Why the DOE should cancel the unfair, unreliable and invalid "gifted" test now and forever & podcast on need to cancel all high-stakes testing this year

 Please read my piece published today at Gotham Gazette.  It explains why the DOE should cancel the "gifted" tests immediately; now and forever.  It makes no sense to continue this invalid, unreliable and biased exam, especially in the midst of a pandemic and the prospect of steep budget cuts to schools.  The contract will cost $1.7M and this doesn't even include the considerable but undisclosed DOE costs of administering this test to kids as young as four-year-old, one on one.  

My piece also deals with the horrific record of Pearson, who produces the test.  The renewal of the Pearson contract will be voted on next Wed., January 27 by the New York City Panel for Educational Policy.  Those who would like to speak on the proposal can register here, starting at 5:30 PM.  You can also email PEP members with your views.  Here are their emails: vleung@schools.nyc.gov; SWaite3@schools.nyc.gov; lpodvesker@schools.nyc.gov; PCalandrella@schools.nyc.gov; ICarmignani@schools.nyc.gov; GChacon@schools.nyc.gov; MKraft2@schools.nyc.gov; GLinnen@schools.nyc.gov; Achapman7@schools.nyc.gov; NGreenGiles@schools.nyc.gov; DDillingham@schools.nyc.gov; kparkprice@schools.nyc.gov; tomcsheppard@yahoo.com; ehenry16@schools.nyc.gov

Below is my podcast from Wednesday on the need to cancel all high-stakes testing this spring, including the gifted tests, the state 3rd-8th grade exams, and the Regents high school exit exams, with guests Akil Bello of FairTest, Lisa Rudley of NY State Allies for Public Education, and Jeanette Deutermann of LI Opt out.

 

As discussed on the podcast, here is the NYSAPE petition urging the State Commissioner to cancel the Regents high school exit exams and to ask the US Department of Education for a waiver from having to administer the 3rd-8th grade exams this spring; also the FairTest petition to the US Department of Education and state education policymakers to suspend all high stakes testing this year. Finally, blog post and fact sheet on what’s wrong with the Regents graduation exit exams.

Jeanette Deutermann on the one word everyone needs to remember right now

The following is from a Facebook post of Jeanette Deutermann, founder of Long Island Opt Out and co-founder of NYSAPE.  It's reprinted here with her permission.

All of our Facebook feeds are filled with posts of parents furious with teachers giving too much work, too little work, teachers furious about kids not logging on, kids sleeping in, and kids not completing the work. I want to implore everyone to keep one word in the front of their brains right now: EMPATHY. We all like to think we have empathy for others, but now is the time to prove it. 

For parents: if you think a teacher is assigning too much work, just realize - some teachers are untenured with chairpeople scrutinizing each and every assignment. Some are getting nasty emails from parents demanding more work. Some just are unaware of how long it is taking students to complete their work. Communicate with them. Most teachers will respond “no problem! Just do what you can!”.

If you think a teacher isn’t assigning enough work, just realize- maybe the teacher is sick themselves. Maybe they are trying to lighten the load for the student. Maybe they have three kids of their own that they are dealing with. Maybe they are dealing with the loss of someone they love. Just today I heard of a teacher who lost both parents to the virus but has continued to work putting out assignments. Assume everyone is doing the best they can. Communicate. 

Teachers: if you think a student is being lazy or not taking responsibility for not completing work, just realize - maybe the student has to help taking care of siblings. Maybe the student is sick themselves. Maybe the student is struggling with mental health issues that are now exacerbated by this issue. Maybe they are dealing with the loss of a loved one. Maybe it’s something as simple as sharing computers and devices with family members. Or maybe it’s more complicated. Are some just refusing to do work? Maybe, but most likely there is something else going on. Students that were in therapy before this started now have to have phone therapy or none at all. For some, being in school WAS their safe space. Kids that were active and on sports now have no access even to most fields to run around or exercise. For many, their home is a stressful environment. That is only going to increase tenfold now. Sleep issues are escalating for both kids and parents, so waking up early isn’t possible, reasonable, or healthy for many. 

My advice to everyone: HAVE EMPATHY. No one truly knows what is happening in each other’s lives. WE’RE ALL DOING THE BEST WE CAN. Stop tearing each other down and lower your expectations. For some their best will be a full day of homeschooling, board games and a home cooked meal. For others it will be surviving the day. Both are normal, both are acceptable. Breathe, take care of each other, and realize that these are the little things. Let’s come out of this proud of how we treated each other. #crisisschooling

Jeanette Deutermann
The Printed Pillow
Author, Opting Out-The Story of the Parents' Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools jeanettedeutermann.com 

Why parents opt out of exams and what are the consequences for kids and schools

The tests are coming!  The state ELA tests arrive this week  for grades 3-8. The paper version of the ELA exam will be given in NYC on April 11-12 and computer-based on April 10-17.  Math tests on paper will be administered on May 1-2, and computer-based tests on May 1-8.

For the past three years, the statewide opt out rate has ranged from 19-21%. More than 90% of NY districts failed to make the 95% participation rate last year that the feds supposedly require.  No NY school or child has suffered because of opting out in the past, and this remains the case this year.

Schools will not be ranked lower in the state's accountability system for a high opt out rate or lose funding as a result, and children refusing to take the test will have not have low scores entered into their records.  LoHud News reports that the most serious penalty for schools with high opt out rates will be paperwork: "Schools that "persistently and substantially fail" to hit the 95-percent participation target will have to do a self-assessment of their failings and develop a plan to do better."  Newsday quotes the State Education Department spokesperson this way: “It’s up to parents to decide if their children should take the tests, and we want them to have all the facts so they can make an informed decision.”

So what are the facts?  The state exams have been shortened from three days to two, which is an improvement, and the state mandated that no child could be held back because of a low score on the exam, and no teacher judged on the results, as occurred during Mayor Bloomberg's administration.

But there are still many questions about the quality and usefulness of these exams. Here a third grade teacher points out how many of the reading passages continue to be far above grade level, and how the results fail to provide any useful diagnostic information to teachers about their students.  Many other educators have pointed out how the state exams are replete with questions like "What is the main idea" of a reading passage, while offering multiple choice answers that are confusing and ambiguous.

As Jeanette Deutermann of Long Island Opt Out points out, the overemphasis on high-stakes testing has caused schools to narrow the curriculum, focus on low-quality worksheets and eliminate project-based learning.  The exams also widen inequities and are toxic for students, as Johanna Garcia explains.  Chancellor Farina privately told a group of NYC parents two years ago that she herself would opt out of the test if she had an English Language Learner or special needs child -- though she  refused to admit this publicly.

The Common Core standards and exams have also promoted other damaging practices in schools, such as "close reading" strategies in which teachers aren't supposed to explain the larger context of passages, with students deprived of the background knowledge they need to fully comprehend assigned texts.  For the best and most concise critique of how this impairs learning, see a one minute video from Nick Tampio, professor at Fordham University.

Indeed, some Common Core proponents are now backtracking and renouncing the value of the current state exams, including Louisiana State Superintendent John White, (formerly Deputy Chancellor of NYC DOE) who now says that reading tests should be based instead on knowledge and a broad curriculum: 

The trouble is that by not requiring knowledge of any specific book or facts, reading tests have contributed to the false impression that reading is mainly about having skills such as being able to summarize, and not about background knowledge. Walk into many English classrooms today and you will see students capably identifying an article’s main idea. But you’re less likely to find students learning the historical context for a novel or discussing the novel’s broader meaning. By not requiring knowledge, tests create no incentive for particular knowledge to be taught. 

This is not fair to adolescents, who need knowledge to become effective adult readers. It’s particularly not fair to students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, whose summer breaks rarely involve trips abroad or afternoons at museums, and who are thus at a disadvantage on any test that, whether it’s acknowledged or not, measures background knowledge. And it’s not good policy for a nation struggling with the influence of falsified news reports over its citizenry.

White has been congratulated for taking this position by many who formerly supported the Common Core, like Robert Pondiscio of the Fordham Institute and Larry Berger of Amplify, without acknowledging how this new stance is totally contrary to the current regime, which emphasizes "skills" in dissecting "texts" over content and background knowledge.   

Walter Isaacson, head of the Aspen Institute, which has received millions from the Gates Foundation for promoting the Common Core as well as other damaging experiments, congratulated John White this week in a speech before the Public Affairs Research Council, for being "incredibly experimental” and "willing to try new things but admit when something isn’t working and course correct", according to an attendee. 

Here are my responses to this on twitter:

Incredibly experimental is not a great compliment @walterisaacson if you have a child in the Louisiana public schools cc @deutsch29blog https://t.co/UQ7PQeMOHg

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 8, 2018

What right did @billgates and their facilitators and grantees like @aspeninstitute have to experiment on the entire nation’s public schoolchildren all at once by imposing flawed #commoncore standards and exams-@WalterIsaacson @LouisianaSupe @larryamplify @gatesed https://t.co/rpm8bCY9r0

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 8, 2018

Until you guys admit your complicity & arrogance in imposing your flawed vision w/o consultation & consent of those affected your second thoughts deserve no credit https://t.co/u2QRASF1i9

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 8, 2018

Unless it can be shown that the New York state exams are high-quality, yield reliable and useful results, and encourage rather than discourage good teaching and real learning in our schools, parents not only have the right to opt out their children of these exams, they have good reasons to do so. 

As Chris Cerrone, a teacher and co-founder of Western New Yorkers for Public Education, writes:

The opt-out movement is not just about refusing to take a test, but, instead, offering a vision for public education that rejects a focus on assessment skills, workbooks and teacher-centered classrooms. Families who boycott yearly standardized tests instead advocate for student-centered learning and creative activities that include hands-on and real-world simulations. Imagine every classroom and school system engaging students, to promote imaginative, higher-order thinking that goes well beyond the narrow scope of a test-focused education system. These are the skills our children need to truly be ready and flexible to meet a rapidly changing world as they graduate.

Sample parent opt out letters are offered by NYS Allies for Public Education  and NYC Opt Out.

Jeanette Deutermann on why she & thousands of other NY parents will be opting their children out of the state exams

Check out the latest NPE video below with Jeanette Deutermann explaining with heartbreaking eloquence why she and thousands of other parents will be opting their children out of the New York state exams this spring.

Sample opt out letters are posted here; and here's a good FAQ dispelling the myth that your children could be subjected to a failing test score on their records or their schools suffer funding cuts or low accountability ratings as a result of their opting out.  Here's a NYSAPE fact sheet on the same issue.

Instead, NYC DOE and astroturf organizations have put out lots of confusing and misleading information on this issue.  Don't believe them.  See what NYSED itself has said:

To comply with the federal law, one school academic accountability calculation still must be based on the percentage of all students who pass state tests. ...But New York's plan also creates a new "core subject performance index" that reflects the results only for the portion of students who actually take the state tests. If the result using the index calculation is better, that performance measure can be used to determine whether a school is targeted for additional funding and academic support.

"In essence, both of these measures are looked at,"  Schwartz [of NYSED] told the Regents. "...if we have schools that have high achievement but also have high rates of non-participation, those schools will not likely end up on our list of those schools that need to be focused upon."

In addition, parents' data privacy concerns should be even stronger given the recent, unexplained breach of NY students' personal information from Questar, the company that produces the NY State tests.  And the state  has still not implemented or enforced the 2014 student privacy law -- with many weaknesses in data privacy and security practices outstanding, as outlined in the letter we and NYSAPE sent to the NYSED Chief Privacy Officer last year.

Jeanette Deutermann | The True Cost of the Tests from S4E Media on Vimeo.