After months of threats and bribes and warnings, the New York State Education Department released a statement affirming that students have the right to opt out of state testing.
This is a victory for the Opt Out movement, the parents, superintendents, principals, and teachers who have said that the exams are flawed and of novalue to students.
This is the statement:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good news. I hope every single student opts out.
I remember those huge billboards Don Perl put up in Colorado with the huge OPT OUT message and all done with donations and no overhead at all.
Don Perl is the first teacher in the United States who refused to give the high stakes test. He worked for the Greeley Public Schools. What a great person and so gifted and brave.
Don Perl should be in the Teachers’ Hall of Fame.
https://stopcommoncorecolorado.webs.com/co-testing-opting-out-2
What a great example he set!
The opt out movement in NY has no external funding. Theedia likes to portray it as the work of teachers’ unions but the unions have been ambivalent at best. MIchael Mulgrew, leader of the UFT in NYC, opposes opt out.
As long as most parents were under the misapprehension created by the state Ed office that their children had to take the test, the opt out level remained fairly constant.
But now all NY parents can see that they can legally opt their child out with no retribution.
Cuomo is the VAMpire who has just had his coffin opened (by Elia) and finds himself exposed to the bright sunlight.
“The VAMpire State”
The VAMpire State
Is really great
Cuz VAMpires run the ed
They love the VAMs
And other shams
A Night of Living Dead
Love the NY Opt Out Parents!
What made NY change?
I suspect this might have something to do with Elia’s change of tune
https://dianeravitch.net/2019/04/02/new-york-nysape-protests-commissioner-elias-efforts-to-harass-and-intimidate-parents-to-prevent-opt-outs/
I imagine that after the letter,Elia’s lawyers at NY Ed Department probably informed her that mandating that all students take the tests is actually a violation of NY law.
Poor Elia. The jig is up. Time to bail and find a new high paying job.
Though her career may now effectively be over. After the mess she made in Florida and NY, most districts would not touch her with a 100 foot pole.
She’ll have to move to a state where no one has ever heard of her, if she can find one.
Maybe Elia values her position in New York. It is more expedient for her to change than try to change the feelings of New Yorkers about the useless test. Maybe she’s reading Ravitch and learning?
I wish you were right. I think Elia is obsessed with testing, unfortunately, computer testing.
She’s learning all right.
Learning from the NY State Ed Department lawyers that the Ed Department stance regarding opt out was in direct violation of NY Law.
When someone only learns under threat of legal action, they are not really learning.
Funny, how the blowhards back off when they’re forced to by law.
I had a violin teacher who likened progress to backpacking to the top of a mountain. It’s not always a straight up climb. We think we’re losing ground when we hit a valley… but then we’re climbing up again.
Considering where we’ve come from since twelve years of Bloomberg, I’d say that we’re seeing good progress. Still a struggle but that just means we have to continue to fight the good fight.
Progress. But while SED smiles and “listens” to parents (because legally parents have this power anyway, until the state finds a way to take it), I wonder if it will continue to pressure schools and educators and threaten “improvement plans” for schools where participation dips below 95%. My daughters began refusing years ago, when this children-should-be-reduced-to-data mindset began, and Bill Gates, David Coleman, Arne Duncan, John King, Michele Rhee…etc suddenly became the gurus. It wasn’t even my decision, my wife’s, or “ours” together.
Our girls were among the “fours” (my oldest being one of only two for her 8th grade ELA in our school). Number 2 received accommodations for testing previously (anxiety, but no learning issues-she is likely valedictorian), and as we were discussing what we would try to do for her she just said “I’m just going to refuse to take it”. That’s just her Since about the age of 3.
And that’s where it began.
And now, as a teacher in the same district, I sit in meetings where one of the admin complaints is that the likely high scores refusing are one of the things that make the district look less “high-performing”. It is a tiny rural district. I know they know who they are talking about, but I am not going to have my kids serve as token high performers because my school, which I love, is being subjugated by a state demonstrating little respect for schools, educators or students. My colleagues, and other educators around the state, shouldn’t be compared in any way to aggregated and/or norm’d data generated by my children in a “why can’t you get YOUR students to perform more like THOSE students system.
You are right, Diane. My union has been worse than weak, they have been complicit. Legislative efforts have served to only lock the focus on assessment data, merely trying to shell game the HEDI and accountability link. Virtually, my own union is supporting this BS while NYSED confirms greater needs with things like new mental health education mandates.
While federal law does require all states to administer state assessments in English language arts and mathematics, parents have a right to opt their children out of these exams. To be certain, the vast majority of schools honor parents’ requests to have their children not take the tests; however, we have also heard of isolated but troubling reports of parents’ requests being ignored
Exactly right. Intimidation is coming from state and local administrators and from the absurd school performance measures that are have been tied to federal and state policies for about two decades. Time for a major revolt.
I forced myself to listen to Betsy while. She was being interrogated about the federal budget. Her standard response was this “I care about each and every student.” Here rationale for budget cuts was Trump made me do it… Cut 10% from the total budget. What did she protect? Her tax credits for vouchers, the post secondary for-profit rip-off schools and student debt managers.
The state of MD has no Opt Out clause. We as parents have to REFUSE. Some individual counties within the state will grant the request and leave the children alone, but mostly it’s an uphill battle with the Principal in many schools making the parents jump through hoops. Many times they are making the child refuse on their own. Many times the proctors are signing the child into the system and making them answer 1 question. Many times our children are threatened with “sit and stare”. Children are being denied ice cream after parties because they didn’t participate in taking the test. There are always threats toward the children. It’s the wild, wild west in MD at test refusing time. If they think you will “Lawyer Up” (like me….because I did seek some free legal advice before I refused) they tend to leave you alone. It’s all left up to the Principal in each individual school and to put it mildly, they seem to be on some kind of ego trip.
Betsy never gives a direct answer to any question unless it’s about vouchers and charters.
Some stuff remains as fresh as the day it came out of the cow’s behind.
It’s very funny. Elia has just done precisely what was predicted in The Mywayman. I must be psychic (or is it psychotic?)
“The Mywayman” (after “The
Highwayman”, by Alfred Noyes)
PART ONE
THE VAM was a torrent of darkness
among reformy goals
The school was a ghostly galleon tossed
upon rocky shoals
The Test was a ribbon of Pearson tying
the Common Core,
And the Mywayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The Mywayman came riding, up to the
school-house door.
He’d a half-cocked plan in his forehead,
a shill of Gates for his spin,
A coat of the cleanest whitewash, and
breaches of law within;
Though served with a Lederman wrinkle
(the suits were up to his thigh!)
He rode with a jeweled twinkle,
His ed-u-bots a-twinkle,
His Tests and VAMs a twinkle, under the
New York sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and
clashed in the dark school-yard,
And he tapped with his Test on the
shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and
who should be waiting there
But the Test Lord’s VAM-eyed Super,
Elia, the New York Super
Planting a bright red “Opt Not!!” inside
the “Opt out” lair.
And dark in the dark old school-yard a
rusty swing-set creaked
Where Diane the Blogger listened; her
curiosity piqued;
Her eyes were filled with sadness, her
worry was plain as day,
For she loved the public schoolhouse,
The American public schoolhouse
Alert as can be she listened, and she
heard the Governor say—
“Hear this, my well-paid Super, I’m after a prize to-night,
And I shall make Opt-out parents fold
before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry
me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though
parents should bar the way.”
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce
could hide his rage ,
He tried to mask what the case meant,
but face read like a page
As the franks and beans from the dinner
were mingling with his bile
He cursed its taste in the moonlight,
(Oh, putrid taste in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his reign in the
moonlight, and galloped away to Long
Isle.
PART TWO
He did not come in the dawning; he did
not come at noon;
And out o’ the tawny sunset, before the
rise o’ the moon,
When the Test was a Möbius ribbon,
looping the Coleman lore,
An Opt-out troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
The parents all came marching, up to
the Governor’s door.
They said no word to the Test Lord, they
mocked the test instead,
And they nagged the Super and grilled
her about everything she’d said;
All of them knew what the case meant,
with Lederman at their side!
There were parents at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
Elia could see, through the window, the
road that he would ride.
They had tried to get her attention,
‘bout many an invalid test;
They had written a letter to meet her, to
discuss the VAMs and the rest!
“Now, keep good watch!” and they
dissed her.
She heard the Governor say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though
parents should bar the way!
She twisted her claims for the parents;
but all their Not!s held good!
She waved her hands at the figures, she
said were “misunderstood!”
She stretched and strained credibility,
and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The
statute at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it; she
strove no more for the Test!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the
statute above the rest ,
She would not risk a hearing; she would
not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the
moonlight throbbed to the Gov’s refrain
.
The quote of laws! Had he heard it? Her quote of NY laws?;
Her quote of laws — from the distance?
The “Rights of Parents” clause?
Down the ribbon of Möbius, over the
brow with his bill,
The Mywayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The parents looked to their stymying!
She stood up, straight and still!
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot,
in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face
was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; her
heart, it missed a beat
Then her fingers moved in the
moonlight,
Her pen-stroke shattered the moonlight,
Shattered the tests in the moonlight,
sealing the Gov’s defeat
He turned; he spurred to the West; he
did not know who blinked
Bowed, with her head o’er edict,
drenched with her own ink!
Not till the dawn he heard it, and his
face grew grey to hear
How Elia, the New York Super,
The Test Lord’s well-paid Super,
Had watched for the Gov in the
moonlight, determined his future there
Back, he spurred like a madman,
shrieking a curse to the sky,
With Elia caving behind him and his
testing vanquished nigh!
Wide-read- were his slurs on the
Twitter; wide-spread was the parents’
vote,
When they opted out on the test day,
In droves and droves on the test day,
And he lay in the flood on the test day,
with a bunch of ‘rents at his throat
And still of a winter’s night, they say,
when the VAMmers roam like trolls
When the school is a ghostly galleon
tossed upon rocky shoals,
When the Test is a ribbon of Pearson
tying the Common Core,
A Mywayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A Mywayman comes riding, up to the
school-house door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs
in the dark school-yard,
And he taps with his Test on the
shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and
who should be waiting there
But the Test Lord’s VAM-eyed Super,
Elia, the New York Super
Planting a bright red “Opt Not!!” inside
the “Opt out” lair.
I suspect the latter part about Cuomo’s reaction to Elia’s caving is also accurate.
Cuomo must be livid at what Elia just did.
Expect fallout.
Testing is to NYSED as the sexual assault of children and women by clergy is to the Catholic Church. Both institutions betray their essential missions (sorry) by exposing their abuse of power, even at the cost of becoming illegitimate.
It’s time for Commissioner Elia to encourage principals and administrators to stop harassing parents and students about refusing the tests. Actually it is time for her to say Good-by and return to Florida where she can bask a bit more in the sun.
So many parents have come to me with horror stories. The one that I can’t get out of my head is the one where the principal knew darn well a parent wanted the student NOT to take the test and because it was on another day, the principal allowed the staff to give this poor child the test. If I had the money, I would pay for a lawyer to get this person removed from the position they are in. What happened to principal is your “pal”?
This is appalling.
Another is the ice cream gate method. Students who took the test, got ice cream; those that didn’t, well it was all over the news, so you should know.
Or how about the one principal who kept coercing the child to tell the parents to let him take the test because he was so smart?
I also want administration to stop telling teachers how horrible things are at their schools with the testing. Perhaps for a day, administration should walk in their shoes. If they can tell me they have, it is not the same. It is not the same as two years ago when I retired. Teachers have way too many demands on them. Walk a mile in their shoes. 20-25 kids in a classroom is ridiculous. I have taught in these classes and it is so very hard to say I can educate each one. We are not miracle workers. We need more one on one time. We need smaller class sizes. That’s when we can meet with success.
Oh, and throw how the tests. Better yet, sit and take them yourselves. Remember, you want the BEST answer according to the text. David Coleman doesn’t give a $$$$ about what you know. He even takes your money for the faulty SAT’s and more. It’s all a game.
I wish every parent would consider refusing the test in May for Math. If they did, imagine how awesome New York State could be for our kids?
Well aren’t they being nicey-nice, now…
Great news. And yes: Mulgrew opposes opt-out. Just as he embraced Common Core. Path of least resistance.
This will not go over well. but here goes.
(At least this will get some reaction compared to when I write to my senators).
First – I am 100% in agreement that parents / students SHOULD opt-out of state tests for whatever reason they have.
However; “…parents have a right to opt their children out of these exams” should not be the State’s stance (as I am sure it is not policy). It’s bad precedent and a cop out.
Where do parents get the “right” to opt-out?
Based on what? Federal law (ok, who cares). State Law. District Policy. Or just a parent/guardian’s right to do ANYTHING.
The state SHOULD be saying “there is NO CONSEQUENCE of opting out of state testing..”
Most districts have a policy allowing opting out of sex education. Some have policies on how surveys and outside research is done (parent must sign to allow or they can opt out). Some have policies that allow a substitute book if a parent doesn’t want a novel they don’t like.
But where does it end, especially in this climate?
I actually had parents ask that their kids not be in any lessons on EVOLUTION. And, had parents opt-out of any lessons on GLOBAL WARMING and human-made climate change. (I’m sure many white parents in the south opt out of the CIVIL WAR unit). AND parents scouring the shelves in the high school library looking for any books on civil rights ACTIVISM, certain RELIGION, and more.
As much as I wish parents would also opt-out of worksheets, where does it end? Can a parent opt-out the unit end test in biology? How about a class because they don’t like the teacher.
If they have that non-policy “right” – how can we say we “require” or stand by curriculum or teachers? How are we supposed to do (uggh) grades? Credits?
I prefer the civil disobedience approach. Take a stance. Believe in it. Protest. Be willing to take the risk even if there are no consequences
100,000s have opted out of state tests. They shut down the evaluation-test score link. They made a statement about teaching to and only for tests. It sends a message that corporations will not control schools with “backwards-design” of lobby for their tests buy which forces them to use the vendor’s curriculum, control teachers, etc.
Opting out is powerful protest.
The State caved. They “gave in” with a one-sentence statement instead of POLICY CHANGE.
The State should be forced to reduce the amount of testing, the high-stakes of testing, and their dependence on scores and rankings.