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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

Peter Greene: More Craigs’ List Advertising for Test Scorers at $11.20 an Hour

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2015 //
20

Peter Greene reports on another test-scoring company looking for test scorers.

 

Measurement Incorporated boasts ten scoring centers, which is a good thing because “to guarantee test security, all work has to be done at one of our Scoring Centers in Tennessee, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Kansas and Washington or from a secure work station in your home.”

 

The ad, which went up ten days ago, is part of a recruiting drive for the test-correction high season of March and April. “These projects may include scoring test items in reading, math, science, social studies, or written essays. The tests come from many different states representing students at all grade levels.”

 

The job starts at $11.20. After logging 450 hours, workers are eligible to bump up to $11.95. Day and night shifts are available, and workers are expected to put in five days a week.

 

Peter Greene’s summary:

 

I expect we’ll continue to see many of these smaller companies scarfing up sub-contracts for the Big Guys and handling the business of hiring part-timers to help make decisions about the fate of America’s children, teachers, and schools. Only one of two things can be true here– either the system is so simplified and so user-proof that it doesn’t really matter who’s doing the scoring work (in which case it’s a dopey system that gives back very little information and is easy to game) or it does matter who’s doing the scoring (in which case, the use of part-time temps who are available only because they couldn’t find a real job is not exactly comforting). Either way, this is one more big fat reminder that the Big Standardized Test is a dumb way to assess any part of America’s education system.

 

Yet another reason to opt out of this system.

 

 

Categories Education Industry, Opt Out, Testing

BATS Congratulate Hillary Clinton and Tell Her They Are Ready to Pitch In If…….

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2015 //
69

The Badass Teachers Association wrote a letter congratulating Hillary Clinton on her announced candidacy for the Presidency. They remind her of many strong statements she has made in support of public education. And they pose a list of issues that are very important to them and to teachers and parents across the nation.

 

This is an excerpt from the BATs letter to Hillary:

 

We have been reviewing the history of your educational platform with interest in anticipation of your announcement.

 

In 2000 you said:

 

“I’ve been involved with schools now for 17 years, working on behalf of education reform. And I think we know what works. We know that getting classroom size down works. That’s why I’m for adding 100,000 teachers to the classroom. We know that modernizing and better equipping our schools works. And we know that high standards works. But what’s important is to stay committed to the public school system.”

 

As an organization we could NOT agree more. We believe that when you add REAL educators to the table when discussing education policy, you do so because educators know what works.

 

In 2007 at the NYSUT Convention in NY you said,

 

“Public education must be defended, yes it has to be modernized but never doubt for a minute if we turned our back on public education we would be turning our back on America. I will not let that happen.”

 

We are pleased to hear those amazing words of support for public education. In your long history of public service, you have proven you can be a friend to education. You pushed for universal pre-kindergarten, arts education, after-school tutoring, smaller class sizes and the rights of families. As a college student in the 1960s, you even volunteered to teach reading to children in poor Boston neighborhoods. You fought to ensure voting access for African Americans and even worked at an alternative newspaper in the black community.
In 2007, you said of testing:

 

NCLB stifles originality and forces teachers to focus on preparing students for tests. You criticized the program as underfunded and overly restrictive.
You asked delegates at the NEA of New Hampshire, “While the children are getting good at filling in all those little bubbles, what exactly are they really learning?”
You continued, “How much creativity are we losing? How much of our children’s passion is being killed?”

 

We are hoping that statements like this follow you into the White House!

 

In 2007 you said of public education:

 

“The majority of children are educated in the public education system. So we have to support the public education system whether or not our children are in it or whether or not we have children. The public education system is a critical investment for the well-being of all of us.”

 

We could not agree with you more. We feel , like you, that an investment in strong public education is the best investment this country can make!

 

We were most happy to hear this statement that you made in 2007, “I do not support vouchers. And the reason I don’t is because I don’t think we can afford to siphon dollars away from our underfunded public schools.”

 

Many educators are skeptical of promises because they feel betrayed by President Obama and Arne Duncan, whose program differs not at all from NCLB (except that it is ever more punitive and has set off a national fetish for measuring teachers by student test scores, a practice unknown in any of the world’s high-performing nations). Teachers, principals, and the millions who work in public schools and support public schools are looking for a genuine commitment to strengthen our nation’s public education system and to stop expanding privatization.

 

Will Hillary Clinton win the support of educators? She has her work cut out for her to win their hearts and minds after the last seven years of test-and-punish-and-privatize. In 2000, before the charter industry evolved into a competitive and boastful sector, embraced by the Walton family and rightwing governors; before the federal government mandated high-stakes testing every year for every child from grades 3-8; before the U.S. Department of Education became the cheerleader for profit making enterprises, charter schools, the Common Core, and the testing industry; before Teach for America lost its idealism and turned into a richly funded temp agency; before the onslaught against collective bargaining and teachers’ due process rights; Hillary’s commitment to public education would not have been doubted. But Arne Duncan has managed to demoralize educators and turn the federal department of education into a source of unfunded mandates and bad, top-down ideas. Hillary Clinton will have to prove herself to educators and parents to win their support. They were fooled once.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democrats, Education Reform, Privatization, 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

Help These Teachers Make Robo-Call to Every Parent in Néw York: Opt Out!

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2015 //
13

A group of teachers in New York have an audacious idea. They are raising money to make a Robo-call to every public school parent in the state. They are close to their goal. They need your help.

They write:

“We have, in a little over a week, come very near to achieving what seemed like the impossible. At the time of this writing, we are on the final push to our funding goal. We did a tremendous amount of work, sometimes going without sleep or meals, and hope that our action inspires others. We have raised enough funds to place robocalls to strategic areas throughout New York, and our ultimate goal is to call the entire state, so donations are urgently needed at this time. Our ripple in New York will add to the wave being felt throughout the nation. To donate and help us complete our mission, go to:

http://www.crowdrise.org/refusethetestsrobocall.

I will contribute, will you? If they got $10 from everyone who reads this, they would succeed and keep going.

The billionaires have the money. We have the ideas, the enthusiasm, and the energy of millions of educators and parents. And we are on the right side of history. Not high-stakes testing. Not privatization. Great public schools for all children.

Categories Opt Out, Resistance, Students, Teachers, Testing

BREAKING NEWS: Michigan PTA Wants Halt to State Online Assessments

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2015 //
13

Michigan PTA passed a resolution asking the state to stop the online testing. The state said no. They forgot that public education is for the public, not for the bureaucracy.

MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2015
Michigan PTA Adopts M-Step Resolution

The Michigan PTA recently adopted the Clarkston PTA Council’s resolution calling on the State Legislature and the Michigan Department of Education to cease the administration of the M-Step assessment, scheduled to begin on April 13. The resolution follows:

Michigan PTA’s
M-Step
Resolution (Adopted 2015)

WHEREAS the State of Michigan
implemented a new statewide, standardized test on November 13, 2014, after the school year
had begun;

put in place required testing windows after the curriculum was set, meaning some content
included in the M-STEP may not yet be covered;

communicated changes in test requirements on January 29, 2015, resulting in potential shifts in schedules for the computer-based version;

released the test software on February 26, 2015, a month and a half prior to testing, revealing
the need for updates to the existing technology in a number of districts;

notified schools on March 12, 2015 that the management portion of eDIRECT, used to print test tickets (27,357 tickets for an 8,000-student district) and to input test accommodations and student related information, will not be released until April 3, 2015, the first day of a week-long holiday for many school districts, which necessitates the re-work of test schedules to allow for completion of above tasks on the first day of testing, April 13, 2015;

requires the presence of test proctors paid by school districts;

will discontinue the M-STEP assessment after one year to create a different tool for the school
year 2015-16 and beyond; and

WHEREAS the State, in November 2014, notified school districts that the M-STEP would utilize a computer-adaptive format, meaning that it would individualize the assessment questions for students based upon their responses; and

on February 9, 2015, notified school districts that M-STEP is not computer adaptive; and

WHEREAS the State originally notified school districts that M-STEP data would be available to schools shortly after the tests were administered so that schools could use the data to inform instruction; and as of March 24, 2015, cannot confirm when M-STEP data will be available to school districts after the test is completed; and

WHEREAS the M-STEP, due to technology limitations in a number of school districts, will disrupt schooling, render technology inaccessible for curricular needs, and interrupt the exploration of content from April to June, meaning that secondary students will miss out on classroom time and new learning in order to take the M-STEP; and

WHEREAS the State has determined that it will use M-STEP results to prescribe how districts will allocate At-Risk funding, which the State has historically targeted toward students at risk of failing in school due to adverse factors in their lives;

WHEREAS the M-STEP process, in its entirety, is largely out of the control of local school districts;

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED: That Michigan PTA

● Calls for the immediate cessation of the M-STEP assessment process and administration for the year 2014-2015;

● Calls for not utilizing M-STEP’s results to negatively impact school district funding and funding allocations.

● Supports a balanced, localized, nationally normed assessment system.

Categories Michigan, 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

Tennessee Legislature Seeks to Reduce Test Scores’ Role in Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
8

The House members of the Tennessee legislature voted unanimously to reduce the role of test scores in teacher evaluations, at least temporarily. Controversy continues about whether teachers and other school staff should be evaluated by the scores of students they don’t teach. (Note: readers, please tell Andrew Cuomo that other states are reducing the role of test scores, not increasing them.)

 

A bill that temporarily would alter the amount that student test score growth impacts teacher evaluations in Tennessee passed unanimously in the House Thursday. But first, lawmakers debated the merits of a system that grades teachers based on scores in subjects they don’t teach.
The proposal, brought to the legislature by Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
The bill proposes to phase in the weight of test scores as the state transitions to its new assessment, called TNReady, which will be rolled out during the 2015-2016 school year. Under the proposal, scores from the new test would account only for 10 percent of the teacher evaluation score in 2015-16 and 25 percent in 2016-17, before returning to the current 35 percent in the 2017-2018 school year.
The policy also addresses concerns that teachers of non-tested subjects — such as art and physical education, as well as school counselors — can be penalized for test scores they don’t directly impact. The bill proposes that student growth for those positions count for 10 percent in 2015-16, down from 25 percent, and move to 15 percent in subsequent school years.
Some legislators said that provision is inadequate, however. House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley) offered an amendment that would prohibit test scores from impacting evaluations of non-testing teachers at all. He said allowing educators to be graded based on the scores of other teachers is akin to grading students based on the scores of their peers.
“Parents would be outraged,” Fitzhugh said.
Rep. Mark White maintained the bill is fair without the amendment, however, because no teacher works in isolation. “Does the librarian not have an effect on student reading?” he asked. “Can a guidance counselor not play a role in affecting student performance?”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee, Testing

Peter Greene: Charters Have Failed As “Laboratories of Innovation”

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
69

Peter Greene reminds us that charter schools were supposed to be laboratories of innovation–freed from central bureaucracy, freed from state regulations and mandates. But, he says, they have utterly failed. They were also originally supposed to be schools that gathered in the students who were most at risk of dropping out or who had already dropped out, but most compete to get high test scores to prove they are “better” than public schools, so they avoid the neediest students or counsel them out. Charters would be perceived differently if they stopped bragging and started admitting that they face the same challenges as public schools, but with fewer constraints.

 

Greene writes:

 

Here’s my challenge for charter fans– name one educational technique, one pedagogical breakthrough, that started at a charter school and has since spread throughout the country to all sorts of public schools.

 

After all these years of getting everything they wanted, modern charter schools have nothing to teach the public schools of the US…..

 

Both this profile from the New York Times and a teacher interview with Diane Ravitch show that the widely-lauded Success Academy model of New York is based on the emotional brutalization of children and tunnel-vision focus on The Test. This is justified by an ugly lie– that if poor kids can get the same kind of test scores as rich kids, the doors will open to the same kind of success.

 

Put all that together with a mission to weed out those students who just can’t cut it the SA way, and you have a model that cannot, and should not be exported to public schools. Success Academy demonstrates that charters don’t necessarily need to cream for the best and the brightest, but just for the students who can withstand their particular narrow techniques.

 

But then, most modern charters are fundamentally incompatible with the core mission of public schools, which is to teach every single child. Examination of charters show over and over and over again that they have developed techniques which work– as long as they get to choose which students to apply them to. New Jersey has been rather fully examined in this light, and the lesson of New Jersey charters is clear– if you get to pick and choose the students you teach, you can get better results.

 

This is the equivalent of a laboratory that announces, “We can show you a drug that produces fabulous hair growth, as long as you don’t make us demonstrate it on any bald guys.”

 

Modern charters have tried to shift the conversation, to back away from the “laboratory” narrative. Nowadays, they just like to talk about how they have been successful. These “successes” are frequently debatable and often minute, but they all lack one key ingredient for legitimate laboratory work– replication by independent researchers….

 

Maybe, as Mike Petrilli suggested, it’s time to stop talking about charters as laboratories and stop pretending that they’re discovering anything other than “If you get to pick which students you’re going to teach, you can get stuff done” (which as discoveries go is on the order of discovering that water is wet). There may well be an argument to make about charters as a means of providing special salvation for one or two special starfish. But if that’s the argument we’re going to have, let’s just drop the whole pretense that charters are discovering anything new or creating new educational methods that will benefit all schools, and start talking about the real issue– the establishment of a two-tier schools system to separate the worthy from the rabble.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Testing

FairTest: The Astonishing Revolution Against High-Stakes Testing, from Coast to Coast

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2015 //
14

FairTest has been fighting the misuse of standardized testing since 1985. Here is their weekly update on the exploding movement to curb high-stakes testing and to opt students out of testing to send a message to policymakers:

The assessment reform movement gains momentum across the U.S. and even beyond national borders, as parents, students, teachers, administrators, and school board members say “Enough is enough” to standardized exam misuse and overuse. Now is the time to ratchet up pressure on members of Congress and state legislatures to roll back test-and-punish mandates!

Less Testing: More Teaching — Contact U.S. Senators April 8 National Day of Action for “No Child Left Behind” Overhaul
http://fairtest.org/national-day-action-april-8

Fact vs Threat: Schools Unlikely to Lose Federal Funds Due to High Opt Out Numbers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/02/will-schools-lose-federal-funds-if-kids-dont-take-mandated-tests-fact-vs-threat/

Atlanta School Test Cheating: Lessons Policy Makers Ignore

Bob Schaeffer of FairTest on Atlanta Cheating Scandal

Are Exit Exams Necessary?: More States Say “No”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/03/are-high-school-exit-exams-necessary-more-states-are-saying-no/

Join the Obamas to Opt Out of High-Stakes Testing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/join-the-obamas-and-optou_b_7009588.html

California Testing Companies Fight for Assessment Contract
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article17481269.html

Colorado Districts Report High Opt-Out Levels
http://www.reporterherald.com/ci_27829826/16-percent-opt-out-parcc

Colorado Students Use Test Opt-Out Time for Education
http://co.chalkbeat.org/2015/04/03/readers-how-our-students-spent-their-opt-out-time/#.VR7WI5NLUZw

Delaware Parents Protest Standardized Exams; Support Opt-Out Bill
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2015/04/01/parent-group-protests-standardized-testing/70805516/

District of Columbia Test Cheating: How Did it Differ from Atlanta

What Exactly Were the Differences Between Cheating in Atlanta Under Beverly Hall and the Cheating in DC Under Michelle Rhee?

Florida Senate Passes Bill Curbing State Testing Amid GOP Anger
http://www.wptv.com/news/state/florida-senate-passes-testing-bill-amid-gop-anger

High Time for a Testing Timeout
http://staugustine.com/opinions/2015-04-04/editorial-high-time-testing-timeout#.VSBc5kZLUZw

Georgia: Atlanta Cheating Verdict Reveals Education “Reform” Failure
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/01/atlanta-cheating-scandal-education-reform
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2015/0402/Atlanta-teacher-convictions-Do-standardized-testing-pressures-foster-cheating-video

Indiana Students Organize Screening of Anti-Testing Film
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/students-organize-screening-of-anti-testing-film/article_dda5a78d-6a78-572f-88d8-0d306f833f74.html

Louisiana: Debunking the Post-Katrina “Miracle”
http://www.alternet.org/education/debunking-new-orleans-miracle

Maryland Parent Explains Why So Many Families Are Opting Out of Testing
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-parcc-letter-20150403-story.html

Massachusetts: Tell the Schools, “No PARCC For My Kids”
http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/letters/ci_27826889/tell-schools-no-parcc-my-kids#ixzz3W4L0Gv7G

Massachusetts Students Explain Test Flaws
http://wgbhnews.org/post/and-you-thought-mcas-was-controvertial-get-ready-parcc

Minnesota Governor Continues Effort to Reduce Testing After Rejection by Feds
http://www.inforum.com/news/education/3714072-dayton-seeks-options-reducing-testing

Mississippi Common Core Testing A Battleground Issue
http://www.sunherald.com/2015/04/04/6159459/qa-common-core-student-testing.html

New Hampshire Districts Develop Performance Assessment Systems
http://nhpr.org/post/districts-experimenting-new-tests-writing-questions-only-half-task

New Jersey PARCC Test Refusals Top 50,000
http://www.app.com/story/news/education/in-our-schools/2015/03/31/parcc-refusals-top/70720628/
Nearly 40% of Montclair Students Opted Out from PARCC Test

39% of Students in Montclair, New Jersey, Opt Out of PARCC Tests

New York Districts Forced to Drop “Sit and Stare” for Students Who Opt Outhttp://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/amherst/amherst-drops-sit-and-stare-policy-for-students-who-opt-out-of-testing-20150331

Thousands of New York City Families Will Boycott Math, Reading Exams
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nyc-familes-boycott-state-math-reading-exams-activists-article-1.2174033

North Carolina School Grading System Should Be Erased
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article17248595.html

North Carolina Teachers Tell Board There’s Too Much Testing
http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x626360898/DPS-teachers-believe-there-s-too-much-testing

Ohio Auditor Continues Probe Into Test Score Manipulation
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/04/03/painstaking-probes-into-datascandal-still-rolling.html

Ohio First Year of PARCC Implementation No Picnic
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/04/06/experts-first-year-of-testing-no-picnic.html

Oregon Sees More Than a Thousand Opt Outs So Far
http://www.opb.org/news/article/hundreds-of-portland-area-students-opt-out-of-new-state-exams/

Oregon Letter Blasts Damage to Education From “No Child Left Behind” Testing Law
http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/letters/20150401/letter-no-child-left-behind-had-negative-effects-on-us-students

Pennsylvania High-Stakes Testing Has Many Problems
http://www.dailyitem.com/opinion/my-turn-problems-with-high-stakes-standardized-testing/article_d8ea31a2-d7e6-11e4-8412-fbe7a22385bd.html

Less Testing, More Teaching: A Great Move for Pennsylvania Schools
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/editorials/more-teaching-less-testing-a-good-move-for-pa-schools/article_cd3550be-d4bf-11e4-9ab5-7745642245a9.html

Rhode Island Students and Teachers Find Faults With PARCC Test
http://www.warwickonline.com/stories/Students-teachers-find-fault-with-PARCC-test,101207

Texas Anti-Testing Push Continues at State, Local Levels
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Anti-testing-push-continues-at-state-and-local-6182214.php

Texas Families Start STAAR Opt-Out Movement
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Opting-out-Houston-parents-say-no-to-6171277.php

Washington State Tests Useless for Measuring Teacher Effectiveness
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/test-are-useless-for-measuring-teacher-effectiveness/

Washington Parents Protest Use of Non-Validated Smarter Balanced Exams

Pearson and others are exploiting our children by using them to establish the validity, or lack thereof, of the SBAC

Canada Testing the Idea of Scrapping High-Stress Exams
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Testing+idea+scrapping+high+stress+exams/10945661/story.html

United Kingdom Teachers Endorse Boycott of New Test of Four-Year Olds
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3025151/NUT-debate-tests-4-year-olds.html

“Hocus Pocus” and the History of High-Stakes Testing in the U.S.
http://www.livingindialogue.com/hocus-pocus-and-the-history-of-high-stakes-tests/

The Lost Purpose of School Reform
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/apr/02/lost-purpose-no-child-left-behind/

Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
office- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779
mobile- (239) 699-0468
web- http://www.fairtest.org

Categories Opt Out, Resistance, Testing
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