The test results are in from last March-April in New York. 85% of all 718 school districts in the state did not meet the federally mandated 95% participation rate in the state tests.
18% of the 950,000 eligible students did not take the tests at all. That’s 210,000 students who said no.
Newsday, the main newspaper on Long Island, reports:
Long Island is opt-out central for New York, laying claim to 19 of the 20 school systems statewide with the highest numbers of students boycotting standardized tests, a Newsday analysis shows.
Upstate, the movement has gained a foothold, too, but still isn’t as popular as it is in Nassau and Suffolk counties, the review found.
The biggest boycotts draw students mostly from middle class communities in Suffolk. Comsewogue and Rocky Point, for example, had opt-out rates higher than 80 percent. Commack, Eastport-South Manor and Middle Country had rates of more than 65 percent.
Of 100 districts statewide with the highest numbers of test refusals, 70 are on the Island. All have opt-out rates of 45 percent or higher, according to the analysis. Statewide, opt-out rates averaged 18 percent. The average for the Nassau-Suffolk region stood about 50 percent.
Newsday reviewed the test results in English Language Arts and mathematics, released in late September by the state Education Department. More than 950,000 students in grades three though eight took the exams, while more than 210,000 opted out. Of those who boycotted the tests, more than 90,000 live on the Island.
The opt-out movement, now in its sixth year, appears most successful in middle class communities, which political experts attribute largely to close contacts there between parents and teachers. Many live in the communities; they have children in school and they carry weight with parents when they express doubt about the benefit of state exams. And educators belong to strong unions, which have pushed hard to keep student scores from being tied to mandatory teacher evaluations, the experts said.
The state offered threats and bribes, but to no avail.
Opt out is alive and well on Long Island and parts of upstate New York, driven by parents, not teachers.
Every year the eighth grade ages out. Every year, a new group of third graders is eligible. The fact that the movement has persisted and drawn roughly one-Fifth is a testament to parent power.
Why do parents opt out? They understand that the tests are not diagnostic and serve no purpose other than to compare their children to other children, a function of no value to the children.
Hats off to NYSAPE, New York State Allies for Public Education, which has led the opt out movement.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As an “Opt-Out” parent on Long Island, I feel completely alone. Newsday, has provided very one-sided anti-optout editorials by their editorial board for years. Their their “news” coverage over the years has completely left out the details of why opt-out parents are refusing. Even this article suggests it is because of the influence of the “unionized teachers” trying to evade evaluations. In addition, there are no politicians around to defend the opt-out parents (Democrat or Republican). Even Hilary Clinton came to Long Island and sided with Newsday’s editorial board that she would have her grand children take the tests. Our Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, codified into law, this system of high stakes testing. Now he uses it to promote privatization, belittle public education, and keep his boot on the necks of teachers.
We must also call out the parents that are perfectly fine taking these tests because it is their “choice”. Generally, these parents know their child does well on the tests and will one day be able to use the system to put their child out ahead. Parents like this will never understand the point of optout because they don’t want to. Shame on their selfishness.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bill,
You are not alone!
Join Long Island Opt Out!
Connect with Jeanette Deutermann!
There are highly respected Superintendents on Long Island who support you.
MIchael Hynes On Patchogue is one of many.
LikeLike
Thank you Diane for pointing that out. I am forever grateful to these “rogue” leaders. They are not alone either; people like Joseph Rella too have been very vocal. However, there are 125 school districts on Long Island. The number of very vocal superintendents can be counted on one hand. Less than 5%.
The parents have spoken now for 5 years. The education “leaders”, minus the ones mentioned above (plus a few others), are cowards. Our state education department is filled with cowards. And our Democratic politicians are cowards.
It’s time to start calling them out. When a Dem or Repub politician calls my home I answer. I ask them if they support high stakes testing and if they support charter schools. I will not vote for anyone that does not support the elimination of high stakes testing in any form. I will not vote for anyone that supports charter schools in any form. Period.
I have become a one issue voter. Sue me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Bill. This is an uphill fight. At some point, someone with a brain in the state ed dept has to recognize that NY’s NAEP scores have flatlined since 2000 and testing hasn’t made them better.
This is like going to a doctor with an ailment and hearing that you should take your temperature more often.
A thermometer doesn’t cure anything.
LikeLike
I get it, bill. As a wannabe opt-out parent who wants to find other like-minded people in my community, I am confounded by an apathy and ignorance (and seemingly wanting to remain both), which to be fair is likely an infinitesimal sampling of the school district, among parents and others with whom I try to discuss this issue. That plus the little time I have to devote to this make it hard. But I’ll keep trying.
One of the things I’m trying to figure out is how to shift or expand the interest of parents—the ones who step up for fundraisers for athletics or band, who volunteer at school events like football games, and always tout how wonderful the district is—toward their children’s academics and how they are impacted by standardized testing. I’m working on that too.
LikeLike
Your statement that “…their “news” coverage over the years has completely left out the details of why opt-out parents are refusing” reminds me that the same is true for many recent teacher strikes and protests: little gets mentioned on national media outlets about teacher reasoning for standing together against privatizing, charter funding drains, anti-union efforts, test-score labeling, the school-to-prison pipeline, no respect for longevity. In most cases the only thing the public hears is that they want more money (an important reason to stand together, but hardly the only one).
LikeLike
I don’t know, ciedie, maybe I’m just a cock-eyed optimist, but most of the news articles I read included the info [no doubt surprising to teacher-haters] that strikes were about not just salary but lack of textbooks, school hrs, bldg maint, etc underfunding issues. And coverage has included polls showing that majority of voters in many of those states want to be taxed more for increased school funding.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Let’s not forget why the opt-out movement was spawned. From the spring of 2003 to the spring of 2012, 1.2 million students in grades 3 to 8 took the math and ELA tests mandated under NCLB. The notion of opting-out was not on any parent’s radar screen. Scores were not diagnostic but were used to pressure districts to meet AYP targets in each of up to one dozen student sub groups. This placed many districts or individual schools on the SINI list; scores were not used to evaluate individual teachers. Ten years of testing and still no opt-out movement. Why? The tests were developed using NYS standards and were deemed to be fair and reasonable as evidenced by passing rates that were unremarkable. Enter the Race to the Top! Cuomo’s rush to “win” $700 million required the implementation of the Common Core standards, companion testing, and linking test scores to teacher evaluations. These new, skill-based standards and the companion tests from Pearson promised to deliver deep understanding, critical thinking, and 21st century skills that would ensure that all students would be “college and career ready”!
Although warned about the new and much higher bar that CC standards promised, parents and teachers were not prepared for the academic bloodbath that would follow. Districts became panic stricken and math and ELA ruled the roost along with test-prep as the primary pedagogy. Just take a look at some comparisons of pass rates among the same cohorts. The 2012 tests were pre-Common Core. The 2014 tests were Common year two of the Pearson Common Core exams.
Catskill (2012) Grade 5 > Math: 51.8%, ELA: 56%
Catskill (2014) Grade 7 > Math: 24%, ELA: 12%
Fredonia (2012) Grade 3 > Math: 65.7%, ELA: 62.8%
Fredonia (2014) Grade 5 > Math: 15%, ELA: 24%
Johnson City (2012) Grade 5 > Math: 72.2%, ELA: 54.7%
Johnson City (2014) Grade 7 > Math: 28%, ELA: 21%
Wappingers (2012) Grade 5 > Math: 75.4%. ELA: 64.2%
Wappingers (2014) Grade 7 > Math: 30%, ELA” 33%
Jamestown (2012) Grade 3 > Math: 42.6%, ELA: 39.4%
Jamestown (2014) Grade 5 > Math: 20%, ELA: 20%
Any wonder that parents have rebelled against these exams?
LikeLike
Great post & meaningful stats. No doubt Opt-out is linked at hip to CCSS/aligned assessments.
However. I would not discount parental unhappiness w/NCLB 3-8 testing (operational in NJ since 2004), which– anecdotally from my tutoring perch in NJ– was considerable. The reaction of middle class families I was tutoring: Indian/ Pakastani immigrant parents were fine w/it– even used it as another cudgel for nightly hw/ über-prep– because they were accustomed to annual testing from their own childhoods. But it alienated their [esp younger, more Americanized] kids from school/ ed, creating constant flashpoints of family dissension, & some were dismayed [I had 1 mom confide they had emigrated to escape rigid, bureaucratized ed]. The ‘American’ contingent– w/ bright kids; people who hire for-lang tutors for fun/ enrichment– were embittered, viewing NCLB annual testing as a red-tape dumbing-down of curriculum which they pd way too much taxes for & could no doubt escape if they had the means for private ed.
I suspect the Opt-out movement was triggered by CCSS/ aligned assessment; it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Anti-annual-3thro8-hi-stakes-assessment sentiment had already been simmering 8 yrs & was at boiling point. CCSS/aligned assessments showed folks things would keep getting worse if they didn’t take action.
LikeLike
I wonder of there is any way for NAEP, The Nations Report Card, to isolate any Opt Out students that took the NAEP and discover the history of their average scores compared to the nation.
LikeLike
Shared the Newsday article on FB w/ this comment: And upstate districts have good showings, too. Makes me proud to be a native of NYS, a place with lots of regular middle class folk who don’t need to be spoon-fed by fed & state — they think for themselves.
LikeLike
My concern is the urban areas whose parents don’t understand the opt out movement or are afraid of the threats from the administration and state.
We’ve been taught to follow directions and do as we are told, it takes courage to go against those in “authority”. Luckily there are those of us who realize the system has run amok and have enough wherewithal to realize there is safety in numbers.
Civil disobedience is alive and well. What a wonderful lesson to teach to our children, something they’d never discover from a standardized test.
LikeLike
It’s very interesting to pull up NYSED’s 2018 opt-out database and start punching in district/community names into this finely grained map of 2016 election results:
With few exceptions, the highest opt out rates in New York State were concentrated in “red” communities and “red” counties like Suffolk.
Opt out is driven by teachers who are unhappy about student test scores being used in accountability schemes and by people who’ve known all along that their kids’ schools weren’t the same caliber as Scarsdale’s or Great Neck’s, but who didn’t mind paying a boatload of property taxes to keep out the riffraff as long as the tests showed that their schools were at least close. After the recalibration, when the scores weren’t much better or were even worse than the scores in NYC, it became a threat to property values and the messenger needed to be shot.
LikeLike
Tim,
The opt out movement in New York is led by parents like Jeanette Deutermann in Long Island, who created Long Island OptOut, and Lisa Rudley in Westchester, who is president of NYSAPE (New York State Allies for Public Education).
Like your hero Eva Moskowitz, you want to believe that the teachers (those horrible people who need to be fired frequently) are behind Opt Out. They are not. Parents are. Parents don’t take orders from NYSUT or UFT, neither of which were promoting opt out.
LikeLike