Despite threats and bribes, despite warnings and cajoling, the Great Opt Out Movement of New York maintained its momentum
About 22% of the eligible students in the state did not take the mandated tests.
Opt out numbers in New York City were low because test scores are needed for admission to middle schools and high schools.
But in parts of the state, like Long Island, about half the students didn’t take the tests.
The New York State Education Department released the test results on a Friday afternoon, a time widely known as the best way to bury news. See here for a local story. The story in New York Politico is here.
Good news for New York City: Its reading scores increased to the state average. This should make Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina happy, since they bet on helping schools instead of closing them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Go NY go!!!! Great news! And wish it could create the same tidal wave crossing the Nation.
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Yesterday, New York State Education Department Released their Spring 2016 Grades 3-8 ELA and Math Assessment Results. As we all know, when a public entity releases anything on a Friday afternoon, it deserves a little extra scrutiny. There is a reason they released it late today, they hoped to get away with a scam PR stunt.
Board of Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa said in this press release,
“… it’s not possible to make direct comparisons of this year’s results to past years…”.
Yet, that’s exactly what they do in this release even though the press release states,
“While the content of the 2016 tests and last year’s tests are comparable and similarly rigorous, it is not possible to make direct comparisons of the 2016 results to prior years’ results because of changes to the tests this year. The 2016 results are valid and reliable indicators of student proficiency in the tested grades and subjects.”
Chart after chart goes on to compare test scores with percentage increases in each category. So what should we believe, their words or their charts?
NYSED goes on to make baseless assumptions about the students who refused the tests. Someone please explain this assumption:
Historically, SED only tracked the number of students not tested for an invalid, unknown reason. These students are categorized as “not tested” students.
What is an invalid unknown reason? It may be unknown to NYSED but does that make it invalid?
Their most egregious assumption is to state that they know what those who refused the test would have scored.
In addition, the 2016 test refusal students were much more likely to be from low-need or average-need districts; more likely to have scored at Level 1 and Level 2 in 2015 if they took the tests; less likely to be economically disadvantaged; less likely to be a student with a disability; and much less likely to be English Language Learners.
NYSED would be wise to listen to Joe Friday, ” Just the facts ma’am, just the facts please. just the facts
Here are some real facts..
Teachers are being forced to teach to the test
The arts are taking a back seat to test prep
More students are opting out
The data in invalid
State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s listening tour, was all about parents listening to her.
More resources are being diverted towards test prep
9 1/2 hours of testing is abusive to all students
Children are becoming increasingly stressed about test score
The tests measure NOTHING!
So my message to the Board of Regents:
Cut the spin, deal with the real issues, pass a permanent end to these tests, and develop real standards with teachers that honor the diversity of our state.
http://rlratto.wordpress.com
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..
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“. . . develop real standards. . . ”
How about “develop real curriculum”? “Standards” is the word of choice of edudeformers and privateers. It’s usage implies a certain specificity of knowledge that is not there.
Curriculum is the proper word. “. . . develop a real curriculum. . .”
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Duane,
Curriculum, real or otherwise, is not necessary in the production of widgets. We are no longer educating citizens for life in a democratic society because we are living in an oligarchy presenting us with false dichotomies.
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Has NYSED released opt-out data for NYS high school Common Core algebra I and Common Core ELA?
Very few opt outs here I suppose. These two tests are required for graduation.
Has NYSED released Common Core test score data for these two exams. Something tells me that there is nowhere near the 65% failure rate we see in grades 3 to 8.
So Commissioner Elia, it’s ok to torture and stigmatize the youngest and most vulnerable students in the system, but when you know that parents will never withstand hyper-inflated failure rates on HS graduation exams, your psycho-magicians pull a rabbit out of their hat.
Shame on you and shame on Governor Cuomo and shame on everyone else who bears responsibility for this fiasco.
Dr. Rosa – there are some serious questions that need to be asked.
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Elia, State Ed, Governor’s Office, reformers take away:
Opt Out was contained this year.
This years numbers needed to be larger than last years, substantially. They weren’t. To those on the other side of this, this was exactly what was hoped for. Stop the bleeding. Contain. They did.
Not a victory for us.
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NYSED, Elia, and Cuomo, the chief advocates of the Regents Reform Agenda (courtesy of Race to the Top), have nothing to crow about. No victory to celebrate with a 22% opt-out. The movement was barely contained despite a tremendous effort to end it. The moratorium. the administrative “tool kits”, and the vailed threats simply could not budge the level of dissatisfaction regarding Common Core testing.
Cuomo has been completely silenced on teacher bashing and on his “death penalty for failing schools” rhetoric.
EngageNY will fall by the wayside as test-prep pressures have been de-fanged along with VAM and SLOs.
Many, many school districts have completely de-fanged VAM and SLOs by putting all teachers on a single SLO based on pooled Regents scores.
Dr. Rosa and the new BOR will be making their recommendations next year to the legislature, which in all likelihood will bring and end to the most egregious aspects of Cuomo’s Regents Reform Agenda.
Common Core are now lame duck standards and the Pearson testing disaster will soon be nothing but a bad memory.
Sorry, but my glass is half-full.
NYSUT will never call for statewide strike or job actions, but as we will see, there will be no need.
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BS – most were hoping Opt-Out numbers would decrease or go away. Thay didn’t! They INCREASED by 2.5%! You GO, NYS Opt-Out! You held the line & even mgd an increase! You delivered another kick in the pants to Cuomo/Elia’s moribund attempt to tyrranize local school districts! You stand as the model for other states, showing that grass-roots action by taxpaying parents can chip away at deep-pockets-private-interest-dictated state ed policy!
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As long as opt-out continues to maintain 20%+, it is a powerful movement. The scores are meaningless because in some districts, more than half the kids didn’t take the tests. In Long Island, which is politically powerful, half the kids opted out.
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“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
~ Winston Churchill ~
We are not winning. Admit it.
If we let this political season escape us and allow this reform to become a back-seat issue … we become the fools. And we deserve that tattoo.
The Opt-Out movement has served its purpose, but it hasn’t the punch this movement needs. Not in this moment.
So … we’d better listen to that Churchill guy. And we better do something … fast.
We’re being smiled and nodded to death. Painted in nonsense words and soaped in foggy promises by political operatives who think us unserious and even peevish. And we are … because we seem easily soothed.
If anyone thinks we can conquer this reform with a three-week skirmish each spring … well … go stab some windmills.
John King smirks us and treats as an after-thought because we chest-beat ourselves over this single strategy that glimmers for a few weeks each year … while he’s hard at work retooling our schools, experimenting on our children, and ignoring all of us. The Opt-Out moment is now a spring sneeze.
It produces no blowback, no call to arms, no classroom change, and encourages no political courage of any consequence. It is now theatre. Bad theatre … because it deludes.
Teachers have been declawed, parents dismissed, school leaders deceived … and the public is disengaged. Warriors in this effort are perceived as amusing renegades, wayward anti-reformists … progress-blockers who are more a nuisance than anything else.
And now King has proposed the death-blow … the coup de grace … for the Opt-Out effort.
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2016/07/29/us-ed-dept-proposes-punishing-opt-out/87677718/
And if I were him, I do the same. He doesn’t fear us … he mocks us.
King’s death-star for public education is nearly complete. If this issue becomes a back-bench concern for the major political players during this exciting season … well, our time is up. And we will have lost.
We need drama. BIG drama! Right now.
Something that rises above the usual headline noise. And we need it in the next 8 weeks … NOT NEXT SPRING.
We need to empty the schools … nation-wide … this fall. For a day or two or three.
We need to capture the candidates and make them want us. The optics alone will demand attention. And it’s serious attention we lack.
Now we can talk ourselves out of this .. and reason away the best opportunity we’re likely to ever have … or … or we can spine-up and do what warriors do … and make mayhem. Make people listen. And worry. And respond. To us.
Or we can pretend a bit longer that we are who we are not … and search for words to explain an ugly future to our children.
Now … we can be bold … or we can go home.
Denis Ian
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Denis,
You nailed it perfectly.
Thank you.
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“We need drama. BIG drama! Right now.”
“Something that rises above the usual headline noise. And we need it in the next 8 weeks … NOT NEXT SPRING.”
“We need to empty the schools … nation-wide … this fall. For a day or two or three.”
NEVER going to happen. NO way. NO how.
The reform movement is running out of explanations as to why NONE of their policies, ideas, or products is making an difference. The days of fooling parents are coming to an end.
The forces of darkness always contain the seeds of self-destruction. And I believe they have germinated.
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RATT,
The reform movement doesn’t need to win a dialog. Those on our side are the fools who took their postulations and ideas at face value and thought that by defeating them via he harnessing of evidence, reason, and logic, we would somehow vanquish them. This isn’t and never was a philosophical or educational dialog! The reform movement tossed the “ideas” they have out there to try to do this nicely. They will just as happily do this not so nicely. What we are up against is pure, raw, old-school privatizing. Not an academic discussion.
Now, like you I have little faith that teachers nationwide can muster the guts and organization necessary to pull of what Denis rightly argues is our only real path forward. Our unions are addled with feeble-minded leaders, and the membership…..well, the membership is too many generations removed from the generation of badass labor-thinking teachers that won us all of the protections we have today and will soon be losing. As a whole, working teachers today are entirely absent of even the most basic labor and labor history thinking. They are much more concerned about reproducing themselves and going to Disney….not realizing that those things were enabled by folks that stood up, walked out, endured threats, were called names, and did some serious heavy lifting. So, no…..Teachers today will not do what is necessary. They aren’t capable. They would gladly help tie the noose around their own necks. In fact many are.
Anyway…..and to return to the issue at hand….RATT….you seem to have this deep-rooted belief/assumption in the karma/what goes around comes around ideology whereas bad folks always get theirs etc. Well, I know lots of folks can point to individual circumstances of that happening, but as a whole, it’s more of a hallmark card kind of thought. History is literally log jammed with assholes winning. Bad ideas winning. Evil folks getting away with stuff. One doesn’t have to look far. I know that every sociopathic bully asshole from my childhood is doing quite well today. High earners. Bosses. Nice cars. Big houses. Attractive spouses. Esteemed positions in society. All of it. Assholes win every day. People have lived and died under Reaganomics and never had a shot economically because of it…..a super empty idea that continues to “win” every day.
The sociopathic assholes behind the reform movement, believe me, they can win and they intend to. No karma will bite them in the behind. They aren’t scholars and they are losing no sleep when we prove their “ideas” wrong. They don’t care. These weren’t the folks in college who were there for the dialog and the contest of ideas. These were the folks at college who were there to get a credential so they could then go get rich.
Opt Out has reached it’s zenith. That was never going to be how we won anyway. Denis had it right and clear with the path forward and out. It’s likelihood wasnt the point.
Sometimes in life there is one path out. And sometimes that path is impossible. Some folks refer to this path as “shit’s creek.” Turns out we may be way up it and be absent a paddle.
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NYST
I learned my lesson on the issue of strong teacher unions watching my father participate in the UFT strikes of 1967, 1968, and 1975. I was a member of a NJ local that walked out for several days in 1985. I agree that “working teachers today are entirely absent of even the most basic labor and labor history thinking…..teachers today will not do what is necessary.” We had our chance to reject this nonsense, but lacked the balls or leadership to do so. The death knell was sounded the moment Dick Iannuzzi agreed to let test scores be used in teacher evaluations. Some would argue that he did “win” the right for districts to negotiate their APPR policies, but as we know, no local could negotiate one without the test score link, and now we’re up to 50%. However, a statewide strike was an impossible response, so maybe he was between a very large rock and a very hard place with no realistic option?
And yes, “Assholes win every day”. – but they also lose, and not just because they are unethical or morally wrong, but because the nuts and bolts of their plan is unworkable and/or unsustainable. And I think that is the case here. So maybe I overplayed the karma thing.
The worst case scenario of widespread privatization will never be accepted by most parents and communities. Fraud, waste, and lack of results are already rattling the charter industry. Even the NAACP is standing up against their racist, planation methodologies. TFA has failed at every level – and parents don’t need studies to know that they want teachers in front of their children – not computer screens. A sustained, 22% opt-out still makes a very strong statement; I don’t think our state legislators will think they can ignore the issue because opt out didn’t grow.
And I have been writing for years here reiterating your point that the resistance cannot win debates or sway reformers with logic or the lessons learned from logging millions of hours in our classrooms. It has been an invasion, pure and simple. But I liken it to the War of the Worlds. Bad planning, bad ideas, and no real skin in the game will work against them. But I do believe that their final undoing will be parents love for their children and their instinct to do what’s best for them. If I’m wrong, so be it.
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“The 2016 results are valid and reliable indicators of student proficiency in the tested grades and subjects.”
At least Rosa has sense of humor.
What? She was dead serious?
Well in that case she needs to read and understand the complete invalidity in using those results:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
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The performance of ELLs did not improve this year. It is unlikely this will ever change since the requirement that ELLs are tested after being here for only a year makes no sense. This policy is contrary to all the research we know about English language learners, and it serves no academic purpose for this population. It is an unfair policy and serves no purpose other than to frustrate and humiliate these vulnerable students.
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… And their teachers!
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Congress rushed to get ESSA reauthorized, patching together the desires of the most persuasive lobbyists with the deepest pockets. John King and his staff have found all of loopholes and ambiguities in ESSA and are thus able to rewrite the law. Just like Arne Duncan, King is determined to retain the most punitive accountability for public schools.The public comments on sections of the law are probably ignored unless they are in the proper format, and King faces no penalties for ignoring them.
I too would love to see a massive walkout by teachers, but I also know that the blow-back could be horrific, perfect bait for John King and all of the allies of Trump and Pence. And that says nothing about teachers who would be at risk of losing their jobs.
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Laura,
Teachers are at risk of losing their jobs all over the country. Many of us are hanging on by a thread.
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The only valid and reliable element of the testing is its correlation with socio economic status. Is concomitant advocacy for ESSA and Opt Out a rational decision? If mandatory national testing had been abolished, the opt out movement would have outlived its usefulness. The movement has failed to flourish in poor urban districts because school administrators effectively bully the students and their parents who do not have easy access to legal representation.
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Why aren’t they bigger in California?
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I wonder if you need shoes in Heaven.
That’s the best I can do for a catchy opening. I’m sorry.
One of the most splendid teachers I never met just passed away.
I never once met her.
Never heard her voice or studied her face. I don’t know how tall she was or how she styled herself. But I will forever wonder what sort of shoes she wore.
Marge Borchert. That was her name. Try not to forget it.
Marge was a long-time principal at Allendale Elementary School in the West Seneca Central School District … outside of Buffalo.
She slipped me the news of her sudden retirement decision in mid-June. Abrupt stuff. Hinted it was a health decision. People my age know the code.
We’d met in the internet ether a few months earlier. We were destined to crash into one another because we shared an identical pledge … to protect children. And their childhood.
So I set out to scribble stuff and Marge went about teaching kids to marvel at ruby-throated hummingbirds and purple bushes. And to wonder about shoes.
Marge was way over-supplied with clever. And she was a real-deal anti-testing warrior. A total original.
While other school leaders practiced solemn soliloquies or earned fire-brand status with hot speeches, Marge would have none of that spotlight stuff.
Instead … she whispered directly to her children in a letter. But she whispered loudly enough so that their parents could eavesdrop … and understand her sweet magic.
There were no pre-test rah-rah sessions or post-test number-crunching. Nothing like that at all.
So … in a quiet rage against this testing madness … Marge penned this letter to every child and carried on about painted rocks and ”a butterfly bush that is growing outside of my office window”.
And she huffed sweetly about some menacing crow she and some students encountered in the woods that was “tormenting the baby rabbits” … and how it had been run out off by a very brave mother-rabbit who “jumped in the air and batted at that crow with its front paw.”
That … Marge thought … was the sort of drama her kids needed. Not that testing drama.
And then she hat-tipped every single mom by comparing them to that fearless mother-rabbit. Brilliant. That’s how she earned the love of those kids and the devotion of those parents. And that’s how… together … they body-slammed those miserable tests.
And her school not only had opt-out numbers to boast about, but state scores that indicated zero growth. Absolutely ZERO! And Marge was totally delighted with ZERO because that wasn’t the sort of growth she wanted for her kids. And the parents agreed.
So the parents were on board with hummingbirds and painted rocks and hero rabbits. And Marge Borchert went about saving childhood. And asking for shoes.
Shoes.
“Gently travelled shoes” as she called them.
Shoes for less fortunates in far away places like Uganda and Haiti and India. Shoes for kids to wear to school. Shoes to start a micro-business. Shoes that wouldn’t meet their end in a dreadful landfill.
And slowly the shoes piled up in her school.
They’d arrive in single pairs or in great big bags. She’d find shoes dangling from her door knob or piled on the school steps.
All sorts of shoes. Elegant and practical. Brand new and not-so-brand new. Some for kids and some for bigger feet.
The kids sorted them and banded then and re-laced them. And Marge turned those shoes into imaginary passports by asking kids to wonder where those shoes had been. Who had walked in them. And what the future had in store for those sneakers and sandals and boots.
“We had some very animated conversations about where our shoes had walked, what nature trails they might have covered, what animals they may have seen, and what sort of seeds might be stuck to the bottom off the shoes.”
What wonder! What sorry folks we’d be without sweet wonder.
Those shoes taught her children all about charity, too … which is the first shuffle to understanding caritas … a sacred sort of love I first learned about from my almost-Jesuit father.
Caritas is mankind’s elixir. The tonic for all humanity. And Marge made certain her cherubs had their first sip with her.
And now Marge is no longer here. Called away.
But there are still lots of tiny souls who need to walk in mini-forests … and laugh at nutty squirrels … and wonder why forest moss looks just like carpet.
And they also need to learn that their lives on this planet can be measured in all sorts of different ways. Perhaps by shoelaces. Or by kindnesses they do for people who live only in their imagination … or in their heart.
Who wouldn’t want their child in the company of a Marge Borchert?
Now … now she’s off on another sweet adventure … in a new dimension. Perhaps called away because her lessons are complete. And the rest is up to us.
Or maybe God wants Marge there … to teach some very little angels all about red-throated hummingbirds. And painted rocks. And shoes that tell the most wonderful stories.
Denis Ian
December 3, 2016
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