Fred LeBrun of the Albany Times-Union warns State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia that she is making a huge mistake by her confrontational tactics with the parents of the 225,000 children who opted out of mandated state tests last spring.
He predicts that if she doesn’t change course, the number of opt outs will grow in 2016.
She assumes that the parents need a lecture (“it’s the law!”) or information (they just don’t understand how important these tests are).
Neither is true, writes LeBrun. The law days the state must give the tests, but the law does NOT say that students must take them.
And the opt out parents in Long Island and upstate New York are not uninformed. They know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it.
LeBrun writes:
“Remember the state Education Department’s own statistical analysis of Opt Outers, the one-third of eligible upstate and Long Island third through eight graders who chose not to take the standardized tests last spring. Their families are white, solidly middle class, well educated, generally from low needs — that is to say, not impoverished — school districts. Regardless of what the new standardized tests might suggest about them — more would fail than pass — these students routinely grow up to hit the appropriate SAT benchmarks, graduate and go on to two- and four-year colleges.
“These are not the kind of parents who are likely to be intimidated by vague assertions that, as Elia now suggests, a reason to take the standardized tests is because, ”listen, it’s the law.” It may be the law that public schools must offer the tests. But nothing I’ve read even suggests it’s the law a student must take them. Parents do have rights. If anything, Elia’s tack is likely to throw fuel on the fire rather than quell it in terms of opting out. Likewise, any back handed attempt to paint the Opt Out movement as being fanned by teachers is as insulting to the legions of parental volunteers who are Opt Out’s core, and know it, as it is to teachers. Nor is Elia’s condescending suggestion that fuller knowledge of what Common Core is and these standardized tests are about will turn Opt Outers around.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The payoff for hired guns is not in long they hang around.
(edit) … in how long they hang around …
The Board of Regents will vote at their Sept. 16-17 meeting on making the test-heavy new teacher evaluation rules permanent. (In June, they adopted these rules on a temporary “emergency” 90-day basis.). Call and email the Regents abd tell them to vote “no,” as too much weight on tests was clearly a strong message sent by the 200,000-plus opt outs.
Elia is a perfect example of the authoritarian undemocratic mindset of the corporate education reform movement that wants to replace the transparent, non-profit, democratic public school with an opaque, for-profit, often fraudulent and authoritarian, private sector, corporate Charter schools.
Let her take such an absurd stance – because it will only further anger and insult the parents, who will likely push back harder. Perhaps at this point, while it isn’t up to the voters…..it can fully be up to the parents to say no. Just say no.
A great analysis of Supt. Elia’s wrong-headed stance on challenging parents and schools about why they should not “opt out” of standardized tests.
If Supt. Elia wants to succeed in her new position, she would do well to understand that she works “for” the parents of New York State—all of the parents in the state—not “for” Pearson and the other testing companies.
Taunting the informed parents in NYS who have made the difficult choice to opt their children out of these tests with threats and “sanctions” is an uninformed and foolhardy strategy that is likely to motivate even more parents to choose opting out.
Keep talking, Supt. Elia.
Elia is already doomed. She is just another petty bureaucrat who has not learned from history. Idle threats will only increase the resolve of those opposed to these meaningless assessments.
I thought she was hired to take the spotlight off of Cuomo. She can do what he wants as long as it is in her name. When she has served her purpose she can go to another state.
It’s unfortunate that the Opt out message has not made it to poor parents. Their children’s schools are those directly targeted for closure. If you want your neighborhood school, opt out.
The hedge fund billionaires who have underwritten certain charter schools are DESPERATE to convince affluent college-educated parents that their child is only as good as his test score and thus they should choose a charter school whose philosophy is that your child is only as good as their test score.
There are very few parents at so-called “failing” schools opting out of these tests. Since Supt. Elia and Governor Cuomo claim that THOSE are the children they care so much about, why aren’t they focusing on THEM instead of the parents whose children are not in those failing schools? Why so much energy and time and focus on the parents who are opting out when we all know which schools are failing?
The opt-out movement is terrifying the hedge funders who have put all their eggs (and donations) in the baskets of the charter schools whose sole reason for existing is that they can make sure your child gets good test scores. If affluent college-educated parents actually find that kind of education quite unappealing, that is a huge problem because the hedge funders are really trying to get middle class kids out of the public schools. But the charter schools they support and their intense focus on test prep is become a huge turn off to exactly those parents. Oops! Thus you have this huge effort and time and money spent by Supt. Elia to convince parents they are wrong. Too bad they won’t spend that money on the schools that need it the most.
“Elia’s wrong-headed stance. . . ” “Let her take such an absurd stance.” “Elia is a perfect example of the authoritarian undemocratic mindset. . .”
Come on now folks! Can’t you see what Elia is doing here??
She’s channeling her best Obomber and is playing “Eleven dimension chess”.
You can see the plan: by her pissing off more and more parents, students and teachers who will rightly then opt out or refuse to give the tests she will insure that the data driven decision making using high stakes testing will fail because sufficient data will not be there. Then she can claim a victory for the teachers and win them over to the “new democratic way”. So she is saving public education by outfoxing the foxes that are in control now and ensuring that her boss the Status Cuomo can win the presidency in 2016! (yes that soon as the Billary will flame out here soon, and socialism will be Bernie’s downfall and Biden, well who?, won’t have a cat’s chance in a dog pound)
Brilliant effin Brilliant my Elia!
DS, Cuomo lost credibility when Zephyr Teachout got 34% of 2014 Democratic primary vote for Governor.
“Fifteen Card Monte”
Fifteen cards
Instead of three
Pure canards
Are all we see
How big is her buyout clause and how soon does it kick in?
Astute, and funny, question Mom from District 2 🙂
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
“Evil Eliances”
Evil Eliances
Net you cash
Gates of Hell
Are hard to crash
Ah, the dangers of literacy. You mean LeBrun can actually read what the law says and understand it? You see what problems we raise when we actually teach people to read, think, and question!