Researcher: SBAC Test Is Not Valid or Reliable or Fair

Diane Ravitch's blog

A new blogger enters the education fray with timely questions about the validity, reliability, and fairness of the Smarter Balanced Assessment, the Common Core test paid for by the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Roxana Marachi, Associate Professor in the Department of K-8 Teacher Education at San Jose State University has launched a blog called http://eduresearcher.com/.

In this post, she raises important questions, such as:

Q1: How is standardization to be assumed when students are taking tests on different technological tools with vastly varying screen interfaces? Depending on the technology used (desktops, laptops, chromebooks, and/or ipads), students would need different skills in typing, touch screen navigation, and familiarity with the tool.

Q2: How are standardization and fairness to be assumed when students are responding to different sets of questions based on how they answer (or guess) on the adaptive sections of the assessments?

Q3: How is fairness to be assumed…

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Let’s Get Together

So education is a mess in Delaware.  It has basically come down to two sides: the moneymakers who want to make more money off education and those who just want education to be about teachers teaching and students learning with no high-stakes attached other than the student’s actual grades they receive based on the quality of work they put out.  This is it in a nutshell.  Sure, there are a million other variables in-between but this is the crux of the issues.

One side says what we have isn’t good enough while the other disagrees.  I’ve heard legislators say that both sides need to get together and compromise.  But how do you compromise when your very ethics and morals are questioned?  How do you put what you believe and you know in your heart of hearts to be true?  When does a financial reason ever replace what is actually good for a student?

In the 1960’s, people were very good about rising up when civil rights issues came up.  They stood up and rallied and rioted and marched and talked.  They said no to the big man and changed the face of the country.  Now many of the same people who advocated for change are the ones telling us how to run schools and what we need to do.  What changed?  Money.  They got a sniff of it, ran with it, kept it, invested it, and based their lives on it.  But they also achieved a level of power.  They got used to getting their way, and woe to anyone who gets in their way.  The only difference is now they are controlling events through money and power, as opposed to their hearts and convictions.  I think they believe the lies they tell us about our children and schools because the overwhelming need to control the scene is the mindset they have always had.

Is it even possible to change that kind of mindset?  Is there a way to convince these people they are wrong?  I don’t think so.  They will plot and scheme, and come up with other accountability measures designed to get what they want.  The difference is people are hip to their credo.  We are rising up, just as they did fifty years ago, to protest what they once believed to be wrong.  Will it be enough?  My best advice is to get together again.  Not those who will destroy public education, but all those who are opposed to what they are doing.

We need our own march that will go down in the annals of history as a catalyst for change.  We need to rally and protest.  We need to say no…together, as one voice.