The school board of the Bedford Central School District in Westchester County, New York, voted a resolution against the over-use and misuse of standardized testing.
Will the Bedford resolution incite other districts to reject the heavy-handed mandates from Albany and Washington?
The board’s resolution criticized both the state and federal governments for its mandates and specifically opposed the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, a main feature of Race to the Top that is much admired by state commissioner John King.
According to the linked article, the district’s statement said, “Not to be confused with routine authentic assessments of student projects and work, grades, and routine quizzes and teacher developed tests; the resolution notes the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused collateral damage in schools by narrowing curriculum, teaching driven by testing, reducing a love of learning, and undermining school climate.”
“The resolution, the statement continued, criticizes the testing system for diverting time and energy, and serving to curtail critical thinking and problem solving skills.
“For school board members, the reliance of tests feels less like an attempt to better the lives of kids and more like an intrusion from outsiders who are detatched from what goes on locally.
Board member Suzanne Grant called it “yet another mandate,” and noted that it has come from policy makers at the state and federal levels…….
“A survey of district residents done last fall for the district shows numbers that align with the board’s concerns, with support measured by how many people deemed an assessment to be very or moderately valuable. In the survey, 92 percent rated student essays, projects and experiments as such; 89 percent for teacher-designed tests; 76 percent for homework that was graded; just 64 percent felt the same way for standardized tests.”
.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m not sure what is to be done about this triple-whammy of standardized tests shoved down schools throats, teacher “accountability” evaluations, and school closings because test scores are low. This is all so frightening to someone like me who’s a teacher. I teach not too far from Bedford, and maybe they’ve got the right idea. These new standards are so complicated we spend meeting after meeting just learning what they *mean*. Then we have to take these insanely huge structures for teaching and instruction and each one of use alter our own teaching to fit this new structure.
Maybe Bedford’s got the right idea. The problem is that they’re also small, wealthy and a fairly isolated district. Any large district dependent on government funding would put that funding in jeopardy if they took such a stand.
LikeLike
Don’t disparage what Bedford does because it is a small and wealthy district. The districts serving the neediest kids have been taken over in almost every case by corporate reformers who want to eliminate public education. We must encourage every school district to follow Bedford’s lead. If it is right for their kids, it is right for others who aspire to a better education. Not as a mandate, not as an imposition, but as a path to good education.
LikeLike
It is exactly these districts that have the leverage needed to bring these unproven reforms to light! If we can say they aren’t good for us because they will actually harm our students specifically because they extract money from where it is needed to fulfill these excessive mandates, they aren’t good for ANY district! In my town, we are rallying a contingent of parents and it is growing – to fight these excessive mandates that have no place here, and the reasons we fight them are the reasons they don’t belong in any school. It is budget season so now is the best time for parents to band together. We must push our school Administrators to push back against the State!
LikeLike
Level heads prevail. To NYS DOE: we are not idiots and this is one instance where your hubris will begin to crumble. Go BCSD!!!!!!!
Don’t King & Cuomo realize many of their own staff’s family members go to or work for public schools and are grateful to have them?
LikeLike
Great news. I live in a school district not too far from Bedford and have been trying to have a conversation with my son’s middle school principal about opting out my son from the ELA and Math state tests. I spoke to the principal several weeks ago concerning what may be the consequences to my son for not taking the tests. He seemed surprised and said I was the first parent who asked this. He then said he would get back to me. Since then, I have left messages for him but he has not returned my calls. Suggestions anyone????
LikeLike
Contact other parents in the school. Organize a mass opt-out.
Talk to elected members of the school board.
Let them know what you believe.
Show them the Bedford resolution.
Act, don’t delay.
The only way the testing madness ends is when parents take charge of what happens to their children.
LikeLike
Both small and large districts have THE KEY to stopping testing madness in its tracks – PARENTS. Beware, education policy makers, a sleeping giant has been awakened!
LikeLike