FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 19, 2014
More information contact:
Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education http://www.nysape.org
Parents Outraged by APPR Albany Deal that Ignores the Children
The deal reached today by Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature regarding minimizing the impact of Common Core test scores on teacher evaluations is a slap in the face to parents across the state who have implored them to reduce the amount of testing that children are subjected to and to improve the quality of these exams and the learning standards.
“The deal does nothing to protect students or to address poorly constructed tests, abusive testing practices or concerns about the Common Core,” said Jeanette Deutermann, Nassau County public school parent and founder of Long Island Opt-Out.
“While protecting teachers, this does nothing to protect our children who will continue to be subjected to the stress and damage from inappropriate curriculum, standards and exams,” said Anna Shah, Dutchess County public school parent.
In light of this misstep, it is not surprising that Governor Cuomo and Commissioner of Education John King have lost the confidence of New Yorkers. The recent Siena poll shows that only 9% of respondents say they “completely trust” Governor Cuomo to act in the best interests of our students, and only 4% completely trust Commissioner King.
“Governor Cuomo and Commissioner King have made it clear they will not heed the concerns of millions of outraged parents across the state. Their arrogance is dangerous and will only continue to hurt our children, our teachers and our schools,” said Nancy Cauthen, NYC public school parent and member of Change the Stakes.
Many New Yorkers have expressed dismay that Governor Cuomo continues to ignore the growing number of unfunded mandates, insolvent schools, and increasing poverty that public schools face, while promoting excessive and developmentally inappropriate testing practices and flawed learning standards. He has also put the interests of his wealthy contributors who support charter schools that rob public schools of resources. “Neither testing nor the Common Core will help close the achievement gap or erase the inequitable funding and inadequate conditions that plague our public schools,” said Marla Kilfoyle, Long Island public school parent and General Manager of BAT.
“Let’s not forget that according to King and Cuomo, eight year old children will continue to sit for almost seven hours of testing over the course of six days, tests that no one can see or critique. Parents will not be fooled by token changes that do nothing to protect students from these abusive practices. Unless a moratorium directly reduces or suspends testing for students, our children will continue to suffer,” said Bianca Tanis, Ulster County public school parent.
Katie Zahedi, Dutchess County principal at Linden Avenue Middle School said, “As long as the NYSED and Cuomo’s education office are run by non-experts, beholden to forces bent on dismantling public education, our students will continue to be subjected to bad policies.”
“It’s time for a Governor that supports the priorities of parents, evidence-based teaching practices, and REAL learning for the students of New York,” said Eric Mihelbergel, Erie County public school parent and co-founder of NYSAPE.
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) is a coalition of more than 50 parent and educator groups throughout the state.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Will UFT and AFT sweep the children and parents aside and claim this as a victory for collective bargaining?
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Magee’s true colors exposed with one handshake.
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Magee and the rest are Unity Caucus. They will sell NY out and support Cuomo: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/afts-weingarten-supports-malloy-and-likely-cuomo/
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Weingarten could use the very same reasoning to support Cuomo for re-election as she did for Malloy in CT this week, namely, that both “support collective bargaining.”
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Pigs
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I smell an endorsement coming and it stinks like rotten fish.
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Cuomo doesn’t worry about kids. They don’t endorse him. All the more reason for parents to vote this fool out of office.
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As a teacher and a parent of three daughters (15 and younger) I will tell you that tests as the measure of me doesn’t bother me as much as tests as the culminating experience/demonstration of student progress. In addition, the epic fail of King and NYSED to enforce and support regs that mandate equitable experiences/opportunities, and the willingness to can the curriculum for poor schools and students is sad.
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I agree. Teachers are grown ups who can speak and stand up for ourselves. And, while I don’t much like the idea of being evaluated using the results of my students’ performance on poorly designed and developmentally inappropriate tests, that fact just makes me mad. What breaks my heart is how my students have to suffer through all this crap and how they are being robbed of the education they deserve.
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How is that speaking and standing up four yourself working out for you? I’m not trying to break your chops here. We should be adamantly rejecting the entire hot mess we’ve had shoved down our throats.
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NY
I am not making excuses here, but speaking out is becoming increasingly difficult. When I first started teaching, I used to argue with my principal if I thought he was wrong. Now I am afraid to look at my principal askance.
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Erin and Dan McC,
You both expressed similar sentiments “And, while I don’t much like the idea of being evaluated using the results of my students’ performance on poorly designed and developmentally inappropriate tests, that fact just makes me mad.”
It is possible to hold two separate and not even that disparate concepts at once. The fact that the tests themselves (and the standards upon which they are based) are completely INVALID should be enough to make both your thoughts quite acceptable and one need not “win out” over another.
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to encourage NJTeacher and others my patron saint in heaven is Mary Oconnor who as a 2nd grade teacher kicked the principal in the shin when he made a policy that harmed students. This is a true story; I am 75 and she would be 90 or a little bit older at this point… I dearly loved her . (jean in Massachusetts)
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And what about educational standards and standardized testing is INVALID?
Well, Noel Wilson has proven those invalidities in his seminal work “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can be only partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
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Just because NYSUT leadership supports Cuomo and Cuomocore does NOT mean the rank and file support him or his political cronies. Nor are many high school teachers happy with the CCSS tests in algebra and English. They will rival the pass rates of last year’s grades 3-8 tests, but these are for high school graduation. Parents need to speak up and request copies of these exams as teachers are forced to give these “assessments.”
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The teachers made a mistake. If you get in bed with a rattlesnake, expect to get bit.
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Correction Lloyd. The unions got in bed with slime mold.
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Then that slime mold is acid and will burn off their skin and dissolve their bones.
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It is sad to see such negative comments about the motivations of teachers. Aren’t we in this together?
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Don’t ever confuse the teachers with the teacher’s union. The union is a political organization concerned with jobs and dues first and foremost. Most teachers have little to do with the union outside their own district.
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Steve,
I’m not sure what you mean by your statement. Can you please elaborate?
Thanks,
Duane
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Weingarten and Mulgrew are nothing but cowardly union leaders in every sense of the word. Feigning disagreement with the reformers and sympathy for children, parents, and teachers while at the same time nefariously taking their Gates/Broad collaboration money on the side.
They are worse than King and Cuomo. They collaborate and thus enable this educational debacle.
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They have dug a hole so deep that don’t even know which direction is up. And they just can’t put their shovels down.
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The culture of testing is about to be given a lifeline in a 4 way deal tonight in Albany. Governor Cuomo, the Assembly, the Senate, and NYSUT will be agreeing on a 2 year deal, that will continue to allow the students of New York to be tested for hours upon hours every school year. \
Last month I wrote that I was ashamed to be a teacher. Tonight, this proposed deal does absolutely nothing to address the concerns I wrote about. This proposed deal, ignores the institutional abuse we put our children and students through to prove that a series of tests, and rubrics can determine who is a good teacher and who is not.
Here is a link to the bill
We were told that they were working towards a moratorium. That turned out to be untrue. The bill even states that this is NOT a moratorium. Now we are being told it is like hitting the reset button. This too is not true. A reset button starts something over, this bill does not do that. We are being promised that it gives us time to work things out. Really? What the hell have we been doing for the past several years? How does this bill give us time?
So here we are tonight, Albany working in it’s archaic way. Backroom deals abound. Promises made with fingers crossed. Sales pitches to the masses, that seem to ignore that we can read what you just voted on.
NYSUT has been treading softly on Cuomo’s turf since our RA. My question now is why? For this?
So come next April it looks like I will be writing this again.
“Today I finished administering the sixth day of New York State Common Core assessments. I was a facilitator in a process that made my 10 year old students struggle,to the point of frustration, to complete yet another 90 minute test. I sat by as I watched my students attempt to answer questions today that were beyond their abilities. I knew the test booklets I put in front of them contained questions that were written in a way that 95% of them had no chance of solving. I even tried to give my students a pep talk, in hopes of alleviating their angst, when I knew damn well they didn’t stand a chance. Today I was part of the problem.
Governor Cuomo, and State Senator Martins, I pledge to you that you will not get my vote in November. I Pledge that I will actively work to have you voted out.
NYSUT, I pledge to you, that I will not be silent. I will continue to do whatever needs to be done to be sure our union works from a position of strength not from a position of fear of the Governor.
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The passion of your words should spread from teacher to teacher until the wave washes the slime out.
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rratto,
Perhaps it is time to withdraw your monetary support of the union?!
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Well, then our unions are busted and that’s one of the things ‘They’ want, right? The better solution is to become more actively involved at all levels of union activity.
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Children don’t vote, teachers do. Cuomo is still scared of the election. Anything less than 55% his hopes for 2016 are dead.
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Are these union leaders cowards or just agents working for management? They know how to stay in power by keeping their members compliant and demobilized. They have locked up their cushy union positions and appointed cronies to keep the ran-and-file in line. It’s very hard for an alternate caucus to gain traction with them controlling union communications, as well as controlling the public political theater of “let’s vote for the lesser of two evils who at least did something like x for us…” Many of us know we can’t climb out of this mess until we stop voting for either major party, rejecting their candidates, and biting the bullet long-term to build an alternative party and force into power alternate union leadership. This won’t be quick or easy but there is no real option here other than to play the long game, like the right-wing did after the famous Lewis Powell memo in Aug 1971 set out the terms to turn the tables on the insurgent mass movements then ascendant. Decade by decade they did it, until Eric Cantor and the conservative GOP were caught in their momentum.
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“Are these union leaders cowards or just agents working for management?”
Well kept whores might be a better description.
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While the tests are unnecessarily long and poorly designed, they are not what robs children of a real education. What robs children of a real education is when unadulterated test prep replaces the actual curriculum for 1-3 or more months of the school year, a switch that has become the norm in NYC DOE schools. The decision to make this trade was made by districts and schools, not NYSED or the governor.
Fortunately, the governor and legislature have taken that power away. Beginning next year, by state law schools and districts will be limited to a total of 3.5 days — 3.5 days! — of test prep per year. This is incredibly great news for parents and kids and, one would think, educators. Schools and teachers getting to teach, what a concept!
But if NYSAPE, the “BATS”, or any other “advocacy” groups had anything positive to say about the test-prep cap law, I missed it. I guess some types of “good for the children” are better than others.
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“Beginning next year, by state law schools and districts will be limited to a total of 3.5 days — 3.5 days! — of test prep per year.”
Has anyone defined exactly what test prep is? Does that mean that programs eliminated by CCSS will be reinstated? Does that mean that the curriculum will no longer be written like a script for the tests? Until the terms are carefully defined, I would not start to celebrate. I doubt there will be mush change.
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Tim,
The key here is understanding what they consider to be test prep. It’s almost impossible to tell the difference today between regular classwork, regular homework and test prep. That’s the issue and the law does nothing to help it. Also, how will you enforce this law?
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Yes, Bill and 2old2teach, the issues of definition and enforcement are works in progress–again, you would think that parent advocates and districts that supported their families in opting out would be all over this! And yes, I’m familiar with the response that this doesn’t matter because test prep is so fully baked-in to the CCLS approved curricula.
To the second point I’ll say this: however much test prep you think is baked into these curricula, it wasn’t enough for NYC DOE schools, because those curricula are completely abandoned for 1-3 (or more) months to work on separately purchased test prep materials and/or test prep modules and worksheets, with a seemingly infinite number of practice tests, that are cobbled together independently by schools, groups of teachers, or individual teachers. This happens at progressive schools, wealthy schools, poor schools, traditional schools, you name it. It’s a disease.
So just getting the real, actual curriculum–not the unending ad hoc test prep–would be a wonderful first step, and then further defining and enforcing the ban, including test prep embedded in curricula, can follow.
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I hope you are right. I don’t think it will be automatic.
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Fine, but I do not think your statement above about “NYSAPE, the “BATS”, or any other “advocacy” groups” was fair. Especially considering the issues of this new law. If anything, it probably has been their pressure and advocacy that has contributed to a lot of the changes we see happening today.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx If one could enforce this baby across NYS, it would be a great way to speak truth to power the next time ‘grades’ come around. Is there any way to enforce it? If not (& I’m assuming not), VAM– i.e., student test scores & their direct effect on viability of schools & ‘grading’ of teachers, will prevail.
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This law is vague, silly and not at all enforceable. Appeasement at best. Wake up Tim, the tests are still here.
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I agree that the law doesn’t spell out what do if teachers or administrators choose to flout it. I disagree strongly that it’s vague–at most you get 3.5 days to test prep–or silly. I’m truly hopeful that the overwhelming majority of districts, schools, and teachers will do the right thing and comply with the law!
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One thing to consider with this state law is that there was never a state law in effect, to begin with, that required schools to have test prep.
Extensive test prep (in public schools…not charter) was a direct result of the pressure put on schools to produce or perish. If you do well on the tests: you’re in. If you did badly on the tests: you’re out (usually replaced by a charter school).
The fact that Albany has paid lip service to limiting test prep time will be worse than meaningless if there’s not an accompanying law against school closures due to poor test scores.
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Shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Meaningless drivel. The whole system is messed up. It is impossible to tweek a broken system, and that’s what they are trying to do, just to pacify. When will they ever learn?
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Am I missing something here? I cannot find any link to the details on “Cuomo’s Deal on Tests”
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UGH! Here it its. TU touting it as a win for Cuomo. Hopefully NYSUT does not use this to justify an endorsement.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Two-big-deals-for-Cuomo-leaders-5566052.php
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I doubt Cuomo would have agreed to the concession without NYSUTs committment to endorse him.
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I personally would like to acknowledge and thank Ms. Lisa Rudley, who is a member of my school community, for ingiting so many sparks against this disingenuous and disconnected governor.
Thank you, Lisa, for all that you do and all that you are.
-Robert Rendo
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Hello,
I am agree with Lloyd Lofthouse. Teacher do wrong.
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Because of local measures, children are testing way more than 6 days. In my school, third graders had to take Performance Based Assessments in reading and math as well as be tested individually to attain their Fountas and Pinnell level. The F and P levels were administered three times over the year. If the student happened to be an ELL they were tested using the NYSESLAR over the course of three days and were pulled out individually to be tested to find their speaking score. Students as young as five were finding out how well they read or how badly they read. All students were finding out if they met their reading goals or not. Talk about disheartening. Kindergarteners who were ELLs sat for state exams and individual reading tests. I mean how well do you really think ELLs are going to do? How many times do these children at all grade levels have to be tested in reading and math? I mean, at this point, I am asking myself: How stupid are these testing companies and how stupid is the State of NY that they need so many measures to test reading and math?
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Wanted to add: Performance Based Assessments were given twice during the year. So it more than 6 days and 7 hours. Tally all that up and students have less time to learn anything than ever before.
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What Cuomo is doing in New York is absolutely no different than what is happening in many states across America. The politicians are running amuck in a system they don’t understand or care to understand. These politicians have little or no understanding of what education really is all about, how to educate our children, and how to evaluate whether our educational systems are actually providing our children and grandchildren with a proper education to help them to be successful and prosper in the economy facing them in this country and abroad.
New Mexico leadership, Governor Martinez and Secretary of Education Designee Skandera, are in the same messed up pot as Cuomo. Neither of these individuals have a clear understanding of what education is all about. To them it is about all the testing and evaluations that are force fed down the throats of our Teachers, Students and Parents. These two don’t really care what will happens to the children of this state four years, five years, ten years down the road. They will have built their little castle of sand supported by big corporations, foundations, people like the Koch brothers, bow down to US Secretary of Education Duncan, and follow in the foot steps of Ex-Governor Jeb Bush. Neither of these individuals have ever had an original thought when it comes to education. Testing and evaluation is all they know. Skandera answers to only one person — Martinez. Neither Martinez nor Skandera appear to be answerable to the people of New Mexico, they could care less what the Educational Professionals of this state think, and have shown little or no regard for the children of this state they are in office to serve.
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Just reading Strike for America and starting to understand how top-down union power does not represent us. I fear this deal could create a wedge between teachers and their most important allies–parents
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I agree that parents are our strongest allies and, really, the only people who can really stop this disaster. Are you saying that “Strike for America” made you fear a wedge between us or the recent decision in Albany?
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Still reading it, but Strike for America is making me understand that our unions must represent us and not make deals that support privatization and the destruction of public education as well as the demise of teaching as a profession.
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The Albany decision, along with Deutsch29’s question “Will UFT and AFT sweep the children and parents aside and claim this as a victory for collective bargaining?” made me fear a wedge being driven between teachers and parents
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Yeah…I’ll probably read Strike for America, but after what I’ve seen of our union leadership, here in NYC, I probably don’t need to even open the front cover.
I agree with you.
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I really don’t understand the negativity of the NYSAPA press release or the comments. NYSUT achieved something positive by removing test results from teacher evaluations for two years. Consequences from test results for student promotions had already been removed by Cuomo and the Legislature. This new legislation extends that to teachers.
Removing consequences for teachers as well as students lifts the pressure on teachers to teach to the test. That can only be good for students and schools.
So please explain, why is that bad?
Do the commenters assume that the unions could have won a complete moratorium on testing if they had only tried? Is that realistic considering who is governor and the pressure from Arne Duncan as well?
Unions are under attack like never before from the right. When supposed progressives pile on with what seems to be a knee-jerk criticism of anything teachers’ unions do, the right wins.
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