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New York: NYSAPE Blasts State ESSA Plan

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
10

New York State Allies for Public Education represents more than 50 parent and teacher organizations. It has led the Opt Out movement, in which 20% of the eligible children have refused the state tests year after year, including 50% on Long Island. Their members regularly attend legislative hearings in Albany and meet with legislators. They attend meetings of the Board of Regents. They follow the actions of the New York State Department of Education with care.

Every state should have its own version of NYSAPE.

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 6, 2017
Contact: Kemala Karmen 917-807-9969 | kemala@nycpublic.org

“Another Squandered Opportunity”:
Parents, Students, and Educators Slam NY State Education Department’s
Flawed ESSA Proposal & Process

Brooklyn, NY—Frustrated public school students, parents, activists, and educators gathered in front of the Prospect Heights Education Complex this evening to protest the New York State Education Department’s new schools accountability proposal and the sham process that supposedly generated it. Inside the building, department officials were setting up for one of several hearings scheduled across the state in order to gain feedback on the proposal, which was created to comply with recent federal legislation.

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the successor legislation to the Bush-era No Child Left Behind (NCLB) bill. While ESSA preserves much of NCLB, including an onerous and misguided annual testing requirement for all children in grades 3-8, it also gives states more latitude in defining their school accountability systems than did NCLB, primarily through the inclusion of an additional “school quality indicator.”

For this reason, New York’s families and educators were looking forward to the state creating an accountability system that incentivized schools to provide children with a high quality, well-rounded education. ESSA also includes a statement that explicitly recognizes a parent’s right to opt their child out of testing without consequences for the school or district, a point that is crucial in a state where hundreds of thousands of parents have boycotted the tests as developmentally inappropriate and deleterious to their children’s educations.

Instead of benefiting from the flexibility of the legislation, New York State Education Department, under Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, let down New York’s children, parents, educators, and schools, by submitting an accountability proposal for Board of Regents approval that squanders the opportunities that ESSA confers. Its proposed accountability system doubles down on testing, counts opt out students as having failed the exams for the purpose of school accountability, and guarantees the continuation of narrowed test-prep curriculum that has spurred the nation’s largest test refusal movement.

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and a member of the NYSED ESSA Think Tank’s Accountability work group, said, “Even though the largest number of people who responded to the NYSED survey wanted an Accountability system that would include elements of a well-rounded, holistic education providing the Opportunity to Learn, including small classes, and sufficient instruction in art, music, science and physical education, their input was ignored. Many schools in New York City and elsewhere have already narrowed the curriculum because of the over-emphasis on state exams. Instead, NYSED proposes to add only a very few high-stakes indicators, such as student attendance and, in high school, access to advanced coursework. This may have the unwanted effect of making schools offer even less art and music in favor of more AP courses. It is time that the State took account of what matters in providing children with a quality education. This is their chance to do so by incorporating an Opportunity to Learning index in their formula.”

Johanna Garcia, NYC parent of public school students, contended that the proposal’s use of chronic absenteeism as the sole additional indicator for elementary and middle schools, along with test scores and ESL proficiency, meant that the accountability system would disproportionately punish high-poverty and high-immigrant school populations, while doing little to level the playing field among schools. “It is disheartening to see NYSED once again fail to take the opportunity to finally do right by students who have been ignored, penalized, and re-victimized by the very institution entrusted to lift them out of poverty. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that schools with high chronic absenteeism are suffering from concentrated numbers of homelessness, children in foster care, undocumented immigrant status, economic instability and special health and developmental needs. The proposed policies will further the inequities in our children’s education, while giving credence to the misconception that students from low income neighborhoods are less competent. This disconnect continues to be inexcusable and can no longer be accepted as the status quo.”

Kelley Wolcott, a teacher at South Brooklyn Community High School, a transfer school that serves over-aged, under-credited students–at least a dozen of whom spoke movingly during the hearing about the lifesaving role the school played–agreed. “The proposed accountability measures would devastate our ability to serve the needs of diverse learners. For true accountability, the state needs to focus on and incentivize supplying the resources necessary for students to thrive, including small class sizes, less emphasis on high-stakes testing, fair funding, and a vastly reduced student-to-counselor ratio for students with a history of trauma. Very few schools in NYC still have nurses, let alone a real school-based support team. Without these things–and with the change in graduation requirements mandated by ESSA–we’ll see the destruction of the safety net provided by transfer schools for students who are pushed out of charter schools or drop out of large underfunded public schools where they are no more than an OSIS number.”

Kemala Karmen, the parent of children who attend a 6-12 school in New York City, served on the Standards and Assessments work group of the Think Tank. “NYSED seemed intent on perpetuating the narrow strictures of NCLB. The nonpunitive plan (i.e., ask districts to analyze participation to ensure that students had not been systematically excluded, as per the intent of the law) that the majority of my work group proposed to address ESSA’s 95% testing participation mandate was rejected by the NYSED group leader who said it wouldn’t align with the Commissioner’s expectations. This decision to reject the plan was not reflected in the official notes sent later. Leadership insisted that parents just needed to be ‘educated’ about the assessments, rather than acknowledging that the test refusal movement grew out of legitimate concerns with how testing is reshaping classrooms. Moreover, I couldn’t believe that research-based evidence was never shared or apparently considered during our deliberations.”

Jeanette Deutermann, Nassau county parent and founder of Long Island Opt Out, expressed particular consternation for the way that opt-out students will be figured into the accountability system. “It is clear that the option exists to leave opt out students out of the test score accountability formula. To choose instead, and arbitrarily, to count these students as having received low scores, solely for the purpose of rating schools, would make the entire accountability system invalid. While we understand SED’s temptation to discourage test refusals, accountability regulations will not change a parent’s decision to protect their child from an unfair and unreliable testing regime.”

Eileen Graham, Rochester City School District parent advocate and founder of Black Student Leadership, sent a statement to be read: “Accountability needs to flow not only from the school to the state, but from the state to the schools. In order to succeed, the students of Rochester need the state to deliver well-resourced school facilities, prepared professional educators, and opportunities for teacher-created relevant curriculum. They should be ensuring that parents’ voices are heeded and that capable leadership is at the helm. Regrettably, Commissioner Elia’s current ESSA proposal is just a continuation of the test-based accountability that we’ve had for decades and that has done little to lift Rochester City School District out of a state of educational emergency.”

Lisa Rudley, Ossining public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE, said, “As long as Commissioner Elia is steering the ship, the winds of discredited former Chancellor Tisch and NY Education Commissioner John King will remain. If real significant and meaningful change is going to occur, the Board of Regents needs to replace Elia with someone who represents what’s in the best interest of the children. Otherwise, New York’s education policies will remain punitive and harmful to children and schools.”

nysapelogo.jpegClass-Size-Matters-Logo-Transparent.png

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Parents, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Who is Behind the Assault on Public Education?

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2017 //
23

Howard Ryan, writing in Monthly Review, analyzes the sources of support for corporate reform and privatization.

Ryan writes:

Over the past three decades, public schools have been the target of a systematic assault and takeover by corporations and private foundations. The endeavor is called “school reform” by its advocates, while critics call it corporate school reform. Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg has given it the vivid acronym GERM—the global education reform movement. Its basic features are familiar: high-stakes testing; standardized curricula; privatization; and deskilled, high-turnover faculty. In the United States, public schools have become increasingly segregated, destabilized, and defunded, with the hardest hit in low-income communities of color.

Nevertheless, while the political conflicts and social ramifications of the school reform phenomenon are well known, basic questions about the movement remain underexamined. Who really leads it? What are their aims and motives? After briefly taking up the statements of the reformers themselves, I will turn to the views of their progressive opponents, and offer a critique of three influential interpretations of the school reform movement. Finally, I will present my own theory about this movement, its drivers, and its underlying aims…

A large body of research, however, challenges the merits of high-stakes testing and other elements of the corporate school reform package. It is also at least questionable whether the reformers really believe their own statements.

The reformers’ interest in school improvement appears, in a number of ways, to be less than genuine, to mask a different agenda. They prescribe models for mass education that they do not consider suitable for their own children. They sponsor think tanks to produce “junk research” praising their models, while ignoring studies that contradict their models. They insist that full resourcing of schools is unimportant or unrealistic, and that “great teachers” will succeed regardless of school conditions, class size, or professional training.”

You will find it interesting to see how he weaves together the various strands of the corporate reform movement.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers

Bianca Tanis: New York’s New Standards Are Bad News for Young Children

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2017 //
26

Bianca Tanis is a teacher of special education in a K-2 classroom in the Hudson Valley of New York. She is also a member of the board of NYSAPE (New York State Allies for Parents and Educators), the statewide group that has led the Opt Out movement.

In this post, she excoriates New York’s new standards and says the New York State Education Department ignored the voices of early childhood educators. From the perspective of young children, she says, the standards are fundamentally flawed.

She writes, in part:

We should never have to fight for the right of children to play. Nor should we have to fight for them to spend more than 20 minutes at recess. Instruction should never come at the expense of the creative, spontaneous, and joyful exploration of 4- and 5-year olds. But, increasingly, it does. With the unveiling of New York State’s “Next Generation of English Language Arts and Mathematics Standards,” the struggle to maintain these experiences for young learners—already underway—will intensify.

When New York’s Education Department released the draft standards last September, Commissioner MaryEllen Elia claimed they represented substantive change. Yet most revisions consisted of minor tweaks to language and placement. There were very few shifts in content, and the Common Core anchor standards remained mostly intact. The latest iteration walks back any positive content changes, increasing the rigor of the prekindergarten through second-grade grade standards over and above the draft released in September, and moving some first-grade standards to kindergarten.

While many policymakers profess their commitment to play-based learning and meeting the needs of the whole child, their actions say otherwise. This problem is not unique to New York. But in a state with one of the largest parent uprisings against high-stakes reform and the arbitrary imposition of rigor on child-centered practice, Elia’s reaction is disturbing. She and the New York Education Department have missed an opportunity to deliver developmentally appropriate learning standards that align with early childhood’s robust evidence base.

They’ve also systematically denied teachers who work with young children the chance to advocate for their students and reasonable expectations for development as well as practice that engages them in the critical early years of learning.

Although some teachers working with children in prekindergarten through second grade took part in the review, their voices were marginalized. Not a single early educator was a member of the Standards Review Leadership and Planning team. None were facilitators, or on any of the advisory panels that made the final revisions.

Those who took part in the original standards revision work in August of 2016 were so dissatisfied with the process that they ultimately requested the formation of an early learning task force. These outspoken educators were barred from serving on the 32-member committee, of which only a quarter were early educators.

It’s easy to understand why they were largely excluded from this process. In a room full of teachers working with prekindergartners to second-graders, you would be hard-pressed to find consensus around the idea that all kindergartners should “read with purpose and understanding”—an expectation that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force report cited as concerning to early childhood experts.

Ten out of 14 members of the PreK-2 review committee issued a letter of dissent, expressing concern that the number of skills included in the revised standards would make it difficult to find time for play-based and child-led learning.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, New York, Testing

Alan Singer: How New Are New York’s New Standards?

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
7

Alan Singer writes that the real test of the state’s new standards will happen in the classroom. The proof of the pudding, he writes, is in the eating, not in what is said or written about it.

He warns that the whole process may be tainted if the current testing regime remains in place. And he worries that the state aims to quash the opt out movement, which is the only public voice and which compelled the state to make these revisions.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, New York, Testing

As New York Rebrands Its Common Core Standards, What’s in a Name?

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
8

Newsday offers an amusing reflection on the change in the name of the Common Core state standards, which became toxic and set off the powerful opt out movement across the state, and especially on Long Island (which Newsday serves). In the last round of state testing, 50% of the eligible students on Long Island opted out of the English Language Arts state test, and 54% on Long Island opted out of the just concluded math tests.

Some teachers question in what way they “bought in,” as suggested below. Many are so familiar with the PR tactics of the State Education Department that they see this as yet another exercise in illusion.

From Newsday:

Pointing Out

Puzzle us this

Here’s a short quiz to start your week: The big news today is NGELAMLS.

What is it?

a) A newly diagnosed tropical disease that has alarmed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

b) A pharmaceutical breakthrough for melting body fat. Ask your doctor about NGELAMLS!

c) An obscure tribe living on the Ilha de Queimada Grande off the coast of Brazil.

d) A new name for the Common Core learning standards in New York.

The correct response is d. That tangle of letters stands for the Next Generation English Language Arts and Mathematics Learning Standards. State education officials have rechecked the standards, as well as the tests they first rolled out in the 2012-13 school year, this time with buy-in from teachers.

For all the controversy, the changes are small. But the messaging is big. By rebranding, the Education Department hopes to start fresh and reduce opt-outs from the tests.

Long Island, the national opt-out epicenter, had nearly 54 percent of eligible students sit out math exams last week. Will NGELAMLS change that?
Anne Michaud

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Standardized Testing, Testing

New York: Common Core Standards Get a New Name!

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
17

In response to years of protests against the Common Core standards, the State Education Department has tweaked them, massaged them, tickled them, and given them a new name.

The New York state standards are now “the Next Generation English Language Arts and Mathematics Learning Standards.” Got that?

The revamped standards makes hundreds of changes to the state’s version of the Common Core, a set of educational benchmarks meant to get students ready for colleges and careers.

The “anchor standards” of the Common Core — which broadly lay out what’s expected of students — remain largely intact, though some were consolidated or clarified. The 34 English language arts anchors, for example, were whittled down to 28.

New York will become the latest state to put their own name on the standards, joining Florida and several others trying to assuage parental concerns and anger over the rollout of the Common Core.

Is it a cosmetic change or not?

Is it rebranding or not?

Is it real or is it Memorex?

We will hear more about this as the standards are introduced into classrooms.

You can be sure that the parents who opted their children out of state tests for the past few years, in rebellion against the Common Core standards and tests, will not be fooled. Nor will New York State Alliance of Parents and Educators, the group that has coordinated the opt-out movement, which has led about 20% of students across the state to refuse the tests year after year.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, New York, Parent Groups, Parents, Testing

Teacher: Most Members of Congress Could Not Pass the Math Test My Fifth Graders Took

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2017 //
39

Ralph Ratto teaches fifth grade in New York. The state math tests are ending today. His students spent nine (9) hours being tested about math and reading. This is child abuse. Why should students spend more than an hour on a math test or a reading test?

The tests, he says, are ridiculously hard for fifth graders. He thinks that most members of Congress could not pass the tests.

He can’t post any of the actual questions but he offers a question comparable to those on the test:

Here is a general idea of what one of these questions looks like.

A factory produces 4,861 items in 30 days. They then package them in crates hold 8 each. These crates are delivered to 26 distributers daily. How many are delivered each week to each distributer?

Ten year old children must be able to answer this question correctly, otherwise their teacher may be labeled ineffective.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Students, Teachers, Testing

Half the Students Opted Out of State Math Test on Long Island, NY

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2017 //
11

According to Newsday, the major newspaper on Long Island, about half of eligible students opted out of state math tests. This shows the resilience of the opt out movement and confounds the ability of the state to rank schools by test scores. The statewide number are likely to be about 20%, as in other years.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/common-core-math-test-boycotted-by-79-780-long-island-students-1.13551045

“Nearly 80,000 public school students in 100 districts across Long Island refused Tuesday to take the state mathematics exam given in grades three through eight, in a fifth straight year of boycotts driven by opposition to the Common Core tests, according to a Newsday survey.

“On the first full-fledged day of math testing in Nassau and Suffolk counties, 79,780 students in the districts that responded opted out — 53.1 percent of the pupils eligible in those systems to take the exam. There are 124 districts on the Island.

“The state’s Common Core math exams began Tuesday morning for most students in grades three through eight. The math test, like the English Language Arts exam administered in the same grade levels in late March, is given in segments during three days and will finish for most students on Thursday.

“Educators and leaders of the opt-out movement on the Island had said they expected refusals to remain high on the Island, a hotbed of anti-test activism. Nearly 85 percent of eligible students in the Middle Country district boycotted the test Tuesday.

“Until state assessments are cleanly and clearly uncoupled from teacher evaluations and are used solely to inform instruction, opt-outs will continue to be a reality,” Middle Country Superintendent Roberta Gerold said. “Parents have to believe that activities in which their children are involved are free of politics and have instructional value and no one can honestly say that is true about the current grades three-through-eight assessment.”

“This is the fifth consecutive year of boycotts of the Common Core tests. On Long Island, the number of refusals mushroomed to about half of all eligible students both last year and in 2015, according to Newsday surveys of the 124 districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties at the time.

“On Tuesday, figures from the 100 responding districts showed 32,239 students in Nassau and 47,541 in Suffolk opted out of the exams. Newsday’s survey showed a broad range: In the Plainedge district, for example, 79 percent of students refused to take the test, while in Hempstead, less than 7 percent opted out.

“More than half of the 100 districts that responded reported that more than 50 percent of their eligible students were sitting out the exam.

“Those opposed to the exams object to the Education Department’s reforms, saying that children are being over-tested and the tests are not developmentally appropriate to children’s ages.

“The state agency has made some changes. Last year, the department shortened the exams, established a statewide moratorium until 2019-20 on using test scores in teachers’ job ratings, and included teachers in devising test questions.

“The ELA exam, given the final week in March, was boycotted by more than 97,000 students on the Island — more than half of those eligible — according to results of a Newsday survey to which 116 of the 124 school systems responded.

“There is a significant difference in the number of students who take the math exam compared with the ELA, because some middle school students in accelerated math classes may not sit for it.

“Districts can waive the state math test for seventh- and eighth-graders who will take the Regents exam in algebra and for those who will take the Regents exam in geometry. In Newsday’s survey Tuesday, tallies of eligible students in three districts included students slated to sit for the Regents exam.

“This year, several systems on Long Island are offering computer-based testing, a new program implemented by the Education Department. Those exams also are given during three days.

“The Franklin Square district on Monday had third-graders in one of its three elementary schools taking the electronic test. Eighteen of 78 eligible third-graders there — 23 percent — opted out, the district said.

“In the South Huntington school district, more than 47 percent of eligible students opted out of the math test on Tuesday. School officials there said they encouraged parents to make their own choice.

“Our position on the opt-out or opt-in movement is that we respect each family’s right to make their own decision regarding testing and have worked hard to keep this polarizing issue from diverting focus away from the important instructional work taking place in our classrooms,” Superintendent David Bennardo said.

“Last year, nearly 88,000 students in 106 districts that responded to Newsday’s survey opted out of the math exam — nearly 53 percent of eligible students in the responding districts.

“In 2015, 66,000 students in 99 districts that responded to Newsday’s survey boycotted the math tests — 46.5 percent of eligible students in the responding districts.”

Categories Accountability, Common Core, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Testing

Tennessee: Parents Explain Why National PTA No Longer Represents Them

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2017 //
9

This is a must-read.

The Momma Bears of Tennessee are ferocious in protecting their children against corporate reform.

In this post, they excoriate the National PTA for selling out the interests of real parents and deferring to the powerful.

The National PTA supports Common Core and high-stakes testing; it opposes opting out of tests.

“As Momma Bears, we are beyond frustrated with TNReady testing. Every year, it’s one testing fiasco after another. Already, reports are coming in this year that the test booklets and answer sheets don’t line up. It’s just another source of frustration for our children. So, its no wonder that more and more parents are wanting to opt their children out of testing. Unfortunately, the Tennessee Department of Education refuses to recognize that parents do have opt-out rights.

“​So, wouldn’t it be great if we had a state law that settled things once and for all by giving parents the explicit right to opt out of standardized testing?

“YEAH!!! Momma Bears would love to see a law giving parents explicit opt-out rights!!! But guess what?

“​If you are a Momma Bear PTA leader, you are not allowed to publicly advocate for legislation allowing parents to opt out of standardized testing. That’s right. A couple of dozen uppity-ups in the National PTA all got together last year and decided that parents didn’t want the right to opt their children out of testing.

[National PTA said:] “National PTA does not believe that opting out is an effective strategy to address the frustration over testing. Mass opt-out comes at a real cost to the goals of educational equity and individual student achievement.”

“We know, parents are scratching their heads on that one!! When did dues paying PTA members vote to oppose a parent’s right to opt their children out of abusive standardized testing?

“Oh, yeah, they didn’t. Nope. There wasn’t a vote. PTA members did not approve this position statement.

“Instead, the PTA uppity-ups aligned with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to oppose parents who wanted the right to protect their children from abusive testing. While the PTA attempts some lame plattitude about supporting parental rights, it’s clear the PTA thinks that parents only get to decide what’s best for their kids when it doesn’t run afoul of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

Why did National PTA become cheerleaders for Common Core? Was it right after receiving a grant from the Gates Foundation in 2009 to promote Common Core?

The Mama Bears say:

“Now, we know why the PTA likes to say, “it’s not your Momma’s PTA” because our Momma’s PTA actually taught parents to advocate for the best interests of their children. Today’s PTA is nothing more than a corp-ed shill who wants to push parents right out of the decision-making process.”

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Parents, Resistance, Special Education, Tennessee, Testing

“Smarter Balanced” Common Core Test Finds a New Home

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2017 //
10

If you recall, I posted a visit to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium at UCLA and there was no one home, just empty offices and empty bookshelves.

But happily, SBAC has found a new home: the University of California at Santa Cruz. This is a strange marriage because I remember visiting Santa Cruz and discovering it to be the least likely place in the world to house an agency for standardized testing. It was the most non-standardized, singular, individualistic campus I have ever visited. It is the campus of the Free Spirit. At that time–maybe 15 years ago, there was a Department of the History of Consciousness. I think there still is. What an odd marriage this is. Maybe SBAC might make ties with that department and turn the testing into something new and enthralling.

According to Politico Pro:

UC Santa Cruz is taking over as the fiscal agent for the Smarter Balanced test consortium, the two announced today.

The university’s work with the consortium begins immediately and will be conducted by its UCSC Silicon Valley Extension. In its new role, the university will provide administrative support in human resources, financial resources, purchasing and other areas.

Smarter Balanced is a public agency that developed a Common Core-aligned test used in 15 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and by the Bureau of Indian Education.

It, along with PARCC, was one of two testing consortia started with the help of federal funds. Both have lost support from some states in recent years amid political discourse over the Common Core standards and standardized testing.

In October, UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies said it would not renew its contract to do the work with Smarter Balanced. And the three-year deal between Smarter Balanced and UCLA ends June 30.

“We are excited to partner with UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Extension,” said Tony Alpert, the director of Smarter Balanced. “UCSC Silicon Valley Extension is in the heart of one of our nation’s most innovative regions. We see this as a true partnership where we will both benefit from each other’s expertise.”

Lynda Rogers, dean of the extension, said its mission includes supporting K-12 education with high-quality curriculum and supports for educators.

“It was clear to us that the Smarter Balanced mission and the Division of Continuing Education are aligned,” Rogers said.

To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2017/04/uc-sant-cruz-to-partner-with-smarter-balanced-testing-consortium-086850

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Testing
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