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New York Releases Tests, Six Months After Students Took Them

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2018 //
34

The New York Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department remain firmly committed to the testing regime that has aroused so much parent rebellion and produced no gains on NAEP for 20 years. The state always finds good news in the test scores, but NAEP has been consistently flat.

Opt outs declined by a percentage point, but still nearly one of every five eligible students did not take the tests.

Long Island continues to be the epicenter of the opt out movement. About 50% of the students in Nassau and Suffolk counties did not take the tests.

Federal law (the “Every Student Succeeds Act”) says that parents have the right to opt out if their state permits it, but at the same time requires that every school must have a 95% participation rate or face sanctions–a flat contradiction.

New York has not yet clarified how it intends to punish the high-performing schools on Long Island where half the students didn’t take the tests.

This article appeared in Newsday, the main newspaper on Long Island.

The number of students boycotting state tests has declined slightly statewide, but Long Island remains a stronghold of the opt-out movement, state officials announced Wednesday.

The state Education Department, in a media advisory, said the percentage of students in grades three through eight opting out of exams last spring dipped to 18 percent, down from 19 percent in 2017 and 21 percent in 2016. Tests, which are mandated by federal law, cover English Language Arts and mathematics.

The advisory provided no specific percentage for Nassau and Suffolk counties, but did note that the bicounty region “remains the geographic area with the highest percentage of test refusals in both mathematics and ELA.” Newsday’s own surveys of Island districts last spring found boycott rates of nearly 50 percent.

Among students who took the tests statewide, 45.2 percent scored at the proficient level in English, and 44.5 percent in math, the education department reported. Agency officials said results could not be compared with those from prior years because the format of last spring’s tests was sharply revised.

Total testing days in the spring were reduced to four, down from six in prior years, in an effort to provide some relief for parents and teachers who had complained the assessments were too stressful.

New York’s opt-out movement has proved the biggest and most enduring in the nation. The movement first appeared on Long Island in 2013, then exploded statewide two years later, and has remained especially strong in Nassau and Suffolk, and in some suburbs of Westchester County and the Buffalo area.

On the Island, more than 90,000 students in grades three through eight refused to take the state English Language Arts exam in April, representing nearly 50 percent of those eligible, according to Newsday’s survey of Island districts at the time.

Across New York, the number of students boycotting the state tests from 2015 through 2017 has hovered near 200,000 of 1 million eligible pupils in each of the past three years.

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

New York: Commissioner Elia’s Misleading Description of State Tests

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2018 //
17

New York State Commissioner of Educatuon MaryEllen Elia defended the state tests in a letter to the editor of an upstate newspaper.

What was interesting was what she did not say.

She wrote:

Your recent editorial “Benefits of Regents testing still unclear” (“Another View,” Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Aug. 28) is riddled with inaccurate information about New York’s student testing requirements. For the benefit of your readers, I am writing to set the record straight.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education approved New York’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan. It reflects more than a year of collaboration with a comprehensive group of stakeholders throughout the state. Approval of our plan by USDE ensures that New York will continue to receive about $1.6 billion annually in federal funding to support elementary and secondary education in New York’s schools. Had we not received federal approval, that money would have been left on the table, to the great detriment of our students and teachers.

Over the past three years, I have communicated frequently with the USDE about test participation rates and the importance of not penalizing schools, students or anyone else when a district’s participation rate falls below the federally required level.

The editorial states that in June the Board of Regents adopted regulations to implement the state’s ESSA plan — leading your readers to believe, erroneously, that these regulations are now final. In fact, the implementing regulations are temporary. We continue to make changes to the regulations based on the many public comments received.

We anticipate the Board of Regents will discuss these comments and proposed modifications to the draft regulations at its September meeting. The revised regulations will again go out for comment before they are permanently adopted. We hope your readers will participate in this ongoing public comment process.

Your editorial also is misleading in its claim that releasing state test results in September “makes the testing data nearly useless for school districts.” Here are the facts. In early June, schools and school districts were able to access instructional reports for the 2018 state assessments. At the same time, the department released about 75 percent of the test questions that contribute to student scores. The instructional reports, together with the released test questions, are used by schools and districts for summer curriculum-writing and professional development activities. Additionally, while statewide test results are not yet publicly available, we have already provided districts with their students’ score information. Districts can — and should — use this information to help inform instructional decisions for the upcoming school year.

The state Education Department’s stance remains unchanged: There should be no financial penalties for schools with high opt out rates. We continue to review the public comments on this and other proposed regulations, and those comments will be carefully considered as we finalize the state’s ESSA regulations.

Ultimately, it is for parents to decide whether their child should participate in the state assessments. In making that decision, though, they should have accurate information. I hope this letter gives them a better understanding of the facts.

MaryEllen Elia
Albany
The writer is state commissioner of education.

I checked with teachers, and this is what they said.

The test scores are released long after the student has left his or her teacher and moved to a different teacher.

Most of the questions are released, but the teacher never learns which questions individual students got right or wrong.

The tests have NO DIAGNOSTIC VALUE.

The tests have NO INSTRUCTIONAL VALUE.

Apparently, it means a lot to Commissioner Elia to compare the scores of different districts, but that comparison is of no value to teachers, principals, or parents.

One middle school teacher said this to me:

“…the whole exercise is meaningless at the classroom level. Admins might look at the data when it comes to certain skills/content areas, but without looking at the questions/answers, it is not helpful for us in the trenches.”

Another teacher told me:

“…we do not get student-specific results for each question, we are supposed to look at statewide results and then somehow extrapolate that back to our classrooms, the following year, with different kids. So this is a BLUNT tool at best and students get no individual diagnostic benefit.”

The state tests are pointless and meaningless. They have no diagnostic value whatever for individual students.

Every parent in New York should understand that their children are subjected to hours of testing for no reason, other than to allow the Commissioner to compare districts. Their children receive no benefit from the testing. No teacher learns anything about their students, other than their scores.

The state tests are pointless and meaningless. They have no diagnostic value for students—or teachers.

OPT OUT.

OPT OUT.

OPT OUT.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

New York Plans to Punish Students and Schools if Parents Opt Out: A Terrible Idea!

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
39

Gary Stern of the Lohud newspaper in the Lower Hudson Valley, a region where parents are passionate about their public schools, describes New York’s intention to punish students and schools if the opt rate is high.

The state insists that every child take the tests, no matter how invalid and unreliable they are. The children must be measured and labeled!

Stern writes:

“The school year just opened, so the annual state tests in math and ELA seem like a long way off. Testing for grades 3-8 begins in early April, when the Yanks and Mets will be starting next season.

“And yet, the state Board of Regents may soon pass new rules for holding school districts and individual schools accountable if too many families “opt out” of tests. One such rule would allow the state education commissioner to direct a district to spend a portion of its federal Title I funds on “activities” to increase student participation on state tests.

“This is a terrible idea. The Regents should balk.

“Schools use Title I funds on staff and programs to help disadvantaged students — targeting everything from math and reading intervention to supports for homeless children. Taking money away from such efforts for a parent-targeted p.r. campaign? Hardly smart education funding.”

This is a very mean-spirited, stupid idea. Why would the state take money away from the neediest kids to re-educate parents?

Note to the Regents and Commissioner Elia: The children belong to their parents, not to you. Read the Pierce decision (1925).

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

New York State Allies for Public Education to State Leaders: Don’t Punish Schools and Kids for Opting Out from Senseless Testing

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2018 //
22

New York State Allies for Public Education is an organization that represents 50 parent and educator groups across the state. It has led the opt-out movement in the state. This letter was written in response to punish schools where the “participation” rate in mandated testing fell too low. The very best response to the state’s threats and warnings would be to opt out; the more that parents opt out, the less likely it is that the state can “punish” them for exercising their constitutional rights.

Dear Board of Regents, Chancellor Rosa, Commissioner Elia and Dr. Lisa Long,

We find it reprehensible that under the guise of ESSA, NYSED is seeking to punish schools when parents exercise their legal right to opt their child out of the grades 3-8 state tests and is overreaching by requiring the collection of confidential student data. These proposed provisions of the New York State ESSA regulations show a blatant disregard for the amount of public outrage over the last several years regarding the flawed New York State testing system, unproven revised common core standards, and the unnecessary collection of personally identifiable student information.

Strong opposition to the grades 3-8 common core state tests has been evidenced by 20%- 22% of eligible students throughout New York opting out of these state exams over the past three years, despite threats from the state and individual districts and a one-sided state-initiated persuasion campaign (the Commissioner’s “Toolkit”).

Only 8% of school districts in New York met the 95% testing participation rate in 2017, and while the state has not yet released the opt out figures for the 2018 grades 3-8 tests, several news accounts reveal that the opt out number will remain high, and that the majority of school districts will not have met the 95% participation rate as a result.

In addition, it took a legislative act to stop NYSED and then-Commissioner John King from collecting personally identifiable student data in the name of inBloom, a $50 million database that was going to be used for corporate data mining purposes without parental consent.

The proposed New York ESSA regulations will allow the Commissioner to mislabel schools with opt out rates over 5% — including highly effective schools — as needing Comprehensive or Targeted Support and Improvement, with the potential of wrongfully identifying schools as needing these interventions. These proposed regulations allow the Commissioner to require schools to misuse Title I funds in an effort to increase test participation rates. Moreover, the proposed regulations allow the Commissioner to close these schools, and/or convert them to charter schools. This is a dangerous path for NYS to take.

The mere suggestion of using Title I funds for ‘marketing’ of these tests is a misuse of authority that results in the revictimization and intimidation of communities that have a long history of being underserved and disempowered. Furthermore, it should be regarded as a civil rights issue as these actions will disproportionately aim to quiet the voices of schools with high populations of students from low-income households which tend to correlate with families of color.

None of these proposed provisions are required by ESSA law, none of them will improve learning conditions or outcomes for our children, and all of them contradict earlier statements from the Board of Regents and NYSED officials that schools with high opt out rates would not be punished or otherwise targeted, and/or wrongfully labeled for interventions, etc. The intention of the 95% participation rate in the ESSA law is to deter institutional/systematic exclusion by schools not to usurp parental rights.

We strongly request that NYSED remove these provisions from the proposed regulations and refrain from punishing schools when parents assert their legal right to opt out of the state tests. Moreover, under no circumstances, should NYSED collect confidential, personally identifiable student data. The ESSA law does not require punishing schools for opt out; rather, it fortifies a parent’s right to opt out. Furthermore, the ESSA law does not require collecting individual student data for the purposes of accountability, nor should the Commissioner and NYSED.

Until NYSED embraces teaching our children through the lens of whole-child education and stop test-driven classrooms, we will continue to squander opportunities to truly help all children reach their full potential. It’s time we give the children of New York a meaningful, well-rounded education, and create a nourishing environment where children flourish because they genuinely love to learn.

Respectfully,

Lisa Rudley, Executive Director

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

New York: Don’t Punish Students, Parents, and Schools for opting Out of State Tests!

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2018 //
45

Send an e-mail today.

It is wrong for the New York Board of Regents and the State Education Department to Punish kids for opting out!

Children are not the property of the state. When the state abuses them by demanding that they sit for hour after hour of standardized testing, this is child abuse.

Parents have the right to say no.

Write today. Open the link to see a sample letter and addresses.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: DeVos Denies Utah Parents their Right to Opt Out

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2018 //
16

Betsy DeVos claims to be an advocate for parental rights. She is not.

Utah passed a law recognizing the right of parents to opt their children out of state testing. The US Department of Education rejected the Utah ESSA Plan because it respects parents’ rights.

I want to remind every reader to recognize that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed parental rights in a 1925 decision called “Pierce v. Society of Sisters.”the right of parents to make decisions about their child.” That decision rejected an Oregon law that required every child to attend public schools, not private or religious schools. The court said, in a decision that was never reversed and has often been cited, that the child is not a “mere creature of the state,” and parents have the power to make decisions for their children, excepting (I believe) where their health and safety are concerned.

Given DeVos’ advocacy for school choice and parental rights, it is shocking that she has agreed to punish the schools, the children and families of Utah for recognizing the rights of parents to refuse the state test.

In New York State, education officials are threatening financial punishments and other more drastic actions for schools that don’t meet the 95% participation rate. Very few schools in the state did. We will see a state takeover of 90% of the schools in the state?

ACLU, where are you?

Categories Accountability, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), New York, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, Utah

NYSAPE Blasts New York Plan to Punish Schools Where Parents Opt Out

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2018 //
13

New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of 50 parent and educator groups, issued a statement denouncing New York state’s plan to punish schools where participation in testing drops below 95%.

The state ESSA plan says that such schools may be humiliated with low rankings, lose their Title 1 funding, be closed, or turned into charter schools.

This is clearly a harsh, unreasonable, almost fanatical effort to punish opt outs. Since the opt movement is strongest on Long Island, where some of the state’s best schools are located, the state is threatening to punish its best schools, principals, and teachers because of the decisions made by parents.

My view: the New York State Education Department is acting like a bully. Whoever made this decision should back off and remember that they are public servants, not masters. This is a democracy, not a tyranny. This behavior on the part of state officials is outrageous. There is nothing holy or sacrosanct about the state tests. Reasonable people can differ about their value. Parents have the right to withhold their children from state testing if they so choose. Almost 100 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that children do not belong to the state. (Pierce v. Society of Sisters [1925]). This ruling overturned an Oregon law that required all children to attend public schools.

The NYSAPE statement begins:

“This afternoon, Class Size Matters and NYS Allies for Public Education sent the below letter to Commissioner Elia and the NYS Board of Regents, expressing our strong objections to the draft ESSA regulations that were released last month.

“These regulations violate assurances that were given parents that NYSED would continue to respect their rights to opt their children out of the state exams. Instead the regs would allow the Commissioner to wrongly identify their children’s schools in need of “Comprehensive Support,” withhold Title One funds and even close these schools or turn them into charters if the opt out rates were judged too high. NYSUT, the state teachers union, sent a similar letter of protest on May 29.

“The Regents will be discussing these regs at their meeting on Monday, June 11. Feel free to contact Elia at Commissioner@nysed.gov or your Regents member to make your voices heard. You can also submit comments through July 9 to ESSAREGCOMMENT@nysed.gov”

Please read the full statement here.

https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/06/class-size-matters-nysape-protest.html

Categories Opt Out, Parent Groups

Southold, New York, Unveils Its Giant Mother Goose Shoe: “Restoring Play to Childhood”

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2018 //
9

The Southold Elementary School celebrated the unveiling of a giant Mother Goose shoe, which children can play on.

The shoe symbolizes the district’s commitment to restore play to childhood.

Children were tour guides, showing visitors the sights.

Southold is led by visionary Superintendent David Gamberg, who leads both Southold and neighboring Greenport schools.

“Gamberg said Rousseau, more than 235 years ago, said, “You will never accomplish your design of forming sensible adults unless you begin by making playful children.” He added, “These words are as true today and will likely be true for all time. It is in the spirit of wanting to provide healthy and happy children that we gather here today.”

“The celebration of play and outdoor learning highlighted the school’s commitment to learning outdoors, including the award winning school garden that produces hundreds of lbs. of fresh produce every year; the outdoor easels that allow children to create works of art in the natural environment; the beautiful stone amphitheater and sandboxes that provide opportunities for creative play, and a life sized chess and a traditional swing set, as well as climbing equipment, Gamberg said.”

What a wonderful community for children.

Southold has a high opt-out rate. It also has a superb arts, music, and theatre program.

http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2018/05/82207/mother-goose-shoe-unveiled-southold-elementary-school/

Categories Arts Education, Childhood, New York, Opt Out, Play

Arne’s Frankenstein Still Lives

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2018 //
11

New York and other states continue to be saddled with the toxic gift bestowed (i.e., imposed) as part of Arne Duncan and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top. When New York applied for Race to the Top funding, it agreed to pass a law making test scores a “significant” part of teacher evaluations. It did. The law has been a source of ongoing controversy. It is completely ineffectual–every year, 95-97% of teachers are rated either Highly Effective or Ineffective. Parents rebelled because their children were put into the awkward position of determining their teachers’ ratings, and many objected to the pressure. The result was the Opt Out Movement. Andrew Cuomo was gung-ho for evaluating teachers by test scores, assuming that it would identify the “bad teachers” who should be terminated, and he insisted that test scores should be 50%, no less, in rating teachers. When the Opt Out movement claimed 20% of all eligible students in 3-8, Cuomo appointed a commission to study the issues and asked for a four-year moratorium on use of the scores to evaluate teachers. The moratorium ends next year.

This is an excellent analysis of the mess in New York by Gary Stern, a first-rate reporter for Lohud (Lower Hudson Valley) News.

He writes:

New York state’s teacher evaluation system is a lot like Frankenstein’s monster.

It was a high-minded experiment that turned out ghastly in 2011, scaring the heck out of teachers and their bosses. The monster was repeatedly cut up and sewed back together in search of something better, but just got nastier. Many parents, fearing for the well-being of teachers, rebelled with the educational equivalent of pitchforks and torches: Opting their kids out from state tests.

As a result, a moratorium was put in place in 2015, through the 2019-20 school year, on the most controversial part of the system — the attempted use of standardized test scores to measure the impact of individual teachers on student progress.

The monster was tranquilized, and things quieted down.

Now a bill in Albany, which looks likely to pass, is being hailed by NYSUT and legislators as the answer to putting Frankenstein out of his misery. The bill (A.10475/S.08301) would eliminate the mandatory use of state test scores in teacher (and principal) evaluations, referring to math and ELA tests for grades 3-8 and high school Regents exams. School districts that choose alternative student assessments for use in evaluating teachers would have to do so through collective bargaining with unions.

But the evaluation monster would still live, perhaps in a semi-vegetative state, seemingly hooked up to wires in the basement of the state Education Department.

NYSUT, which represents 600,000 teachers and others, likes this deal. But groups representing school boards and superintendents are antsy. They don’t want teachers unions involved in choosing student assessments. And they say that the bill could lead to more testing, since students will still have to take the 3-8 tests and Regents exams.

Untangling this mess is not for the faint of heart. Even Dr. Frankenstein might look away…

The evaluation system was devised at the height of the “reform” era, when federal and state officials wanted to show that public schools were failing. Gov. Andrew Cuomo prized the evaluation system as a way to drive out crummy teachers. But the whole thing fell flat. As one principal told me, “If I don’t like a teacher, should I root for their students to do poorly on the state tests?”…

As the system is currently stitched together, about half a teacher’s evaluation is based on how students do on various assessments. Most teachers don’t have students who take state tests, so their evaluations are based on a hodgepodge of student measurements. A recent study of 656 district plans across New York, by Joseph Dragone of Capital Region BOCES, found more than 500 different combinations of student assessments in use.

To game the system, more and more districts are applying common measurements of student progress to teachers across grades or schools or even districtwide. Get this: Dragone found that 28 percent of districts use high school Regents exams, in part, to evaluate K-2 teachers.

What’s the value of all this? Primarily, to comply with state requirements for a failed system.

He concludes that no one knows how to fix this mess. It is not enough to stitch up Frankenstein one more time.

But there is an answer.

Repeal the entire system created in response to Race to the Top demands. It failed. Race to the Top failed. Why prop up or revise a failed system?

Let districts decide how to evaluate their teachers. Why does the state need to prescribe teacher evaluation? What does the Legislature know about teacher evaluation? Nothing. Districts don’t want “bad” teachers. Let Arne’s Frankenstein go to its deserved grave.

Categories Duncan, Arne, New York, Opt Out, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

Students in Brooklyn Middle School Lead Opt Out Protest

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2018 //
4

 

Those people who think that opting out of state tests is only for affluent white kids in the suburbs should watch this video. 

It shows African American students at the Brooklyn Collaborative Middle School leading a protest against state testing and taking their Message to other schools in their neighborhood.

Students in New York City have no participated in the opt out movement because the city’s education leaders have warned them of dire consequences to them as individuals and to their school. They have never been informed that they have a right to refuse the tests.

Categories New York City, Opt Out, Standardized Testing, Students
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