One, Two, Three. End This.

Number One: In a recently released longitudinal study researchers at Stanford University have quantified the degree to which affluent students score higher than economically disadvantaged students on standardized tests.

Number Two: Hamilton City Schools Superintendent Tony Orr has indicated that as many 40% of this year's Juniors will not graduate next year based on Ohio's new testing system.

A Conclusion: Unless the Ohio Department of Education and the state legislature start paying attention and fix the current testing system as it relates to graduation, we will be failing to graduate a ridiculous number of students, many of them simply for being poor.

Number Three: A statement from Ohio Superintendent Paolo DiMaria from the Tony Orr article... 

“If our ultimate goal is the right one — to get students to a higher level — why should we be happy that they’ve already reached (graduation level on the OGT) by sophomore year?” DeMaria said, adding that students may need more time to master some concepts.

Another Conclusion: It is time for the Superintendent to begin actually listening to some of the input he's been asking for, and respond with something more than the rhetoric and talking points he's been fed by the ODE. In this case, the Journal-News seems to have taken an old quote from DeMaria, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. However, it is time for a legitimate response to these concerns.

Graduation (and other) standardized assessments are essentially meaningless except as a measure of economics. How do you respond to this reality, Mr. DeMaria?

I had the opportunity to meet the Superintendent at the recent ESSA stakeholder meeting in Elyria. We talked about the start of the school year, and I thanked him for the opportunity to provide input on Ohio's educational direction. I told him that I looked forward to building something excellent in education in Ohio.

I'm thinking that he should also be made aware of a few things I think he and the ODE are trying to ignore as we adapt our state system to the new federal legislation...

Number One: We test far more than the federal requirements. Other states are moving to the minimums. Stakeholders in Ohio agree. Listen to them. Decrease the time spent on testing.

Number Two: Federal Law does not require high stakes outcomes be tied to standardized tests. Get rid of the 3rd grade guarantee. Get rid of the graduation or End of Course tests (only 14 states do this). Disconnect test scores from teacher evaluation. This will decrease the time spent on test prep and remediation which only exists for the sake of passing a test.

Number Three: Stop pretending that these assessments measure mastery of something, or career and college readiness, or some other bullshit about rigor or high expectations. The data is meaningless. The scores are a measure of economics. If you want to see how schools would perform on assessments look at recent data on median income, unemployment, students on free and reduced lunch...

I feel like I've written this same damn blog post dozens of times. I'm so tired of looking at kids in my building and seeing test scores in their worried faces. Put us out of our misery.

End this.