FairTest__________ National Center for Fair & Open Testing

Testing Resistance & Reform Spring:Building a National

Testing ReformMovementMonty Neill

Increased Action:An Emerging Movement

• Many locales• Different kinds of groups• Different targets, strategies and tactics• Early stages – real accomplishments

Testing Resistance &Reform Spring

• Link and support growing opposition:– FairTest, Parents Across America, Network for Public

Education, United Opt Out, Save Our Schools: TRRS• www.resistthetest.org or www.fairtest.org • Actions

– Public education - forums– Rallies, demonstrations – be creative– Boycotts and opting out

• Join together to overhaul assessment

Demands• Stop high-stakes use of standardized tests.• Reduce the number of standardized exams and the

time and money spent on them.• Replace reliance on standardized tests with multiple

forms of performance-based evidence of student learning gathered over time.

• Local/state specificity: Variations depend on local situation, what people want to fight for and against.

Strategic Questions:How to Build a Movement?

What targets: Common Core testsBest toolsAlliesMediaAuthentic AssessmentWhat should education/schooling be?

Better Assessment• There are proven educationally beneficial

ways to do assessment. • Most nations test far less, from not at all

(Finland) to three times in a student’s school career (typical).

What is the Learning Record?

A classroom-based assessment system for collecting evidence that students are moving toward agreed upon goals and standards in literacy and mathematics.

What are the components of the LR system?

A carefully designed structure for the record itself, available in both digital and hard copy formats

Developmental Scales based on widely agreed upon literacy goals and stages of development.

Moderation process in which random samples of records from a classroom are rescored by other teachers based on the evidence provided in the LR.

Site Moderation Process

• Site teachers, parents and students collect student work samples in relation to criteria.

• Teachers/students use standardized record keeping

format.

• Teachers join in school wide scoring of sample records from each classroom

Inter-Site Moderation Process

• Representative teachers from each school score sample records from other schools.

• Teachers use the standardized format and scales for summative judgments.

• Teachers use the standardized protocol for sampling and scoring.

Validity and Reliability

Validity: The LR uses multiple measures from the authentic student work of actual classrooms. Research on the LR has also provided evidence of correlation to other assessment measures such as standardized tests and standards.

Reliability: Research on the LR across a number of years shows that experienced teachers’ judgments are reliable to a remarkably high degree.

Use validationreport for one school

Assessment Purposes

• Improve instruction and learning - assessment as, for and of learning

• Inform school improvement and part of school improvement

• Part of evaluation• Reporting and accountability• Learning Record and Performance Standards

Consortium provide these

Forum on Educational AccountabilityThe Federal Role

www.edaccountability.org

• Opportunity to Learn (OTL) • Assessment • Accountability• Improvement/Building School

Capacity

Better Assessment• New York Performance Standards Consortium uses practitioner-made, curriculum-

based performance assessment tasks. See http://www.performancestandards.org.

• Learning Record gathers teacher observations, assessments, samples of student work, into a well-organized description and evaluation of student learning (on FairTest website or www.learningrecord.org).

• See FairTest’s fact sheets on better ways to assess, multiple measures (which includes international examples) and formative assessment and many other topics. http://www.fairtest.org; see under ‘public schools’ > authentic assessment.

• FairTest also has material on many other topics including Common core tests and using tests to judge teachers.

Demands

• Stop high-stakes use of standardized tests.• Reduce the number of standardized exams

and the time and money spent on them.• Replace reliance on standardized tests with

multiple forms of performance-based evidence of student learning gathered over time.

Together we can win!

FairTest National Center for Fair & Open Testing  

P.O. Box 300204, Jamaica Plain, MA 02108fairtest@fairtest.org 617-477-9792

http://fairtest.org

See also Testing Resistance & Reform Springwww.resistthetest.org