NY Chancellor & NYSED Commissioner tell districts & schools to honor parental right to opt out

On social media, public school teachers have shared horror stories about children taking many hours to complete the excessively long, arduous untimed NY ELA exams this week. Stories of children frustrated with glitches in the computer-based tests, and losing their work because of the inability of Questar for the second year in a row to deal with the internet traffic are also widespread.

Parents at schools throughout the state have revealed how their children have been offered bribes and threatened  with punishment to try to compel them to take these exams. Nevertheless, 46% of eligible students opted out on Long Island, according to a preliminary figures published by Newsday.

Now this morning, Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa and Commissioner MaryEllen Elia released a statement instructing schools and districts to honor parents' rights to opt out of these exams.

Here it is:

Spread the word, and please share this information with other parents as well as your principals and district superintendents. 

Debate on high-stakes testing and opting out on today's Brian Lehrer Show

Check out today's interview with CEC District 6 President Johanna Garcia on the Brian Lehrer Show. Johanna did a great job of explaining why students should opt out of these unreliable exams and the negative impact of high-stakes testing on our schools and the quality of education in a debate with Richard Buery, former Deputy Mayor under de Blasio and now chief of public affairs at KIPP charter schools.  Please listen to the entire segment -- but for a quick recap, my tweets are below.  Rarely do real-life parents or education advocates get on this show, let's hope that Brian will do this more often in the future.




    

ATT Parents: Listen in @brianlehrer show w/ @JohannaG_NYC Garcia at 10:30 AM speaking on testing & #optout. Very rare for real parent leader or edu advocate to get on his show - listen in at https://t.co/xVesrFZgok or AM 820 cc @NYCOptOut @NYSAPE

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@JohannaG_NYC sez state tests are highly flawed, schls are becoming test prep factories & undermining real learning & critical thinking, harming communities of color most of all & used to close their schools. @RichardBuery sez tests working @kipp charter. https://t.co/y3ahlKmG90

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Interesting only defender state exams on @brianlehrer show comes fr/ charter school sector; @JohannaG_NYC defends standardized testing via NAEPs but state exams aren't useful & aren't diagnostic. When curriculum teaches to test results lose significant - ie #campbellslaw https://t.co/dvMJ1vYWTH

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@JohannaG_NYC unsurprised charter schools like testing as their high scores are gateway to privatization - @brianlehrer asks @richardbuery whether isn't it true that charters' corporate/business model is based on high scores. Buery doesn't really answer. https://t.co/BSvsDBf8jQ

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

After repeated questions @richardbuery rejects premise that high scores are key to marketing effort of charter schools including @kipp network & others. Repeats false claim that "charter schools are public schools" simply allows entrepreneurs to "experiment" to improve education https://t.co/lW9USrtbPW

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Parent caller: Schools are still described by their test scores & parents try to keep their kids out of schools w/low scores that are correlated w/students of color; which contributes to segregation. What else to look at for school quality? asks @BrianLehrer (I wd say class size) https://t.co/SAIChljoyi

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@brianlehrer isn't #optout movement mostly affluent parents - higher rates in suburbs? Actually that claim is disputed here: https://t.co/OuhxGbPkXP +there's less access to information in communities of color & more intimidation of parents in @nycschools https://t.co/XaKhF3CqZL

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Wish also @brianlehrer wd address unreliability of state exams - results completely invalid as shown by NAEPs, not grade appropriate, & politically manipulated to see improvement where there's none https://t.co/hpsMPV5kSf

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@JohannaG_NYC sez there's a big language barrier & culturally, hard to challenge authority ; we tripled the # in last two yrs of #optouts in D6. (Also @NYSEDNews Dept. Chancellor admitted state exams useless for most ELLs - only tiny no. test proficient) https://t.co/QUTELsiwLP

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@johannaG_NYC Our public school students are competing vs charter students who have advantages - (w/far fewer ELLS and with special needs) https://t.co/3cCMLfClUy

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

In response to caller, @johannaG_NYC says This is not about participating for parents - #optout parents are among the most active at the school level; its about focusing on civics education, critical thinking https://t.co/h326jQfxh5

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@richardbuery says we need data for how well schools are doing & for equity - yet really, we've know about achievement gap for >30 years & yet gap has increased NOT decreased in @nycschools & elsewhere b/c high-stakes testing makes it worse not better. https://t.co/fVKF8fdD1X

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Fallacy to claim we don't want objective info - these tests are completely flawed, they compressed 3 days into 2 days w/kids tested for 5 hrs; toxic tests, marginalize communities of color; don't provide equity -sez @JohannaG_NYC . https://t.co/IVwP6SaNYq

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Bravo! @johannaG_NYC pts out state tests create zero-sum game where schools are competing for seats, creating losers & winners & hurting kids. Great job - hope @BrianLehrer show will now on hear from parents/advocates in exploring critical problems @nycschools cc @nycoptout https://t.co/QwCvYni01e

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

New nationwide poll shows parents find standardized tests of little value

High Achievement NY put out a press release trumpeting a new poll from Achieve -- both organizations funded by the Gates Foundation to promote the Common Core and testing.  Though the poll did find that parents are concerned that their children may not be sufficiently prepared for college and career, there is little to show that the Common Core standards and more testing leads to better preparation. 

The results of the poll itself is interesting and shows growing discontent with the testing regime.

See this slide, revealing that 13% of parents opted their children out of standardized tests last year.

Despite lower rates overall than upper-income suburban Moms (their words, not mine) African-America and  Hispanic Moms intend to opt their children out in greater numbers next year -- with the number of African-American mothers nearly doubling.

Also, respondents give a variety of reasons for opposing standardized testing, with 49% saying the exams do a poor job capturing their children's true abilities, and 48% say that the exams yield no positive benefits to children taking the exam. Especially interesting is that 53% of African American  Moms say their children are subjected to too many tests. 

 Altogether, these responses must be very discouraging to Gates et. al. which has spent millions of dollars funding organizations and media outlets to spread the message that parents who opt out of Common Core exams are selfish, mean-spirited and misguided.

More cuts to the classroom , despite Tweed's claims

In today's Daily News, it is revealed that schools will be forced to pull teachers out of their classrooms for up to three days next month to score the state exams.

This will even affect students in grades, like Kindergarten, who do not have to take these tests. Why?

"[Some principals] said they were reluctant to pull teachers in older grades out of the classrooms so close to the state math exams, which are given in March."

In the past, DOE hired teachers to score these standardized tests during the February break. Now, schools will have to pay substitutes to take their place.

Yet in a budget presentation to the PEP, DOE officials falsely described the revision in the “scoring of state assessments in Math and ELA” as a major part of its “$40 million cut to Central and Field.”

In another budget document circulated by Tweed, this change was listed as having “No Impact to Schools.”

Instead, this represents yet another major budget cut to our schools. Not to mention its damaging effects on the classroom.

More testing, less learning. And more evidence of how the DOE’s claims to be making major cuts to administration cannot be trusted.