This was my effort to educate the public about the fiasco created by the Common Core testing in New York.

The ending may surprise you. Or may not.

Categories New York, Testing

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Flolindy says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:04 am

Thank you Diane for speaking up for our children, teachers and schools. This is a powerful letter, and I hope it goes viral. I have already tweeted it. I think I will print a copy to bring back to school in September.

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Alabama teacher says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:06 am

I had already read your article using the link Linda provided in an earlier post. It is very informative, well written and easy to understand. I am glad that you are trying to help New Yorkers to understand the truth. The more people that speak out against this insane misuse of tests in education, the better. The more people that educate others about the agenda of the so called reformers, the better. We must ALL unite and stand up against the people trying to destroy public education.

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Gretchen Mergenthaler says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:07 am

Students should go to school on testing days to make sure their test is scored as REFUSAL and not just absent.

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- Linda says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 11:08 am
  
  Just sit quietly and dream of a future school filled with creativity, compassion and joyful learning.
  
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Linda says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:07 am

Tweeted to Arne and King….@arneduncan @JohnKingNYSED

Spread far and wide….your entire school, district, city, town, state, country cannot be held back and/or forced to attend summer school.

We need a tsunami….we need a revolution. Tell it…preach it…get busy:

State Opt Out/Refusal Guides found HERE.

http://unitedoptout.com/opt-outrefusal-guides-for-each-state/

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spring says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:24 am

Here is the comment I left:

Parents need to say no to this testing regime that big business is pushing (for profit). Those in the education field cannot do it alone. I’m a teacher and a parent. For all of the parents reading this, take it from someone who knows (and has read the common core NYS tests). The children are being test prepped to death. They sit in class analyzing answers to see which may be the best one. This, instead of project based, real world learning. The test is designed to make two of the answers palatable, but the child has to analyze which one is the “trick” answer. How is this preparing them for anything?

I had my seventh grader refuse the NYS tests last April. This is the one power that parents have. Opt your child out! Testing is harming a whole generation of children but is making billions for the for profit educational industry.

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Mark Collins says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:26 am

Bravo. Did you send King and Tisch a personal copy?

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- dianerav says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 11:32 am
  
  Mark,
  
  I will ask other regents to hand it to them.
  
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Peter DeWitt says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:34 am

Thanks Diane. This is an excellent article! Why is that the only time those three step foot in a classroom is for a photo op?

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- Communist Teacher says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 11:49 am
  
  good one!
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 2:51 pm
  
  Because they wouldn’t know what else to do in a classroom!
  
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concernedmom says:

August 8, 2013 at 11:57 am

I was told that in my state, even if you keep your child home on test day, they will have your child tested when they return to school. I was also quoted parts of the GS where it indicates each child shall take the tests.

Do we need a ballot measure to give parents the right to opt their child out of the test?

Since the reformers like to frame the “improvement” of education as a fight, can I get conscientious objector status and have my son participate in an alternative activity during testing? (Such as help with a deep clean of the school for the day or another useful activity?)

Why is it so simple for me to opt my child out of vaccines, but these tests are nonnegotiable?

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- Linda says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 12:01 pm
  
  Look for your state here:
  
  They can’t force a kid to fill in bubbles and write.
  
  State Opt Out/Refusal Guides found HERE.
  
  http://unitedoptout.com/opt-outrefusal-guides-for-each-state/
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 2:53 pm
  
  I counsel you to “home school” your children for the duration of the testing window. Re-enroll them for the date afterward. Not only will it make the opt out viable it will create a ton of paper work for the school to handle-which in this case is a good thing.
  
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  - Joanna Best says:
    
    August 8, 2013 at 8:12 pm
    
    Very creative disruption.
    
    I knew answers like this would start rolling.
    
    I once had a friend (scientist) who married his top lab assistant. When he applied for a new position he informed those interviewing him that he would bring his lab assistant (who was his wife). They informed him, after offering the job, that no spouses could be hired. So he told them he and his wife would get a divorce so she could continue to work for him. At this point they realized they needed to examine form over substance. Same here. If form is to be rigged to hijack substance, then some loophole has to be found.
    
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Michele says:

August 8, 2013 at 12:46 pm

Diane, thanks for this letter to educate the public. The sports metaphors should go a long way in explaining cut scores! And you are right, the only option left for parents and their children is to opt out.

Hopefully, parents will understand that there is strength in numbers. At this point, if only a few families opt out, it is more work for the schools to provide alternative assessment with no extra help from the city or state. However, if families opted out en masse schools would be overwhelmed and city/state would have to react. The DOE can threaten not to promote students or send them to mandatory summer school but that would not be feasible if the majority of students opted out. Parents have the power to stop this.

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Rob says:

August 8, 2013 at 1:05 pm

Please read the article that i wrote 3 years ago. 2013 testing dega vu
http://buffaloeducation.blogspot.com/2013/08/deja-vu-nys-testing-2013.html

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George Schmidt says:

August 8, 2013 at 1:10 pm

Not surprised! Maybe now we can generate that Stop The Madness movement that some of us have been working on for more than a decade. The first year our son Sam sat out the Chicago tests (we’ve posted a few stories at Substancenews.net… try Sam Schmidt), I was worried someone would pick on him. So I waited at home until he got home from school that day. He had already bargained us up from one to two books for the day, so he could read while others were taking the test.

He walked in the house after school, dropped his book bag like the usual guy, and went to get the usual snack in the kitchen. I was sitting in anticipation, and he was as casual as if he had just spent hours watching the birds in the local park.

Finally, I broke down: “Well, what happened!?”

“About what?” he answered, continuing that coolguy stuff.

“You know what. The test. What happened to you? Did you read the books?”

“Dad, do you know how great it is to sit in the main office all day. Everything is happening there, and everyone is talking about everybody, and I just ran messages and then came back and learned a lot…”

“What did you do with the Calvin and Hobbs books we bought for you?” He had bargained us up from one book to two. Calvin and Hobbs were then his favorites.

“I didn’t have time to read those,” he answered. “There was too much going on.”

He’s read (and re-read) his Calvin and Hobbs library since. But his teachers and the principal and the office clerks were very cool, and he had a good time then and since. He even wrote about it once or twice. He’s going into seventh grade now. The most recent book he read this summer was “The Catcher in the Rye.” He also likes his Zombies collection (and acquired taste for those of us from the “Night of the Living Dead” generation).

Sitting out the stupid tests is going to spread.

The most fun this year was when Chicago parents, led by some CTU parents who are also teachers, held a “Play In” at CPS headquarters. Hopefully, by next Spring there will be a thousand “Play In” alternatives and ideas we haven’t yet thought of as this boycott spreads.

So… Thanks Diane.

Maybe we can make arrangements to have book publishers donate some books to all the kids who have better things to do that bubble sheets next year during test season. When Sam gets back from camp Sunday I’ll ask him if he’d like to read “The death and life of the great American school system” with his mother and me. I’ll let you know.

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- FLERP! says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 1:47 pm
  
  Great kid.
  
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    August 8, 2013 at 3:41 pm
    
    How about great parenting!
    
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M says:

August 8, 2013 at 1:18 pm

The only hesitation I have about comparing the cut scores to sports, is that the retort from the reformers will predictably be, we had the hoop set too low before and getting a homerun was too easy.

The real problem with the cut scores is that unlike a ball game where there’s a clearly drawn line, when it comes to testing and particularly untested tests where we have no history of outcomes, that to say “this test shows x, y, z” is impossible to say with any degree of reliability.

A teacher’s test is fair because the teacher knows what he/she taught their students and what they should be expected to know at that point in time. When you set a blanket “all students should…” as measured by a test, you’ve stripped children of their individuality and the teacher’s ability to individualize instruction.

What will take priority when you have a student that comes in far behind their peers and they can’t possibly make the proficiency score, but they CAN make reasonable measurable progress?

We label that student a failure, even though they might be very successful. The problem isn’t that we’re raising standards or raising the bar. The problem is the way in which the bar was raised, the timeline for raising it, the unilateral imposition of it on everyone, and that the way in which students were measured reflects so many other non-test factors that it’s not incorrect to say the test is meaningless for those who failed (and those who passed are geniuses…or really good test takers…hard to say).

Let’s not say that moving the goalposts is the problem – but if you’re going to change the game then everyone needs to be given ample opportunity to adjust. There should also be a process to determine if the degree to which the bar is raised is actually reasonable – if you set the bar in the stars, then everyone will fall short no matter how much they reach for it.

That being said, NYSED has a VERY real problem with being too comfortable moving the goalposts year after year to suit political needs.

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- FLERP! says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 1:53 pm
  
  “if you’re going to change the game then everyone needs to be given ample opportunity to adjust.”
  
  This is the part that bothers me the most. I still have no idea whether my kids’ teachers know exactly what they’ll be teaching this year, or in what order, or with what emphasis, or in what month they’ll receive some edict that tells them they should have been doing it differently all along.
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 3:45 pm
  
  “. . . we had the hoop set too low before and getting a homerun was too easy. . . ”
  
  I am trying to imagine that sport-ha ha!
  
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  - Joanna Best says:
    
    August 8, 2013 at 7:54 pm
    
    Funny.
    
    With our rackets aimed high we were sure to get a goal and stay under par.
    
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- George Schmidt says:
  
  August 9, 2013 at 5:58 pm
  
  Moving in the goal posts. Bringing in the outfield walls. Lowering the pitcher’s mound. Lowering the basket. Juicing.
  
  The trouble is that metaphors in general allow the topic to be diverted from the discussion to the metaphor. And I love metaphors, from even before the days when I took poetry from Robert Pinsky at U of C. But in order to face reality, as a reporter, we usually find it better to avoid metaphor and stick boringly to facts.
  
  Over the years, when people called Substance saying they wanted to know if we needed “writers” I said “No, we need reporters.”
  
  “Huh?”
  
  “A writer walks into a room filled with people and.. begins thinking about how to begin the story: ‘A room filled with electricity, crackling like a Lake Michigan sumer storm…’ ‘And the parents took the microphone to pummel the mayor like the pinatas they bought for their family’s birthday parties…'”
  
  Etc.
  
  A reporter walks into a room, counts the number of people in the room, and begins to ask people how to spell their names as people line up to speak. Boring, but it gets the story straighter than lightning on the lake or pinatas in Pilsen…
  
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Michael Fiorillo says:

August 8, 2013 at 2:06 pm

Everyone just needs to sit down, shut up and eat their disruptive innovation!

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 3:46 pm
  
  To get ruptive indigestion???
  
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- Robert Rendo says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 7:02 pm
  
  Would they not come down with acute food poisoning, Michael?
  
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care says:

August 8, 2013 at 3:32 pm

Thank you for writing this. I have been following your blog for a while. I am a teacher and a single-parent of an elementary school child. I believe that we should all opt out of the tests in the Spring. To really get the point across the teachers shouldn’t attend school on those days as well! The only concern I have is that the testing didn’t occur on only one day; I believe that it was six days. Who is going to provide the childcare for the parents who choose to not send their kids to school? I believe teachers and parents need to put a system into place now that allows our children to attend school on those testing days without having to take the test. The school district told parents that wanted to opt out that they were not allowed to. The only option was to keep the kids home if they didn’t want them to take the test. I believe parents are fearful of the repercussions of opting out. I witnessed a lot of bullying from administrators in regards to the opting out choice. This entire system saddens me from two angles; as parent and as a teacher. What are we going to do?

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Robert D. Shepherd says:

August 8, 2013 at 4:29 pm

Outstanding article, Diane!!!

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Lisa says:

August 8, 2013 at 6:13 pm

Thank you. The article nicely encapsulated the same concerns that I have. High on that list is the incompatible expectation that scores will drop because the test is more rigorous combined with the mandates that now, students who have been progressing adequately will be assigned to “academic intervention services” and will miss out on things they used to enjoy, like art and music. It’s one thing to expect scores to fall as part of rising standards, but it’s a whole different ballgame when we still apply draconian punishments to schools and their students nevertheless.

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Joanna Best says:

August 8, 2013 at 7:51 pm

The ending of the article seems the only empowerment for parents, from everything I have read. My mother never let us participate in school fund raisers. She made a donation instead. I wonder what she would do in this case.

All I can compare this to is music. If a school band sounds terrible on a piece, you don’t give them a harder one and then say, “see, the band director is not up to standard.”

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- Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:
  
  August 9, 2013 at 12:30 am
  
  Love the analogy in the second paragraph.
  
  As to your mother, why she would take the tests for you.
  
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Jere Hochman says:

August 8, 2013 at 10:46 pm

An excellent article – one complemented with other bold statements noted in these posts. But, after the finger pointing and citations of “We told you so” (by many of us who worked on position statements and tried to inform those far removed from schools what implementation was like), the question is, “Now what?”

While some expect a stance solely calling for heads to roll, there is still the matter of appropriate, fair, and useful high expectations and standards; meaningful periodic assessments; and objective and constructive professional evaluation.

After the anger, the illustration of this mess for political and corporate gain, and the more than not believable conspiracy theories, I offer the following for consideration. If we are going to complain, we ought to have solutions.

Now What?
Demand that the Board of Regents and Governor

CCSS and State Testing
1. Declare a one-year moratorium on State testing
2. Implement State testing only in transition grades 3, 5, 8, and 10 beginning in 2014-2015
3. Utilize transition year testing as benchmarks for student and cohort progress in multi-year clusters and review of curriculum implementation and alignment
4. Analyze 2013 tests and result for validity, reliability, and grade level match
5. Provide opportunities for teachers and principals to analyze all test questions, results, and standards for alignment and gaps
6. Utilize 2013-2014 to field test common core standards aligned state tests
7. Provide an extensive comment period reviewing PARCC assessments and other testing options

APPR
1. Declare a one-year moratorium on the 40% tested subject and local assessments component of APPR
2. Utilize 2013-2014 to concentrate on rubric application confidence and inter-rater reliability
3. Utilize 2013-2014 for school districts and BOCES regions to field test local assessments
4. Provide irrefutable evidence for the use of Value-added measures or declare the application ceased

State Reform: RTTT, CCSS, State Testing, APPR,
1. Report a complete expenditure review of RTTT funds
2. Provide a cost-benefit analysis of all components of CCSS, APPR, and state testing
3. Provide irrefutable evidence of privacy assurances on all aspects of data collection
4. Develop a revised timeline leading to 2014-2015 implementation with bi-weekly communications to the field

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- Linda says:
  
  August 8, 2013 at 10:50 pm
  
  Excellent…this is a post and a public proposal to Bloomberg, Walcott, King and Duncan.
  
  Unfortunately, they don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t follow their orders.
  
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  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    August 9, 2013 at 8:56 pm
    
    Yes! They’re such rancid, angry little people, aren’t they!
    
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- 2old2tch says:
  
  August 9, 2013 at 1:56 am
  
  I will never understand the infatuation with high stakes testing as the ultimate measure of …? I want someone to grade my meat and assess the quality of my produce. I do not need to know that our eight year olds are on track for college or career. I’m with you, Diane. Let them be firemen,… or dragons,…or bumblebees.
  
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first grade teacher says:

August 9, 2013 at 12:23 am

Outstanding article. My kids were in elementary school at the beginning of the testing frenzy started by NCLB. My daughter had a lot of test anxiety – she was in a public magnet immersion school for French. Full immersion. No English instruction until 3rd grade. I opted her out of all tests. Couldn’t see the point of testing her in a language she had not studied, and then calling her a failure for scoring poorly. Eventually she started taking the tests – 5th grade I think. As far as I was concerned, she could have opted out forever. Today she is bilingual and bi-literate and studies French, among other things, at university.
I have only had a handful of parents in all my years of teaching ask me about the possibility of opt-out. And none of them ever did, at least in the year I taught their children. Yet year after year, their children, many of them English Learners, faced what my daughter faced – pages of unreadable questions and test scores that encouraged shame, not motivation.
Diane, you have a gift for making the complicated understandable. If we are to reach parents, we need to spread articles like this far and wide. Thanks again for your tireless effort and common sense.

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