Things are not working out so well for the corporate reformers in Néw York. They expected that the abysmal scores on the Pearson tests would cause parents to turn against their public schools; they expected parent demands for vouchers and charters.
Instead, parents are furious at the Néw York State Education Department for testing their kids for seven hours, and they are furious at Pearson for making bad tests and hiding their contents from teachers and parents. How can teachers or students benefit if the test contents are hidden?
Here are the districts that are boycotting the Pearson field tests (more may join them):
Babylon
Bellmore/Merrick CHSD
Comsewogue
Fairport
HFL
Glen Cove
Great Neck
Happauge
Jericho
Manhasset
Merrick
Mount Sinaii
North Bellmore
Ossining
Pittsford
Plainview Old-Bethpage
Rocky Point
Syosset
West Irondequoit
Webster
NOTE: this is not the Tea Party. This is school boards and parents who are fed up with too much testing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hey, lets charge people to help whitewash a fence! Sorry, Pearson, kids today are smarter, where’s the $150 visa gift card for being a research participant.
Good work NY districts who are boycotting the Pearson field tests!
NY parents are able to recognize this “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I’m going to post this article on the Texas Parents Opt Out site so your example may inspire more Texas parents and school districts who have growing resistance to Pearson !
Spackenkill is not administering it as well.
But isn’t all of this “opposition” coming from hysterical White suburban mothers who can’t see that their kids aren’t that smart? I think the DOE made a statement or something. Anyway, I trust Arne Duncan.
Me too. So much experience playing basketball.
Race ya to the top, Ron?
Given my read, there seems to be no mandate in NCLB that enables state education departments to use random public school children in random grades in random schools in random districts, etc., as (uncompensated) test subjects during public school hours. Moreover, given that there are no accommodations during field testing in NYS given for children who have an IEP, or 504 status, I’m not sure how such field testing does not run afoul of some federal non-discriminatory scheme. And then there’s the additional classroom time it eats up, not to mention test burnout already being experienced by these kids.
No, this is not the Tea Party. It also certainly isn’t representative of the entire state of New York–take away Ossining and Glen Cove, and you are left with a collection of districts that are overwhelmingly white, ranging from comfortably middle class to extremely well-to-do, with many close to areas where poor people of color are warehoused.
It’s safe to say that many of the residents of these districts share the same sentiment as NY State Regent Harry Phillips, who famously claimed, “[New York has] a lot of great schools. When you factor out the poorest kids, we do great.” I wonder if any of these boycott districts are interested in taking bold steps to make sure they are educating their fair share of at-risk learners, or paying a lot more in state taxes so schools are equitably funded?
Our children are over tested. Period. This use of our children as focus groups FOR FREE for a for profit company’s benefit is unacceptable and has nothing to do with equitable distribution of funds.
Second, all of Long Island already pays more than our fair share to help at-risk learners. We don’t get back the same amount of money we pay in taxes, we get less. My school taxes are astronomical compared to many areas in NY, yet our children are entitled to the same base education, with some areas getting an even better one than we have in my town.
Maybe if Cuomo fully funded the schools instead of using the gap elimination adjustment to cut their budgets down while somehow magically finding money to refund people school tax increases for this year (and the next 4), there would be even more equality.
petition on MoveOn (by L. Helmsley) quote: “Thursday May 22, to protest Governor Cuomo’s budget slashing/pro-corporate policies in education. He is due to be re-nominated tomorrow as Governor on Long Island, and the President is supposed to be there as well. Here is more information about this event, including why Cuomo’s policies have been so damaging to our schools. To reserve a seat on a bus leaving from NYC and Lower Hudson tomorrow morning, please click here.
2. On Monday night, at a Town hall meeting, I read a letter co-signed by parent leaders, asking Chancellor Fariña to comply with the law and the Mayor’s campaign promises by reducing class size, especially as they are now the largest in 15 years in the early grades. Smaller classes are the #1 priority of NYC parents, and the state’s highest court said they were needed for our children to receive their constitutional right to an adequate education. A video of Chancellor’s response, including why she thinks class sizes can be too small, is on our blog here.
Please sign a petition to the Chancellor and the Mayor, urging them to comply with the law, listen to parents and what research shows works, and include a realistic plan to lower class size in their Contracts for Excellence proposal, due June 16.
Thanks,
Hooray!!! ¡¡¡¡¡Viva la Revolucion!!!!!
Somehow the US has gotten turned around about what testing is all about. Kids and parents shouldn’t know what is on the test! How can they learn the body of knowledge if all they do is study the narrow wedge of information that is on a test? No test can cover it all! The point is to learn it all so that it won’t matter what test you take; you’ll ace it. You need to understand the subject, not the test.
As for the seven hours time frame, that was standard in the 60’s when I went to school in NY. Once a year we took our regents tests. If we passed, we passed the grade. If we failed, we failed the grade. We never knew what was on the test and neither did the teacher. What’s the big deal?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The subject under discussion is not final exams given in core high school courses (I too went to school in NYS in the 1960’s.) The tests administered last spring in NYS, which parents are beginning in large numbers to opt their kids out of for this spring, are administered in PRIMARY GRADES. Although the tests only cover math and English, they already add up to 7 – 9 hrs of testing for grades 3, 4, 5. Present plans include similar tests for K, 1, & 2 — and will eventually add science.
The tests for K-2 are officially not happening thanks to the education laws passed along with the state budget. This also includes a cap on testing and test prep, which are now limited to 1% and 2%, respectively, of total instructional time.
First of all, in the sixties, you had review books for regents exams, so please do not tell the public that you did not know what was on the exams. Regents exams covered the material taught in class, and these exams were created by educators. It served a purpose, as it was based on what you learned or did not learn that year. No on e objects to the regents exams even in the year 2014. But, you are not comparing apples to apples; you are comparing apples to oranges, and do not even realize it!!!! The ELA and Math state tests and the field tests do not teach a set curriculum, kids and teachers do not find out grades until the summer, and the tests are grossly flawed. Your English regents exam was taken within an extended time period, but it only took 1 day. What we object to is a flawed test that takes hours and multiple days. Does it really take 3 days to decide how well an elementary and middle school student can write and read? The state repeats the same extended procedure for flawed math exams. How well a child does can easily been determined within a 2 day maximum time period if the test is well written. Teachers do not object to tests; they object to unfair test practices and deeply flawed tests that serve no purpose.
I am offended that you think “what was good in the 60’s” should be fine now, simply because it was fine back then. Would you really want to be treated by a doctor who only uses the same tests, methods and treatments from the sixties? I do not think so….
I beleive you can add Rye Neck to the list as well
Apparently the BOE and Superintendent in Webster would like to keep their insubordination with NYSED on the down low. This isn’t an act of courage; it is an act of fear that is typical of teachers, board members, and administrators these days. The plan is to accept the field tests when they are delivered, hold on to them, and then return them claiming that they didn’t have time to administer them. Parents who made inquiries to district about the field tests were told that a decision hadn’t been made, when all along a plan of passive deception was already in place. This is leadership?
Disturb the universe, even if it is done quietly. Meanwhile, in cash-strapped districts, these heinous tests are being administered for fear of loss of state aid. It is a lie. And now the first crop of NYS high school students are being subjected to CCSS field tests in English and math. These tests are designed by Pearson with wording “examined” by NYS teachers. Just flush 100 years of TEACHERS writing regents exams down the toilet. Why Don’t other businesses challenge the supremacy of pears$n?
Is Chet Finn saying we are not all “tea party” types if we find flaws in the testing and standards (a la Pearson /Parcc)
quote: “Just because some criticisms of Common Core standards are over the top and dripping with misinformation doesn’t make them all so. Plenty of valid concerns exist, and the estimable Peggy Noonan recently homed in on several of them. ”
read his article today at Education Next and leave a comment. I have banned from posting comments at their site and at Fordham Institute they just take all comments off (maybe waiting 24 hours).
I tried posting on the Chet Finn article but I got “wrong captcha” 5 times. Is that with a Boston accent? is it the retina surgery I had on my eyes? At any rate this was my comment to Chet Finn’s article:
quote: ” because the textbooks and other materials that most schools use are dreadful and have been for decades.”
This is an over-generalization. it is part of the myth that all public schools are failing
quote from Finn: “Partly it’s due to the textbook oligopoly. (As behemoth Pearson has purchased many of its competitors in recent years, it’s approaching an outright monopoly.) ”
It is the behemoth “I own your tests, I own your curriculum” that we are complaining about. There is a saying “let me write your tests and I won’t care what the curriculum is at all”… this is not how we operated as professional educators in Massachusetts but Mitchell Chester has a fondness for Pearson/Parcc now and he and Arne Duncan are pushing it on every state.
Chet Finn reiterates the Pearson strategy and Gates goals
quote : “The new tests don’t come out till next spring in most states and won’t count for a few years after that. Once educators and local (and state) officials see how poorly their kids are doing on these tougher assessments and what the standards really require, they will start looking for better curricular materials and training.And thanks to the nationwide market that the Common Core has begun to create, those better materials are coming. Look at what Rupert Murdoch and Joel Klein are hatching at Amplify: some amazing, old-fashioned, content-rich materials combined with the technology of web-connected tablets and the “kid appeal” of electronic games.”
So the purpose is to make the students look bad, punish them, fire the teachers. Is that the purpose of the tests? Chet Finn has clearly set out his policy goals here as he praises Murdoch and Klein.
The AFT report “Testing More, Teaching Less” put the cost of standardized testing and testing-related activity in the US at between $700 and $1,000 per pupil.
Let’s take the lower of these figures. According to the Institute for Education Statistics, average school size in the US in 2009-10 was 546.4.
So, $382,480 was spent on standardized testing and tested-related costs PER SCHOOL.
Think of what that money could buy in your school.
This standardized testing has ZERO INSTRUCTIONAL VALUE.
And think of the opportunity costs.
I thought that field tests were no longer administered and NYS BOE helped them find the go around by burying the field questions right into the standardized tests – no?
Add Scarsdale to that list!
This is a tiny fraction of school districts in NY! June is here and the field testing begins shortly. Hopefully this week will add more districts to the list. Maybe the national media will get on board.