NYC Kids PAC endorsements for Thursday's Democratic primary; please vote!

NYC Kids PAC has made our final round of endorsements for the Democratic primary which will be held THIS Thursday, September 13.  

We urge you to vote for the following candidates:

• Letitia James for Attorney General
• Jumaane Williams for Lieutenant Gov
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• John Liu in Senate District 11 
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• Jessica Ramos in Senate District 13
• Blake Morris in Senate District 17
• Zellnor Myrie in Senate District 20
• Ross Barkan in Senate District 22
• Jasi Robinson in Senate District 23
• Robert Jackson in Senate District 31
• Catalina Cruz in Assembly District 39

All these candidates had strong responses to our candidate surveys, and records of supporting our public schools. More specifically, they support reducing class size, empowering parents, lessening high-stakes testing, stopping school privatization, and reforming mayoral control by adding checks and balances.

We urge you to go vote for these candidates on Thursday.  You can also download our flyer here – and hand it out in front of your school or share it with friends and colleagues via email or social media. 

The polls will be open from 6 AM to 9 PM.  If you’re not sure which if any of these candidates are running for election in your district, you can check out your ballot and your polling place by entering your address here. 

Thanks!

Shino, Isaac, Gloria, Fatima, Leonie, Eduardo, Margaret, Andy, Brooke, Jiin, Naila, Karen and Tesa

How did the NY state exams go today? Teachers, parents, and students please respond

UPDATE: Apparently there was a major disruption of computer-based testing in many schools today.  No hard figures yet, but schools are being told by NYSED that they can reschedule the test on another day if they like.  Between the fact that New York students did significantly worse last year on computer-based tests than paper tests, the recent Questar breach of personal data from students who took the exams on computers, and this year's serious screw-up, the Regents should immediately suspend the use of computer-based exams.  The state tests are frustrating and stressful enough for children without adding this sort of disruption to their experience.  

Many teachers and parents reported that the ELA exams were too long, too difficult and too stressful -- with many kids working all day on the exams - up to 4-6 hours without a break.  For more check out the comments below.

 
How were the exams today?  Teachers, students and parents: please put your comments below about how the testing is going at your school.

We broke the Pineapple story in April 2012 from comments on my blog; here's a summary of the national scandal that ensued. 

In 2016, we also posted the critique of the PARCC exam from a NJ teacher that Celia Oyler originally posted and then took down after legal threats from PARCC.  I asked others to post it as well.  Many did but all of their posts, including Diane Ravitch’s,  had them taken down by Google  except for me, for some unknown reason.  It’s still up and has received the most page views of anything on my blog to this day.

It's important to hear your comments and views about the quality of the exam and how it's affecting kids. If you like, post anonymously, but if you're willing to talk to a reporter about your critique, you can contact me offline at leoniehaimson at gmail dot com.

From an upstate 8th grade teacher yesterday:

The 10 pages of Computer based testing assessment instructions took 30 minutes between reading and helping kids log on....at the end of the instructions, one student pushed his computer away and said I am done- I am opting out.