Dear Parents and Guardians,
Your
child's scores are now available on ARIS Parent Link. For what it is
worth, there are a few things that I think we should all do:
1) Ignore the test results and do not tell our children what their "number" is, no matter how high or low;
2)
Know that these tests are part of a movement to privatize public
education by convincing parents that our children are underperforming,
compared with other countries, and a massive restructuring of the public
education system is the only thing that will save the future of the US;
this would involve higher standards, better teachers (which requires a
de-unionized teaching force), more
charter schools, vouchers for private schools, and market-based methods
to make parents consumers of "public" education; they say that this is
needed because of the "new" US economy, where because of economic and
labor policies, we have an increasingly bimodal distribution of jobs
(you are either a Walmart Greeter or a Scientist, with few solid
working- and lower-middle class options left);
3)
Recognize that no elite NYC private schools use high stakes
standardized tests in this way and that the country that is held up as a
model of universal, high quality public education, Finland, also does
not use test scores in this way;
4)
Know that our state has purposefully set up our children to fail in
order to "shock" us into submission and turn on our children's teachers
and their unions;
5)
Resist the urge to pressure our children's teachers and schools to do
better on these tests; this will only totally eliminate the arts,
sports, sciences, recess and other activities that have been diminished
in the pursuit of high scores and that children desperately need; these
are the things that keep some of our most vulnerable children in school;
6)
Be aware also that our children's test scores are being given by the
state to inBloom, a private company that will store all of children's
data in a "cloud" and offer it to other private companies to make more
educational "products" that are typically "personalized" and
computer-based and designed to further undermine face-to-face
instruction, classrooms and human teachers. See here for inBloom: https://www.edsurge.com/inbloom-inc See here for criticisms of it: http://www.classsizematters.org/inbloom_student_data_privacy/
7)
Consider opting out of the tests next year as a way of resisting
corporate education reform and the monetizing of our children's school
experiences.
So that is what I think we should do; feel free to agree or disagree!
Best,
Victoria (Tory) Frye, D6 parent
Fantastic article. You have said it all. The only ones making money out of these horrible tests will be the test materials companies. The scores will go up next year not because your children have become that much smarter, but because they have spent the whole year preparing for the new test and losing their chance to learn things that will allow them to lead a meaningful life.
ReplyDelete