Duchess County in Néw York reports high numbers of opt outs at schools across the county.
“Eleven of Dutchess’ 13 public school districts provided the Journal with some information about this year’s English Language Arts test refusal rates, which began on Tuesday for grades 3-8. More than 20 percent of students refused at a majority of Dutchess districts….
“Webutuck district mom Jessica Elliot said her 4th-grader “will refuse the tests for the second year in a row. These tests are not used to drive instruction, and they are not a fair evaluation of student progress or teacher effectiveness.”

You need info on PARCC or Oearson, e-mail me at the address listed. Thanks for posting PARCC LEAK info.
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Long Island is nearer to 50%. There is a spread sheet on Opt Out Long Island FB page.
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NYSED Says they will use the data regardless if how many people opted out. How will they do this in schools with no data? Make it up? That’s how they set the cut scores?
BTW Diane you were awesome on MSNBC.
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Is this you, NY teacher? It’s brilliant:
Perdido Street School: NYSED Can’t Come Up With The Data To Show Why Sheri Lederman Is “Ineffective” On The APPR Test Component
Comment from NY teacher:
“NYSED has a legal vulnerability regarding testing that could easily bring down the use of scores for teacher evaluation.
Two simple and related questions to ask the Pearson test developers:
1) What evidence can you present that the Pearson math and ELA tests were developed for the purpose of accurately and reliably measuring “teacher effectiveness”?
2) Please explain how the Pearson math and ELA tests feature “instructional sensitivity”. Provide evidence to show that all outside influences (such as prior knowledge or pre-requisite skill deficiencies) were nullified through proper item development, so as to insure each and every test item related to the specifics of individual teacher/grade level instruction.
The bottom line is that these tests were never intended to measure teacher effectiveness and Pearson has zero evidence to present in such a defense. In fact, Pearson would have to admit that NYSED did not request ‘instructionally sensitive’ tests.”
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/02/nysed-cant-come-up-with-data-to-show.html
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“How will they do this in schools with no data? Make it up?”
Why not? That’s how they do everything else. Why change their messodology at this point?
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“Reformer Messodology”
Reformer messodology
To simply make things up
No need for an apology
Cuz lying is enough
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It is a disgusting attack on teachers. Read the article on. Capitalnewyork.com.
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And here’s a hit piece from the Daily News:
Editorial: The anti-testing opt-out delusion – NY Daily News
It’s not that test-prep is suddenly eating away at instruction. In fact, New York capped the amount of time teachers can spend on what are often perceived as drill-and-kill sessions.
What’s new is the arrival, thanks to Gov. Cuomo, of a teacher evaluation system that might begin to distinguish between the best instructors and the worst, in part by using student test-score gains.
That was, for the state’s teachers union, a declaration of war. To the barricades they went, rallying parents to tell Johnny and Janey to refuse to have their new skills measured.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/editorial-anti-testing-opt-out-delusion-article-1.2186878
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Dutchess County standing up for Teachers, Parents and students rights!
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Congratulations, Duchess County.
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Parents and educators need to share photos of Pearson’s tests in the brown boxes with the blue Pearson logo being delivered to school districts across the US by FedEx. Think of the visual impact as parents see how Pearson Inc. controls billions in tax funds using hundreds of FedEx employees paid to deliver thousands of Pearson’s boxes.
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Hello,
For the past month, I have been reading your blog faithfully and with keen interest. I am not American, rather I am a Canadian, so I have some gaps in my learning about educational reform. I see reform shaping up here in British Columbia. Among your readership, I am probably not alone in this. Could you please explain what the Common core is and the backstory with it? It must be related to reform and the motivations behind reform. I am also curious about the design of the assessments… Why are they rigged to fail 70 percent of students? Can this be? I believe that is what I have read more than once in your blog posts. If this is true, I am stunned. Why would we put children through the paces of school only to fail the majority of them? That sounds like a form of torture. Please could you take the time to connect the dots for me, and perhaps other concerned readers wanting to be better informed when talking to parents?
Thank you for the caring, tireless and brave work you have undertaken.
Warm regards,
Michelle
Sent from my iPad
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