This just in:
FOR PLANNING PURPOSES: April 29, 2014
CONTACT:
Emily Giles, e.giles@ihsph.org, (917) 575-2936
Emily Wendlake, emilywendlake@gmail.com, (413) 657-7255
Rosie Frascella, r.frascella@ihsph.org, (917) 767-1001
Anita Feingold-Shaw, afeingoldshaw@gmail.com, (510) 872-1712
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**Media Advisory**
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26 Teachers and Staff of International High School at Prospect Heights refuse to give NYC ELA Performance Assessment Test
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WHEN: Thursday, May 1, 2014, 7:45-8:20am,
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WHERE: International High School at Prospect Heights, 883 Classon Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225
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WHAT: Teachers will hold a press conference to announce their refusal to administer the NYC ELA Performance Assessment. 26 teachers and staff at Prospect Heights International High School are refusing to administer a new assessment that is part of the new teacher evaluation system pushed by Bloomberg’s DOE and the UFT last spring. 50% of parents have opted their children out of the test. The high school serves almost exclusively recently arrived English Language Learners.
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WHY: The test was constructed and formatted without any thought for the 14% of New York City students for whom English is not their first language. The level of English used in the pre-test administered in the Fall was so far above the level of our beginner ELLs that it provided little to no information about our students’ language proficiency or the level of their academic skills.
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Furthermore, the test was a traumatic and demoralizing experience for students. Many students, after asking for help that teachers were not allowed to give, simply put their heads down for the duration. Some students even cried.
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Teachers at Prospect Heights are drawing a line with this test. Standardized, high stakes test dominate our schools, distort our curriculum and make our students feel like failures. This test serves no purpose for the students, and ultimately only hurts them.
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26 Teachers have signed a letter to Chancellor Farina declaring that they will not give the exam. The letter expresses gratitude for Farina’s immediate turn around of the DOE’s attitude toward teachers, and asks that the Chancellor reconsider the use of the NYC ELA Performance Assessment with English Language Learners.
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WHO: Teachers and support staff from the International High School at Prospect Heights.
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RSVP: This event is open to press and coverage is welcome.
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The International High School at Prospect Heights is a public high school located in Brooklyn, NY. Read their letter to Chancellor Farina at http://www.standupoptout.wordpress.com
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Dolphin.
Farina’s response will tell us lots about where she’s really headed.
I am so proud of these teachers for standing up for our children and for what is right. I’d love to see all teachers in NYS do this!
Courageous teachers . I am proud. Wish Delaware did the same thing. Go NY Teachers..!!!
Sometimes, I like to envision Duncan, Gates, Broad, and the rest as Sauron watching helplessly from the top of his tower as the Ents rumble out of the forest and start wrecking his war machine. He had been so confident that they would never even notice what he was doing that he had come to forget about their existence entirely.
Unleash the river!
GRIT demonstrated by Teachers!
Immense Respect!
Having witnessed the despair, humiliation and hopelessness felt by SWD and ELL students, any educator and legislator who demands such acts, should be reprimanded and sanctioned PUBLICLY!
Child Abuse!
What tests do we need to prove to a teacher that a student is not proficient in English to answer content questions in English?
Would Duncan/Obama/Gates demand giving a printed test to a profound BLIND student to test content knowledge? I bet they would!
They give tests to dying children! Test traumatized children whose parents died before the test.
Sick Nation!
And, they have the nerve to talk about ‘Teaching GRIT’ to our children, especially at these times.
Sick Nation!
Thank you to the Ethical Teachers at the International High School, NYC!
Proud to be an Educator!
Does this mean that the test won’t be given at this school? Or are others administering it?
Hooray! The starting shots of the ground troops are fired!!!
I taught with Emily Giles at BxIHS. She is an incredible science educator and organizer. Wonderful work, Emily!
Oh, I see, these are the year-end “Measures of Student Learning” assessments. Not the state exams.
More teachers should be doing this. Enough is enough!
A teacher in Utah was just fired for doing exactly what these teachers are doing. I know there is strength in numbers, but I hope the same thing doesn’t happen to these teachers, too.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57790672-90/florence-students-district-parking.html.csp
It’s great to see teachers like this standing up for their students.
Woot!
Sent from my iPhone
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A perfect illustration of why the common core will never work. People aren’t common they are all different with different needs, backgrounds and abilities. You can’t force commonality it’s a form of discrimination. The brave teachers at the HS know this, to bad the overpaid administrators don’t.
I guess this is just too complicated a subject for the drones that make educational policy. God forbid they should actually ask an educational professional (a teacher!) for policy advice.