FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 20, 2017
More information contact:
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) http://www.nysape.org
Link to Press Release
New York’s Largest Grassroots Education Advocacy Organizations Join Forces to
Urge Parents to Opt Out of NYS Common Core State Tests
Across the state, grassroots education advocacy organizations including New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), Long Island Opt Out, New York BATs, NYC Opt Out and Stronger Together, are urging parents to opt out of the NYS Common Core state tests.
With New York State Common Core state tests in grades 3-8 set to begin this month, hundreds of thousands of parents have notified school officials that they will refuse these flawed and harmful tests. Despite Commissioner Elia’s claims that significant changes to these tests have been made in response to the concerns of the public, parents and educators know that nothing could be further from the truth.
Jeanette Deutermann, Long Island public school parent, founder of Long Island Opt Out and NYSAPE said, “We have made great strides over the past few years. As a result of the opt out movement, many agencies, organizations, and state leaders connected to education have either willingly or forcibly shifted towards a philosophy of whole child teaching and learning, recognizing the voting power that this movement possesses. However, this shift has not resulted in the legislative changes required to stop the misuse of test scores to rank, sort, and punish our schools. We must continue to refuse the tests until the NYS education law is amended.”
New York City schools are resorting to misinformation and scare tactics to discourage opt out in communities that have less access to information, especially in Title I schools. While our schools should be empowering parents to make thoughtful decisions on behalf of their children, what we are seeing instead is the usurpation of parental rights. To be clear, every parent has the right to refuse the state tests simply by notifying their child’s school officials.” said Johanna Garcia, NYC public school parent and Co-President of District 6 President’s Council.
“As always, there are those who wish to contain our influence and weaken our resolve. Sadly, misinformation meant to strip the rights of parents and quell opt out has been disseminated by organizations and school leaders charged with overseeing the education our children. Facts are our weapon. Information is our strength.” Eileen Graham, Rochester public school parent and founder of the Black Student Leadership Organization.
Nate Morgan, President of Hastings Teachers Association and Vice Chair of Stronger Together Caucus said, “The tests are longer than ever with young students sitting for up to five hours per day for 6 days of testing and even longer now with the Commissioner’s untimed testing policy. The common core standards remain essentially unchanged and the benchmarks used to determine proficiency continue mislabel hundreds of thousands of students as failures. Teachers continue to have minimal input in test construction and in fact, are not even permitted to read the tests they are compelled to administer! Parents and educators recognize the failure of both Commissioner Elia and Governor Cuomo to respond to our concerns. The opt out movement will continue.”
“While Governor Cuomo is desperate to present himself as a progressive champion of education, his actions prove that his education platform is most closely aligned with that of federal Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Coupled with his failure to fully fund our public schools, Governor Cuomo’s refusal to amend the Education Transformation Act–a law that requires the use of junk science, unfairly punishes schools serving the most vulnerable students, and supports privatization efforts–proves that he cares little for our children and the well-being of our schools,” emphasized Marla Kilfoyle, Executive Director of BATs, NYS public school teacher, and parent of a NYS public school child.
We are encouraging parents to reject harmful and developmentally inappropriate tests along with non-researched standards, the continued misuse of assessment data, and efforts to punish and privatize the most under-funded schools by opt outing out of the 2017 NYS Common Core state tests.
NYSAPE is a grassroots coalition with over 50 parent and educator groups across the state.
###
View Short documentary [Peter Greene embedded it in his blog] More . . . than a score on Vimeo.com or on http://www.grandmapress.com According to Peter “A film worth seeing” It addresses issue through eyes of the children and the words of renowned educators and parents.
Whew! I feel better already:
Betsy DeVos: President Trump’s budget will protect ‘vulnerable’ students despite $9B cut
Unless those “vulnerable” students are in an unfashionable public school.
Then they’re omitted.
DeVos goes out of her way to exclude public schools. Often she doesn’t mention them at all except as a kind of necessary “default” for the favored “choice” sector.
It’s a powerful message the federal government is sending to the public and that message is “private and charter schools are better so will get additional funding while public school funding will be cut”
And we’re all paying 4200 public employees to conduct this anti-public school campaign on the public dime.
I think you mean government monopoly schools, Chiara.
great breakdown on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_xJpRyo2jo
Go New York! Sure wish ALL states would just say, “NO!” OPT OUT…there’s so many reasons. One is that these high stakes tests are truly BAD and just a $$$$$$ maker for the few.
Senator Murphy said today that by “setting high goals” public schools “challenge the feds to give them the funding they deserve”
Not true for Common Core. The federal government has cut funding to public schools every year since 2010. Public schools have less funding now than they did in 2008. My own school district has less federal and state funding than it did the day Obama took office.
I mean, really this is just a lie. They told public school leaders they would start “supporting” public schools if they adopted Common Core and then they reneged. That’s what happened. The minute the Common Core testing went in then they had what they wanted and they abandoned public schools again. They don’t care what we do other than the two weeks in “testing season”.
The New York Opt Out leaders and all groups associated it with are heroic. I am grateful for their efforts and relieved that they are not slowing down.
Just saw the billboard on wheels this morning on the way in to work. I hope the movement keeps up, but it doesn’t feel like it has the same momentum anymore on the ground.
Kurtis,
They said last year that Opt Out had lost its momentum, but more people opted out last year than the year before.
“Cuomo’s Closet”
Cuomo’s closet
Full of bones
No deposit
No returns
Skeletons
Are peeking out
Andrew’s sins
Will be his rout
I don’t wish to rain on anyone’s parade here. I have heard so many wonderful things about Lisa Rudley and her organization.
I have very close friends who teach ELLs (English language learners) in Long Island and Rochester, and according to them and what they were told by NYSED, ELLs are NOT – absolutely NOT – permitted to opt out of a standardized test they take that is known as the NYSESLAT (New York State English as a Second language Aptitude Test). This test is given to any ELL in kindergarten through 12th grade, and it is aligned with the ELA and CCSS.
In reference to this post, ESL teachers (English as a Second Language) is now by law known as ENL teachers (English as a New Language).
Furthermore, NYSED avidly states that test prep for this test should not be done because the test, while summative, is still considered diagnostic and places children in a tier of ELL services the following year per state mandates. NYSED is concerned that test prep will skewer the results for such placement, yet 50% of all ENL teachers’ evaluations are based on the score from this one test. There is only one company (Attanasio and Associates) that puts out test-prep materials for the NYSESLAT, and its designs do not match most of the NYSESLAT’s format. With regard to the 3rd through 8th grade ELA and math tests, there is a sheer abundance of test prep materials and time that are specifically utilized to get these children ready for these tests, unlike the NYSESLAT.
The NYSESLAT is also a standardized test that has NOT been put on a moratorium for evaluative purposes, unlike the ELA, which has been put squarely on a moratorium.
English language learners therefore remain the most tested population in NY State. The new revised law Part 154 also forces ENL teachers to co-teach with the classroom teacher and be responsible for the measures of NON-ELL children, all the while when the NYSESLAT counts as 50% the ENL teacher’s evaluation. By contrast, the classroom teacher has none of the NYSESLAT count towards his or her evaluation. This is especially true for grades kindergarten through 2nd grade, which are grades that don’t take standardized tests with the exception of the ELLs’ NYSESLAT. This means that ENL teachers are responsible for both the NYSESLAT of ELLs and other fluency measures of non-ELL children while the collaborating, co-teaching classroom teacher is ONLY responsible for the fluency measures of non-ELL children, such as letter naming, word count per minute, and letter sound recognition.
ENL teachers stand to be treated the most inequitably in terms of accountability and test utilization compared to all other categories of teachers. This is beyond disgraceful. It’s disgraceful and proof of pure racism and classism imposed upon all English language learners (I am one myself!) and discredits hundreds of excellent ENL teachers who facilitate students’ acquisition of English or English plus another language, if they have a bilingual license.
Mark my words: according to my research, ELL students and their ENL teachers face the worst form of racism, classicism, hyper-testing, and harsh accountability than other categories of teachers and students. In a final analysis, however, NO teacher should be judged by the score of a standardized test, and if one goes that route, it should count for extremely little of a teacher’s worthiness and overall APPR evaluation!
The United States government has made a pure mockery out of learning and teaching. The Opt-Out movement is a bellwether of sorts that will say something about the federal government’s and Governors’ Association’s obsession with testing and their abusive, heinous, pernicious use of it.
In Norway, people cringe at this behavior and almost cannot believe this is happening here. So many of my friends and family say to me, “Is America really becoming like China?”. Often, I don’t know how to answer that question.
If they opt out in significant numbers schools cannot make AYP or Safe Harbor; but the feds have yet to fine anyone, so it’s apparently a game for everyone- except of course the most vulnerable students that are not learning how to read and write and do math at the age and grade level of their peers and are being left behind, year after year after year….
ELLs are NOT left behind. They are dealing with language catch-up at a pace that is not developmentally normal. They need time to acquire enough oral language academically and socially before they can take such complex standardized tests.