(This post is part of a series related to the VIVA/NEA 360° Report. See an overview here.)

By Rachel Rich.

I felt like I had won the Teachers’ Schoolhouse Sweepstakes as I opened an invitation to an NEA survey on “360 Degree Accountability”. How often do teachers get asked for an opinion?! I was equally blown away when asked to help summarize survey results and then present them to the NEA in Washington, DC. It’s been an inspiring, but mind-boggling journey.

The NEA commissioned VIVA to set up an interactive website – a far cry from restrictive fill-in-the-bubble surveys. I anticipated reading about favorite uses of benchmarks or glitzy computerized tests, having previously worked with teacher organizations and the Oregon Department of Education to identify common curricula and standards. My classes even piloted some of the very first Computer Adaptive Tests – which were well-written, took only 45 minutes and printed instant feedback. The test makers then solicited our candid reactions. We teachers were the ones demanding and designing change!

So I was horrified to discover that the NCLB standards and tests were designed by non-educators, imposed from the top down and then bizarrely misused. With very few exceptions, the nearly 1000 NEA survey respondents strongly opposed the standardized tests de jour and the draconian, grossly inaccurate Value Added Measure that ranks teachers by student scores.

After retirement I only heard about this in whispers. Then when the deadline for implementing Race to the Top loomed, and I relayed that I was speaking before the NEA Accountability Task Force, slowly teachers opened up. All were petrified to speak openly against Smarter Balanced, PARCC or VAM, due to threats of suspension and even loss of teaching licenses. It was doubly shocking to find these policies actually in print. Darth Vader would have been proud.

Local educators sadly echoed NEA survey results. Too long. Exhausting. Demoralizing. More a test of computer skills than knowledge. Especially unfair to ELL and SPED students. Putting instructional focus solely on data and tests. Shortening instructional time. Disruptive. Taking over the whole school from March to May. Not what they hoped for. Too expensive. And killing electives. I was struck by their passion, dedication and grief.

This catapulted me into research on the dense terminology and PR swirling around CCSS like a full-scale blizzard. Glossaries, government studies and Smarter Balanced guides piled up like a foot of snow.

Conference calls introduced me to the team – brilliant, nationally certified and even published. Oddly, we seemed to have been selected for neutrality. Yet we were not to be bamboozled; soon our research turned us against the industrializing and digitizing of public education, such that our mentor began to worry we might be too blunt to get published.

Our first VIVA assignment was to list all the unique ideas in the survey and then translate them into recommendations, arguments and research – on everything from equitable funding to the importance of social and emotional skills. It’s funny though, at times this distracted from the predominant theme of standardized testing. It was hard to see the forest for the trees. Despite our best intentions, VIVA’s razzle dazzle and rushed deadlines kept testing issues from appearing either in bold print or as a section unto itself.

Meanwhile, VIVA urged us to “be positive and not so critical.” So I learned not to say, “Bill Gates tried to squash grassroots democracy, by avoiding school boards and teacher organizations to sell his CCSS agenda.” Instead I said, “The best way to teach democracy is to model it for public schools. That means policy makers must first consult with stakeholders – students, parents and teachers – before making decisions affecting education.” My tongue was sore from biting.

Wham! Thanksgiving morning an email gob smacked us with a request for a hasty and major rewrite lightly termed “reframing”. We had four days to throw respondents’ flavorful opinions and our savory facts into a pressure cooker and boil it down to a bland pulp.

Our recommendation, “Widen curriculum to promote all areas of human growth such as curiosity, creativity, collaboration and other life-long skills” was now supposed to read, “Use more comprehensive and more accurate assessments to determine the pace of students intellectual skill growth and knowledge acquisition.” I may not be Einstein’s daughter, but this obfuscated our criticism of NCLB’s narrow focus on math and English. Or else it was a convoluted way to say, “Let’s create a bubble test for creativity.” Balking at changing our message, we stubbornly stuck to trimming. We were all a bunch of pains in the class.

Feeling pushed around, we researched VIVA’s background, which left us feeling like our brains had been whirled through a blender. It was naïve to believe survey agencies merely present results. They are spin-masters. Their CEO and governing board largely represent charter schools, while their president is a renowned advocate of high stakes testing. On top of this, their chief funder is Bill Gates, the originator of the Common Core and high stakes testing. Still, there is no doubt in my mind these are sincere, honorable people who want what’s best for kids. It’s just that we disagree on how to go about it.

VIVA’s new bright blue and green flyer openly admits to their agenda when asking their ambassadors to: “Share VIVA links and tweets on social media (and) publicly support at least 80% of VIVA’s ‘consensus points.’” (Their emphasis, not mine.) Methinks the NEA hired them as a last ditch effort to save a decade long investment in keeping up with government NCLB policy.

The NEA also had no desire to publicize our well written opus on their website since it does not represent one unified, official opinion. Nor did they want anyone to present survey results before they had the chance. After all, this was their baby. Still, we had been sold on publication and speaking before senators. Dazed by the world of politics, we got schooled.

But we succeeded in other ways. Long past our designated 1 ½ hour time slot, the Vice-President, Betsy Pringle, and NEA Board kept us for a full four hours! The NEA had even rescheduled the Accountability Task Force to join us so that both our teams could confer. And we had the privilege of meeting the President, Lily Eskelsen Garcia. We were able to speak straight to the heart about the effects of high stakes testing on students and teachers. Ultimately, the union used our work as an internal document.

I’d like to believe the survey, along with our written and oral report somehow contributed to the NEA’s policy shifts. Within a month the union came out in favor of calming the data frenzy, issuing grade-span rather than annual tests, and teaching to the whole child. They even endorsed Bill Gates’ recent call for a two-year moratorium on high stakes testing – all huge steps. A union is like an enormous ship that takes a long time to turn around – hopefully before running aground.

In the course of research, I also uncovered shocking documents. A Brookings Institute study shows NCLB testing costs have exploded from $315 million to over $8 billion annually. Pearson plans to digitize all students from kindergarten through college or military. Smarter Balanced and PARCC monitor students’ Facebook and Twitter accounts to check for cheating – but without parental notification! Bill Gates, the President, Arne Duncan and many congressmen want to privatize public schools. They love Race to the Top, never mind the competition leaves ELL, SPED and minorities in the dust. Never mind charters have slightly lower scores despite abandoning lower achievers. Worst of all, this huge investment in almighty test scores has had sorry results: SAT’s are down 21 points, ACT’s show zero change and NAEP scores were higher in 1988 – when class sizes were smaller, students could count on having teachers with more experience and schools weren’t over-tested. High stakes testing is a colossal failure.

Our group’s ongoing conversation has inspired me to submit articles locally, write congressmen and dialog on edu-blogs – which I advocate others do if they want a better future for schools. Working with the local chapter of CAPE (the Community Alliance for Public Education) keeps me, students, parents and teachers informed. (Luckily, because I’m retired, I can’t be fired). Best of all, I get to help shape new testing policies. A joint project by the Oregon Department of Education and our teachers’ union gathers stakeholder input through meetings all across the state. Defining past mistakes helps refine a framework for a healthier accountability system, before jumping headlong into a new program.

Our NEA/VIVA project turned out to be a boot camp for writers, bloggers, union leaders and education activists. For exercise we wrote, edited and dialogued. For dinner we gobbled statistics, quotes and acronyms. For fun we tossed around opinions among our diverse group of pragmatists, idealists, politicians and purists. We even periodically switched roles, one day an optimist, the next day a pessimist, one day gullible, the next day cynical. Working with my sincere and brilliant colleagues has been one of the most rewarding and stimulating experiences of my life. And though others may have tried to twist our words, the project has actually served to amplify our authentic teacher voices.