Almost everyone agrees that high-stakes testing for little children is a huge mistake. The parents not only wrote their elected officials, they took direct action.
More than 80% of the parents of the children at the Castle Bridge Elementary School in New York City refused to allow their children to be tested.
They opted out.
The tests were canceled.
NO TESTS. NONE!
The parents knew that the only purpose of the tests was to evaluate the teachers, not the children.
Most Castle Bridge School parents — representing 83 of the 97 students — refused to permit their children to be tested.
“My feeling about testing kids as young as 4 is it’s inhumane,” said PTA co-chairwoman Dao Tran, mother of first-grader Quyen Lamphere, 5. “I can only see it causing stress.”
The state now requires schools to factor test scores — in one form or another — into their teacher evaluations, which are new this year in the city.
The parents thought the testing was absurd.
As the Daily News reported earlier this month, such exams, given to kids as young as 4, require students to fill in bubbles to show their answers.
It’s like the SAT for kids barely older than toddlers. And parents resent it.
“Our principal does a good job,” said PTA co-chairwoman Elexis Pujolos, mother of kindergartner Daeja, 4, and first-grader AJ, 6. “A test could not possibly measure what she is able to.”
Principal Julie Zuckerman canceled the required tests because the scores wouldn’t provide statistically meaningful data once so many parents opted out.
She also hates judging teachers even partly on the basis of a test.
“It can’t be used as evaluation tool of teachers even if it were a valid test — which it’s not,” she said.
If all parents did this, they could stop the testing madness that is ruining education and children’s love of learning.
If it can happen at Castle Bridge, it can happen anywhere!
Without data, the giant testing machine can’t function. The children can learn stress-free. Education becomes possible.
Message: OPT OUT.
It’s great the parents stood up for what they believe was in the best interest of their children. I am dismayed to see the children’s pictures with their names & ages attached the article.
Here’s John King reacting to the Castle
Bridge Schools boycott, and subsequent
canceling of the tests:
Okay, before we get a skewed perception of this story, I worked in this building for 5 years-left 2 years ago. The building was P.S.128 a public school. Three years ago, the Office of Portfolio Planning came in and told us our school was to be co-located with an “EMPOWERMENT SCHOOL”-which is basically NYCDOE’s version of the Montessori model. Their tests scores were comparable to our students (mostly Dominican, ELL, low to mid level income families), but because they were this type of school the NYCDOE did not penalize them for low test scores, meanwhile P.S. 128 was constantly being put on the watch list for restructuring because of low test scores. This is a NON-story people because it is an Empowerment school and they are getting specialized treatment to begin with-it is public relations/free advertising for Castle Bridge-nothing more. Meanwhile, my old school is continually getting squeezed out of space as the co-located school takes up more and more room (which by the way, they lied to us about in the original agreement where they told us it was only a temporary use of space for grades K-2, 2 years at most). This story reminds me of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Castle Bridge seems like the protagonist until you take a closer look at the history. Now what would happen if the Principal of P.S.128 cancelled the test? That would probably mean the administration would be fired.
There’s good news from Texas.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20131014-texas-school-districts-plan-ratings-without-staar.ece
“Despite the governor’s veto, a coalition of Texas school districts is trying to create an accountability system that doesn’t depend on STAAR.”
Having proctored the Terra Nova with first graders – these tests are frustrating, produce anxiety if the child doesn’t understand the question and/or answer, and often results in tears of distress sometimes even outright sobbing.
It is tantamount to child abuse to expect pre schoolers or kindergarteners to take such a test. Who are the adults in the room? How can parents trust such flawed judgements from non educators? How have we allowed this to happen, and, more importantly, how can we stop this disaster from doing further harm to,our children?
We are not a fringe group. Those in charge cannot stop what is happening – there are just too many of us.
Power to the parents! We can’t expect the politicians or school officials to protect our children from test abuse. As parents, it is our DUTY to stand up to this garbage. The parents and students of Castle Bridge Elementary have shown that they are intelligent and brave.
It is not huge unless somebody besides the choir here gets the word you been preaching and hears about this school opting out to protect youngsters from clearly abusive test practices. You teachers have a duty to report. My bet is that every teacher who applauds these parents and the principal for performing this small miracle will NOT go to school and be sneaky or subversive as they urge students, parents, colleagues and others to follow this school’s lead. They will not be upfront or frank about this, that is for sure. And what may have been huge on a hopeful morning becomes a vague and bitter ache in the collective memory. Why oh why don’t parents do this?
Well, there are a lot of reasons. They do not even know what goes on is one of them. Who can parents rely on to let them in on this sort of thing? Not students. Not administrators though clearly this one had much to do with subverting things at this school. Not the media, not neighbors and not the district, board of education or unions. Parents have only one real source for information and that is you, the teachers who see their children as often or more often than they do.
Rather than putting mom on edge with a rant about Jr.’s missing homework and tendency to be tardy, why not spread the word ? Tell these parents how five year olds are flung into frustrating assessments and stress is making kids ill in schools where high stakes testing has over run common sense. Not to mention compassion. Where is yours? You may be cowards but I know you teachers are clever.
Get email addresses and send copies of this blog anonomously to these parents and every teacher you know. Convert them all like you were on a mission. I mean, we are on a mission or are we just here whimper in the Ravitch glory and slouch off to be whipped some more?
Do something! You have power, you know risks are part of anything worth doing, and what is more worthwhile than you and the work you do? What is more worthwhile than your students?
Do you really believe the money and power of a few twisted souls can trump that or the truth, which is all about a parent’s instinct to protect her child and the faith she has that you will do that when she has left that child in your care.
Most parents still believe in teachers. When they hear of this and they will (Eventually) they will be outraged. If it is not teachers who tell them sooner than later, there will be too many casualties and too many lost lessons to excuse. Faith in teachers will be revoked and rightly so.
It is all we have going for us, folks.
Parents are in this for the reasons we are.
Never forget this no matter how they hover or little they seem to care.
We are that village it takes to raise any child and these plutocrats will destroy this in flash. If we let them.
Reach out to the parents and parents reach out to the teachers because many of them are in the dark too. We are so much less without each other.
This High School History/Social Studies teacher has an entire OPT OUT wall in his room. I have posted the Tested to Despair bumper sticker, the Connecticut-specific letter parents should use to opt their children out, the OPT OUT Declaration of Independence, and, now, this story. I have the wall titled “Modern Day Civil Disobedience!” and my Principal supports me. I have organized a local movement to inform parents of their rights in educational matters, a movement that includes a highly active community member who is quite vocal. I do not know what more I can do.
awesome, Bill!
Democracy in action. Dr. King would applaud you as do I..
Thank goodness that parents had the option of sending their children to this unzoned and (controversially) co-located school of choice, right?
Although 80% is fantastic, a lower number would mess with the statistics too so this is entirely worth pursuing even if it takes a few years to build critical mass. I think once school districts find themselves having to force students to take these tests (by way of increasing threats) we’ll see some good old American spit and vinegar come into play. The system depends on standardized test scores.
This si great news . Parents helping teachers.. Awesome… These parents have been reading and are paying close attention to what is going on in their schools. Maybe i should have taught in NY.. Gp Parents .. Lucky Teachers And Students. And the kids will still be successful. Thanks Diane for this post… Keep it up… The TIDE is turning…
It’s been amusing to watch the testing evolve over the last decade of reform.
First we were told it was to be used to evaluate children. That became ridiculous and over-used and there was parent and teacher push-back. Then it appeared again, with a new purpose-to grade schools. That’s running into trouble. Now we’re having children take tests to grade teachers.
When the teacher grading is discredited I expect them to go to grading parents.
The one constant over the last decade or so is the “need” for more and more standardized testing.
If there isn’t a market need, they’ll simply create one 🙂
“Also at Monday’s meeting Mr. Hosler discussed the new Ohio Teachers Evaluation System, which has caused the district more challenges. The new evaluations are decided by 50 percent student growth, and 50 percent performance standards, based on observations.
Those two evaluations decide if a teacher is accomplished, skilled, developing, or ineffective under the system.
Mr. Hosler said it puts a strain on administrators’ time to conduct all the new evaluations. The junior high school just hired another administrator to help with evaluations. Also Monday, the board of education approved the hiring of Tom Shafer to assist with the evaluation workload. He is to be paid $250 per teacher evaluation.”
Read more at http://www.ourtownperrysburg.com/Education/2013/10/21/Union-negotiations-dominate-Perrysburg-School-Board-meeting.html#3LFBXiejOLrOygDl.99
Yay! A new administrator and a new contractor.
Nothing parents like better than hiring more administrators. This will be wildly popular 🙂
Instead of hiring another administrator, they could have hired two new teachers. Non-tangibles like “evaluation instruments” do nothing for student achievement. Smaller class sizes, on the other hand, ….
Parents = POWER
Castle Bridge, which reserves up to 10% of its spots for kids with a parent in jail, has some touchy-feel practices.
Kids get a quiet time nearly most days, where they can snuggle up with a teddy bear for nap or read a book quietly. Teachers write multiple-page narratives instead of giving report cards.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/parents-opt-city-test-article-1.1492127#ixzz2iSv5srBo
Is this a charter school? Why is this school allowed to give a multipage narrative instead of a report card? I’m just curious, what is the class size?
If one public school was allowed to cancel the tests, it this may be a case for teachers throughout the city to argue against testing as a means of evaluating teaching. It will be interesting to see where this goes – it could be the true start of the end of high stakes testing.
OK, yes, this is my question. I want to know the nuts and bolts of this particular school before we get all excited. Anyone know?
I understand that the principal is very progressive, has an excellent reputation, doesn’t believe in high-stakes testing. Loves the kids.
The admissions screen at this unzoned school is almost exactly the same as it is at New York City charter schools, and it is co-located–against the wishes of many in the community–with a traditional district school. Families must apply, and if there are more applications than seats, winners get a spot and everyone else is put on a wait list.
The “creaming” that arises from this screen has left the school with a student body very different from the district and the school it shares a building with. It is only 10% ELL (at a dual-language school!) vs. 26% for its co-located school; 21% white vs. 0.5%; and 1% most-restrictive environment special ed vs. 4%. The co-located district school is extremely high-needs, with 90% of its student body eligible for free lunch.
This is apparently intolerable when charter schools are involved, but okay and even praiseworthy if the co-locating school is staffed with UFT members. Doesn’t make much sense to me, but there you have it.
Personally, I get annoyed when any lottery school regardless of whether it is a charter, magnet or other gets special treatment and is allowed to follow different rules. I bet there are many progressive principals at traditional neighborhood schools that love children and would like to try new things, but aren’t given the freedom to do so.
Most parents would like a narrative report card and it would be great if one didn’t have win a golden ticket to get a seat at such schools.
However, I think this could be a good thing for all. If this is a public school under the big NYC umbrella and not a charter, it should increase the argument that if this school can cancel tests, then any other principal should be allowed to do so. If all schools aren’t participating in this testing, how can it be used to evaluate/punish teachers?
It is a public school, not a charter. The reason why the tests were cancelled was because 80% of the parents opted out of the tests and the scores wouldn’t provide statistically meaningful data once so many parents opted out. 83 out of 97 students were not taking the test (only 14 students would have taken the test)
It is an unzoned choice school open to all NYC residents with fundamentally the same application process as a New York City charter school. It is co-located within a traditional district school that opposed the arrangement. The unzoned school and the district school have highly dissimilar student demographics.
All of these issues are given a lot of play when the co-locating school is a charter. Here, bupkis. Why?
Helpful. So if this is indeed a public school (albeit one with a more suburban flavor in terms of student population), this is an interesting development. I hope there will be updates on the fallout from the state. We’re in a relatively high-performing rural district. My concern would be financial penalties levied by the state- it’s very big chance for a district with high poverty to take with no precedent- we’re nearly insolvent due to the GEA. The argument could be made that we’re spending more money than we’re getting on testing and “reforms” that we know are harmful, but do we do what we know is right but risk diving in to the educational insolvency pool instead of wading in from the shallow end, which is what we’re doing now? There will certainly be pockets of parents in our district and others who will opt out, but the wealthier, highly involved suburban districts are going to have to lead the way on this one- they have all the $$ and political power, and MUCH less to lose. This is the hard lesson we’ve learned in our fight over equity. I feel like every district north and west of Albany could opt out and nothing would happen, other than we’d be punished financially by the state and you wouldn’t see a word of it in the news, or it would be spun into those “ignorant tea partiers who don’t like book learnin'”(which couldn’t be further from the truth in this town, at least). ANYWAY, long rant short, followup would be very useful!!
Okay, before we get a skewed perception of this story, I worked in this building for 5 years-left 2 years ago. The building was P.S.128 a public school. Three years ago, the Office of Portfolio Planning came in and told us our school was to be co-located with an “EMPOWERMENT SCHOOL”-which is basically NYCDOE’s version of the Montessori model. Their tests scores were comparable to our students (mostly Dominican, ELL, low to mid level income families), but because they were this type of school the NYCDOE did not penalize them for low test scores, meanwhile P.S. 128 was constantly being put on the watch list for restructuring because of low test scores. This is a NON-story people because it is an Empowerment school and they are getting specialized treatment to begin with-it is public relations/free advertising for Castle Bridge-nothing more. Meanwhile, my old school is continually getting squeezed out of space as the co-located school takes up more and more room (which by the way, they lied to us about in the original agreement where they told us it was only a temporary use of space for grades K-2, 2 years at most). This story reminds me of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Castle Bridge seems like the protagonist until you take a closer look at the history. Now what would happen if the Principal of P.S.128 cancelled the test? That would probably mean the administration would be fired.
Love it ! ! !
I will pass it on.
One down, 98,816 to go!
🙂
About time! Parents have been fooled.
More parents should be doing this. Way too much testing!
WOW! Parents that really care about their children learning instead of test taking. I’m curious if they’ve received offers to study the effects on learning when testing is taken out of the equation. I wonder if (hope) it’ll catch on…
Can we please give this principal a Medal of Honor!
She is courageous, and what a positive role model for all the other cowering principals, teachers, and parents.
NYC High Schools recently did a baseline assessment for ELA teachers. I volunteered to do some grading for the freshmen. The guide/sample essays to follow in terms of grading are a hot mess. There’s one where the student sample clearly shows the student copied entire sections of the passages instead of actually doing any writing. But the state graders mark this type of writing as adequate. On a scale of 0-4 (4 being best), they gave this child 2’s and 3’s for content and conventions. This is horrible! The student didn’t do any actual writing. They copied article sections with no original content. Nor did the student use quotation marks; essentially plagiarizing. And this is the types of sample grading we’re supposed to follow. So the grading end of things are screwy.
Further, high school kids hated taking these exams – especially as they know it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with their teachers. Because of that, they don’t care. They have nothing invested in that exam. And so, they do barely the minimum. Why should they work hard on an exam that does nothing for them? And can we blame them?
Assessing teachers based on these exams is like setting doctor salaries on their patients blood pressure. On any given day, it’s going to be up or down depending on a wild variety of factors.
Good.. that is just so wrong… the stress and the needlessness of it.
Hooray!!! Hooray for the power of parents!
This obsession with testing is not “normal”. It is as if the administrators get pleasure from punishing children. This is deviant behavior. This homework is just one example o how the school administrators have lost touch with reality. Our children are victims.
Exactly, Allyson! We need to start calling this what it is–child abuse.
Today, I received this from one of my students. I thought you might be able to use it to help the cause.
I hope this email finds you doing well. I am writing to let you know that after two years of teaching I have decided to leave my school. I came to a standstill with my administration when I asked for a para/assistant in my kindergarten class of 22 difficult children which included 11 four year olds, 4 special needs students, 6 emotionally disturbed and 4 who were violent who punched, kicked, and hit me, and hurt the other students all day long. After 4 weeks of asking my Dean and Principal for assistance in the room, and being bombarded by angry parents complaining- the administration said no and I made the decision to leave. There was no way I could get through the advanced curriculum they required me to teach with that many distractions and violence without an aid in the room. It wasn’t teaching.
Okay, before we get a skewed perception of this story, I worked in this building for 5 years-left 2 years ago. The building was P.S.128 a public school. Three years ago, the Office of Portfolio Planning came in and told us our school was to be co-located with an “EMPOWERMENT SCHOOL”-which is basically NYCDOE’s version of the Montessori model. Their tests scores were comparable to our students (mostly Dominican, ELL, low to mid level income families), but because they were this type of school the NYCDOE did not penalize them for low test scores, meanwhile P.S. 128 was constantly being put on the watch list for restructuring because of low test scores. This is a NON-story people because it is an Empowerment school and they are getting specialized treatment to begin with-it is public relations/free advertising for Castle Bridge-nothing more. Meanwhile, my old school is continually getting squeezed out of space as the co-located school takes up more and more room (which by the way, they lied to us about in the original agreement where they told us it was only a temporary use of space for grades K-2, 2 years at most). This story reminds me of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Castle Bridge seems like the protagonist until you take a closer look at the history. Now what would happen if the Principal of P.S.128 cancelled the test? That would probably mean the administration would be fired.