David Gamberg is a child-centered, progressive school superintendent on Long Island. He was superintendent in Southold on the North Fork of the Island and was so highly regarded that when a vacancy occurred in Greenport, the district next door, Gamberg was invited to become superintendent of both districts.
His districts have high opt out rates, not because he tells them to, but because he tells parents they have the right to opt out.
Now, because of the high opt out rate at Greenport High School, where 83% of the students did not take the test, the state has labeled GHS a failing school.
This is the work of the State Education Department and State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, who never met a test she didn’t love.
How can a school be punished because parents and students exercised their right to opt out?
Ask Commissioner Elia.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The New York Education Department must be taking lessons in fraud from the Florida Department of Education. Justice should investigate both state agencies for federal constitutional and civil rights violations not limited to retaliation against teacher and student whistle-blowers. Here is what the People of Florida had to say to Justice on July 4, 2016 about the scourge of corruption in education and government. https://www.change.org/p/people-of-the-state-of-florida-v-rick-scott-et-al
NY’s commissioner Elia was superintendent in Florida’s Hillsborough County for a decade, then was fired after she worked with Gates on teacher evaluation and blew a hole in the district’s reserve funds.
artfully said 🙂
Testing does nothing to improve outcomes for students. Politically motivated high stakes testing needs to go in New York. Standardized testing is a vehicle for privatization. No students should have to participate in this political sham, manipulation and extortion.
Greenport High School is already offering many good opportunities for its diverse student body. Money spent on testing would be better spent on early intervention programs and after school and summer school programs for struggling students. Programs help students. Useless standardized testing does nothing other than frustrate and undermine the confidence of struggling students, and it means nothing in the real world. Quality programming for poor students can change lives, not testing.
Diane, thank you.
When I read your posts and the responses, I remember Edmund Burke:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Thanks, Yvonne. I hope that when I am ready to leave this earthly realm, I die knowing I tried to make a difference.
So glad Gamberg has the balls to confront Elia’s on her fraud. That’s leadership. That’s professionalism: That’s integrity. Compliance with an inane bureaucratic rule is not the definition of a successful school, Dr. Elia.
Parents in New York should kick up a fuss and work to free the state from Elia’s counter-productive policies. Elia’s regressive stance should not be accepted in New York.
Meanwhile, remember “austerity”? The stock market has stunk for more than a year. The bull run lasted so long that many forgot what happens to New York (and NYC especially) when Wall Street falters. Big implications for all kinds of funding, especially schools.
Is the school suing the state?
Another school on the list is a NYC school I worked at for four years. I was recruited to work there in 2013 because they were opening a new 6-12th grade transfer school (aka alternative school) that exclusively enrolls overages, undercredited youth from all over the South Bronx.
This was the first and only transfer school in the city that included grades 6-8, so it was and is the only school of its kind, a home for students in persistent educational crisis. When the school opened, the average student was more than two years overage.
With about 35% English learners and 40% students with disabilities, both extremely high proportions, the school also served foster kids, shelter kids, court-involved youth, teen moms and even the severely handicapped.
It was no surprise that right from the first phase-in year, the school had the lowest test scores in the city. But for their first six years, the state had the sense to keep them off the Receivership list, understanding the school’s unique make up.
This year, that changed, and as I understand, new metrics punishing low test participation and chronic absenteeism hurt the school. At the hearing, it got emotional when graduates, now in college, described how the school helped them following intense personal crises and family dysfunction.
Parents and staff also told the superintendent and one city official how this school is being punished for successfully serving its mission. The state did not have a representative present but will supposedly hear audio of the testimony.