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#1336308 - 04/03/12 11:05 PM
NY Parents boycott testing
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twocats
Silver Member
Registered: 02/09/10
Posts: 10728
Loc: NYS
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It's wonderful to see such truly informed parents standing up for what is best for ALL children.
Standardized testing has become an obsession for those in charge our our schools at DOE; as they increasingly base nearly all important decisions on the unreliable results of these exams. The new NY state teacher evaluation system will just make matters worse. To add insult to injury, this year's state tests will be even longer and more stressful for children. For more on this opt-out campaign, see the Change the Stakes website.
Dear fellow parents of NYC public school students,
We have two children in public elementary schools in Manhattan, and until this year, when one child entered third grade, we were extremely satisfied with the educations they were receiving. Their teachers and principals have been without exception smart, professional and deeply knowledgeable about our children as individuals. Our experience of our son’s third grade year thus far, however, has convinced us that the standardized testing that has come to dominate our schools severely compromises his teachers’ ability to do their jobs.
They have been forced to adopt inferior test-oriented teaching practices and to take too much time away from classroom activities to accommodate endless practice tests. The reward for their efforts from the Department of Education has been a completely unwarranted test-based grade of “D” for their school, which is sapping their morale. Even before the recent disastrous release of flawed teacher evaluations based on test scores, which promises to drive good teachers from the profession in droves, we had come to the conclusion that the current heavy emphasis on testing seriously undermines the quality of public education.
As parents, we feel compelled to act. We will be boycotting state-mandated standardized testing of our children for the indefinite future, with the goal of restoring control over education to those who really understand how children learn – parents and teachers. If you would like to join us or just share your impressions, please contact us using the email address given at the end of this letter, or check out the information and resources at changethestakes.org. Here are five basic reasons for our decision:
Jeff Nichols
1) Testing is dumbing down our schools. Placing standardized tests at the center of the curriculum forces the reduction or elimination of subjects like history, science, the arts and physical education, as well as narrowing the ways the “core” subjects of reading and math are taught. (For more on our opinions about this see our piece in Schoolbook: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/20/dear-governor-lobby-to-save-a-love-of-reading.)
2) Testing is unduly stressful for young children. The test preparations, including mandatory afterschool and weekend sessions and practice tests scheduled throughout the year, and the official test itself (six days of testing in the third grade, more in higher grades) are extremely onerous for young students who are compelled to sit through them. Testing often becomes torturous for special-education students, who are given the perverse “accommodation” of extra time. To make matters worse, this year the testing time is being substantially lengthened so that test designers can try out practice questions for future years, using our children as uncompensated guinea pigs.
3) Using test scores to grade teachers hurts the most vulnerable students. The use of standardized tests as the primary performance measure of teachers and schools creates a powerful incentive for teachers to avoid schools that serve students in need of extra help. Teachers often cannot significantly raise the academic performance of children who do not have adequate support for learning outside of school. Punishing teachers when students are struggling because of factors beyond their control, such as unstable home situations or learning disabilities, is gross social injustice – and it is the children who pay the price.
4) High-stakes tests force teachers to adopt bad teaching practices. The dire consequences for teachers who do not teach to the test prevent them from doing what they were trained to do: to educate our children based on their best professional judgment. Teachers who must constantly strategize to improve test scores at all costs do not have the time or the intellectual freedom to do their jobs properly, and our kids’ educations suffer.
5) Standardized tests are a waste of public money. In an age of scarcity, we should not be spending untold millions of tax dollars on practices that add nothing of value to children’s educations. Many of the finest school systems in the world do without standardized tests entirely, and such tests hardly figure in the lives of children in the elite private elementary schools that our political leaders send their kids to. We should stop funding the testing industry and use that money to hire teachers, build schools, and restore the arts and sciences to all our public schools.
We cannot allow our children to be used as tools in the enforcement of unjust laws and destructive, wasteful policies. They will be educated in public schools, and they will not take state-mandated standardized tests.
We have not come to this decision lightly. We have considered the central argument for the tests, that they are essential tools for assessing student and teacher performance, and rejected it. If the tests are necessary, why does the most successful school system in the world – Finland’s – do without them? The fact is, teaching is too complex an activity ever to be properly assessed by numerical models, which is why expensive evaluation systems based on test scores keep failing. Teachers know how to assess children’s progress, and principals, fellow teachers and parents know how to evaluate teachers, by observing their work directly.
We have been warned repeatedly of serious consequences that might arise from boycotting these tests: our children will not be permitted to move on to the next grade, or, even worse, their schools and teachers will be penalized because student absence from the tests is reflected in teacher assessments and the school’s grade. It has been suggested, in other words, that we should comply with the tests because our act of civil disobedience will cause the state to harm others. Because this is a very real danger, many parents opposed to high-stakes testing have chosen to petition for the legal right to opt out of the tests rather than to boycott them outright (information about this option is also available at changethestakes.org). However, we refuse to be intimidated by threats coming from the Department of Education into submitting to practices that we consider both unethical and harmful to our children. And we will challenge any actions taken by the DOE to punish our child or his wonderful teachers because of our decision.
_________________________
How come we play War, not Peace?
Too few role models.
Calvin & Hobbes
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#1336414 - 04/04/12 11:06 AM
Re: NY Parents boycott testing
[Re: bluezone]
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Dizzyt
Senior Member
Registered: 03/09/12
Posts: 923
Loc: NY
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Unfortunately, there are many people that have a very hard time taking tests. I am one of them and my oldest daughter is just like me. My daughter was an honor's student through high school, but whenever the word test came up, she froze. She later found out in college that it is classified as a true learning disability. She is smart as a whip, you can sit there and quiz her on things and she knows the answers, she sits for the test and her mind goes blank from being so anxious. Luckily her college works with her and she is allowed extra time for test taking, per a doctor's written note. The doctor also prescribed her anxiety medication to help her that she takes daily, nothing like Valium or Zanax, but something that just slows her down and avoids making her over-anxious. I know that if I were in high school these days, I would have a very hard time with all of the test-taking. I can't believe some of the classes the kids take nowadays compared to what I took in high school. In a sense it's a good thing, students can all strive to be at the same learning level but in actuality not everybody will succeed.
Edited by Dizzyt (04/04/12 11:07 AM)
_________________________
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Isaac Asimov
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#1336420 - 04/04/12 11:24 AM
Re: NY Parents boycott testing
[Re: Dizzyt]
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MeRightYouWrong
Senior Member
Registered: 06/29/11
Posts: 1478
Loc: Mountain of Truth
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We all know your family is perfect, KiD, except for a couple learning disabilities that your family's greatness shall easily overcome.
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#1336470 - 04/04/12 01:54 PM
Re: NY Parents boycott testing
[Re: Dizzyt]
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DR. D
Senior Member
Registered: 07/25/03
Posts: 5737
Loc: Waterloo/Seneca Falls/Junius/T...
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I think the core idea of the article was that in most of our days and ages we were not taught to test, whereas today the use of standardized tests in many eyes sets the bar extremely low.
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