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While collecting up my thoughts after the Portland Public Schools Common Core event last week, I came across this set of talking points written by the district "as a support to principals and teachers to understand State of Oregon requirements and our practices around testing."

The full doc is available for download from the Portland Public Schools site; I have also stored a copy locally (pdf download). The FAQ is dated February, 2013; it's not clear whether this document is a version that has been updated over the years, or whether these talking points were created fresh in early 2013. If anyone knows the backstory on how and why this document came into existence, please let me know (either via a comment or via the contact form).

The document is written with the OAKS tests in mind. In Oregon, the OAKS tests will be used until the "next generation" assessments aligned with the Common Core are rolled out. Oregon is currently part of the Smarter Balanced consortium, and the tests that Oregon is moving to do not yet exist (although some Oregon school districts have been volunteered to field test draft versions).

The Portland Public Schools FAQ reveals the bind that teachers and principals within the district find themselves. From the FAQ:

The tests are used by the state to rate schools – both on how well students do overall and also on how many students take the tests. If a school falls below 95% participation, the school’s state rating falls. The ratings are made public in the school’s State Report Card and are often used by parents weighing school choices.

In other words, school rankings place an emphasis on test taking - potentially, a school with 100% participation but lower schools could be labelled "better" than a school with 94% participation and higher scores (and for the purposes of this post, we will not address the valid concern/question of whether the test is an accurate measure of learning - we'll leave that for another day). In any case, the way schools are rated creates a strong incentive for schools and teachers to get kids tested. While I have yet to hear of any hospitalized Oregonians being presented with tests, state and district policies that reward schools for testing kids create the pressure where that type of behavior becomes possible.

The next point in the FAQ addresses how familiarity with test taking helps kids do better on tests:

Most students use the Reading and Writing OAKS tests in 11th grade to meet their high school graduation requirement of showing mastery in these Essential Skills. The Class of 2014 and beyond must also pass Math tests. If students refuse to test prior to the 11th grade, they will have limited familiarity with the testing environment when they first have their opportunity in high school. This could negatively impact their performance and their on-time graduation (emphasis mine).

While no one can dispute that a familiarity with the structure of a test brings a benefit on the test, it begs the question of whether the test measures actual learning, or whether the test measures the ability to sit through a test. Is the point of testing to help students get better at tests? If so, then test away, but I would like to hear any credible educator try and make the case that the point of school should be to learn how to take standardized tests. The fact that this is mentioned in an FAQ on why tests are a Good Thing(tm) feels like either an oversight or really bad advice.

The next section of the FAQ outlines how to respond to a parent's request for an exemption.

For a school to excuse a student under this rule, the parent must provide a written request listing the reasons for the request and propose an alternative learning activity for the student to do during the testing that would meet the same goals as participation in the state assessment. An example of an activity might be that the student work on homework or a special assignment covering the same set of skills being tested.
The school may then consider the parent’s suggested activity but choose instead to engage the student in a different activity that the school determines. The point of having the parent suggest an alternate activity is to help emphasize the educational value and importance of the assessment.

In other words, if a parent opts their child out from testing, the parent should be given some busywork that the school can subsequently ignore; this will teach the parent the lesson that the standardized tests are very important.

If the district thinks that this approach will do anything except anger parents, the people writing these policies should get out more. Most parents of school age kids are busy; giving a busy person a busywork assignment that can be arbitrarily ignored is not a good negotiating strategy, or a good way to foster open communication.

The FAQ also describes how to react if students talk with one another about opting out.

Q: What if students are encouraging other students to boycott testing?
A: Principals, teachers and schools must clearly assert that students must not coerce or in any way intimidate other students to share their position or their actions on testing. Schools should follow their anti-bullying protocols to intervene with students who engage in such behavior.

So, if one kid talks to another kid about not taking a test, this should be addressed as a bullying issue? Seriously? This approach demeans any ongoing anti-bullying efforts underway at the school. Bullying is a real issue affecting kids. Opting out of a test, and talking about it, is not bullying. Questioning authority is also pretty natural to kids. Fortunately, I know that most teachers and principals have the sense to not go down this path, but the fact that this is the recommended approach from the district shows a misplaced emphasis on the value of what happens in schools.

The FAQ ends by circling back to the point of the whole exercise:

Q: Does a legitimate exemption or a refusal count against my school’s test participation rate?
A: Any student enrolled on the first instructional day in May and for at least one-half of the school year who does not test, regardless of the reason, counts against the school’s participation rate.

To put it another way: if you let kids not take the test, you, your school, and your teachers will look bad. That's how we crunch the numbers.

The existing policies around testing create pressure to test as many kids as possible. Allowing students not to take the test - even for valid reasons - counts against a school's publicly available rankings. It doesn't matter that these rankings aren't an accurate representation of what transpires within the school - once the ranking is published, it's everywhere, affecting everything from parental perception to property values.

With the new, as yet unseen, completely untested Common Core assessments on the way, school districts need to be more candid and more realistic about the actual value of tests. Doubling down on the "tests are valuable and you must take them" approach won't fly, especially when the assessments show some real signs of being unsound. Treating parents who don't want to see their children's time wasted on poorly crafted assessments of dubious value as troublemakers is not a viable strategy. I hope that, within both Portland Public Schools and other school districts nationwide, there is candid, open conversation on the effects of an increased reliance on testing. One of the catchphrases of the accountability-through-testing crowd is "the kids can't wait." If it's a choice between rushing into a poorly crafted assessment, or spending that time engaged in the classroom, I'll choose the second, and wait. My kid can't afford to be rushed into a poorly conceived thought experiment.

Last night, on Tuesday, June 12th, I attended what was called a "Parent's Academy" on the in-progress Common Core rollout. The event was put on by Portland Public Schools. The goal of the event was stated clearly on one of the handouts they provided:

The purpose of our presentation tonight is to help families understand the new Common Core State Standards and how these changes will benefit your child's education. Our intent is to help you to become informed about ways you can help your child be successful.

This goal set the tone for the evening, and attempted to provide a context: the Common Core Standards are here, they will benefit your child's education, we have a plan, and you can help. The goal of the meeting was to provide a positive, forward looking message - both about the quality of Common Core, and about the ways in which the District is preparing for the rollout. As one presenter put it, "The fact is, they're here, they're adopted, and we're moving forward with them." Several times in the evening, we heard very clearly that the standards are "Focused and Coherent."

The event had three distinct sections - from 6:30 to 6:50, the entire group was given an overview by the director of Instruction, Curriculum, and Assessment for the District. After the introductory session, there were two subject-specific breakout sessions. The first ran from 6:55 to 7:40; the second from 7:45 to 8:30.

At the outset of this post, I need to highlight that the representatives from Portland Public School District did a great job. In each session, the presenters were met with questions that ranged from curious to skeptical to downright hostile, and they answered these questions with a level of poise and professionalism that deserves notice and praise.

However, some of the questions asked were both fair and difficult. For example, the presenters were asked how they could vouch for the Smarter Balanced tests, given that the tests weren't complete. The presenter responded that the tests were under development, and that the questions were designed to assess how people could apply skills. The response the presenter gave is accurate, but, unfortunately, it's not directly related to the question. We'll get back to this disconnect later in the post, but this disconnect isn't the fault of the presenter - there isn't a good answer to the question, and the presenter had the unfortunate job of having to provide answers to things that are impossible to answer, at least while sticking to talking points.

During the event, there were also some areas of unintended irony - the person providing the initial overview used several quotations from Karl Fisch's Did You Know presentation, which - having been created in 2006 - predates the Common Core. Heck, Tom Hoffman's fact check of "Did You Know" predates the Common Core. I was also struck that a presentation designed to describe the road to 21st Century Skills was contained within the 20th Century Information Zombie known as PowerPoint.

The presenters also stuck very close to the "approved" history of the Common Core - there was no mention that, of the 28 original authors, fully half worked for testing organizations; or that the Gates Foundation has issued at least $150 million in grants to help support Common Core.

In fairness, though, within this context, getting into the political backstory is counterproductive. There were some parents in the audience who really wanted to discuss the background of the Common Core to the exclusion of all else, but the goal of this meetup wasn't to discuss the validity of the Core Standards or the process by which they came into existence; rather, it's to figure out what the implementation will look like. I also suspect that a secondary (or maybe even a primary) goal of the event was to garner parental support for the rollout, but - at least based on the self-selecting group of parents who came to this event - it feels a long way off before there is anything approaching excitement about the Common Core rollout.

In this parent's information session, the focus was on what kids would be seeing in the classroom, and from what was discussed in this event, in the bulk of the day to day for the kids - especially in the elementary grades - things will look remarkably similar. It was also interesting to see how questions about curricular implementation led to issues of staffing - for example, one parent asked a question about reading strategies, and the response led directly to issues that could be addressed by lower student/teacher ratios. I didn't get the sense that this was intentional - the Common Core rollout is taking place in a time when schools are chronically understaffed, and in talking about anything related to the daily reality of schools, staffing issues are unavoidable.

In discussing the Common Core Standards, the discussion also led pretty directly to curriculum. Although standards and curriculum are two separate things, curriculum is the face by which people see the standards, and I'd be curious to know the cost of this implementation in terms of new curriculum adoption, and teacher professsional development to deliver it. There were also some questions about how students with learning differences will be supported - in both instruction and assessment - and the path for these students was not immediately clear in the discussion.

The issues around testing and assessment also drew some attention. The presenters didn't have specific information about time currently spent on testing relative to time required for testing as part of the Common Core rollout, but the general inclination was that, between both formative and summative assessments, there would be an increase in testing overall.

As we were discussing the assessment piece, I was struck by how the move to a fully computerized testing environment shifts the dynamics of test taking. There has already been a lot of discussion about how some districts lack the computing infrastructure to give the new tests, and about how schools already feel like they are overtested - and even Arne Duncan admits that the transition to Common Core will involve "a couple of choppy years." However, what struck me in talking over the details of the new test is how kids who are comfortable with a keyboard and mouse will have an advantage on these exams. The new exams are designed to be taken on a computer; every answer gets keyed in, so a kid who has practice writing at a keyboard will be more comfortable in this test taking environment. Several parents in the room noted that they don't have computers in their homes, or that they have a single computer that is shared among multiple people. From this perspective, the new tests have the potential to highlight issues related to the digital divide, instead of measure academic performance.

And, of course, this assumes that the tests actually measure anything of value. Given that the tests don't yet exist, we are taking the value of the tests on faith at this point. During one of the information sessions, I was looking at the practice test with one of the presenters. As we went to start the practice test, we were repeatedly met with an "Access Denied" error. While this is likely not any major technical issue, from a symbolic place it's pretty priceless. But, even with this technical glitch, the presenter I was talking with didn't miss a beat, and she moved on to highlight some of the questions shared on the Smarter Balanced web site.

The presenters - who were all district-level people, many of whom are working directly with teachers to help them prepare for the Common Core rollout - did a great job. They are tasked with preparing people for a program many people either actively dislike or partially misunderstand. The people presenting the Common Core didn't write the Common Core. The people presenting the Common Core didn't make the decision to adopt the Common Core. The Common Core came about as a result of political, economic, and educational decisions - and the people who made those decisions are fully isolated from the effects of those decisions on the lives of individuals within our public school system.

And this is my single biggest take away from the event: teachers are left explaining a system they didn't develop and didn't choose. Teachers become the public face of policy decisions that originate thousands of miles away. When policy makers create a mess - and I would describe a set of standards that are poorly understood, backed by curriculum that is not yet defined, assessed by testing instruments that do not yet exist, as "a mess" - teachers are the ones who attempt to explain it. Our teachers are doing a great job. I hope, at some point, our policy makers catch up.

On Wednesday, OPB ran one of the better stories I have heard within mainstream media on the Common Core standards; the piece was reported by Rob Manning. The piece focused on adoption within Oregon, and contains gems like this quotation from a district superintendent:

“In eastern Oregon, we have a saying that cattle get bigger because you feed them, not because you weigh them.”

However, the story also fails to nail down some key details.

Adopting the "Smarter Balanced" Assessment

The Manning piece describes how the Oregon Board of Education recently voted to adopt the currently incomplete Smarter Balanced assessments.

The tests are a work in progress and are still two years off. But hundreds of Oregon students and teachers have already tried the new “Smarter Balanced” assessment.

While the tests are two years off, there has been concern about whether or not the tests are on schedule to meet that timetable. Recent large scale failures of online tests (see previous link) do not allay these concerns. A lack of internet connectivity required to administer the tests is also a recognized problem.

Additionally, even Arne Duncan admits that the new tests will lead to “a couple of choppy years” for schools.

So, while the tests are technically a work in progress, not acknowledging that there is uncertainty about whether the tests will be ready when they are needed is an omission that glosses over the scope of the challenges involved in rolling out the tests accompanying the new standards.

Moreover, there are some concerns about the quality of both PARCC and Smarter Balanced questions.

A more accurate description here would read:

The full content of these tests is not yet finished, and there have been concerns that the tests won't be fully ready in time. However, hundreds of Oregon students and teachers have already field-tested a draft version of the new “Smarter Balanced” assessment.

The Origins of Common Core

The original piece at OPB contains scant and incomplete information about the origin of the Common Core standards, and the conditions that led to their widespread adoption.

Unlike "No Child Left Behind," this didn’t come through Congress. State-level officials put it together -- though the Obama Administration is on board.

State level officials did not put this together. The original group that put this together consisted of a small group of people working for testing organizations, with support from the major textbook companies and Edison Learning, a charter school operator and "school turnaround" specialist with a spotty record of success. The fact that the Common Core standards are called "state" standards is good marketing, but it ignores the reality that these standards were designed at the national level, by people and organizations doing work both nationally and internationally.

Also, saying that the Obama administration is "on board" misrepresents the level of support from the Obama administation for the Common Core standards. As noted in an earlier post, the Obama administration set the adoption of Common Core standards - and of tying teacher evaluations to standardized test results - as weighted criteria in Race to the Top, and as a requirement for NCLB waivers. When federal funding is tied to adopting both a set of standards, and assessments tied to those standards, that goes far beyond being "on board."

A more accurate description here would read:

The Common Core standards were developed by representatives from textbook companies, educational organizations, testing organizations, and other individuals, with lead authorship generally attributed to David Coleman, Sue Pimentel, Bill McCallum and Jason Zimba. While the Obama administration has been careful not to advocate for the standards by name, federal education policy has provided funding incentives for states that adopted the standards, and assessments aligned to the standards.

Field Tests

Students in Oregon were subjects in field testing, but the method of choosing schools for these field tests remains unclear.

David Beasley, superintendent of the Gaston District in western Washington County, says “Well, I’d like to say we volunteered, but we didn’t.”

Unfortunately, there is no follow up here to learn why or how this district was chosen. It's clear that students were made to take the tests, and we can only assume that this was done at the expense of instructional time. In New York, Pearson was paid millions of dollars to administer field tests, sparking parent outrage and a larger Opt Out movement.

Why was this district chosen? Did they have a choice? How much instructional time was devoted to these tests in this district? How many other schools in Oregon took these tests?

The superintendent clearly is not completely pleased here. It would have been interesting to hear more - even just one or two sentences - about the backstory.

With All That Said...

The rest of the story is pretty solid. They get student observations on the tests, which is an interesting perspective that most education writers overlook or ignore entirely. But the details matter.

The Common Core standards, much curriculum aligned to those standards, the tests measuring progress relative to the standards - these different pieces were all developed by the same people. Some companies or organizations had representation in all of these elements, and Federal education policy - and more importantly, Federal education funding - supported the adoption of the Common Core standards. Adopting the standards, of course, creates an immediate need for the new tests and the new curriculum.

With this much business at stake, it's no surprise that the people working on Common Core also spend a good chunk of money lobbying:

• Pearson, Inc and Pearson Education;
• Scholastic;
• Houghton Mifflin;
• EdisonLearning;
• McGraw-Hill;
• Wireless Generation

However, the adoption of Common Core standards, the rollout of the tests related to these standards, and the need for new curriculum that supports these standards, are often treated as separate entities. On the one hand, that's technically true - the standards are just standards. But, the federal policies, especially incentives in the various strands of Race to the Top and the NCLB Waiver process, helped ensure that Common Core standard adoption and new standardized assessments occurred together.

The origins of the standards, and the web of policies tying together the standards, the assessments, and the new curriculum, is very opaque. The complexity is made worse when one starts to look at the financial interests of the organizations that played a role in developing these new standards, as many of the companies and organizations involved in developing the standards could make enormous sums of money from services ranging from textbooks, testing, teacher training, and school turnaround support.

This complexity, however, is all the more reason why stories about the Common Core need to get the background right. If you miss the background, you miss the story, and everyone remains underinformed.

Image Credit: "Lazy Cow" taken by sarah white, published under an Attribution Share-Alike license.

Last weekend, we ran another open content authoring session at Lewis Elementary in Portland, OR; we'll have more details on the event in a post laster this week. During this session, we talked with several educators about ways to work around the organizational barriers they face. I'm going to list out a couple here; frequently, when we talk about the things that are absent from school learning environment, the conversation stops at blockages of YouTube and other social media sites. Really, though, there are barriers that are far more basic and pervasive than that.

Students Can't Save HTML Files

We spoke with an educator working within PPS who had set up a lesson where students were learning about the web, including some basic HTML and css. The lesson went fine until it came time for students to save their work; they were blocked from saving html files.

SSH is blocked

We have worked in schools, and worked with teachers in schools, where SSH is blocked. For anyone working in web development, SSH is a central tool to doing out work. Blocking SSH is akin to teaching carpentry without hammer and saws.

Districts Claim Ownership Over Teacher Intellectual Property

The way some district contracts are written, districts claim ownership over any work that is done during school hours, over a school network, or on a school-provided machine. So, if a teacher does planning during the school day, even if she is creating something entirely new that is her creation, the district position is that they - the district - own that work.

Why Should We Care?

In the current political climate of educational reform, teachers are under a tremendous amount of pressure. Teachers and schools have a lot of rhetoric directed at them about how they need to embrace "21st century learning" and teach web literacies and develop knowledge workers, all while meeting more time consuming reporting mandated by the unfunded mandates of NCLB, and having their performance measured by standardized tests that often don't examine what learning looks like.

And in the face of all this, there are district-level policies that directly interfere with a teachers ability to work. When a district claims ownership over creative work done during the work day, the district creates an enormous disincentive to work with peers during school time, as any result of the collaboration would be owned by the district and not the creators. This flies directly in the face of what networked, connected teaching should be, as it is predicated on sharing our work with others. Fortunately, as we discussed in our authoring event, incorporating openly licensed materials into our work makes district claims of ownership a moot point, as the district can still claim ownership but the license allows for free and universal reuse.

What is incredibly heartening is talking with teachers, and hearing the creativity, thought, and caring that they put into their work. There are some amazing educators working to help our kids learn, and it's great to see.

What is disheartening is to see the artificial, policy-driven barriers put in their way. Here in Oregon, we are hearing a lot of talk about improving our educational system. And some of these things actually sound okay. And please don't get me wrong: high level change is part of the solution too. But we also need to remove the unnecessary barriers to teachers doing their best work. The notion that a district owns a teacher's work needs to be addressed legislatively, and through contracts. If a district thinks that they are going to get rich from owning and selling content, they should go talk to their local newspaper - the one that went out of business three years ago.

Image Credit: "Contradiction" taken by sweetenough, published under an Attribution Share-Alike license.