Newsday reports that the opt out movement continues with vigor on Long Island, the heart of the test-refusal movement.
State officials did their best to intimidate, and some local officials tried to bully parents. The new chancellor of New York City public schools said that parents who choose opt out were “extremists.” The city’s schools have successfully suppressed opt outs by warnings of serious consequences to schools and students. Pundits predicted that the state had killed opt out.
But students and parents on Long Island were unbowed by threats.
”More than half of eligible students on Long Island boycotted the state English Language Arts test this week — a continuation of high opt-outs despite state efforts to win back students and their parents by shortening the exams.
“A total of 74,018 students in grades three through eight across Nassau and Suffolk counties refused to take the exam out of 145,127 students eligible, according to a Newsday survey that drew responses from 97 of the Island’s 124 districts. That’s a refusal rate of 51 percent.
“In Nassau, 28,831 students out of 67,630 students in the districts that responded, or 42.6 percent, sat out the latest assessments. In Suffolk, 45,187 students out of 77,497 in the responding systems, or 58.3 percent, refused to participate…
”So far, opt-outs in the Island’s schools are running close to the 52.2 percent peak recorded at this time last year. The boycott movement has now racked up six straight years of support, starting on a small scale in spring 2013 and ballooning to tens of thousands of students annually since 2015.
“The Comsewogue district, serving Port Jefferson Station, hit a new local refusal record of 90.3 percent.
“School systems reporting opt-out rates of 60 percent or more included Bellmore-Merrick, Malverne, Seaford, Babylon, Middle Country, Patchogue-Medford and West Babylon.”
Education Trust-New York expressed disappointment that so many parents didn’t understand the value of annual standardized testing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“parents who choose opt out were ‘extremists.'”
King George thought the Founding Fathers of the US were extremists too. If the U.S. revolution had failed, the Founding Father all would have been hanged and all their property confiscated so their families would have been homeless without a penny.
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For the record, Carranza NEVER said parents who opted out were “extremists”.
He was specifically asked about opting out and he said:
“I think it’s an extreme reaction to where I think we could have a much more nuanced approach. All right, let’s look at how much testing is happening in our schools, and then let’s decide what has to be there so that we know where our students are, and then let’s eliminate whatever we don’t need to have… There are a number of tests that serve a purpose. I think that’s a more nuanced conversation. What’s the purpose and why is that important?”
As a parent who supports the opt out movement, I wasn’t offended by the sentence and I was disappointed that Diane Ravitch has repeated the media’s campaign to turn that statement into something it was not.
Chancellor Carranza was absolutely honest and truthful in his reply. Opting out IS an extreme reaction. His answer didn’t attack the parents who chose it — his answer was just explaining the reason he did not simply embrace opt out himself. Opting out is “extreme” and he is looking for a nuanced conversation about testing.
When the media reports this as “Chancellor called parents who opt out “extremists”, it implies that the Chancellor is rabidly pro-testing and looking to attack any parent who doesn’t agree with him. THAT view of testing is what the right wing and pro-charter people believe. But the Chancellor’s ENTIRE reply to the question was not that type of answer. It was mischaracterized in an attempt to divide progressives.
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In my view, opting out is a commonsense response by parents to protect their children from useless testing and data mining.
No other nation in the world tests every child every year.
The testing regime is running on the fumes of the failed NCLB.
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“It was mischaracterized in an attempt to divide progressives.”
If you are correct in your thinking, then who was behind this attempt to divide progressives … the progressive media that is sometimes known as the liberal media or the other side that is often funded by the Koch brothers are one or more of that ALEC allies?
Who wants to divide progressives? Certainly, not real progressives.
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Lloyd,
Do you mean that “progressive” or “liberal” media that convinced more than half of America that Hillary Clinton was as corrupt as Donald Trump — or possibly more?
Do you mean that “progressive” or “liberal” media that told us in no uncertain terms right before the election that Trump and his campaign had been completely exonerated with having any interaction with Russia? (See the NY Times article that stated without a doubt that Trump and his campaign were innocent of any wrongdoing — the same NY Times that told us how co-opted and crooked Hillary was).
It’s the difference between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren supporting charters and Bill de Blasio. Mayor de Blasio is about one million times more supportive of public schools than either Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and he is far more critical of charters. But you wouldn’t know it from the attacks you see from the left (not all the left, just the very same ignorant folks who said that Hillary was absolutely no better than Trump).
The reason Warren and Sanders are left alone by the right wing propaganda machine that plays the left so well is because neither of them have any power to stop charters — nor do they particularly want to very much. de Blasio did — so he had to be destroyed. When Elizabeth Warren starts looking like a viable national candidate, you start to hear the “Pocahontas” jeers about how she is a big liar who faked Native American ancestry to get every job she was never qualified for. That’s how it works — it doesn’t matter if it is true.
NYC Chancellor Carranza never called any parents who opted out “extremists”. Period. He said that in his opinion the choice to opt out was an extreme reaction to the problems with state tests. He did not say that having that extreme reaction was a sign that those parents were idiots, stupid, jerks, or any other names. He simply said that as an educator he did not agree that the only way to address problems in testing is to opt out. He thinks there is a more nuanced approach.
In fact, Carranza may be wrong that there will ever be any kind of nuanced approach and we should simply get rid of every standardized test ever made — no more SATs, no more SHSATs, no more ACT because they are all evil and parents need to opt out of every standardized test. There are people who believe no standardized test is worthwhile.
I don’t believe that every person who trashes the SAT and AP exams as having absolutely no value are doing so because they are paid by the ACT test makers to trash it. I also don’t believe that the people who trash the AP exams are all paid by rich private schools who depend on their mediocre rich students getting into better colleges over the more deserving public school kids and know that their students’ much lower scores on the AP exams make them look like their education was inferior and that they benefit from huge grade inflation for rich kids at privates.
It is simple possible to have a difference of opinion about the value of standardized tests without it being corrupt.
That is why the CONTEXT is important. And if Carranza had said that the opt out movement was a group of EXTREMIST parents who have some extremist agenda, I would agree with you. That is the propaganda that is most favorable to the right wing wants the public to believe about Carranza. We are supposed to believe that he trashed and insulted all opt out parents as “extremists”. But he did no such thing. That’s why he didn’t offend me — because instead of reading the mischaracterizations of what he said I actually read the entire thing.
Carranza isn’t trashing parents are extremists so why turn people against a progressive educator who might actually do some good in order to thwart him and de Blasio?
I can tell you why — it isn’t because the people trying to thwart their agenda are progressives who want to end standardized tests.
Is it people trying to divide the progressive movement by jumping on these things to destroy any progressive that thwarts their right wing agenda.
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It sounds like the NY Times piece you want me to find on my own was an Op-Ed. I’m not going to hunt for it, besides most of the time NY Times pieces are behind a pay wall.
An Op-Ed is NOT news. It is someone’s opinion and even alleged liberal/progressive media runs conservative OpEds that are often guest posts or written by the resident conservative.
Even Fox News has its liberal/progressive journalists but they just don’t get aired during prime time.
For instance, The Washington Post has Valerie Strauss who often sides with real teachers and real public schools vs. Jennnifer Rubin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/valerie-strauss/?utm_term=.63d038f1d8d4
Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective. She covers a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and provides insight into the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Rubin came to The Post after three years with Commentary…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/jennifer-rubin/?utm_term=.3ba3d0c633a0
AND the New York Times has a columnist called David Brooks.
David Brooks (born August 11, 1961)[1] is an American author and conservative[2] political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times.[3] He has worked as a film critic for The Washington Times, a reporter and later op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal;[4] a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception; a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly; and a commentator on NPR. Brooks is currently a columnist for The New York Times and commentator on PBS NewsHour.[1] Brooks also serves on the board of the radical centrist New America think tank.[5]
Ideologically, Brooks has been described as a moderate,[33] a centrist,[34] a conservative,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41] and a moderate conservative.[42][43] Brooks has described himself as a “moderate,”[44] and said in a 2017 interview that “[one] of [his] callings is to represent a certain moderate Republican Whig political philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_(commentator)#Political_views
SO, it is possible to read stuff even in the New York Times, especially on the Op-Ed page that expresses a conservative view.
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Carranza is an unknown. We will judge him by his actions.
Meanwhile, his critique of parents who opt Out was unwise and unwarranted.
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Carranza definitely sounds like he’s a firm believer in the ability of test results to guide good policy decisions. From the Times story:
“ “But on Tuesday, the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress on reading and math, a set of tests given every other year across the country, often called the Nation’s Report Card, were released. The results for New York City were discouraging. The scores, for fourth and eighth graders, showed that the city made no significant gains from 2015 to 2017 in either reading or math. During that time period, scores in most states, including New York, were essentially flat. But since 2013, the year Mayor Bill de Blasio was elected, math scores among New York City fourth graders dropped by 7 points.
Reacting to the results, Mr. Carranza said in a statement, “Today’s N.A.E.P. results show that we are not where we need to be on math education.” He said the city would immediately increase teacher training in elementary math and would review schools that are doing well, to apply successful strategies across the city. “Math is a foundation of every student’s education and we will not accept anything less than equity and excellence for every student in New York City,” he said.
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Lloyd,
I agree with everything you said about the columnists in the NY Times and Washington Post.
I don’t know what this has to do with columnists, however. I was pointing out that Carranza did not call opt out parents “extremists” — which I agree would have been wrong.
Carranza said that opting out was an extreme reaction to the problems with state tests and that’s why he himself was not telling parents to opt out. But he wasn’t defending the state tests as perfect and without problems. I read more of his interview with the local news and it was clear that was his point.
And sure enough, when the news media turned that statement into something where Carranza was supposedly calling parents “extremists”, he clarified the statement.
“I’ve been quoted as saying the opt-out is an extreme. It’s not an extreme,” Carranza said on Wednesday. “What I’ve said is that there are extremes on the continuum, one being we should have a testing culture and test all the time. And some would say just don’t take any test. I think we have space in a very enlightened community like New York City to have a much more nuanced conversation.”
FYI — I realize I am biased because I happen to think Carranza is stating something that seems in line with my own view of testing. If you ask me, the right wing has succeeded in making any kind of nuanced look at an issue into something that is “co-opted” and “corrupt”.
And yes, I think that is terrible for democracy. We have too many people who immediately turn on progressives who offer any nuanced view of an issue and then claim they are no different than far right wing Republicans and get people not to support them. It is exactly what brought us Trump, and we need to be very careful when someone with a long history of being progressive is suddenly being attacked as some co-opted corrupt person to look closely at what is going on.
It is happening to Sen. Warren. It is happening to Bill de Blasio. And if Bernie Sanders is the candidate it will happen to him.
There is legitimate criticism and there is repeating twisted attacks that aren’t true.
Carranza did not call parents who opted out “extremists”. Period. He doesn’t support opt out himself but the NYC DOE also does not punish the students who opt out when these scores are used for high school and middle school admissions. Characterizing Carrranza as someone who is attacking parents who opt out as extremists is wrong.
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Okay, so I took the time to Google this issue and I found the NY Times piece that does not use the word “extremists”
From the NYT:
He (Carranza) has, however, taken a stand on one controversial topic: He does not believe children should skip the New York State tests administered each year to third through eighth graders. In an interview with NY1 last week, Mr. Carranza called the decision to refuse to take the tests an “extreme reaction,” and seemed to echo many of the sentiments of the test’s supporters. “You don’t know, unless you’re able to assess, where students are in the mastery of information,” he said.
I even did a search of the NYT article (link above) of “extremists” and came up empty.
There is a difference between “extreme reaction” and “extremists”.
Chalkbeat ran a piece on this too.
“Opt-out families respond to Carranza’s statement that boycotting tests is an ‘extreme reaction’
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2018/04/05/opt-out-families-respond-to-carranzas-statement-that-boycotting-tests-is-an-extreme-reaction/
And Chalkbeat also ran a piece about that TV interview
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2018/04/05/heres-what-richard-carranza-had-to-say-in-his-first-tv-interview-as-new-york-city-chancellor/
And you can watch the entire interview here:
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2018/04/05/richard-carranza-nyc-schools-chancellor-talks-investigation-into-yeshivas
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Who takes “extreme” positions? Extremists.
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True
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Thank you Lloyd for taking the time to check the entire story.
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But that doesn’t mean I found all the pieces published on this issue. There could be an Op-Ed out there too.
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You can have an extreme reaction to many things. That does not make you an “extremist”, which is a word that implies something very different and far more negative than simply having an extreme reaction.
I have an extreme reaction to Trump’s racist comments. That does not make me an extremist.
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So grateful for Long Island and their opt out leaders!
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“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.” Mahatma Gandhi
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As a local president from LI, I am proud of all those kids who were brave enough to say no!
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Wouldn’t it be nice to have some way to look into our future and see how children taught early on to adamantly opt out of being tested, categorized and labeled, and who have learned to see the testing game as a know-your-social-place scam will fare.
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Wish we knew
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Ed reformers and big data will be happy to do that research for you. Just click the button indicating you’ve read and agree to comply with the terms of service.
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I speak strictly has a private citizen here and not as an educator:
Once upon a time – and it sill may be true – you could hardly get a civil servant job or often a job in the private sector in Long Island if you widely advertised that you were against the GOP. That was just a fact.
In a similar vein, it is illegal for public school educators to advise parents to opt their kids out of the tests (don’t get riled up . . . . read on. I have reflected upon this comprehensively). Educators can only do so if they are acting outside the hours and scope of employment, off employment grounds, and acting as private citizens. In that context any public school employee can band together with parents and propel the opt-out movement.
Teachers and administrators are charged as “agents of the state”, believe it or not. It’s one of few cases where free speech is not protected, although this restriction is a man-made construct and nothing more. In other countries, such free speech would be protected. If teachers and leaders are faced with this – and it threatens their employment – it is complicated and hard to make such advocacy with parents while on the job. As long as capitalist America restricts employees from speaking out against their “employers”, educators will be under the gun to not speak out within employment contexts.
One of the most grave, abject failures of educators and educators’ unions was NOT to have made formal, systematic, alliances with parents over the last 8 years. I still believe deeply in this powerful alliance and “marriage”, but it remains to be seen if educators do. When you work for a district where the union and administration (and potentially some Board members) send the message that such advocacy is prohibited, then you take certain risks into your own hands.
Meantime, let’s look at what educators CAN do readily!
I believe that what they can and SHOULD do on the job is to criticize the tests and the purposes of the tests. That remains fully within their purview. I would have plenty to say about the NYSESLAT, having had designed and reviewed it over the years. I was one of 7 to 10 people usually, and the testing company would have a big say in test items unless we made a hard pressed case. If we did, often they would listen to us. They had to because they knew we were galaxies more expert than them. We would always discuss discretely the “politics” of tests; but testing companies don’t care about how their products gets politicized and mis-used. They just care if they are awarded the contract for producing the tests. It’s crazy and a symptom of democracy unraveling.
VERY ironically, Betty Rosa, the President of the Board of Regents in NY State – obviously in a high level position – stated openly during a press conference that if she still had kids in public school, she would opt them out of current tests, given the climate. Educators low on the totem pole don’t seem to have that privilege.
But one can make a cogent argument that just because there is a legal arrangement in place, it does not mean people should go along with it. There are tons of instances in history where policies and behaviors were legalized and they acted against humanity when the citizenry went along with or was mandated to go along with it. Complicity, indifference, cooperation, silence, and compliance can always potentially equate to injustice and evil.
I wish I had an easy solution to this one. My mom always said when I was growing up, “Necessity is the mother of invention” . . . .
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First, I want to begin by sayin that calling parents “extremists” for boycotting the standardized tests is a lot to wrap my brain around. I think it’s a little too much, especially after looking at the original article. Parents aren’t being extremest for wanting to keep their children actively learning and for standing up for a test situation that tries to measure their child’s intelligence and a teacher’s competence. Many students don’t test well. Many teachers chose to create classrooms that help their students learn in ways that aren’t always conventional, because they know that a bland setting with only workbook/text work will not only hold their student’s interest, but also won’t help them retain the information.
Standardized testing is a difficult topic to discuss. I can see the advantages of it, but I also know that it doesn’t properly measure up to a student’s actual intelligence. There’s a lot that factors in to this issue, but I don’t think the parents are in the wrong here. It’s a matter of opinion in the end, but I do want to take a moment to applaud the parents and their students for standing up for themselves in the end.
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“Standardized testing is a difficult topic to discuss. I can see the advantages of it. . . ”
No, it’s not a “difficult topic to discuss”. Noel Wilson proved the complete invalidity of the standards and testing malpractices in 1997. How can there be any advantages to a process that is onto-epistemologically bankrupt?
Hint-there can’t be.
Please respond ASSS (acronym not meant as derogatory) what the advantages are. Thanks!
In the meantime, especially since you are a student it would behoove you to read and comprehend Wilson’s work. See:
“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. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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He did NOT call parents “extremists”. That is something that is designed to attack Carranza.
He said opting out of state tests was an extreme reaction to the state tests. He didn’t say that the parents who chose that extreme reaction were stupid or ignorant because the tests were perfect and wonderful. He said that he did not agree with that extreme reaction because he believed that there was a more nuanced approach to fixing the problems with them.
If you believe all standardized tests from state tests to SATs should be abolished and the only academic knowledge a college should take into consideration are the grades on a child’s report card, then that is fine. To me, that is also an “extreme” reaction to this. But people are free to disagree. None of us, regardless of our opinion are extremists. Even though some of us may believe in taking the extreme position that no standardized test should ever be given in this country, period.
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“If you believe all standardized tests from state tests to SATs should be abolished and the only academic knowledge a college should take into consideration are the grades on a child’s report card, then that is fine.To me, that is also an “extreme” reaction to this. But people are free to disagree. None of us, regardless of our opinion are extremists. Even though some of us may believe in taking the extreme position that no standardized test should ever be given in this country, period.”
Agree with the first clause, disagree with the second clause of your first sentence, NYCpsp. No one has suggested that grades should be the only consideration used by colleges. Strawman arguments don’t work in my world.
I’m not sure how being against such an error and falsehood-filled process such as standardized testing (see Wilson or my book) that renders any usage of the results of said process to be completely invalid can be considered extreme. To me it is just plain common sense to not use such absurdities in any type of evaluation or assessment of the teaching and learning process.
But you are correct in stating that none of us here are “extremists”. You have properly pointed out the distinction between what seems to some to be an extremist position (and we will have to agree to disagree on what constitutes an extremist position on standardized testing) and being an “extremist”. Thanks for pointing out that distinction, NYCpsp!
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“Education Trust-New York expressed disappointment that so many parents didn’t understand the value of annual standardized testing.”
Education Trust NY: “The mission of EdTrust–NY is to eliminate the gaps in equity, opportunity, and achievement that hold back too many students from reaching their full potential, especially those who are low-income or students of color, in order to enable all students in New York State to achieve at high levels — from early childhood through college.”
ED Trust must be disappointed in the parents who did not opt out their children – so many parents who didn’t understand that the value of standardized testing is 0. Unless they thought that labeling 80+% of poor, minority students as failures for the last five years was somehow helped to eliminate gaps in equity, opportunity, and achievement.
Expect 2018 ELA scores to improve. Easier, shorter test than previous CC tests. Progress will be touted despite the fact that any comparisons are invalid.
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I am NOT for the tests because they are not a representation of the standards, read bureaucratic, and therefore, are useless.
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I would think that the Facebook scandal and data breach would make parents seriously consider protecting their child’s private information. Taking a test online also produces lower results. It is not a good indication of what students can do, and online tests benefit testing companies, not students. In addition, many districts have reported glitches and problems with unreliable technology. Opting out protects students from predatory testing.
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I will play devil’s advocate, but I think the opt out movement is far stronger because it is NOT associated with NYC but the suburbs. We have a pro-testing, rabidly pro-privatization governor whose only goal is to undermine anything the NYC Mayor says. If the Mayor supported opt out, Cuomo would turn this into a “Mayor is afraid to have the kids tested because he knows the crappy schools he runs are awful.” But Cuomo can’t do that with the parents in the suburbs so he has to shut up.
The fact that opt out is concentrated in the suburbs among more educated parents is a great thing. Cuomo can’t distract by saying that the parents who opt out are just afraid of having their crappy schools and their know-nothing kids put to the test. Arne Duncan tried that and he got into huge trouble. The reform movement is having conniptions because they have gone on record as saying that the test is the only thing that matters and they desperately want educated parents to believe that the test is the only thing that matters. Now Cuomo is in a bind — I hope Cynthia Nixon makes him go on record as to whether he supports testing or not.
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I think she will.
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Cuomo can SAY that he does not support testing, but how he has or will continue to govern will be interesting. He has a hold on Elia, and he can chose to use it or not.
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I can guarantee you that Cuomo will not say that he does not support testing. I stake my Internet reputation on it!
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“Cuomo will not say that he does not support testing.
Lots of negatives there. Are you saying that Cuomo will say nothing at all about testing? Because a slimy politician who is afraid to take a stand would not say that he does not support testing and would not say that he does support testing.
Instead of describing what Cuomo will NOT say — which means that he won’t touch the issue with a ten foot pole — how about if Nixon forces this slimy and corrupt politician to take a stand?
Will Cuomo say that he supports all the Long Island parents who opted out? Or does he agree with Eva Moskowitz that a child is only as good as his test score and agree with Arne Duncan that those Long Island parents are just afraid to have their mediocre kids tested and learn how mediocre their kids really are?
My money is Cuomo saying that all those parents in Long Island who opt out should have the freedom to choose to opt out and he will praise them for caring about their kids and then try to turn the question into an attack on Mayor de Blasio to please his pro-charter funders.
Will you stake your internet reputation on a belief that Cuomo would ever criticize a middle class white parent in Long Island or any affluent New York suburb who opts out their kid? He will not. He will praise them and then turn around and attack Mayor de Blasio.
Cuomo will never attack any parent who opts out in the mostly white affluent suburbs.
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Ouch! . . . . .
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Certified teachers know more than tests can ever reveal about student learning and all other matters, which affect student learning and development. I place my confidence in our public school classroom teachers, not high-stakes tests.
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No hay duda, Yvonne!
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I place my confidence in decent textbooks that I happen to have.
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Only one student in my son’s class (of approximately 30 students) opted out of this year’s ELA tests. He had to sit on a carpet in another for the duration of the test. Was not allowed to talk. Presumably he had something to read.
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Why did only one student opt out?
Is your school full of parents who believe their child is only as good as his standardized test score? FYI – Mayor de Blasio specifically said that the students who opt out will not be penalized in middle school and high school admissions. So why are so many parents supporting these terrible tests?
Anyone who claims that an affluent NYC public school with mostly middle class students punished their few opt out students by putting them on a carpet and telling them they couldn’t read or do anything but sit there quietly is not telling the truth. Why smear a public school by even SUGGESTING that you don’t know if the child was even allowed a book to read and might have just had to sit on a carpet in extreme silence for 3 hours straight and stare into space?
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Certified teachers are subjective. The tests are the only objective measure. By opting out you are discriminating against students who are introverted and prove themselves on the test. Being against the test and trusting teachers only is being a narrow-minded luddite. If its wrong for your students because they are bad test-takers – opt out – more power to you. But don’t force your politics on those who like the test.
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Usually Right,
If you knew more about standardized tests, you would not support them. Read Daniel Koretz’s “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better.” In this case, you are wrong.
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Usually Right, you are admittedly, occasionally wrong. Please read
Peter Greene’s review/synopsis on The Testing Charade.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-testing-charade-buy-this-book.html#comment-form
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And/or read my book “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education”.
Contact me, UsuallyRight, @ duaneswacker@gmail.com to get a copy. Or go to Amazon.
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“The tests are the only objective measure.”
Ummmm, NO! The tests are not an “objective measure”. Why not? Will you please tell us what the standard unit of learning is that is supposedly measured by the tests?
That last question is a trick question as there is no agreed upon standard unit of learning:
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods, supposedly objective, which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
But, but, but, you’re trying to tell me that the supposedly august and venerable APA, AERA and/or the NCME have been wrong for more than the last 50 years, disseminating falsehoods and chimeras??
Who are you to question the authorities in testing???
Yes, they have been wrong and I (and many others, Wilson, Hoffman etc. . . ) question those authorities and challenge them (or any of you other advocates of the malpractices that are standards and testing) to answer to the following onto-epistemological analysis:
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
That supposedly objective results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits.
C’mon test supporters, have at the analysis, poke holes in it, tell me where I’m wrong!
I’m expecting that I’ll still be hearing the crickets and cicadas of tinnitus instead of reading any rebuttal or refutation.
Because there is no rebuttal/refutation!
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As a union leader who advocates for opting out it amazes me how easily the real issue can be distorted. WE ARE NOT AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING, WE ARE AGAINST THESE TESTS. Now I used all caps to make it clear.
These tests are being given purely to drive a political agenda. These tests do not drive instruction in the direction our students need to go. Artificial benchmarks are established that feed the political agenda and seek to unfairly label teachers and schools.
I do not pretend to know much about NYC schools, but I will tell you that Long Island schools lead the nation on grad rates and every other indicator of successful schools. Instead of dragging school through the mud, perhaps the state should look at the main reason LI schools succeed. It’s simple.. provide the resources needed both socially and economically.
Don’t label us all failures, don’t create artificial data points that drive us off a cliff.
Extremist?? I will wear that label proudly when I am working to prevent institutional child abuse.
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“. . .perhaps the state should look at the main reason LI schools succeed. It’s simple.. provide the resources needed both socially and economically.”
Exactly, rratto!
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If I could wave my magic wand, I would provide the 10 lowest performing schools in NYC with the same social (?) and economic resources ($) as the top 10 schools on LI. And with my second wave of the wand, I would flip the teaching and administrative staffs of those 20 schools. It wouldn’t take long to realize my wand had no magic in it.
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That was a used magic wand. It was first owned by David Coleman who donated it to Bill Gates who tossed it to the Koch brothers who gave it to Betsy DeVos. Last I heard, Donald Trump was begging Besty to give him the magic wand so he could use it in an attempt to make Robert Muller vanish.
How did you get it?
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