Archives for category: Opt Out

The Education Writers Association reviews the state of the opt out movement, nationally, presenting a variety of perspectives. M

Once again, we hear the complaint that opt outs endanger the validity of the tests, but that’s nonsense if your concern is for individual living children, rather than data. No matter how many opt out, those who take the test will still get s score. The only thing that gets compromised is the ability to rank schools and districts on a bell curve. Tough.

Once again, we hear the complaint that opt out is concentrated among white families. So what? If families hate the over testing of their children, they should act on their concerns, whatever their race.

The article does not mention the reasons for lower rates of black and Hispanic participation in opt outs: fear that their school might be closed; fear of punishment; lack of information, which is spread through social media; and the Gates-funded disinformation campaign against opting out, which has misled some civil rights groups to support high-stakes testing that labels and stigmatizes children of color.

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Testing

New York: 98% of School Budgets Pass, Opt Out Supporters Elected to Local Boards

By dianeravitch

May 20, 2016 //

New York appears to be in resistance mode. Governor Andrew Cuomo passed a tax cap when he first took office, requiring a 60% supermajority to raise the school budget more than 2% in any year.

Despite the millions spent by billionaires to prove to New Yorkers that their local public schools are failing, the voters gave them a vote of confidence. 98% of districts passed their school budget, some overriding the tax cap.

In addition, many new school board members were elected, including supporters of the opt-out movement and teachers.

The current estimate, reported in this story, is that the opt out numbers were as large this year as last year, that is, about 20% of all the state’s students in grades 3-8.

Opt out continues to be a powerful tide, and there is no indication that it is diminishing. As long as the high stakes testing continues, so will the opt out movement.

Categories Education Reform, Funding, New York, Opt Out, Supporting public schools

Arthur Goldstein: How School Choice Blocks Opting Out in New York City

By dianeravitch

May 12, 2016 //

Experienced educator Arthur Goldstein recently visited the George Washington Campus in Manhatttan. It used to be the George Washington High School and had some famous graduates, but those days are gone. Now it is the G.W. Campus, containing multiple small schools, all schools of choice.

All high schools are now schools of choice, and there are hundreds of them. The student ranks 12 schools in order of his choice, and the school decides which students it wants. The middle schools are also schools of choice. You are not likely to get into your school of choice unless you can show your test scores.

The effect, of course, was to downplay any notion of community schools (thus downplaying any notion of community, valued by neither Gates nor Bloomberg). Parents now had “choice.” They could go to the Academy of Basket Weaving, the Academy of Coffee Drinking, or the Academy of Doing Really Good Stuff. Of course by the time they got there the principals who envisioned basket weaving, coffee drinking, or doing good stuff were often gone, and it was Just Another School, or more likely Just Another Floor of a School, as there were those three other schools to contend with. (Unless of course Moskowitz got in, in which case it was A Renovated Space Better Than Your Space.)

Last night I learned that middle schools in NYC also are Schools of Choice. I don’t know exactly why I learned this last night, because my friend Paul Rubin told me this months ago. I think I need to hear things more than once before they register with me, though. Anyway last night I heard from someone who told me that one of the schools her daughter might attend required test scores as a prerequisite. So if her family had decided to send their kid there, opt-out may not have been a good option.

I live in a little town in Long Island. My daughter went to our middle school, as did every public school student in our town. We are a community, and our community’s kids go to our community’s schools. If I opt my kid out, she goes to that school. If she scores high, low, or anywhere in between, she goes to that school.

Goldstein realized that the choice policy is an effective deterrent against opting out of tests. If you opt out, you won’t get into your school of choice. You might rank 12 schools, and get into your last choice, or end up with no school assignment and get sent wherever there is an opening, which might be an hour or more from your home, with a theme that has no interest for you.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Education Reform, New York City, Opt Out, School Choice

Don’t Believe the New York Times’ Editorial about Remediation

By dianeravitch

May 12, 2016 //

Yesterday the New York Times published a bizarre editorial about remedial classes in college.

The editorial says that former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was right when he said that the students who opt out are poorly educated, and their parents are “white suburban moms” who were disappointed to discover that their children aren’t so smart after all. Duncan always liked to say that America’s children had been “dummied down,” and no one was willing to tell the unpleasant truth but him.

The Times‘ editorial said that large numbers of suburban students need remediation when they get to college. This conclusion, it said, was based on a study by an advocacy group called Education Reform Now.

The editorial referred to Education Reform Now as a “nonprofit think tank.” ERN is nonprofit but it is certainly not a think tank. ERN is the nonprofit (c3) arm of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), the organization of hedge fund managers that loves charter schools, high-stakes testing, and Common Core. It has a vested interest in saying that American public schools are failing, failing, failing so as to spur its campaign to privatize public education.

ERN sponsors “Camp Philos,” an annual affair where important political figures meet in the woods with hedge fund managers to figure out how to reform public schools that none of them ever sent their own children to. In 2014, its star education reformer was Governor Cuomo. At its 2015 meeting on Martha’s Vineyard, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was a keynote speaker, sharing his knowledge of how to reform public education by closing public schools en masse.

The staff director of ERN is Shavar Jeffries, who ran for mayor of Newark and lost to Ras Baraka. Jeffries was supported by DFER, which hired him after his loss.

Consider the board of directors. Every one of them is from Wall Street.

The authors of the report are staff members at ERN who come from public policy backgrounds.

Curiously, the editorial has a link to the words “Education Department,” but no link to the ERN policy brief.

The New York Times‘ editorial board has been a tireless advocate for the Common Core and for high-stakes testing. It has been a reliable cheerleader for the corporate reform. Its editorials show little understanding of the opt out movement or of the opposition to the Common Core standards. It is sad that the nation’s most prestigious newspaper so consistently distorts important education issues. It must be very distressing to the Times’ editorial board that the New York Board of Regents is now led by an experienced educator who does not share their zeal to tear down the nation’s public schools and abet privatization.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Testing

Denis Ian: The Revolt Against the “Know-It-All Class”

By dianeravitch

May 9, 2016 //

Denis Ian, a reader of the blog, has contributed several excellent comments which I have turned into post. Here is another that strikes a chord for its insight and thoughtfulness. American society has long been celebrated for individual freedom blended with civic responsibility. We take care of one another. We volunteer to help. We pitch in. But we don’t see why bureaucrats and legislators are forcing us to do things to our schools and our children that harm them. And we are responding.

Denis Ian writes:

Why should the parents of New York be out of step with what’s happening all across the nation?

Of course, this opt-out resistance is about education. But it’s also about what’s boiling folks from coast-to-coast … this never-ending, ever-intrusive, arrogant, and ruinous involvement of government to be front and center in the lives of every man, woman, and child.

This test-refusal effort is a scream at the federal and state governments to back off … retreat … and leave folks alone to craft the sort of society that will be … not the society envisioned by a few.

Parents want their schools back … among other things. This current effort … withholding kids from academic assessments … is way more complex than just a pile of lousy exams spawned by a wretched educational reform. That’s the surface stuff. The roots are much deeper. Only the daring will squint hard to see the links that are so obvious.

This society is set to explode … one way or another.

These tests are serious stuff for parents … and more serious stuff for children. This resistance has fired up lots of pretty ordinary folks into becoming very active managers of their own lives … and it will carry over into other issues soon enough. This election season is already the most bizarre of my long life … and it looks to get even more memorable in the months ahead.

Why? Because government … and a slender class of autocratic fops … has made it their business to be in everyone else’s business. We have these self-appointed wind-bags who have this neurotic, messiah complex that results in chaos for everything they touch.

They’ve ruined healthcare, border and homeland security, law enforcement, illegal immigration, the economy, education, and just about everything else they’ve knocked up against. Why are folks so surprised that people are fit to be tied?

The new Know-It-All class … the self-anointed oligarchs … have imposed their norms and values and programs and reforms with absolute ease over the last several years … but the breaking point is here. The signs are all about … just look at the sort of political figures who have captured the attention of the people. They’re not oligarchic types at all .. in fact, they’re the antidotes to the giant itch that troubles this nation.

The really amazing thing about this reform/test counter-action is the resistance to the resistance. The educational oligarchs … just like the social and political absolutists … will not admit what is underfoot. They will not concede that the agitation is THEIR fault … caused by THEIR ineptitude and THEIR arrogance. That is a sure-fire fuse that will easily flame up. Nothing pisses off good people more than being played for dummies.

And the people are plenty pissed off.

This moment … in education … is an early prelude to what’s in store for this political season. I’m certaint these parents … who stood tall for their children and their neighborhood schools … won’t vanish for a long while. They’re just warming up.

The oligarchs have blown it … big time. And it all began with the biggest dummy of all … Arne Duncan … that mother-bashing fop who lit that fuse.

This Duncan quote about suburban moms might be the most memorable educational gaffe of recent decades: ” … “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”

Duncan is still in search of the world’s largest vacuum … but those words have stuck in the craw of every parent from Long Island to Los Angeles. And now those moms … and dads … are the first in battle against the snob class. And they’re winning.

Denis Ian

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Opt Out, Parents, Resistance, Testing

New York: It is a New Day for the State Board of Regents–and for Students, Teachers, and Parents!

By dianeravitch

May 4, 2016 //

The new chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents visited a dual-language elementary school on Long Island, accompanied by the Superintendent, Michael Hynes (a member of the honor roll of this blog) and by Jeanette Deutermann, parent leader of the Long Island Opt-Out movement. Dr. Rosa spoke to the children in both English and Spanish.

The newly elected chancellor of the state Board of Regents visited a Medford Elementary School dual-language classroom Tuesday afternoon as part of her first statewide listening tour since she assumed the post in March.

“I am going around the state and seeing these wonderful opportunities,” said Betty Rosa, a former Bronx special education teacher, principal and superintendent. “My goal is to make sure our children have the resources and opportunities and access to a quality education.”

Rosa, joined by Patchogue-Medford Superintendent Michael J. Hynes, spoke in Spanish and English to students in the classroom at Medford Elementary in Patchogue. The district is in its eighth year offering a dual-language program, with 375 students now enrolled.

Hynes, a vocal critic of high-stakes testing, praised Rosa’s vision — seeing what’s working in public schools and trying to replicate it statewide.

“Everything she focuses on is what’s best for kids,” he said.
Rosa’s selection as chancellor marked a dramatic shift in tone for the Regents board, where a majority of board members in the past had supported higher academic standards and other reforms, first enthusiastically and then with growing reluctance.

She was named chancellor shortly before state assessments were administered last month. A Newsday survey found that more than half of Long Island students boycotted the English Language Arts and math exams in April.

It was the second sweeping boycott in New York, driven by parents’ and educators’ rebellion against the exams, the tests’ links to teacher and principal performance evaluations and other state education reforms.

Rosa was joined on Tuesday’s tour by Jeanette Deutermann, a North Bellmore parent and founder of Long Island Opt Out.

“It is so hopeful for parents who have been fighting and fighting to have somebody at the top who understands what we are fighting for and believes in the same philosophy,” Deutermann said.

Rosa called Tuesday for less emphasis on state tests and said she believes teacher evaluations should not be tied to scores on those exams.

“We have to get back to what really matters — which is teaching and learning, and . . . our kids’ excitement to become learners,” Rosa said.

And she means it.

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Real Education

California: One Student Starts Huge Opt Out in Burbank

By dianeravitch

April 29, 2016 //

Sam Gorman, a junior at Burbank High School, started an opt out movement that was joined by 40% of the students in his class. He demonstrates the power of a single individual to make a difference. I happily add him to this blog’s honor roll for his intelligence and leadership.

“Students began taking state standardized exams in Burbank earlier this month, but about 40% of Burbank High’s junior class chose to opt out of the process, according to Burbank Unified Supt. Matt Hill.

“There were 269 out of 656 juniors at Burbank High who opted out of taking the exam after getting a parent to sign off on the request.

“For Burbank High student Sam Gorman, the choice to opt out signifies his stance against a test that is based on “big data and redundant standards instead of the acquisition of long-lasting knowledge,” he said in an email.

“He learned he could skip the exam last summer in Switzerland, where he attended a student leader summit hosted by Education First, an international company that runs study-abroad programs.

“Working with progressive education experts like Sir Ken Robinson and Nikhil Goyal helped open my eyes to the exciting possibilities of an educational system that treats students more like the individuals they are and less like the raw data they’ve become,” he said.

“The state exam tests students on California State Standards, which until recently were called Common Core standards.

“The computerized exam made its debut in California two years ago. It replaced the STAR exam, which students took by filling in bubbles on paper tests that asked multiple-choice questions.

“The new computerized exam tests students in math and language arts and is used by educators to gauge high school juniors’ preparedness for college. Students in third through eighth grades are also tested to give educators insight into their grasp of state standards.

“Sam wrote about Common Core testing on his website, YoungchangeBestchange.org, and then in mid-March, he tweeted a link that explained how students could opt out.

“Juniors needed to make the request in a letter, provide a parent’s signature and date, and submit it to their school principal.

“It was around mid-March, still a few weeks before testing began on April 7, when junior Daniel Park was asked by a classmate if he would opt out.

“People everywhere were just asking, ‘Are you opting out?'” he recalled by phone this week.

“Daniel is a college-bound student who is enrolled in five AP classes — U.S. history, English, calculous, psychology and physics.”

Daniel opted out, along with 40% of his class.

Categories California, Honor Roll, Opt Out, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Students

James Kirylo: Why My Son Will Opt Out–Again

By dianeravitch

April 25, 2016 //

James Kirylo is a professor of teaching and learning at Southeastern Louisiana University. His son opted out of testing last year. And he will opt out again this year. He went to his local school board to tell them his reasons. He did it twice.

In this post on Mercedes Schneider’s blog, Kirylo explains why.

When No Child Left Behind was passed, we were told that it would raise achievement so high that no child would be left behind. That was not true.

Kirylo writes:

There you have it—fourteen years later since NCLB was introduced—standardized tests, as they are currently administered, interpreted, and used in school communities across the country, do not work, have not worked, and will not work as they were presumably intended. In fact, the adverse effects of them are overwhelming. Nevertheless, we continue to use them like a bad drug to which the desperate addict keeps crawling back.

And like the addict who is in need of dire help, until there is admittance to the problem, school systems will continue down this addictive path of testing until that type of assessment system is recognized as inherently harmful. Until then, therefore, parents have only one option to not enable the addiction to testing: opt-out.

He is also outraged by the school grades that the state slaps on every school. As it happens, his children’s school does not have a high grade. Kirylo knows the letter grade is meaningless:

My two children attend a school that has a state report card grade that has been hovering between a D and C– hardly a glaring narrative. What am I thinking by sending my sons to just a slightly-below-average school– and, by implication, one that is populated by slightly-below average teachers and administrators, only to be surrounded by slightly-below average children? But indeed, that is the warped message corporate reformers want to convey.

In other words, this objectification of children and those who work in public schools—which is particularly heightened when my children’s school is only slightly above the prospect of receiving even more threats to intensify the obsession on everything testing—ultimately works to close those schools. In short, corporate reform operates under the framework of threats, coercion, shaming, and blaming, and it has taken us nowhere.

What does matter is a strong public education system that is intentionally mindful of the common good. This is done through collaboration, cooperation, and the cultivation of meaningful relationships, which is attentive to building up the community, a state, a nation–all of which is filtered through the fostering of developmentally appropriate practices–and through the professionalization of teaching.

To be sure, the assistant principal who every morning greets my two boys with a welcoming smile at carpool drop-off and clearly demonstrates great care is an “A” person; the teachers who work hard, communicate well, and have the best interests of my children’s educational growth are “A” people; the principal who I had the fortune to teach in graduate school is an “A” administrator who is diligently working to push the school forward; and, finally the over 1000 children who attend my sons’ school are “A” human beings, relying on the adults to cultivate a schooling environment that works to maximize their opportunities.

We all should have no patience with so-called school report grades that are misleading and by which the public is being erroneously manipulated. Thus, the only option I see if things don’t change is to opt-out.

Categories Accountability, Louisiana, NCLB, Opt Out, Resistance, Testing

New Jersey Charter Grandparent: “This Dance Is Over”

By dianeravitch

April 21, 2016 //

This post appeared on EduShyster’s blog. It was written by the grandmother of a student enrolled in the North Star Charter School in Newark, New Jersey.

The child’s mother decided that the child should not take the state tests. That’s when the trouble began.

Her mother read about PARCC testing and decided that she didn’t want to put the child through that. She gets anxious over tests and she has nightmares after testing. From everything we’ve been following about PARCC in the news reports, these tests aren’t well designed, they don’t indicate much about the children’s progress and they’re being used to rate and assess the teachers and the schools. These tests also aren’t mandatory. Our question has always been: *What’s the benefit for the child?* We didn’t see any. She’s on her fourth school in three years and was just settling down and starting to get her grades together, and we’re not going to disrupt that for a week of testing that serves no clear purpose.

Our question has always been: *What’s the benefit for the child?* We didn’t see any.

At the end of February, her mother sent a letter to North Star letting them know that she was opting not to have the child take the test. That started such harassment! North Star would call and call and call. Sometimes they would call two and three times a day. They wanted us to change our minds about the child taking the PARCC test. They would tell us that she’s going to have to take standardized tests in high school and taking the test now would help her learn how to take these tests. They also argued that by not taking the test the child was letting down the North Star community, and that this was part of the responsibility to the school community that her mother agreed to when she signed the papers….

Testing starts on April 25th. I’m concerned about what North Star is going to do to my granddaughter during that week. I contacted Save Our Schools New Jersey because I wanted to know what happens if we keep my granddaughter out of school. The state says that the school can’t just make the kids sit and stare during the tests. Her brother is at a school for kids with special needs and the school is making all kinds of accommodations for kids who won’t be taking the tests. I also contacted the Charter Schools Association in Trenton and talked to someone who said she’d contact the school and find out what their plans are for kids who aren’t taking the test. When I heard back, I was told that there is no opt out.

I don’t trust the school. I have a feeling that if my granddaughter goes to school, they’ll either have her doing nothing or they’ll really push on her. At first our plan was to accompany her to school, to take turns just to keep an eye on things, but her mother has two other kids and I work nights. So we decided to keep her out of school that week. I’ll take her to New York to the museums. If she sits home and plays on the computer that’s OK by me too, as long as she’s not at school being pressured.

The child has taken up the cause. At first she was just relieved not to have to take the test. Now she’s in the fight with us. She’s all activist-minded at this point. When we asked her how she felt about telling her story to the newspaper, she said: “Absolutely. What if there are other kids who are being pushed around and being bullied like this and their parents don’t know how to stand up for them?”

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey, Opt Out, Testing