Problem Solved?
So, the state standardized testing issue is solved, and the
solution to shorten ISTEP+ will preserve the integrity of the test. Unfortunately
the real problem is not the length of the test or the content standards. Rather
it’s the use of a standardized test to make decisions for which it was never
intended and has never been validated. Such misuse is touted as being in the interest
of “accountability.” Who do we hold accountable for proper test development and
use?
The new ISTEP+ test was put together in a rush to judgment.
It was not field-tested; no trials were conducted to see whether the test met
rigorous standards for test development. Now, the new recommendation is that testing
time be reduced to about nine hours. This time reduction is to be achieved by
eliminating items being field-tested for future use. So the test in the future
will be as untried as this one.
Whatever its length, ISTEP+ has not been subjected to rigorous
evaluation. To impose this untried test on students, parents, and teachers is nothing
less than gross incompetence on the part of the state leadership. It serves no
purpose to shorten the test when the test itself has never been properly
validated.
The state assessment program is only one part of a larger set
of problems that lawmakers have created in the push to privatize public
education. The idea that competition can be used to fulfill a major
responsibility of the state’s leadership fails to meet the constitutional
standard of providing for the “common good.” Competition is an ineffective way
of improving public services for the common good. The data that exist suggests
exactly the opposite, that competition will destroy the interests of the common
good.
We cannot give the students who have been misjudged back
their lives. We cannot simply rehire teachers who have been driven out of the
profession. We cannot restore those
communities that have been damaged morally and economically by misjudgments
that labeled their schools as failing. The citizens of Indiana are being forced
to participate in our lawmakers’ social engineering experiment. In the end, our current leadership will walk
away from any responsibility for the damage they do, because there is no
mechanism to hold them accountable.
Indiana voters need to decide just what kind of education
system they want: one that privileges the few and is driven by profit or one
designed for the common good that will serve all children. How does the
privatization of our public education system align with our democratic
principles?
A bias has been created, portraying the public schools as
failing. The facts tell a different story. Privatizing the public education
system is the last gasp of those wanting to continue to make sure we have a
class of working poor and disenfranchised citizens available to do minimum-wage
jobs.
It’s time to take public education out of the political circus
and have serious conversations about how public education should be reimagined
to serve the common good.
