The Role of Advocacy, Activism,
and Transformation in a Balanced Assessment Framework
Jesse P. Turner, Ph. D.
Central
Connecticut State University
Let’s
get the white elephant in the room out front with respect to Smarter Balanced
Consortium and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career
consortia’s. All across America school districts and Education Departments are
facing a growing group of parents who are refusing to let their children take
state mastery tests. We have the National United Opt Out organizing occupations
of the United State Department of Education in 2012 and 13. In NYC in 2013 over
8000 parents opted their children out of mastery testing. The Connecticut State
Department of Education has a protocol for dealing with parents who are opting
out their children from state mastery tests. This is an unheard of phenomenon
in the history of American Education. The question for me as an educator,
academic, and researcher is how this phenomenon with assessment came about?
The
metaphor, I use at the Central Connecticut State University Literacy Center with parents and teachers, and in my work when discussing a “Balanced
Assessment Framework” is one of a family
photo album. A balanced framework views academic achievement as a photo album of performance over time. This
framework is rooted in a performance based portfolio assessment. Just like the
family photo album, the balanced assessment framework includes many photos of
the child’s progress in school. The
voices of children, parents, and teachers are highly valued within this type of
album. Children, parents, and teachers must
have a say in what goes into the photo album of performance. I am not opposed to using standardized tests.
They are included, but they weigh equally, no more, no less with other inputs. Formative assessments are created by teachers not outside entities. Simply stated, a balanced assessment framework
is rooted in a genuine performance based portfolio; system that advocates for a
celebration of differences, vested in activist instruction that empowers
individuals, and transforms all learners via an activism of instruction that
fits each and every learner.
There is no one size fits all, but is rather a celebration
of the humane relationship between teacher and student. An assessment system
that transforms classrooms using assessments that respect children, parents,
teachers, local schools, and diverse communities.
For
the past 20 years parents and teachers “get” and desire this type of assessment
framework. The literature at every level supports this type of framework. So
what is with the white elephant question? Well many researchers argue the
current assessment frameworks of NCLB/RTTT are not balanced. I would argue they
are not balanced, because policy makers and United States Department of
Education officials have not vetted any of their assessment systems in genuine
partnerships with parents, teachers, and their professional organizations.
- The
current accountability system is problematic in that it is a top down
driven assessment model, one that is dominated by standardized summative
testing. One can not assume entities who have no roll in actual
instruction can and would advocate for differential instruction for ELL
learners, special needs learners, the poor, those students fighting
terminal illnesses, or those being abuse. High-Stakes testing entities
approach the realities these learners face as non-measurable uncontrolled
variables. They are data points ignored. A major problem with High-Stakes
is they are more punitive in nature than reward based. One cannot ignore the negative effects
of over a decade of a primary punitive system that fails to recognize
differential variables.
At the core of the NCLB/RTTT’s, high stakes
assessments dominate the measures of children, their teachers, and our local
schools. Dr. Elaine Garan
award-winning researcher, educator, grandmother, and author of Resisting
Reading Mandates (2002) writes of the problem with NCLB & RTTT
assessment framework. “There is no court of
appeal because the testing culture is cold, remote, and faceless.” ~ Garan, E.
(2007)
- My concern with the Smarter Balanced Consortium and Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Career frameworks currently being developed
is, we have more of the same; standardized test driven framework. The Smarter Balanced Consortium
and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career consortium have failed to explain where are the voices of the learners,
parents, and teachers in their frameworks? Imagine a medical diagnostic
model that did not speak to parents, their family, and their caregiverS’? One
cannot imagine such a diagnostic model in medicine, because it would violate the main ethical
principles of medicine: do no harm, and beneficence. Such a medical model could not
meet the rigor of bringing new medicines or interventions to market without extensive feedback from
patients and care givers. If someone tried to by pass these two ethical
principles, they would be charge with violating the law, and subject to
imprisonment.
- Thus any assessment system not
observing the above two ethical principles of (1) Do no harm, (2) A well being component lacks the
ability to advocate and act for children, parents and teachers. Where is
the humanity in an assessment framework that is unable to advocate
personal, social, economic, and emotional concerns of the children it
claims to assess?
Four
crucial questions that are not being discussed as United States policy makers
and political leaders quake in fear of not being able to compete future 21
first century markets are:
- Is assessment and evaluation meant
to be cold, heartless, and disconnected from primary stakeholders, or should
it contain a wellness or instructional component?
- Where is the Court of Appeals for children, parents, teachers, and local
schools in this new era of accountability?
- Can an assessment system claiming balanced be rooted in punitive evaluation tools that are linked exclusively
in formal standardized measures be balanced and fair?
- Can a balanced and fair assessment framework
not take into accounts the voices of children, parents, teachers, local schools,
and diverse communities?
I
argue any assessment system that that does not include the voices of children,
parents, teachers, local schools, and diverse communities can not an honest
broker, but becomes a dictator of reductionist thinking. Simply put children
are more than test scores, and test scores alone do not measure the value of what
a child knows, understands, and is capable of learning. An assessment system based solely on test
scores lack the depth required to captured the whole child.
Assessment product providers are not dictators of what should be measured. If
they want to be viewed as honest brokers than they to become helpful service
providers in a balanced assessment system.
Important References
For
International comparisons:
Brown
Center on Educational Policy at Brookings (2010). The 2010 Brown Center Report
on American Education: How Well Are American Students Learning? Available at http://www.brookings.edu/brown
For
a decade review of NCLB:
Important
Additional Resource/link that provides a decade review of NCLB by Fairtest: The
National Center for Fair and Open Testing.
The
federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law “failed badly both in terms of its own
goals and more broadly,” leading to a decade of educational stagnation. That is
the central conclusion of a major new report marking NCLB’s tenth anniversary.
President George W. Bush signed the program into law on January 8, 2002. > http://fairtest.org/NCLB-lost-decade-report-home
For a deeper understanding of the role politics
plays in school reform.
ISBN 978-0-325-00647-5 / 0-325-00647-4
See
for a better understanding of a Balanced Assessment:
Turner,
J. P., Foshay J. d., Pansofar, E., (2013)Toward a More Balanced Assessment
Framework: Transforming School IAP Charlotte North Carolina.
If you want to know what the Walking Man listened to on his walk under a Jamaican sunrise...it was
I Dreamed A Dream (Anne Hathaway) from Les Misérables
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsS1MS3EqyM
Still marching,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner
