A teacher in a big-city district in New York, posted this note on his Facebook page. I can’t give you the link because the teacher requested anonymity for fear of reprisals even though he plans to retire at the end of this academic year.
The post says:
I haven’t taught a class in over a month. I’ve been administering various tests– English, math, and the test for my field–the NYSESLAT. This morning I was giving the second of four parts of the NYSESLAT test to a bilingual class of third graders. It’s the New York state test for English proficiency. It takes roughly 3 1/2 hours for a child to complete. It was the first listening, reading and writing component of the test. A student who came to my school on the second day I started NYSESLAT testing, from Puerto Rico, had to take the test. I haven’t had the chance to spend any time with him because I’ve been giving tests. Nonetheless, he had to take this test. After he did the first two parts of the test before I read the instructions, he passed me this note.
At the bottom of his post there is a note that says, “mister no English.” It is accompanied by four hand-drawn faces with tears streaming from their eyes and downturned mouths, the opposite of smiley faces.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another snapshot of the new United States that David and Charles Koch set out to create back in the early 1970s when they launched ALEC.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Wow! Sad and Pathetic.
This is so very, very sad and inappropriate.
And the Special Needs students go through much the same thing, as well.
{{Sigh}}
I really hope the people of New York have the good sense to dump Cuomo and his sidekick, Elia.
My high school in Queens, NY, which is 100% ELLs, has wasted this entire week on the NYSELAT.
Oh, god…this is shameful.
A lot of these ridiculous practices in education can be explained by the word “money.” In many cases schools must comply with rules and regulations, even if they make no sense, or else…
Here’s an example from my neighborhood:
Two little girls were born to a native Spanish-speaking mother and an English-speaking father. Because the father spoke little Spanish, the parents spoke English in the home and so the daughters became native English speakers who could understand, but not speak, Spanish.
When the girls enrolled in school, the mother wrote that Spanish was her first language but her girls were English speakers. Still the school labeled the girls as “second language learners” and tried to keep it that way even after the mother stated that English was her daughters’ first language. “Oh, it doesn’t mean anything” the school insisted but the mother did not want her children labeled as needing help in learning English. The label was only lifted when the mother made a big fuss about it.
Why did this happen? Probably because the school gets extra money for every child designated as an “English language learner.” Our tax dollars at work!
A teacher about to retire can do wonderful things for students and other teachers. I hope this man speaks out and uses his name.
I posted this sad piece at
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Mister-No-English-by-Di-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_School_Testing-180510-65.html
I followed the post with the comments from a recent pos here
Chris Churchill: For Better Schools, Ditch Standardized Testing https://dianeravitch.net/2018/05/01/76350/
“Even if we swallow that baloney, there’s remarkably little evidence that the national rise of high-stakes standardized testing has done anything to improve schools and learning. As far as I can tell, the only beneficiaries are the big bureaucracies that want more control over classrooms and the big corporations that provide the tests.
The tests certainly haven’t benefited our kids, who, in many districts, are getting shorter recesses so teachers can spend more time in service to the looming tests. Or who, as many parents can attest, view testing days with anxiety and dread.
“It’s easy to think of things our kids would be better off doing. Learning reading, writing and arithmetic. Learning Urdu. Learning anything.The tests are a time suck for teachers, too. They’ll be watching over spiritless and possibly anxious classrooms of test-taking students when they should be, crazy thought here, teaching. We should want our schools alive — with passion and joy, with laughter and curiosity, with play and learning.
“If the tests were just tests, they might be relatively harmless. But they epitomize something bigger: The madness that applies a production mentality to education. Everything can be neatly quantified, yes siree, not to mention automated, regulated and homogenized!But children aren’t widgets and schools aren’t factories. You can’t measure the success of a classroom with data points. Standardized testing tells us nothing important about how children experience school.
“As most every parent and teacher knows, learning is about small moments and quiet victories. It’s about relationships built on trust and even love. There are things that can be measured. Teaching and caring for children are not among them.”
All of us have had similar experiences. Asked to teach something inappropriate. Required to test someone not exposed to the material. Spent an entire month giving tests or suffering while school was disrupted.
Well, partly it’s because all of these decisions have already been made at the highest levels.
Here’s Arne Duncan and Spelling announcing that any debate is over and there is bipartisan, elite consensus on what to do with public schools:
“Today, education is blessed with bipartisan agreement on what works, and cursed with bipartisan complacency at every level on taking action.
Both sides recognize the need to balance strong federal accountability with local innovation; to support high standards for teachers; and to encourage choice and diversity while keeping public schools as the core focus of national policy.”
Choice” and then “accountabiity. That means charters and vouchers and tests.
It’s all they offer. It’s all they’ve ever offered. Because public schools are not charter schools or private schools, all public schools get are the tests.
Not only that, but they refuse to even consider that anything other than their chosen approach would “work”- they have decreed “what works” and there will be no further debate or discussion.
if ed reform stopped testing public school children, ed reform would be completely irrelevant to 90% of the public school students in the country. Without their testing obsession, they could all stop showing up for work and there isn’t a public school family in this country who would notice.
You can read it yourself:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/05/09/what-ails-education-an-absence-of-vision-a-failure-of-will-and-politics/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2009a95303de
Duncan and Spelling offer absolutely nothing of value to any public school in the country other than what THEY value, which is tests.
The tests are essential not because they measure anything worthwhile – they’re essential because they are the only thing ed reform offers other than charters and vouchers.
They wouldn’t even have a reason to address or regulate or advise public schools at all without these tests- it’s the single thing they offer.
It’s a raw deal for public schools. They got screwed. 30 years of ed reform and all they got were these stupid tests.
What Duncan and Spelling cannot acknowledge is that NCLB and RTTT both failed. And they want more of the same.
Congress also kept the testing requirements in ESSA in part to appease a select group of Civil rights activists. Many of the activists morphed into a loudspeaker system for foundations who were making big gifts to them to argue for the tests and for charters to replace the failing schools.
BY the way, don’t miss this https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/william-barber-takes-on-poverty-and-race-in-the-age-of-trump?mbid=&mbid=nl_Magazine%20050718&CNDID=49818324&spMailingID=13461274&spUserID=MTk1NjkzMjAyNzAwS0&spJobID=1400639927&spReportId=MTQwMDYzOTkyNwS2
My recollection is that Kati Haycock of Education Trust organized a petition for civil rights organizations to demand that ESSA retain the annual testing because taking standardized tests every year is a “civil right.” Education Trust has received many millions from the Gates Foundation. So have many of the groups that signed her petition. That petition proved decisive, as the unions did not want to take a position different from the civil rights groups. Haycock retired and has been replaced by John King, who succeeded Duncan and also loves standardized tests.
“. . . to demand that ESSA retain the annual testing because taking standardized tests every year is a ‘civil right.'”
THE CIVIL RIGHT of the students that is being violated is to not be discriminated against by the state. The state, through the public schools are not allowed to discriminate via gender, race, disability, etc. . . but is allowed, the schools are even mandated, to discriminate against students via another inherent, out of control of the individual, characteristic-their mental capabilities. The form that discrimination takes is the standardized testing regime than intentionally and inherently is designed to discriminate against some students, rewarding some, punishing others.
Someone please tell me how that is ethical, moral and although legal, how is it just?
Duane: Very well stated. How much child abuse is now acceptable in this country? When will it end?
New York State’s testing of ELLs is madness. These extremely needy students lose an incredible amount of time on wasteful testing. ELLs are required to take all the mainstream assessments as well as their own ELL version of hELL in the form of the NYSESLAT, which is leveled by ages, requiring an ESL teacher in an elementary school to lose weeks of morning instruction. ELL parents are extremely trusting of the schools so they are the least likely students to opt out. Nobody in his right mind should subject these young people to such a frustrating, meaningless, overkill of testing.
Well, take heart. Pretty soon all the student’s work will be machine-scored and then we won’t have read any opinions from pesky students at all.
Doesn’t this student know he’s only there to provide a “baseline” for the scoring metric? It’s like he thinks this is about HIM. What nerve. Clearly he’s defending “the status quo”- check his pockets for a union card.
like
Take heart. Pretty soon, the bots will take the tests.
“Pearsonal Test-taking Assistant” (supported by the PTA)
When robots take the test
Our problems will be gone
Cuz robots are the best
And never ever wrong
This is another example of one size fits none,
This is one reason why I am hesitant to become certified in ESL in NY. I would like to teach but I have also heard horror stories like this.
It reminds me of one of the principals that I had at the International School of Kuala Lumpur. This principal was on the kick that all classes needed to have kids write. I objected but never said anything because one didn’t go against this nitpicker who delved into our lives like an ice pick. Remember I was an elementary music teacher.
I gave a music listening lesson and then passed out a short written exam. One of my Chinese students, fifth grade boy, started crying. He didn’t understand the English. I NEVER tried anything like this again. I was horrified at the damage that I had done to this student.
This is child abuse.
Exactly
Gets the peeons ready for military service!
bingo
“Testing trumps Piaget”
Piaget said “Let them play!”
Coleman said “No way!”
Duncan said “It’s testing day!”
What more is there to say?
First day (of three) for NYSESLAT testing in listening, reading, and writing (speaking was an entire different bit of insanity.) We had to pull students out of a test (MOSL) to take a different test. If this isn’t the definition of insanity I don’t know what is.
This is cruel and humiliating. Also, it is a horrible waste of time and money. Nobody should have to take these tests but especially not ELs. They aren’t designed for children acquiring a language.
That poor boy. I’ve seen this happen in my school, too. It’s child abuse, pure and simple, as many of stated upthread.
Might I add that while there’s a moratorium on tying teacher evaluations to ELA and math state tests, we ENL teachers are all still linked to how our students perform on this state test. No matter how outrageous the demands are (try watching a six year old struggle with multiple choice ELA-style questions).
Can we have a moratorium,.too, please?
What is ENL?
TIA from this AIIDS* person.
*Acronym Identification Impaired Disorder Syndrome. To be included in the DSMX
You sound like a potential member of my national organization. It is called the National Organization for the Elimination of Onerous and ridiculous Acronyms (NOFEORA).
As long the membership is gratis, eh!
I was hoping it would supplement my retirement. Along with NOLME. (National Organization for the Literalization of Metaphorical Expression). We had to dissolve that one because we kept winging the meetings. Dissolving it was weird.
Hi Duane,
ESL (English as a Second Language) has now become ENL (English as a New Language).
Thanks, Mamie. Wasn’t sure what the N stood for. Why not just LE then, eh!
This does not make me sad. Not heartbroken. Not ashamed. It makes me angry. This is outrageous! I repeat the above that it child abuse and it is enraging.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be” abused by our vicious oligarchs.
I am complicit in this crime against humanity because I don’t want to be fired. By the end of next week, I will have stolen two weeks of teaching from my middle school English students. Sad is certainly not strong enough a word to describe how it feels. There are no words.
“Give me your teachers, your children, your public schools, yearning to be standardized, tested and monetized” — inscription on the Statue of Libertarian
This story reminds me of a student who drew a beautiful picture on her practice constructive response PARCC practice test. It said something about mermaids being unable to do Algebra under a wistful girl who looked very like her. Naturally, she was in Algebra despite our best judgements.
I’m a high school teacher, In our building, we lose two weeks to testing. However, I was at a meeting yesterday with ENL teachers, and several elementary teachers said they lost over ten weeks to testing. That’s over 20% of overall learning time. Maybe I’m prejudiced, but I’d say that English is without doubt the most important academic subject for newcomers.
in poorest schools where districts can garner funding for “fixing” schools through the collection of statistical data, testing of all kinds and from many different sources occurs simply for the sake of collecting the data and taking the money
“Mister no English”
Mister no English
You MUST take the test
Mister no English
Then JUST do your best
Mister no English
The guvnor has spoken
Mister no English
His testing is broken
His English is broken” might be better
In California they give them a whole year in school before forcing them to take these tests. Because, you know, everyone becomes a fluent, literate grade level reader in a year, right?
Por supuesto.
Heartbreaking.
I am weeping. In the states where I was a public school teacher (Hawai’i, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, and California) Public School Teachers were bound by law to report child abuse to the proper authorities. Good grief. So, the .01% can abuse our young via public school teachers and BAD LAWS? Are the people of this country NUTS?
We have a mental health crisis in this country.