Testing for what purpose?

So today is the half way point in the school year.  NYS is giving students a chance to retake Regents Exams that they scored poorly on in June or over the summer.  Maybe they'll get a better score.  Maybe not.

I can't do any of the work that I need to do because the library that I work is has been commandeered so that the exams can be given.  The main area,  the small instruction room,  the adjoining conference room,  any available space has been grabbed for students that need to take whatever test they need to retake so that they can "pass" - whatever that means in this Common Core driven education world.

And last year students found out that right over the border in Pennsylvania there is no Regents exam,  or anything that resembles it.  A former science teacher that grew up in PA and has family down there (still - in spite of the fracking) told them that.  Boy did they get livid.

And then there are the disqualified questions.  The ones that don't make any sense at all.  Like the pineapple vs the rabbit.  That question made no sense at all.  (Kind of like William Faulkner's writings.  I still don't understand him.  The sound and the fury is ... ? What a student does after taking an exam?)  Thankfully it was thrown out.  There are other crappy questions as well.

And then there is the way the tests are graded.  Not by professional educators,  but by whoever is hired and completes the training.  And the tests are graded on a curve.  That means that someone is going to be forced to score below "passing."  Statistically this must happen in educator land somewhere,  so the Board of Regents and the testing corporations set it up this way.  I wonder what they would do if on one test everyone scored a 90% or better?  Would they still require students to fail?

And now Commissioner Elia is looking at rewriting the standards because they were poorly written.  Look at the credentials of the people that wrote them and ask WTF?  How did we get this?

The real failures are the Board of Regents and the testing corporations.

Have they proven that what they are trying to sell us works?  That it actually drives up achievement?

Have thy proven to us that the exams are properly written and actually are the best way to assess what students know?  The complete picture of what a student knows?

Have they found a way to inspire students to want to learn more?

Or have they achieved the exact opposite?

Was everything written poorly and rushed out to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind,  the corporate education takeover plan?

Are students wanting to learn more or are they asking "do we have to know this for the test?"

Do students love school or do they dread going?

As education goes,  so does our nation.

We need to change things and fast or we will lose more than our future.

As socialists we demand:
1. An end to all standardized testing - No more Common Core, PARCC, or Regents exams.  They do not test a student's full knowledge.

2. An end to the vilification of teachers.  We did not create this system.  We only work in it.  Vilify the politicians and other servants of the capitalist class that want to privatize education for profit.

3. A transition to portfolio assessments.  These show a student's abilities in a wide spectrum of activities - from homework,  to classwork,  to individual and group projects, to quizzes and tests.  We need an assessment method that assesses the whole student and challenges them to reflect on their work and improve.