As this article in the New York Times explains, elementary schoolchildren are frightened by the tests that start this week, based on the Common Core.
The article points out that neither the students nor the teachers are prepared. Some of the material was never taught. “But the standards are so new that many New York schools have yet to fully adopt new curriculums — including reading material, lesson plans and exercises — to match. And the textbook industry has not completely caught up either. State and city officials have urged teachers over the last year to begin working in some elements of new curriculums, and have offered lesson plans and tutorials on official Web sites. But they acknowledge that scores will most likely fall from last year’s levels.”
Merryl Tisch, who head the state Board of Regents, toured a school and heard about how upset the students.
“Believe me, I relate to test anxiety,” she said during a visit last week to the Academy of Arts and Letters in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, one of several schools that city and state education officials visited to express support for the new tests. “We can’t wait,” she said. “We have to just jump into the deep end.”
“We” have to jump into the deep end? No, your child must.
Think about it. As a parent, would you throw your child into the deep end, even if he or she can’t swim?
Opt out.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think Tisch sent her precious ones to Dalton. Puleez. Yeah, she can relate.
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Or in this case, even if there is water in the pool or not.
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We will be giving the PARCC Assessment next year, and we won’t be ready by then, either. Pearson is laughing all the way to the bank while deformers get the ‘low test scores’ they set up….this whole thing is a scam of epic proportions! Why isn’t the public better informed?? The media turns a blind eye and teachers get another black eye….
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“We can’t wait,” she said. “We have to just jump into the deep end.”
What is the plan or priority that makes this a “shock and awe” instead of a “plan carefully and get all stakeholders involved” situation?
Feels a bit more like an invasion and regime change model than a reform and improve model.
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“We have to jump in the deep end? We can’t wait?”
WHY? Has any of these officials given a clear reason why we have to jump in the deep end or why we can’t wait? Where is the fire? Where is the crisis? And how will throwing children in the “deep end” and forcing them to take a test that we know they can’t pass help in any way?
So tired of this!!
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If they don’t shove us into the deep end, their manufactured crisis in education will never be realized and they’ll never be able to hold up charter schools as the saviors of education (meanwhile, lining the pockets of their friends in the billionaire boys’ club). Realistically, if the scenario above does play out, it’s going to eventually crash and burn; bad ideas always out themselves. The problem is that it’s going to cause turmoil, cost money, and mess with the only childhood experiences in education of kids in schools today. But when money is being made, those pesky details don’t really matter, do they?
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I think it is already beginning to crash and burn in NY, especially in Long Island. Many parents are educating themselves about how these tests and other reforms will hurt our schools and are opting their children out of the tests.
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Gee, think these folks have Pearson stock?
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
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Oh, and just curious Ms. Tisch, you can relate to test anxiety how? And just out of curiosity how did your kids do on the standardized tests they took?
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
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I am sure she meant “the royal we, you know the editorial…”
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I’d like to throw Meryl Tisch into the deep end of the Hudson!
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Wow…what a hypocrite….I am sure her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews have never and will never take these tests…Ms. Tisch…are you willing to sacrifice one who we can experiment on….please?
Diane, I just saw 42, great movie. You have to go see it. You will LOVE it.
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Not to sound like an early 20th Marxist or anything, but I’ve found a lot of common ground between today’s education debate and thoughts on education found in Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks:
“Schools of the vocational type, i.e. those designed to satisfy immediate, practical interests, are beginning to predominate over the formative school, which is not immediately “interested”. The most paradoxical aspect of it all is that this new type of school appears and is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences but to crystallize them”
Gramsci wrote that in 1928 (I think) when the concern was the manipulation of public education to corporate ends. Now, after decades of resistance, the aim is to just circumvent the whole “public” thing.
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A middle school student’s creative reaction to the testing madness: http://atthechalkface.com/2013/04/14/a-middle-school-students-version-of-a-new-york-state-assessment/
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Garfield High School it, guys, all over the city–EVERYONE. Parents will back you, & will pull their kids (only 97/400 at Garfield wound up taking the MAPs–WHAT will they be able to do w/such insufficient data?) Come on, Class Size Matters, & all you P.A.A. people in NYC.
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Oh–& see earlier April 14th post–“New York Parents Opt Out.” Just do it!!!
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The Board of Regents has two teachers sitting on the Board, one real teacher and one Dance teacher with her own studio… erryl. Tisch. Together with a Governor who went to school , and a Commisssioner who started a charter school with some friends, this group of bobble-heads parrots the edu-babble that Mr. King emits during their meetings.
The many children left behind and their disrespected teachers are suffering instead of enjoying their educational experiences because those who should be standing up for them have sold them out to corporations for the sake of political self interest or financial gain.
The children have been under the enormous weight of No Child Left Behind and lately The Race To the Top laws for the past twelve years…time enough to see that the mandates are not not the answer to any problems in our system of education. Try small classes, respect for certified educators and fully funded “mandates” designed by experienced educators.( Liking children, and being a “nice person who cares” does not make you a real teacher.)
The “Leaders” are leading us into the minefields from their exhalted positions in their safe and cushy offices, over free lunches with charming billionaires who need more money for their stuff. That’s the recipe for failure that we are being served by our elected politicians and the lobbyists that have made them Stepford clones.
You first into the deep end Chancellor! … and take your cohorts with you.
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What becomes of the children? Lost to their potential, creativity, reasoning ability, their futures, so forth and so. Why would powerless parent’s opt out of tests or anything they
don’t understand? Can people truly think to risk the little they cling too? If the teachers are afraid to opt out how can they ask the parent’s to do so? If the administrators won’t risk for the sake of their own integrity, the teachers, the children, then who will? And when people do risk who will stand behind them? The hand to the center of your back that pushes you forward but pulls away as the heat gets hotter in front of you is something to think about. Are you courageous or ready to undertake such a risk? If you don’t, what are the consequences? Ask any advocate what you need to survive such risk taking and they will tell you to be prepared, and if possible, have power in numbers.
The circumstances of our present education and social reform change puts us on the precipice of a new and dangerous future. We are being pushed towards it but the children are being pushed into the deep end by everyone who does not act. Being frustrated and angry, waking up to the truth and the manipulation, should be triggers to action. Opting out is a collective test towards action for the sake of the children and ourselves on many levels.
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Maybe it is “Fixated Fear” due to all the effort put into nothing but this test instead of it just being another test in which you just do it. Why wouldn’t they have some fear when they are told nothing except that their and their teachers future lay on this test. Is this what we should do, did anyone think about this unintended consequence? Or is it intended is another question to ask. Never doubt how low they will go in their quest.
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Jump into the deep end, or walk the plank?
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Let the lawsuits begin. That is the sort of thing that these purveyors of pedagogical malpractice and psychological abuse might understand. Appeals to logic or empathy clearly don’t work.
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To her students, Ms. DaProcida was sympathetic, but blunt. “To stay competitive in the global economy, you children need to be better prepared.”
So this is the purpose of education?
I would never say such a ridiculous thing to a student.
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Alan, agreed. education is not about preparing kids for the global economy. It has a higher purpose. The global economy wants workers who will work for $1 an hour, be available 24/7, and never complain.
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Due to anxiety or the flu, have students throw up on the test and send it back to Albany in those sealed plastic bags.
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