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Early Reports on Pearson Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2015 //
68

A parent reported in an email to me that questions from the ELA tests are plastered on Facebook and other social media, despite Pearson’s efforts to monitor students’ comments on FB or Twitter. While many thousands of parents have opted out, some students are engaging in civil disobedience by copying test questions and releasing them. I read one long and rambling passage written in what I imagine was cowboy slang. I won’t reproduce it because I don’t want to be sued by Pearson.

Teachers are reporting readability levels that are 2-4 grade levels above students’ age/grade. They are also reporting incomprehensible reading passages. A poem on the 6th grade test baffled students and teachers alike.

No one has a final talley on opt outs, but they are likely to exceed 200,000. Wow! Last year it was 60,000.

I have been told by a very high-ranking official in Néw York that the sheer number of opt outs will invalidate the governor’s plan to use the scores to evaluate teachers.

There is so much wrong with these tests and so little willingness to listen by the governor or state board, that only massive civil disobedience was left to parents and students. They are acting in the spirit iof a great American tradition: civil disobedience. Don’t Tread on Me.

Categories Common Core, New York, Standardized Testing

Long Island, NY: Epicenter of Opt Out Movement

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2015 //
17

Long Island, Néw York, is indeed the epicenter of opt out. The numbers are coming in, and they are historic. Never before have so many parents withheld their children from state testing to protest the overuse and misuse of testing.

The Long Island Press continues to be the best source of information for LI activism, and its reporter Jaime Franchi continues to provide excellent coverage (by contrast, the Néw York Times had not a single word about the statewide and national opt outs, but a front-page story about the Atlanta educators who were sentenced to jail). The corporate-owned Newsday has a larger circulation but has been consistently hostile to teachers and opting out. This is odd because the populous island that is mostly suburban has some of the best public schools in the state.

Franchi writes:

“With day one of three controversial Common Core ELA (English Language Arts) examinations for grades three through eight completed in New York State, the total score of students refusing to take the tests continues to rise exponentially.

“Compiled by Jeanette Deutermann, founder of anti-Common Core Facebook group “Long Island Opt Out” and a founding member of New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), a coalition of 50 parent and teacher organizations who oppose the standardized tests, Long Island school officials—including Board of Education members, administrators and educators, she says—are reporting an astounding number of test refusals.

“As of press time, her preliminary unofficial count from more than half the 124 school districts on Long Island had already tallied more than 62,000 students opting out—more than last year’s total figure for the entire state and double the 30,000 students from across Long Island who refused the tests last year—according to a Google Drive spreadsheet on Long Island Opt Out’s Facebook page. Comsewogue School District, home base of vocal public education advocates including Dr. Joe Rella, its superintendent, and Beth Dimino, an eighth grade science teacher and president of the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association, who stood as a “conscientious objector” earlier this year and vowed to refuse to administer Common Core exams to students, saw 82 percent of their eligible students refuse the test–a new record for that district.

“Sisi Wong Townson, co-president of the Plainedge Middle School PTA, reports that a record-shattering 74 percent of Plainedge students opted out of the test yesterday, including an entire third-grade class. A vocal opponent of high-stakes standardized testing, she testified against Common Core before New York State legislators two years ago drawing upon her personal experience as a student in Hong Kong.”

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Testing

Test Refusals Soar in Dutchess County, Néw York

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2015 //
12

Duchess County in Néw York reports high numbers of opt outs at schools across the county.

“Eleven of Dutchess’ 13 public school districts provided the Journal with some information about this year’s English Language Arts test refusal rates, which began on Tuesday for grades 3-8. More than 20 percent of students refused at a majority of Dutchess districts….

“Webutuck district mom Jessica Elliot said her 4th-grader “will refuse the tests for the second year in a row. These tests are not used to drive instruction, and they are not a fair evaluation of student progress or teacher effectiveness.”

Categories New York, Opt Out, Testing

Buffalo: Opt Outs Far Exceed Expectations

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2015 //
37

The Néw York parents’ opt out movement is indeed widespread and historic. The Buffalo News reports the action in western NY.

Parents were not acting at the direction of the teachers’ union. They were fed up with Néw York’s insane obsession with standardized testing:

“In the Lake Shore School District, 58 percent of kids opted out.

In North Tonawanda, inside sources said about 56 percent of students didn’t take the test.

At Lackawanna, just shy of 50 percent. Springville-Griffith had 42 percent, with three quarters of fifth-graders at one elementary school opting out.

In Kenmore-Tonawanda, where the School Board had seriously considered opting the entire district out, 37 percent refused.

Last year, by contrast, only about 5½ percent of Western New York students refused to take the tests, according to one survey.

Parents cited a wide variety of reasons for opting out Tuesday, including stress.

“Both my kids – especially the oldest, the one who is a bad test-taker – she is a nervous wreck when it comes time for tests,” said Mandy Ortwein, mother of a Ken-Ton seventh-grader who opted out. “The teachers try to help them by telling them they need to eat a good breakfast and get a good night’s sleep, but all of that makes my child even more anxious.”

School leaders across New York for weeks have been anticipating a large number of opt-outs by students, said Bob Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

“But I think the numbers exceeded expectations in many districts,” Lowry said after the first day of English Language Arts tests.

The mass boycott followed backlash to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s plan to put greater emphasis on the results of the state tests when determining how teachers are evaluated. Karen E. Magee, president of the New York State United Teachers, urged parents to opt out, and the union website promoted a letter for parents to download and fill out if they wanted their children to refuse the tests. At the same time, parents and teachers, particularly in Western New York and Long Island, took to Facebook and Twitter to voice their growing anxieties over the tests.”

Categories New York, Opt Out

Juan Gonzalez on New York’s Historic Opt Out from State Testing

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2015 //
50

Juan Gonzalez has a front-page article in the New York Daily News about the historic opt out that swept across New York State.

 

He writes:

 

The entire structure of high-stakes testing in New York crumbled Tuesday, as tens of thousands of fed-up public school parents rebelled against Albany’s fixation with standardized tests and refused to allow their children to take the annual English Language Arts state exam.

 

This “opt-out” revolt has been quietly building for years, but it reached historic levels this time. More than half the pupils at several Long Island and upstate school districts joined in — at some schools in New York City boycott percentages neared 40%.

 

At the Patchogue-Medford School District in Suffolk County, 65% of 3,400 students in grades three to eight abstained from the test, District Superintendent Michael Hynes told the Daily News.

 

“There was a very strong parent contingent that spoke loudly today,” Hynes said.

 

At West Seneca District near Buffalo, nearly 70% of some 2,976 students refused testing. Likewise, at tiny Southold School District on Long Island’s North Fork, 60% of the 400 students opted out; so did 60% of Rockville Centre’s 1,600 pupils. And in the Westchester town of Ossining, nearly 20% of 2,100 students boycotted.

 

“It’s clear that parents and staff are concerned about the number of standard assessments and how they’re used,” Ossining school chief Ray Sanchez said.

 

The final numbers are not in, and may not be in for a few days, but it is already clear that the number of opt outs will far surpass last year’s 50,000.

 

Contrary to the official line that this is “a labor dispute between the Governor and the unions,” the opt out movement is parent led. Parents don’t work for the union, and parents aren’t dumb. Parents protect their children from tests that have no valid purpose. Parents protect their children from tests that were designed to fail them. Parents protect their children from tests that force schools to cut back on the arts, on recess, on anything that is not tested.

 

Bravo, New York state parents!

 

Bravo especially to the New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of 50 organizations of parents and teachers who have testified in Albany, held community forums, informed PTAs, met with their legislators, and raised funds to pay for billboards and roving trucks with banners, plastered towns with car magnets, opt-out stickers, and lawn signs, and been truly herculean in their dedication to bringing down the state’s mean-spirited and pointless testing regime. Go to their website to learn how they mobilized the Empire State to say no to the Governor and his misbegotten plan to bring down public schools and teachers.

 

This is grassroots democracy at work. The hedge fund managers have millions to buy allies, but they can’t buy millions of parents, whose first and only concern is for their children. As a parent said earlier today in the Long Island Press, “The most dangerous place on Earth is between a mother and her child. Cuomo has crossed the line.”

 

Make no mistake. This is parent resistance to high-stakes testing and to Andrew Cuomo’s plan to make the stakes even higher than they were. He was able to push his plan through the legislature, but parents have just thrown a huge monkey wrench into his ability to make it work. It won’t and it can’t. That is how democracy works. Only with the consent of the governed.

 

Categories Accountability, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing

Long Island: This Will Be the Biggest Opt Out Ever

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2015 //
30

Here is an excellent analysis of what is behind the Opt Out movement. Last year, 50,000-60,000 students opted out in Néw York. The figure will be more than double that this year.

Parents are reacting against the overuse and misuse of tests. They are reacting against Governor Cuomo’s harsh and punitive education legislation.

In a democratic society, parents can’t be pushed around by public officials who are more interested in politics than in children. It makes parents angry.

My favorite quote:

“The most dangerous place on Earth is between a mother and her child. Cuomo has crossed the line,” declares GiGi Guiliano of East Islip, a mother of three who will refuse the test. “We want our classrooms back. We want our teachers to be able to teach again. I want my kids to enjoy the love of learning, not how to fill in bubbles. I want them to be lifelong learners.”

Categories New York, Opt Out, Resistance, Testing

NY: A Member of the Assembly Explains Her “Yes” Vote

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2015 //
20

Patricia Fahy, a member of the Néw York State Assembly, tries to explain her vote on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget bill. The worst part of the budget, she knew, was his demand to make 50% of teachers’ evaluations dependent on test scores. If no budget passed, Cuomo could impose his plan by fiat. Democracy, anyone?

The Assembly got the Governor to agree to allow the state Board of Regents to make the final determination on teacher evaluation, although they still must rely on an “independent evaluator” (an unfunded mandate) and test scores. Fahy refers to the Regents as “education professionals.” That is true of some, not all, of the Regents.

Readers in Néw York, how many Regents are “education professionals,” people who have had careers in education? To the credit of the Assembly, they recently elected four new members who are education professionals. In the past, that has not been a requisite. (Several years ago, my name was suggested as a candidate for the Regents. I talked to elected officials in Brooklyn, and they encouraged me to meet with the Speaker of the Assembly, whose word was determinative. Accompanied by an elected official, I was interviewed by Speaker Sheldon Silver’s top assistant. After half an hour of questions, she told me I knew too much to be a Regent. Unbelievable but true.)

From Fahy’s article:

 

“In the final few days of the budget negotiations, the most contentious part was the teacher evaluations (APPR) linked with excessive testing – an issue which has been debated for the last three out of four years in the legislature. I had and continue to have serious misgivings about this final bill language and have been actively advocating to ensure the most flexible interpretation of the language along with amendments where needed. While the language was troubling and rushed, one positive was delegating the evaluation issue away from the legislature and the Governor to the Board of Regents, who are the appointed education professionals. Despite having strongly opposed some of the previous work of the Regents with regard to testing and implementation of the common core standards, we have a slate of new Regents, who have been given parameters to work within.

 

“We need to change the conversation about education. We can no longer look at the very people who can help our children – our teachers – as the scapegoats for problems in education. We can no longer continue to value a standardized test that is so flawed parents are more concerned about their children taking it than passing it. We can no longer focus on underperforming schools and expect the teachers and staff to correct every social ill of the community and society. The solution must be multi-pronged and go beyond the school doors.

 

“I understand the frustration and the concern, I share it, and have already reached out to the Regents and more to begin work to maximize flexibility and seek changes where needed. This omnibus bill was not an easy vote and our work does not end with this vote.”

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Funding, New York, Teacher Evaluations

A Teacher Writes to the Néw York Board of Regents

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2015 //
17

The following was posted as a comment on the blog:

 

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

 

I have spent the last week and a half reeling from the shot across the bow that public education took on March 31st when the New York State Legislature ostensibly signed off on its destruction with the passing of the New York State Budget, and its attached legislation, S2006B-2015. As a teacher who is passionate about what she does, with two years of failing State Growth Scores, I know my days as a teacher are numbered. I am left with only one choice, to continue to act out of love for my students until the day comes when my district will be forced to remove me from the classroom and students I graciously serve.

 

My first act of love for my students, since the passing of this legislation and the absolute betrayal of my own elected officials, is the following letter I sent to the Board of Regents this afternoon.

 

Dear New York State Board of Regents:

 

This letter is in response to New York State Law S2006B-2015, dated March 31, 2015. I write you as a teacher of thirteen years who loves her profession and her students more than words could possibly capture. There has not been one day in the classroom that I wished away. Not one paycheck that I did not regard with awe over the fact that I could be paid to do a job I loved so deeply. Not one August that I did not greet with excitement in anticipation of new students, new challenges and new victories. Nor one end of school year I did not confront with sadness over the end of a ten-month partnership with my students filled with reading and writing and thinking and questioning.

 

Teaching is my passion. Every single day I ask myself what went wrong? Who did I not reach? What can I do tomorrow to push harder and support the growth of my students? I sincerely love teaching because after thirteen years, I am clear on only one thing – I will never have all of the answers. And I like that challenge. Each year brings new students, new families, new strengths and new areas of opportunity into my classroom. My voracious appetite for meeting their respective needs is confronted by the infinite possibilities that education offers.

 

This year, we had an interesting scenario. It became very clear on reading comprehension assessments that students understood what they were reading, but of the fifteen students in my class receiving Academic Intervention Services (AIS) for reading, out of a total of twenty-seven students, eight continuously earned failing scores on weekly assessments. We asked ourselves, is it the vocabulary in the questions? No. Is it vocabulary in the choices? No. We realized that students could not see the correct answers in the choices because they lacked the transferal skills to get themselves from what they knew the answers were to the choices given. We started giving the students the questions without choices, and having them write their own answers. Then we gave them the choices and they had to select the choices that most closely resembled their answers. Our failure rate dropped substantially from eight students to one to two students. This is what teaching is. Every single day we must go in, assess what our students need from us, and devise ways to meet those needs.

 

I often tell people that a teacher’s job is never, ever done. I could work around the clock twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and still have things I want to accomplish in the classroom. As teachers, we have to eek out as much time as we can before school, during school and after school, and spend that time on the work we determine offers our students the greatest return on investment. This is why grading assessments we provide is so important to us. Students and teachers require continual assessment feedback so instructional time can best serve students’ needs.

 

Where is all of this going? It boils down to assessment. Your board has been asked to craft an APPR plan that bases 50% of a teacher’s APPR on assessments you deem appropriate for this purpose. Much of what I am about to discuss pertains solely to the current grades three through eight state testing program, but please keep in mind that these thoughts relate to any assessment we deem appropriate for removing a child’s teacher from his/her classroom.

 

Any assessment we use for the state’s 50% of the APPR must:

 

1. Include reliability and validity testing that demonstrates the instrument’s ability to measure what we are asking it to measure. Assessment in New York State public school classrooms must measure a student’s progress toward New York State Standards.

 

2. Be created by an entity that does not also sell curricular materials to school districts. The 2013 New York State 6th ELA exam included proprietary material that Pearson had also included in its series, Reading Street, which it sells to districts. This is a serious conflict of interest.

 

3. Have the ability to measure all growth a student experiences during a school year. The current methodology provides simple scores of one, two, three and four limiting its ability show us where growth has or has not transpired, for a variety of reasons.

 

4. Inform teachers and parents of information both parties do not already know. We know who has difficulty reading and who does not. We must use an assessment that offers rich details about where our students struggles are, as well as what students are doing well.

 

If we continue on our current path, teachers like me who love what we do, and have an innate desire to be the best teachers we can for our students, will be gone. For the last two years, I have been given a one and a two respectively for my State Growth Score. If you proceed with the State Legislature’s plan, and your current method of assessments, you will be taking good teachers away from the students who need them, using fraudulent instruments. With your June 30th deadline looming, I beg you to contemplate the gravity of this system, and as the law prescribes, use the next few months to speak with teachers and parents who are invested in this system, to craft a plan that places children first.

 

In all earnest, I am willing to meet with you anytime to discuss the frailties of our current system and measures we can take to meet the law’s deadline in a way that best serves public school children. They are what matter most.

 

Warm wishes,

 

Melissa K. McMullan
6th Grade Teacher
Comsewogue School District
Port Jefferson Station, NY

Categories New York, Resistance, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers, Testing

Parents in Upstate New York: Why Our Daughter Will Not Take the Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2015 //
38

This email arrived today. The parents who wrote it live in a small town in upstate New York. New York is on fire with opt outs. Last year, 60,000 children refused the Common Core tests. This year, the number will grow significantly. Panicked superintendents, pressured by state bureaucrats, are sending out letters warning parents not to opt out. The Chancellor of the Board of Regents has told affluent communities that she might exempt them and their teachers from the punitive consequences of the testing, in an effort to dampen the Opt Out movement. As this letter shows, this all-hands-on-board attempt to quell the opt outs is not succeeding.

 

 

 

 

Why Our Third Grade Daughter Will NOT Take NYS Assessments

 

The direction of NYS public education is being driven by political control and corporate greed instead of what is best for children. The FREEDOM for school administrators to lead, teachers to teach, and students to learn in a child-centered classroom has been STOLEN by bully bureaucrats in Albany and Washington D.C. who know little about education and believe a “one size fits all” approach will somehow “fix” public education.  

 

In 2010, New York State officials, lured by MONEY from the Federal GOVERNMENT through the Race To The Top program, agreed to implement Common Core State Standards (CCSS) which were heavily financed by Bill Gates and developed by private interest groups with heavy influence from the corporate testing industry. CCSS were hastily adopted with no transparency while “grave concerns” from childhood development specialists and educators were ignored. Contrary to the marketing rhetoric that continues to be sold to the American people, CCSS were NOT state led, NOT internationally benchmarked, NOT piloted or tested, and NOT evaluated for cost or efficacy prior to implementation.

The Federal Government then spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to develop National Standardized Tests based on the unproven Common Core Standards which quickly drove the development of unproven curriculum and teaching methods. Now, NYS Dept. of Ed. and our Governor intend to have students take these costly and developmentally inappropriate tests to evaluate the “performance” of school districts and determine whether teachers should keep their jobs.

 

The NYS Common Core Tests (Grades 3-8) to be administered in April 2015:

  1. Compel teachers to narrow curriculum and spend a high percentage of the year prepping students to take tests on two subjects (Math and ELA) rather than teaching a well-rounded and balanced curriculum that inspires creativity and fosters the joy of learning for all students.
  2. Requires many hours to take and have NO diagnostic value for teachers in supporting the academic achievement of students.
  3. Are flawed, ambiguous, and intentionally designed to fail a high percentage of children by deliberately manipulating the “passing score” through arbitrary and subjective means.
  4. Are being used to collect a vast amount of data on children without parental knowledge or consent.
  5. When refused, will not affect a student’s classroom grade, placement, or services received.

 

Parents refusing to allow children to take the NYS Standardized Tests will send a clear and powerful message to Albany (and Washington D.C.) that children are not guinea pigs, high-stakes testing based on unproven standards is harmful to public education, and implementing destructive academic reforms using bully tactics will NOT be tolerated!

 

We have the power to say NO to government overreach. Refuse NYS Assessments and become part of the critical movement to put the “public” back into public education. The time to act is now.

 

 

Lynn and Steve Leonard

Corning-Painted Post School District Parents

 

 

 

Categories New York, Opt Out, Resistance, Testing

New York Senate Wall of Shame and Wall of Fame

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2015 //
3

When Governor Cuomo’s budget was passed by the Néw York State Senate, it included mandates for test-score based evaluation of teachers and other provisions that teachers found insulting. Here is the State Senate’s Wall of Shame and Wall of Fame, identifying those who voted for and against this anti-teacher legislation. I previously posted a similar chart for the New York Assembly. Save this list for the next election if you live in New York.

 

 

 

 

IMG_7076

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Education Reform, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing
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