The Misguided Push to Reintroduce Standardized Testing During the Pandemic

Important read. I fully agree with Dr. Lorrie Shepard who says that testing students in this time of COVID is misguided and harmful, particularly for lower-income families and bilingual students from lower-income families. I recommend folks take a look at 

Ibram X. Kendi's piece titled "Why the Academic Achievement Gap is a Racist Idea," so that you can situate socially constructed, racially-biased "achievement" in historical perspective and grasp its ideological underpinnings that mirror race relations in our country and beyond.

If we all really cared not only about equity in this country but a growing demographic of Latinx, Latino, Mexican American, African American, Indigenous, Native American, and Afro-Latino peoples, then let's perhaps think, write, and talk about reframing things.  Instead of having an assessment system that is premised on "what 'these children' lack," let's imagine all of this differently. Radically differently. By this, I and many other scholars, organizations, and policy makers would prefer an asset-based system, premised on the wealth of their communities, languages, dialects, cultures, communitarian values, and so on. It is also partnership-based,  social justice- and community-oriented, ideally anchored in our communities. They should be about parent and community empowerment, as well as about revitalization.

 

In my realm of the world, we call this decolonizing. For those outside of, or distant from, either this experience or these discourses, the idea of respecting others' dignity would be an appropriate interpretation of this posture that is calling for us to pivot. Not to any orthodoxy, but to create a new infrastructure for education that is itself about revitalization and renewal.

The "diagnostic purposes" for giving these exams simply doesn't hold up—particularly since results are rarely available until the following year. In tandem with this piece, I recommend reading this article by Valerie Strauss titled, "Why teachers shouldn’t give kids standardized tests when school starts." 

To the arguments presented herein, I would like for us to additionally consider the impact of paper-and-pencil tests on the environment. They are a bioburden that perpetuates risk to humans by the number of trees and forests that have been destroyed to generate these tests worldwide, together with the chemicals released into our nations' waterways in the production of paper that according to this piece, titled, "Environmentalists: Paper mills likely major source of chemical pollution in waterways," this kind of wastewater correlates with testicular cancer and thyroid disease.

I would think that environmental groups would be raising such concerns. And if they aren't. They need to.  

The larger issue related to testing is that there are too many (in Texas, we also have end-of-course exams) and invalid when used as measures on which to make high-stakes decisions like retaining children in grade or whether or not children should graduate from high school.  Even the makers of the tests themselves make such disclaimers.

If we're going to continue testing, we should abolish census testing that tests everyone and adopt sample testing as policy like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).  Fewer, online, sample-testing-based assessments is thusly the way to go, however, not during a pandemic.

-Angela Valenzuela

@algore #InconvenientTruth @EnvironmentTex @SierraClub @TexasSierraClub  @TXWaterFuture #OneWaterTexas #gogreen #testing #sustainable #SustainabilityTexas @EnvDefenseFund #ClimateEmergency 

#ExtinctionRebellion #climateaction, #environment #nature #climatechange #ClimateDenial #sustainability #ecofriendly #savetheplanet #green #zerowaste #earth 

This past spring, after schools closed to limit the spread of the coronavirus, all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the District of Columbia were given permission by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to suspend or cancel their K-12 accountability testing—something that hasn’t happened since 1994, when federal law first started requiring annual exams. With schools set to resume in the weeks to come, it’s still not clear how many buildings will actually reopen. As of July 23rd, more than three quarters of district leaders said they planned to offer a mixture of in-person and online instruction but, as death tolls rise, more districts are announcing each day that 100 percent of learning will be remote as the fall semester begins. Amid this uncertainty, a smattering of policymakers, educators and advocates are calling for a resumption of statewide testing. In early July, for instance, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced that students would be required to take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STARR) exams in 2020-21. A few days later, Florida Department of Education chief of staff Alex Kelly told district leaders that there were no plans to seek a waiver from federal testing requirements for 2020-21. Moreover, after leaders in Michigan, Georgia, and South Carolina did request that ED grant testing waivers for 2020-21, the department’s leadership indicated that no waivers will be forthcoming. The justification for resuming during a pandemic has been that the exams are needed for diagnostic purposes. As Assistant Secretary at ED, Jim Blew, said, “Accountability aside, we need to know where students are so we can address their needs.” Similarly, Morath, the Texas Commissioner, told state school board members, “Educators, unless they have some other robust assessment … can’t adjust our educational support of kids accordingly.”  Yet statewide exams are not appropriate for diagnosing learning needs for individual teachers and students. Instead, they are designed to assess state, district and school-level efforts to cover a broad set of state standards. In fact, teachers rarely even receive the results until their students have moved on to the next grade level. For this reason, education officials and advocates in several states say that so-called “diagnostic assessments”—not the summative exams required by federal law—should be administered when schools resume. For example, 10 education advocacy groups led by Denver-based A+ Colorado, called for state leaders to spend federal CARES Act funds to administer a “statewide diagnostic tool” to every K-12 student in Colorado. Their letter mentions an assortment of off-the-shelf, “well-established and widely-used” “diagnostic assessments” listed in a reportby Education Reform Now, a nonprofit advocacy organization.  Ultimately, Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said that the state would not use a single diagnostic tool to assess student readiness when school resumes, because this approach would “distract districts from focusing on critical fall reopening priorities, result in unnecessary duplication, and not necessarily be aligned to local curricula.” Nevertheless, the idea of using such a one-size-fits-all tool for diagnostic purposes is likely baked into school reopening plans throughout the country. For example, the School District of Osceola County, FL will administer NWEA’s MAP exam three times this school year as a “diagnostic tool” and “approach for diagnosing unfinished learning,” according to the 69,000-student district’s state-approved reopening plan. And California’s 16,000-student Cajon Valley Union School District has purchased Curriculum Associate’s i-Ready virtual diagnostic tool to diagnose student learning in English/language arts and math at the beginning of the school year. Yet National Education Policy Center Fellow and University of Colorado Distinguished Professor and Dean Emerita, Lorrie Shepard, says that a single, uniform, off-the-shelf tool cannot provide the information that teachers need to meet students where they are and teach them what they need to learn.

To be truly diagnostic and useful to guide the next steps in instruction, assessments need to be closely tied to local curricula, in both content and timing, and they need to be responsive to strengths children bring from their homes and communities,

Shepard wrote in a June letter to Colorado education officials. She added:

The computer-delivered test products referenced in the A+ Colorado letter provide quantitative scores about how far behind or ahead students are (one grade level or two) on broad subtest dimensions such as Number and Operations or Algebra. To permit immediate, machine scoring, these products include only multiple-choice or short-answer test questions. As a result, they do not provide insights into children’s thinking. They have not been built, as are more fine-grained diagnostic assessments, to identify students’ misconceptions.

The Colorado advocacy groups and others calling for the use of a one-size-fits-all diagnostic tool contend that equity is their goal because educators need to measure the disparate impact of remote learning on emerging bilinguals, students from lower-income families, and others who traditionally been poorly served by the educational system.  Yet Shepard writes that a set of uniform assessments would disproportionately harm these very students:

At this time of national trauma, we should not forget that tests have a long history of being the cause of inequity rather than a resource for educational opportunity. For decades, tests – first IQ tests and then achievement tests – have been used to sort children of color and English language learners into low-track classes where learning opportunities and outcomes have been worse than in regular classrooms…. Colorado can do better than to greet its most vulnerable students with tests specifically designed to quantify their deficiencies.

Although A+ Colorado and its partners do not suggest using diagnostic tests to retain students in grade, other Although A+ Colorado and its partners do not suggest using diagnostic tests to retain students in grade, other commentators have already proposed doing so, Shepard observes. Cumulative research results suggest that retention is more harmful than helpful and that it is disproportionately used on students of color. This could compound the assessments’ impact on equity. How, then, should teachers pinpoint students’ needs when school resumes either in person or online? Here’s what Shepard suggests:

The sound advice of national curriculum leaders such as Student Achievement Partners has been to use prioritized content standards to scaffold students to grade-level content as quickly as possible. Such an instructional approach can best be supported through the use of open-ended instructional tasks to help identify learning needs in ways better attuned to children’s social-emotional needs. Teachers can, for example, invite children to read and talk about grade-leveled texts, with particular attention to phonological awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension. In mathematics, richly scaffolded performance tasks are available as well as curriculum embedded assessments that can be used to elicit children’s thinking as well as mastery of prerequisite skills. Importantly, these activities do not take time away from instruction and they place teachers in a helping role with their students at the outset of the school year, rather than in an evaluative or judgmental one. This is a more equitable and effective approach than the endless, objective-by-objective remediation that would likely follow from interim assessment results.

Shepard also wrote about these issues in a statement posted at Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet for the Washington Post. NEPC Resources on Assessment ->

This newsletter is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Earth Day Livestream Mobilization, April 22-24, 2020

Friends,

Very exciting announcement that provides a way for you to make a difference in this time of quarantine and climate change.  Remember that COVID and climate change absolutely go hand in hand.  But that's not enough.  We must all also get involved is saving our planet.

Parents, for children and youth, being a part of this could satisfy at least partial credit in science.

As many of us as possible, let's join Earth Day that's coming up this week on April 22-24, 2020.  Check out this announcement to which you can connect directly here.

The webpage will ask you to register and to text "earthvote" to the number 565-25. 
Earth Day will feature a 3-day livestream, such that we'll all get connected to millions of people around the world in order to participate in community building and storytelling.  Exciting presentations, music, and performances by many people are featured.  I look forward to hearing, including Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Stacey Abrams, Alyssa Milano, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, together with the voices of Indigenous leaders and youth activists.

You can also connect to local sessions to address struggles and opportunities closer to home.  

Enjoy!

-Angela Valenzuela

#EarthDay #nature #earth #climatechange  #environment #savetheplanet #green #zerowaste

From April 22, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, to April 24, activists, performers, thought leaders, and artists will come together for an empowering, inspiring, and communal three day livestream mobilization.

The fights against the coronavirus and the climate crisis go hand-in-hand, and as we work to flatten the curve of this pandemic, we must strive toward the longer term goal of building a society rooted in sustainability and justice.

PARTICIPANTS

Featuring Adam Gardner (Guster) • Al Gore • Alex Macnicoll • Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • Aloe Blacc • Alyssa Milano • Amanda Palmer • Amber Valletta • Angela Rye • Angelique Kidjo • Ani DiFranco • Bill McKibben • Chef Alejandra Schrader • Chef Dominique Crenn • Chelsea Handler • Cody Simpson • Daniel Fernandez • David Wallace-Wells • Devendra Banhart • DJ Spooky • Dr Michael Greger • Dr. Sweta Chakraborty • Ed Begley Jr. • Emily Wells • Graham Riley • Ilyasah Shabazz • Jack Johnson • Jameela Jamil • Jason Mraz • Joaquin Phoenix • Kathryn Budig • Kirsten Vangsness • KT Tunstall • Lil Dicky • Lisa Edelstein • Local Natives • Louie Schwartzberg • Luke Baines • Madame Gandhi • Margaret Klein Salamon • Mark Ruffalo • Mary Heglar • Matt McGorry • Michael Franti • Moby • Monica Dogra • Mumu Fresh • Mustafa Santiago Ali • Nahko Bear • Ndaba Mandela • NUKA • Other Lives • Patricia Arquette • Patrisse Cullors • Questlove • Rachael Ray • Rep. Lauren Underwood • Rep. Ted Lieu • Reverend Dr. William Barber II • Robby Romero • Rosanna Arquette • Secretary John Kerry • Sharon Carpenter • Shepard Fairey • Siva Kaneswaran • Smiles Davis • Soul Clap • Stacey Abrams • Stella McCartney • Talib Kweli • Tank and the Bangas • The Both -w- Aimee Mann and Ted Leo • Tim Heidecker • Tony Revolori • Vote Party • Will Anderson (Parachute)

And many more to be announced soon!

Environment-Climate Change Hashtags on Twitter

Friends,

I've assembled predominant environment-climate change hashtags and handles on Twitter for you.  I always am looking for these in one place.  This is a respectable list that will allow you to go to Twitter and keep up with environmental action initiatives and concerns.  Feel free to recommend others—in other languages. Note: Post these in the comment box at the bottom of this post below.

You'll have some unique handles for your own cities, states, and locales. Thanks to my doctoral student, Kevin Wickersham, for these.

I think it is a good idea to post on Ethnic Studies websites, as well, since we have to merge these movements.  They actually are getting merged, but we need to be more intentional. Plus, we need to grow the environmental movement, as a whole.

I'm so happy to have these all in one place now.  Thanks so much, Kevin!

-Angela Valenzuela

Environment-Climate Change Hashtags on Twitter

@algore @EnvironmentTex @SierraClub @TexasSierraClub @TXWaterFuture #OneWaterTexas #SustainabilityTexas

#ZeroGeoengineering #AluminumBariumStrontium #CloudSeeding #Frankenskiesthemovie #Zero5G #climateemergency #StopGlobalOmnicide #GotChemicalTrails  #ClimateEmergency  #ExtinctionRebellion  #climateaction #environment #nature #climatechange #ClimateDenial #sustainability #ecofriendly #savetheplanet #green #zerowaste #earth #gogreen #sustainable #recycle #eco #globalwarming #water #pollution #plasticfree #wildlife #climate #savetheearth #reuse @OCEthnicStudies @EthnicStudiesCA @EthnicStudiesAZ #Indigenous #TxEd #SomosMAS #CriticalThinking #TxLege 

“Will the lesson be learned? Will our appreciation of beauty be seen as a gift, the enjoyment of which should not be confined to an annual holiday? Will it become a part of our everyday lives? It is almost past belief that we ever chose to reject it.” ~C.R.Milne #ClimateEmergency

There’s An Environmental Disaster Unfolding In The Gulf of Mexico

Oh dear!  I'm still trying to shovel myself out of the avalanche of emails I received while out of pocket in China.  Check out this horrific story that came out as Hurricane Barry did its damage to the Louisiana coast and beyond.

This story shows how us humans are killing the ocean and how dolphins, full of painful lesions from fresh water exposure, are dying in great numbers, as a consequence.  This year alone, nearly 300 dolphins have died.  Plus, due to the BP spill that occurred on April 20, 2010 that you can read about here, their reproductive capacities have still not recovered.  Here's the dire scientific prediction:

"Scientists predict the annual dead zone — a giant blob of polluted, deoxygenated water linked to algae blooms — will grow to the size of Massachusetts and suffocate even more marine life later in the Gulf this summer."

This report tells me that we really do need to listen to the fishermen and shrimpers whose lives are not only directly impacted by climate change,  but whose knowledge and experience stand to fully illuminate, and optimally responsive to, the senseless politics related to Louisiana’s rapidly sinking coastline.

-Angela Valenzuela

@algore #TxEd #climatechange #ClimateAction #ClimateDenial 
#InconvenientTruth @EnvironmentTex @SierraClub @TexasSierraClub  @TXWaterFuture #OneWaterTexas  #SustainabilityTexas #SomosMAS

William C. Velasquez Institute There’s An Environmental Disaster Unfolding In The Gulf of Mexico A slow-moving flood of polluted Mississippi River water is causing serious damage to Gulf species, and a major storm threatens to make it worse. Rocky Kistner Guest Writer 07/11/2019 05:45 am ET Updated 1 day ago As fishermen deep in the Louisiana bayou, Kindra Arnesen and her family have faced their share of life-altering challenges in recent years. First came Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 monster storm that devastated her small fishing community in Plaquemines Parish before roaring up the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people and destroying $125 billion in property. Five years later, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded 40 miles offshore, spewing nearly 200 million gallons of crude. The fisheries have not fully recovered more than nine years later, nor has her family. But this year may be worse. A historic slow-moving flood of polluted Mississippi River water loaded with chemicals, pesticides and human waste from 31 states and two Canadian provinces is draining straight into the marshes and bayous of the Gulf of Mexico — the nurseries of Arnesen’s fishing grounds — upsetting the delicate balance of salinity and destroying the fragile ecosystem in the process. As the Gulf waters warm this summer, algae feed on the freshwater brew, smothering oxygen-starved marine life.  And as of Wednesday, an advancing storm looks likely to turn into a tropical storm or hurricane by the weekend, with the potential to bring torrential downpours and more freshwater flooding. COURTESY OF THE INSTITUTE FOR MARINE MAMMAL STUDIES Dolphins have been dying in huge numbers across the Gulf Coast region — nearly 300 this year already. Fishermen and state government officials agree this long, hot summer may go down in history as one of the most destructive years for Gulf fisheries. The torrent of river water pushing into Gulf estuaries is decimating crab, oyster and shrimp populations. The brown shrimp catch this spring in Louisiana and Mississippi is already down by an estimated 80%, and oysters are completely wiped out in some of the most productive fishing grounds in the country, according to state and industry officials. The polluted freshwater has also triggered algae blooms, which have led to beach closures across Mississippi.  “The Army Corps of Engineers says we had the most rainfall in 124 years,” said Joe Spraggins, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. “Shrimpers and crabbers are struggling. Oystermen are almost nonexistent. … It’s not going to get better soon.” “I’ve had grown men call me on the phone and cry,” said Arnesen, who serves on the board of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and works on state coastal management issues. “This feels like the height of the BP oil spill.” Mississippi and Louisiana have already started the process of requesting federal disaster assistance for damaged fisheries. But it will likely be a long while before any money reaches the fishermen whose nets are coming up empty. To officially apply for disaster relief, Louisiana state officials say they need more data, which will take months to compile. “We are seeing impacts across the coast in all sectors of the fishing communities,” said Patrick Banks, assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. “We will continue to collect data to support a disaster declaration.”  It’s not just fisheries that are suffering. Dolphins have been dying in huge numbers across the region — nearly 300 this year already, which is three times the number in a normal year, according to federal and state officials. Fishermen report finding dead dolphins floating in water near shore or beached in the marshes, covered in painful skin lesions that scientists have linked to freshwater exposure. One fisherman reported finding a mother dolphin pushing her dead baby along in the water.  “Their skin looks like a Brillo pad,” said Louisiana charter boat captain George Ricks, who heads the Save Louisiana Coalition, a coastal management advocacy organization. Ricks and many other fishermen blame the unprecedented deluge of freshwater pouring into the Gulf. The Bonnet Carre, a huge spillway that protects New Orleans, has already opened an unprecedented two times this year to divert surging Mississippi River water and is currently pouring more than 100,000 cubic feet per second into Lake Pontchartrain. Being able to close the spillway again depends on rainfall upriver. The Army Corps of Engineers operates the spillway and says it has no choice but to keep it open to protect property upstream. The Corps argues that some of this flooding can be beneficial to the ecosystem. “The introduction of fresh water during leakage events simulates the natural cycle of overbank flooding and provides numerous ecosystem benefits to the aquatic and terrestrial resources in the spillway,” theagency notes on its website.  But some marine biologists say the flood of freshwater can be catastrophic for species such as bottlenose dolphins, which are very territorial and are reluctant to leave their spawning grounds even when salinity levels become toxic. Endangered species like Kemp’s ridley turtles are also threatened by river water exposure, since they depend on rich Gulf marshlands to grow and develop.  “We are experiencing a Cat 5 aquatic hurricane,” said Dr. Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi. Dolphins are particularly vulnerable to incursions of river water, he said. “Every time they open the Bonnet Carre spillway, we see a spike in deaths.” Solangi’s team recently found a stranded dolphin on a Gulfport beach, breathing slowly and covered in freshwater lesions. It died a short time later.  “Dolphins are like the black box found on airplanes,” Solangi said. “They tell you what’s happening in the environment. When dolphins are doing well, the environment is doing well.” COURTESY OF CAPT. GEORGE RICKS Fishermen report finding some dead dolphins covered in painful skin lesions that scientists have linked to freshwater exposure. By all accounts, the Gulf marine environment is not well. Scientists predict the annual dead zone — a giant blob of polluted, deoxygenated water linked to algae blooms — will grow to the size of Massachusetts and suffocate even more marine life later in the Gulf this summer. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the bottlenose dolphin deaths an “Unusual Mortality Event” in February, and its investigation is ongoing. Officials say higher-than-normal dolphin strandings spiked in May, when there were 88 discovered along the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts. That’s nearly eight times the average monthly number of dolphin mortalities during the BP spill from 2010 to 2014. Total dolphin strandings have not reached the levels seen at the height of the BP spill, and there were fewer in June. Dr. Teri Rowles, NOAA’s marine mammal health and stranding program coordinator, said that researchers know freshwater exposure could be contributing to the health concerns, but that it’s too early in their investigation to pinpoint an exact cause. “We do see dolphins with freshwater lesions, but not all the animals have skin lesions,” said Rowles.  Some dolphin populations have yet to recover from the BP oil spill, Rowles said, mainly due to reproductive problems. NOAA reports dolphins in heavily oiled areas are still suffering from chronic health problems and higher rates of failed pregnancies and mortalities. But many fishermen who have worked in these areas for generations suspect something else is threatening their future: politics. As part of a plan to save Louisiana’s rapidly sinking coastline, state agencies want to pump in more sediment-heavy river water to help rebuild the disappearing land. Fishermen question the efficacy of freshwater diversions and worry about the dangers to fisheries and marine life posed by these projects. They question why NOAA would grant waivers to Louisiana last year to bypass the Marine Mammal Protection Act and allow the freshwater diversion construction to proceed. Meanwhile, fishermen know a changing climate is not working in their favor. Scientists say the Mississippi River is expected to continue to flood in future years as the atmosphere heats up and produces stronger storms and more rainfall. Barry, the storm heading for the coast right now, is the latest to threaten the Gulf ecosystem, but certainly not the last. All of this worries Acy Cooper, a fourth-generation fisherman and president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association who is leading a delegation of fishermen to Washington this month to plead their case for disaster assistance. He blames the Army Corps for not adequately managing the river and controlling and dredging the river passes that empty into the Gulf, making the effects of freshwater worse.  But his biggest worry is for his family and future generations. He comes from a long line of fishing families who have prospered and persevered in one of the most bountiful fisheries in the world, and he doesn’t want to be the last. “My sons can’t make enough to feed their families,” he said. “What’s going to happen to them?”  Arnesen worries about this as well. “If we keep operating like this, we’re going to kill the estuaries and the oceans, yet they still dismiss us,” she said. “Our fish feed America. That should matter to everyone.”