Despite years of advocacy, court mandates and promises from politicians, the new NYS budget plan once again locks in educational inequality. And while politicians refuse to cough up $1.6 billion to begin fully funding our schools, the state spends over $1.5 billion a year on its high stakes standardized testing program.
For years, Albany has told parents that standardized tests will help close the “achievement gap” in our schools – but year after year of testing, while refusing to fully fund our schools, has not closed this gap, which is an “opportunity gap” and NOT an “achievement gap.”
The truth is, you won’t heal the inequities that plague our schools by administering something that is toxic, and these high stakes tests are toxic, for our kids, and for our schools. You want to close the gap? Start by funding our schools.
While Albany keeps expecting our schools to do more with less, while the tests lay the foundation for closing and privatizing more neighborhood public schools, we keep calling, writing, traveling to Albany, meeting with legislators, rallying and petitioning. We keep working within a system that won’t respond to our needs.
What do we do with a system that won’t respond?
We break it. Albany has ignored us for years. We succeed when we make ourselves impossible to ignore. Enough is enough. We are joining the hundreds of thousands of parents and educators that have had deep concerns on the corrosive effects of these tests.
Math exams administration dates are May 1–2, with make-up exams on May 3, and May 6–8. You have a right to opt out with no consequence to your child. The right to refuse the state tests in encoded in ESSA, the federal law that governs education policy, which explicitly recognizes that right.
As we know from history, the power of a boycott is huge. If Albany won’t comply with a court ruling to fully fund our schools, why should we give Albany what they want? Join the hundreds of thousands of New York State families who making their voices heard in a most powerful way, and consider joining boycott the state tests this week. A sample opt out letter is here and questions can be sent to nycoptout@gmail.com.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Defy the BULLIES. OPT OUT.
Of course, I totally support (and revere) those who lead this, but are they right about the ability to opt out being in ESSA? My memory was disgust at the Senate’s refusal to put in an express provision allowing opt outs. Is my memory faulty? Is there an express provision or is the opt out allowance implied? Very happy to read this.
Under ESSA, states have to achieve a 95 percent participation rate, or they can be sanctioned. But what needs to happen is for parents to force the issue–to stand up to the federal bully and see if it backs down, which it probably would.
an interesting little caveat put into ESSA which can then be used against schools where kids are simply not showing up for the tests — poorest schools, schools with the most immigrant, transient and homeless populations — to keep the “bad school” blame attached to a statistically proven deficit and failure right out there in the public eye
Ed Deform is rooted in state violence. Threaten the teachers, the administrators, the kids.
When the law requires you to do what’s wrong, civil disobedience is called for.
The more people join in, the less likely anyone will be punished.
YES!!!
I need some advice. I just told my son that I would support having him opt-out and he responded, “But how can I get into AP science class if I don’t take test?” Help!
Time to go see your son’s Principal, I guess. What state are you in, Greg? In Florida, students must pass the 10th-grade ELA and Algebra I standardized tests or get certain scores on “concordant” ACT, SAT, or PSAT tests in order to graduate with a standard diploma. So, the bullies in the state legislature have given parents a very difficult choice if they want to opt their kids out.
Tell your son that AP classes really aren’t as great as the schools are making them sound. I will tell you that my Jr is not so happy with AP and she will only be taking 2 next year because she MUST (our school system has decided that there is something in our water system that makes our children smarter than everyone, so it is “AP for all” or you get to sit and rot in a classroom with over 30 students doing nothing….nothing in between). Unfortunately, in MD, PARCC ELA 10 and Alg I are used as graduation requirements. Many of the elite private schools in the DC area have rejected AP because their own curriculum is better and more hands on than AP provides. I feel your pain, but most of the time it’s the teens that need to feel the disappointment before they decide what’s best for them. Have your son do the research…..my daughter did the same exact AP Psych project that every kid across the nation was doing so how could that be anything but “curriculum in a can”.
Thanks for you input, Bob and Lisa. I live in Ohio. After making many attempts to get the board and administration to at least get info about time and money spent on standardize tests, I’ve gotten the classic Watergate-ish stonewalling plus a great deal of contempt. I’ve learned that all the school administrators and unfortunately many of the teachers, including the union head, are classic apparatchiks. Meeting with the principal would be like trying to reform the commissar’s thinking.
Lisa, I get your point completely and agree 100%. His motivation to do this is coming from him alone. He gets zero pressure from me and he informed me of his desire when I mentioned that I’d be happy to opt him out if he wanted. I think it’s a combination of his genuine interest in science and wanting be with his friends.
Plus, my rep and sen in state legislature are right wing ideologues who are fixated on the Pro-Life lobby’s agenda. No interest in education whatsoever, they follow Brenner’s lead all the way. Plus all the parents I’ve met are sheep who want to lay low lest their children incur the wrath of the system. Ironic that one of the teachers uses Animal Farm in class (as I did when I taught government). Not sure anyone gets the irony.
GregB…I will tell you that my daughter is learning that I have been right all along…although she will NEVER say that to my face!. She is going on some college visits and is being told that they are not looking at SAT/ACT/AP scores. They are looking for decent grades in a wide variety of classes and a good essay. She is not going into any STEM related field (which our county system pushes to no end) so they will be looking more at her music/art/writing portfolio along with her grades. Not all colleges or programs are SAT/ACT optional and I understand that (to get into certain fields). The colleges know that the scores mean nothing. Teens are torn and they want to fit in. They are taught to trust their teachers and counselors, yet these are the same people urging them into AP classes and the testing madness. I have found very few HS teachers willing to shut their classroom doors and do what is right for the kids….most push the Common Core crap of the day and then coerce the kids into the next AP program down the line. It’s a hard for kids and as a parent, I am tired of the fight. Child #2 attends a private HS that we pay for and I have none of this nightmare. Yes, there are AP classes for kids to take IF they want and IF they have the ability (must be teacher/admin approved), but the AP kids take the same classes with the Honors kids and have a different text book that they use to enhance their own “abilities” on their own time (I call it the test prep book). It’s a sad world out there for kids and they will have some hard lessons to be learned about the trusted adults in their lives.
Thanks for sharing that insight, Lisa! Very helpful and motivating.
OPT OUT!!!
I opted my son out again this year. The strongest weapons already in the hands of the 99%–boycotts, strikes, occupations, walkouts, solidarity with all those who do, bridging differences. The system is eating our children, cannibalizing mother earth, setting people at each others’ throats, undermining families, making it harder and harder to earn a decent living, turning our ill bodies into revenue streams…it ends when we want it to.
Powerful summary, ira. Thank you.
This has nothing to do with the article but I did find this “charter school cardigan” amusing…
https://www.modcloth.com/shop/tops/charter-school-cardigan-in-black/34931.html?cid=bluecore&src=paid_facebook&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=psm&utm_campaign=ACQ_BC_DPA_23843146505810699&fbclid=IwAR3XSzbrHnXqyWHWsuITP5h_gNMHAHMnPzrP1pFcxcYxavHXxLRwGxj4o-A
BOOYAH!
Smashing a broken system was why a significant number of people voted for Trump….
You are certainly correct. How do they feel now that he has proven himself to be only the friend of the establishment they were trying to disrupt? Trump cut taxes on the rich, gutted the EPA, pardoned the people who occupied Malheur, and unilaterally tore up the Iran Treaty. Did they vote for those things? His vaunted economic plan has yet to make its way down to the workers who elected him. Will they get fooled again? Is the Who warming up?
lol
Love it, Roy. I think the opening set should be The Damned closing with Smash It Up.
Smashing the system is also the desired.method of the Deformers.
But there is a clear difference between smashing a democratic system (public schools) and smashing a tyrannical system (the testing regime which was IMPOSED by dictators like Andrew Cuomo on teachers, students and parents)
And actually, I would not even categorize opting out (nonviolent resistance) as smashing the system.
Resistance often leads to collapse of a corrupt, tyrannical system without any smashing required.
I did not mean what I wrote to shove the issue at D77. I really do understand why people voted for Trump. It was for many of the same reasons people voted for Obama. Many of us saw Obama as an antidote for the same old thing. Especially where education was concerned, we were disappointed, often outraged. What about people who voted for trump?
Ha,ha. As a parent of a high school student who opted HERSELF out of the PSAT in
2004 (!), I say 100% OPT OUT. EVERYONE. EVERY. SINGLE. STATE.
ira is correct–“it ends when we want it to.” I add, “It ends when WE SAY IT ENDS.
And it ends NOW. End discussion.
But here’s the thing….the kids are being lied to and coerced by teachers, counselors and admin in their schools. I know because I have a Jr in HS now and I have had to deal with some of these teachers and admin. My child is now finding out while visiting colleges that they are test optional (even though their websites still have scores listed?). It will end when the students en masse decide to take a stand and make it end. No one is listening to small groups of parents and teachers are still proctoring these stupid tests because they are held hostage by a paycheck. It will end when the students make it end.
We need organizing of district-wide test walkouts. One or two of those, and this will catch like wildfire.
Again and again I find that administrators will push this stuff in public because they feel that they are required to do so, but get them in private, and they will tell you that they think the standardized tests for the most part what they are, a sham. People are mouthing a lie that they know to be a lie.