Via: CNN Digital Correspondent Kelly Wallace - April 24, 2015
Since
one of my daughters is taking the public school state tests for the
first time this year, I thought I paid fairly close attention to the
debate surrounding the tests themselves, and the concern that schools
are too focused on "teaching to the test."
The high-stakes of standardized tests
I
heard that some parents might engage in a form of civil disobedience
and "opt out" -- they would refuse to let their children take the tests.
I thought only a few were making that stand.
But
then I learned from a friend whose daughter attends a Long Island
school that only two kids in her third-grade class took the test. That
means 20 or more of her classmates didn't.
I
saw local media reports about similar stories in other schools on Long
Island, in New York City and its surrounding areas, and in upstate New
York.
Something bigger is going on, I thought.
Just how many students opt out this year
won't officially be known until this summer when the state education
department releases test scores. But, according to one of the groups
leading the opt-out movement here -- the
New York State Allies for Public Education
-- 156,000 students refused to take this week's English exam, and
that's with just from 50% of the districts reporting their numbers.
With
approximately 1.1 million students eligible to take the tests in grades
3-8 in New York, that means at least 14% of students are projected to
sit out this year. According to the state education department, last
year about 49,000 (4%) didn't have a known valid reason for not taking
the English test and 67,000 (6%) didn't take the math exam.
"I'm
ecstatic," said Bianca Tanis, a co-founder of the New York opt-out
group. "I guess I'm not really surprised, because I think we could all
feel this coming."
"For the past two years, parents have been
lobbying the governor, the Board of Regents, the legislature, demanding
a reduction in high-stakes testing, demanding to have their classrooms
be returned and we've been ignored, and enough is enough," said Tanis.
Her children, ages 10 and 14, are not taking the tests.
Adding
to parents' anger and frustration were reforms pushed by Gov. Andrew
Cuomo that would evaluate teachers more heavily based on test scores.
"So
we were really left with no choice," Tanis said. "Rather than
responding to parent concerns, he doubled down on the use of testing."
The
Board of Regents says the tests provide an "important source of
objective information" to see where students are and what help they need
but should never be the only measure of students' progress.
"Those
who call for 'opting out' really want New York to 'opt out' of
information that can help parents and teachers understand how well
students are doing," said Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the Board of
Regents, in a recent statement.
"We
cannot go back to ignoring the needs of our children. It's time to stop
making noise to protect the adults and start speaking up for the
students," Tisch said.
Opting out across the country
New York is not an isolated case. Examples of the fallout from rigorous annual testing are popping up nationwide.
Earlier this week,
some Atlanta educators were sentenced to prison time
after a massive cheating scandal. Administrators and teachers were
convicted of racketeering and other crimes related to inflating test
scores of students from struggling schools.
In New Jersey,
lawmakers recently approved a measure
that would require schools to accommodate parents who opt out of
testing by providing alternative activities such as independent reading
for their children.
"We've
heard from almost every state in the country there's opting out going
on," said Monty Neill, executive director of the testing reform advocacy
group
FairTest. "Last year, we probably heard from half."
Neill
chalks up the growing movement to an increasing number of parents who
believe there's too much testing and that's it's not educationally
helpful.
"There've been a number of
surveys in states as well as national surveys that are showing
(frustration with testing) as a reaction among parents and the public
generally, so there's a sense that this testing has just gone round the
bend," said Neill, a former educator and school administrator who has
been leading FairTest for nearly 28 years.
Also in the mix are parents' frustration with more rigorous academic standards called
Common Core, which have been implemented in 46 states and the District of Columbia, and upon which the state tests are based.
Tanis,
who is also a special education teacher, said there is "no flexibility"
in the standards. And, she says, given the high stakes of the testing,
"you are saying to teachers, OK, you have to fit in all these standards by April, and so the test starts driving the pace of instruction."
Speaking out on social media
When
I posted on my Facebook page that I was interested in hearing from
parents who opted out and promised I would share their comments without
identifying them, I got an earful: They say the tests are
developmentally inappropriate, too long and difficult, and shouldn't be
used to evaluate teachers.
"To
me we are setting our kids up to fail. The reading passages are three
levels above the child's current grade level," said a teacher and a mom
of two who has opted out her kids for the past two years. "Many teachers
have posted that their students were crying because they did not have
enough time to finish the test and bubbled in random answers."
Another
mom of two, who also opted out, argued that the tests don't benefit the
children -- they only benefit the industry behind Common Core and the
tests themselves.
"Unfortunately, these tests have nothing
to do with determining the effectiveness of teachers," she said. "The
more research I did, the more disgusted I became. It's all about money
and our kids are pawns. It's very scary and it's unfolding before our
eyes."
Tanis, the New York opt-out group leader, said the movement is not "anti-testing. We are anti-these tests."
Tanis
said she got involved in the movement after she tried to keep her
younger son, who has autism, from taking the test two years ago.
While
he loved school and had terrific teachers, he was still far below grade
level and she didn't think it made sense to put a test in front of him
that he couldn't read, "let alone even cognitively understand exactly
why he was being given a test that was so far above his grade level."
She
said that at every turn, she was told her son was absolutely obligated
to take the test. The law is the law, she was told. It wasn't until
other parents started refusing to have their children take it that she
felt free, too, to refuse for her son.
"I think the awareness of how flawed these
tests are, and the ramifications, have taken time for everybody to
understand ... but the fact that these tests are abusive for students
with disabilities and English language learners was really easy for
people to see."
To that point, Tisch,
of the New York State Board of Regents, has said that the tests actually
help the most vulnerable children in our schools, whose needs were too
often disregarded in years past.
"Without
an objective measure of their progress, it was easy to deny special
education students and English-language learners the extra resources
they need," she said. "Opting out could cost us much of the progress we
have made and damage the work that still needs to be done for our most
vulnerable students."
In the middle of
the debate are parents and teachers who feel there could be improvement
to the Common Core and that schools should not be teaching to the test,
while also believing the standards and the tests help kids learn to
solve problems and think in ways many of us didn't when we were growing
up.
"It's really a way of making
children think for themselves and have teachers speak less and students
become more responsible for their learning," said a teacher and a mom of
two who didn't want to be identified. "I feel the teaching has become
better because of what's expected. Where we go wrong is understanding
that the Common Core is a guideline and we still have to meet the needs
of the students where they are academically."
She also said parents -- rather than educators -- too often are the ones putting too much stress on students about the test.
What happens if students don't take the tests?
Under
federal regulations, if fewer than 95% of students at a school
participate in the state tests, that school could lose federal funding,
according to the New York State Department of Education.
That
message was reportedly conveyed by some school districts in letters to
parents that said state aid could be withheld if too many children
boycott the tests.
But Neill of FairTest says people don't believe that will ever happen.
"They
don't believe the loss of federal money because it's basically not
really true," he said. In fact, no school district to date in New York
has lost money for not meeting the 95% requirement for student testing,
according to a state education department spokesperson.
"They're trying to basically bully parents into toeing the line and at least in a lot of places, it's not working," Neill said.
How can we compete globally?
I
posed the question to Tanis: If we don't have difficult tests and tough
standards, how will we compete globally, against children from
countries where rigor is the norm?
The
United States has the largest number of patents per capita in the world,
she noted. "So we are an extremely innovative society, and the system
that they're imposing diminishes innovation, diminishes creativity."
That
may be the heart of the debate -- a debate that is likely only going to
intensify because the opt-out movement is gaining in strength, and that
means at some point lawmakers may have to start listening.
Do you think there is now too much of an emphasis on testing in public schools? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter or CNN Living on Facebook.
