My frustrating Thursday: DOE's evasions and the Mayor's refusal to reduce class size or admit that he ever said that he would

Me asking the Mayor about class size  in Jackson Heights on Thursday night.

UPDATE: see the YouTube video of the Town hall added below.

For other accounts, see news reports of the Mayor's Town hall at ChalkbeatNY and the Daily News.

On Thursday I attended two events -- first in the morning at a briefing on Renewal Schools at City Hall and later that evening, a Town hall meeting in  Queens with Mayor de Blasio.

The City Hall briefing consisted of a long power point from Aimee Horowitz, the Executive Superintendent of the Renewal school program and Chris Caruso, Executive Director of Community Schools.  For more than an hour we listened to all the various programs and services that are planned, with no mention of reducing class size in either presentation.

Finally I got a chance to speak.  I asked Ms. Horowitz: "In which renewal schools are class sizes reduced this fall, to what levels, what resources and strategies are being used, and how was the list of schools selected?"  

My question followed from the DOE claim to the state  last December and again this fall, in their Contract for Excellence presentations, that they would be focusing their "Class Size Reduction planning efforts on the School Renewal Program."   This was a repeat of questions that CEC members and I have been asking DOE officials for months; without any response. We already have heard of several Renewal schools this year where class sizes have risen to 27 students per class in Kindergarten, 31 in 1st grade and 35 or more students in high school. 

Ms. Horowitz replied that there was no separate list of Renewal schools slated for class size reduction, and that all 94 schools were expected to lower class size by use of their increased Fair Student funding and help with "programming." When I asked if that meant we should see smaller classes in all of these schools when the data is released on Monday, she nodded yes, but then said "proper class sizes."  I followed up with an email asking her what  she means by "proper class sizes", but I am not hopeful of a substantive reply.

Later that evening, I attended the Town hall meeting in Jackson Heights where Mayor de Blasio fielded questions about school overcrowding, testing, special ed and a host of other issues.  Two CEC members spoke; Bill Kregler from CEC 24 (at 50:12 minutes in), who blasted the Mayor for not building enough schools in his extremely overcrowded district, and instead using the sites for homeless shelters.  He also denounced Mayoral control as a failure.  Deb Alexander, co-President of CEC 30, (at 1 hr:19 minutes in) said that class size was the most important issue for her and other parents, and one of the top reasons parents leave the city for private and charter options, and asked de Blasio if he was going to focus on this issue.  de Blasio responded that there just isn't enough funding and space to make progress happen fast enough, and instead there would be more reading specialists (for 2nd graders, starting only in four districts).   Farina said for oversized Kindergartens, (those that violate the cap of 25, that hasn't changed in 50 years) the teacher would get an extra prep period or a paraprofessional.  

She also questioned by whose definition is a class too large or too small, repeating  her curious notion that she expressed at the District 2 Town Hall that class sizes could be too small. (As though that would ever be a problem in NYC public schools, when so many students are crammed into classes of 30 or more.  The fear of overly small classes also doesn't seem to worry those who send their kids to elite private schools like Exeter, that caps class sizes at 12 students per class.)

When I followed Deb (at 1;22;49), I asked the Mayor the following question:

As you know, smaller classes are parents #1 priority on the DOE’s own surveys.  During your campaign you promised to reduce class size to much lower levels and if necessary raise funds to do so, and to expand the school capital plan to provide the space to make this possible.

Yet no funding has been allocated towards class size reduction, class sizes are larger than ever, and last year more the 350,000 students were in classes of 30 or more.  School overcrowding has also worsened, and elementary schools capacty on average is a stunning 104% - with more than half of all students attending extremely overcrowded schools.

Your priorities of expanding preK and affordable housing, though terrific goals, will exacerbate school overcrowding, and yet the city cut back on the funds dedicated towards school construction in its ten year capital plan, and the current capital plan will create less than half the seats necessary to address enrollment growth and alleviate current conditions.

My question is this: are you still committed to reducing  class size and school overcrowding, and if so, what resources and strategies will you use to accomplish this goal, and when will we see progress?  And let me remind you, the city has an $8 billion surplus and the power of eminent domain, which means you can take over any property to build a school.

Finally, will you agree to form a Commission to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the school planning process?  

The Mayor responded, in a disgruntled fashion, "I knew you'd be here."  He said in preparation for the evening, he took a look at his campaign promises and differed with my interpretation of what he had pledged.

(Take a look at these and let me know if you think I mispoke.   The form de Blasio filled out and signed at a Mayoral forum at Murry Bergtraum HS in June 2013 [click on the images to enlarge]:

His responses to a NYC KidsPAC candidate survey in July 2013:

On Twitter, NY Times reporter Michael Powell added:

.@leoniehaimson From de Blasio's 2013 press release: He will create a class size reduction plan" https://t.co/0hvt59CsVC

— Michael Powell (@powellnyt) November 13, 2015

But at Thursday's Town Hall, after first refuting that he had ever promised to reduce class size, De Blasio said that he also disagreed with my conclusion (shared by others) that the city has an $8 billion surplus, as it's his responsibility to preserve a "cushion" in case of a recession, and the state and the feds cut aid to the city.

He then said that he was proud of his affordable housing program, and claimed that it will not lead to more school overcrowding but will allow families to stay in their neighborhoods.  He said he's getting kids out of trailers, and adding reading specialists, and that "we will never give up."  He said that he will consider the idea of a Commission to improve school planning, and "let you know."  

By the evening's end, at least four more parents and teachers had spoken out about class sizes being too large, and a lack of progress in alleviating school overcrowding.  Others protested excessive school discipline policies, the fact that school safety agents continue to be under the control of the police, the inability of working parents to attend IEP meetings during the school day, and the overemphasis on testing and test prep, which several parents and teachers said had not abated under his administration.

On the issue of high-stakes testing, de Blasio countered that schools no longer received grades based on test scores; and that the DOE had stopped holding kids back based on test scores  (a practice that the state has made illegal.).  But then the Mayor added that he didn't support parents opting out of the state exams because "there's a clear federal rule that if there is too much non-participation in tests, it can lead to a reduction in federal funding," a claim that has been roundly disputed, including in the NY Times.

Anyway, the evening was profoundly disappointing and does not leave one with much hope that the Mayor  intends to address the twin problems of huge class sizes or overcrowding that plague our schools, and which profoundly undermine the chance of NYC students to succeed.  One must conclude that if real progress in these areas is to occur, he will have to be pushed hard, either politically or legally, to do so.

State Longitudinal databases: Tracking students from birth to the workforce and beyond

Yesterday, this piece on the collection and sharing of large amounts of personal student data by states was posted  as “The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children.” at the Washington Post AnswerSheet.  It is also posted at our Student Privacy Matters website.  If you are interested in the issue of protecting your children against this sort of data collection and tracking, please join the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.  thanks, Leonie

By Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy 

Remember that ominous threat from your childhood, “This will go down on your permanent record?” Well, your children’s permanent record is a whole lot bigger today and it may be permanent. Information about your children’s behavior and nearly everything else that a school or state agency knows about them is being tracked, profiled and potentially shared.

During a February 2015 Congressional hearing on “How Emerging Technology Affects Student Privacy,” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin asked the panel to “provide a summary of all the information collected by the time a student reaches graduate school.” Joel Reidenberg, The Center on Law & Information Policy Fordham Law School Director, responded:

“Just think George Orwell, and take it to the nth degree,” Reidenberg said. “We’re in an environment of surveillance, essentially. It will be an extraordinarily rich data set of your life.” 

Most student data is gathered at school-via multiple routes; either through children’s online usage or information provided by parents, teachers or other school staff. A student’s education record generally includes demographic information, including race, ethnicity, and income level; discipline records, grades and test scores, disabilities and Individual education plans (IEPs), mental health and medical history, counseling records and much more.

Under the federal law known as FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, if medical and counseling records are included in your child’s education records they are unprotected by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act passed by Congress in 1996). Thus, very sensitive mental and physical health information can be shared outside of the school without parent consent.

Many parents first became aware of how widely their children’s personal data is being shared with third parties of all sorts when the controversy erupted over inBloom in 2012, the $100 million corporation funded by the Gates Foundation. Because of intense parent opposition, inBloom closed its doors in 2014, but in the process, parents discovered that inBloom was only the tip of the iceberg, and that the federal government and the Gates Foundation have been dedicated to the goal of amassing and disclosing personal student data in many other ways.

Ten organizations joined together, funded by the Gates Foundation, to create the Data Quality Campaign in 2005, with the following objectives:

• Fully develop high-quality longitudinal data systems in every state by 2009;
• Increase understanding and promote the valuable uses of longitudinal and financial data to improve student achievement; and
• Promote, develop, and use common data standards and efficient data transfer and exchange.

Since that time, the federal government has mandated every state to collect personal student information in the form of longitudinal databases, called Student Longitudinal Data Systems or SLDS, in which the personal information for each child is compiled and tracked from birth or preschool onwards, including medical information, survey data, and data from many state agencies such as the criminal justice system, child services, and health departments.

A state’s SLDS, or sometimes called a P20 database (pre-K to 20 years of age), P12, or B-20 (data tracking from birth), have been paid for partly through federal grants awarded in five rounds of funding from 2005-2012. Forty seven of fifty states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have received at least one SLDS grant.

Although Alabama, Wyoming and New Mexico are not included on the site linked to above, Alabama’s Governor recently declared by executive order that “Alabama P-20W Longitudinal Data System is hereby created to match information about students from early learning through postsecondary education and into employment.” Wyoming uses a data dictionary, Fusion, that includes information from birth. New Mexico’s technology plan shows that they moved their P-20 SLDS to production status in 2014 and will expand in 2015. This site run by the Data Quality Campaign tracks each state’s SLDS.

Every SLDS has a data dictionary filled with hundreds of common data elements, so that students can be tracked from birth or pre-school through college and beyond, and their data more easily shared with vendors, other governmental agencies, across states, and with organizations or individuals engaged in education-related “research” or evaluation — all without parental knowledge or consent,.

Every SLDS uses the same code to define the data, aligned with the federal CEDS, or Common Education Data Standards, a collaborative effort run by the US Department of Education, “to develop voluntary, common data standards for a key set of education data elements to streamline the exchange, comparison, and understanding of data within and across P-20W institutions and sectors.”

Every few months, more data elements are “defined” and added to the CEDS, so that more information about a child’s life can be easily collected, stored, shared across agencies, and disclosed to third parties. You can check out the CEDS database yourself, including data points recently added, or enter the various terms like “disability,” “homeless” or “income” in the search bar.

In relation to discipline, for example, CEDS includes information concerning student detentions, letters of apology, demerits, warnings, counseling, suspension and expulsion records, whether the student was involved in an incident that involved weapons, whether he or she was arrested, whether there was a court hearing and what the judicial outcome and punishment was, including incarceration.

This type of information is obviously very sensitive and prejudicial, and often in juvenile court, records are kept sealed or destroyed after a certain period of time, especially if the child is found innocent or there is no additional offense; yet all this information can now be entered into his or her longitudinal record with no particular restriction on access and no time certain when the data would be destroyed.

Expanding and Linking Data across States

Nearly every state recently applied for a new federal grant to expand its existing student longitudinal data system, including collection, linking and sharing abilities. You can see the federal request for proposals here. Pay special attention to Section V, the Data Use section of the grant proposal, requiring states to collect and share early childhood data, match students and teachers for the purpose of teacher evaluation, and promote interoperability across institutions, agencies, and states.

The fifteen states and one territory, American Samoa, that won the grants were announced Sept. 17, 2015, and are posted here. The President’s 2016 budget request has a number of additional data­ related provisions, including a near tripling in funding for State Longitudinal Data Systems ($70 million) and Department of Labor Workforce Data Quality Initiative ($37 million) aimed at attaching adult workforce personal data with his or her student records.

Though the federal government is barred by law from creating a national student database, the US Department of Education has evaded this restriction by means of several strategies, including funding multi-state databases, which would have been illegal before FERPA’s regulations and guidance were rewritten by the Department in 2012.

The federal grants encourage participation in these multi-state data exchanges. One existing multi-state database is WICHE, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, which includes the fifteen Western states that recently received an additional $3 million from the federal government. This WICHE document explains that the project was originally funded by the Gates Foundation, and that the Foundation’s goal of sharing personal student data across state lines and across state agencies without parental consent was impermissible under FERPA until it was weakened in 2012:

Upon approval of WICHE’s proposal by the Gates Foundation, the pilot MLDE (Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange) project began in earnest in June, 2010, and the initial meeting to begin constructing the MLDE was held in Portland, Oregon, in October, 2010. It is worth placing the launch of the MLDE pilot within an historical timeline of events bearing on the development and use of longitudinal data. As the project got underway, the federal government’s guidance on the application of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was still fairly restrictive. Indeed, based on a subsequent conversation with a member of the Washington State Attorney General’s office, our plans to actually exchange personally identifiable data among the states would be impermissible under the FERPA guidance in effect at that time. Though we were told we would have been able to assemble and use a de-identified dataset, which would have shown much of the value of combining data across states, not being able to give enhanced data back to participating states would have been a serious setback. Changes in the federal government’s guidance on FERPA that went into effect in January, 2012 resolved this problem.
The new guidance permitted the participating states to designate WICHE as an authorized representative for the purposes of assembling the combined data, while also allowing the disclosure of data across state lines and between state agencies.

Since 2010, the Gates Foundation has funded WICHE with more than $13 million. Just to underscore how powerful this organization has become, the Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, Joe Garcia, just stepped down from his post to head WICHE. Here is a helpful chart showing how student personal data is to be shared, among state agencies and across state lines.

Existing multi-state databases include not just WICHE, but also SEED, formerly Southeastern Education Data Exchange, now called the State Exchange of Education Data, including Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

This North Carolina PowerPoint from 2013 describes what detailed information is to be shared among the states participating in SEED: data aligned with CEDS, including demographic information, academic and test score data, and disciplinary records. Here is a Georgia document, explaining how SEED will be “CEDs compliant” and describes in even more detail the sort of information that will be exchanged.

In addition, the two Common Core testing multi-state consortia funded by the federal government, PARCC and Smarter Balanced, are accumulating a huge amount of personal student data across state lines, and potentially sharing that information with other third parties. Under pressure, PARCC released a very porous privacy policy last year; Smarter Balanced has so far refused to provide any privacy policy, even after requests from parents in many of the participating states.

What Parents Should Do

Ask your State Education Department if they applied for this new grant to expand their SLDS, and if so, ask to see the grant proposal. You can also make a Freedom of Information request to the US Department of Education to see the grant application. Ask what methods your state is using to protect the data that the SLDS already holds, and if the data is kept encrypted, at rest and in transit. Ask what categories of children’s data they are collecting, which agencies are contributing to it, and what third parties, including vendors and other states, may have gained access to it. Ask to see any inter-agency agreements or MOUs allowing the sharing education data with other state agencies. Ask if any governance or advisory body made up of citizen stakeholders exists to oversee its policies.

You should also demand to see the specific data the SLDS holds for your own child, and to challenge it if it’s incorrect – and the state cannot legally deny you this right nor charge you for this information under FERPA.

This was conclusively decided when a father named John Eppolito requested that the Nevada Department of Education provide him with a copy of his children’s SLDS records, and the state demanded $10,000 in exchange. He then filed a complaint with the US Department of Education, which responded with a letter on July 28, 2014, stating that the state must provide him with the data it holds for his child, as well as a record of every third party who has received it; and that they cannot charge a fee for this service.

Parents also have the right to correct their child’s data if it is in error. Apparently Mr. Eppolito found many errors in his children’s data. Even if it is accurate, the data that follows your child through life and across states could diminish his or her future prospects. As this Department of Education study points out,

“…imagine a student transferring from another district into a middle school that offers three levels of mathematics classes. If school staff associate irrelevant personal features with mathematics difficulties, the representativeness bias could influence the student’s placement… educators have been found to have a tendency to pay more attention to data and evidence that conform to what they expect to find. “ 

Schools could use this data to reject students, push them out, or relegate them to remedial classes or vocational tracks.

There is also abundant research that shows that a teacher’s expectations play a significant role in how a student performs – especially for marginalized groups. This is called the Pygmalion effect in the case of a teacher’s positive expectations, and the Golem effect in the case of negative expectations. These studies reveal that if teachers are provided with positive or negative information about their students before having a chance to form their own opinions based upon actual experience, this prior information often tends to bias their judgments and perceptions of that student, creating self-fulfilling prophecies.   Parents should be legitimately fearful that positive or negative data may be used to profile their children, and potentially damage their chance of success.

What Else Can You Do? 

If you send your children to a public school, under current federal law you have no way of opting out of the P20 profile that has been created by your state and potentially shared with others. You also have no right to refuse to have your child’s data disclosed to testing companies and other corporations in the name of evaluation and research. Researchers have legitimate interests in being able to analyze and evaluate educational programs, but any sensitive personal data should be properly de-identified and there must be strict security provisions to safeguard its access and restrict further disclosures, as well as a time certain when it will be destroyed. You do have the right to see that data, and challenge it if it is inaccurate.

You should also advocate for stronger state and federal laws to protect your child’s data and laws that give parents and students the right of ownership, including the ability to decide with whom it will be shared. You should urge your State Education Department to create advisory or governance boards that include stakeholder members, to provide input on restrictions on access and security requirements.

Any federal and state student privacy legislation should embrace five basic principles of student privacy, transparency and security, developed by the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. Ask your elected officials to support TRUE data privacy and transparency legislation, to protect children. Parents deserve to know the data collected and shared about their children, and they should be guaranteed that their children’s data is safe from breaches and misuse.

Nancy Cauthen on the Common Core: stop experimenting on my children and other people's kids!

Here is the testimony of Nancy Cauthen to the Governor's Common Core Task Force on Friday.  Nancy is a public school parent, a member of Change the Stakes and NY State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), and a sociologist.

My name is Nancy Cauthen and I’ve been a NYC public school parent since 2002, the year No Child Left Behind went into effect. Both of my sons, who are now in high school, attended a traditional K-8 school in Washington Heights in Manhattan.

Having had the opportunity to watch No Child Left Behind and then Race to the Top unfold, my first point to the task force is this:  I urge you to consider your charge in the context of the long process that got us here. This grand experiment with high-stakes testing and now Common Core has been going on for a long time.

Yet, instead of research or evidence, this experiment has been based on: (1) a hyped narrative about the “failure of public education”;  (2) the personal beliefs about “what works” on the part of rich and powerful people, like Bill Gates and David Coleman, who lack the qualifications to make education policy; (3) simple attributions of causality, such as “bad teachers create bad academic outcomes”; and (4) a blatant disregard for the expertise of educators and of decades of research on early childhood and how to ameliorate the effects of poverty on school performance.

I say this in part as a political sociologist who studies public policy and researches strategies to reduce child and family poverty and increase opportunity. But as a public school parent, I am sick and tired of federal, state, and local politicians and officials experimenting on my children and on other people’s children!

My second point is that you need to slow down. A sense of urgency has been used repeatedly to justify one untested policy change after another. Assemblywoman Nolan, I appreciate that you acknowledged at last week’s public hearing that the legislature has made 4 or 5 attempts in the last 5 or 6 years to get it right, yet here we are. As parents, we ask you to take your time until you know what you’re doing! Governor Cuomo has not given this task force nearly enough time to get it right.

We’ve now wasted well more than a decade on untested reforms that have enriched private interests, while turning schools into test prep factories. By narrowing the curriculum, taking autonomy away from teachers and engaging in non-stop test prep, our schools are turning out students who in many ways may be less prepared for college than the previous generation. There’s a good bit of anecdotal evidence to warrant concern.

My husband has been a college professor at the same institution for nearly 20 years. He says students are much more afraid of taking risks, much more afraid of “being wrong,” much less intellectually curious and much less capable of independent and critical thought than students 10 years ago. This is the exact opposite of what we are told the CC standards and testing is supposed to accomplish.

My third and final point is that we must get high stakes out of testing! The shrinking emphasis on science and social studies and the loss of music and the arts, physical education and even recess is a direct result of high stakes for students, teachers and schools. Here in NYC, test scores still matter for promotion, placement, middle and high school admissions, even though they are now less consequential.

Parents and educators in groups like Change the Stakes and NYS Allies for Public Education – two groups of which I’m a part – urge you to de-couple test scores from teacher evaluation and to stop punishing schools because their test scores reflect the demographics of high-needs populations. Test and punish doesn’t work.

I hope you get it right. It’s already too late for my kids and a whole generation of other students.

Fred Smith on the Common Core: Show me the evidence!

Fred Smith is an expert on testing and a critical voice on the flaws in the Common Core standards and the state exams.  His testimony to the Governor's Common Core task force is below. The presentation given by Lisa Rudley to the Common Core task force, co-founder of NYSAPE, that Fred refers to is well worth watching and is posted here.

Statement to the Common Core Task Force–LaGuardia Community College

Fred Smith – Nov. 6, 2015

Good afternoon. My name is Fred Smith. I served as a testing specialist and analyst for the New York City public school system and retired after 33 years. I’m a member of Change the Stakes, a parent awareness group that has spearheaded the steadily growing opt-out movement in New York City.

Thank you for giving me time to present concerns about the quality of the tests aligned with the Common Core and the State Education Department’s unwillingness to provide information about the tests to parents and independent researchers.

But first I want to acknowledge the significance of Assemblywoman Nolan in these proceedings and in shaping whatever positive outcomes the Task Force may produce, if it hopes to restore rationality to education. As a respected legislator and Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, she is its preeminent member and must be the voice of the task force.

I attended its first public meeting last week in New Rochelle and was taken by Lisa Rudley’s presentation about the imposition of the Common Core Standards over the last few years and all the testing and anxiety it has brought down on students and teachers. Lisa is a parent advocate and a founder of New York State Allies for Public Education, a galvanizing force in last April’s statewide boycott of the testing program.

She set a tone that said We, the People, are tired of yet another task force. She asked what research had been done to show the efficacy of the Common Core approach; what evidence was there to justify the uses of the core-aligned exams in reaching decisions about children and the effectiveness of their teachers?

What moved me to indignation, however, were not her pointed remarks--but the defensive reaction she elicited from one task force member. He challenged Lisa for evidence to support various complaints leveled against the tests. The criticisms he ticked off dealt with developmentally inappropriate content, test length, frequency of testing, item difficulty, level of vocabulary and trick questions. Where was the data to back up these claims?

On the surface, his fact-finding pretext seems reasonable, but in the case of the core-aligned exams it is disingenuous and fails the following tests:

1. The Burden of Proof Test. The task force shouldn’t expect us to bear the burden as test consumers and should put it where it belongs, on the backs of the producers. Pearson, Inc. which constructed the exams must show that its product is sound. When the engine breaks down in a particular car model, are purchasers responsible for the defects or does the manufacturer have to issue a recall and make restitution?

2. The Nose Test. This is fast, simple and cheap and draws valid conclusions without elaborate scientific demonstration. You don't have to perform chemical analyses of milk to know when it’s sour. You just take one whiff and refuse to drink it. The parents of over 240,000 children in New York State had taken in enough of the stench of the core-aligned testing program to reject it.

3. The Independent Review Test. When something is amiss, it needs trustworthy examination. It is unwise to ask operatives to investigate problems they prefer to cover up. Such has been the case with SED and Pearson, who have partnered in keeping the testing program free of outside scrutiny. If a railroad goes off the tracks the train owner is not asked to determine what caused the disaster. And neither are the passengers. Instead, a group of transportation experts is immediately brought in and given access to all the details in order to find out what went wrong and prevent it from recurring.

4. The Common Sense Reality-Check Test. We know that parents opting kids out of the state exams on such a large scale cannot be dismissed as a mass delusion or mere anecdote. It is a verdict on the tests that requires little empirical data to sustain.

5. The Basic Decency Test. What amount of research evidence could possibly justify sitting ELLs in front of an English Language Arts test and giving them extra time to finish it? Is this an accommodation, insanity or just plain inhumane?

6. The Transparency Test. This test has the most weight. Even if the desire for research is well-intentioned, it is preposterous to ask for analyses and definitive findings when the data that work would depend on is kept hidden by SED or provided in an untimely and incomplete manner as the department stonewalls us from behind its FOIL barricade. Until there is disclosure of test material and technical/statistical information needed to provide insight into the quality of the exams, holding us to a standard of proof that can’t be met in the absence of data reduces the task force request for evidence to an exercise in deception.

So I challenge the task force to break the mold it’s been cast in. This will be a measure of your good faith. Don’t be pushed into doing a two-month rush job of a report that will offer broad recommendations to keep the wrecked train of the Common Core running and the broken engine of core-aligned testing back on the road to ruin. Worst of all, don’t do that in a way that suggests you have listened to the public.

And I ask Honorable Assemblywoman Nolan to return to pursuing a much tougher revision of the Truth-in-Testing legislation than the one that was passed at the 11th hour of the last legislative session. It was far weaker than the version that she and New York State Senator LaValle sponsored in June.

The time is now to revisit their efforts and take the opportunity to enlist testing experts in formulating and enacting a T-in-T law that will provide transparency in all aspects of testing and protect the public from the kind of testing tortures we have experienced.

Thank you.

Respectfully Submitted, Fred Smith