“Today’s fiasco once again demonstrates that Florida testing policy is being driven by politicians and ideologues, not educators.”
“We Are Not A Test Score.”
“We honestly believe that The State of New Jersey, by forcing us to administer this time-devouring test, is engaged in behavior destructive to the educational well being of our students.”
While the Smarter Balanced Assessment doesn’t start in Delaware for another eight days, many states started the Pearson created PARCC test today. But it looks like many students and teachers didn’t take part. Diane Ravitch must have had a field day with her blog today. Every article was about huge problems with this test. Another blog, based out of Florida called Scathing Purple Musings had plenty to say about it as well!
In New Mexico, hundreds of students just walked out of the tests! The biggest walkout occurred at Albuquerque High School. Students had signs indicating “We Are Not A Test Score” and “Common Core Fails”. All told, twelve high schools in the state had walkouts. Another student in the Santa Fe School District got suspended for telling students they can opt out of the test. Diane Ravitch put the student on her blog honor roll!
In Florida, it looks like the computer system was sick of standardized testing as anywhere from 8 to 12 school districts were unable to log into the system. While this wasn’t the PARCC, it was the first day of the Florida Standards Assessment. Leon County has told the state they won’t try to give it anymore until the state DOE can confirm it won’t happen again.
Illinois had bad news today. The Superintendent of the Chicago School District had announced she was only giving the PARCC to 10% of students. She caved on this today which I’m sure shocked the other 90% of the students.
But the biggest news came out of Newark, New Jersey. Teachers at one of the most successful schools in the state, Science Park High School, wrote a very long letter protesting the PARCC test, calling it “Thirty days of destruction.” But in the rest of the state, thousands of students walked out and opted out. 30% of the students refused the test in one district alone. That should be an interesting conversation with the state DOE!
Speaking of the DOE, I wonder how many will show up tomorrow night at the Delaware PTA sponsored parent opt out town hall event?
All of these articles can be read at http://dianeravitch.net/ and https://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/
The Season Of Myths 