Michael Elliott is a gifted videographer who has made videos for parents who protest testing. He knows the issues: his own children are in public school in Brooklyn.
In this post, he explains why opt out numbers were very low in New York City, while parents in the rest of the state were refusing to let their children take the state tests. Statewide, more than 220,000 students did not take the state tests in 2015, about 20% of students statewide. In New York City, the opt outs were only 1.4%.
Elliott explains the difference. Students in low-performing schools have the possibility of school closure hanging over their heads. If they opt out, their school might close.
Students in other schools need test scores to be admitted to a junior high school or high school of their choice (and they might not get their choice anyway, since the city has a convoluted system based on admissions to medical schools).
Fear suppressed the New York City opt outs.
Interesting that when you think about the number of opt outs in the rest of the state–excluding NYC–the proportion rises dramatically. Maybe 30% or more of the kids outside NYC opted out. No wonder the politicians in Albany are running scared and trying to allay the concerns of the angry parents on Long Island, upstate, and in the Hudson Valley.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Will any NY legislators lose reelection bids for their heavy hearted votes on education policy?
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No.
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UFT President and Cuomo lapdog Michael Mulgrew already assured them they have nothing to worry about. He did so immediately after they cast their votes attacking teachers last spring.
The question some of us are asking is, given that our faux Tough Guy President was filmed at the last AFT convention saying he’d punch anyone who messed with his Common Core in the face, who is he going to hit, now that his precious Common Core is on life support for the time being? Our Reptilian Governor? Outgoing Regents head Meryl Tisch? Parents opting their children out of the tests?
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Very disappointing. I’m waiting for the day when legislators are accountable for what they’ve done with this.
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The thing with NYS legislators paying a political price for their “heavy heart” votes is that we collectively fail to understand that those legislators made those votes knowing precisely what they were doing. Their calculation was this: will those being harmed by my yes vote on this legislation damage me politically, at the polls in the future? Individually and collectively they concluded that NO, they would not pay a sizable price.
Ok, so that’s clear. So how can that be we ask? There are hundreds of thousands of teachers in NYS!!!! Aren’t we a huge political force that puts fear in politicians hearts!!???? Well actually, that is a broad, yet flawed, assumptions. New York State teachers were and remain a political force ONLY INSOFAR AS WE ARE A STRONG UNION! Our numbers and anger matter way way way way way less outside of the political structure of the union. Just a fact. The decline and, lets be honest, demise of NYSUT as a political force with real political agency has been clearly outlined in the comments on this blog over the last many years. It’s done. The union died due to complications involving deeply unsophisticated and unintelligent leadership over approximately 15-20 years, which itself was caused by decades of leadership and membership atrophy of the major understandings of labor history and action. So there is that brief post-mortem.
So what about are raw numbers, many will ask. Doesn’t that count politically!? Can’t our 600,000 hit the polls and vote these folks out and have them pay their price!!?? Well no. From a political an reality-based point of view that is well well well below unlikely. Teachers, as a group, tend to be fairly apolitical breeders. Huge swaths of working teachers in the state, right now, have no clue about what is going on politically to their careers. Yes, there are those, like folks here, who are tuned in, but we are outliers. Fact is, so many teachers are politically tuned out and have reproduced themselves into that place where that is occupying their minds and time. NYSUT served a purpose for many decades….an that purpose was to give political voice to hundreds of thousands who were fairly politically uninvolved. They voted dutifully because of NYSUT. Now it’s a voting free for all and we cannot expect teachers to be the political voice they were.
The NYS legislators and Cuomo himself live in a post-NYSUT world and their actions are simply ensuring that into the future.
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And our unions continue to collect our dues, promote their own self worth, and play “lesser of two evils” politics.
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It’s already been suggested that wealthy kids and those in generally high-scoring districts not be required to take any standardized high-stakes tests– only poor students, black and brown students should take them. Every. Single. Day.
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It’s difficult to convey to outsiders what it’s like to live long-term in the Terrordome of New York City without being rich.
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Fear is exactly the reason parents in district 2 in Manhattan do not opt out of state tests. They are used heavily in our middle school application process. Rather than opting out, people pay for high priced tutors to prep for these exams.
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Yes, that is true about district 2 So we need to explain that only the 4th grade test matters for middle school although the schools say they can not use them. There is a lawsuit now asking that the rubrics used to rate applicants be made public. This might stop the use of the tests. But as it stands, third grade can opt out. Fifth grade can opt out. Sixth grade can opt out. And eighth grade can opt out. And that would send a message and jeopardize admissions.
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Yes test scores are used for middle school and high school admissions. And district 2, inexplicably, has more choices for high school than other district in the city. If only parents would understand that 100% opt out would undermine the whole testing regime. But you’re right, instead they spend money, time and energy on acing the tests further widening the test score gap btw middle class students and those students from high poverty neighborhoods.
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and not jeopardize admissions. sorry about error.
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NYC see Seattle!
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Many NYC parents, and for the most part teachers are not as informed as those in other parts of the state and country I’m sorry to say. When principals and superintendents on Long Island and elsewhere protested, NYC principals remained silent. Our own Union refused to support Opt Out and some union members actually disparaged the Long Island principals. Teachers in NYC were living under a rock not knowing what parents and teachers around the country were doing like teachers refusing to administer the tests and parents fighting the use of overtesting.
Now through a video that is going viral, we see the superintendent of District 15 telling a parent that teachers have no right to share their professional opinions regarding these tests or discuss opt out. So much for deBlasio and Farina being pro public school student and teacher. Keep in mind that charter school teachers are not evaluated by test scores even though charters are supported by tax dollars. Cuomo saw to that.
NYC has lost the power we once had. This is why we need new union leadership. Opt out must continue to grow.
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This piece employs the usual excuses, distortions, and omissions to explain away why opt-out just hasn’t caught on in New York City.
— De Blasio and Fariña have made it clear that they consider school closures to be a last resort–so much so that they have taken a lot of heat from the press, legislators, and state officials for their stance (and only about half of the renewal schools have grades 3-8). There is little evidence to suggest that parents would opt out if not for the fear of having their child’s school closed down. This contention is nothing more than speculation on the part of the author.
— The biggest distortion is the claim that most children need test scores for middle and high-school admissions. With the exception of a small handful of districts, every middle-school child in New York City has a zoned middle school, and to attend that school, all the child needs to do is select it on their middle school application–no test scores, no grades, no interviews. The vast majority of NYC middle school and even high school students attend a school that does not look at test scores as part of admissions, period. And the role that test scores play in selective admissions has either been de-emphasized or eliminated completely.
— There is little evidence to suggest that there is a gag order or threat of sanctions against NYC DOE employees. Principals and educators at the Brooklyn New School, Riverdale Avenue School, the Earth School, and others openly publicized, encouraged, and facilitated opting out. What punishments have these educators faced? In fact, at the Earth School, a couple of teachers have actually opted out of *giving* the tests–the only ones in the entire state to take such a stand rather than have parents do their dirty work. The chancellor and mayor do not believe that it is in the best interests of students or schools to opt out, true, but they have repeatedly said that parents who want to opt out must be respected and allowed to do it. The barriers to opting out are as low here as they are anywhere else.
— There were other districts in New York State that had extremely low opt-out rates. Not just big-city districts like Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Syracuse, Buffalo, etc, but also the wealthiest, highest-performing districts such as Bronxville, Byram Hills, Ardsley, Manhasset, Irvington, and so forth. These towns are home to what supporters of the district school model hold up as an exemplar: they are lavishly funded, they have gorgeous facilities, and their teachers receive the highest salaries in the country. It is the ultimate form of school choice: you buy a home in one of these towns knowing that your $30,000+ in annual property taxes buys you access to exclusivity. Nowhere are parents more invested, more informed, or more powerful. Why didn’t opt-out catch on in these towns?
Maybe opt out hasn’t gained traction in New York City because parents are leery of other parents telling them what’s best for their child. Maybe they have taken a closer look at where opt-out is most popular–less-exclusive suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas that in thought and deed have so often essentially told the state’s cities to drop dead — and are reasonably skeptical of the message. Maybe city parents are just like parents living in the priciest suburbs or those who send their kids to Horace Mann and Spence: they think that tests are a reality check on classroom assessments. But it isn’t because of the admissions/threats bogeymen.
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Tim,
I’m curious to know if you are in contact with any of these principals who you say haven’t been threatened. I’m also curious to know whether you have spoken to parents in Title 1 schools where opt out hasn’t taken root. I suspect that in both cases, the answer would be no. Just this week, I spoke to parents in a Bronx school. They had had no idea that opt out was an option and that they had a right to opt out. I also know through direct contact with a principal of at least one of the schools that you cited (as well as another that you did not cite) that there have been menacing warnings and if you can’t see that in the Skop video yourself, it might be time for a vision and hearing test.
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No, Kemala, I haven’t been in touch with principals at the Riverdale Ave School, Brooklyn New School, and the like. I’ll ask again: have any of them lost their jobs, been suspended, or had a formal grievance filed against them?
There was no suppression of opt-out at the Title I schools my children attend. The idea that the District 15 superintendent in the video is threatening anyone is utterly laughable. Her stance is perfectly reasonable, and it is one that has been backed up by the courts time and time again: it is fine for parents to approach principals and educators to ask them for advice on opting out. It is not appropriate in the view of the people who run the DOE for principals and teachers to actively promote opting out. If you have proof of principals actively preventing parents from opting out, that would concern me. But I suspect that you don’t.
If principals and teachers think that these tests (that they all prep the hell out of their students for anyway) are so irredeemable and damaging, they should follow the lead of the brave educators at the Earth School and opt-out of *administering* the tests. And the other thing that confuses me here is this: if the opt-out movement is so organic and grass-roots and parent-driven, then what difference do the principals and superintendents and teachers make?
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Tim – NOT true. Just completed my son’s high school application – zoned school – none. There are many many neighborhoods in NYC without a zoned school and therefore children compete against their friends to get into the choice schools.
On our search for a suitable school, the principal of Midwood HS in Brooklyn announced at an Open House that if students didn’t have ELA and math scores, they would have to submit ERB scores – private school test or TACH scores – Catholic school tests. In other words, if you are a public school student who opted out, you can’t get into Midwood. This is why parents live in fear of opting out. The competition is fierce for admission to choice schools. In defense of schools, they are inundated with applications and so use test scores to deal with the sheer volume of applicants.
Of course, another question we should be asking – why is there a paucity of choice schools. Why do we make children compete against each other? Wouldn’t it be easier to ensure that there is one comprehensive high school in each neighborhood? A school with art, music, drama, sports, technology, ESL services, special education services. We wouldn’t need to have this convoluted process for HS applications.
And to your last point – a one-size-fits-all standardized test developed by a for profit corporation is a check on classroom assessments? You don’t really believe that, do you?
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Whew, good thing I didn’t say that there were a lot of zoned high schools in New York City, then!
Thumb through your son’s high school directory. Take note of how many schools are zoned, ed option, limited unscreened, or entirely unscreened. Throw in the SHSAT schools and it is clear that the majority of HS seats don’t consider 7th grade state test scores for admissions. An even higher percentage of middle school seats don’t look at 4th grade scores. This is a red herring.
Choice is messy, but it is producing far better outcomes than the starry-eyed goal of a well-resourced separate-but-equal high schools.
And yes, I believe a one-size-fits all standardized test can be useful, same as the folks at Horace Mann, Dalton, Sidwell, Lakeside, the Lab School, etc. Do you think that classroom grades are always completely objective and free from bias?
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Tim, have you seen this video with a D15 superintendent clearly laying out why not only can teachers not talk about opt out, but that they cannot share their legitimate concerns about tests with parents? https://www.facebook.com/michaelelliot.shoot4education/?pnref=story
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Tim,
Please try convince Michelle Hamilton and so many others that the threats and intimidation they have experienced don’t exist.
You should have watched the video Tim because the gag order is explained by the Superintendent. It’s irrefutable.
And since you ignore the Supers testimony and simply state the gag order doesn’t exist, its clear that you’re deep in speculative fallacy.
I cant go through each bit of your specious arguments because it would take to long so lets confine ourselves to your conclusions.
You posit that parents don’t opt out:
“because parents are leery of other parents telling them what’s best for their child. Maybe they have taken a closer look at where opt-out is most popular–less-exclusive suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas that in thought and deed have so often essentially told the state’s cities to drop dead — and are reasonably skeptical of the message. Maybe city parents are just like parents living in the priciest suburbs or those who send their kids to Horace Mann and Spence: they think that tests are a reality check on classroom assessments.”
“opt-out is most popular–less-exclusive suburbs, exurbs, and rural”
areas that in thought and deed have so often essentially told the state’s cities to drop dead — and are reasonably skeptical of the message.” Tim did you ever think that maybe they just hate the way the testing and its associated curriculum are imposed and how it corrupts what their kids should be getting? No you didn’t. You haven’t even considered it. Ill address why below.
Now if we look closely at this last sentence it implies that “tests are some sort of reality check on classroom assessments”
That’s not even close to a fact, its pure speculation, which is your motif throughout your comments.
Finally in conclude with
“it isn’t because of the admissions/threats bogeymen.”
Tim your reasoning and arguments are poor, and its no wonder, because that’s how all this testing got started.
But since you’ve opened the door to narrow and negative characterizations of why parents do opt out, Ill add some speculation of my own:
Maybe parents don’t opt out because in wealthy districts that are well resourced they don’t suffer with a scripted, test prep curriculum enforced through threats and intimidation.
Maybe in affluent schools testing provides some insurance for getting into the “best schools” because parents can afford the after school test prep tutoring. (like the SAT)
Maybe testing creates that Michael Petrelli multi-tiered education system, the one where you don’t waste the money and effort on those who won’t amount to much. The best is for those with the most, and the rest get dual periods of Math and ELA because that’s what testing produces.
Thanks Tim, I needed a good solid reason to say what I think
What’s good for the goose….
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Michael,
Once more, preventing principals and teachers from actively promoting opt-out, Long Island-style, is not the same as a gag order.
And I didn’t come up with the idea that standardized tests are a reality check on classroom assessments. That’s how they are viewed at the elite $30,000-50,000/year private schools in our city and beyond. A sampling:
“[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.” — Sidwell Friends School, Washington, D.C.
“[Standardized tests] allow us to think critically about our curriculum and instruction . . . results are used by Lab to compare with more content-specific, curriculum-based measures of performance. This comparison can be useful when identifying those students whose skills and achievement scores show marked discrepancies.” — The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Chicago, Illinois
“At Newman, we use the annual results, in combination with assessments selected and developed by our faculty, to evaluate and at times, augment our curriculum and to plan group and individual student instruction. In our evaluation of this or other testing, we are continually assessing how a child is progressing individually and in relation to his/her peers.” — The Isidore Newman School, New Orleans, Louisiana
“Standardized tests are administered yearly in the fall to Middle School students for the purpose of gaining additional insight and knowledge into the ability and performance levels of students. This information contributes to the effective guidance of students’ learning.” — Harpeth Hall School, Nashville, Tennessee
This isn’t to say that I believe the current testing set-up in NYC DOE public schools is anywhere close to ideal: first and foremost, the amount of test prep is staggering and unacceptable. But it is clear to me that there is a responsible and productive way to employ standardized testing.
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Some NYC teachers have no idea about opting out – truly never heard of it.
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