Gary Stern of the Lohud newspaper in the Lower Hudson Valley, a region where parents are passionate about their public schools, describes New York’s intention to punish students and schools if the opt rate is high.
The state insists that every child take the tests, no matter how invalid and unreliable they are. The children must be measured and labeled!
Stern writes:
“The school year just opened, so the annual state tests in math and ELA seem like a long way off. Testing for grades 3-8 begins in early April, when the Yanks and Mets will be starting next season.
“And yet, the state Board of Regents may soon pass new rules for holding school districts and individual schools accountable if too many families “opt out” of tests. One such rule would allow the state education commissioner to direct a district to spend a portion of its federal Title I funds on “activities” to increase student participation on state tests.
“This is a terrible idea. The Regents should balk.
“Schools use Title I funds on staff and programs to help disadvantaged students — targeting everything from math and reading intervention to supports for homeless children. Taking money away from such efforts for a parent-targeted p.r. campaign? Hardly smart education funding.”
This is a very mean-spirited, stupid idea. Why would the state take money away from the neediest kids to re-educate parents?
Note to the Regents and Commissioner Elia: The children belong to their parents, not to you. Read the Pierce decision (1925).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is how the narcissistic, greedy, psycho, autocratic, corrupt billionaires operate. Stand in the way of their autocratic goals and they will order their political minions to crush any that resist — if they are allowed to get away with it.
Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are perfect examples of how most of not all of the 0.1 percent operate.
That is why it is vital to vote this November, and vote out the minions serving the 0.1 percent.
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Curses upon them. A municipal-dump-sized load of curses. Cretins.
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Too bad this will happen after the election because if it happened before, Cuomo might lose some votes.
I say might because the people in NY seem to have a hard time seeing what a fake Democrat Cuomo is.
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Cuomo
Fake Dem
Beholden to Wealthy Men
Thinks he’ll be Pres one day
Voters must keep him at bay
(Couldn’t resist)
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DINOs do well in NYS because everything north of Westchester County that isn’t big urbia – or the oddball collegetown I was raised in – is solidly Republican.
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Maybe it is time to start filing a lawsuit if districts are punished because of parents’ decision regarding, what they consider, the well-being of their children. If they use Title 1 funds to increase test participation, I believe this a perversion of the intent of Title 1. Title 1 should be used to compensate districts to provide supportive funding for the poorest students. They should have to prove that all this diabolical testing “helps” poor students. If anything, it labels, frustrates and undermines their self-confidence. This is the direct opposite of helping poor students. Testing is not a program. It is simply a false system designed to measure, not help, students.
I found that in 2015 the DOE revamped its allowable activities to include test prep. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the purpose of Title 1 funding, “is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education and reach, at minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.” This revision is designed to allow districts to waste Title 1 funds on testing rather than teaching, which was always the focus of earlier versions of Title 1. This is a ridiculous change, particularly when “proficiency” is moveable goalpost determined by politicians.
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Good idea if the powers that be try the tactic at all. The lawsuit would take really savvy lawyers, a bunch of money, and cooperation from various groups, specifically civll rights groups and special education watchdogs who are actually opposed to the tests. Unfortunately billionaires have been funding such pro-testing groups. The message: Tests are the only “objective” way to make sure all students are making progress in school and closing the “achievement gap.” I’d guess some parents also support tests just because they believe these are “necessary.”
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If they insist on a test, then schools should have a choice rather than a mandated test that has never been validated. From what we know the tests based on the CCSS are written above grade level and poorly written. These tests are unfair, particularly with a rigged cut score.
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They are playing chicken with the taxpayers. Hopefully parents won’t back down.
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This burns me up. NJ res now, but raised in NYS & educated in their fine public schools back when Dept of Ed and Bd of Regts were institutions to be proud of not political yes-men. Opting out is civil disobedience necessitated by the obstinate refusal of NYS to take the bull by the horns, toss out the go-along-to-get-along bureaucrats & the pay-to-play pols and stand up for excellence in education. No matter what kind of pressure Trump/ DeVos’ DofEd is applying, Congress was clear in writing ESSA that feds are to back off the overweening micromgt of Bush/ Obama admins & return reins to locals.
They are definitely Republicans upstate, but they are also fiercely local & don’t like Albany sticking nose in any more than Trump/ DeVos. All that needs to be done is to counter the meme that opt-out is about “teachers’-union” resistance to Elia & her minions. I’d like to see ads featuring lots of real local pubsch parents telling Albany to butt out of their schools.
Oh but who would pay for the ads. Calling Chiara. Where is the pubsch budget line-item for PR? GRRRR.
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p.s. and furthermore (steam coming out of ears), somebody please figure up what the annual tests and EngageNY modules and computers/ wiring/ bandwidth/ sw/ sw updates — cost already & keep costing annually — & translate for the tight-budgeted upstaters into local & state taxes they pay out. Publish it in every town rag. THAT might swell the ranks of Opters-Out.
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Yes. And compare that to the money received ($700 million) from the USDOE in the RTTT/Common Coercion money grab.
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Or the $0.00 NJ got, even tho we had to do all the same blasted reforms!? We lost out due to (oops) supplying wrong chart on one Q, forfeiting 5 pts… which meant 3-pts-less Ohio got the last $400million… But what the heck was the logic to all that anyway? Do you get to skip the reforms & save the $ if you are one of the 38 states not receiving RTTT$?
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A**h****. $$$$$ talks and bs walks. Lots of $$$$$ for the few by making kids take stupid tests. Nothing good comes from this, except profits for the few.
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Utah schools will be punished if too many students opt out, even though it’s allowed by Utah state law. The feds wouldn’t let Utah have a waiver for ESSA for it.
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I see a direct link between the acceptance of all the standardized testing in schools (which is a LIE) and the tolerance of our buffoon/president (whose leadership is based on piles and piles of LIES.) More and more people buy into all this crap ….
But at what point do the lies start to outweigh the truth and our entire culture is swept away into an abyss? The willingness of so many people to accept the unacceptable and normalize the outrageous is downright spooky. Fake is becoming real while reality is derided as fantasy.
Maybe when future historians look back at this crazy era they will see No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top as sort of warm-ups for what was much worse to come. How many teachers were willing to fool themselves, to mouth nonsense, to knowingly betray the best interests of our children in order to “go with the flow”, to use a phrase one longtime superintendent directed at me many years ago.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that we ended up with a “President Trump”? He’s been here all along right beside us, maybe teaching in a classroom down the hall or making decisions on the local school board. I think President Obama made this point when he finally spoke out this past week.
Bottom line: parents and teachers fighting these tests are parents and teachers who are saving our country.
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I’m not so sure of that link. The outrage in question started long before Trump as a handshake between civil-rights-minded progressives & ‘accountability’-minded conservatives. The vast middle waited to see how it would go.
In NJ at least, it took yrs before NCLB testing was implemented thro all the grades. And then a few more yrs for some parents [the ones whose kids had the right age-span] to compare what school had been to what it had become. Once the full bore [CCSS/hi-stakes tests & SGO] took hold, a lot of other parents began to complain loud enough for press/ public to hear. And it probably would have twice the public notice if the air weren’t sucked out of the room by the constant static of ‘public schs suck/ school choice – charters – privatize ed’.
It takes time for a big new policy to be fully implemented then trialled for long enough that public understands costs & effects. Only teachers, real education experts & sophisticated parents knew immediately that annual stdzd testing was a bad idea – & an outrage when re-implemented via the cruddy un-benchmarked CCSS & its crap un-field-tested aligned high-stakes tests. This cannot be compared to Trump’s 18-mo takedown of democratic norms/ institutions & the unconscionable sitting-on-hands of Rep legislature. We shall see how many of public are also asses come November.
Bottom line for me is that there should NEVER be big new policies that bigly affect the public’s daily QOL imposed from above. PERIOD. That progressives had a hand in imposing this is one example of why I don’t call myself one & don’t entirely trust them.
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You’re right that this MESS goes way back. I just think there’s a sort of mindset among too many people who work in schools to “get along by going along.” It bugs the hell out of me when I find myself getting pulled into that undertow. Or, wading in under my own volition. And, I think since 2001 especially, what public schools have ended up “going along with” has been…devastating. For children and our nation.
My mother went to a state teachers’ college back in the 1950s. She remembers how one professor would tell those Elvis-era, future educators “You can’t change the system. The system will change you.” (I think that’s the quote….I’ll have to ask her.)
How much has that attitude changed in schools since then? I don’t know….
Of course, us good ‘ole teachers are some of the very least of the culprits to blame for this debacle called the Trump era. You are certainly correct there -if that’s what you mean. We teachers tend to be so….nice.
I guess I keep feeling it’s time to be a lot LESS nice. More teachers need to be troublemakers, ha, ha. The stakes are high. The future of our country might hang in the balance.
Hey, it sounds like you might be in NJ. Keep dry. It looks like we’re due for stretch of very wet weather. Enjoy this Sunday.
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Thanks John, feeling like a duck already (boots for damp basement on).
I see I was taking your post as being directed at the public in general. I agree with your sentiment, except I don’t see how teachers can change from “GAGA” to activist without support from the bldg principal &/or their union. Their jobs are on the line; insubordination seems typically not tolerated, from what I read here. Real action comes from having your back to the wall & time to change the job or quit, like the wildcat strikers in states where school funding doesn’t cover living wage, books, bldg maint etc.
My view is limited, having never been a public-school teacher, but I have a sis in public ed & have seen how her job as teacher & in admin has been entirely, overwhelmingly affected when a new principal “comes to town” like a new sheriff. And saw that in action at our kids’ elem sch twice. The antidote can be a good strong union, but what do you do when the major teachers union leaders buy into these horrendous plans, seemingly spending all their time playing footsie w/DC & state pols, & pushing their bad ideas down the ranks?
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Kwitcherbitchin’ !!!!(Sorry, calls for a strong word.) WALK OUT…EVERYONE!
&–as retiredteacher wrote above– start filing those lawsuits. AND–make the case for child abuse (because that is EXACTLY what all of this test prepping is {even when kids opt out, their curriculum is STILL test prepping} & file reports w/Child Protective Services.
Of course I understand that none of this will be easy, but don’t you have your children to protect? What kind of a future (not to mention present) will they have w/o a decent education, as the te$t publisher$$$ & the oligarchs want, ala Koch bros. & ALEC plans made almost FIFTY years ago (you will NOT learn to ? authority in school; you will go directly to Walmart or Amazon or canning pineapples, because you continue to be prepped for & given te$t$ w/ pineapple questions).
YOU–PARENTS–are going to have to save your children. Organize, don’t agonize: there is strength in numbers!
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Just looked up the phrase you used, “kwitcherbitchen.” And, yeah, it’s word.
There’s even a WW II era P-51 Mustang called that and it’s still flying.
http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/survivors/serial/44-63476
Love it.
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What dictionary did you look in? I remember the phrase, “kwitcherbellyachin,” but “kwitcherbitchin” has a better rhythmic quality to it. 🙂
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That’s funny…yeah… it was an online, internet dictionary. I can’t remember the last time I cracked open a real, hard copy dictionary. It reminds me of the printed photos I just ordered. They’re pictures from this past summer. I’m the only person in my house who has even looked at them so far. Ahhh….the 21st century that we inhabit. Have a good one.
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Even the Oxford dictionary is online. Merriam-Webster and the Cambridge Dictionary are also online and they were considered the most trusted dictionaries when they were printed on paper.
Now that they are available online does that mean they are all fake dictionaries like Trump’s allegations of fake news?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/
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Teachers and administrators can only do so much because schools are charged by the State to carry out the State agenda.
But parents are free to act, as are educators who are NOT acting in the capacity of employee, acting outside of contactual hours, acting off of employment facilities and grounds, and/or acting as a private citizen.
The fact that LEAs in NY State are, per Elia, responsible for parents’ choices is absurd and punitive, and anyone with even a compromised sense of reason knows it. It will be fascinating to see what Betty Rosa has to say and if she is willing to stand up to Ms. Elia.
Anyone acting as a private citizen would organize and push back against this reprehensible and foolish policy.
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Elia works for the Regents. Let’s see what they tell her. Elia loves tests and data.
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If I may add a little to one of your thoughts, Diane:
“The children must be INVALIDLY measured and labeled AND SORTED AND RANKED!”
And then the proper kudos to those ranked at the top and chastisements to those at the bottom, eh!
Should the state be in the business of discrimination against some students due to inherent characteristics of the child? Someone please explain to me how that discrimination should be considered any different than any other inherent characteristic of the child, whether gender, skin color, disability, etc. . . that have been adjudicated as being unconstitutional. Why is that discrimination by the state in the form of its public schools being allowed to harm so many students?
Or is it that no one really gives a damn and to hell with those that don’t show their mental meddle? On COMPLETELY INVALID standardized tests at that?
To reiterate what JohnOgozalek wrote above: “But at what point do the lies start to outweigh the truth and our entire culture is swept away into an abyss? The willingness of so many people to accept the unacceptable and normalize the outrageous is downright spooky.”
We’re way past spookiness with the standards and testing malpractice regime. It’s downright disgusting and devastating to so many children.
I shake my head in disgust as I type this.
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mettle not meddle. ay ay ay
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“Should the state be in the business of discrimination against some students due to inherent characteristics of the child?”
Ouch. I’m going to steal that one.
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Please, please steal it all you want. Spread the word. Make sure you include the fact of mental capabilities being the inherent one of major concern. I contend that discrimination via mental capabilities as it is currently done by the public schools in the standards and testing malpractice regime is THE MAJOR civil rights issue of our day because it affects so many students-actually all students regardless of gender, disability status, race, ethnicity, etc. . . .
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I further explain the problems associated with the standards and testing malpractice regime in my book “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education” and how that discrimination contravenes the fundamental purpose of public education and puts the government in position of violating the constitutional rights of the students.
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FYI: Arne Duncan is going to be on CSPAN2 at 900pm Sunday 9 Sept.
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Thanks for the heads up, Chas. I’m assuming that is Eastern Time?
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Actually that looks like a rerun. Here it is:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?448999-1/after-words-arne-duncan
Interviewed by Kaya Henderson. . .
Anyone play softball???
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The vast majority of schools in NYS did not meet the required 95% threshold for participation rate. Continue to Opt Out and engage in meaningful civil disobedience. When the districts come up with activities to increase participation, don’t drink that Kool-aid and continue to Opt Out. Opting out has the power to derail the stupidity of current practices.
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Yes, Elia will sacrifice academic support for poor kids and use the money for parent re-education camps
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“Opting out has the power to derail the stupidity of current MALpractices.”
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Someday they will pay students to take the test.
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NYSED and the NYBOR will not pass this foolish rule. They will have no chance to win the class action suit that would follow. This is just a poorly inflated trial balloon.
NOTE: The scores from the April/May 2018 exams have still not been released. Hey kids you have to take these really important tests. Don’t worry we’ll get you your scores by half-past never.
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