Public Private Partnership in Nationalized Education. Local Control is Non-Existent.

From ed.gov and Education Department Launches 2013 Investing in Innovation Competition:

The U.S. Department of Education announced the start of the $150 million 2013 Investing in Innovation (i3) grant competition today with the release of the program's invitation for pre-applications for the i3 "Development" grant category and the notice of final priorities for the i3 program overall. Today's announcement incorporates several improvements the Department has made to the grant competition in its efforts to support school districts and nonprofit organizations in partnership with schools to pursue innovative ideas that increase student success.


The Development category, which funds grantees with promising but relatively untested ideas, has been the most popular of the three grant categories throughout the previous three i3 competitions.

In addition, this year the Department has modified the competition to assist grantees in building meaningful private-sector support. The i3 competition requires all grantees to secure private-sector matching funds; i3 Development grantees must secure a private-sector match comprising 15 percent of their budget. Each highest-rated applicant, as identified by the Department following peer review of the full applications, must submit evidence of 50 percent of the required private-sector match prior to the awarding of an i3 grant by the end of the year. The i3 grantees must then provide evidence of the remaining 50 percent of the required private-sector match no later than six months after the project start date.

This is currently how education is delivered and developed.  Your local state/district's decisions are dictated by the federal tier.  The Federal Government is giving out grants for untested ideas (think Common Core State Standards) to provide outcomes the USDOEd requires.  The priorities for this new grant are taken from Race to the Top.  Even if your state didn't win RTTT grant money, your state/district still has a chance to implement these goals/objectives in your state via more Federal grant money:

• Improving the Effectiveness of Teachers or Principals;
•  Improving Low-Performing Schools;
•  Improving Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education;
•  Improving Academic Outcomes for Students with Disabilities;
•  Improving Academic Outcomes for English Learners (ELs);
•  Improving Parent and Family Engagement;
•  Effective Use of Technology;
•  Serving Rural Communities

The interesting difference between the original RTTT grant and this grant is the requirement of private-sector matching funds.  The Federal government is setting educational direction/development and requiring private sector funding to implement programs within the Federal government's blueprint.

This is similar to the development of Common Core STATE standards.  The Federal government gave stimulus funding to the NGA and CCSSO (two private trade organizations) to set standards within the parameters of USDOE requirements.  The standards must be common for data retrieval and updates to state longitudinal data systems.  Is it any surprise FERPA regulations were revised by the US Department of Education to allow the free exchange of information between states?

Did you believe the standards were really state led?  Would the US Department of Education grant federal dollars for programs that didn't meet the USDOE's requirements or work against the stated desire of the USDOE? 

The sustainability of the USDOE's educational agenda must have a buy in from the private sector which may not be concerned with WHAT educational services it is providing.  WHAT is taught is irrelevant to the private sector.  It has been told what needs to be delivered and private firms are happy to take the federal dollars to do so.  It's the perfect plan for How to Sustain a Nationalized Educational System. Turn it Over to 501(c)(3) Groups for Outsourcing:

Twenty million students are expected to take the SBAC assessments on-line. There needs to be technical and professional support for this system going forward. Both SBAC and PARCC were funded with seed money from TARP. This money will run out September 30, 2014. Any remaining unused funds will revert to the US Treasury. Both consortia must now figure out how to make the assessments sustainable by finding other funding sources.

The first RFP for a consultant to take on this work received zero bids because SBAC had grossly underestimated the effort needed to do the work. They are now looking to identify areas of commonality with the other assessment consortia, PARCC, and see if the two groups can share a consultant on those common points. It is not a stretch to see that these two groups are probably going to have to combine in the future in order to remain sustainable. Then we will truly have national standards.

The plan is to go to private foundations to fund Phase 2. 

 

Another Teacher Questions Common Core Spin

An experienced teacher cuts through the phrases bantered around by the CCSS proponents and asks questions on the viability of the initiative to deliver the educational promises it proclaims.  From smartblogs.com and Mark Barnes in Can education reform and the common core coexist?:

My stance on legitimate education reform is clear: testing, standardization and accountability inhibit learning and should be abolished, and teachers should be inspired to create vibrant, chaotic, collaborative, technology-rich classrooms that encourage a thirst for learning. Although I preach incessantly that teachers must not allow standards and testing to impinge upon creativity, I still wonder how progressive education and the common core can coexist.

I am part of my district’s Common Core Transition Team, which means I’m working with others to develop curriculum based on the new standards. We are told that the common core provides an opportunity to teach students how to think critically. Rigorous nonfiction texts will be used so that deep reading can be accomplished and thoughtful summations can be written. This may sound exciting to someone who hasn’t read the standards and who is mesmerized by the spin doctoring. Once the rhetoric stops, though, even the most casual observer will understand that words and phrases like “rigorous” and “deep reading” are euphemisms for “boring” and “guided reading,” neither of which lends itself to education reform.

So, prior to returning to my creations, which are driven by my own personal and professional standards rather than those mandated by the government, I contemplate this overwhelming issue. If educators are stuck with the common core and will eventually be evaluated on how well students perform on the tests that accompany it, how is a progressive, student-centered learning environment to survive? Will teachers be willing to extend their own professional development and hard work beyond what is provided by Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College (PARCC), which governs the CCSS and the assessments? Will students be relegated to months of rigor, deep reading and test preparation, in lieu of collaboration, project-based learning and independent reading?

Read more here.

Then read Mark Garrison's written testimony on CCSS from a politically structured perspective:

While the federal Department of Education is in violation of the law, the CCSSI
represents something worse than a “federal power grab.” In fact, the illegal power of
the federal government has been used to remove public power over education at the
local, state and federal level and place it in the hands of four private (501c3)
publically unaccountable corporations, who have strong connections to test publishers
and the big private philanthropies secretly driving education reform. They are: the
National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO), and the two assessment apparatuses, the Partnership for Readiness for
College and Career (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).
Most telling is that the Common Core State Standards, standards that now govern
curriculum, instruction and assessment across the country, are jointly “owned” by the
NGA Center for Best Practices and the CCSSO! Both federal and state legislatures,
not to mention local school boards, are complete removed from having a say. 

Maybe the first question asked should be why was CCSS allowed to be adopted by circumventing the legislative process?  Instead of worrying if CCSS and education can coexist, shouldn't we be worried that we now have a nationalized educational system that doesn't respond to local concerns?

If the teachers feel left out of the process of delivering education, imagine how the taxpayers feel of having to pay for a system in which they have no decision making.  All the system wants is their children and their money but not their ideas/plans on the educational delivery/content for their children.

Illinois Superintendent Denies Parental Right to Opt Student Out of Common Core

from:  http://www.areweawareyet.com/29241/illinois-parents-denied-request-that-their-daughter-be-placed-in-classroom-not-using-common-core-standards/

Where does your school stand on this issue?  Do you have any parental/taxpayer rights in your local school district?  Apparently the goal of SBAC or PARCC of the implementation of CCSS (without a single vote of taxpayers/parents) supersedes taxpayer/parental requests.

Let's start a list.  Darcy Benway, Superintendent of O'Fallon Township High School is our first superintendent on record supporting a nationalized educational system and denying a true personalized education for a child.  That child MUST follow a common educational path and his/her information will be data mined.  That child is having to partake in an unfunded and unpiloted educational experience.

What shall we call our list of superintendents not protecting children, but rather, the bureaucrats and education reformers determined to nationalize education for the sake of data and profit?

Could eScholar Data Mining on "Bobby" be Considered Stalking?

Should stalking awareness include the information gathered on your child and disseminated without parental knowledge and/or consent?

Common Core and the revision of FERPA by the US Department of Education allows intensive data mining and sharing of student information to various federal agencies and private firms selected the the USDOEd.  The company eScholar is one education reform company eager and ready to data mine information on students.  From wsj.com and Education Data Companies Chosen, 08.13.2012:

New York state education officials Monday said they selected four companies to build a broad education database that will host students' test scores, curriculum materials and education apps, paid for by up to $50 million in federal Race to the Top funds.

The state Education Department said that by fall 2013, school districts will be able to use one of the data systems created by either ConnectEDU, eScholar or Pearson PLC and its subsidiary Schoolnet.

The systems are supposed to store student test scores, student demographic information, curriculum materials, lesson plans and other items that teachers or parents can access. Companies will get paid, in part, based on how many school districts select their data system.

It's financially lucrative for data mining companies to compile student data and advantageous for them to have start up funding provided by taxpayer money. eScholar has produced a video about "Bobby", a hypothetical student the company is tracking.  From the eScholar website:

"Have you met Bobby yet?"

Meet Bobby, the newest member of the eScholar myTrack team. We think that educators have a lot of students like Bobby, students who have things that they want to do, but aren’t always sure how to get there. Check out the video to see how Bobby and his team of supporters use myTrack to help him reach his goals. What do you think? Do you have any students like Bobby?  

eScholar is a company that received federal stimulus dollars to track your child without your knowledge or permission.  Could such behavior and practice be considered not just data mining but stalking?

From the Judicial Education Center's definition of stalking:

"Stalking" is the term commonly used to refer to a pattern of behavior directed towards an individual by another that results in the person to whom the behavior is directed fearing for themselves and/or others. The behaviors can involve overtly criminal behavior or seemingly non-criminal, innocent behavior or both. Stalking can escalate and ultimately result in actual physical harm to its intended subject.

In contrast to many other criminal offenses, stalking involves repeated victimization of the targeted individual. Stalking, therefore, is a series of acts or a course of conduct and never a single incident. Another contrast between other criminal offenses and stalking is the attention placed on the impact of the actions on the victim in stalking situations.

Here are two examples of stalking from the article:

...The series of events or acts that comprise stalking can involve a mix of criminal acts and acts which, when viewed in isolation, could be seen as perhaps being innocent or non-threatening. Generally, stalking can include:

• Monitoring the victim's internet history and/or computer usage  
• Disseminating personal information about the victim to others 

Should the tracking of student academic and non-academic information and sharing it with federal agencies and private organizations without parental/student knowledge/permission be allowed?  How is the difference in the dissemination of personal information about "Bobby" to others and monitoring "Bobby's" computer usage via the relaxation of FERPA any different than the definition of how stalkers operate?

Here's an example of what eScholar will gather on "Bobby" and why:

Enabling P-20 Data Warehousing

Today, a consensus has emerged amongst educators at all levels that there is a need to create an LDS that provides a comprehensive view of education from early childhood through postsecondary and beyond (P-20). This capability is essential to maximizing the effectiveness of our efforts to encourage every student to achieve his or her greatest potential. A key element of this LDS is a comprehensive data warehouse that supports the data requirements of the P-20 world. With the introduction of CDW-PS, which integrates with our eScholar Uniq-ID® products supporting unique identification and ID management of individuals from early childhood through postsecondary, eScholar now has a complete solution for a P-20 data warehouse. The data model for the CDW-PS product is specifically designed to integrate with the eScholar Complete Data Warehouse® for PK-12 product to create a comprehensive LDS of over 3,000 data elements encompassing student and teacher academic history from pre-K through higher education. This powerful combination enables SEAs to answer key P-20 questions through one software product solution. 

The goal of data mining children from eScholar sure sounds noble, innocent and non-threatening.   The video celebrates the collaboration of teachers, principals and supporters helping "Bobby" to set his goals.  It's sold to districts and parents to ensure the student responds well to structured assessments and behaviors determined to be acceptable to the government's rubrics.

eScholar is a company funded by government money to gather over 3000 data points on your child and teachers so your child doesn't get "off track".  Since when did the government start tracking human behavior and making the determination of what is "off track" and what is a child's "greatest potential"?  Isn't that up to the child and his/her parents?

Can anyone answer this question?  How can eScholar offer a "personalized track" for "Bobby" when "Bobby" is stuck in a "common" educational system?

Watch the CEO's speech at the White House on his view of data and why he believes it is important to track individual data on each student.  Again, it sounds noble, innocent and non-threatening.  A student's future is dependent on the data.  At 9:25 he mentions how  Common Core ties this all together.  A student must determine if his/her goals are  successfully tied into a common skill set.  

What do you think would happen and what could go wrong if "Bobby's" strongest skills and talents did not align with the Common Core skill set prescribed by SBAC or PARCC?

How to Sustain a Nationalized Educational System. Turn it Over to 501(c)(3) Groups for Outsourcing.

Outsourcing: Outsourcing is any task, operation, job or process that could be performed by employees within an organization, but is instead contracted to a third party for a significant period of time. In addition, the functions that are performed by the third party can be performed on-site or off-site.

The two private trade organizations The National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) sure had a nifty plan to nationalize education.  Get states to "voluntarily" sign  up to relinquish their constitutional authority to develop and deliver education for their citizens in exchange for two consortia controlling state educational programs.  "Voluntarily" refers to the dangling of money to states competing for Race to the Top, but when some states still didn't compete for or win grants, the ESEA waivers included states having to commit to CCSS. 

The two consortia (PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia) have been funded by stimulus money which runs out in 2014.   The Tampa Bay Times writes that the Common Core deadlines won't be met regarding assessment completion, computers and infrastructure requirements, and how to pay for the mandates. 

We attended a SBAC meeting open to the public last year and it was evident the consortia was concerned about the issue of how the consortia would survive after the federal tap of stimulus money was finished.    From what we heard in the September 2012 meeting, a move to privately fund a consortia should not be surprise, but rather a move for sustainability:

Twenty million students are expected to take the SBAC assessments on-line. There needs to be technical and professional support for this system going forward. Both SBAC and PARCC were funded with seed money from TARP. This money will run out September 30, 2014. Any remaining unused funds will revert to the US Treasury. Both consortia must now figure out how to make the assessments sustainable by finding other funding sources.

The first RFP for a consultant to take on this work received zero bids because SBAC had grossly underestimated the effort needed to do the work. They are now looking to identify areas of commonality with the other assessment consortia, PARCC, and see if the two groups can share a consultant on those common points. It is not a stretch to see that these two groups are probably going to have to combine in the future in order to remain sustainable. Then we will truly have national standards.

The plan is to go to private foundations to fund Phase 2. 

The plan for private funding has now been put into place for one consortia.   PARCC announced it is reorganizing itself as a 501(c)(3).  From edweek.com and Testing Consortium Reorganizes for Long-Term Survival:

The two big groups of states that are designing tests for the common standards have a lot more on their minds than the thorny work of test design. They're trying to figure out how they can survive once their federal funding runs out in the fall of 2014, before the tests are even administered.

One sign of this focus cropped up when PARCC announced that it had reorganized itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. This move facilitates the receipt of foundation funding, among other things, something that has been under consideration as a mode of survival once the group runs out of federal money.

As we've reported to you, PARCC and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium have teamed up to do some thinking about sustainability. They've got a heavy-hitting consulting firm working on sustainability plans, and the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers—the folks who spearheaded the common-standards drive four years ago—are playing roles as well.

Read more here.

What's the problem with turning over the nation's education development and delivery to a 501(c)(3)?  Questions not having any easy answers include:

Who will be in control of the standards?  Who will be designing the assessments?  Will voters have any say in who is educating their children?  Could billionaires with an agenda (pick your side, left or right) organize a nonprofit to deliver the type of education they believe students should learn?

Edweek writes:

The sustainability question is key to the long-term work and goals of the consortia. Right now, no one really knows who will update the tests, for instance, as secure item pools dwindle. The research agenda is in question, too, and that's pretty huge. Without a multiyear inquiry into how students at various cut scores actually perform in college, it's tough to validate the test as being a sound proxy of college readiness. These—and many more—questions ride on the question of sustainability.

There is a near-term question of sustainability, as well. The groups are mindful that in order to protect the $360 million in federal funding they won, they each need to have at least 15 member states. With 24 in SBAC and 22 in PARCC right now, that doesn't seem to be a looming issue. But if enough states get skittish and drop out, federal officials could—according to their own regulations—cut off the funding that is meant to carry the consortia's work through the fall of 2014.

Count many folks in Missouri becoming more and more skittish of CCSS standards that were never field tested or even written before they were adopted by the governor, education commissioner and State Board of Education members.  

Now that taxpayers know of the plans of these two private trade organizations to nationalize education, do you think they will still want their tax money used for copyrighted standards by non-profit organizations?  Isn't education development and delivery the role of the states and local school districts?  Why is education now outsourced to private consortia and in the future, 501(c)(3) groups?

Listed here are some downsides to outsourcing which include:

• loss of managerial control
• hidden cost
• threat to security and confidentiality
• quality problems
• tied to the financial well-being of another company
• bad publicity and ill-will

A Third Consortia Emerging in Common Core State (sic) Standards

Another private organization jumps into the public/private partnership to take over public school educational delivery/education:

From Reuters.com:

New ACT Assessment System to be Named ACT Aspire^(TM)
 System Will Better Connect Assessment to Teaching and Learning

IOWA CITY, Iowa-ACT, Inc., the nonprofit leader in college and career readiness assessment, today announced new details about its upcoming "next generation" assessment system. The new program, which will span elementary grades through high school, will be called ACT Aspire.

Development of ACT Aspire was initially announced in July and is ongoing. The goal of the system will be to provide educators, parents and students with the insights they need to help students get and stay on track for college and career readiness starting early in their academic careers by better connecting assessment, teaching and learning.

"We have drawn on our decades of experience and data to create a breakthrough assessment system designed to help students stay on target to reach their full potential throughout their educational journey," said Jon Erickson, ACT's president of education.  "ACT Aspire is the first digital, longitudinal assessment system that will provide the actionable information students, parents and educators need to measure and improve student performance from early elementary to high school."

"ACT Aspire is the first product that will embody ACT's new vision and strategic direction," said Jon Whitmore, ACT's chief executive officer. "As students today require more effective tools to compete, ACT is the organization that is best positioned to guide students to achieve success from kindergarten through career."

ACT is an independent, nonprofit organization with a 53-year history of generating data-driven assessments and research. Headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa, and with offices throughout the world, ACT is trusted for its continual development of next-generation assessments that determine college and career readiness and provide the most advanced measure of workplace skills. To learn more about ACT, go to www.act.org.

Contact:
Ed Colby, ACT Public Relations
319.337.1147; ed.colby@act.org

Read more here.

It's just another consortia joining SBAC and PARCC.  The wealth needs to be spread around.  It won't mean a thing for educational improvement.  It's just another money making venture.  Will your state be moving to ACT?

Common Core Crashing in Florida?

Pity.

From Bob Sikes in Scathing Purple Musings:

In the aftermath of yesterday’s caution delivered by education commissioner Tony Bennett that Florida needed to prepare itself for Plan B  on implementation of Common Core Standards and it’s PARCC assessments, Jeb Bush’s education foundation acquiesced.

Read more here,

Sikes writes politicians are using the word "implode" when speaking about common core.  Dare we hope?

Why Does Your School District Have to Take Orders from a Private Trade Organization?

The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is "offering guidance" to school districts toward the implementation of Common Core standards. 

Question:  Why is a private organization telling local school districts how they must direct their educational delivery and what requirements they must meet?  

From edweek.com:

One of the two consortia designing tests for the Common Core State Standards recently released new guidance on the minimum technology standards states will need to meet to give those tests, beginning in 2014-15.

The Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, says the guidance is meant to provide direction to states and districts on the extent to which current technology meets testing standards, or whether upgrades will be required.

The document offers both "minimum specifications," which would satisfy the consortium's tech guidelines at least through 2014-15, and "recommended" ones, which would be expected to meet the group's standards through the 2018-19 school year.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia has released its "assistance" to local districts:

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Guide

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has released an updated guide to technology requirements and recommendations for member states planning to implement the common-core assessment system the consortium is developing for the 2014-15 school year.

Under the framework, most schools should be able to implement the assessments, the organization says.

1. Move away from Windows XP (which is used by more than half of schools today) to Windows 7. Windows 8 might be acceptable, but further testing is needed. However, the assessments will work with Windows XP.

2. Upgrade computers to at least 1 gigabyte of internal memory. Most schools have already implemented this recommendation (63 percent, to be exact).

3. Ensure that all screens being used for the assessments have a visual display of no less than 9.5 inches, with at least a 1024 x 768 resolution. About 88 percent of schools have already met this recommendation. The assessments could work with an 8-inch screen, but 9.5 inches is the recommended width, the document says.

4. Student testing sites must operate on secure browsers. While data reports from the assessments can be accessed through Google Chrome, Safari on iOS, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 8, the organization will identify secure browsers each year that will be required for the actual test-taking. Those browsers will prevent students from being able to access anything except the exam.

5. The assessment requires about 5 to 10 kilobytes per second of bandwidth per student. The amount of bandwidth needed will depend on the specific assessments, some of which include animations, recorded audio, and other technology-enhanced items. Schools should estimate about 1 megabyte per second for every 100 students taking the assessment.

Again, the questions must be asked:  Why is a private organization telling local school districts how they must direct their educational delivery and what requirements they must meet?   Where is the local control in these directives?  What is exactly the role of school boards in this matter  and the fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer?  

The districts cannot choose whether or not to abide by these "suggestions".  Look at the directives for the districts from SBAC: 

• they must operate on secure browsers
• the assessment requires a certain amount of bandwith
• move away from the operating system (which half the districts operate) to Windows 7
• upgrade computer memory
• replace screens that are too small.

What is not listed in the technology requirements and "recommendations" is how districts are to pay for these updates/mandates in this revenue strapped economy.  How's that for local control?

A reader at Edweek had some of the same concerns:

Common Core is just another push by big business to suck public funds from our school system. There are so many urban poor and rural areas that would never have funds, nor means to have the computer access/internet platforms available to take the publishing industrial complex's "tests" in the time frame suggested. Many schools don't have full-time teachers (or properly credentialed teachers in the case of many Charter schools that are allowed less oversight under the ridiculous law). How can a student be ready for a test if teachers aren't available? How are students with moderate to severe disabilities considered in the plan?
While larger districts like LAUSD have the means to create plans and provide training, many smaller, underfunded school districts don't have enough computers for staff. Access to functioning computers for all students is a pipe dream mandate in the current hostile funding environment teachers and regular public schools face.
School Districts across the nation have had budgets cut to the bone in the last 6-8 years already and in the last 3-4 we've seen excessive layoffs and firings just to keep things from falling into ruin.
Now these cash-strapped districts are given yet, another unfunded mandate to utilize another "reform" program AND do the testing online without being provided funding for equipment or training. As there are fewer staff available - it creates a bigger burden on those already performing two, three and even four full time jobs due to the deep cuts.
I'm absolutely sick of federal education dictates being given by business and legislators who refuse to listen to academics, child development specialists and parents. We know what our children need to learn. And it isn't more interference by outside business organizations that see our education funding as the next big poaching frontier.
We need trained teachers. We need nurses and librarians. We need safe neighborhoods with accessible health clinics, child care and a community that is able to send a child to school healthy, well-fed and ready to learn.
Until our legislators start addressing the needs of parents and families, these plans will just frustrate and disappoint us.

  

Funding Concerns May Be Forcing a Scaled Down Version of the Common Core Assessment

We reported that the State Chief Education Officers were concerned about continued funding for Common Core Assessments at their recent meeting in St. Louis.  We just learned from Ed Week, in a portion of the conference not open to the public, that the consortia was discussing the possibility of having two versions of the Common Core Tests: the planned long version and now a short (and less expensive) version.

The pivot came in response to some states’ resistance to spending more time and money on testing for the common standards.

The plan under discussion here last week among state education chiefs of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium represents the collision of hope and reality, as states confront what is politically and fiscally palatable and figure out how that squares with the more in-depth­—and potentially more valuable—approach to testing promised by the consortium.

 The big picture on testing time is this,

The evolving two-pronged approach would give states the option of using a [shorter] version of the Smarter Balanced test whose multiple sessions and classroom activities span nearly 6½ hours in grades 3-5, close to seven hours in grades 6-8, and eight hours in high school, or the group’s original version, which lasts about four hours longer in grades 3-8 and about five hours longer in high school.

For comparison, the MAP test for language arts and mathematics takes approximately three hours.
Idaho has already brought up the time requirement for the long version of Common Core to its district superintendents. Their response was an audible gasp. Missouri's Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro stated that there is also concern here about the length of the test and the cost. These sentiments are driving the idea of a shorter test, which of course may mean less reliable data.

Experts cautioned that it can be daunting to build shorter and longer versions of a test without sacrificing the ability to compare results from one to those of the other. It’s also difficult to create a shorter version that measures a set of standards as meaningfully and consistently as a longer version, they said. Doing so requires careful attention to a host of psychometric and statistical concerns.

The USDoE, who remember isn't creating a national curriculum, is also concerned about using a shorter test. 

The U.S. Department of Education, which must review and approve changes in either consortium’s assessment plan, is working with Smarter Balanced officials to refine the design of its two versions so the consortium can present them to its governing board for approval in late November, consortium officials said.

Ann Whalen, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, said the designs must meet key aims the department had in funding the project.

“While there are different ideas and approaches under discussion, at the end of the day, these assessments must measure critical thinking, paint a very clear picture of which students are doing well, and which need more help, indicate whether students are college- or career-ready, and give students and teachers the information they need to improve,” she wrote in an email. “This is an absolute priority for us and will help us better serve the needs of children.”

At the end of the day, the tests must be economically feasible and sustainable. With districts and states already facing budget crunches this becomes less and less likely. If states have to drop out for fiscal reasons, which Missouri quite possibly could because of our Hancock Amendment, the entire consortia could collapse. Federal rules require each consortium to contain at least 15 members to qualify for federal funding.  Just losing 11 states could destroy the consortia's funding.  This is why a combination of SBAC and PARCC is very likely.

It seems hard to believe that, this close to the implementation of CCSS, the consortia are just now beginning to consider and time and money necessary to put these assessments in their states. Reality hits everyone eventually and the shorter, less reliable and meaningful version, may be the only thing most states can afford. Even those states who could afford the longer version may decide not to incur the expense if most of the other states they are working with are getting by on the cheaper version. A Lexus is nice, but a Kia gets you there just as well.

Read the full EdWeek article here.

Career Readiness Description A Stumbling Block in Common Core

We reported on the SBAC meeting here in St. Louis where one of the things the State Education Chiefs did was quietly endorse the Career Readiness Partner Council goals. The next day, the other consortia PARCC, also discussed the CRPC performance level descriptions. They were less cohesive in their viewpoints.

Edweek, with guest blogger Liana Heitin, reported on their meeting.

  
At what an attendee described as one of the milder governing board meetings this year, PARCC's K-12 and higher education leaders continued their work to define career readiness and agree on performance-level descriptors for the impending Common Core State Standards assessments.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers governing board has been at this for months now, as you may recall from Catherine Gewertz's previous coverage. Yesterday's meeting in Washington was no more conclusive than the ones before it, though it did bring a few career-technical education leaders into the mix—stakeholders who'd been absent from previous discussions. (Interestingly, the only representative of the career-technical field who spoke Wednesday sat behind the large table rather than at it—though it's very possible this was solely situational.)

During the two-hour discussion, the board reviewed the states' feedback on its proposed performance-level descriptors. There was continued back and forth about whether it makes sense to set Level 4—deemed a "college-ready" level—on a five-level test so that 75 percent of students who reach that level would be expected to earn C's in entry-level credit-bearing courses. Some members argued to change the C to a B, some pushed to change the percentage as high as 90, and others wanted to keep the descriptor as is. At some point the PARCC chair, Mitchell Chester, simply implored the presenters to move on.

The feedback also showed that many stakeholders want career readiness—not just college readiness—to be included in descriptors. As the policies are written, there's some thought they might imply that career readiness is a lower standard than college readiness. Some members also expressed concern that career readiness would indicate students are ready to be hired right out of high school. Mike Cohen, the president of Achieve, a Washington-based group that manages PARCC, allayed some of that anxiety. "Career ready means ready for postsecondary career training," he explained. "Without letting the precise words get in the way, does the attempt to define career readiness help resolve the issue about not using this as a job-placement or job-hiring assessment?" Members agreed that being clear with the definition is a must.

Read full article here.

Heitin also noted that in this meeting PARCC readily endorsed working with SBAC to make their efforts comparable.

SBAC Chief State Officers Public Meeting Reveals Some Cracks In The Dam?

St. Louis - Yesterday the State Education Chiefs of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC) held a public meeting to approve the next steps in the development process of the Common Assessments. Both MEW co-editors attended this meeting.  The following items were on the agenda.

1. Approving the process to be used for the development of Achievement Level Descriptors (ADLs  identify what students are expected to know and be able to do, at each grade level, to be considered proficient.)
2. Approval of a plan to provide sustainability for CCSS post 2014
3. Approval of the Sampling Plan for the Assessment Pilot Program
4. Endorsement of the Career Readiness Partnership Council Statement

There was fairly minimal open discussion as most of the work on these issues was done before the public meeting. The motions were even pre-written by the executive staff of SBAC so the officers had merely to move to accept and then pass the motion as presented. All motions passed unanimously with only two states abstaining from the vote on #4.

Highlights from the meeting:

1. The ADLs for 11th graders will determine whether they require remedial coursework in college. Sixty people will be working to develop this language for all grades. They will include 30 representatives from K-12, 20 from higher ed and 3 experts each from ELA and math standards. Their draft language will be available for public review from Nov-Jan 2012-13. The language will be finalized and approved at a March 2013 meeting in DC, and will be applied to student performance beginning summer 2014.

2.  Twenty million students are expected to take the SBAC assessments on-line. There needs to be technical and professional support for this system going forward. Both SBAC and PARCC were funded with seed money from TARP. This money will run out September 30, 2014. Any remaining unused funds will revert to the US Treasury. Both consortia must now figure out how to make the assessments sustainable by finding other funding sources.

The first RFP for a consultant to take on this work received zero bids because SBAC had grossly underestimated the effort needed to do the work. They are now looking to identify areas of commonality with the other assessment consortia, PARCC, and see if the two groups can share a consultant on those common points. It is not a stretch to see that these two groups are probably going to have to combine in the future in order to remain sustainable. Then we will truly have national standards.

The plan is to go to private foundations to fund Phase 2.

3.  Pilot test program of the assessments will begin February 2013. It seems like the SBAC itself will be soliciting 22% of the students from each state to participate in the pilot. It is hard to imagine a teacher willing to take away class time to have her students take a computerized test on material she may not have covered, that will not count towards their grades or her performance review unless there is some sort of reward offered. MEW is going to be asking how those students will be identified and incentivized to participate.

There was much emphasis placed on having a good demographic sample in the 22%.

4.  The Career Readiness Partner Council is looking to expand Common Core into the technical schools. You can read more about the CRPC here. The SBAC Executive Director was purposely covert about this agenda item. The states passed the motion for the consortia to approve the CRPC statement (not given out at the meeting).  Interestingly, the two states that abstained on this vote were NH (who was participating by conference call) and IA, whose Senator Tom Harkin is Chairman of HELP (Health Education Labor & Pensions) committee who wrote language for the ESEA calling on states to adopt college and career ready academic content standards that are aligned with relevant state career and technical education standards and appropriate career skills.

The public was not allowed to ask questions during this meeting and the audience's presence did seem to have a stifling effect on the officers' dialogue.

There will be a CCSSO Legislative Policy meeting  March 17-19, 2013 in DC. MEW is also asking who from Missouri would be attending this meeting.  There will be another public session of the State Education Chiefs at this meeting.

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Our observation from this meeting is that there is significant concern among the 26 states about the future of the consortia, both for its structure and funding. They have several open positions, like a business manager, that they have not been able to fill. The structure thus far has focused on development of the assessments themselves which is, for the most part, a massive one-time effort. If all goes well, future tweaking of the assessments will be minimal, but that is a big IF. They do not appear to have a clear vision of what the support structure will look like.

What is clear is that it will be very expensive to fund the support needed to run these assessments, but it is unclear where that money is going to come from. The fall back of course is to pass that cost on to the districts to purchase the assessments. That is a very unpalatable option.

It is hoped that the pilot tests will go smoothly, but even there the path is bumpy. North Carolina has statutory language stating that notice of any standardized testing to be conducted during the school year must made by the beginning of the year. Since the pilot tests will be done in February of this school year, NC may have trouble coming up with the 22% sample because participation would absolutely have to be voluntary. Because of its size, Vermont's 22% will be a very small number compared to California's (CA accounts for 36% of the total SBAC student population, VT <1%). Would any problems VT experiences during the pilot be given less weight because of the relatively small sample size?

The biggest problem the consortia seem to be having is one of time. Of the eight RFP's or RFI's put out by SBAC this year, six appear to have received no bids. Could the incredibly tight deadlines given on each be part of the problem? SBAC is down to the wire on implementation and time is something they don't have a lot of anymore.

This is the problem with top down planning. Someone puts a stake in the ground and says, "We will have Common Core Assessments by 2014," and everyone involved in implementation must work backwards from there. When the boss says he needs the product ready in two weeks, by the last four days everyone involved is looking to cut whatever corners they need to in order to meet the deadline. This does not tend to lead to a quality product. Totally new standards, even if they are of good quality, delivered through a slapped together at the last minute delivery system with shaky support are not going to give us great students.  But hey, there's always waivers. Right?