Why the Renewal program will likely fail, without attention to class size and space

The de Blasio administration and NYC Department of Education recently announced they would expand the community school system to 200 schools by 2017, by supplying them with a “suite of social services.”  Eighty-three of these “community schools” would be sited at the struggling Renewal schools, as already announced (though there are 94 Renewal schools, all of which were supposed to get wraparound services.) 

In addition, forty five “community schools” will be schools with low attendance rates; forty are already existing “community schools” (where?) and another sixteen are supposed to be new schools that are not low-performing.   
   

Yet there are many problems with this plan.  In many of the Renewal schools, the DOE is going ahead with co-locations, inserting new schools into their buildings rather than leaving them with the space needed for a counselor’s office, medical office, or other social services.  When Norm Fruchter, mayoral appointee to the Panel for Educational Policy asked about how co-locations threaten the space needed for community schools during a co-location vote at the February PEP meeting, Chancellor Farina responded that “community schools are a state of mind.”  

Of the ten schools targeted for co-locations and voted on during the April PEP meeting, five were Renewal schools.  And the problems don’t just lie in space for social services. Many parents and teachers at the PEP hearing talked about how class sizes were already too large, and that these co-locations would prevent them from being able to reduce class size, and that they feared class sizes would increase.  And yet all the co-locations were approved. 

The Success charter Academy Bronx 3 proposal was the most contentious, to be co-located in JHS 45 in the Bronx; where three Renewal schools are already located.   At JHS 145, there are many classes as large as 29, according to DOE data.  At Millennium Business Academy in the same building, many classes at 28 and 29 students, and Urban Science Academy many at 25-26 – both far above what would be optimal and the Contract for Excellence goals for 23 per class in the middle grades that the city promised to achieve in 2007. 

During the April PEP meeting, two other co-locations were voted on for Renewal schools:  P.S. 50 Vito Marcantonio with class sizes of 31 in 2^nd grade, and a seventh grade inclusion class with special needs students at 33.  At August Martin high school, many classes run as high as 34 or 35. 

And yet all of the co-locations were approved.   The vote on the Success Academy Bronx 3 co-location co-location to be inserted into the JHS 145 building was the closest, with 7-5 in favor.  

Voting yes were mayoral appointees, Isaac Carmignani, Roberto Soto-Carrión, D. Miguelina Zorilla-Aristy,  , Vanessa Leung,  Lori Podvesker, Kamillah Payne-Hanks - Staten Island Representative, and Ben Shuldiner (the new mayoral appointee who just a few weeks ago put his name forward for the NYS Board of Regents seat in the Lower Hudson region—where he claimed to be a resident.) 

Voting no – and to be applauded -- were mayoral appointees T. Elzora Cleveland, Norm Fruchter, and borough President reps Deborah Dillingham - Queens Representative , Robert Powell - Bronx Representative and Laura Zingmond - Manhattan Representative. (Fred Baptiste - Brooklyn Representative was absent.) 

These class sizes are simply unacceptable for struggling schools facing possible closure.  No matter what wrap-around services these schools receive – their academic results will likely falter with class sizes this large. 

Every year the DOE gets more than $500 million as part of the Contracts for Excellence funds from the state; in return they are supposed to be reducing class size.  Instead, class sizes have risen steadily since the program was introduced in 2007. 

In their response to public comments to the C4E plan this year, the DOE wrote in December 2014 that “To better align with the Chancellor’s priorities, C4E’s class size reduction plan will now focus on the 94 schools in the School Renewal Program. More information about the schools may be found here: School Renewal Program.” 

Yet on that page, and in the press release  in which the city announced that $32 million more funds would be allocated to the Renewal schools, there is no mention of reducing class.  

Instead, lengthening the school day, professional development and more counselors are cited, none of which are likely to have the same impact on academic achievement or student engagement in the learning process.  Instead the statement proclaims:  

 “Schools will be able to use the new funding to hire guidance counselors, bring on teachers for special academic intervention programs serving students who have fallen behind, extend the school day, or add advanced placement classes. To qualify for funding, schools must submit detailed plans for approval that demonstrate precisely how the new funds will be spent …” 

None of these measures are likely to have the same positive impact on academic achievement or student engagement in the learning process.  Yesterday, the DOE apparently raised the amount for the 130 struggling schools, presumably including the Renewal schools, to $50 million in 2016 and $76 million in 2017.   The Chancellor said again, the funds would go towards extended school days, guidance counselors and more teacher training,, but still has made no commitment to reduce class size.  

Our analysis shows that over 60% of renewal schools have at least some class sizes of 30 or more.  To punish students, teachers and schools for their huge class sizes without doing anything about this is simply unacceptable.

Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

Leonie Haimson and Diane Ravitch,

Patrick Sullivan and Monica Major

Emily Horowitz, and Cynthia Wachtell

invite you to

Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

When: Tuesday, June 9 at 6:30 PMWhere: Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco
191 7th Ave (21st St)
New York, NY 10011

A fundraiser for Class Size Matters

This year we are honoring the NY leaders of the Opt-Out movement:

Change the Stakes

NYC Opt Out

New York State Allies for Public Education

Please join us for an opportunity to enjoy a four course dinner to celebrate three organizations that led a historic movement resulting in 200,000 students refusing to take the NY state tests this year.

Ticket Information:

http://www.nycharities.org/events/EventLevels.aspx?ETID=8217

$250 - Defender of Public Education

$150 - Patron

$75 – Supporter

Thank you for your support and we hope to see you there!

If you can't attend, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Class Size Matters, to help support our work

Who to believe among "experts" on teacher evaluation at Albany Summit on teacher evaluation?

Today, from Albany NYSED is livestreaming what they call a "Learning Summit on Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR), the teacher and principal evaluation system.   The ostensible purpose of the meeting is to get input from experts, educators and parents about how to go about crafting their new teacher evaluation system that they are supposed to come up with by June 30, but that is severely restricted by the damaging rubric imposed by the Governor.

On the agenda from 1-2 PM, is a panel of  "National experts in the field on education, economics and psychometrics."  The invitees include:

• Thomas Kane, an economist from Harvard University who strongly supports test-based teacher evaluation and led the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching study;
• Catherine Brown, VP of the Center for American Progress, which has published papers endorsing the use of value-added and has received more than $5 million from the Gates Foundation for its education work.  Brown is also married to Robert Gordon, formerly of NYC DOE, OMB and the US Dept of Education, who pushed test-based teacher evaluation in NYC and throughout the country.
• Sandi Jacobs, a vice president at the National Council on Teacher Quality which also strongly supports test-based teacher evaluation and has gotten more than $12 million from the Gates Foundation;
• Leslie Guggenheim of TNTP, an advocacy organization whose 2009 paper “The Widget Effect” promoted test-based teacher evaluation and has gotten more than $33 million from the Gates Foundation.

On the other side with a more skeptical view include academics who are not on the Gates payroll: Aaron Pallas of Teachers College, Jesse Rothstein of UC Berkeley, and  Stephen Caldas of Manhattanville College.

So here we have three representatives from inside-the-Beltway advocacy groups that collectively received more than $50 million to make the case for test-based teacher evaluation and one professor who led the $45 million MET project for Gates, vs three independent academic scholars.

Also  speaking at 4 PM is a parent panel selected by the NYS PTA, including a representative from NY State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of more than 50 parent and advocacy groups statewide (full disclosure: including Class Size Matters.)  NYSAPE has helped lead the anti-testing movement that garnered at least 200,000 students opting out this spring.  Also on that panel, strangely enough, is Matt Barnum, the policy director of Educators for Excellence, which has received  $4 million from the Gates Foundation.

Who to believe?  You be the judge.

Where in the world is the Smarter Balanced privacy policy?

A few weeks ago I was in Palos Verdes, a suburb of Los Angeles, where I gave a presentation for Restore PV Education, a parent advocacy group, on the Common Core, testing and data privacy.

I spoke about how the PARCC and Smarter Balanced Common Core consortia are collecting loads of highly sensitive personal student information along with test scores. Yet the PARCC privacy policy is remarkably weak, and the SBAC exam given in California and twenty other states has no privacy policy at all-- or at least one that has been made publicly available.

Subsequently, it was reported that more than half of the Palos Verdes High School students opted out of the Smarter Balanced exam the week following my talk. Another article reported that Larry Vanden Bos, the Palos Verdes School Board President, had called the California Dept. of Education to ask for the SBAC privacy policy and received no response:

Vanden Bos said school officials have contacted the office of the state superintendent of schools, Tom Torlakson, to inquire about the privacy policy regarding the SBAC test, but were unsuccessful in getting answers.“We can’t even find out what their privacy policy is,” Vanden Bos said.

A little background: PARCC, the other major Common Core exam consortium,  approved an extremely porous privacy policy in Dec. 2013. I wrote about that policy here. At the time that PARCC released its policy, Smarter Balanced announced they would negotiate separate privacy policies with each of the SBAC states, according to EdWeek:

Smarter Balanced developed a brief data-privacy principle that guides its handling of student data. But beyond that, the consortium will create separate data-privacy agreements with each of its 25 member states to allow each to customize its practice in light of state law, regulation and practice, according to spokeswoman Jacqueline King. Those agreements are expected to be completed in the first few months of 2014, she said.

Yet to this day no parent in any of the SBAC states that I know of has been able to get their hands on such a policy or agreement.

Through the advocacy of Oregon parents, we have received copies of three relevant SBAC-related documents:

1- An undated SBAC “Data Privacy Agreement Communications Toolkit” that appears to have been created in Feb. 2014.
2- The AIR/Oregon contract, dated April 2014. (AIR is the major contractor for SBAC.)
3- The MOU between Oregon and SBAC/CRESST (the institute at UCLA that appears to be collecting, reporting and analyzing the data), from Aug. 2014.

The SBAC Data Privacy Toolkit contains several documents, including:

a) A set of talking points that states are advised to send out to parents who ask about data privacy;
b) A sample press release that states can release if and when they agree on a privacy policy with SBAC;
c) An FAQ with more information;
d) A sample Stakeholder letter;
e) A “resource” page with links to the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign and US Department of Education documents.

The talking points include the following statement:

“Protecting the privacy, security, and confidentiality of student data is a responsibility we take seriously. And with Smarter Balanced, our state retains control of student information. That’s why [INSERT STATE] developed a written agreement regarding the collection and use of personally identifiable student information.
• This agreement ensures that any organization working on the Smarter Balanced assessments will adhere to strict guidelines to safeguard student information.
• [INCLUDE ADDITIONAL DETAILS OF AGREEMENT AS APPROPRIATE]” etc.

The sample press release includes the following draft language:

SAMPLE STATE PRESS RELEASE
Contact: [INSERT CONTACT INFO]
[INSERT STATE] Approves Student Data Privacy Agreement for Common Core Assessments
Agreement Will Safeguard Student Information, Ensure [INSERT STATE] Maintains Control of Data

The FAQ part of the package includes this:

What type of information WILL Smarter Balanced collect?

• An identification number (the Consortium recommends that this be different from the state’s official unique student identifier so that only the state can link back to a student’s official education record);
• Race/ethnicity, gender, grade level, school attended;
• Student eligibility for English language development services, or special education services provided to the student;
• Student eligibility for Title I compensatory programs;
• Smarter Balanced test scores, achievement levels, and responses to test questions.

If a state elects to have Smarter Balanced generate reports of student assessment results, the consortium also will collect student name and date of birth. States may choose to manage that function through another organization. In either case, states can impose guidelines to safeguard those data.

What information won’t Smarter Balanced collect?
Smarter Balanced will never collect identifying information (such as student name and date of birth) unless specifically directed to do so by a member state. Further, Smarter Balanced will not collect information unnecessary to the assessment system, such as:
• Names of parents;
• Student or parent email address;
• Telephone numbers;
• Student or parent Social Security numbers;
• Parent or student addresses;
• Parent or student medical information.

It also says the following:

Smarter Balanced will not release personally identifiable information. Under limited circumstances, such as for research studies deemed important by states in the consortium, Smarter Balanced may provide access to student data that have been altered so that students’ identities cannot be recognized. Requests for this type of information will be reviewed by member states and each state must individually approve any release of data.

The states of Washington, Nevada, Illinois and others reproduce many of these same talking points but none of them so far have made their privacy agreement with Smarter Balanced public or available to parents upon request– as far as we know.

If you are from one of the SBAC states, please let us know if you've seen it by emailing us at info@studentprivacymatters.org.

If not, I suggest parents should ask their State Education Departments for it and/or FOIL it.  Here are the SBAC contact names and emails in each of the 21 participating states, plus the Virgin Islands and the Indian Bureau of Affairs.  Here are sample Freedom of Information letters for every state and instructions.

The powerpoint I gave to Palos Verdes parents with one slide added is below.  thanks, Leonie

Palos Verdes Presentation Final Revised

John Oliver features the Pineapple on his takedown of standardized testing

Check out last night's hilarious take-down of the insanity of standardized testing in this country by John Oliver; including the infamous
"Hare and the Pineapple" passage, which was  part of the NY 8th grade ELA exam in 2012.  This passage was exposed first on this blog the day after the exam was given and quickly went viral.  

But the real scandal is that before that, this  absurd passage and its associated ridiculous questions had been used by Pearson in their standardized exams in Florida, Illinois, Delaware, New Mexico, Arkansas, Alabama and other states for at least seven years before the New York media picked up on the story. Every time, students had been confused, teachers and parents complained, and yet Pearson kept recycling the questions, over and over again.


Below is the video from last night's how; to the right is a screenshot of our blog.

Arne's Army

April 23, 2015 (GBN News): Education Secretary Arne Duncan might be wishing the Republicans had held up the Attorney General nomination of Loretta Lynch for just a little while longer. The new AG has put the kibosh on Mr. Duncan’s scheme to force schoolchildren who opt out of standardized testing to take the tests. The Secretary had wanted to lower the age for Federal jury service, then summon the children for jury duty and give them the tests under the guise of an eligibility questionnaire. “I have all the respect in the world for President Obama”, said Ms. Lynch in a statement to reporters at the justice department. “But truth be told, that Duncan character is nothing but a jerk.”

However, GBN News has learned that Mr. Duncan, not to be deterred, has now contacted Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to see if the military conscription age could be lowered to 5, then have drill sergeants administer the tests. “But if you can’t get the little buggers into the army,” the Education Secretary was said to have told Mr. Carter, “we can always conscript their parents. When those white suburban moms find themselves doing 500 pushups in the hot sun, you can bet they’ll have their kids filling out those bubbles before you can say, ‘Bill Gates’.”

President Obama, himself a Constitutional scholar, had no public comment on the legality of the Secretary’s plans. But one White House staffer, on condition of anonymity, told GBN News that the President was overheard telling his wife, “Thank goodness they don’t do standardized testing at Sasha and Malia’s school. But in case they ever do, it’s a good thing it’s a Quaker school and we can always opt out by being conscientious objectors.”

Terrific Court Decision on School Leadership Teams and the Open Meetings Law

5/22/15 Update: We just found out the DOE is appealing this decision, showing their disrespect for parents and the public's right to know. Sadly, the CSA, the NYC principals union, expressed their  support for the DOE decision to appeal, despite this slam dunk decision that SLT meetings MUST be open to the public.

Newsclips on the court decision  include AP, NY Times, Chalkbeat , City and State, and National School Board Association Legal Clips.  

Today we found out that we had won our lawsuit vs. the DOE on the issue of whether School Leadership Team meetings must be open to the public. Class Size Matters and Public Advocate Tish James had intervened in this case back in January, which was originally brought by a retired teacher named Michael Thomas when he was denied access to a School Leadership Team meeting on Staten Island.

Judge Moulton of the NY Supreme Court wrote a great decision which is a slam dunk for our side. Thanks to Michael Thomas, Tish James, and our pro bono attorneys from Advocates for Justice and NY Lawyers for Public Interest.  Thanks also to Lisa Donlan, President of CEC 1, who provided a critical affidavit in the case and provided much of the legal research on Open Meetings Law. Here is today's press release from Public Advocate Tish James.

This is a big win for parents and transparency. The Judge's decision also emphasizes the important role that School Leadership Teams have in the overall governance system, which the DOE tried to deny -- claiming falsely that they have only "advisory powers." See the decision below.   

I hope the Chancellor sends out an immediate message to principals, teachers and parents, informing them of the court decision, acknowledging that SLT's have real authority when it comes to devising a comprehensive education plan for every school, and clearly stating that their meetings are open to the public.

The fact that the DOE argued otherwise in court-- that SLT's only have advisory powers --is not only contrary to law, but also flies in the face of their claim that they respect parent input. More about the background of this case and its importance on our blog, City and State and Chalkbeat.

Thomas v DOE - Decision and Judgment

How did the state math exams go today?

Please leave your comment below about this week's math exams. Our post on the ELA exams has provided important feedback on the quality of the ELA exams, and the response of the students with 61 comments so far. Be sure to say which grade of the exam and which day you are describing.  thanks!

[VIDEO] NYC KidsPAC Education report card for the Mayor press conference

Video taken by Michael Elliot at our NYC KidsPAC press conference on April 19 where we released our education report card for Mayor de Blasio.

NYC KidsPAC Parents and Advocates release Education report card for Mayor de Blasio

Media outlets that reported on our report card include News 12-TV, Wall St. Journal, NY Post, WCBS radio, and Epoch Times (in Chinese).  Please take a look at the grades we awarded the mayor on education issues below, and leave a comment on the blog.  thanks, Leonie 

For immediate release: April 19, 2015


Contact: Shino Tanikawa, 917-770-8438, estuaryqueen@gmail.com

Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329, leonie@classsizematters.org

NYC KidsPAC releases Education report card for Mayor de Blasio

Grades range from As to Fs in many crucial areas

Today, Sunday April 19 at noon, in front of the Department of Education headquarters at Tweed, NYC KidsPAC released a report card for Mayor de Blasio, based on how many of his campaign promises he has fulfilled in the area of education policy after more than a year in office. NYC KidsPAC is a political action committee made up of parent leaders and advocates who work for better schools by issuing candidate surveys, informing the electorate about the results, and supporting candidates who have demonstrated a commitment to improving our city’s public schools.


NYC KidsPAC provided the DOE and the Mayor’s office with this report three weeks ago, and received no response. They will now provide the report to the leaders and members of the State Legislature, to help them decide whether to renew mayoral control.

In 2013 NYCKids PAC endorsed Bill de Blasio for Mayor, citing the hope he would “stop the rampant privatization of our schools and the overemphasis on testing, will listen more closely to the concerns of parents and communities, and will push for new investments in expanding preK, improving classroom conditions and alleviating school overcrowding.” We believe that De Blasio has a better understanding of the issues than the previous administration, and has made several positive changes, most notably the expansion of preKindergarten, but has yet to live up to his promises in other important areas.

The grades the Mayor received from NYC KidsPAC are decidedly mixed, ranging from “A” and “A-“ on cell phones, school closings, and arts education, to a “B” on testing, and a “D” on co-locations, space planning, parent engagement and input, special education and student privacy. He received an “F” on class size, transparency and accountability and diversity.

Shino Tanikawa, president of NYC KidsPAC and a Manhattan parent leader explained: “We thank Mayor de Blasio on his reversal of the cell phone ban and halting school closures, two issues that are important to many parents. We are also encouraged by his commitment to arts education. The Mayor expressed some very promising ideas for improving the governance of our school system during his campaign. For example, he proposed fixed terms for the Panel for Educational Policy members, and to ask Community Education Councils to vote on changes in school utilization including co-locations. Then PEP members would be required to refer to those votes in their decision-making. None of these reforms have yet occurred, and we have seen many damaging co-locations approved without reference to the priorities of parents in those communities. Our report gives him a “D” in the category of Co-locations, and an incomplete in Governance. Though we hope that he will deliver on more of his promises soon, we must oppose the renewal of mayoral control without real checks and balances and more decision-making power given to parents and community members.”

Eduardo Hernandez, a member of Community Education Council in District 8 in the Bronx, said: “NYC kids have just endured three strenuous days of ELA testing and will sit through another three days in math next week. We gave the Mayor a “B” in this category, because the DOE has acknowledged that parents have the right to opt out their children out of testing, and engage in another activity. However, the DOE has not publicized this sufficiently, and many parents remain unaware of their rights. The Mayor has neglected to reform the admissions process to gifted programs and to the five selective, specialized high schools under his control that still rely solely on test scores. Though when he ran for office, he pledged to make admissions to these programs and schools based on more holistic factors, they are still based solely on high-stakes exams with racially disparate outcomes.”

“Overcrowded classrooms and rising enrollments are pervasive problems that have plagued our children’s schools for far too long. We gave him an “Incomplete” because so far the de Blasio Administration has failed to act follow up on his promises to alleviate overcrowding by improving the school capital plan, which is months overdue. The current version of the plan doesn’t meet one third of the actual need, given existing overcrowding and enrollment projections, and without improvement, NYC kids are likely result to be subjected to even more crammed conditions in the future,” said Andy Lachman, head of Parent Leaders of Upper East Side Schools (PLUS).

As Gloria Corsino, president of the Citywide Council for District 75, pointed out, “Bill de Blasio gets an “F” when it comes to transparency and accountability. Our education budget is no clearer than under Bloomberg; huge consulting contracts are still approved by the PEP with little or no explanation, including a $1 billion contract that was awarded to a company that had engaged in a kickback scheme. Luckily, City Hall reversed that decision at the last minute, but this is a contract that should never have been proposed in the first place. Freedom of Information requests are responded to no more quickly, and the DOE still refuses to count all the kids in trailers, including hundreds of students with disabilities, and thousands of high school students. The recommendations of the Blue Book working group for improving the accuracy of DOE’s figures on overcrowding have still not been released to the public.”

Karen Sprowal, a parent leader in Upper Manhattan, gave some of the reasons why the Mayor received a “D” for Parent engagement: “It is very disappointing that parents have so little input under this administration. The Chancellor now claims in court that School Leadership Teams, composed of half parents, have only advisory powers, which is contrary to state law. The DOE revamped their parent survey without any input from parents, and took out what we considered the most important question, as to which improvement strategy we would most like to see in our schools, a question that has been asked by DOE since 2007. Too often at Town Hall meetings, the Chancellor responds to parental concerns with a dismissive attitude. Sadly, we have also heard from many CEC members that they still feel their views are not consulted before important decisions are made.”

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, said, “The Mayor gets an “F” on class size, because he has fulfilled none of his promises on this critical issue, the top priority of parents according to the DOE’s own surveys. Despite his commitment to reduce class size significantly, and if necessary, raise funds to do so, class sizes remain at a fifteen year high in the early grades, and the administration has taken no action in this area or indicated that they intend to follow through in any way. In fact, the Chancellor has repeatedly ignored the concerns expressed by educators and parents, and has stated that class size is not a problem that needs to be solved, despite the decision of the state’s highest court that NYC children are denied their constitutional rights because their classes are too large. “

“NYC KidsPAC gives the Mayor an “F” for diversity, as the well-documented segregation in NYC schools has not been addressed despite his campaign promises. The administration has failed to respond to communities asking for district-wide solutions that have been shown to increase equity of access in numerous school systems across the country. Mayor de Blasio has failed to live up to his obligation to address this civil rights issue by amending the admissions policies that stratify our schools,” concluded Lisa Donlan, President of Community Education Council in District One on the Lower East Side.

The Mayor’s report card, along with an analysis of the Mayor’s performance on this and other issues, can be downloaded here and viewed below.  It is also posted at www.NYCKidsPAC.org

###

Mayor Bill De Blasio's Report Card (Final)

KidsPAC to Release Mayor de Blasio's Education Report Card on Sunday

Join us at Tweed on Sunday at noon when we release NYC KidsPAC's Education Report Card for Mayor Bill de Blasio! Flyer below.

Report Card Flier

Historic opt out levels, media today & join us Sunday to give a report card to the Mayor!

Today (Thursday, April 16, 2015) I'll be on the national public radio show, To The Point at 2PM EST & Inside City Hall on NY1 at 7 & 10 PM EST talking about testing and opting out. Please listen and watch!
This week, the opt-out movement reached historic levels across the state. The unofficial count shows more than 150,000 kids have opted out of the NY state Common Core ELA exam with only 53% of districts reporting, according to a spreadsheet posted by United to Counter the Core. The best reporting on this has been done by Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News,  who writes, " The entire structure of high-stakes testing in New York crumbled Tuesday, as tens of thousands of fed-up public school parents rebelled against Albany's fixation with standardized tests..."

Many teachers, students and parents have also told us that the ELA exams this week are too long, full of outmoded vocabulary and ambiguous questions, with convoluted reading passages at a difficulty level many grades higher than the students being tested. You can read their comments or post yours on the blog here.

The state math exam happens next week; we encourage even more parents to opt out. Sample opt out letters are on the NYSAPE website. Despite wild speculation, there is no legal basis in either federal or state law for schools or districts to be punished with budget cuts if large numbers of students refuse the test. The best discussion of this is by the NYS Superintendents. In the US Senate, an amendment just passed unanimously in committee, barring the feds from penalizing any state or district for allowing parents to opt out.

On Sunday at noon, in front of Tweed, 52 Chambers St., parent leaders, NYC Kids PAC and Class Size Matters will be releasing a report card to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, grading him on whether he has fulfilled his campaign promises on education after more than a year in office. Please join us and bring your kids! You can respond to this message or email info@nyckidspac.org for more information.

How did the ELA exams go today? Please let us know!

How were the NYS ELA exams today at your school?  Please use this blog as a discussion board.  We first found out about the infamous Pineapple passage on the 8th grade ELA exam in 2012 from a comment on this blog. 

I have heard second hand from my NYSAPE allies about opt out figures upstate and in Long Island at 70-80% at many schools, and at least one school in NYC.  I also heard secondhand that the 6th grade ELA exam had at least one reading passage at a 14.8 level on the Flesh Kincaid index -- which according to Wikipedia, indicates it is "best understood by university graduates." 

Feel free to post below opt out figures at your schools, or if you're a teacher, student, or principal, anything you found strange, incomprehensible, erroneous or not-so-unusual about the test today.  Thanks!