Why Refuse the SBAC?

Why REFUSE the SBAC?
• Idaho committed to an agreement through the SBAC consortium that allows any and all personal level data collected by the state, to be accessed by the federal government and limitless third parties. sbac-cooperative-agreement

• The test itself is not valid or reliable…Idaho rules of thoroughness state that any test given to a child must be valid and reliable. SBAC has not produced a reliability report for our state. They simply claim to be reliable.

• The SBAC is a psychometric test. Attitudes, behaviors, strengths, weaknesses and beliefs . It is against Idaho law to collect psychometric data on children. S1372E1(1)

• Actionable data is limited for parents and students.

• SBAC is a high stakes test. This encourages teachers teaching to the test, because 50% of their evaluation will be tied directly to their students test scores.

• It discriminates against poor kids, minorities, ELL’s, personal issues, because these kids are more likely to have issues with testing anyway. Not eating, sleeping or family issues these will affect their test score.

• The SBAC is expensive. ( We have seen $27.50 plus a $9.55 SBAC fee per child. )

• The testing times are too long. High schoolers will spend 8.5 hours testing and grade school 7 hours

• The SBAC testing consortium was funded by the federal government. This is illegal according to GEPA.  GEPA 1 page

• Cut scores are arbitrarily set not normed after testing a large population.

• Cut scores can be manipulated to show decline or improvement.

• Test is computer adaptive which means every child receives a different test. This negates the value of any comparable data.

• Because the consortium writes implements and then evaluates the tests, sets cut scores, and produces results there is no impartiality or outside audit.

• Teachers and parents are not allowed to review the tests. Parents will never know which of the adaptive tests their student took or how the scoring was applied.

• Direct scoring questions are scored by teachers or paid scorers each individually and subjectively interpreting  words like thorough or satisfactory.

• Parents and teachers receive no  actionable data, only a label of basic, advanced, proficient as defined by predetermined cut scores.  sample-score-report-iowa-performance-profile-   Smarter_BALANCED ICA_Grade_6_ELALiteracy_2014-2015_CurrentOpportunity.

• When you’re using a test for accountability, you’re not really using it to measure the kids.  You are using it to measure the school or the teacher or the district. ~Jon Cohen American Institutes for Research.

• “Teachers will teach towards the test. There is no force strong enough on this earth to prevent that.” The truth is tests exert an enormous effect on instructional practice. ~ David Coleman Common Core Standards .

• “The Common Core thus paves the way for education that is ever more test driven, that begins with tests and ends with tests, where teaching to the test is the only option left because the textbooks and and the tests were written and vetted by the same company.” Ana Kamenetz

Why Refuse SBAC PDF