I posted earlier today a letter from a parent to a high-level NYC official, complaining about the city’s threat to cut the school’s funding if too many children opted out of state testing.

What do you think the official replied: we must follow the law. We must do as we are told.

Don’t you long to hear a governor or mayor or superintendent say to the parent: You are right. The law is idiotic. We will join you in a mass action of civil disobedience.

Don’t expect to hear it from anyone who works for the testing-obsessed Bloomberg administration. This is a mayor who has used his autocratic control to close more than 140 public schools based on their test scores. Without those scores, he would not know what to do next.

Here is the response from Shael Polansky to Jeff Nichols:

Jeff, the State Education Department has issued guidance that all eligible students are expected to participate; there is no formal provision allowing parents to opt their students out of State tests. The State also requires that all students in attendance during test administration are given the opportunity to take the exam.

With respect to the federal rule on participation – this is something that is out of our control – the application of this rule is governed by federal law and only impacts state accountability designations.

That said, any consequences that flow from being designated as a Priority or Focus school by New York State are within our purview and we carefully look at all the quantitative data as well as the qualitative information we have about the school. The purpose of this review is to come to a decision on the best way to improve the school. I can’t imagine a good school being penalized on our watch solely because they didn’t meet AYP as a result of the 95 percent participation rule.

Last year, there weren’t many students who opted out of the exams, approximately one hundred students out of several hundred thousand, and in these cases parents kept students at home.

For promotion purposes in NYC, we always use a combination of exams and student portfolios so students who miss exams for any reason can be considered for promotion based on a rigorous assessment of a portfolio of their work.

The larger issue you are raising though is about the quality of the exams and how they impact teaching and learning in our schools. I would agree that historically our state exams have not done a good enough job measuring the deeper skills of critical thinking and problem solving. This is beginning to change, partially in response to concerns that both parents and educators have raised.

I would welcome the opportunity to continue this important dialogue in person as I don’t think the exams are going away, but I do believe we can work together to strengthen them and ensure the information they generate is used in a thoughtful and balanced way.

Best, Shael

Last year, Jeff Nichols and his wife Ann Stone wrote an article that appeared in the New York Times about taking the “practice” version of the third-grade English language arts test. The test was sent home with one of their children as “vacation homework,” an oxymoron in itself.

Both college professors, they did it for fun with two friends. All have Ph.D.s. they couldn’t agree on the right answers and concluded the test was ridiculous. They became activists in the opt-out movement.

Recently, Jeff wrote a high-ranking official at the New York City Department of Education to inform him that his children will not be taking the tests this spring. The official (who was once an anti-testing activist when he was a teacher long ago) replied that parents have the right to t out but their school may be punished if the participation rate falls below 95%. Is this not a profile in courage? By the way, there is no risk that anyone at the DOE will see this blog, because the computers are set to block all WordPress sites.

Jeff Nichols wrote this letter, which he sent to many others, including me:

“Dear Mr. Suransky,

“An email you recently sent to various CECs in the city affirms that families in New York City do have the right to substitute a portfolio assessment for the mandated state tests, yet seems to hold over those families the threat that such individual acts of conscience can cause adverse consequences for schools:

· State accountability: Under No Child Left Behind, New York State measures each school’s rate of participation in state tests. If 95% of a school or one or more of its subgroups of students (e.g. Hispanic students, students with disabilities, Limited English Proficient students) do not take the assessment, the school does not make Adequate Yearly Progress – which has funding and intervention consequences for schools.

I am just a parent with a child in the NYC public schools. That is my only standing to challenge this statement. But I believe if the era of “accountability” in which we find ourselves is to mean anything at all, then education officials must be held accountable to children and the parents who raise them. So I would appreciate a forthright answer to the following questions:

Is it not a distortion of the original intent of NCLB’s 95% rule to penalize schools, not because the schools are concealing low performance on the part of their students (by having their least capable students stay out of the testing in order to receive a more favorable rating by the state), but because parents who are deeply involved in and concerned about their children’s educations (and whose children therefore are, if anything, likely to perform well on state tests) are choosing to opt their children out of a regime of high-stakes testing that the best minds in education in our country have long since repudiated?

And if the actual effect of a federal law as upheld in our state is not only destructive to schools but also directly contrary to the original intent of that law, then why would you and your colleagues not seek all means to mitigate the situation? In my opinion, local education officials with decision-making authority should be exercising their powers to the utmost to prevent such unjustifiable and unintended consequences from being realized, rather than passing along to parents a passive, worst-case interpretation of the potential impact of this malfunctioning federal law on their children’s schools.

My wife and I will not be allowing our children to take state-mandated standardized tests until those tests are designed and implemented in a manner we regard as consistent with best educational practices. This is our constitutional right, and we do not appreciate the DOE’s continuing efforts to intimidate parents with threats against schools that, given the mayor’s policy of shuttering dozens of schools for no discernible reason other than low test scores, are all too credible. The opt out movement is not going away and it is time for city officials to treat those of us taking this conscientious and proactive step to better our children’s educations with the respect we deserve.

Thank you for taking the time to consider these questions.

Sincerely,

Jeff Nichols
father of: Xxx, grade 3, and Xxx, grade 4″