State plans to phase in STAAR standards

Here's the link to the TEA website where you can view all of this information on the STAAR standards in more detail.


-Patricia

By Jessamy Brown | Star Telegram
Wednesday, Apr. 25, 2012

The state will phase in passing standards for the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness end-of-course exams for high school students over four years, officials announced.
This year's freshman class is the first to be required to pass 12 end-of-course STAAR exams to graduate. This year's sophomores and juniors will continue to take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge of Skills, which is being phased out.

STAAR's phase-in will start with the same passing standards this year and in 2013. They will be raised for 2014 and 2015, and final standards will be in place by 2016.
The standards, announced Tuesday by the Texas Education Agency, are broken down into three categories:

Level I is unsatisfactory academic performance, meaning the student did not pass the test.
Level II is satisfactory performance, for students who meet the passing standard.
Level III is advanced performance, for students who are well-prepared for the next grade or course.

While teachers and students now know how the scoring will be configured, they still don't know how many questions must be answered correctly to pass, said Suzanne Marchman, a TEA spokeswoman.

The number will vary from year to year, depending on how many questions are on the test and how each question is weighted. That information will be released in June.

Arlington school district Superintendent Jerry McCullough said he is glad to get information about the passing standards and phase-in but wants more details.

"The district was also hoping to get some ballpark figures of what percent correct is needed to pass these tests," he said. "We hope these figures will be coming soon."

The phase-in will give school districts time to adjust instruction and provide more training for teachers, because STAAR is designed to be more rigorous than TAKS, Marchman said.

The first round of end-of-course results come out in June. This will allow students who don't do well on a test to take a summer class before retesting in July, while the information is still fresh, said Sara Arispe, the Fort Worth school district executive director of accountability and data quality.
"Having that few weeks between getting the results and the summer [test] administration could really make a difference for some students," Arispe said.

Ninth-graders took end-of-course tests in reading and writing in late March. Schools have a two-week window starting May 7 to give the other tests.

Elementary and middle school students are taking the bulk of their STAAR tests this week, but the passing standards for those exams won't be released until the fall.

What it takes to pass

Examples of passing scores for high school end-of-course exams. Final passing standards will be set in 2016.

Test	2012-13 Level II	2012-13 Level III	2014-15 Level II	2014-15 Level III
English III reading	1875	2135	1950	2356
Algebra II	3500	4080	3750	4411
Biology	3500	N/A	3750	4576
World history	3500	N/A	3750	4634

Source: Texas Education Agency

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/25/3913092/state-plans-to-phase-in-staar.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/25/3913092/state-plans-to-phase-in-staar.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

Eissler and Hochberg on TAKS and STAAR

 

Great interview by the Texas Tribune with Representatives Eissler and Hochberg. 

A notable ending comment by Rep. Hochberg: "We built the concept of this whole accountability system on the concept that the numbers that those tests give us mean something, and we know that the numbers that those tests give us mean almost nothing for kids that are going to consistently score above the pass mark. In fact, we know that those kids are going to pass 98% of the time the next year." 

 -Patricia

Testing pile-up this week tests teachers, students

Texas schools are on total lock-down. What a mess. -Patricia By Laura Heinauer | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Wednesday, April 25, 2012 With strict rules about test security, interruptions and campus access, the days given over to standardized academic testing in Texas are always a little different from the usual routine. But this year and next, as schools across the state transition from the old Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam to the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, high schools will have more of these different days than in the past to accommodate both exams. Nearly all week, high school sophomores and juniors are taking the TAKS, which 11th-graders need to pass before they can graduate. Freshmen, who are going to be taking the STAAR the second week of May, are still expected to come to school, but they must be kept separate to avoid disturbing the upperclassmen. Seniors, meanwhile, are on a shortened schedule this week — and some, according to Facebook posts, have been watching quite a few movies. Students in elementary and middle schools are also taking tests this week. Because each district can set their own schedules for the May STAAR exams, the number of additional days devoted to standardized testing at high schools will vary but no doubt will be higher this year than last. Debbie Sommer, the Leander school district's director of testing and accountability, said the challenge this year is more for the testing coordinators and campus administrators than it is for the students who, in many cases, still have to take the same number of tests. "The challenge is to have enough staff to provide the instruction to those students who are not testing and to be test administrators to those who are," she said. "We're really feeling the strain on that." At McCallum High School in North Central Austin, Principal Mike Garrison said that although things are different this week, he is hoping to squeeze in as much instructional time as possible. The school has been split in two, he said, with the 10th- and 11th-graders at one end of the building and the rest of the students elsewhere. The bells have been turned off, and the ninth-graders are put into review classes, based on where they will be testing, for their upcoming math, science and social studies end-of-course exams. The review sessions will last 80 minutes each. "The teachers felt it was really important that the kids not just sit around — that they get instruction and get ready for the end-of-course exam," Garrison said. The seniors at most area schools don't have to come in until the afternoon, which is when many schools will take attendance. Attendance is still important because the money that the school receives from the state is dependent on it. In addition to test preparation, the ninth- and 12th-graders at McCallum are also completing their FitnessGram Testing, another state-mandated test that measures physical fitness levels of students in grades 3 to 12. "I don't think the Legislature realizes sometimes the impact they are having when they have us do all of this testing," Garrison said. The extra testing this year comes as districts across the state, including Austin, are passing resolutions expressing opposition to the over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing. Some parents have even decided to opt out of testing this week. "We're not sure how many parents kept their kids home this week. Parents are afraid of ending up on the wrong side of the school if they complain, so they don't say anything," said Edythe Chamness, founder of Texas Parents Opt Out of State Tests. She kept her two elementary-age students out of school this week. Controversies this spring over whether standardized testing should be part of a student's grade and whether it has become a "perversion," as stated by state Education Commissioner Robert Scott, have added fuel to the fire. "The fact that this resolution has been sweeping the school boards across the state and has now gone national is not an accident," said Mike Corwin, a parent of a kindergarten student in the Austin school district. "There's a debate about the future of public education that's really reached a tipping point around these tests and how they are taking away from a much more rounded educational experience." Though the extra testing days have been an adjustment for staff, Sommer said most of the teachers are very happy with the STAAR overall, which is timed so it lasts only four hours — the TAKS was untimed — and is supposed to be more rigorous and grade-based than its predecessor. Plus, she said, having to deal with the TAKS and the STAAR could be good practice for the future. Under TAKS, there were about 30 testing days each year; under STAAR there will be 45, and high schools, much like their elementary and middle school counterparts, need to get used to having some students on campus who are taking tests and others who are not, she said. "We've talked about how we need to shift that paradigm, because under STAAR, it's going to happen more frequently," Sommer said.

http://www.wiredacademic.com/2011/10/pearson-draws-criticism-from-new-york-to-texas-justified-or-unjustified/

Pearson Draws Criticism From New York to Texas… Justified? Or Unjustified?

by by Dave Dugdale via Flickr under learningdslrvideo.com

CreativeCommons

Pearson LLC has been in the news a lot lately. Here is a round up of some of the articles.
Michael Winerip of The New York Times writes about how “Free Trips Raise Issues for Officials in Education,” focusing on the Pearson Foundation sending commissioners on free trips and whether it is an ethical policy. Here are some paragraphs and links to the two stories so far on the topic.

In recent years, the Pearson Foundation has paid to send state education commissioners to meet with their international counterparts in London, Helsinki, Singapore and, just last week, Rio de Janeiro.
The commissioners stay in expensive hotels, like the Mandarin Oriental in Singapore. They spend several days meeting with educators in these places. They also meet with top executives from the commercial side of Pearson, which is one of the biggest education companies in the world, selling standardized tests, packaged curriculums and Prentice Hall textbooks.
Pearson would not say which state commissioners have gone on the trips, but of the 10 whom I was able to identify, at least seven oversee state education departments that have substantial contracts with Pearson. For example, Illinois — whose superintendent, Christopher A. Koch, went to Helsinki in 2009 and to Rio de Janeiro — is currently paying Pearson $138 million to develop and administer its tests.

Via The New York Times

The education commissioners may also be violating state ethics laws. After I wrote about the conferences last month, the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board opened an inquiry to determine whether the recent trip to Brazil by its commissioner, Jason E. Glass,violated state law.
Iowa has $3 million in contracts with Pearson. A spokeswoman for Dr. Glass said that he was “confident he abided by all legal and ethical rules” and that he was fully cooperating with the board.
At a time when state budgets are being cut, a free trip can look tempting. The first three years that Pearson financed the trips, no more than six commissioners attended any of them; last month, in Brazil, 12 were at the meeting.

Via The New York Times

The Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa followed up on the investigation: http://thegazette.com/2011/09/27/complaint-alleges-iowa-education-chief-violated-ethics-law/

Meanwhile, the Pearson Foundation posted a response on it’s web site:

We categorically refute that suggestion, or any implication that our partnership with CCSSO is inappropriate. There is simply no factual basis for the suggestion that the Pearson Foundation’s support for the CCSSO International Education Summits is designed to win contracts for Pearson, nor that any contract was won as a result of the Summits. On the contrary, several chief state school officers have told the New York Times that the Summits had no such intent or outcome.

 …

Everyone from Education Secretary Arne Duncan on down understands the importance of knowing how American students are doing compared to their peers in other countries, and then learning from school leaders in high-performing nations.
These visits make it possible for our nation’s education leaders to engage in an exchange with their international counterparts, share experiences, and come home armed with new strategies and ideas to raise achievement, especially achievement for our most struggling students.
Regrettably, state and local education budgets could never provide the resources necessary for state chiefs and others to travel and collaborate in person with education ministers, reformers and innovators from Finland, Singapore, Brazil, or other nations who are more than willing to share their insights and best practices with us. If it were left to public funds, it simply wouldn’t happen, and the opportunity to improve our schools would be lost.
CCSSO plans the summit agendas, invites its members and other education leaders, and issues reports summarizing findings from the Summits. And, as those education officials who have attended the summits have recently attested in public statements, participants from all nations return home with a greater understanding of the challenges facing their students, and with fresh ideas and a reinvigorated will to take them on.
We vigorously contest both columns. And we deeply regret the possibility that they may undermine the good intentions and the good work of the education leaders who took part in these important professional exchanges.
If in the future they are inhibited from meeting with their international counterparts and applying the lessons learned in their own classrooms, then those who will be most harmed will be the students they serve.
Via Pearson Foundation

Meanwhile, Pearson is also drawing fire in Texas as Abby Rapoport writes a critical article  (Sept. 6, 2011) in The Texas Observer titled, “Education Inc.: How private companies are profiting from Texas public schools.”

Pearson is a London-based mega-corporation that owns everything from the Financial Times to Penguin Books, and also dominates the business of educating American children. The company promotes its many education-related products on a website that features an idyllic, make-believe town. It’s called Pearsonville, and it looks like the international conglomerate version of SimCity. In this virtual town, school buses whizz through tree-lined streets, and the city center features skyscrapers and a tram. Tabs pop up to show you just how many Pearson products are available. A red schoolhouse features young kids using Pearson products to learn math (with Pearson’s enVision Math) and take standardized tests online. Nearby, at the Pearsonville high school, students use the company’s online instructional materials to study science. The high school also features online testing. Pearson online courses are available at the town library. At the model home, parents can use Pearson’s student information system to track their children’s grades. The “test centre,” not shockingly, provides even more testing options. It’s a beautiful little town. A Las Vegas-style sign welcomes you, while a biplane flies through the sky trailing a Pearson banner behind it.

…

Pearson, one of the giants of the for-profit industry that looms over public education, produces just about every product a student, teacher or school administrator in Texas might need. From textbooks to data management, professional development programs to testing systems, Pearson has it all—and all of it has a price. For statewide testing in Texas alone, the company holds a five-year contract worth nearly $500 million to create and administer exams. If students should fail those tests, Pearson offers a series of remedial-learning products to help them pass. Meanwhile, kids are likely to use textbooks from Pearson-owned publishing houses like Prentice Hall and Pearson Longman. Students who want to take virtual classes may well find themselves in a course subcontracted to Pearson. And if the student drops out, Pearson partners with the American Council on Education to offer the GED exam for a profit.
“Pearson basically becomes a complete service provider to the education system,” says David Anderson, an Austin education lobbyist whose clients include some of Pearson’s competitors.

….

In 1998, Pearson hired a new CEO from Texas, Marjorie Scardino. She joined a company with a diverse and haphazard set of interests; in addition to the Financial Times and Penguin Books, the mega-company owned everything from Madame Tussauds wax museums to a stake in investment bank Lazard. Scardino sought to focus the company on one broad industry—education. Soon after Scardino’s arrival, Pearson bought Simon & Schuster’s education businesses and opened a new, overarching company—Pearson Education. Two years later, in a controversial move, Pearson acquired the Minnesota-based testing company National Computer Systems for $2.5 billion and began expanding into assessments. By 2004, Scardino ranked 59th on Forbes’ list of the “100 Most Powerful Women in the World.” By 2009, she was 19th.
Her timing was excellent. The education field was facing new and vehement demand for more testing and accountability in schools. Texas had been leading the way in state-mandated standardized testing, and by the time Pearson acquired National Computer Systems in 2000, the company had already signed a $233 million contract with the Lone Star State. With the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, all states were required to use a standard test to determine how students were learning. Pearson continued buying testing companies, including the testing services division of Harcourt. Last year, Pearson signed yet another contract with Texas to create the latest iterations of the state’s testing system, the new and more rigorous “end-of-course” and State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams.
Pearson now creates the tools to grade the tests and the software to analyze student performance. That’s in addition to textbooks, remedial learning resources, GED courses and online classes. (Pearson officials refused comment for this story.)
But despite Pearson’s prevalence in nearly every sector of public education, state officials say they maintain oversight. The Texas Education Agency monitors Pearson’s test development and often works side-by-side with the company. Gloria Zyskowski, the deputy associate commissioner, says the agency communicates with Pearson almost daily. She says that TEA uses a transparent bidding process to contract the work and follows a strict series of steps to build and score the tests. In creating test questions, the agency recruits teachers and former teachers to sit on an advisory committee. Pearson employees facilitate advisory committees, but the company isn’t writing the test questions by itself.
But when the company—like many for-profits—wants to get its way in education policy, Pearson isn’t shy about deploying high-powered lobbyists. Pearson pays six lobbyists to advocate for the company’s legislative agenda at the Texas Capitol—often successfully. This legislative session, lawmakers cut an unprecedented $5 billion from public education, including funding for a variety of programs to help struggling students improve their performance on state tests. Despite the cuts, Pearson’s funding streams remain largely intact. Bills that would have reduced the state’s reliance on tests didn’t pass. The Texas Senate refused to pass any bills that would have diminished the role of testing, a stance some Capitol sources attribute to Pearson’s lobbying, while others give the credit to pressure from reform advocates.
Who’s responsible may not matter. The interests of corporate lobbyists and reform advocates are often the same.  It’s difficult to separate the businessmen from the believers.

What do you think of the concerns over Pearson’s influence in a state like Texas? Is it better to have one major provider like them? Is it normal for publicly-traded companies to maximize profits and improve education while doing so? Or should states like Texas be wary?
Meanwhile, as a final piece of our round-up, here is another NYT story about Pearson’s plan to move offices and employees from New Jersey to Manhattan… reaping a host of tax benefits:
The educational media company, a division of the corporation, based in London, that publishes The Financial Times, said Monday that it would move about 650 jobs to Manhattan from suburban offices in New Jersey and Westchester County. Some of the cost of moving will be offset by at least $13.5 million, and possibly as much as $50 million, in tax breaks and other incentives offered by city and state agencies in New York.
City officials framed the arrangement as a victory over New Jersey officials, who have been offering large packages of financial incentives to attract and retain big employers. But just last week, New Jersey agreed to provide $82 million in cost savings to Pearson, which plans to take more than 1, 200 jobs out of Upper Saddle River, N.J., by 2014 and send more than 600 of them to Hoboken, N.J. One of the stated reasons for New Jersey’s largess was to keep all those jobs from going to Manhattan.
So, to recap: Pearson could receive as much as $132 million in incentives for deciding to move half its Upper Saddle River jobs to Manhattan and the other half to Hoboken. But the net gain in jobs for the New York metropolitan area would be close to zero. And still, officials on both sides of the Hudson River seemed quite pleased with the deals they had struck.

Las Comadres Texas Public Policy and Civic Engagement

Las Comadres Texas Public Policy and Civic Engagement

Latinos are one of the fastest growing groups in Texas and throughout the country, yet the small number of Latinas involved in the political process statewide is startling.

Las Comadres Para Las Americas hopes to change this, one comadre at a time. Las Comadres is proud to announce that the application period for the Texas Public Policy and Civic Engagement Program (TPP-ACE) 2012 has opened.

The deadline to submit the application is May 3, 2012.

TPP-ACE is a state-level program designed to encourage Comadres in ourTexas cities to participate in the political process by being informed on issues, candidates, and voting. Join us and learn the ins and outs of Texas government, politics, and public policy. Learn the issues. Meet the candidates and the people making things happen in Texas. Learn to effect change. CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU!!!

We are honored to hold all of our classes in the State Capitol with our very knowledgeable and experienced panelists and presenters. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about the political process and the importance of our involvement in it.

Whether you want to be an advocate, work in campaigns or be THE candidate, the experience will help prepare you to participate in a more knowledgeable manner.

For an application form, please email Gloria Lenoir


Gloria Cisneros Lenoir, M.A., M.B.A., Ph.D.
Project Manager
Texas Public Policy and Civic Engagement Training Program
Cell 512-695-7348
gclenoir@gmail.com

http://jasonstanford.org/2012/03/staar-chamber/


It's amazing how silent the press is on this stuff, generally.  Hats off to Stanford for his voice and his grit.


-Angela

Sandy Kress’ STAAR chamber

by Jason Stanford on March 26, 2012

Sandy Kress

This week millions of Texas schoolchildren—and my two sons—will be taking new standardized tests that represent the next generation in the fantasy that we can apply business metrics to public education.

What started out as a well-intentioned attempt to leave no child behind has metastasized into a cult of standardized testing. But despite a top-to-bottom revolt against the tyranny of the test, no one is blaming the one man responsible for it all, Sandy Kress.

It’s hard to find anyone in Texas outside of the governor’s office defending what we euphemistically call “accountability in education.” Back in the early ‘90s, Texas was like every other state in the union and treated standardized test scores like diagnostic tools and not the result of education. The problem was that as we entered the Information Age, too many Texas schools were turning out kids ready for a “do you want fries with that” career.

Enter Sandy Kress, whom George W. Bush plucked from the Dallas School Board to help him apply the “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” mantra to public schools. It perhaps did not occur to Gov. Bush or Kress that Texas, which ranked dead last in per-pupil spending, might need to put more money into public schools. By punishing and publicizing failure, they reasoned, teachers and administrators would do more with less. The test scores became the only measure of how schools performed, and administrators and teachers became adept at preparing their students to pass the test. Book reports, dioramas, and lab experiments became a thing of the past as consultants instructed children on how to pass reading tests without actually reading the text.

Everyone got very good at taking the test. Test scores rose, and in 2003, then-Pres. Bush had Kress help convince Congress to apply the Texas model to the rest of the country with No Child Left Behind. The late Sen. Edward Kennedy even called Kress the president’s “smooth talker.” NCLB became the law of the land, and state spending on standardized testing exploded 160% to $1.1 billion in 2008.

There was just one problem: It wasn’t working back in Texas. It wasn’t that the teachers and students weren’t trying. In fact, they were stressing themselves out over the tests. Nervous stomachs became so common that one test company included instructions for teachers on what to do if a student vomits on the test.

When they weren’t getting sick on the tests, Texas kids kept getting better scores on Texas’ test but failed to make real progress when measured against students in other states. Even more alarmingly for the Information Age employers, 38% of those who showed up to Texas community and technical colleges showed up not ready to take college-level math.


When Gov. Rick Perry saw these results, he didn’t question the basic model, because that would have forced him to put evidence ahead of his pro-business ideology. Instead, he grabbed Sandy Kress with both hands and made him his own. Perry appointed Kress to the Select Committee on Public School Accountability and the Governor’s Business Council and named him chairman of both College Ready Texas and the Governor’s Competitiveness Council.

Perry did everything but put Kress on his payroll, but Kress was making too much money in his day job as a lobbyist for Pearson Education, the company that had been writing the tests in Texas all along, as well as practice tests, classroom handouts and textbooks. And Kress was making so much money for Pearson that even the oilmen were getting jealous. In 2000, Pearson signed a $233 million contract to provide tests for Texas schools, and in 2005 they got another $279 million.

But in 2011, things were dire in Texas. Rick Perry told the Texas legislature to close a $27 billion deficit without raising taxes or dipping into cash reserves, in effect all but ordering lawmakers to cut both schools and health care. But cutting education threatened the testing budget, which Perry, his business backers and, of course, Kress the Pearson lobbyist, could not allow.

Perry dispatched Kress to testify in legislative hearings on his behalf without advertising his connections to the company that stood to gain the most. In DC, a lobbyist masquerading as an administration official would require a special prosecutor and a congressional hearing. But in Texas, it’s just business as usual, a natural extension of applying what people think works in the boardroom to the classroom.

In the end, Perry got his way, and legislators cut $5 billion from the education budget without touching $5 billion in cash reserves, just like Perry wanted. Less well known is the $470 million contract that Perry’s administration signed with Pearson Education to come up with a new test that will hold Texas schoolchildren to a higher standard at the same time that budget cuts are forcing them into increasingly crowded classrooms. If the old test punished failure, this new one—the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness—enforces excellence. The new watchword is “rigor,” and for the first time, the tests will make up 15 percent of the grades of high school students in English, history, math and science.

There is no secret how Kress managed to increase funding for his client while forcing legislators to cut school funding for the first time since the Great Depression.

“There was a dude in the back room with a veto pen staring people down,” said Kress.

The new test has incited a revolt in Texas. More than 100 school boards have passed resolutions condemning the “over-reliance” on standardized tests that is “strangling” our public schools, and even Perry’s own education chief has called the “end-all, be-all” treatment of testing as a “perversion” of what schools should be doing and likened the “the assessment and accountability regime” to the “a military-industrial complex.”

The budget negotiations took so long that schools received the new tests late, meaning teachers didn’t have enough time to prepare students to take it. The state had to waive accountability measures for this year.  And so many teachers, parents and administrators complained about not being ready to teach the test that school districts have been allowed to exempt their students from the test applying 15% to their grades. All of this means that the result of the New Rigor is that absolutely no one will be held accountable for the test scores, not one school, principal, teacher or student. Accountability in education began as an effort to end social promotion, but all Texas has received so far for Pearson’s $470-million contract is anti-social promotion.

When I send my sons to school in the morning, I will tell them what I’ve always told them about the standardized tests. The tests are an opportunity to write down what they have learned, and I could not care less about the result. They know Rick Perry’s behind all this, so they understand. I’m not sure how to explain who Sandy Kress is.

Consider signing this resolution against high-stakes testing.  This is what we have been advocating for in Texas for a very long time.  In fact, this blog is born out of this struggle.  It's important to address high-stakes testing because of its lack of validity, fairness, and injuriousness to youth.

Specifically, we have struggled for a "compensatory" multiple criteria system where low test scores are offset by other criteria that represent a showing of students' abilities. A "conjunctive" multiple criteria system is where various criteria are used but where students' test performance is the decisive hurdle since it can neither be offset by the other criteria, nor by any other showing of students' abilities. In Texas, after close to a decade-long struggle in 2009, House Bill 3 (the best part of this otherwise hugely problematic legislation that creates an accountability system called STAAR) ended high stakes testing (not testing, but the high stakes associated with them [i.e., retention in grade]) 300,000 third graders in the state of Texas. LULAC has largely led this struggle in Texas and State Representative Dora Olivo (who is running for re-election, by the way!) was our champion in this effort. Here is how these children are now evaluated:

"Beginning in the 2009-10 academic year, Section 28.021 of the Texas Education Code will begin requiring districts and schools to consider multiple criteria assessment for all third grade children. This revision to state code removes the high stakes associated with performance on the third-grade, standardized state exams. Children will now be holistically assessed based on factors such as grades, attendance, classroom performance, teacher assessment, parent input, and test performance."

You can find the actual language here: http://law.onecle.com/texas/education/28.021.00.html

 

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/ 

Angela

National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing

WHEREAS,our nation's future well-being relies on a high-quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, and strengthens the nation's social and economic well-being; and
WHEREAS,our nation's school systems have been spending growing amounts of time, money and energy on high-stakes standardized testing, in which student performance on standardized tests is used to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators and schools; and
WHEREAS,the over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools by hampering educators' efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and deep subject-matter knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy; and
WHEREAS,it is widely recognized that standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness; and
WHEREAS, the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession, and undermining school climate; and
WHEREAS, high-stakes standardized testing has negative effects for students from all backgrounds, and especially for low-income students, English language learners, children of color, and those with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, the culture and structure of the systems in which students learn must change in order to foster engaging school experiences that promote joy in learning, depth of thought and breadth of knowledge for students; therefore be it
RESOLVED,that [your organization name] calls on the governor, state legislature and state education boards and administrators to reexamine public school accountability systems in this state, and to develop a system based on multiple forms of assessment which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools; and
RESOLVED,that [your organization name] calls on the U.S. Congress and Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the "No Child Left Behind Act," reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.