Derek Briggs (CU Boulder photo).
Unlike so many who seem to see the new statewide PARCC math and English tests in black or white terms, Derek Briggs takes a nuanced view.
The professor of quantitative methods and policy analysis in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder believes the tests are a great improvement over its predecessors and need time to evolve. But tying them to accountability measures for teachers and schools early in the tests’ life span gives him pause.
Briggs’ words carry significant weight because he sits on the technical advisory committee of four large testing consortia, including PARCC.
Last week, while lawmakers were rushing to reach , Briggs was among a group of academics that appeared before the state Board of Education on Tuesday to answer questions about PARCC as the first year draws to a close.
You can listen to
There are few shades of gray, however, to Briggs’ view of how his comments were portrayed afterward in an e-mail that made the rounds among testing critics.
He thinks his words were twisted to serve a political purpose.
The unsigned e-mail eventually reached Briggs (and my inbox, too). An e-mail to the account of origin has not been answered.
Briggs labeled it “opt-out propaganda,” and wanted to set the record straight. Here is the letter he shared with Colorado Classroom:
On Tuesday, May 5th I participated in a three hour panel discussion about the PARCC tests at the behest of the Colorado State Board of Education. Other members of the panel included my colleagues Lorrie Shepard and Kevin Welner from the University of Colorado’s School of Education, as well as Sandra Bankes, an instructional intervention specialist from Colorado Springs. Each panel member gave a 10 minutes opening statement in which they offered perspectives on the PARCC tests and the role that they are playing in the education of Colorado students. Following this opening statement, panelists spent roughly the next two hours responding to questions posed by members of the state board. On the whole I believe the quality of discussion was quite high, and there was far more agreement among the panelists than there was disagreement. I made three specific points about the PARCC tests in my opening comments.
1. The PARCC tests have been thoughtfully and conscientiously designed;
2. The PARCC tests have many novel features that makes them an improvement on the tests (TCAP/CSAP) that have been administered in the past; and
3. The PARCC tests should be viewed as an evolving enterprise rather than a finished product.
In responding to questions from State Board members, I did my best to give reasoned and balanced answers about the potential strengths and weaknesses of the PARCC tests. I have served as a member of PARCC’s technical advisory committee over the past four years, and in that capacity my role has (and continues to be) to help PARCC create tests that are valid for their intended uses. To that end I have been simultaneously supportive of the people and the organizations involved in designing the PARCC tests, and constructively critical of their work in hopes of making it even better. There is still much we do not know about the product of all these efforts because the tests are being administered operationally for the first time this spring. But I have little doubt that if given the time and space, PARCC will build on its strengths and improve on its weaknesses.
During the last half hour members of the public in attendance were given the opportunity to make statements to the Board. It was with surprise that I heard two members of the audience make statements in which I was quoted as saying something that completely mischaracterized the nature of my testimony. My surprise turned to disappointment the next day when I saw this mischaracterization appear again, this time in an email that was forwarded to me after being widely circulated. The email was sent by graceandsanity@yahoo.com, an anonymous representative of an anonymous group of parents who oppose standardized testing and describe themselves as “diverse group of Montessori parents and families that originally mobilized at Denison Montessori, a Denver Public School, and now includes allies from Montessori and traditional schools across the Front Range.” The subject line of the email read “OOPS, Says PARCC Expert, John Oliver, Gutsy Teacher, and More.” The body of the email read as follows:
This is a total mischaracterization of both by position in general and my testimony on May 5 in particular. There is no transcript available so I cannot provide the precise sentences that I used over two and one half hours. But no one in attendance who was listening with even a hint of objectivity would have ascribed the quotation above to me and thereby insinuated that I considered PARCC a low quality test that should not be administered.
With regard to the first part of this alleged quote (“We want a quality test, something worth teaching to and developing curriculum for….”) what I actually communicated was that a key motivation behind PARCC, and one reason that it is such a lengthy test, was to ensure that it would be an example of a test worth teaching to. This is one reason the test is so long, because it involves performance-based tasks and has been carefully aligned to the Common Core of State Standards. With regard to the second part of this quote (“Rolling out PARCC so soon was a mistake…) what I actually communicated, following up on a point that was first made by Lorrie Shepard, was that I wish that it would have been possible to roll out PARCC without have the scores associated to possible accountability sanctions for teachers and schools in the first three years of implementation. This would give students, teachers and parents the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the test and how it aligns with school curricula without the added layer of accountability pressure. This would also give PARCC the opportunity to iron out the sort of kinks that are bound to occur in an assessment system of this magnitude. So do I think it is a mistake to roll out PARCC with accountability provisions attached in its first few years of existence? Yes. But that would be true of any new test being designed from the ground up, it is not a criticism specific to PARCC.
In other settings, I’ve offered expanded thoughts on standardized testing, the role of assessment in education, the role of tests for kids with special needs, and the opt-out movement. o see these, I’d encourage the reader to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFP94yQhBeE
I understand that there are many parents out there that are frustrated with the role that standardized testing is playing in their child’s education. But that does not provide a justification for willingly misrepresenting what someone has said in good faith and using it as fuel for a political agenda. I think a deliberative democratic dialogue over the role that student assessment can and should play in public education is important and necessary. To the extent that the opt-out movement is interested in promoting such a dialogue, it may well serve a useful purpose. But I hope in the future that the representatives of this movement will think twice before sending fabricated emails.
Sincerely,
Derek C. Briggs
