This was forwarded by a reader: Kudos to the Cooperstown teachers for supporting the right of parents to refuse a test that is designed to fail most children:
The Cooperstown Central School District’s Faculty Association passed resolutions in support of test refusal and calling for the resignation of Commissioner Tisch. The resolutions were at our BOE meeting and can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm5f9bCqacE . PDFs available on Facebook at Opt Out CNY. Thank you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It seems pretty clear that there are multiple issues with the common core tests. Poor technical design, murky questions, software glitches, product placement…. and what they’ve created, it’s clearly not what was promised in 2010. I mean you can go to the practice tests on the company’s website and try out their practice tests and see how rotten these things are. You’d think they could at least do something impressive there.
When the healthcare system first rolled out and was incredibly buggy- there was non-stop coverage of the shoddy job the govt. contractor did, heads rolled, even the president admitted there were “glitches” and worked hard to fix them. In our city when the tunnel that the city paid for had some leaks/construction problems a year after the construction was finished, the contractor fixed them at no cost to the city because he had a contract.
Isn’t there some accountability on the part of the folks making these things that they at least in some measure work as intended and as promised? Doesn’t Pearson have deliverables that have not been met. I can’t imagine that so many superintendents and principals would have spoken out if there isn’t a huge issue with the quality.
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The Common Core tests are based on a fundamentally, and deeply. flawed concept.
It is impossible to measure the quality of subjective ELA skills using a MC (multiple choice) test format. All of the complaints regarding “plausible distractors” miss the point. In an objective MC science test for example, the following ingredients must be in place for each test item: 1) an objective item stem 2) Only one correct answer; and 3) three plausible distractors.
45) Which type of tree is a conifer?
a) oak
b) maple
c) hemlock
d) sycamore
In a room full of biology teachers, not one would argue that “c” is incorrect.
On Common Core ELA tests, many of the items contain subjective stems, often using terms like, “best” or “most likely”. The items also are testing very vague and subjective skills, such as author’s tone or intent. In a room full of English teachers, items such as these produce endless discussion and arguments about which is the “right” answer. And why shouldn’t these tests promote arguments and controversy. Wrong tool for the job.
The cynic in me suggest that this is no accident.
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Well, given that constraint that a multiple choice test does not and cannot measure these skills — then the company who was paid to produce an assessment of these standards has completely failed to deliver this – simply by their choice of format alone and to top that off there seem to be all kinds of user interface, security, and other bugs in the software. Surely the folks paid millions and millions of dollars to assess the standards could come up with something better than this and I think they have failed and surely before these exams were inflicted on millions of children they should have been some sort of independent quality control and vetting. If they contracted to build a bridge that was supposed to go from point A to point B and instead was a tunnel that ended in the middle of the river and that was filled with water… then I would expect they’d have to fix it or face some financial consequences and not a situation in which govt. officials were insisting that all was great and everyone should use the tunnel anyways.
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Tonight Cooperstown held an information session on State Assessments. When Supt. Hebert was asked, by a parent, to clarify the test day procedure for opting out he said, “I knew you would ask… I was hoping I wouldn’t have to answer that.” Mr. Hebert then proceeded to state that he would require a verbal refusal from the student regardless of a letter from parents, citing this as “NYSED law”.
This Superintendent is not only lying (there is no provision or law requiring students to verbally refuse the test) but it appears to me he is retaliating against the courage and conviction displayed by parents and teachers (as evidenced in the video above) by putting students in an uncomfortable and inappropriate position.
This is just shameful! The man has no business “leading” a school if he’s willing to put kids in such a compromising situation.
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