The New York Times published some smart responses to its uninformed editorial about opting out. The Times chastised the parents of 225,000 children who opted out of the state tests in New York. The letters try to explain why parents make that decision, which is not easy. Bob Shaeffer of FairTest explains that New York was not the only hotbed of opting out, that there were other states that have strong and growing opt out movements.
The Times thought the number of opt outs (they wrongly say 200,000, state data say 225,000) is “alarming.” Many parents and educators think it is thrilling, an affirmation of civic duty by civil disobedience.
No doubt, the Times would have a better grasp on this issue if there were one member of the editorial board who was a parent of children in public school. Just one.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for confirming what most of us suspected about the Times editorial board. Pretty much says it all.
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You have to have skin in the game to compete…too many talk about subjects for which they have no context. As a BoE member I hope the movement grows until standards and APPR’s are rendered reasonable.
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“Alarming” is the word I use to describe the NYT’s coverage of education: locally and nationally. I expect better from them. Oh well…
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What is described here are contrasting cultural attitudes toward education. America is driven by money so we are allowing marketeers to drive our educational system. Sadly, the result has been the creation of a tiered system of “haves” and “have nots.” The expansion of charters has increased this tiered system while it is denying parents the right to have a say in their children’s education which is a basic principle in American political ideology. This path is causing undue harm and disruption to communities, families and students.
Korea, by contrast, is obsessed with education. My son attended Bergen Academy, very selective public school, and Koreans dominated many of the academic programs. I also know an ESL teacher from Ft. Lee that made more on outside tutoring than she did at her regular job. Parents will work a second job if it means they can afford outside tutoring for their children. It is an important value for them, and gives the parents an element of prestige in the Korean community. As a result, Korean children are under tremendous pressure to perform well and not disgrace their families.
A healthy view of how to value education, I think, is somewhere in the middle. All students should have access to a quality public education with a comprehensive curricula designed to channel the interests and talents of the children in the school district. No children should attend dilapidated, underfunded, under resourced schools.
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Sorry: Meant to post on Korea vs. America schooling.
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Exactly.
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The parent who wrote to the Times to explain her decision to opt out said, “The state tests inevitably lead teachers and schools to teach to the test and spend inordinate time on test prep. This robs children of effective and creative pedagogy and rich curricular content.”
I couldn’t agree more that test prep is largely responsible for robbing children of those things. I couldn’t more strongly disagree that this process is “inevitable.” It is a conscious, active decision that districts, school leaders, and classroom teachers make. If you claim that it is inevitable that they will do this because their jobs are on the line, then isn’t it just as inevitable that “holistic” and “authentic”evaluations will be prone to bias, corruption, and inaccuracy for the same reason?
Further on in this batch of letters, I was happy to see Lisa Eggert Litvin once again parachuting in from her suburb with its long history of racial discrimination to weigh in on matters of public education in New York City! But my happiness faded when I read the following: “Unlike in the rest of the state, these test scores factor into decisions regarding promotion, admission to public middle schools and high schools, and placement in gifted and talented programs in grades 4 and 5. Refusing to take the tests is not a realistic option for city students.”
Lisa Eggert Litvin has missed a few developments. The state law that prohibits test results from factoring into promotion decisions applies to all children in New York State, even the ones living in New York City. Furthermore, test results cannot be the primary determining factor in any admissions and placement decisions, and the schools that require separate tests (gifted middle schools, the SHSAT schools, Hunter) either never looked at state test scores to begin with or have created ways for kids to apply with equal standing even if they’ve opted out. Last but most importantly, the overwhelming majority of New York City’s middle and high school students do not attend or even apply to middle schools or high schools that consider state test scores *at all* for admissions or placement decisions.
If there are students in New York City for whom opting out isn’t realistic, it is a tiny number of students applying to handful of selective schools; this does not come close to substantiating her claim that it is the primary reason opt out rates were so low in New York City. It’s unfortunate that the Times didn’t fact-check her claims, and even more unfortunate that they have not allowed reader comments on the letters.
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Tim, is your point that in private schools, not using these oh so useful state tests means that teacher evaluations “will be prone to bias, corruption, and inaccuracy”? The best way to legitimately judge a teacher is how well the students he teaches perform on these state exams? (Of course, leaving out the students who disappear for other schools when the school is a “choice” school — we wouldn’t want to include the kids that don’t “fit” and leave, right?)
If a school that spends an inordinate amount of time on test prep is rewarded by millions of dollars in taxpayer money as well as private donations, what do YOU think the result will be? Especially when every privatizer billionaire and the politicians who get their generous donations are holding that out as the model of what ALL schools are supposed to do.
And when the test is terrible and yet teachers are told that 70% of 3rd graders are failures because they can’t answer a convoluted question that no private school would ever waste time teaching their kids to “interpret”? How exactly do they deal with that except do what Governor Cuomo is demanding and spend their time teaching those 8 year old public school students how to interpret those convoluted questions so they can “prove” they actually know how to read? Who cares if that will hurt their ability to reason in the long run — it’s all about the tests, right?
If opt out prevents even more of this kind of terrible thinking, all public school parents owe a huge debt to the movement.
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“It is important to remember that standardized test scores are only one measure of a student’s academic profile, a snapshot if you will. A more complete and accurate picture emerges when the scores are combined with classwork, daily performance, regular assignments, projects, and tests. Still, [standardized tests] can help parents and teachers understand more clearly and completely a child’s balance of strengths and needs. Teachers may review the scores in detail, looking for patterns that emerge from one year to the next, and then use that information to be more effective in the classroom.”—Sally Selby, head of middle school, Sidwell Friends (which like the vast majority of expensive elite private schools administers third-party standardized tests to its students)
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Tim I already posted before how the children at Sidwell Friends are “tested”.
Here is a question that private school 4th and 5th graders get (and remember, the typical private school 4th graders is now nearly a year older than a public school 4th grader, since of course, merely turning 5 the summer before Kindergarten means you are “too young”, while 1/3 of the Kindergarteners in public schools are still 4 on Sept. 1.
2. In line 29, “imposter” most nearly means
(A) example. (B) fake.
(C) plant. (D) souvenir.
This is how much younger 3rd graders in PUBLIC schools are tested (from the actual 3rd grade state exam)
Which word from paragraph 3 or 4 best helps the reader understand the meaning of the word “reveal”?
(A) whispered (B) understand (C) tell (D) assured
Remember, it’s very important that public school teachers spend lots of time convincing 8 year olds that “helps the reader understand the meaning of the word” does NOT mean what helps the 8 year old “understand the meaning”, it is just asking what word means the same. (Even thought it is NOT actually asking that, but a good teacher will “teach” the 8 year old that indeed, that is what those convoluted words really mean.)
Of course, too much of that kind of teaching means that when a test is given that ALL students take, like the SHSAT, the kids who have been taught to ignore reason and pretend a questions means something other than what it means do very poorly. Especially if their parents can’t afford expensive tutors to unteach all those bad “test-taking” habits that are necessary in order to do well on the state exams.
Again, Tim, don’t pretend that opting into a DIFFERENT test is the same. It is not.
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Tim, in quoting the head mistress of Sidwell middle school:
“It is important to remember that standardized test scores are only one measure of a student’s academic profile. . . ”
And she like so many others has it completely wrong. Those tests measure nothing. Now if she would have written/said “. . . one assessment or a type of evaluation of a . . . ” I could rightly agree with her.
Those tests measure nothing because there is no standard, therefore no standard of measurement and no measuring device. This fundamental falsehood permeates damn near everything these days in education discourse. When will folks realize the falsehoods and errors involved in this measurement discourse? I fear never!
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The Los Angeles Times has a problem as well. Shallow press releases and in the future a section on education that sounds as if it is going to be a Broad advertisement. I am for scattering broadsheets from drones to get real news.
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I accept that public schools are public and must attempt to serve all children adequately or well so I therefore sometimes have to compromise or accept an argument that the good of the whole trumps my particular preference for my child. I have always understood that bargain. It is part of the “public” in public schools. It’s why I didn’t opt my son out.
However, the ed reform “movement” REGULARLY undermines this basic concept with the focus on “choice” and the complete refusal or inability to consider the systemic effects of the reforms they put in.
Opting out is completely consistent with what they have been selling for 15 years. That they don’t like it when it’s applied to one of their mandates doesn’t garner a whole lot of sympathy from me. Is public education a public good or menu of consumer options we may all accept and decline? I feel I have been consistent. They’re the ones who are completely incoherent. “Great schools!” isn’t going to cut it. Are there trade-offs and compromises in a public system, or can everyone just have everything they want with no systemic effects or downsides or consequences considered? They should get the various factions of the “movement” together and decide quick, because they’re running public schools in this country. I’m not the one who bailed on the “public” in public schools. They are.
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“. . . accept an argument that the good of the whole trumps my particular preference for my child.”
Chiara, Utilitarian arguments have their limits and usefulness. Let’s take yours to a logical extreme. Because your child requires so many resources-SpEd, an aide all day, special transportation to and from school, specialized equipment, etc. . ., for the good of the whole we need to eliminate your child and your preference for adequate education/treatment and devote those resources for the greater good of the whole. You will be expected to pay for the burial plot and any associated costs.
Utilitarianism has it’s limits and it’s usage for policy justifications as you suggest is inadequate. Comte-Sponville discusses the issues involved with expediency and utilitarianism in his chapter on Justice in his “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues”. For an idea of what he is talking about I offer the following excerpts:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than [self] interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”
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“My primary concerns are the linking of teacher evaluations to test results and the high-stakes use of these exams for school ranking and funding. ”
That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me. Did ed reformers consider dumping the ridiculous VAM?
If everything from national security to equity hinges on the Common Core one would think they could offer a compromise, or did too many powerful people invest too much time, energy, money and career credibility into VAM to admit error now?
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Some experts have found the tests are written on a frustration level or just poorly written. From everything I have read, trying to use the tests to determine the efficacy of a teacher through them is a total misuse of the tests.
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To Chiara:
Your expression is very confusing.
If AUTHORITY intentional commits a severe crime that destroys principle in humanity, then authority SHALL admit their error whenever the public reveals their crime.
In short, your conclusion seems to lose the touch on personal arrogance versus principle in humanity. Back2basic
[start quote]
If everything from national security to equity hinges on the Common Core one would think they could offer a compromise, or did too many powerful people invest too much time, energy, money and career credibility into VAM to admit error now?
[end quote]
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Tim raises an interesting point, interesting in that it leads to issues of the nature of some of the deformist corruption on the ground and the nature or limits of deformist assessment.
Tim said (high above):
“I couldn’t agree more that test prep is largely responsible for robbing children of those things. I couldn’t more strongly disagree that this process is “inevitable.” It is a conscious, active decision that districts, school leaders, and classroom teachers make. If you claim that it is inevitable that they will do this because their jobs are on the line, then isn’t it just as inevitable that “holistic” and “authentic”evaluations will be prone to bias, corruption, and inaccuracy for the same reason?”
When schools are being compared to other schools and deformers who are unethical and ruthless are placed in many of those schools and districts, you wind up with school leaders with two options. Play the game and game all that you can versus play it on principle and allow the school to go down along with the staff and disrupt the lives of the kids, their families and the families of the staff. With the pressure and the insanity of the deforms, prep is certain, and it doesn’t stop there.
The deformers would never take up holistic assessment, because that would be too unmanageable to micromanage and use as a tool for their dastardly designs, and it would give away their fraudulence to everyone, including parents, far more rapidly than more singular testing.
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It is twisted reformy logic that blames teachers for responding rationally to an irrational system.
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In a nutshell.
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