Study Commission Report Part 1: Will #ZucksBucks Save PARCC/Crush @NJOptOut?

Part 1 of a 3-part series on the Final Report of The Study Commission On The Use Of Student Assessments In New Jersey

(Part 2; Part 3)

Get ready!!

Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada

Is the NJDOE taking lessons from the ShamWow guy?

Sham? Wow!

The Study Commission on the Use of Student Assessments in New Jersey has released its final report and its a doozy. So, grab yourself a cup of coffee (or a bottle of Xanax), sit back and prepare to be infomercialed! In addition to the same 'ole testing, data collection, and 'college and career' weirdness, the Commission recommends a heavy dose of professional development for educators, and PR funded by 'reformy' money and aimed at crushing the Opt-Out movement, but wrapped in the guise of 'informing the public' about

the wonderfulness of the PARCC. Like many 'As Seen On TV' products that don't actually deliver what they promise, the DOE has to sell the PARCC the only way it can: convincing parents that we really are those dimwits former US Ed Secretary Arne Duncan called us, and that the PARCC really is magic. And wow, what a sham that is! 

I will attempt to unpack this report in two or three posts, but there's so much CCRAP to wade through that, "I think I'm gonna need a bigger boat." Unless otherwise noted, all bold, underlined and italicized text is mine.

The overarching themes, as I alluded to above, are that 1) the PARCC test is wonderously-fabulous; 2) the State DOE simply did a lousy job marketing it; 3) teachers will buy into it as long as we give them boatloads of indoctrination professional development; 4) parents will buy into it because we will flood their media outlets with propaganda.

Before I begin

I have posted this video clip several times before. You will need to refer back to it as you read through the rest of this series. Anything that refers to it will be marked with an (*). 

This is a panel discussion about PARCC which includes, among others, former Assistant NJDOE Commissioner (and now Chris Cerf underling), Bari Ehrlichson and Seton Hall Professor Dr. Christopher Tienken. 



Tienken:

For a test to be diagnostic, that means truly helpful to a teacher, truly able to tell you where a student is with a specific skill, there needs to be at least 25 items for that specific skill to reach a reliability where you can make a decision about what an individual student knows...  Are there 25 questions per specific skill on the PARCC test so teachers and parents really have an understanding of what kids know at the specific skill level?

Ehrlichson (at aprox. 1:30): 

[T]he PARCC end-of-year/end-of-course assessments — are not intended to be sort of the through-course diagnostic form of assessments, the benchmark assessments, that most of us are used to, that would diagnose and be able to inform instruction in the middle of the year. 

These are in fact summative test scores that have a different purpose than the one that we’re talking about here in terms of diagnosis. 

Tienken:

So they're not diagnostic at the individual level, so it's going to be difficult for teachers to look at these scores, particularly when they get them back in September and October, for kids who are no longer in their class, to get fine-grained information about specific skills or standards or sub-clusters or whatever we want to call them. There's just not enough questions on the test to do that.

All this in addition to Ryder University Professor and Literacy Researcher Russ Walsh's research that found that many of the reading passages in the Language Arts portion of the test are several grade levels above the tested grade. 

So, there's our baseline. PARCC doesn't do what its supporters claim it will, and there is research to prove it. 


And here we go...

The Introduction

This section had my yellow highlighter firing on all cylinders. It started out with the usual blather about how the commission listened to all the testimony given by hundreds of people around the state over the course of several months, "and has responded and provided clarification, as appropriate." So, if they didn't think your concerns were appropriate, they didn't respond. Makes sense. In an upcoming guest post, education activist, Sue Altman, will have more on how well the commission actually listened to public testimony 

Here are a few gems:

[T]he Study Commission does not believe the philosophy of data-informed practice is among the root causes for the criticisms that have been raised in the debate regarding standardized testing and PARCC.

Well, the commission may not 'believe' it, but ask any informed education professional or parent, and they will give you the facts. Data is exactly at the root of this divide. Never before in the history of US public education have educators been forced to collect and analyze so much data. And parents are rightly concerned about who is seeing it all, for what purpose is it being used, and where it will all end up.

*[A]nxiety and fear levels surrounding [PARCC] remain palpable and appear to have formed at least part of the basis for the anti-PARCC television, radio, and print advertisements, which arguably appear to have contributed significantly to the parent opt-out movement in spring 2015. A lack of trust between policymakers and educators and the abundance of misinformation seem only to add to this atmosphere of anxiety and fear. Therefore, many of the recommendations that follow focus on improving the relationships between policymakers and educators and on building educator confidence that the State's educational system appropriately uses assessments to foster learning... the Study Commission believes educators, parents, district board of education members, and other stakeholders must embrace a shared understanding that assessment data can be used effectively to inform and improve teaching. Moreover, the PARCC data must become a critical part of this shared understanding as the data continue to be better understood.  

*Yes, there is a huge lack of trust between the State Department of Education, parents and educators because the DOE is not being honest. Let's get one thing straight: the Opt-Out movement was not started by educators, and it was not started in NJ. It was started by parents in other states and has spread like wild fire across the country. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not true. This notion that parents are too dumb to realize CCRAP when they see it is the same condescending attitude many in the DOE and the 'reform' community (including certain newspapers) have taken in regards to state takeover communities: you're too dumb to know what's good for you. 

As I reported last month:

The state DOE estimates that 15% of high school juniors, 7% of freshmen, and 4.6% of students in grades 3-8 refused to take the test. But based on anecdotal reporting and comparing '14-'15 enrollment numbers to the actual number of tests completed, NJEA and Save Our Schools NJ put those numbers at around 110,000—the second highest opt-out number in the nation in our first year of testing. New York was number one with 240,000.

*As physicians take the oath to "first do no harm", educators have an obligation to subscribe to research-based best practices and pedagogy. If we don't inform the public about the deeply flawed PARCC test, we are not fulfilling our fiduciary obligation to the children and parents of this state. So yes, the NJEA ran ad campaigns—based on research—to inform parents about what the NJDOE wasn't telling them.  

The Commission:

David C. Hespe Chair Commissioner of Education

Dana Egreczky Senior Vice President, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce

Dr. Lawrence S. Feinsod Executive Director, New Jersey School Boards Association

Catherine M. Lindenbaum Parent Association Representative

Dr. Marcia Lyles Superintendent, Jersey City Public Schools

Nicole Moore Principal, Shamong Township Schools

Matthew Stagliano Educator, Camden County Technical Schools

Dr. Raymond A. Yannuzzi President, Camden County College

Tracie Yostpille Educator, Freehold Township Schools

Of the members, only 2 are public school educators; there are no special educators; there is a Broad-trained superintendent, and a Vice President of the 'reform'-supportive NJ PTA. 

The Professional Development Recommendations

Although the report gushes about there being "teams of educators and parents to conduct a point-by-point review of the Common Core State Standards with the objective of making recommendations for New Jersey-based standards that are even higher than the Common Core State Standards", don't you believe it. For all his pandering to the anti-CCSS Republicans, Gov. Christie is only getting changes to about 200 of the over 1400 standards. And those changes mostly consist of replacing a word or phrase. But that's okay because in the Department of Edutopia, there will be oodles and oodles of brainwashing "sustained professional learning" in every school in the state!

Even if we think the regulations stink, even if we think the standards are inappropriate, even if peer-reviewed research says the same thing, educators must teach to the standards or face disciplinary action. So, NJEA must provide members with appropriate professional development. So do the other organizations involved in public education. In addition to NJEA, the report lists the other partners in this effort:

1. New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association (NJPSA) 
2. New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) 
3. New Jersey Association of School Administrators (NJASA) 
4. Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs)
5. New Jersey Parents and Teachers Association (NJPTA)
6. The business community

The first four make perfect sense. But the last two? As I stated earlier, the National PTA is a 'reform'-supportive organization. They are heavily funded by the Gates Foundation, with $500K alone given to them to support the Common Core. Pearson and Microsoft have been sponsors of some of their national conventions. They gave member email addresses to Pearson so the testing giant could send them 'reform' propaganda. And the uber-'reformy' propaganda film, Waiting for Superman, was shown at their 2011 national convention. See Diane Ravitch's post for more on their efforts to undermine public education 

And of course, as long as public education is being turned into a business model, we simply must have members of the business community on board to show administrators how to 'churn' staff, maximize profit learning and generally train staff how to work longer and harder for less pay and job satisfaction. 

Here's a sampling of the PD recommendations:

Recommendation 3  

The Study Commission recommends that the NJDOE provide school districts with the time, support, professional learning, and communication necessary to accommodate any changes to the standards that might impact the school district’s planning, implementation, and decision making about curriculum, instruction, and/or instructional resources.

It all looks so good on paper, doesn't it? Where and how will all this time magically appear? 

Recommendation 7 

The Study Commission recommends that the NJDOE collaborate with State education associations and advocacy groups to create online cross-disciplinary professional learning initiatives accompanied by sufficient incentives to encourage the State’s educators to expand their professional knowledge and skills and to turn-key their learning for colleagues.

I think we know by now what they mean by "advocacy groups", but what about "incentives"? If we're talking increased compensation for advanced degrees, well then, that makes sense. But after Gov. Christie cut $7 billion from public education funding over the past 7 years, school districts have cut back on tuition reimbursement and additional compensation. So, I'm thinking maybe... Wawa gift cards?

Recommendation 8 

The Study Commission endorses the understanding that every teacher is a literacy teacher and recommends that the NJDOE encourage school districts to devote considerable time and effort to providing sustained professional learning in standards-based instruction for teachers of subjects other than English language arts and mathematics...

Hey all you art, music, computer, and health and PE teachers, guess what? You too get to share in the fun and joy of teaching Language Arts to your students! Yipee! It doesn't matter that the Common Core and PARCC have decimated your programs at every grade level. It doesn't matter that you don't have enough time for PD in your own subject area these days. It doesn't matter that you don't have a degree in Language Arts. You are going to get some 'magical' training so you too can boost those test scores! Because seriously, nothing prepares a child who wants to be a musician when they grow up like massive doses of training in how to read informational text! Duh!

All this PD is wonderful as long as school districts don't look to the state to help pay for it—especially if it's a state-run district. Just ask the folks who work in Newark. They're $300 million in the hole to charter schools for students who transfer—and some that don't.

Shared Vision for a Comprehensive Assessment System 

This section deals with how the DOE is going to sell their product the PARCC. Five of the nine recommendations deal with salesmanship. According to the report, as long as school districts give educators the time and means for PD, everything will be hunky-dory.

Recommendation 9 

A comprehensive assessment system... uses State, formative, interim, and summative assessment tools that are tightly aligned to standards to inform curriculum, instruction, and assessment. A comprehensive assessment system is used to address immediate student needs, inform ongoing instructional changes, guide long-term educational improvement, and provide on-going, timely, and actionable information on what students know, understand, and are able to do in relation to the standards.

* PARCC does not do this and the NJDOE said so. Notice that "State" is listed as the first means of assessment.

* Recommendation 9 also recommends that the impact of PARCC on other assessments be studied. Many high schools are doing away with educator-developed mid-terms and EOCs in favor of the PARCC. It is educational malpractice to replace a legitimate assessment with one that is deeply flawed and doesn't do what it says it does.  

Something good:

Recommendation 10 

[The] NJDOE [should] assist school districts in obtaining the training necessary to establish their own comprehensive vision for school district assessment and how each assessment tool relates to an important learning or strategic objective.

Good, because last year the DOE had no idea what it was doing. Seemingly every week Hespe was releasing new and/or revised information about the PARCC.

Recommendations 11, 12, 14, 16 and 18 deal with "communication". 

Recommendation 11 

[T]he process for communicating the shared vision for assessment include multiple strategies and tools for communication, numerous forums and venues at various times, and multiple methods for assessing the quality and effectiveness of the messages. All events and announcements made throughout the year (e.g., test score releases, testing windows, educator evaluation reports) must be consistent, clearly connected to the shared vision, and coordinated among stakeholder groups at the State and local levels via multiple sources.

Doesn't matter if our message is full of CCRAP. It just matters that it's doing its job of convincing people it isn't. 

Recommendation 12 

[T]he Study Commission recommends that the NJDOE assume a leadership role in ensuring all State education associations and advocacy groups commit to bear a collective responsibility for communicating widely and consistently throughout New Jersey this shared vision for assessment.

*This assumes all stakeholders share the vision. What happens if we don't? No professional education organization should never "commit to bear... responsibility for communicating" a false and/or damaging message about high stakes testing and educational best practice.

Recommendation 14 

The Study Commission recommends that the NJDOE, in cooperation with State educational associations and advocacy groups, develop and launch a proactive communication campaign throughout the State regarding: (a) the State’s role and responsibilities under federal and State laws and regulations with respect to educational standards and the use of student assessments in schools; (b) best practices in assessment of all student populations, including English language learners and students with disabilities and; and (c) what the NJDOE determines to be the most common, frequently occurring, and widespread misunderstandings and inaccuracies about educational standards and the use of student assessments in New Jersey’s public schools.

Recommendation 16

The Study Commission recommends that the NJDOE organize a communication team, comprised of representatives from all stakeholder groups, to pool resources and coordinate and facilitate Statewide communication of the assessment vision. This team is not intended to serve as an advocacy group, but rather as an informational group.

Translation: We got our butts kicked last year by the Opt-Out Movement and educators informing parents about how lousy PARCC is, so we have to turn up the propaganda machine.  

Recommendation 17 

Among the strategies to be used for delivering a widespread and consistent message about the assessment vision, as well as other critical issues in education, the Study Commission recommends the NJDOE (a) employ public access television channels and radio throughout the State to run informational broadcasts about the shared assessment vision; (b) seek the cooperation of the business community and philanthropic organizations to fund and sponsor the development of such informational broadcasts; (c) prepare ready-to-use multimedia informational packets and make them available to district boards of education and educators; and (d) use television and radio outlets and social media to more consistently reach out directly to parents and families about ways in which they can support their children’s learning.

Read it and weep. The NJDOE wants to call in the big guns— corporate 'reform' money—to flood the airwaves and social media with a "widespread and consistent message" propaganda campaign to "reach out directly to parents and families about ways in which they can support their children's learning" crush the Opt-Out movement.

It really is that simple.

And they want to develop "a database of professional email addresses" so they can send their propaganda right to your inbox.

For the past six years, NJ education 'reform' has mainly focused on our state-controlled school districts of poverty and color. This report leaves no doubt that the NJ DOE now has its sights set on suburbia. Wonder who Hespe is 'dialing for dollars' first? Zuckerberg? Gates? Broad? The list is endless.

My upcoming posts will deal with the Commission's recommendations regarding the PARCC and all standardized tests, technology, data, special education and ELL concerns, and finally "Using PARCC Data as a College and/or Business Placement Tool". 

Time to go make another pot of coffee. 

Guest Post: NJ Legislators Need To Stand Up For Our Children

By Christopher Tienken, Ed.D. and Julia Sass Rubin, Ph.D.

(Note from Marie: The Assembly sponsors of A4165/S2767 are listed at the end of this post. A link to contact information for every NJ state legislator is on the right side of this page. Please read the following, then click on the link and contact your legislator.)

The first administration of the experimental new PARCC high-stakes standardized tests is only weeks away and parents are increasingly concerned. Hundreds of families have notified their school districts that their children will not be taking the PARCC tests. 

Approximately one-fifth of all New Jersey school districts have responded by assuring parents who refuse the test that their children will be provided with an alternative location, or at least the ability to read in class, while their classmates take the test.

Other districts, however, have taken a much more punitive approach, threatening to force children as young as eight to remain in the testing room with no other activities except sitting and staring for the two-week duration of the test.  Some districts have even threatened students whose parents refuse the test with disciplinary actions. 

In response, parents are asking the New Jersey legislature to intervene and pass A4165/S2767. This legislation requires all districts and charter schools to provide consistent, humane treatment for children whose parents refuse standardized tests.

As growing numbers of legislators indicate their support for A4165/S2767, officials within the New Jersey Department of Education have apparently initiated a campaign to block its passage by claiming that the proposed legislation would cost districts precious dollars. Specifically, the NJDOE is arguing that the US Department of Education would use powers it has under the No Child Left Behind law to cut Title I funding for any schools that fall below 95 percent student participation levels on the PARCC. 

Keep in the mind that the proposed legislation does not direct parents to have their children opt-out or refuse the state mandated tests. The proposed legislation simply asks for a consistent statewide policy of humane treatment for children whose parents choose to refuse the testing. As more school administrators decide to make students needlessly “sit and stare” for two weeks of testing, plus up to two additional weeks of make-up testing, it is imperative that the legislature act to protect children from such treatment.

So will the US Department of Education take your school's Title 1 funds if this legislation becomes law?

The answer is NO, and here are some reasons why.

1. There is no federal or state law that requires financial penalties to schools’ Title I funds if parents refuse to allow their children to take the PARCC tests. 

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law did include a mandate that required schools to have a 95 percent participation rate on state tests or face sanctions. The intent of that law was to prevent schools from hiding subgroups of students from the accountability structure and was not aimed at preventing parents from refusing to have their children tested. 

However, since 2012, NJ has had a waiver to NCLB that replaces those sanctions with a new accountability system.

Under the waiver, only schools designated “priority” or “focus” schools face direct intervention for missing state targets. New Jersey’s 250 priority and focus schools can have up to 30 percent of their federal Title I funds re-directed by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) for specific “interventions,” but even these funds are supposed to be used for school improvement, not taken away.  And the NJDOE already has the ability to redirect a part of the Title I allocations received by priority and focus schools.

2. No federal financial penalties related to Title I instructional funds have been imposed on any New Jersey school for missing the 95 percent participation rate. 

And missing the 95 percent participation rate at the school level is not unusual in New Jersey. 

According to NJDOE data, last spring, nine schools in seven New Jersey districts had overall schoolwide NJ ASK participation rates below 95 percent; 175 schools in 104 districts had participation rates below 95 percent for at least one of the student subgroups (e.g., special needs, Limited English Proficient, economically disadvantaged, etc.).[i]

None of those schools experienced any federal financial repercussions to Title I funds. In fact, no school has ever lost Title I funds due to punishment by the federal government for missing the 95 percent participation rate.

3. Other states have laws that protect parents’ right to opt their children out or refuse high-stakes standardized testing and no federal financial penalties of any sort have been imposed on schools in those states as a result of these laws. 

For example, in Wisconsin “Upon the request of a pupil's parent or guardian, the school board shall excuse the pupil from taking an examination administered under sub. (1m).” [ii]

In California, a “parent or guardian may submit to the school a written request to excuse his or her child from any or all parts of any test provided pursuant to Ed Code Section 60640.” [iii] 

4. The US Congress is rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – the federal legislation that mandates annual standardized testing. 

A reauthorized ESEA may completely eliminate the federal interventions that are in the current version of ESEA and is likely to give individual states much more decision-making authority when it comes to accountability and testing mandates. 

So the NJDOE’s threat of Title I funding cuts at local schools seems premature at best given the past practice of the United States Department of Education to not sanction NJ schools’ Title I Funds for missing the 95 percent participation rate. The moral imperative for the NJDOE, the NJ Legislature and for individual school districts should be to act in the best interests of New Jersey children, and that means treating students humanely if their parents choose to participate in the democratic tradition of dissent.

Christopher Tienken is an Associate Professor of Education Leadership, Management, and Policy at the College of Education and Human Services at Seton Hall University. .

Julia Sass Rubin is an Associate Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and one of the founding members of the all-volunteer pro-public education group Save Our Schools NJ.

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[i] http://www.state.nj.us/education/schools/achievement/index.html

[ii]  http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/118/30

[iii] Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations, Division 1, Chapter 2, Subchapter 3.75.

A4165 Sponsors:   Diegnan, Patrick J., Jr.   as Primary Sponsor Jasey, Mila M.   as Primary Sponsor Caputo, Ralph R.   as Primary Sponsor Auth, Robert   as Primary Sponsor Benson, Daniel R.   as Primary Sponsor Rible, David P.   as Primary Sponsor Eustace, Tim   as Primary Sponsor Vainieri Huttle, Valerie   as Primary Sponsor Gusciora, Reed   as Primary Sponsor Pinkin, Nancy J.   as Primary Sponsor McKeon, John F.   as Primary Sponsor Garcia, Carmelo G.   as Co-Sponsor Giblin, Thomas P.   as Co-Sponsor Caride, Marlene   as Co-Sponsor DeCroce, BettyLou   as Co-Sponsor Identical Bill Number: S2767   Turner, Shirley K.   as Primary Sponsor

This week in NJ ed 'reform': The truth is out there

This was quite a week in the battle over public education in the Garden State: Gov. Christie's testing study commission heard mountains of testimony from concerned parents and citizens in three different venues; educators continued to host parent Take the PARCC nights; NJEA released a bombshell new poll showing massive numbers of NJ parents oppose the test; and NJ101.5 capped several days of PARCC discussion with a debate over the test. 

Here are my thoughts:

A more perfect-er life for only $19.95

My daughter and I have a running joke: All the world's problems can be solved for only 3 easy payments of $19.95. If we just went out and purchased every single as-seen-on-TV product, our lives would be perfect.

That's what ed 'reformers' want us to believe about the PARCC test. Just like the PedEgg, the Bacon Bowl and the Uro Club, PARCC promises to magically transform your child's entire life from dull to dazzling—with just 10 easy hours of testing! No more struggles with 'bad' teachers who lazily sit around waiting to collect their pensions. PARCC will send them packing. White suburban moms will magically accept that their kids really aren't brilliant when they see those crappy test scores. But wait! Call now, and Pearson will upgrade your flunkie kid's educational experience with all sorts of Common Core/PARCC aligned learning materials guaranteed to make them College and Career Ready! (Just pay the cost of cuts to arts and foreign language programs.)

When TV pitch-men run the country

The reality is that the road to miraculous cures and a better, shinier, awesomer life is paved with money back guarantees that somehow never seem to materialize. Whether it's the infomercial host or the President of the United States, carnival barkers have been selling the American public an endless stream of bad ideas, sketchy products and outright colossal failures since 1893 when Clark Stanley sold his first bottle of snake oil. Here are some of my favorites from big business/pharma/government:

• Cigarettes
• Weapons of Mass Destruction
• The Pinto
• Lead Paint
• Accutane
• Asbestos
• NAFTA
• GMOs
• Phen-phen
• DDT

Feel free to add your favorites in the comments section.

Number 1 on my list is DES. 77 years ago, American doctors wanted pregnant women to have 'trust and confidence' (more on this phrase below) in a little life-changing drug called Diethylstilbestrol. Here's what the CDC says about it:

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is an estrogen that was first manufactured in a laboratory in 1938, so it is called a "synthetic estrogen." During 1938-1971, U.S. physicians prescribed DES to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages and avoid other pregnancy problems. As a result, an estimated 5-10 million pregnant women and the children born of these pregnancies were exposed to DES. Physicians prescribed DES to pregnant women on the theory that miscarriages and premature births occurred because some pregnant women did not produce enough estrogen naturally. At the time, physicians thought DES was safe and would prevent miscarriages and pre-term (early) births. 

In 1953, published research showed that DES did not prevent miscarriages or premature births. However, DES continued to be prescribed until 1971. In that year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Drug Bulletin advising physicians to stop prescribing DES to pregnant women. The FDA warning was based on a study published in 1971 that identified DES as a cause of a rare vaginal cancer in girls and young women who had been exposed to DES before birth (in the womb). (emphasis mine)

Doctors continued to prescribe DES to pregnant women 18 years after it was proven not to work. We now know that exposure to large doses of estrogen is linked to breast cancer. That's why commonly-prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was yanked from prescription pads years ago. But my mother wasn't spared. She took DES when she was pregnant with me, and died of breast cancer at age 37. And as a 'DES Daughter' I have suffered a host of medical issues because I was exposed to it in utero. Suffice to say that both my children are true miracles. 

I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm writing this because I am living proof of what happens when the government or big business or some other faceless entity tells us that what they're doing is wonderful, transformative and fantastic for everyone, and we should just accept it lock, stock and barrel. Which is exactly what Dr. Sandra Alberti asked of NJ parents this week when she and NJEA President Wendall Steinhauer engaged in a friendly PARCC debate on NJ101.5. 

Dr. Alberti works at Student Achievement Partners. Founded by David Coleman, Susan Pimentel and Jason Zimba, lead writers of the Common Core State Standards, SAP is "a non-profit [alarm bells!] organization with one purpose: to help all students and teachers see their hard work lead to greater student achievement."

(Note to self: Find out how that 'all' includes art teachers.)

Like other PARCC cheerleaders, Alberti was practically breathless with excitement about how these tests were going to be the best think since... well... Jeaneez! 

Her voice got louder, her pitch got higher as she implored the listening audience "to have trust and confidence" in the PARCC.

Trust no one

Call me Fox Mulder, but I've gone through enough ccrap (pun intended) living with the effects of another miracle cure that when 'reformers' try to sell me a load of hokum about the miracle of PARCC, I start looking for Cigarette Man hiding in the shadows.

Just like DES, there is no proof, no evidence, no long-term study proving the miracle of PARCC. But unlike DES, we don't have to wait 15 years to figure this out. As the tag line of The X-Files says, "The truth is out there" right now (here, here, here, here, here). 

Dr. Alberti finished her comments by saying, "Imagine if all that energy was going into working with kids to help them succeed...we would have such amazing schools in New Jersey." 

The fact is we do have amazing schools in New Jersey—many of the best in the nation. And we have amazing education professionals who have dedicated their entire careers to working in the classroom, not at some non-profit or think-tank, to help kids succeed. We also have high concentrations of impoverished Black and Brown students attending public schools in our inner cities, and a governor who thinks the best way to fix this is by cutting almost $6 billion in public education funding. 

Imagine if all the money that is being wasted on band width and Chromebooks and test prep and data collection and advertising and charter schools and Teach for America and buying candidates and think tanks and non-profits and partnerships and summits and conferences and Regional Achievement Centers and the endless, endless layers of new administration in state-controlled districts was actually "going into working with [impoverished] kids [and their families] to help them succeed...we would have such amazing [children and families] in [all of] New Jersey."

Final thoughts

In the past 3 months the amount of parental push-back against the PARCC in NJ has grown exponentially. Polling numbers against the test are through the roof. School districts are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the growing number of test refusal letters. The State Board of Education and Hespe's testing commission look like deer in the headlights having been hit with a tidal wave of criticism at board meetings and public hearings around the state. The sleeping giant has awoken. The parents will win, because the truth is out there.