Opt Out lives!
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/schools-ela-opt-outs-test-boycott-1.29381145
Meanwhile computer glitches across scattered districts caused student answers to disappear and other problems.
Computer-based assessment is a dumb idea.
The New York State Allies for Public Education issued this statement in opposition to State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s efforts to “bribe, coerce, manipulate, and threaten students and parents into complying with a broken assessment system.” NYSAPE has led the opt out movement for several years. About 20 percent of eligible students in grades 3-8 do not take the state tests. About half the students on Long Island boycotted the tests. In some schools on Long Island and upstate New York, more than 75% of students refused to take the tests. Commissioner Elia doesn’t listen to parents. She doubles down and tries to force them to take the tests, which provide no information about individual performance to teachers. The tests are meaningless other than as punishments for students, schools and teachers, and they require far more time than taking an SAT for college admission.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2019
More information contact
Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com
Kemala Karmen (917) 807-9969; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education – NYSAPE
NYS Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia Creates a Culture of Fear, Intimidation, and Misinformation in our Schools
The Every Student Succeeds Act (the federal law known as ESSA) gives states authority to design their own unique accountability plan regarding the state tests. Unfortunately, Commissioner Elia has used that authority to misinterpret ESSA, and has used ESSA as an opportunity to impose a culture of fear on our administrators and teachers, and our children. Under Commissioner Elia’s direction, the State Education Department (SED) at best turns a blind eye to, and at worst encourages, school districts to bribe, coerce, manipulate, and threaten students and parents into complying with a broken assessment system.
As we head into the first round of 2019 grades 3-8 state testing, NYSAPE is receiving an unprecedented number of reports from parents statewide about morally objectionable, educationally unsound, and in some cases, illegal policies and tactics that local schools and districts are using in attempts to suppress test refusal. Parents are reporting bribery with prizes, parties, and exemptions from district course finals. Students are threatened with removal from or ineligibility for honors programs, retention, and summer school; schools are threatened with closure.
Misinformation and scare tactics are coming from school districts, administrators, and even SED itself (see NYSUT’s rebuttal to the Commissioner), and range from claims that refusal students will be scored a ‘1’ and that the tests were created by teachers to statements that the assessments are “vital” and more. The New York City Department of Education even sent out letters–which they later had to retract–informing parents they could transfer out of their schools. Whether the city acted on its own or at the behest of SED is unknown, but SED’s endorsement of “public school choice” for the NY ESSA plan, along with its reductive test-based criteria for identifying these schools as in need of “Comprehensive Support and Improvement” (CSI) certainly paved the way for this debacle. The panic and humiliation caused by identifying schools as CSI was not limited to the city, but was felt in districts all over the state.
Most concerning is the resurgence of purely punitive policies like “sit and stare” (a cruel practice where test refusers as young as 8 must sit in the room with the testers with not so much as a book or a pencil to divert themselves with) and forcing elementary refusers to do old state assessments throughout the testing administration hours. Outraged parents have questioned these abusive actions, and the response many have received from their districts is that these tactics were suggested and encouraged, incredibly, by Commissioner Elia of the New York State Education Department.
A letter from the principal of the Oswego Middle School to her students perfectly illustrates that the NYS grades 3-8 testing system has gone completely off the rails. The sole purpose of the letter was to convince children “why you should say yes to the test.” Given out during the school day, for students to sign while still in school, the letter indicated they should “feel free to share with your parents.” It invoked a warped child psychology, attempting to manipulate students with phrases such as, “you love OMS, and we LOVE YOU! So, you WANT TO HELP!” “If you take the NYS ELA Assessment…you can be exempt from the English Final Exam in June!,” and “Daily Drawings for FABULOUS prizes for all ‘YES’ slips.” And, finally, as a way to single out any child whose parents had decided they wouldn’t be participating, “…a school-wide event if we can hit 100%! Something like a Spring Pep Rally….your favorite teachers will do something FUNNY ‘like’ KISS A PIG.”
Any policy that singles out, discriminates against, rewards, or punishes school children for the decisions of their parents is cause for deep concern. It’s appalling and disconcerting that Commissioner Elia/SED is encouraging these unacceptable policies. SED must immediately admonish these policies, and address the many flaws, complaints, educational issues, and legal questions raised by this deeply flawed testing program—for years the most highly boycotted state testing system in the nation.
NYSAPE calls on the NYS Legislature to pass legislation, before session ends, that reinforces a parent’s right to opt out, protects students from punishment, requires districts to notify parents at the beginning of the school year about those rights, and forbids SED and school administrators to bribe, punish, lie, and manipulate as a way to increase test participation. Neither students, administrators, schools, nor districts should suffer retaliation or negative consequences as the result of parents exercising their right to refuse the state tests.
NYSAPE and parents statewide will continue to monitor the policies and tactics encouraged by SED and implemented by school districts who have chosen to comply with misguided directives rather than advocate for the students in their care. We believe the time has come for the Board of Regents to bring in a Commissioner who values a whole-child education, respects parental rights, and places our children’s best interests at the forefront.
###
NYSUT, The New York State United Teachers, issued a blistering fact check of State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s claims about the state tests.
You have to open it to get the full flavor because NYSUT, not normally outspoken, shreds Elia’s claims.
Elia writes in Orwellian Newspeak about value of the tests.
NYSUT response: Because of the lack of movement by SED on NYSUT’s suggested changes to the testing system, the current tests do not provide any useful information to parents or teachers or any real information on how a district is performing. The results do not accurately predict future student success. In fact, the tests mislabel more than half of the test takers as failing, while more than 80 percent of students go on to graduate from high school. The results of the current tests are not only useless, but also damaging to students.
There are several such exchanges.
Bear in mind that no one but the testing company is allowed to know student responses to questions. So teachers learn NOTHING about the strengths or weaknesses of their students. Teachers, students, and parents get a score but nothing of any diagnostic value.
All students in grades 3-8 should OPT OUT of these pointless tests.
Leonie Haimson questions why NYC Chancellor Carranza sent a letter to every parent in schools rated CSI (Comprehensive Support & Improvement) by the state to let them know that they could transfer to another school.
Although he claimed otherwise, he was not required to do so.
Some schools are on the list because of opt outs.
Carranza is destroying schools instead of supporting them. No school ever improved by closing it.
After I wrote this, I heard that Carranza “might” withdraw his threatening letter. True or not, why was it his response and Commissioner Elia’s response to threaten schools instead of helping? Why do they think that any school needs threats and intimidation? Where do they get these attitudes? Was NCLB their textbook?
Supporters of public schools are fighting a proposal for a state takeover of the Rochester public school district in New York.
State takeovers have not worked anywhere. The Michigan Education Achievement Authority was a disaster and has closed down. The schools in the Achievement School District in Tennessee made zero gains as compared to similar schools not in the state district. Contrary to public relations, the New Orleans takeover district performs below the state average in one of the nation’s lowest performing states, and its “gains” relied on a mass exodus of poor kids who never returned and a mass influx of additional money from the federal government and foundations.
From Rochester: Please open the link and sign the petition to stop a state takeover.
Wealthy private interests and local and state politicians are working overtime to demonize, vilify, and discredit the Rochester City School District in order to create a pretext for a mayoral or state takeover of the public school system. They desperately want to create a siege mentality against the public school system.
Research and experience show that such measures are profoundly counterproductive and harm schools and the public interest.
Government takeovers of urban public school systems always reduce accountability and transparency, increase testing, leave schools worse off, and increase the number of charter schools.
There is an alternative!
The citizens of Rochester have the constitutional right to decide whether their school board is to be appointed or elected. It is not permissible for local or state politicians to ignore that constitutional right and to bypass the will of the citizens of Rochester and transfer many of powers of the school Board to wealthy private interests and their political representatives. Defend Public Education!
Fred Smith is a testing expert in New York who worked for the NYC Board of Education for many years. He advises the opt out movement.
He writes:
“For five years, 2012 – 2016, Pearson Inc. had a free ride that cost taxpayers $38 million for tests aligned with the Common Core blah blah. Pearson was shielded in completing its run by the State Education Department, which allowed the company to operate without having to provide information about how its exams were functioning. There would be no timely or complete disclosure of data about test materials, such as item statistics, thwarting the opportunity for independent review of their quality; a gag order that prevented teachers from discussing flaws in the exams; top-down engenderment of fear and confusion among parents abetted by compliant superintendents and too many jittery administrators, denying parents information about their right to opt out, effectively keeping most parents marching along blindly to the annual testing beat; and all the while Pearson and NYSED flouting professional standards for educational testing, while most of the academic world watched silently.
“But by 2014 and 2015 a growing opt out movement arose on Long Island and upstate outside of New York City—brilliantly spearheaded by a few indignant parents activists who summoned the courage to say “NO” and drew on a well of leadership skills and organizing ability–the extent to which, perhaps, they did not know they possessed. And 20% of the children targeted for the tests sat them out. Evidence finally obtained from the state and the city revealed that the opposition the exams was fully justified. I urge readers of this influential tide-turning blog to Google a series of reports (“Tests Are Turning Our Kids Into Zeroes”) posted by the Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives at SUNY, New Paltz.
“So where does that leave us? I would hope that parents and other interested parties draw upon our experience with Pearson. A two-stage plan of action is needed as Questar (Pearson’s successor) is about to enter the third year of its five-year, $44 million agreement with SED this April. Before this occurs, a reasonable demand by parents and advocates would be for immediate information about how Questar’s exams worked in 2017 and 2018. To date, such information has not been forthcoming. Lack of transparency and lack of accountability must no longer be accepted as SOP. Stage 2 would follow: If, in two weeks, we don’t get information that we know is already in hand, that should help drive home the message that opting out in April is a rational alternative and a direct way for the voice of parents to be heard. I believe that pushing back against the tests could unify grass roots groups throughout the city on a number of issues that focus the well-being of all children.”
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.
Two parents whose children attend highly regarded progressive public schools were shocked to learn that Commissioner MaryEllen Elia had approved a plan in which their schools are rated failing.
The Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies (BCS) and Central Park East One (CPE1) are the public schools where we send our children.
They’re excellent schools, well known for their progressive practices and their history of supporting the whole child. Both are schools in “good standing, high performing and high impact,” according to city’s Department of Education standards. Because of their student outcomes and enriching environments for diverse learners, hundreds of students apply for spots in these schools…Yet a week ago, parents learned that the state’s Education Department put both BCS and CPE1 on its new list of 124 supposedly struggling schools, designating them as among the worst schools in the entire state….
No, their schools are not failing. But the New York State Education Department is.
New York has a mad crush on test scores. It’s been this way for many years. But it has never been as crazy as now.
The state commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, hates opting out. She wants all students to have scores.
About 20% of theeligible students didn’t take the state tests and that made Elia very, very angry.
She decided to get even by punishing schools where students didn’t take the tests.
They disobeyed!
Here is a letter that a principal wrote to the parents of his school, trying to explain how their school, with scores higher than the city average, ranked in the bottom two 2% statewide!
The school had sinned! 80% of the students did not take the tests because their parents said no.
Commissioner Elia can’t figure out how to punish the students and the parents, so she is punishing their school!
The New York legislature passed a law shifting teacher evaluation to districts. The law does not prevent linking teacher evaluations to student test scores. It allows districts to choose the tests, subject to the approval of the state commissioner.
The state and NYC teachers’ unions are happy with the bill.
The leaders of Opt Out say it’s a hoax. They say it shifts the responsibility to evaluate teachers by high-stakes tests from the state to districts. This “change” is no change.
Diane Ravitch's blog 