New Jersey parent and blogger Sarah Blaine (parentingthecore) describes the test rebellion brewing in her state:
“I have been so proud of my state ever since the January 7, 2015 State Board of Education open public comment period. We filled 4 rooms of testimony (in two buildings) that day. Almost 100 people spoke out against the PARCC, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Trenton set the spark, and the press jumped on the bandwagon. We’ve had stories (that I’ve seen) about the PARCC refusal movement in The Star Ledger, on CBS News, in The Asbury Park Press, in The Alternative Press, in countless local papers, and the best TV coverage I’ve personally seen is this NJ Public Television/PBS-13 piece from earlier this week (and not just because I am interviewed in it via a terrible Skype connection to my iPad) http://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/legislation-addresses-parcc-test-controvery/ .
“Our Opt Out of State Standardized Tests – New Jersey Facebook page has grown from about 2,700 prior to the January 7th meeting in Trenton to 7,443 as of this writing.
“At the Jersey City meeting of the Governor’s PARCC Study Commission on January 28th, I watched parents, teachers, and even a Superintendent stand up, one after another, to speak intelligently, thoughtfully, and passionately about the problems the PARCC tests are causing at our schools. That generated more press coverage.
“And then the following night in Jackson, NJ, even more parents and teachers spoke out against the tests. As I understand it, the testimony that night lasted for well over 5 hours (plus 4 hours in Jersey City the night before).
“Tomorrow, as noted above, the state assembly’s education committee is hearing public testimony regarding three bills: A-4165 (enshrining parents’ opt-out rights in law, which is up for discussion only, unfortunately), A-4190 (preventing any graduation, placement, or other academic decisions to be made for students based on PARCC results for the next three years), and A3079 (prohibiting all standardized testing in grades K-2).
“Take the PARCC events and screenings of Standardized have been popping up all over the state. We have more than 20 local “Cares About Schools” type groups scattered through our towns now. A grassroots group is even working on a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $4,000 of the $8,000 needed to fund three Choose to Refuse the PARCC billboards.
“It’s been amazing to be a part of this movement, and I am so proud of my fellow citizens for standing up for public education. I was particularly proud of my local Board of Education this week, which passed (by a vote of 6-0) a resolution requiring all of our schools to offer educationally appropriate alternatives to kids whose parents refuse to allow them to test.
“But we’ve still got a long way to go.
“We’ve got to get those NJ assembly bills passed into law. We need to make sure that as a country, we do what it takes to ensure that the ESEA re-authorization doesn’t codify problematic education policy into law for years to come. And we need to plan a better future for our kids — one that values real learning and education in all subject areas over standardized test scores.
“My local school district announced on Monday night that at its PARCC technology trials, 88% of students were able to complete the test. That’s 12% who weren’t able — due entirely to technology issues. The PARCC is a mess, but we parents need to get the word out and turn our small refusal movement into a massive groundswell. Testing starts in less than 3 weeks. The time is now. (Although I do expect our movement to grow exponentially between March and May once parents hear from their kids how awful the first round of tests really area.)
“As a parent, I think the technology idiocy compounds all of the issues, but personally, I’m in this because assigning high-stakes consequences (for schools, teachers, and/or kids) to these tests forces narrowing of the curriculum. I’m speaking out tomorrow about what I’ve seen disappear from my kids’ schools. I urge New Jersey and the rest of the country to do the same. We really can make a difference for our kids. I’m amazed at how much real statewide, grassroots organizing can accomplish. But this is still the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got about a million public school kids in NJ scheduled to take this test, and about 7,000 members of our Opt-Out group.
“We need to grow the numbers further, and show that parents are fed up with what’s happening to our kids’ education.
“We have the power — now we have to convince our neighbors and friends to stop assuming that we can’t change things, and to instead buckle down to make sure we can.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think it is extremely important for all educators to take the high road on this and not let justified anger cloud the logical arguments. I would encourage the NJEA President, Wendell Steinhauer, to sharpen his criticism and clearly articulate parental as well as educator concerns. I would also encourage him to have his association develop their own professional development / educational programs for teachers, working with schools. We all have many things to learn – it is a continuous process. Partnership with the “other side” – for the worthy goal of providing a wonderful education for our children – that would be difficult for Governor Christie to make less of.
My previous post:
I informed my local board of education during public comment that my son (6) will not be sitting for the PARCC testing (if it is still around) when he reaches third grade. I am quite serious as I feel PARCC and everything behind it is not in the best interest of any student – any teacher – any grade. Testing 8 year olds for career readiness is in itself inappropriate. Basically Common Core attempts to centralize everything – and this robs the spirit from the classroom. I feel this process it is hurtful to students for several reasons not limited to these:
1. PARCC will be administered on computer rather than paper which places pressure on our youngest of students to learn keyboarding (my son is already learning in first grade) and be exposed to computers even before they have had the experience and develop the proper motor skill to form letters correctly. The computer forms letters perfectly at the push of a button. In the perfect world I would prefer students be on computer much later. Students would benefit by working with real materials rather than inundating elementary schools with I-pads, laptops, “smart-boards” and all the other hardware “sugaring” up classrooms our youngest occupy. Tight school budgets are spending yet more on hardware just to accommodate computerized PARCC. It would make much more sense to give just one test on paper. A school’s network infrastructure, computer operating systems, and labs are not designed as a professional testing center is – and should not be. Tests of this kind are documents that require paper and are more practical on paper. Give an appropriate and elegant test once per year on paper and get the results to their teachers in a week. Perhaps that might be helpful.
2. The type of questions I found on PARCC in taking a practice test caused me a huge headache as they were twisted and confusing. I would not subject a young mind to such an assessment. In addition, activities in the classroom should not be centered on what is on this test. This robs the classroom of spontaneity – teaching moments – and valuable digression into areas of interest. A one size fits all top down totalitarian style mandated test is counter to our land’s free and open spirit.
3. Data collection – I will not have 400 points of data collected on my son and held in a database of a private company (already under investigation) for unknown future use. Centralizing this is an invasion of my son’s privacy and disrespectful. I will not have a third party testing company hold his data. Every parent needs to be concerned about this – it is Un-American! More than enough data to inform instruction can be obtained in various ways within the school itself.
4. Two tests per year are given. Massive amounts of instructional time is lost. Two tests because they will be used to evaluate teacher performance. This is flawed logic. There are way too many variables in the lives of students that can have dramatic effects on how they do in school. In addition, over evaluate a staff and you will have no time to inspire – no energy to motivate. Yet more tests, in most cases, are also administered for the so called “Student Growth Objectives“ – one more bad idea gone wild. Administrators have more than enough information within the building to inform instruction. In addition, local school districts are surrendering to a micromanaging overreach by the federal and state governments – as are teachers. What will be next? Teacher lesson plans from headquarters? We are going down a dangerous and undemocratic road.
An educational leader, in my opinion, must be a catalyst – must be the cause of positive excitement about the world – like of the world, real curiosity, knowing of the world! The American poet and philosopher Eli Siegel stated “The purpose of education is to like the world through knowing it“ and I wholeheartedly agree. I hope Mr. Hespe and other leaders will respectfully find out more about his important philosophy and extremely effective teaching method.
I believe that we are presently in a situation where teachers and students are not lifted up – but instead, insulted through SGOs, endless data collection, performance rubrics, and more. A once more collegial relationship is being replaced by a corporate style data collecting and crunching top down management – (a la McDonald’s) filling out endless computerized evaluations of teachers digitally warehoused by a centralized and privatized third party company. If more weight were given to supporting and lifting our teachers – more resources given to motivating, exciting, and further educating them – it would, in my opinion, be very wise – as our students, our children, my child, would benefit. We are missing that boat all should be on – parents, teachers, administrators, elected, BOE members, and our children.
I intend to be a vocal critic / advocate for my son and all his classmates at PTA meetings, BOE meetings and even council meetings in my own town. I hope more and more parents will object to mandating of Common Core / PARCC / teacher over- evaluation, and hope that the state reconsiders how it sees its schools, its teachers, and all its young residents across a most uneven (and unfair) financial spectrum. What is desperately needed is people centered decisions and laws – not profit centered.
I believe Dr. Maria Montessori saw children as individuals and respected the differences – and different rates of development found in each young mind – this is needed – not a one size fits all (profit centered) approach. Most importantly, in order to have schools be more successful everywhere, the state must work hard to close the huge financial gap within and between communities and lift communities rather than attempting to privatize schools in the most needy areas. That is no solution and an ugly cop out by our government that increasingly seems to be on the side of the profiteers – not the people.
David Di Gregorio, Parent
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
“I would encourage the NJEA President, Wendell Steinhauer, to sharpen his criticism and clearly articulate parental as well as educator concerns. I would also encourage him to have his association develop their own professional development / educational programs for teachers, working with schools.”
These programs are already available to members through the NJEA. The amount and quality of professional development already in place might surprise you. In regard to parental concerns, it is already encouraged by the state association that educators speak out as parents themselves. Wendell is no slouch when it comes to organizing the people. He is smart, articulate and incredibly eloquent.
I am glad that is so – it is good to hear. I have heard in Finland there is a close and productive relationship between union and administration. It seems, for a time at least, most people were siding the with present governor as he seemed to have effectively discredited and weakened the NJEA. I did not hear much form the NJEA and was disappointed.
Also, as a member of the PTA I was terribly disappointed at the PTA state president’s position on PARCC etc. seen here:
Click to access Debbie%20Tyrrell.pdf
I would hope perhaps Mr. Steinhauer might pay her a visit –
Unions have been partnering with the other side….usually called a seat at the table…the problem has been that whenever unions pull back their chairs and stand up then they get bullied and beaten by the powers that be.
When a seat at the table is only available when you agree with the other side it is not a partnership.
If unions want a seat at the table they need to make sure they are not on the menu.
Most unions are still at the table and still sitting there with the “Reformers”.
These unions are no longer on the menu at all.
Instead, they have thrown their constituents under the bus, turned us into road kill, and put us permanently on the menu.
And why shouldn’t they have done that? By cooperating with the overclass, they ensure their very own survival. Most of the people higher up in the unions get a pension from the union (paid for, courtesy of your union dues and mine) and a second pension from teaching. The gravy train is laden with such people and the structure of promotion is deliberately set up that way to quash most diversity and democratic train of thought. Do what you are told and you will be rewarded.
At this point, most – not all – unions in education are in business for one thing: themselves. Unions are in business for unions, with a stream of slick, heartfelt PR campaigns written in union magazines and newspapers that make it feel and look as though they are just as furious as you are and are fighting for you, along side of you. But look at their very specific verbiage and look at what they DON’T say and what they DON’T do. Look at their voting records, if you can FOIL them. Look at Weingarten taking money from the Gates Foundation. (I am stepping a little away from you readers at this point because I don’t want to catch any vomit on me. I just pressed this suit.)
I happen to LOVE unions . .. those in Europe, that is. I love unions especially when they behave, do, and act as real unions and not as some some extension of greedy and ignorant policy makers
But that’s all okay in my book, because we constituent cats have far more than nine lives, and we will continue to reinvent first ourselves, then our unions.
Karen Lewis, Barbara Madeloni, MORE, and the Solidarity Caucus headed up by Francesco Portelos are prime examples of this. We will not only beat the privatizers, but we will beat our unions and reinvent them (as we reinvent ourselves by shedding the passivity and indifference) to be the democratic instruments they were meant to be and used to be.
And, we are starting to get more and more parents on our side with regard to testing utilization, cost of tests in terms of time and money, loss of instructional time, merit pay, equitable school funding, and even tenure. Parents are not falling for the mischaracterization of these components at all. The way these components have unfolded is destructive to children and to democracy.
Kudos to NJ and Long Island.
I can’t wait to see events as time progresses . . . Watch what happens in the rest of New York State.
And the rest of he nation . . . . .
It kinds of reminds me of what Michelle Obama did to the White House dining room. She took these very lovely 17th and 18th century paintings and replaced them with bright, cheap looking, plastic-ish abstract paintings and an area rug that is supposed to look modern, but has this motif that looks exactly like paper clips. None of the coloration ties in with the tone of the room. It’s just this brash, crass clash of cheap shiny trinkets shot out of a canon (or maybe hurled off a plane being built in mid-air?) into an environment, all to completely ignore the current mystique of the room’s interior.
Sound familiar?
The Obama administration loves to come into revered traditions and institutions, and instead of improving them because they have giant merit and functionality, they just want to bust them, break them, and replace them with something new, cheap, and shiny.
No class in design and no class in education. Trash meets class, and I mean that as a double entendre . . . .
And to think that Obama, in one sense, is at the helm of all of this.
thank you, Sarah Blaine, for your eloquent advocacy in NJ.
Reading this before I retire for the night….. thank you for sighting evidence that our hope for a better future for our children is not completely lost.
I have to say I’m so proud to be apart of this movement. The opt out is growing in Newark, we are having a PARCC meeting at our school tomorrow and I will be there with opt out forms for parents. To see the numbers climb from what it once was is amazing, parents are really starting to understand what this is all about. Congrats to all our grass roots!
I rather not use the term “movement” when what is happening are parents becoming more informed and then, as a result, doing the right thing. By calling it a movement, it opens this up to belittlement.
“By calling it a movement, it opens this up to belittlement.”
Oh, it’s a movement, an “anti-massacreee” of the children movement:
They don’t believe kids are over-tested. The talking points they put out begins with suggesting “finding common ground with parents” by agreeing that kids are over-tested “whether it’s true or not”.
They don’t think it’s a problem, other than a POLITICAL problem or something that may get in the way.
They took testimony in the Senate on over-testing and then briskly dismissed all of it and moved on to working on the “real” legislation which will include “annual” testing, because it was always going to include annual testing.
It was a dog and pony show. A fake debate.
“Movement” is over-used in my opinion, so I agree but parents are belittled on testing all the time so I’m not sure the word matters.
If you read politicians and other promoters of testing, resistance to over-testing is called “testing phobia”, it’s compared to refusing to vaccinate kids, described as “coddling” kids, dismissed as “self interested” or attributed to fear or ignorance on the part of parents.
The most famous example is the Secretary of Education, who believes “moms” are either self-interested or stupid. Jeb Bush belittled FL parents who object to leaving 3rd graders back based on standardized tests just this week-he was jeering that “Johnny” would get his feelings hurt.
The contempt comes from the top.
Belittling parents on over-testing is just a given. It’s everywhere. I don’t think it comes from the actions or words of parents-the people at the bottom. I think it comes from ed reform leaders.
I would like more info regarding “go fund me” as it relates to this issue. google search didn’t help.
http://www.gofundme.com/kv7q84.
Billboard Fund
Reblogged this on Critical Consciousness – Spirit of Paulo Friere and commented:
Engaging parents is critical
The Ohio House passed a “symbolic” bill on the Common Core tests yesterday:
“For this school year, we’re going to pause and reflect and not hold anybody in harms way,” Buchy told the full House today. “We’re going to give safe harbor.”
Rep. Debbie Phillips, an Albany Democrat, supported the bill on the House floor, saying that the new tests have created a lot of uncertainties and challenges for schools. Phillips said the bill “really just makes sense.”
It’s pure pandering- the tests already didn’t count for leaving back third graders (this year) and it says nothing about how teachers and schools will be sanctioned this year, but I thought it was very exciting that someone in Columbus remembered Ohio (still!) HAS public schools.
Ordinarily our public schools are either denigrated or ignored by the ed reform gang running things down there.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/02/ohio_house_votes_to_give_stude.html