Parents in NYC called on Chancellor Dennis Walcott to pledge not to use this year’s tests to punish students, teachers, or schools.
Change the Stakes (www.changethestakes.org), an activist group comprised of parents, teachers and teacher educators – argues that this year’s tests are so fundamentally flawed that the scores should not be used. Here’s our letter to the Chancellor:
OPEN LETTER TO CHANCELLOR WALCOTT
By Change the Stakes
March 20, 2013
Dear Chancellor Walcott,
In four weeks, public school children across New York City will begin two weeks of intensive, high-stakes standardized testing. Change the Stakes – an organization of parents and educators committed to replacing such tests with more meaningful forms of assessment – urges you to publicly pledge that scores from this year’s state English Language Arts (ELA) and math tests will not be used to penalize students, teachers or schools. The upcoming testing cycle represents an unprecedented grand experiment: the exams, and the standards on which they are based, are new and untested.
Educators, parents and students alike are painfully aware that this is a “transitional year” in the state testing program. Two years ago, New York State adopted its own version of the new national education standards known as the “Common Core” and this year’s tests are the first to be aligned with them. Not only are the standards new and unproven, the heart of the program – the curriculum – is still being developed. Teachers haven’t been given sufficient time to transition students to the new learning standards, yet children are being tested on them next month anyway.
You yourself acknowledge the serious challenges inherent in using scores from the looming April 2013 exams to assess student performance – and presumably, by extension, the performance of teachers and schools. In a recent letter to parents, you state:
“In past years, decisions about summer school were made based on estimates of each student’s performance level on the State tests: 1, 2, 3, or 4. This year, because the tests are new, we cannot predict how the State will determine performance levels.”
If the purpose of your letter was to reassure parents, you did not succeed. As far as we can tell, the letter has had the opposite effect by setting off alarms among parents who weren’t already focused on the sweeping changes taking place. Another Department of Education (DOE) document developed for parents, Tips for Talking with Your Elementary School Child about the Common Core Standards & Changing State Tests, is even more disturbing: it says that young children should be told to expect school work and tests to be more difficult this year and that feelings of struggle, anxiety and nervousness are common reactions. These new pressures are likely to be particularly onerous for English Language Learners.
In short, the DOE has acknowledged the harmful nature of the abrupt transition to the Common Core – in a year when schools and families also endured a devastating hurricane, a bus strike and a mass elementary school shooting in a nearby community – and yet offers only platitudes about how to help children, parents and educators cope.
Given the poorly managed phase-in of the Common Core and the experimental nature of this year’s assessments, we call for you to immediately and publicly announce that:
§ All student promotion decisions will be made on the basis of a range of indicators, including a review of a substantive portfolio of work representative of a child’s academic progress throughout the year.
§ Teachers will not be evaluated on the results of this year’s tests as the scores are not comparable to last year’s.
§ School Progress Reports, which are almost entirely based on student test scores, will be either suspended or significantly changed to incorporate additional evidence of student achievement. No schools will be closed using this year’s test scores.
§ Parents have a right to opt their children out of the tests, as Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky has publicly stated, and the DOE will put in writing procedures about how to do so.
It is unacceptable for city students, teachers and schools to be judged by the results of these new exams, which are unpredictable by your own admission, especially when other means of assessment already exist.
The time has come for the DOE to finally acknowledge and respond to the growing concerns among public school parents about high-stakes testing. The current direction of policies and practices MUST change.
Sincerely,
The Members of Change the Stakes
Two weeks of testing, that is insane. It does not take that long to see if someone is competent in language and math that is for sure. They did not need that much when I was young, I am 65, and they do not need it now. We have not changed in 20-30,000 years so what is different now? Of course the testing companies are banging the money and the kickbacks and offshore accounts grow with the growth of the business.
Good for you, Change the Stakes members! But why don’t you all go one step further–EVERY one of you opt ALL your children out. Only when the time comes that there ISN’T anyone to take these tests will this testing stop. Garfield High School stands as a shining example–300/400 opted out, and only 97 took the test. Now, just WHAT are they going to do with that miniscule data? Not much.
No tests=back to REAL teaching & REAL learning.
No tests=greater mental health for all concerned–students, teachers, principals
No tests=restoration of money wasted on tests, test materials & test preps back to the schools for personnel, programs & supplies the kids need (how about addressing the crushing mental health issues enveloping this country by providing schools more than one social worker?)
OPT your kids OUT NOW!
Most of the parents in Change the Stakes are opting their kids out of the tests this year and many did so last year! We also participated in and supported field test boycotts last year. We encourage any parents who are considering opting out to contact us. Visit our website, changethestakes.org or email us at changethestakes@gmail.com.
Yes this makes sense lets get this info to the masses We all need to stand as a united front of concerned parents and remind families to opt out from this test bullying madness
OPT OUT
Sort of off-topic, but I’ll connect it back in a bit. Have you heard about “Persepolis-gate” at CPS? CPS administration issued an edict that the book Persepolis was to be immediately removed from classrooms and libraries. Later they issued a “clarification” (i.e., a walk-back) that the edict only applied to classrooms and that it was only being removed from the seventh grade curriculum (as if that’s any better). Anyway, Fred Klonsky highlighted an especially keen insight from Ben Joravsky: http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/ben-joravsky-and-the-parent-penis-theory/
Money quote:
“Hence, the great parent-penis theory: Byrd-Bennett got a complaint, saw the picture, and freaked out.
“If so, let’s take a moment to appreciate the irony. For the last few weeks, thousands of parents have begged and pleaded that Mayor Emanuel not close their schools. And Byrd-Bennett’s basic response has been: I know you’re “emotional,” but we know what’s good for your children.
“But get one parent complaining about one penis, and the world moves.”
So perhaps we can make this useful somehow. School administrators so far haven’t been paying a lick of attention to parents when it comes to issues like testing or school closings. Chances are they won’t pay any attention to this letter either. But maybe if we can find a way to make a connection between testing/school closings and children seeing male sex organs, maybe then school officials will sit up and take notice.
Can you also add,
“Untill you can ensure that all information about my child be secured and not distributed without my signed consent” no test shall be administered. To include
social security number
DOB
Ethnic Background
address
sex
past performance
sibling information
parental information
I attended another depressing Panel for Education Policy in NYC last night. Despite a large crowd of parents pleading to NOT have their schools colocated, the mayor-appointed majority of the PEP approved all but one proposal (which was just put on hold). Nothing new here. One charter school group was the only group in favor of a colocation as they are the ones who need a place to put their school. This administration has NEVER listened to the parents, students, nor the teachers. It is clear that will never happen.
This is a world wide game of privatization and driving down everyone except the 1/10 of 1/10 of 1%. 1% includes $350,000/year. That is a good working wage but is not a player unless politically inclined which most are not. Even then how can they be put into the same class of “Player” as the multi billionaire? Not real, no comparison on power.
Not to mention, the effects of children and their families losing their homes to hurricane Sandy, and in some cases, families being separated–Sandy’s impacts have long-term effects for kids and their families.
Not to mention the effects of children and their families losing their homes to Superstorm Sandy, and in some cases, families being separated–Sandy’s impacts have long-term effects for kids and their families.
Thank you CTS. These tests are tantamount to child abuse. Would the city license a teacher whose classroom lesson plans elicited feelings of nervousness, anxiety and stress? I think not. We are asked to grade our schools in the recently handed out “learning environment survey” – this is laughable. Our school, under crushing budget cuts and soaring classroom sizes has done an incredible job teaching our children. The F goes to all involved with high stakes testing. Does my child in school have feelings of struggle, anxiety and nervousness? Yes. I call it BULLYING (aka High Stakes Testing). Bullying: verb: use superior strength or influence to intimidate, typically to force him/her to do what one wants. Parents and Educators did not ask for these tests and instead are rallying against them. NYC public school students are being bullied, and its high time we parents stand up for what is right and not allow our childrens lives to be affected by a BULLY. Here we have an imbalance of power, whereby High Stakes Testing is wielded like a weapon to intimidate our teachers and our students – so here we are, standing up and loudly saying NO. According to StopBullying.gov, “when adults respond quickly and consistently to bullying behavior they send the message that it is not acceptable.” Chancellor Walcott, how much clearer can we be????
how “opting out” would affect the 7th grade student? As you know, it is already “the high stake year” filled with high-school admission madness. Would not the child’s grades suffer as the result of opting out?
By the way, you might be interested in reading the following post:
http://underzodiacclock.com/2010/10/05/american-education-reform (American Education Reform at Zodiac Times blog)
I would also read the comments there left by educators
A gratitude of appreciation to change the stakes to have the courage to write a letter to the NYC Chancellor. Your letter was loud and clear and hope it does not fall on deaf ears!! I will like to mention to all parents who children attend NYC public schools that the NYS ELA and Math exams only counts in NYC public school for promotional criteria and the entire state of New York does not!!! Parents it is time for you to stand up against the Mayor’s attack on your children and how he is using our public schools to benefit his propaganda to close public schools and to open charter schools. The main reason our school system is failing is not the fault of the teachers who work extremely hard and need to cover every single standards whether or not the students truly master it. It is the fault of the chancellor as well as the mayor that our schools are “failing” it is all about the money from the federal gov’t. It is a disgrace!!
Parents refuse to take all damaging test by the DOE. Please go to changethestakes.org to find support. You can find parents to conect with who are in your area to help you thru the refusal of high stakes tests.
In solidarity