“There are teacher evaluations that are in the report and they are connected to tests, either state tests or locally approved tests,” Cuomo said on Sunday in Syracuse.
Tag: standardized testing
McMullan- What, exactly, is unethical?
I took the piece below from the Students Not Scores website. It was written by the PJSTA’s very own Melissa McMullan in response to New York State Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia referring to teachers as being “unethical” if they support the opt-out movement.
In addition to being one of the best writers I know, Melissa is as passionate of an activist as you can find and I am proud to count her among the PJSTA’s rank and file!
What, exactly, is unethical?
If you are a parent of school-age children in grades three through eight in New York State, if you are fortunate like me, you received a letter from your child’s school district asking you to indicate your choice, for your child, regarding New York State’s grade three through eight testing program. For me, this is a very simple choice. Given the complexities of assessment in New York State, it is important that you have some very honest, straightforward information from a teacher who is also a parent.
Developmental Appropriateness
The assessments, especially the English Language Arts Exam (ELA), are not developmentally appropriate for many children. Last year’s sixth grade ELA contained a vast number of scientific terms that many adults would have a difficult time working with, such as “polymers” and “sodium polyacrylate”. Sixth grade children will read passages, and have to respond to questions such as “How does the arrival of electricity propel the main events of the plot?” or “The author conveys the purpose of the article by” and swim through four different choices and determine not the correct answer, but the answer that best answers the question. You need to know that we, as teachers, upon reading the passages and the questions, argue over which choices are the “best answers”. If we cannot be certain, how can a child be certain? I urge you to go read the passages and questions released by the state: https://www.engageny.org/resource/released-2015- 3-8-ela-and-mathematics-state-test-questions
Fluctuating Passing Scores
When teachers give students an assessment in the classroom, both teachers and students have very clear understandings of what a passing score is, and what needs to happen to make it possible. This is because the purpose of any test or quiz a teacher gives is to check for understanding. Showing understanding is very clear and concise on a teacher’s test or quiz. We are all familiar with standard passing grades (for my students and I, passing is answering a minimum of 65% of the test or quiz accurately). On the New York State Assessments over the last ten years in sixth grade, the raw score required to pass with a three (proficiency) has fluctuated like the barometric pressure – from answering 73% of questions correctly to answering 82% of questions correctly the next year. How can we follow a child’s progress when we move the bar up and down? Can you imagine measuring your child’s height with a measurement system that changed sizes from year to year?
An Inability to Inform Instruction
Anything a child does in a classroom should be linked to his / her own personal growth. Teachers provide experiences and assessments that help them know what their students know and don’t know. A test or quiz given in the classroom helps a teacher know where each child is within the given subject matter. When our children take New York State Assessments, over multiple weeks, and innumerable hours (more than the MCAT to enter medical school), teachers gain no information that can help their students. We do not get any information that would help us better meet our students’ needs. In my classroom, if something does not benefit my students, we don’t do it. Commissioner Elia, at the helm of the New York State Department of Education, is calling teachers who speak out against New York State Testing “unethical”. It would be unethical for me to remain silent about the failures of our state assessment system. It is unethical for the state to cherry-pick passages and questions for parents to read, as parents are trying to gain understandings about the assessments their children are asked to take. These assessments should be released in their entireties so people can make informed decisions. Each parent has the right to decide whether his/her child participates in this system. You are urged to go read the questions released by the state. Additionally, ask your child’s teacher what assessments he/she is already using in his/her classroom to inform instruction, and ask how they are used. Our children have the right to a public educational system that places learning, not testing, first. We, as parents, have the right, and the obligation, to make sure this what our children receive in school.
John Oliver Talks Standardized Testing
Another Heroic Superintendent
The heroic actions of our own Dr. Rella are well documented in our school community and a few weeks ago we told you of another heroic superintendent from Western New York, Dr. William Cala. Now we can add Shoreham-Wading River’s Dr. Steven Cohen to the list. Check out the letter below that was sent home to parents today…
Heroic PTA
We have seen organic opt-out movements over the past couple of years from parents in different parts of the state. We have seen a few heroic teachers, including our very own Beth Dimino, refuse to administer state assessments in the spring. Now it appears as though PTA’s are stepping up as well. The Bennett School PTA, located in Shandaken New York, up in the Catskills region is now “encouraging our parent body in grades three to six to refuse the state tests in ELA, math and science this spring.”
Boycott state tests
Dear Editor:
There is growing frustration with the amount of testing our young children are subjected to. I have noticed a significant loss of instruction time, an increased level of stress in the classroom and a poor message to our children about the importance of tests.
The average fourth-grade student is 9 years old and is required by the state Department of Education to prepare for three state exams in the spring: English Language Arts, math and science. These tests total eight days of administration, as well as three to six weeks of test preparation. In total, our children are losing four to six weeks of in-class instruction time per test.
Our children also take ELA and math tests three times a year to monitor their progress. They also take pre- and post-assessment tests in art, music, library, physical education and social studies, totaling 21 standardized tests annually. The numbers are the same for grades three to six, with the exception of the state science test.
It is no wonder we are seeing a loss of hands-on, inquiry-based learning in our classrooms. With the emphasis on math and ELA testing, we are witnessing the erosion of science and social studies from the curriculum.
Excessive testing teaches our children that there is only one right answer in academics and in life. It takes the joy out of learning and minimizes the value and importance of taking a test when it really counts. And it is ruining public education.
As an immediate solution, members of the Bennett School PTA are encouraging our parent body in grades three to six to refuse the state tests in ELA, math and science this spring. These tests are inappropriate for our children, are unfair to our teachers, take away valuable classroom time and are not part of our child’s overall grade or individual assessment.
We intend to send a message to the state.
Heather Roberts, Vice President
Bennett School PTA
Shandaken, N.Y.
This is really great to see. I hope this starts a trend among local PTA’s in the state!
How to Contribute to NYSAPE Opt-Out Billboards
NYSAPE has started a campaign to purchase “Refuse the Tests” ads on billboards placed strategically around the state. This fall all PJSTA members reduced their VOTE-COPE contributions to $0 for the year. Please consider putting some of that savings towards NYSAPE’s very worthy cause.
Via NYSAPE…
Our kids are being hurt by excessive testing that has taken over and replaced learning in our schools. And yet our elected leaders, including Gov. Cuomo, are doubling down on these damaging high-stakes tests. More than 60,000 kids refused to take the state tests last year. Help New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of more than 50 parent and community groups, pay for billboards in key areas of NY state to urge even more parents to opt their children out of these exams this spring. Whether you can donate $5, or $100, please help us reach our goal of $8,500.
Teacher Refusal Videos
In case you missed it on News 12, you can view the story about Beth Dimino refusing to administer the state tests here.
In related news, you can watch the video below of sixth-grade teacher Jennifer Rickert from upstate New York as she announces her decision not to administer state tests this year.
A Few Links on State of the State Day
Governor Cuomo, who yesterday said that public education, “Probably has been the single greatest failure in the state,” gives his state of the state address today at 1:30 pm. I am sure there will be plenty of reaction afterward as Cuomo launches his plan to eviscerate public education. While we wait for that a few links from the past few days…
- Shoreham-Wading River Superintendent Steven Cohen writes about Cuomo and Tisch’s plan to remove local control from districts and replace it with “state control.” Via the Riverhead News-Review…
So, what does “state,” as opposed to “local,” control mean? First, as a result of previous legislative action, namely the 2 percent cap on tax levy increases, democracy is out the window because a minority of residents has more power than the majority when it comes to deciding how much money will be spent in a given district.
Now comes the chancellor’s suggestions that locally elected school boards should no longer have control over determining whether teachers and principals do a good job and that all teachers and principals who do not meet the state’s standard of successful teaching or supervising two years in a row must lose their jobs.
Chancellor Tisch suggests that the content all children must learn and the methods teachers must use to teach that content will be determined by the state, not local residents in accord with professional educators, acting through democratically elected school board members. She suggests that charter schools, over which local residents have little if any control, would be completely free to flourish (or not!) and to replace democratically run local schools.
These charters, it should be emphasized, do not have to serve all children the way local, democratic and free schools must. And, as we all know by now, the education department will use tests purchased from private companies as the principal tool to determine whether kids are thriving, and thus whether their teachers ought to remain in the classroom.
So the non-elected chancellor and the current governor believe local control of education has failed. The great experiment is dead. What will take its place is a technocratic process so complex that it is almost impossible for parents, residents and educators to understand — much less embrace.
This opaque and exceedingly cumbersome and expensive process will be orchestrated from Albany. Education department bureaucrats in charge of this new system have little useful knowledge of the institution they will operate.
Local school boards, residents and parents and the staffs hired by the school boards will no longer play a central role in educating the young. This radical change, sadly, rests more on the arrogant self-regard of the chancellor, the governor and their allies than it does on any realistic assessment of the problems facing children around the state.
Poor children, regardless of race, suffer the ill effects of an education system that fails them, and has failed them for generations. But replacing democratic, local control of education with state technocratic education being pushed by a group of wealthy, non-elected reformers whose plans to improve education make sense to few people other than themselves and their paid acolytes, and whose concrete proposals come largely from for-profit companies hungry to profit off public funds, is deeply anti-democratic, not to mention foolhardy. Ms. Tisch and Gov. Cuomo have lost faith in democracy.
They would rather rely on people whom they regard as smart and well-connected — whether or not they know anything about schooling — rather than on parents, residents, experienced educators, scholars and students. To them, education must be taken out of the hands of teachers, principals and superintendents chosen by parents and residents, and instead be entrusted to companies that know one thing very well: how to make profits.
- This article shares that the governor’s approval ratings are now under water. Also the poll in the article shows voters felt by a 49%-34% margin that the Common Core should be stopped in New York.
- The hashtag #thediminoeffect is a thing now. We could have fun with that!
- Another New York State teacher does not want to give the New York State tests.
- Beth Dimino, in her statements on why she was refusing to give the state tests this year, referenced the Teachers of Conscience who refused to give the tests last year. We shared their position paper last year.
- One of the Teachers of Conscience, MORE‘s Jia Lee, will testify in the U.S. Senate on NCLB.
Dimino Refuses to Administer State Tests
PJSTA President Beth Dimino has notified the Comsewogue School District that she is refusing to administer state tests this spring.
Via the Long Island Press…
“I find myself at a point in the progress of education reform in which clear acts of conscience will be necessary to preserve the integrity of public education,” she writes. “I can no longer implement policies that seek to transform the broad promises of public education into a narrow obsession with the ranking and sorting of children.
“I will not distort curriculum in order to encourage students to comply with bubble test thinking,” continues her letter. “I can no longer, in good conscience, push aside months of instruction to compete in a state-wide ritual of meaningless and academically bankrupt test preparation. I have seen clearly how these reforms undermine teachers’ love for their profession and undermine students’ intrinsic love of learning.”
Dimino hopes other local educators will follow her lead and oppose subjecting their students to the tests by refusing to administer them.
“The next logical step has to be the movement of conscientious objectors,” she tells the Press. “I believe, and I said this to [New York State Education Commissioner John] King and [state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl] Tisch and [state] Senator [John] Flanagan at the Three Village Rally [in November 2013], that this is child abuse. I believe that it is child abuse. I believe that giving these tests to my students makes me culpable in the abuse of children and I can no longer do that.”
Dr. Rella supports and respects her decision.
“I have known Beth for over 20 years,” he says. “This was not something she has done lightly. There was a lot of soul searching that went on and she said to me, as a matter of conscience, she cannot participate. She cannot proctor this test. And I support that.”
…
To help clarify this, she’s also putting forth a proposal before the New York State United Teachers Federation (NYSUT) asking that all teachers who have school age children refuse to let them take the exams.
This resolution, which Dimino co-authored, passed her union unanimously, she says, and will be brought to the NYSUT general assembly meeting in April, and aims to coordinate local teachers unions across the state in opting their children out of the tests in solidarity.
Be sure to read the full article at the Long Island Press. More to come on this.
NY Mills, Iannuzzi, Magee
The New York Mills Teachers Association recently passed a resolution asking NYSUT’s Dick Iannuzzi to lead a statewide boycott of the grade 3-8 state assessments. Here is the full resolution…
RESOLUTION TO BOYCOTT NEW YORK STATE GRADES 3-8 ASSESSMENTS
Tuesday, February 11, 2014WHEREAS, the New York State Grades 3-8 assessments have proven to be sub-standard, unreliable measurements of student achievement and learning; and
WHEREAS, the New York State Grades 3-8 assessments require unreasonable amounts of testing time (700 minutes each spring), not reflective of best practice pedagogy; and
WHEREAS, the New York State Grades 3-8 assessments interrupt valuable instruction/learning time which can never be replaced or retrieved; and
WHEREAS, the New York State Grades 3-8 assessment contents are not reviewable to use as a guides or supplements to instruction; and
WHEREAS, the New York State Grades 3-8 assessments require the excessive expenditure of tax dollars without providing commensurate educational value, quality test construction, content or design;
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the New York Mills Teachers Association calls upon the President of the New York State United Teachers, Richard Iannuzzi, to lead the NYSUT membership in a statewide boycott of the Spring 2014 New York State Grades 3-8 assessments.
We’ll keep an eye out to see if there is a clear response from Iannuzzi. Additionally we should be looking in a direction other than just Dick Iannuzzi. Given the way NYSUT elections are run, there stands a very good chance that NYSUT delegates will have elected a new president by the time the state assessments in math are administered. Given that fact I would think it’s important to know how NYSUT Presidential candidate Karen Magee feels about leading a boycott of state tests. Should grade 3-8 teachers be preparing to boycott the math assessments if Magee is elected president? This is a significant question that needs to be answered as NYSUT delegates wade through the rhetoric to make their decisions before voting on April 5th. Unfortunately it is tough to know pretty much anything that Karen Magee thinks. She has seemingly entered the Witness Protection Program since declaring her candidacy in mid-January. It’s an odd tactic for a “grassroots” challenger to take. Of course when you have the reformy Mike Mulgrew’s curiously immediate endorsement and it’s accompanying 800 delegate votes maybe your best bet is to lay low and allow yourself to be propped up as though this were a scene from Weekend at Bernie’s.
The Official Website of the PJSTA 