are there beforehand, set up the test, get my session ID, approve them to get them started, and log out when the session is done.

Standardized testing, whether online or bubble tests, have always troubled me as a teacher. I don't really remember them when I was a student. Oh yeah, that's because they didn't overrun the school year. I remember PSATs, ACTs and SATs, but that wasn't a school thing, only for those of us planning to go to college. But my memories of school (public school in Guam) were the projects I did, the songs I sang, the friends I hung out with, the games I played, the reports I wrote, the classes and teachers I had, my little (multiplication tables) and big (school spelling bee champ, student council, honor society) victories. Oh, and the bomb scares in high school. 

As an adult, I took the GREs and the PRAXIS teaching test, which I studied for using the commercial study guides. These were very helpful. You could do well on the test because you knew what was going to be on the test, and you could study for it. 

But, our computerized HSA is not like that. There is no way to know if the questions are aligned to the standards, to know if what you are teaching is what is being tested.  When it was a bubble test, you could read the questions, and once in a while you found one that was ridiculous, not a match to standard, or confusing, even to a teacher. You were able to send your concerns to the testing office and usually get a response. One year, a testing company was fired because of so many complaints and errors.  But now, you can't do that because if you do, you are revealing that you "looked," you broke protocol - broke the rules! 

Yet, starting this year, thanks to our new Educator Evaluation System, 25% of our rating will be determined by student test scores. Some would say that is nothing to be worried about because if you get effective ratings on the other 75%, you're still good. However, how can we held accountable for test scores if we have no way to verify that it is a valid test? Are the questions well-written? Are they a match to standards? Is it really a test for the standard, or is it more a test for computer skills, or reading skills? Or test-taking skills? 

          And then there's the Common Core. We were told that only certain Common Core standards would be on what they called the "bridge" assessment. We have a new Common Core curriculum, (GoMath) and so we are dealing with not only the implementation of a new curriculum and new standards, but supposedly a different "bridge" assessment. We were told to focus on only a few CC standards that would be on the HSA, which we did. Here is where I confess that I looked at the test. In my criminal "looking", I did not see any of these bridge standards, but it pretty much looked like the usual online HSA. However, there is really no way to verify my hunch or not, because I wasn't supposed to be "looking." But here we were, being good little boys and girls (us teachers) teaching what we thought we had to be accountable for, and then, oh, never mind. Rug pulled out. Ouch. 

Today, on the Badass Teachers Facebook page, a question was asked: "Should we start petitions in every state demanding that all standardized tests be returned to teachers and parents for their review, so they can use them to help students?" Resounding yes to that. This is the ONLY use I can see from standardized tests. Unless I see specifically how my students answered on these tests, I won't know what I need to help them with, or if it is even worth spending time on. As it is, it is meaningless. Oh yes, like I said in the first paragraph, there are a few selfish perks to it, but still meaningless educationally and a waste of time and resources. 

       Anti-testing activists (I consider myself one) claim our current climate of standardized testing is child abuse. It doesn't appear that way if you observe my classes. The crime is not child abuse. The crime is fraud. 

Summer Brain - Help! I need you!

I am trying my damnedest to maintain the brain I had during the summer - the brain that automatically turned on the day after the last day of school last year. The optimistic brain, the idealist brain, the creative brain. Well, we have had kids in school for three weeks now, and I am losing it already. I need to get it back.

What is happening? What is the cause of the theft of my summer brain? The culprit is a tie between the implementation of the Common Core in the form of a brand new curriculum that is said to be aligned with that big bad bear, and the kids themselves. It is so ironic because I so love the kids. They are beautiful, funny, interesting, loving - for the most part, respectful. But school is stressful for us all. How to reconcile? 

I am trying to follow this new curriculum as laid out by the teacher's guide. It takes the class at least twice as long as the guide seems to think it should take. And though it looks straightforward, it is not exactly kid-friendly and definitely not language-friendly for English Language Learners. One or two of my students get it in the time allotted by the guide. Most get much of it, but not to mastery. Only a very few are totally out of their element. 

But the thing is, it is worksheet learning. If they don't get it, we are supposed to reteach and give them yet another worksheet. I think this is where the behavior problems come in. It is challenging and grueling. There is too much listening and not enough doing. And when it is time for the doing, it is doing worksheets. It reminds me of teaching "old school" math back in the day. And though it seemed as if they were getting it when I was teaching, when they have to do the worksheet on their own, I hear this haunting chorus throughout the room, "I need help, I need help, I need help." 

The "I do, we do, you do" model becomes "we do, we do, we do" and then time runs out, and still they have not mastered it. 

What needs to be done? The worksheet heavy environment may be what is causing the stress and the disengagement. Dare I depart from the curriculum as it is laid out? Dare I assume that this method of delivering instruction is not going to work with the majority of my students? And if so, what is the alternative? 

I think the first thing I need to do is rather than have the "you do" part independent practice, they can work in partners. The trick there is for students to learn how to share strategies rather than answers. I need to cultivate that sense of accountability. The second thing is to work on a spiral review bulletin board. Though I do review after I have seen their errors, I don't put it on a visual that they can access. The third thing is, assume that they will not get it via the worksheet process, and instead of spending time on it, give priority to active learning first. The fourth thing is, don't be bogged down by the "map" or the meeting "standards." Focus instead on getting students to own their learning. Did you learn something? Do you know how to do something that you didn't previously know? Celebrate that. 

Hello summer brain. Stick around. I'm going to need your optimism and positivity. 

(Photo taken in Seattle at the Seattle Art Museum gift store. Reminds me of my summer brain.) 

Negative ? Moi ?

       I have been told that the reason I am so critical of No Child Left Behind and the public school testing culture in general is that I am a terrible teacher with a negative attitude and I am afraid of being exposed. Therefore, it's my fault (as well as my colleagues at my school) that my school is in restructuring, or whatever term is used as the euphemism for failing. Because I dare to question top-down mandates, I have been accused of being negative. More than once it was words, something to the effect of: Why don't you just do what you're told. Mostly, it's looks that say it all: Don't rock the boat, just do it because we're supposed to, because "they" tell us to. You're wasting time complaining, being negative. 

I must say that my principal has never said these things to me by word or by looks. I so appreciate her because she is always willing to engage in dialogue with me. The other day, she  saw me looking disengaged at a Common Core/ Smarter Balanced Assessment training and asked me if I was all right. I shared my concerns. 

We were given sample questions for English/Language arts from the smarter balanced assessment that we will be taking next year. I teach Math, which was one reason I was not engaged, but it was also seeing the sample questions that discombobulated me.  We were to analyze the questions to determine what the skills and concepts were being addressed and what the instructional implications were. There was one sample that really got my goat.  Students were expected to read an opinion piece and determine out of 4 choices which one was a good revision for a passage in the piece. I totally agree that students should read and write opinion pieces, but why should they have to know which revision matches another passage? Getting them to develop a reasonable opinion is a challenge for a lifetime. As you get older, you have to take on more and more complex issues. This is education. It is our job to help them to help them to make better and better arguments for their opinions. Why should we waste time on teaching kids the ability to analyze whether or not a revision is appropriate for an opinion that they may or probably do not care about.

My principal tried to give me the rationale as she saw it, that it is not about writing as much as it is about analyzing, which is a higher order thinking skill, which is what the Common Core is about. She tried to convince me that there was a valid purpose, and I shared my opinion, disagreeing that this kind of activity is meaningful to the goal of analyzing. I believe we had a respectful discussion. 

Okay, now on the positive side - if I were teaching Language Arts or Social Studies, I would focus on the writing and speaking aspect of arguing for their own opinions based on reasonable evidence. If I knew I did this, and I knew that my students could do this and understood what it was to base your opinion on evidence, I would feel I did my job, whether or not it translated to a good test score. 

The Common Core and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium development and implementation was top-down. For Hawaii and other Race to the Top awardees, we had to accept it in order to "win" the competition. If it was helpful and truly for the common good, like seatbelt and drunk driving laws and speed limits, I would be okay with it. But based on the sample questions, I do not know if this is literally a "smarter" "balanced" assessment or just another tool to discredit public education by creating unreasonable questions.

I will continue to look for evidence one way or the other. Our time with our students is precious. We must guard it as much as we can with meaningful and engaging work. We don't have time for less than that.