Representative Bill McCamley of Las Cruces, New Mexico, has advice for disgruntled parents who object to the roliferation of standardized tests.
“These feelings reached a boiling point this year. In Las Cruces, furious parents claimed schools were left open during a February snowstorm only because a standardized test was scheduled. In March, over 1,000 students statewide walked out of school in an organized protest when testing started. And many are joining groups like New Mexico Optout to express their opposition.
“While doing research for a law last year that would limit testing to 10 total days, educators across the state told me about how testing constrained their ability to teach. Test days ranged from 20-26 per year in Las Vegas to 73 days per year in Albuquerque.”
You can ask your local board to eliminate tests that are nota dates.
You can have your child opt out, after reviewing possible consequences.
You can vote and get rid of the elected officials who love testing.
“Last? Elections have consequences, so make your voice heard. Governor Martinez has made her preference for testing well known, and even though turnout last year was the lowest in 70 years, she was re-elected. Therefore, the state Education Department will continue to make them a priority. However, all state legislators are up for election in 2016 and primaries are only a few months away. There will be forums, debates, and other opportunities to meet candidates. If you care about testing, go to them. Ask candidates where they stand and what they are doing to create a saner system.
“Use those answers to help decide who you support. And vote. If you don’t, the only person to blame is in a mirror.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Second, many districts allow students to withdraw from taking standardized tests.”
This isn’t something a district can choose to “allow” or “not allow”. Parents are in charge, parents have the right to opt out. If your district tries to tell you you’re “not allowed” to withdraw your child from standardized tests, demand to see the law that says so. Guaranteed they won’t be able to produce it.
This is why we need civics. People seem to have lost the basic idea that in a free country (which we still are at least in name), you have the right to do whatever isn’t outlawed. You don’t have to get permission from the state to do what you want to do.
BTW, Rep. McCamley, all those things you tell parents to do are good so far as they go, but you’re an elected official. What are you doing?
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Test days ranged from 20-26 per year in Las Vegas to 73 days per year in Albuquerque.”….
Time to stop talking about a school year of instruction as 180 days, and using that number of instructional days for the absurd statistics surrounding calculations of “a year’s worth of growth in test scores.” These testing windows cause havoc in scheduling coherent instruction.
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73 days of testing…that can’t be for all students!
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The PARCC is administered on computers, so even though all students are not testing at the same time for 73 days, the technology classrooms, computer labs, and libraries are rendered useless for learning during testing.
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The standardized tests are like all of these endless corporate online surveys all looking for more Big Data so that Big Gubmint has an excuse to issue us all new orders from the top.
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I cannot understand why our governor, Susanna Martinez, was re-elected. I can’t see that she has done much to please the right-wingers who supported her. Certainly, her education policies have been disastrous. This administration has no respect for teachers and no understanding of education and other related issues. We’ve been treated to a great number of photo ops in which the governor drops in to a school and poses with a book in her hand in front of a group of children and then drops out again. I’m not aware that she has ever made any effort to understand the issues the schools in the various parts of New Mexico face. In fact, she and her Secretary of Education, Hannah Skandera, seem to be quite uninterested in anything teachers might have to say. After four years in office, Ms. Skandera, was finally pushed through and confirmed as secretary of education, even though she has no background in education. The state constitution requires that candidates for this position have a degree in education and experience as a teacher and administrator. The legislative members who voted to confirm her willfully ignored our own constitution when they confirmed her. Ms. Skandera was a protégé of Jeb Bush and is bent on implementing failed Florida policies.
Even though the state is supposedly spending more money than ever on education, our schools are seeing less and less of it. Apparently, a lot of money is going to “below the line” funding that the governor uses as a slush fund to promote such things as teacher merit pay. In the last nine+ years, teachers have averaged less than a half percent annual raise. Future raises look doubtful as long as this governor is in office.
This team implemented by “rule” (they could not get it through the legislature) Skandera’s teacher evaluation system, in which a minimum of fifty percent of the evaluation is based on student standardized test scores. The testing this year will provide the third year of data. Will teachers begin to lose their jobs because of test scores? I am the testing coordinator in my school and after the first round of testing, personally witnessed students who mechanically pushed keys on the computer and did not bother to even read the questions this past spring. The computers in my school library were used for testing. It was closed from mid-March until the last day of school to accommodate PARCC, end of year tests and EOC’s.
It’s no surprise that the largest district in the state started school with three hundred teacher vacancies.
I blame the people of this state for re-electing these people. Granted, the candidate who ran against Ms. Martinez could not compete against all the out of state money that flowed in to her re-election coffers. However, if people had examined the candidates and their policy platforms, perhaps the outcome would have been different. I think the most discouraging statement I heard after the election was that the governor’s opponent wasn’t “charismatic” enough. Until the people of this state (and this nation) wise up and cast their vote based on the candidate’s policy instead of their personality, we will not end up with the government that is the best for common people.
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The only way things are going to change in NM is for the people to standup and vote the majority of the legislators out of office in 2016 and get people in the House and Senate that truly care about the Students, Parents, and Teachers. Right now there are a bunch of people in office that are totally afraid of Governor Martinez and her henchmen. They are afraid to override any veto she may on education bills that are actually good for this state. They are afraid to put a stop to the march towards privatization of our public schools. Governor Martinez knows little to nothing about education and totally relies of Skandera to tell her what to do and Skandera gets her marching orders from people like Jeb Bush and the big corporates that are only interested in making a fast buck off the backs of the taxpayers. Some day our legislators may wake up, make the right decisions for education in this state but I am afraid it is going to be too late. Martinez and Skandera will leave, not soon enough, and the people of the state will be stuck with the educational disaster the two will leave. This disaster will negatively affect our children and grandchildren for many years to come.
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