Mecklenburg ACTS News

Have you heard the one about the hare and the pineapple?

It’s a great example of the absurdity of the current obsession with standardized testing.

The “Hare and the Pineapple” is a item created by testing giant Pearson that has been used on standardized eighth-grade exams around the country for several years. If you read the story for yourself, you’ll see that it makes no sense whatsoever, and that at least two of the questions have no “right” answers.

As you read, remember that the answers to these questions can figure into whether students are promoted from one grade to another, whether schools are allowed to remain open and whether teachers keep their jobs.

How have we allowed American public education to be hijacked by absurdities like this?

The Internet is full of articles about the hare, the pineapple and their other animal friends. Here are a few of our favorites:

For an account of how an activist mom uncovered the story, click here.

For the Wall Street Journal’s amusing account of the scandal’s connections to well-known children’s author Daniel Pinkwater, click here.

For Pearson’s lengthy (and in our minds quite pathetic) justification of the item’s validity, click here.

For some musings by MecklenburgACTS co chair Pamela Grundy, click here.

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The “Campaign for Achievement Now” has set its sights on North Carolina as its next target for “reform.” Although the group’s leaders claim to be focused on grassroots advocacy, they are bringing a very specific agenda which includes more high-stakes testing, more use of test scores to evaluate educators and schools, and expansion for charter school funding.

Here, from their website, is their statement of support for testing expansion, curriculum narrowing and school closings.

Greater Accountability

Over the past 20 years we made significant strides in developing rigorous state standards and aligned student assessment systems. We must now use the information collected through these systems to drive instruction and curriculum, expand public awareness of school performance, ground teacher evaluations in student results and close chronically failing schools.

The organization began in Connecticut. Their Web site notes that the Walton Foundation funded their expansion into several other states, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is financing the expansion into North Carolina. The website budget suggests that they intend to spend $704,453 in North Carolina this year. Their main target will be the state legislature.

According to a Connecticut school activist we know: “They have deep pockets and buy access to power. They have authored many bills here, then found someone in the legislature to push it (not always successfully). They routinely manufacture ‘parent engagement’ by busing charter parents in with t-shirts they’ve bought.”

MecklenburgACTS will be monitoring the actions of this group, both here and statewide. Please let us know if you hear anything about them. Also, look for upcoming actions that you can take to let our state and Congressional representatives know that this is not the kind of education that we want for our children.

Thanks,

Pamela and Carol

Here is the job description:

NEW: Executive Director of CarolinaCAN: The North Carolina Campaign for Achievement Now

50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now is seeking an exceptional individual to serve as the founding executive director of CarolinaCAN: The North Carolina Campaign for Achievement Now, the fifth state branch. 50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now is a nonprofit advocacy organization that recruits and supports local leaders who build citizen movements in their states to ensure that every child has access to a great public school. We believe that great schools change everything-from the life trajectory of a child to the economic prosperity of the state.

Our model is built around the conviction that all politics is local but locals shouldn’t have to start from scratch. We identify education reform leaders in each state and then provide them with the tools needed to build an effective advocacy movement grounded in three principles:1) greater high-quality choices for parents, 2) greater flexibility for innovative educators and 3) greater accountability for results.

CarolinaCAN’s advocacy model involves three key components:

Research & Policy: CarolinaCAN will produce original research that marries in-depth analysis of state-level education data with the latest national research.

Communications & Mobilization: CarolinaCAN will create a movement of informed citizens through media work, e-advocacy, publications, partnerships with like-minded civic and community groups, phone banks, petitions and rallies.

Advocacy for Policy Change: CarolinaCAN will team with local leaders to develop and enact concrete, meaningful education reforms through both legislative and administrative action.

Position

The executive director will be responsible for bringing the winning 50CAN model to life in North Carolina’s unique political and policy landscape. Working in collaboration with the 50CAN national team and the CarolinaCAN advisory board, the executive director will drive statewide policy campaigns that seek fundamental changes to ensure all North Carolina children have access to great schools. During summer 2012, the executive director will help recruit and manage two additional staff members – a government relations & policy manager and a public affairs manager – to complete the CarolinaCAN campaign team.

The ideal candidate will have a successful track record running issue advocacy or political campaigns, possess a deep understanding of education policy, be extraordinarily entrepreneurial, have excellent written and verbal communication skills and be absolutely dedicated to our mission of securing great schools for all through fundamental educational reforms. The executive director serves both as the leader of the North Carolina branch of 50CAN and as a member of 50CAN’s senior leadership team.

Responsibilities

• Advocate-in-Chief: The executive director will lead the effort to change state policy through legislative and administrative action by crafting and executing the organization’s strategy and campaign plans.

• Local Fundraising: The executive director will be the primary driver of the effort to secure state funding to ensure the long-term sustainability of the campaign and build upon the existing funding secured to date.

• Spokesperson: The executive director will be the voice of the campaign in speeches, meetings, media outreach and written communications across the state, effectively articulating complex policy arguments to a broad range of individuals and groups.

• Manager and Mentor: The executive director will be the leader of the North Carolina team and serve as both a strong manager and mentor.

Salary is highly competitive and commensurate with experience. 50CAN offers a comprehensive benefits package. Interested candidates should send a cover letter and resume to sarah.ganley@50CAN.org.

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By Pamela Grundy

This time last year, residents of Charlotte, North Carolina faced a massive expansion of high-stakes standardized testing, aimed at making Charlotte-Mecklenburg students the most tested in the nation.

That spring, students, teachers and parents endured the outbreak of what we soon called “testing madness.” On top of the regular state tests, teachers across Mecklenburg County were required to administer 52 new high-stakes standardized tests, part of superintendent Peter Gorman’s goal of testing every child in every subject every year. The tests were tied to a pay-for-performance scheme that was slated for rapid approval by the state legislature.

We were racing down a fast track to nowhere.

This year, however, the rush has slowed. The pay-for-performance legislation has stalled. Last week, interim superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh announced that CMS was scrapping the 52 extra tests. For the moment, students and teachers can focus more on learning, and breathe a little easier.

Why the change?

People stood up for the kind of education they believe in.

Once we realized the havoc that testing madness would wreak on local education, parents, teachers and students worked together to fight the change. We petitioned, protested, wrote letters, made Facebook posts and spoke at school board meetings.

We emphasized the drawbacks of teaching to the test. We pointed out how much time testing diverted from instruction (this was a particular problem in elementary schools, where K-2 students had to be tested one-on-one, a process that required staff members to spend between one and two hours per student administering tests). We noted that neither expanded testing nor pay for performance had any track record of improving student achievement.

Once legislators heard how angry the pay-for-performance legislation made many of their constituents, they lost interest. Support for the testing shrank to a bare 5-4 majority on the school board, a majority that ended when a new school board was elected this fall. In June, Peter Gorman left to work for Rupert Murdoch.

Of course, the battle against testing madness is far from over. When Hattabaugh announced that CMS was dropping the tests, he noted that the state of North Carolina, following the dictates of a federal Race to the Top grant, would be picking up the ball. In fact, he said, the state would be using the CMS tests as a model for its own efforts to test every child in every subject every year. Still, we have won some time.

It’s a tough fight. But as we learned in Charlotte, it’s a fight that can be won, because the advocates of expanded testing have neither research nor common sense on their side. There are plenty of ways to evaluate teachers that do not rely on standardized test scores. Faced with the realities of testing madness, many parents quickly realize that it does more harm than good. Here in Charlotte, support for rolling back the tests crossed racial, ethnic, economic and political lines.

This is no time to relax. Testing madness is coming to a school district near you. Legislators in states such as Florida, Tennessee and New York have already passed legislation mandating that standardized test scores play a substantial role in teacher evaluation. Some have already laid out huge sums of money to develop new tests.

With all the powerful interests lined up behind the expansion of standardized tests, stopping testing madness will take all of us. Find out what is happening in your state. Get informed about the drawbacks of high-stakes standardized tests. Organize. Fight for your children’s right to an education that goes far beyond a bubble sheet.

For details on testing and student achievement, see the PAA fact sheets “Tying Teacher Salaries to Test Scores Doesn’t Work,” and “Why More Standardized Tests Won’t Improve Education”.

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