This just arrived in my email from parents in Williamsburg, Brooklyn:
This was sent to all D14 Principals and Parent Coordinators. Feel free to share in your districts.
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Dear Principals, Parent Coordinators, PTA presidents and school communities,
At the recent Town Hall sponsored by the CEC14, it was requested that we distribute information on opting out of the upcoming NYState high stakes tests to D14 parents in grades 3-5 and grades 6-7.
Speakers at the Town Hall included:
Brooke Parker, former CEC14 member, parent activist, WAGPOPS rep
David Dobosz, long-time NYC public school teacher and respected education activist
Janine Sopp, parent activist, Change the Stakes rep
Brian DeVale, Principal PS 257 and D14 CSA Rep
Esteban Duran, community organizer – El Puente, CB1
It is because we have the utmost respect for our Superintendent, our district, our schools, our principals, and our teachers, that we are building a movement to get our classrooms and schools wrested back into your deserving hands. The only way to do this is to get as many students to opt out of the high stakes state tests as possible. We believe in the promise of public education. We believe in our teachers, our principals, and our schools. NOW is the time to show the courage of our convictions.
Based on parent interest, Superintendent Winnicki is preparing for larger numbers than ever of our students opting this year.
We understand that schools are concerned about the impact of going beyond the 5% threshold. We have been in conversation with our city, state, and federal elected officials to protect our schools from punishments. The movement to opt out of high stakes testing has grown considerably.
No school (not even a Title 1 school) will stand alone in opting out.
This is a 100% parent led effort taking place district wide, city wide, and state wide.
It is our parents’ Supreme Court guaranteed civil right to opt their children out of these tests. It is also every person’s Supreme Court guaranteed right to Freedom of Speech (including school staff’s). You have the right to disseminate information regarding parents’ civil right to opt out of state tests.
Council Member Steven Levin’s office is working on proposing legislation to get the NYC Department of Education to provide an FAQ for parents on how to opt out of state tests, reaffirming our rights.
We want to make it clear that we are not telling you to tell your parents to opt out, but asking you to disseminate this information and allowing parents to make this decision on their own. We do not encourage 4th and 7th grade parents who are interested in their children applying to screened middle schools or screened high schools to opt out of the state tests because it could impact those students’ admissions to middle and high schools.
City Council Member Steven Levin is also developing a proposed resolution that would affirm the following:
1) It is the Supreme Court guaranteed civil right of every parent to opt out of the high stakes tests. Parents can choose to refuse their children taking these tests for any reason.
2) No teacher, school, principal, or district should be punished as a result of parents exercising their civil right to opt out of state tests. Any punishments related to opting out should be considered unconstitutional as those punishments hinge upon the violation of parents’ civil rights.
3) Every teacher, school, principal, and district has the Freedom of Speech to inform parents of their civil right to opt out of state tests.
4) Children whose parents have opted them out of state tests will be given appropriate educational activities and not be required to “sit and stare” at a desk during the test-taking time.
We anticipate our state and federal elected officials following suit in protecting our students, our teachers, our principals, and our schools.
Please distribute the enclosed information to your 3rd to 5th graders or 6th through 8th graders (in English and Spanish) about opting out as well as the letter template that parents can fill out and return to you. We ask that you keep track of the number of parents opting out. We need to keep track of this information.
Additionally, we will give parents who choose to opt-out of the high stakes tests a templated letter for them to send to elected officials at all levels and the media on the first day of testing. The letter will state that they support their school and teachers, but are opting out in opposition to loss of control at the local level, as well as the punitive measures that high stakes tests impose on children and teachers. The letter will also clearly state that this is a 100% parent-led effort.
Please share this letter far and wide, including to your colleagues, coworkers and friends outside of D14.
We thank you for all your hard work!
WAGPOPS!
Williamsburg and Greenpoint Parents: Our Public Schools!
representing public school parents across D14
Way to go parents. Protect your children. Protect your teachers and administrators from retaliation.
I’ve been lead to believe that in NC, or at least in our district, if teachers speak up against CC, even to advocate for their own children, they will loose their jobs. They don’t have unions to protect them here so all they have been able to do is not disagree when parents make objections. The parents are trying to get something moving but the teachers are stuck. How can we do more to help?
Ah, democracy.
What a novel concept.
America the pitiful
Birthplace of shotgun education.
We need a big event with lots of people, something the TV cameras won’t be able to resist.
This is the stage of the game when the folks with the big investment in ed deform really roll out the PR. It’s going to come hot and heavy over the next few months. Get your waders on.
@Bob Shepherd.. I wish the tv cameras would simply not be able to resist if real educators held a big event. When will this day come??? I guess I will get my waders ready to protest the media staged “Ed Reformy Storm”!
Sadly the media ignored real educators and did not feel it important to broadcast the SOS Rally several years ago – the media just ignored us and stuck to the latest news of the Kardashians.
Let us hope that the REAL protest is just too big at this point for even the media to ignore and public school teachers, parents, students and fed up administrators will be heard.
Sadly many teachers are held back by a feeling of lack of unity and protection by union leaders in various districts of various states should they speak up against the likes of Coleman. Their unon leaders are still happy to buy the “ed reformy kool aid” by supporting COMMON CORE and the “wonders” of the PARCC and SMART tests. Their “kool aid” needs to be “laced” with a high dose of reality though!
Look at the successes. Look at the MAP protest in Seattle, for example. The press can’t resist events. They are desperate for the ratings-boosting story of the day.
Hope I wouldn’t have to ruin my waders coming into contact with their toxic crap.
I’m ready for another million mom march on Washington.
YES!!!
Excelente idea.
But let’s add dads, grandparents, students, dogs, cats etc. . . .
Parents of NYC
The Pearson ELA and math assessments coming this April are designed to TRICK, CONFUSE, FRUSTRATE, TIRE OUT, and WEAR DOWN your children into FAILING.
They are TRAPS – not tests. Do not allow the bogus scores they produce to dismantle your public schools, to intimidate or fire teachers, and above all do not allow these test scores to humiliate, denigrate, label, or academically define your young sons and daughters. The best way to prevent this is to opt out and refuse the tests.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx As a onetime 17-yr denizen of NYC — just sO proud of these parents. YOU GO, NYC!!
Please keep us updated as to whether or not the district sends out staff to interrogate children about their opting out. Chicago public schools did this under the guise of investigating teacher misconduct. Parents were not notified and not present while their children were pulled out of class and interrogated by law department staff behind closed doors.
We need to let the kids know that the only words out of their mouths should be: I want my parents present and 5th, 5th, 5th, 5th to any and all questions.
Congratulations are in order. Get this news out to NY parents: there will be no such thing as a high stakes test in NY this year!
“Klein: ‘Everyone agrees’ on Common Core moratorium”
“Senate Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeffrey Klein said Tuesday that Governor Andrew Cuomo and other top lawmakers plan to institute a moratorium on implementation of the Common Core standards, for “at least three years.”
There is more urgency to make changes that would affect students, as third through eighth graders begin taking a second round of Common Core-aligned exams on April 1.
“We are discussing doing something before the first round of tests … so, probably within the budget,” Silver said after a leaders’ meeting Tuesday night, although he didn’t rule out additional legislation that would stand alone.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/03/8542601/klein-everyone-agrees-common-core-moratorium
While Common Core goes down in flames, corporate reformers continue to issue idiotic pronouncements of “studies” and “reports” funded by the likes of Gates and Nellie Mae.
I’m having fun with this on Twitter. Tweet the corporate reform narrative out from its source site, with the Gates funding pointed out. We’re hanging the CC$$ outrage around their necks. Twitter-fu!
I’ve got a CNN news editor following, who “oversees newsgathering for the U.S. & Canada during the overnights.”
I believe that Cuomo is staunchly opposed to a 3 year moratorium on teaching CCSS. He has agreed that test scores should not immediately be used to make decisions about students, but he still wants to use test scores to stack and rank teachers.He does not support public education and does not like that teachers have unions.
Indeed, Cuomo is opposed to a moratorium. However, his political career is in mortal danger if the CC$$ tests roll forward next week over parents and children! He is in a pickle.
Once they are declared no-stakes, opt-outs can pulll them down below the 5% accountability threshold.
Cuomo already declared the NO-stakes for all students this year.
His campaign ad has painted him into a vey small corner.
The money quote from the Andy-man
“The tests are premature, anxiety provoking, and unfair. I will not let the scores count against them. We are not here to harm students we are here to help them.”
I presume the scores cant count for them either.
They only count when used against teachers.
I received word from my daughter in Brooklyn via Facebook that the PS 295 PTA was briefed on how to join the opt out movement. As we all know, the teachers’ and administrators’ criticisms of testing are viewed as self-serving by politicians and the media. Parents who don’t want schools to turn into test-prep centers and don’t want their kids to be robotic thinkers are the key to stopping this “reform”. The NYS Regents overreach on implementing the CCSS tests may have ignited a fire in NY that will be hard to put out.
THANKS so much for posting this letter! Here’s the accompanying information.
Opt Out letters in English and Spanish: http://www.scribd.com/doc/214633337/Opt-Out-Letter-Eng-Span
A simple flyer in English and Spanish about why to Opt Out: http://www.scribd.com/doc/214636841/Why-Opt-Out-Eng-Span
I just created this at petition2congress.
Petition Title is, Dump Duncan
Please sign. It will be forwarded to all Senators, Congressmen, and President Obama as well.
http://www.petition2congress.com/14914/dump-duncan/
Today I saw a student listless and dour, slumping in his chair as I asked him why he wasn’t doing the English work for the teacher I share a room with. He said all he can think of is the test next week and he is too depressed to concentrate on anything. Held over multiple times previously, he has come to associate fear, dread and negativity with the tests.
Our school serves an overaged population, so he is one of many we have who rightly or wrongly see the test as the annual deathblow in yet another year of failure. Come to find that a large portion of out students refused to take it in previous years, but without parental support, meaning they basically left it blank, swept it onto the floor, and/or fled the room.
Hi Diane, This is great! Could you post the materials that the parents are asking the District to distribute so it can be used as a model for other activists? Thanks!
Buffy,
The parents are not asking the District to distribute materials. They are making their own posters and flyers. They rely on organizations like United Opt Out for guidance, also Parents Across America. Join the Network for Public Education to find parent groups in your state. The website of United Opt Out for hacked on the first day of testing, and I hope it has been restored. In time, it will be.