NYSED official agrees: state ELA exams given to English Language learners provide no useful information to their teachers or parents

Tomorrow at 11: 30 AM, Sunday April 11, I will be appearing on Tiempo, on ABC, hosted by Joe Torres, talking about why all kids but especially English Language Learners should opt out of next week’s ELA state exams.  The program taped last week.  English Language Learners make up 14.4% of the total NYC public school population.

I appeared with Angelica Infante-Green, NY State Associate Commissioner of the Office of Bilingual Education.  To my surprise, Ms. Infante-Green immediately agreed that the state ELA exam is useless in terms of the information they provide about ELL students to teachers, parents or schools.  She also said that because the test was so difficult, it could not show "growth" and thus was an invalid measure to evaluate teachers with ELL students. Yet she strongly opposed opting out of the test, and continued to argue that it could hurt the school’s funding if too many students opted out – a point that has been refuted by other NYS Education officials.

Ms. Infante-Green revealed that NYSED had sent in a waiver request to the US Department of Education, asking if they could exempt English Language Learners from the test for at least two years after they enter this country, instead of only one year, which is the mandate now. She said that they really wanted to exempt such students from the ELA exam for at least three years, but didn't think they could possibly get such a waiver.

Below is some of the research I did in advance by asking teachers and professors, expert in this area.  This is important information to share, especially as I didn’t have the time to make all these points

Please also read Katie Lapham’s terrific list of reasons to opt out, and the oped in the Daily News today by Arthur Goldstein, a high school ESL teacher.

Katie Lapham: first grade dual language teacher, previously 5th grade ESL teacher:

Children take the grades 3-8 ELA test after just one year in the system (even though it takes a lot longer than that to become fluent in academic English). Looking at test score data for ELLs highlights how unreliable and misleading the scores are. Only three percent of ELLs "passed" the 2014 ELA. It's ridiculous to make the claim that 97% of ELLs are "failing" in ELA. 

The scores are useless to me and do not reflect the growth ELLs make in the classroom.

The tests are abusive: ELLs get extended time (time and a half) on the tests; instead of 90 minutes per day for six days (3 days for ELA, 3 days for math), 5th grade ELLs, for example, are entitled to 135 minutes each testing day. That’s a total of 13.5 hours! 

Our ELLs are subjected to even more tests afterwards. Following the NYS ELA and math tests, ELLs are mandated to take the 4-part NYSESLAT which assesses their proficiency in the reading, writing, listening and speaking of English. The reading and writing sub-tests resemble the NYS ELA test.   This means hours and hours more of testing.

Laura Kaplan, Adjunct Professor of bilingual education at Hunter College:

All research in the field suggests that it takes English language learners 5-7 years to develop Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) in English, the kind of academic knowledge that is tested on standardized tests (Cummins, 1979, 1981, 1984). 

This is quite a different kind of knowledge than conversational English (Basic Interpersonal Communication - BICS) which can be picked up in 1-3 years.  Just because a student is conversationally proficient in English, this proficiency should not be confused with academic mastery that a native English speaker might be expected to have at the same age.

The testing is totally antithetical to all research on English language learning. It is inhumane and cruel and shows us absolutely nothing.  Testing negatively impacts instructional time which could be productively spent learning English, not test-prep, and fosters resentment, decreased motivation, and the highest dropout rates of any other population (ELLs). Shame on the SED for propagating tests which have no educational value.

Watch my appearance on Tiempo with Joe Torres here- April 12th, 2015 show

A message from Governor Cuomo: It's that time of year again!

By New Paltz based artist, Matt Maley

Come learn about threats to student privacy at NPE conference April 25-26 and much more!

The Network for Public Education is having our second annual national conference April 25-26 in Chicago.  Last year’s conference in Austin was a blast, and this year promises to be even better.  Check the NPE website , and the full schedule of events here.

You can see the keynote addresses will feature terrific speakers such as Karen Lewis, Yong Zhao, and Jitu Brown. Panels will include Nancy Carlsson-Paige Deborah Meier, Jesse Hagopian, Mercedes Schneider, Monty Neill, Dr. Kevin Welner, Carol Burris, Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig,  bloggers Jennifer Berkshire (Edushyster) and Peter Greene, and many more.

Diane Ravitch, NPE's President and co-founder, will moderate a conversation with NEA president Lily Eskelson and AFT President Randi Weingarten. I expect Diane will ask some probing questions in her inimitable fashion.

We will also discuss student privacy.  Last July, after inBloom was defeated, Rachael Stickland of Colorado and I formed a new national group called the Parent Coalition to Protect Student Privacy.  (You can join our mailing list by signing up here.) Rachael and I will be speaking on a panel about the continuing threats to student privacy and autonomy posed by the sharing of personal information with ed tech vendors, along with high school student Nathan Ringo of Minnesota, who challenged his school’s use of computers to monitor students,  and Cynthia Liu of K12 Network, who helped lead the battle against Los Angeles school’s billion dollar IPad purchase, which is still under investigation by the FBI and contributed to the departure of Dr. John Deasy, LAUSD superintendent. 

For hotel accommodations, rooms are still available at both the Drake (Hilton.com) where the conference will be held, and Residence Inn (Marriott.com) nearby.  There may be some group discounts still available.  Check the registration link here.  If that doesn't work, you can try the reservations desk at 866-596-7890, and request the Network for Public Education room block. But in any case, please come!

Flawed state budget bill gives parents more reasons to opt out

On Tuesday night, a state budget bill was approved that doubles down on high-stakes testing and removes any local input– with student "growth scores" on the state exams linked to teacher ratings in a uniform evaluation system. Teachers must do well in terms of student scores to achieve an effective rating. If not, they cannot get tenure, and they risk losing their jobs if found to be ineffective two years in a row. Teacher and student surveys cannot be used in any local evaluation system and the State Education Dept. will be tasked with creating new "student learning objectives" or assessments in all the subjects and grades that do not currently have a state exam. Schools must hire "independent" evaluators to observe and assess the teachers in addition to principals and/or school staff. If districts don't adopt this system by mid-November they will lose any increase in state funding. A good summary of the new teacher evaluation system is described here – as well as other aspects of the bill, including an aggressive receivership program, in which struggling schools can be converted into charter schools without any vote of the parents (which is what the existing state law requires.)

The entire bill is posted here, Assembly vote here, and the Senate vote here. The bill was approved despite the opposition of the NY State United Teachers, the NYC Principals Union, and the NYS PTA, (but not apparently the UFT). The Council of State Superintendents and NY State School Boards Association pointed out this is the fourth deeply- flawed teacher evaluation system to be adopted in five years: "The well-known definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Here is some of the angry reaction from educators after the bill passed.

Now parents are faced with a limited set of choices. The ELA exams are scheduled for April 14-16. Class Size Matters and NYS Allies for Public Education, our statewide coalition, urge all parents of students in grades 3-8 to opt their children out of these faulty, unreliable and excessive exams. Some of the reasons offered by NYSAPE as well as sample opt out letters you can use are here. NYC-based Change the Stakes offers additional reasons and opt out letters here. Lisa Nielsen, also known as Innovative Educator, lists more reasons here. Last year over 60,000 students did refuse the state exams, according to the State Education Department, and in a statewide survey of NY districts, more than 35 percent of superintendents said at least 5 percent of their eligible students opted out. Twenty-three percent of superintendents reported opt outs at 10 percent or more. Not a single school or district experienced any penalty or any loss of funding.

I would add another reason to opt out relates to serious privacy concerns, with Pearson collecting much personal student information via the exams, and as we learned recently, closely monitoring student social media during and after the tests. The new state law gives parents yet more cause to opt out: to express their vehement opposition to the way parent voices are being ignored, while our schools, teachers, and students are increasingly defined by means of one-dimensional, badly designed and unreliable high-stakes exams. If you are a NYC parent and willing to gather information on opt outs at your school, please send an email to changethestakes@gmail.com.

Other articles and blogs about reasons to opt-out of standardized tests:

Why are Teachers and Students Opting Out of Standardized Testing? -The Nation

Why my children opt-out of standardized testing- and yours should too -Quartz

4 Reasons parents want to opt kids out of standardized tests (It's not just about the Common Core)- AL.com

Ira Shor: Why You Should Opt Out Your Children from State Testing- Diane Ravitch's Blog

Why We Chose to Opt Out- The Huffington Post Blog