Re: good letter on testing's impact in Chicago

[aburke5054@aol.com]

If Chicago's children are not getting "true, rigorous, complex and 
enriching learning" it is not because they are being given tests that 
are too easy, it's because they subjected to teaching that isn't very 
good.  Plenty of Chicago children are having trouble with the 
purportedly easy Illinois tests.  Throwing the best test in the world 
into the Chicago schools is not going to make the teaching any better 
and it is magical thinking to claim that it would.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Monty Neill <monty@fairtest.org>
To: RScriticalteach <RScriticalteach@lists.execpc.com>; 
ARN-state@yahoogroups.com; ARN-L <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 9:57 am
Subject: [arn-l] good letter on testing's impact in Chicago

Catalyst Chicago
Back to Story

Letters From Readers
Higher scores on 'weakened tests' are disservice to poor kids by 
August, 2007

Many voices have recently been raised to celebrate the "increase" in 
Illinois
Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) scores, and, in turn, to call for 
much-needed
school funding from the state. But amid all of the babble about money, 
we must
ask: Who speaks for children? And whose interests are served-children 
or
consultants and test publishing companies?

Published reports reveal that the Illinois test is one of the 
substantially
weaker state tests crafted to meet the accountability requirements of 
No Child
Left Behind when compared to national measures of student achievement, 
such as
the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). One study by 
Policy
Analysis for California Education, for example, showed that results of 
Illinois'
2005 state standards tests claimed reading and math proficiency at 67 
percent
and 80 percent, respectively, while at the same time national tests 
found
proficiency was actually much lower, 29 percent for reading and 32 
percent for
math.

A June 4 article in Time magazine reports further evidence about this 
testing
discrepancy. Some writers refer to this tendency to celebrate "high" 
scores on
weakened tests as "gaming the system."

A more troubling note was sounded in a 2006 report by the Thomas B. 
Fordham
Foundation that noted "Illinois' low-income and minority students score 
worse
[on the NAEP] than their counterparts in all but 12 states and have 
made no
significant progress over the last decade. This record is among the 
worst in the
nation."

Government and education leaders who lead the public-and especially 
students-to
believe that true achievement is taking places as schools are 
encouraged to
teach to weakened state tests do a grave disservice.

As a Chicago teacher and reading specialist, I see firsthand the 
devastating
consequences of inundating these children with such low-level 
educational
expectations and processes. What is reflected in the "rise" in scores 
is a great
amount of conditioning (think: Pavlov's dogs), not true, rigorous, 
complex and
enriching learning.

Through no fault of their own, poor children's limited experiences in 
life often
render them dependent on our educational institutions for such rigor, 
complexity
and enrichment. If they are to be given a fair chance at receiving 
quality
education and achieving success in life, their exposure to educational
excellence must not be compromised.

Bring on state and federal funding, but with the caveat that it is the
children's best interests-and not inflated test scores-that will be 
served.
Their ability to compete globally depends upon it. Let's speak out for 
children.
Let's intervene in what U.S. Rep. John Lewis, quoted in Jonathan 
Kozol's "The
Shame of the Nation," calls "the worst situation Black America has 
faced since
slavery."

Let's demand excellence, without the "games." Let's contact our 
legislators
today. Let's save our students.

Bonita Robinson
CPS teacher, reading specialist
Ellington Elementary



© Catalyst Chicago.
--------------------------------
Monty Neill, Ed.D.
Co-Executive Director
FairTest
342 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-864-4810    fax 617-497-2224
monty@fairtest.org
http://www.fairtest.org
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