Elizabeth Harris and Ford Fessenden wrote an article that just went online in The Néw York Times about the stunning growth of the Opt Out movement in Néw York state. Its numbers have increased dramatically in only two years.
The movement is now a potent political force:
“As the vanguard of an anti-testing fervor that has spread across the country, New York’s opt-out movement already has become a political force. Just two months ago, lawmakers from both parties, at the behest of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, increased the role of test scores in teacher evaluations and tenure decisions.
“Those same legislators are now tripping over one another to introduce bills that guarantee the right to refuse to take tests. The high numbers will also push state and federal officials to make an uncomfortable decision: whether to use their power to financially punish districts with low participation rates.”
The federal government requires a 95% participation rate on tests. Two years ago, almost every district complied. Not this year.
“Only 30 of the 440 districts where data was available met the 95-percent test participation rate called for by federal requirements, a far cry from just two years ago, when almost every district complied.”
Critics of opt out say that without the test scores, no one would know which students, teachers, and schools are “failing.” But if the tests are invalid and unreliable, as many believe the Common Core tests are, then the information they provide is worthless. Are superintendents, principals, and teachers so untrustworthy that no one knows what is happening in the schools? Are the test makers better judges than professional educators?
Where will the Opt Out Movement go from here? It terrifies the Establishment. It is a grassroots movement that can’t be bought out.
Now that parents have found their voice and a means of expressing their displeasure, there is nowhere to go but up. The organizing will continue, especially as the state raises the stakes on the trsts. Next year expect even bigger numbers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I posted this comment on the NYTimes website:
This should teach governors and other policymakers that parents refuse to be pitted against their children’s teachers and we refuse to allow our children to be used as pawns in an effort to destroy teachers unions as a political force. We will not allow our children to be turned into instruments of data-collection just because it serves a third way political agenda. The wholesale rejection of the test obsessed agenda of New York’s governor and his appointees should be a wake-up call to any other Democrats-in-Name-Only that we will not allow them to destroy public education.
I don’t know about other parents, but I really resent the effort to pit parents against teachers unions.
I find it appallingly cynical and manipulative.
It serves two purposes, really. It’s anti-labor AND it sets ed reformers up as the ONLY reliable source for parents on education. Everyone is “self interested” except the ed reform “movement”. c.
It’s funny because Ohio has teachers unions and I met with a group from the community over the course of a year on how to improve our public schools. NOT ONCE were teachers unions mentioned by parents or other community members. This obsession with labor unions seems to be unique to the ed reform “movement” leaders.
I love the assumption, too, that I somehow “trust” Eli Broad or Bill Gates or Arne Duncan more than my child’s teacher.
I don’t have the first clue who these people are as individuals or what they want. I don;t even know why they’re in this at all. Why would I trust them over someone I have met?
Thank you for posting to the NYTimes. This is happening in other states as well. Here in New Mexico, the opt out movement is growing. We have a Republican governor that is using Obama’s misguided platform to hammer the hell out of good teachers.
DINO’s (Democrats-in-Name-Only)–and as antediluvian.
As the State is indifferent to the mental health of children with the Common Core curriculum, so it is with their well being in unsafe school buildings.
Attached is my recent letter to the NYC Union newspaper,
The Chief Leader.
Letter: DOI Not Part of Solution
JOSEPH MUGIVAN | Posted: Monday, May 18, 2015 5:00 pm
I read with interest your article where the Department of Investigation stopped short of exposing the city to liability in an accidental death of a city worker, a single mother who died in the line of duty in a housing project.
I too experienced difficulty for seven years with the DOI, even investigating my complaints about my school, which was built on a notorious toxic site in Queens, despite the Speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn presenting it under the recent Teacher Whistle-Blower Law, per a letter from then-Council Member de Blasio.
Under the new administration, after a six-month investigation, it has yet to be investigated under “that statute” designed to protect children. I had discovered that the vapor extraction system under the school had been turned off, and I was terminated for attempting to get an air quality report under the protection of OSHA, before returning to the site that was making me and the children ill.
Nurse Murphy said that my students were the “neediest” in the school. The NYC DOI indicated that I should have returned to the school without any air quality testing inspection of the known toxins beneath the site. The city spent $8 million to rehabilitate that site, subsequent to my complaint, which ended my career in education. The state limited the ability to do air-quality testing in schools with numerous other protocols beginning in 1997.
There are numerous such sites around the city and it is impossible to obtain information regarding soils and vapor-intrusion systems even through the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
JOSEPH MUGIVAN
The Chief-Leader, Reporting on Labor Issues and Local Politics in New York
thechiefleader.com
I am interested in knowing more about the state’s limits on air quality testing (1997?). My twitter id is the same
Only educators know what is best for the students in their care. Local control is the only thing that matters. What works in best for kids in my old school in Harlem is different from what works best for my current kids in affluent Westchester. Nothing will make education better unless everyone agrees with this simple fact. I’m stating the obvious here, but it needs to be repeated…
Indeed Anthony, one size does not fit all.
and repeated and repeated…this is the heart of the matter: the testing mania exists to supplant the professional judgment of educators about what is best for children. Tests are not used this way in private schools, where teachers are accountable to parents and vice versa — and none of them to the state.
It’s nice to see the Gray Lady has finally awakened to this issue. Maybe they will start quoting more parents and educators than media moguls and corporate heads. About time.
Even within a socioeconomic group, children do not intellectually develop at the same rate. Sorting students by birth year works only for some children. Blaming teachers for the junk science of sorting by birth year hurts everyone.
Parents know that the people (other than themselves and Grandma) who care about their children the most are classroom teachers. That’s where our strength lies.
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
Make note Governor Markell, Delaware DOE, and those school districts and charters in Delaware who would dare to presume they know better than a parent what’s right for a child, this is Delaware’s future as well. Hopefully next year!
Those who try to discredit the Opt Out Movement continually point out the fact that the Opt Out parents are mostly white and middle class. I would like someone to articulate a defense of this. I know from my observations that those minority parents who do not opt their children out are uninformed about the shady origins of The Common Core. How would they know? English is their second language and the do not turn to the internet in their downtime looking for stories on education like the middle class. Many work long hours and protesting the Common Core is the least of their priorities. Thirdly the poor feel powerless and are intimidated by the education system which is often intimidating to those without college degrees. We need someone to write an article on why the opponents of The Core are mostly white and middle class and why that is o.k.
Please include the teachers unions.
If ones is opting out by keeping one’s child.out of school, one needs to be financially secure enough to be able to stay home with the child.
Middle class parents are INFORMED. We pay taxes and we don’t make requests on bended knee when addressing those in power. We make demands and we don’t apologize for them. It is my hope that poor parents do the same but it is not the responisbility of middle class parents to get poor parents to become involved in their children’s education. I work long hours. Many parents who opted out also work long hours. We still make time to stay informed and get involved. If the poor can’t figure things out and take a stand for their children, it’s their children who will suffer. I’m protecting my children and so can every parent in every income bracket and of every color. My roots are working class but my parents made sure I had a better life by prioritizing my education. They too worked long hours and were involved in issues, political or otherwise, that would affect my future. I’m not apologizing for being white, middle class and involved in my children’s education. I, like many others, worked my way out of the poor neighborhood in which I grew up by focusing on my education and by having dutiful parents who made sure I stayed focused.
I agree. I don’t know why “middle class parents” engaged in and informed on their public schools would be any less desirable than any other group of parents if in fact the goal is to have engaged and informed parents.
But that isn’t the goal, or there wouldn’t be this rush to dismiss this as “middle class” and therefore unimportant or somehow out of bounds.
…says the white, middle class respondent. Classic.
yeah…that’s what I was thinkin too
It is incumbent upon the middle and upper classes to speak out. That they have the education and time to study the issues results in no small part from generations of governmental support of the common good which allowed forbears to climb out of working-poverty.
It is disappointing that there are not more firebrands among those most oppressed by the test-&-punish regime. But the movement in inner cities will continue to grow as lousy results trump reformer rhetoric. However I don’t expect much speaking out from the Latino community under the present immigration laws.
Parents in Newark and Paterson are opting their children out of PARCC. I have no objection to the opt out fight being led by white middle class parents who are adept at organizing and galvanizing the media. The Star Ledger, for example, has an ongoing love affair with Superintendent Cami Anderson. Don’t look there for coverage on the desires of parents in Newark.
I support opt out, however, I also support accountability that assures parents that their child and all children in their school are moving forward. It appears that some believe the end game is getting everyone to opt out. That’s ok as a means to an end but it is not the end itself nor should it be.
The end itself must have assurances that educators at all levels are accountable to the parents. It must assure that children are moving forward with whole child or 1st class achievement. The test is not the answer. There is however an answer and it begins with the Collins amendment to ESEA. This amendment allows schools to use whole child assessment in lieu of testing.
Why is there little chatter about this? Of course it is not the be all and end all to improving education. It is a small step to assure parents that their children are moving forward and schools are accountable for moving forward.
One must question the motives of those who are not focusing on this amendment. It does make more work for teachers but it makes a spectacular change in the ways children are assessed.
The amendment is for kids! Is that why it isn’t discussed much? What say you? It is time to stand for the agenda of children even when it means more work for professional educators.
I do not believe that the federal government should be the guiding agency in determining how schools will be accountable to parents. That is something for the states and local districts to work out collaboratively with teachers having a loud voice. Politicians like to promote initiatives that sound good, but they need to be vetted by those on the ground for feasibility. Anything that even smells like micromanagement should be tossed out the window.
“The end itself must have assurances that educators at all levels are accountable to the parents.”
Well, maybe, but accountability to parents is not something the federal government should be involved in. I’m not even sure the state governments should be. If parents want “accountability”, they can start by speaking to their children’s teacher(s). In the event that there is a conflict that can’t be resolved at that level, it can be taken to the building principal and/or the superintendent, both of whom should act as mediators, not teacher disciplinarians.
My first reaction was, “What the heck does being accountable to parents mean?” I tend to think of it more like you do. Can a parent walk into a school and sit down and talk to a teacher? The principal? How does a school react to a parents inquiries? On the state level accountability is going to be more of a system of insuring equitable resources to all schools.
Innovative assessment may not be done at the state or fed level. There is no other way than do it at the local level. The state can monitor to their hearts content. But, unless you take every kid to the DOE, this will land where it should, locally
BTW, the “it’s for the kids!” mantra is the same shtick the rephormers chant. Knock it off. Just because people don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with you or they’re not interested in that particular amendment, doesn’t mean they’re against the kids or “for the adults” (whatever that means anyway).
Innovative assessment allows kids to demonstrate what they have learned. Harder for teachers, but essential for kids to see the test perish into the twilight zone.
Getting rid of the test as used as a teacher assessment is essential but it’s a teacher issue. The kind of assessment I suggest as does the Collins amendment, takes kids away from the test to something that is real. There is a positive value to teachers and that is they can take back their profession. But why no chatter?
Specific enough?
Cap, I find myself stuck because I too don’t think this sick reliance on tests is good for our students/community. But, I think this notion that teachers by themselves are the end all to determining the progress and achievement of learners is absolutely preposterous. I have yet to read, other than your posts, about the role and value of outputs. They go hand in hand with inputs. Very few people take a road trip without an end in mind. Very few people say we don’t need a destination because we know how to drive. Very few people say, we’ll just drive and when we get there, we’ll just know … because we know best as the driver. The reason why there is no chatter about alternative forms of assessing that honors the whole child as you advocate is because they don’t want any form of accountability. NONE! They are pro employment which isn’t entirely bad until it comes up against being pro child. Don’t get me wrong. Charters don’t have it right either which is whynI’m writing a book titled #biggerfish2fry: what charters have right …and what they have wrong! No-one is talking about what really is important in this pro reform/anti reform movement. It’s about HOW we teach not about WHO should teach. Because, they don’t wanna go there and talk about WHO should be teaching in an increasingly diverse student body. That’s another discussion/book! 🙂
I would love more information about this whole child assessment or Collins amendment (?). Do you have a link? Thank you.
Hey Noelle, If you go to my website and scroll down a bit, I have the fundamentals of the Collins amendment posted. http://www.wholechildreform.com
Also check the link to my blog and pick and choose to get an idea. Having said that, as far as innovative assessment goes, let your mind wander as far as it will go, and then go a little further and make whole child assessment your own demonstration of learning.
Thanks for your interest in a better way to educate children
Opt out is the people’s movement!!!!!! We will bring the test and punish system to its knees! http://www.pegwithpen.com/2015/05/opt-out-is-peoples-movement_9.html
Movement of jah people!
Just wait until next year…the reformers have only had a taste of the “opt-out” movement.
Look for them to try to get as much pushed through for the immediate future as they race to the bank to steal taxpayer dollars meant to public schools.
Their movement is either dead or dying.
As parents and educators of public school children…of all children for that matter…it’s time to kick it up another notch…send the political bastards who have sold out our children and try to suffocate our public ducation system either packing, or even better, to prison.
Then let’s expose the billionaires for their bribing of our government officials. And punish them so severely that they are sent to prison, and are forced to pay portions of their fortunes to state and local governments so that we can truly deal with the economic issues facing our families…
…and then it’s off to prison for the Gates, Broad, Bloomberg, and Walton.
Remember…they are the ones who declared war against our public schools an our children!
We all have to be ready for when scores are released. We need to be ready to control the narrative.
I hope you’re right. I personally think that they can shut down “opt out” whenever they want. if it really starts to damage the privatization movement, they will pull the plug. They can say that kids can’t be promoted to the next grade without a certain score. They can refuse to give kids high school degrees. They could privatize all the schools tomorrow if they really want to. They could throw parents who refuse the tests in jail or expel kids who refuse. They can do whatever they please, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. For some reason, they are keeping the gloves on and keeping the illusion of Democracy alive. Wait and see! I don’t know why they are pretending. It is strange. They still want to get most people to agree with them when they really don’t need it.
Steve,
I take your point but disagree. When there is truly a mass movement, the authorities are powerless. They can’t hold back kids in the suburbs–though they won’t hesitate to do so to black kids in the cities. Repressive measures build the movement.
Steve, I also believe they will start to mess with the federal and state tax codes and get them involved much the same way the ACA has with penalties to families who do not purchase health insurance.
I can just imagine some proposed legislative admonishments from state and federal governments:
“If your child opts out of the tests, you will not receive any child tax credits, any Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) for your child who has an IEP, any tax refunds owed to you, any property tax write-offs, any mortgage interest write-offs, and you you will not be able to participate in the college tuition savings tax credit program, etc. . . . ”
I know this sounds extreme or like a conspiracy theory, but I am not holding my breath for the federal government or the NGA to not try and enact legislation that will attempt to do any, some, or all of the above to punish families who choose to opt out, and the reason why is that the testing lobby is too big and powerful, it generates campaign money, and there is too much money at stake for testing companies and their hedge fund investors to lose.
Sounds horrifying, but one cannot say “never” any more nowadays . . . .
Still, we will never give up the fight on our end, and we still vote! Vote the rascals out!!!
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi
They can no longer ignore those complaining about testing — and mocking (suburban moms) has not worked either.
So, they are fighting — or at least making threats.
But as Diane points out, repressive measures actually likely to lead to more protest, not less — to lend credibility to the movement and grow it.
The anti-testing movement is actually ideally suited to the nonviolent principles followed by Gandhi and MLK.
In some regards it is actually even better because one need not even leave one’s house to take part in it and no “leader” is required.
because of this, brute force measures simply do not work.
Incidentally, the fact that a British company (Pearson) is deeply involved in all this — subjecting people to testing against their will (as in “making subjects of” people) for money is something that I find very humorous, given the history (in colonial America and in colonial India)
Ambiguous questions and debatable answers, homie don’t play that.
The fact that the New York Times published such an extensive article shows that the movement can no longer be ignored. However, the article was still biased. The authors still refuse to acknowledge that this was truly a parent-initiated movement and that the unions originally were mostly opposed to opt out hoping not to anger our mad governor. The article implies that the movement;s purpose is really to sabotage the evaluation system and was initiated by unions along with parents who refuse to acknowledge that their children did not do well on the common core assessments. Most of the quotes in the article were those of the critics of opt out. No where do they quote the intellectual leaders of those who oppose testing, such as Cody or Ravitch. Instead, they quoted a parent who opted to have her child tested because this parent felt the test would be “informative.” However, if these reporters would choose to read and hear what the opponents to these tests are saying, they would understand that a number score published four to five months after the fact is not informative at all. There was also an implication that the opt out movement wants to end all testing. What we want to end is inappropriate testing. For example, if you read the articles that David Berliner wrote in the 1980s, one can see that he feels testing is very important in giving teachers immediate feedback whether students have learned the material taught. A test’s true purpose is to help teachers go back to the drawing board and teach objectives not understood by students using different strategies. Furthermore, norm referenced standardized tests should be truly diagnostic in order to help teachers plan for students with learning challenges. When I see articles analyzing the weaknesses of VAM and describing the true purpose of assessment, then and only then will I stop calling this newspaper biased and in the pocket of the oligarchs.
I agree the Times and several leading newspapers have been “influenced” by the Common Core camp. They realize they are fighting a losing battle so if you notice more and more articles are being published that shed favorable light on The Core. They are getting more aggressive about publishing bogus information about the benefits of the new reform. I read articles daily on the topic and I’ve noticed a sharp uptick in news articles about the benefits of the core in the past few weeks. We are wining and they know it.
I can’t imagine putting in a giant new program in so many public schools with so little debate or discussion and not anticipating push-back.
I genuinely believe the powers that be do not understand the nature of the “public” part of public schools.
People feel they own public schools, and they’re right- they do own them.
This is great news and hats off to New York for being on the forefront! But I sure wish the opt out were as huge in all the States. You would not even know that Opt Out exists in many states. In a good number of states there are declarations by Board of Eds that “opting out” is illegal. In some states teachers are told that they will face severe reprimand and lose their jobs if they talk about “opt out” with parents and students. So doing so would involve a long drawn out legal battle to reinstate a teaching position (most likely after a teacher were fired). Frankly given our Constitution and the Freedom of Speech, I do not understand how any States can declare informing parents of “Opt Out” as illegal. This wonderful Opt Out movement could work if A MAJORITY of students in the nation’s states were opting out. So how can this happen? How can other states gain the momentum of New York?
Artsegal,
Study the work of NYSAPE, the alliance of parents and teachers that helped opt out develop a statewide presence. Once the stigma is removed, opt out becomes the clear choice.
Steve, there is opt out in EVERY state, and it’s on a spectrum from weak to strong.
Relax.
Yes, there is a lot of work and heavy lifting to be done still, but the seeds have been planted.
Remember, for lack of a better metaphor – and may environmentalists and every day people forgive me – one little lit match strategically placed can burn down millions of acres.
Some states have little opt-out, but they do have social media and the internet. Internet is addictive (bad!) but additive (good!). People talk online, even if they are being monitored. They join groups, they join organizations within and outside their state.
Give this time.
Steve, it takes one little solid shift in an individual’s thinking to make “group think” and consensus happen. This is a tenet and empirical finding about how movements start, grow, succeed, and revolutionize society.
We will save our schools, but we me must acknowledge there will be tons of heavy lifting to do. The weights are very heavy, but if we all grab a part and use our collective strengths, we can slam the free weight down on the heads of the reformers and make them wish they had never even dreamed of privatization and misusing assessments.
There is power in collectivist thinking and action. Or at the very least, the weights crushing many a cranium will be a lesson to the reformers that they can keep their policies as much as they want (testing, APPR based on tests, etc) in private schools not funded with any public tax dollars, vouchers, credits, or tax breaks that arise from private donations. Let all their policies and untried methods live and breathe there. Let them send their own children there. They can afford it.
Meanwhile, public school and local control advocates – parents, students, taxpayers, and educators – will continue to scream, at times with figurative pitchforks and torches, “Taxation without representation!” and “Don’t tread on me!”
Another reason from Virginia to stop the standardized testing insanity:
The York County School Division had outages both Wednesday and Thursday, according to spokeswoman Katherine Goff.
On Wednesday, an outage from 8 to 8:30 a.m. impacted staff members who were trying to prepare computers for testing sessions and testing coordinators trying to access the online website for managing the testing. The 10 York elementary schools were able to proceed with testing that day with very little delay.
The outage on Thursday was slightly longer than an hour, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., and impacted all 10 elementary schools and four middle schools, according to Goff. Several schools had to delay testing, some students were kicked out of their tests, some students had to be released back to their classrooms when they could not start their testing, and other students who had completed their testing had to wait to submit their answers until the system came back online.
One school had to reschedule approximately 40 students for their SOL tests because of the time constraints.
—–
There were disruptions across the state. My grandson ‘s school in western Virginia had similar problems. The mantra from administrators in almost every school district was that this had very little effect on students. These kids are hyped and prepped for months for these tests. The tension is palpable.
Finally, the supermarket rag known as the New York Times, has published an article on Opt-Out, however biased the writer was.
Oh well . . . . Better than nothing, I suppose. Let’s see how many letters the rag is willing to publish . . . . if any.
You’re insulting supermarket rags. At least they’re honest about what they are.
Robert,
I will reserve judgement for now.
When the NY Times publishes a Bigfoot friendly article, I’ll finally take them as seriously as the National Inquirer.
Inquiring minds want to know . . . . . about Kim and Chloe, not about ALEC and the Edith and Eli . . . .
Please send some of that NY Opt Out moxie to CA!!! We are desperate for good leadership on this. Pray for us Diane.
Roxanne,
Prayer is good, but organizing will produce better results.
Roxanne- I am also in California- a parent of a child in LAUSD. Let’s start to organize!
Prayer, god’s (which ever one one chooses to adhere to) chosen method of keeping the riff-raff in line.
OK, this week is the NYS Science test for 8th graders, and while it doesn’t have as many students taking it, it too is as meaningless as it’s ELA and Math counterparts are.
From what I hear from my colleagues, easily 20-25% of the 8th grade students are opting out of my school’s exams and each day the numbers grow. The percentage mirrors the opt-out percentages from last month’s two tests in my district.
So, I’d love to see some reporting on the NYS Science test this week or next, similar to what we saw last month. While the total numbers won’t be as high, I’ll bet the percentages are.
Rockhound – science teacher in upstate NY
Thank you for continuing our focus on Opt Out. I am a California mother of a student in the public schools (LAUSD), and unlike the east coast, there is very little awareness among parents here about the corporate assault on public education. I hope the Opt Out momentum can continue (e.g., Opt Out Part II, III, IV . . . ). Certainly the corporate forces haven’t paused their attack on the public schools one bit. Witness the purchase of LAUSD school board seats (Ref Rodriguez – with an illegal assist from Monica Garcia, school board president), and a recent full page ad supporting “Common Core” in LA Times last week, claiming the support of hundreds of community groups, many faux or “purchased” supporters.
Opt Out Part II could include parents asserting their childrens’ right to privacy, demanding privacy accountability from the Smarter Balanced behemoth, PARCC, Pearson, etc. Teachers and administrators could refuse to “teach to the test” and choose not to enrich the corporate profiteers by refusing to purchase or use the textbooks and online products that are being pushed on public education. Parents can support teachers and school administrators in preventing the all-out takeover attempt by corporations to corner the market on our Public Education funds.
I hope it is possible to “wake up” California so we can join New York, New Jersey, and all the states where parents, teachers, and children are joining together to protect our democratic educational system.
Diane seems to have stopped drinking the Kool-aid, that her friend Randi is offering, or is she still supporting Common Core? Did I not see those two words in her article? We are for kids and Randi is for teachers. “Which side are you on boys?” said the old labor song.