Rep. Fawson hosted a debate last week in Ogden on Common Core. Speaking against Common Core were Alisa Ellis, Wendy Hart, and Autumn Cook. Thank you Rep. Fawson for putting this together to allow both sides to present their arguments.
Rep. Fawson hosted a debate last week in Ogden on Common Core. Speaking against Common Core were Alisa Ellis, Wendy Hart, and Autumn Cook. Thank you Rep. Fawson for putting this together to allow both sides to present their arguments.
It is scary that a Board member who is an educated lawyer, is making factual representations regarding assessment and testing that have not been proven. The Pro Core side made multiple comments about how the SAGE test will be able to provide informative data for ground level teachers. There is no evidence to support those powerful comments. Why? Because the testing model itself is still in the experimental phase. Will SAGE ever reach this lofty goal? Perhaps someday, but that day is most certainly not today. Mr. Dave Thomas’s and the Superintendent’s comments about what SAGE will offer were a vast over reach in scientific and validity accuracy that are insulting to those of us in the private professional Assessment and cognitive research community.
SAGE is attempting an over reaching experiment, and your children are the private lab rats in the cog of a trillion dollar testing industry. To force our children to be lab rats in a experiment without without CLEARLY, and in writing, informing parents that their kids are subjects in a experiment that has never been performed in this size and scope in our nation’s history, is unethical, potentially harmful, and quite possibly illegal.
It is beyond arrogance and stupidity for Mr. Thomas, the State Board, and USOE to ignore 100 years of testing guidelines of ethics established by the American Psychological Association (APA), which have been out in place by our profession in clinical/educational psychology, whose primary purposes are to protect children from multiple forms of harm associated with experimental testing done with informed, written parental consent.
I will reconsider having my child assessed via SAGE when the experimentation of such is completed in the next 5-10 years, and where the data regarding validity and efficacy of this test has been peer reviewed outside of a professional organization not associated, or affiliated with the US Dept. Of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundstion and the hundreds of “think tank” research groups affiliated with them, AIR, or the Utah State Office of Education.
Adaptive testing on this scale MAY someday be a great tool for providing ground level teachers with good information, but that day has not, and will not come close to being here for for a very long time.
Stop this Trojan horse of a “test”.