The parents of Castle Bridge Elementary School said no to state testing. They refused to allow their little children in grades K-2 to take a standardized test. The test was canceled.
The parents drafted the following statement, which was sent to me by a parent leader, Dao Tran:
Statement of Castle Bridge School Parents on New State-Mandated K–2 Testing
October 28, 2013
When we first heard in September that the New York State Education Department was requiring some schools to give high-stakes, multiple-choice (bubble-in) tests for kindergarten through second-grade students, many of us were stunned. Tellingly, the tests are only given in English and we are a dual-language (Spanish/English) school.
We discovered (although we received no communication from our school district) these tests have nothing to do with identifying areas in which our children need help and support and everything to do with measuring their teachers’ supposed “value added,” in order to evaluate them.
However, we already have a “data system” that is far superior to anything a commercial bubble-test provider can offer.
Our children’s teachers provide us with rich, insightful narratives telling us how our children are responding to their thoughtfully designed curriculum, what progress they are making, and what challenges they are working to meet. They might include a story about how a child helped a classmate, overcame a fear, or showed a passion for an activity or experience. This gives us a much better sense of the value their teachers are adding than knowing which quartile a child falls into on a standardized test.
In a school such as ours, where the sounds of happy children engaged in hands-on projects, serious problem- solving, play, and singing is often heard, the threat of a multiple-choice test—bringing with it fear, stress, and the testing protocols that penalize collaboration—could not go unchallenged. Our children are not data points!
We knew even if a few individuals opted their individual children out, if teachers were forced to administer these tests, class instruction time would nevertheless be impacted. We prefer teachers use school time to encourage children to be curious and love learning—teaching to the child, not to the tests.
Opting our children out in large numbers was the only way to protect them while sending a strong message to policymakers that excessive testing is not in our children’s—or school’s—best interests.
As of this writing, families have opted out 93 of the 97 students who would have been subject to the tests and we know of none who want their child tested. Our principal Julie Zuckerman, having a supportive approach to parental input, heard our concerns and canceled the test.
Over the last decade, there has been a shift in public school instruction to support test preparation and erodes the quality of education. Using the scores from exams to determine the effectiveness of teachers elevates the importance of these exams—which give only a snapshot of a student’s ability to perform—to a level of absurdity.
The K–2 high-stakes tests take excessive testing to its extreme: testing children as young as four serves no meaningful educative purpose and is developmentally destructive.
Imagine if all the resources spent on test development, administration, and scoring were allocated to fund enrichment programs, school infrastructure, and staffing, we would be closer to meeting the actual needs of school communities. By refusing these tests, the message we sent was threefold:
1. To the city and state Departments of Education: testing K–2 children is not acceptable and developmentally inappropriate, excessive, and destructive.
2. To our children’s teachers and principal: we know that you can evaluate our students and help them learn and grow better than any test and we want no part of punitive evaluations of your work.
3. To other families of children in the NYC public school system: Your voice matters and you have the power to prevent your children from having to prepare for and take these unsound tests.
We hope that by saying no to these standardized, high-stakes tests we will embolden others to do the same and that together, we can reverse the tide of excessive testing in our public schools. Schools should not resemble machines that seek to track and sort children or to surveil and punish teachers.
Rather they should be caring communities of joy and learning where teachers, administrators, and parents work together to ensure a high- quality education for all children—who to us mean much more than a score.
SATIRE ALERT. The following is a work of political satire. If you don’t know what satire is, consult an English teacher.
This just in:
In a blistering statement, John B. King, Jr., Commissioner of Education for the State of New York, lashed out against special interest groups that have attempted to disrupt his meetings around the state.
“It’s become clear that some special interests are making a well-organized, concerted attempt to disrupt my meetings, ” said Commissioner King. “These groups include a) the 2.8 million public school students in New York, b) the 400,000 teachers in the state, and c) the entire population of parents of New York school-age children. I am not about to be influenced by these special interests,” Commissioner King barked, “because I take seriously–very, very seriously–my sworn duty to uphold the rights of my corporate masters. That’s why I have organized these ‘listening tours’–to make those students, teachers, and parents listen up and listen up now.”
Commissioner King went on to say that he is simply taking his cue from the teachers unions, which have likewise refused to be swayed from their cult-like fervor for the new Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic] by mere evidence and by the inconsequential views of their members.
Leaders of the CCSSO/Achieve Ministry of Propaganda, formerly known as the AFT and NEA, could not be reached for comment. They were too busy counting the loot they have received from the Gates Foundation.
Texas recently got a waiver from NCLB requirements. Wo be unto Texas teachers and principals. (and more importantly Texas school children). I quote this remark from a TEA communication dated Sept. 30, 2013.
“My decision to place a condition on the approval of Texas’ request is based on the fact that Texas has not yet finalized its guidelines for teacher and principal evaluation and support systems,” wrote US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a Sept 30th letter to Commissioner Williams….”
The quote below is from a Politico story from today. One of the arguments stated is to try and convince the readers that Arne Duncan is not trying to coerce states into accepting Common Core. Duncan wants privatization, CC is just one tool, he’ll take what victories he can get. There is more . Read It !
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/texas-no-child-left-behind-waiver-means-concessions-to-feds-98964.html?hp=r11
“Texas No Child Left Behind waiver means concessions to feds
By: Caitlin Emma
October 29, 2013 05:08 AM EDT
Critics often tie No Child Left Behind waivers to the Common Core and equate them with operating in the pocket of the federal government.
Some say Texas crushed that theory. Others say the state’s recently won waiver reinforced it.
“For those who think the Obama administration is using the waivers to drive the Common Core, this drives a Texas-sized hole through that logic, pardon the bad pun,” said Chad Aldeman, associate partner at Bellwether Education Partners. “It’s just not true, yet I see it misreported all the time. Texas has no intention of participating in the Common Core, yet there it is with a waiver.””….
Before we get a skewed perception of this story, I worked in this building for 5 years-left 2 years ago. The building was P.S.128 a public school. Three years ago, the Office of Portfolio Planning came in and told us our school was to be co-located with an “EMPOWERMENT SCHOOL”-which is basically NYCDOE’s version of the Montessori model. Their tests scores were comparable to our students (mostly Dominican, ELL, low to mid level income families), but because they were this type of school the NYCDOE did not penalize them for low test scores, meanwhile P.S. 128 was constantly being put on the watch list for restructuring because of low test scores. This is a NON-story people because it is an Empowerment school and they are getting specialized treatment to begin with-it is public relations/free advertising for Castle Bridge-nothing more. There is no state standardized test for grades K-2 which Castle Bridge currently serves. Meanwhile, my old school is continually getting squeezed out of space as the co-located school takes up more and more room (which by the way, the OPP lied to us about in the original agreement where they told us it was only a temporary use of space for grades K-2, 2 years at most). Through a web search, I found out that before last summer, the Office of Portfolio Planning extended the co-location another 2 years with expansion into more grades. This story reminds me of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Castle Bridge seems like the protagonist until you take a closer look at the history. It is more like NYCDOE, pitting 2 schools against each other, and in the end it looks like the losers will be the students who will be pushed into overcrowded classrooms at P.S.128 or forced to go to a different school. Now what would happen if the Principal of P.S.128 cancelled the state test? That would probably mean the administration would be fired. When Castle Bridge parents have students in 3rd grade and opt out of the state test risking punitive measures by the NYCDOE, THEN THAT WILL BE A STORY!!
“Imagine if all the resources spent on test development, administration, and scoring were allocated to fund enrichment programs, school infrastructure, and staffing, we would be closer to meeting the actual needs of school communities.”
What a great day that would be!
drleopold314’s criticism of Castle Bridge aside, the parent letter is the best short statement explaining the harm in high stakes testing that I’ve seen.
It also reinforces my belief that Prof. Ravitch’s emphasis on improving the quality of the teaching profession highly appropriate and that improving teacher quality is one of the most important instruments for real improvement in education in America, particularly in high poverty districts.
The parent statement makes it sound as if Castle Bridge is full of smart, committed teachers, led by a smart, committed principal, and monitored by smart, committed parents. In that situation, the more autonomy that teachers have, the better.
Yet, at every school I’ve worked at, there are *extreme* issues of teacher quality and little parent monitoring of teacher quality. Teachers at the district I currently work in (not in the US) have a lot of autonomy, but they have little training, little support, and little incentive to do a good job.
Aside from some of the glaring “extra-educational” issues that have an enormous impact on education (i.e. poverty and its effects), it seems like improving the teaching profession might be the most important single reform. I wish reformers (note the lower-case “r” and lack of scare quotes) would spend more time figuring out how to improve teacher education. Right now an undergraduate education major is about as academically rigorous as getting certified to go scuba diving, and many graduate programs are not much better. At least, that’s what lots of people in higher education say when there aren’t any education professors in the room.
The way to attract and retain the brightest, most knowledgeable, most empathetic, most committed people is NOT to take away their autonomy and NOT to attempt to turn them into automatons for implementing invariant standards and pedagogical practices mandated by a distant, unaccountable, totalitarian authority. That OUGHT to be obvious, but the “reform” crowd doesn’t seem to get it.
I have been a proctor to testing with small children. Even one on one it is traumatic for many of them. Pre-K and K students are often shy. Bubble sheets can be difficult even for second graders. Test protocol is learned over time – often the directions are unclear unless you are used to the buzz words. Little ones aren’t ready for high stakes testing.
What are they thinking?