Telling NYSED Commissioner Elia to Trash the NYSESLAT: My Testimony from the Brooklyn ESSA Hearing

Last night a large crowd gathered at Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights Educational Campus to hear feedback on the New York State Education Department’s (NYSED) proposed plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Speakers were each given three minutes to testify.  I ran out of time and Luis O. Reyes, a member of the NYS Board of Regents, summoned me to the front table to ask for a copy of my speech.  NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia was sitting next to him so I used the opportunity to share with her this message: “Get rid of the NYSESLAT. It’s horrible!”  Here is my June 6, 2017 testimony.  

The current Common Core package of high-stakes testing, developmentally inappropriate standards and dull curricula is unsustainable.  Unfortunately, the state’s proposed plan to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) does not improve the learning and teaching conditions of our schools.  In fact, it further penalizes schools, particularly those located in areas of concentrated poverty. With regards to high-stakes testing, which is the focus of my testimony, we have not been fooled by the state’s so-called revisions; the state continues to insult our intelligence. Thus the most effective way for us to fight back is to boycott state tests.  There has been much (justified) denunciation of the state ELA (English-language Arts) and math tests, but few people speak out publicly against the Common Core-aligned NYSESLAT, the annual state English as a Second Language (ESL) test that all English-language learners (ELLs) in New York State must take.  In fact, many parents are in the dark about this grueling assessment that is given right after the state ELA and math tests.  Tonight I wish to highlight this lesser known test because it is yet another example of a wrongheaded state test, and its administration shows just how over-tested our children are, particularly our ELLs. 

The NYSESLAT is tedious, dense, long, boring, developmentally inappropriate, poorly constructed and confusing, and it is comprised of four testing sessions, which means four days of testing.  The kindergarten NYSESLAT has 57 questions and the assessments taken in grades 1-12 each contain 66 questions, which are a combination of multiple choice and constructed written responses. The passages are largely non-fiction, containing social studies and science content, and some of the topics are obscure, outside of the students’ everyday life experiences.  The NYSESLAT is more of a content assessment rather than a true language test.  It’s also excessive in its use of close reading.  The listening section, for example, requires students to listen to passage excerpts over and over again ad nauseam.  Many teachers bemoan the NYSESLAT, claiming that native English speakers would struggle to test at the proficiency level, which is the primary way an ELL can exit the ESL program.   I have students, already overburdened by state testing, that will remain at the advanced (expanding) level on the NYSESLAT because they don’t score well on standardized tests.  To subject them to this poor quality assessment year after year is abusive.

New York State administers the NYSESLAT to comply with federal law, but it’s the state that creates this developmentally inappropriate and highly flawed test.  I often wonder if any of the decision-makers at the state level have actually looked at the test.  Anyone who signs off on the NYSESLAT should be required to sit down and take this arduous four-part assessment (as well as the math and ELA tests).  At the local level, why aren’t more district leaders publicly condemning the state testing program?  We are past the point of using fear as an excuse to remain quiet.  We can no longer shrug our shoulders and say yes this is a horrible test but we have to give it. What can we do? We can refuse, is what we can do, in spite of the state’s increasingly threatening tone.  How can the state penalize schools for refusing tests that are toxic?  I’m not talking about a fringe group of educators that feels this way.  The tests are widely derided by working educators: teachers and school leaders alike.  If ESSA gives states more leeway in designing their own accountability systems, why not honor assessments that are truly holistic, meaningful and developmentally appropriate? U.S. labor leader Emma Tenayuca once said, “I was arrested a number of times.  I never thought in terms of fear.  I thought in terms of justice.” The opt-out movement seeks justice for all students.  Every child in this state is deserving of a rich and well-rounded education.  The state’s accountability system – centered on high-stakes testing – robs our children of this.

You can send your own comments on the proposed plan through June 16 by emailing ESSAComments@nysed.gov

Here are some additional resources that look critically at the state’s proposed plan:

Leonie Haimson’s (Class Size Matters) Testimony on the state’s proposed accountability system under ESSA

Rally held to express concerns over ‘Every Student Succeeds Act’ plan – News 12 Brooklyn

Another Squandered Opportunity: Parents, Students and Educators Slam NYSED’s Flawed ESSA Proposal on NYC Public School Parents

Nicholas Tampio’s LoHud OpEd  

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NYS Parents: REFUSE Pearson’s Field Tests

Beginning tomorrow, May 23, elementary and middle schools across the state of New York will begin to administer Pearson’s stand-alone field tests in English-language arts (ELA) and math.  Science field tests in grades 4 and 8 are also being given.  Today, the New York Post published this article about the upcoming field tests.  According to its author, Susan Edelman, the NYC Department of Education said it would inform NYC parents of the administration of stand-alone field tests.  So far this hasn’t happened and the vast majority of NYC parents are unaware that this extra testing is going on in our public schools.  Teachers, too, are in the dark. 

Edelman quoted Fred Smith, a fellow Change the Stakes member, who pointed out that these stand-alone field tests are given in addition to the trial items embedded in the April 2016 ELA and math tests that were just administered to students in grades 3-8.

“Children are being used and classroom time given to a private vendor so it can make marketable tests,” said Fred Smith, a former DOE test analyst. He said the official math and English exams given in April and May had 328 hidden trial items. Kids had no idea which items counted or not.”

As I’ve done in past years, I compel you to find out if your school was one of 2,300 chosen by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to administer stand-alone field tests in the coming weeks.

Go to http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/fieldtest/2016fteirev2.xls for a list of all NYS elementary and middle schools signed up to field test.  Click here for a list of NYC schools by district. If so, urge your principal to refuse to give these tests and/or submit an opt-out letter to spare your child from being used as a guinea pig by for-profit testing companies and the NYSED.

 

For more information, please read the following.

from Change the Stakes and NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE):

What are field tests?

Testing companies often pay subjects to get feedback on experimental test questions. The information they get is used to produce and sell future exams. Since 2012, NYSED has allowed the testing company Pearson to use NYS children FREE OF CHARGE to try out test questions for the following April’s statewide exams.

In fact, your taxpayer money covers the cost of administering these tests. Field tests for grades 3-8 will take up to 50 minutes to administer. For your information, field test questions were also embedded in the April grade 3-8 ELA, math and science state assessments. This, of course, increased the length of the ELA, math and science exams.

Are parents informed about field tests – what they are and when they are administered?

In most cases, no. Many districts administer field tests to students without informing parents. You can call or email your school to find out when the tests are being administered this year.

Are field tests graded?

Field test results have no bearing on your child’s report card grades, teacher evaluations, or school rankings. The testing company and NYSED provide no feedback or information of any educational value to districts. Refusing these tests is a must.

Can we refuse field tests? How?

Of course. If you did not already check off field tests in your state test refusal letter simply send in a letter stating you do not want your child taking ANY field tests. Instruct your child not to take the test if anyone in their schools attempts to administer them.

How are schools selected for field tests?

Each year NYSED generates a list of districts, schools and specific grades within them that are assigned to administer field tests. Field tests are then shipped to them. This year, districts were asked to participate in computer-based field testing. If your school is on the computer-based field test list, it is because your child’s services have been volunteered for this latest giveaway.

Are districts mandated to administer field tests?

No. Every year dozens of districts send back field tests unopened to protect their students from the excessive and unnecessary additional testing. Last year the Board of Regents sought a regulation that would make field testing MANDATORY. The proposed regulation never came to a vote because sharp public resistance rose against it. It has not come up again.

Please send in your refusal letter for this year’s field tests TODAY and request that your district join the growing list of districts refusing to administer these meaningless assessments.

Thank you for your continued advocacy to save public schools and ensure all children receive a quality public education.

 

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Pearson Tests

Over the course of three consecutive days last week, students in grades 3-8 took Pearson’s New York State (NYS) Common Core English-language arts (ELA) tests.  As was the case in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the 2016 ELA tests were developmentally inappropriate, confusing and tricky.  Despite the New York State Education Department (NYSED)’s “adjustments” to the 2016 assessments, there was no improvement to the quality of the tests.

While I am barred from disclosing the reading passages and questions that appeared on the tests, in no way will I refrain from broadcasting to the world how outraged I continue to be – year after year – over New York’s oppressive testing regime.  Since 2013, when Pearson’s Common Core tests were first administered in New York state, I’ve been documenting this nightmare on my blog.

On 4/3/16, Lauren Cohen and I demonstrated at NYC councilman Danny Dromm’s rally in Jackson Heights, Queens. Dromm was informing parents of their right to opt-out of the NYS Common Core tests. As a member of the MORE caucus of the UFT, Lauren is running for VP of Elementary Schools in the upcoming UFT election. She truly puts children first.

Here are my thoughts on the 2016 ELA test.  I have focused on third grade because these students – aged eight and nine – are our youngest NYS Common Core test-takers.

1.) The 2016 Common Core ELA test was as absurdly long as it was in 2013, 2014 and 2015 despite the fact that it was shortened by just one reading passage and by a handful of multiple choice questions.

2016 Grade 3 Common Core English Language Arts Test

• Day One: 4 reading passages, 24 multiple-choice questions (Students darken the circles on Answer Sheet 1).
• Day Two: 3 reading passages (same as 2015), 7 multiple-choice questions (Students darken the circles on Answer Sheet 2), 2 short-response questions (Students write answers directly in Book 2.) 1 extended-response question (Students write answer directly in Book 2).
• Day Three: 3 reading passages (same as 2015), 5 short-response questions (Students write answers directly in Book 3) and 1 extended-response question (Students write answer directly in Book 3).

TOTALS: 10 reading passages, 31 multiple-choice questions, 7 short-response questions and 2 extended-response questions.

For the short-response questions, students typically write a paragraph-long response that must include at least two details from the passage. The extended-response question requires an essay-like written response: introduction, supporting evidence/details, conclusion. Where is the NYSED’s research that shows that this is an educationally sound testing program for a third grader? Seriously. Does anyone know how the NYSED justifies this? The length alone of these tests warrants our banging of pots and pans in city streets.

2.) Now let’s move on to content.  The reading passages were excerpts and articles from authentic texts (magazines and books).  Pearson, the NYSED or Questar did a poor job of selecting and contextualizing the excerpts in the student test booklets.  How many students actually read the one-to-two sentence summaries that appeared at the beginning of the stories? One excerpt in particular contained numerous characters and settings and no clear story focus.  The vocabulary in the non-fiction passages was very technical and specific to topics largely unfamiliar to the average third grader.  In other words, the passages were not meaningful. Many students could not connect the text-to-self nor could they tap into prior knowledge to facilitate comprehension.

3.) The questions were confusing.  They were so sophisticated that it appeared incongruous to me to watch a third grader wiggle her tooth while simultaneously struggle to answer high school-level questions. How does one paragraph relate to another?, for example. Unfortunately, I can’t disclose more.  The multiple-choice answer choices were tricky, too. Students had to figure out the best answer among four answer choices, one of which was perfectly reasonable but not the best answer.  Here’s what P.S. 321’s principal, Elizabeth Phillips, wrote about the 2014 Common Core tests.  Her op-ed We Need to Talk About the Test appeared in The New York Times on April 9, 2014.  These same issues were evident on the third grade 2016 ELA test.

“In general terms, the tests were confusing, developmentally inappropriate and not well aligned with the Common Core standards. The questions were focused on small details in the passages, rather than on overall comprehension, and many were ambiguous. Children as young as 8 were asked several questions that required rereading four different paragraphs and then deciding which one of those paragraphs best connected to a fifth paragraph. There was a strong emphasis on questions addressing the structure rather than the meaning of the texts. There was also a striking lack of passages with an urban setting. And the tests were too long; none of us can figure out why we need to test for three days to determine how well a child reads and writes.”

4.) The reading levels of the passages were above “grade” level, whatever “grade” level means these days.  One passage was an article recommended for students in grades 6-8. Has the NYSED done any research on early childhood education? Defending the Early Years cites a Gesell Institute of Child Development report that says,

“…the average age at which children learn to read independently is 6.5 years. Some begin as early as four years and some not until age seven or later – and all of this falls within the normal range.”

Yet for the NYS Common Core ELA test, the NYSED expects all third graders to be able to decode and comprehend texts that are typically used with fourth, fifth and sixth graders?

5.) While in theory I prefer untimed tests to timed tests, the lack of a time limit is of little comfort to students who are subjected to developmentally inappropriate tests.  Read this heartbreaking account by a New York City teacher who blogs at pedagogyofthereformed.wordpress.com. Of a former student, this teacher writes,

“After 18 hours of testing over 3 days, she emerged from the classroom in a daze. I asked her if she was ok, and offered her a hug. She actually fell into my arms and burst into tears. I tried to cheer her up but my heart was breaking. She asked if she could read for a while in my room to calm down and then cried into her book for the next 15 minutes.”

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, noted in a post on her blog NYC Public School Parents that this “…appears to violate the NY law passed in 2014 that limits state testing time to one percent of total instructional time.” Additionally, fellow Change the Stakes member, Rosalie Friend, pointed out that “without a set time limit, the tests no longer are standardized.  Therefore, one cannot draw ANY conclusions from the scores.” So this alone seems to invalidate these $44 million tests.

Collectively, we must stop this insanity.  I’ve been sounding the alarm on these tests since 2013, and the vast majority of educators I know agree with me.  I’m beyond fed-up that I have to continue to administer these assessments to my students.  It is unconscionable to me that Chancellor Fariña, in her 3/15/16 letter to NYC parents, wrote that these tests are “incredibly important” and a “valuable experience for our students.” It’s been nearly a month since I read those words and my jaw is still on the floor.

Parents – if you haven’t already refused the tests, you still have time to opt-out of the Common Core math tests, which will be administered on April 13, 14 and 15 of this week.

Teachers and administrators – the Common Core testing climate in New York state is too dire for you to remain quiet.  Speak up and encourage parents to opt-out.  Boycotting these tests is the only way to change course.

May this video of these principled MORE teachers inspire you.

From left to right: NYC teachers Lauren Cohen, Kristin Taylor and Jia Lee spoke critically of the NYS Common Core tests to NBC 4 New York. Screenshot courtesy of NYC teacher and UFT chapter leader Arthur Goldstein who blogs at nyceducator.com.

 

For more information, please visit:

NYC Opt Out

NYS Allies for Public Education

Defending the Early Years

Network for Public Education 

pedagogyofthereformed

 

 

 

NYC Teachers: What do YOU think of Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests?

Oh wait – we aren’t supposed to say anything about Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests.

 

As I reported in my last blog post, in her March 15, 2016 letter to NYC parents, NYC schools chancellor Carmen Fariña wrote that the NYS (New York State) Common Core math and ELA (English-language arts) tests are “…incredibly important for teachers and schools, who use the results to improve instruction and to provide individual support to all of our students.  They are a valuable experience for our students.”  

What do you think? Are Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests valuable and important?  Please leave a comment on this post (or send me an email: katielapham1@gmail.com).  I will respect your anonymity. I just ask that you include the following information: borough, NYC school district and school level (middle or elementary).

I am soliciting teacher feedback because I strongly disagree with Fariña’s remarks about the value of these tests and feel that it’s important for ALL parents – not just those in Brooklyn’s District 15 or Tribeca – to know the truth about these tests.  I applaud the brave teachers at Park Slope’s P.S. 321 and Tribeca’s P.S. 234 who have criticized the tests to parents.  Their eloquent testimonials are spot on.  Countless teachers bemoan Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests behind closed doors, but due to fear here in NYC, few teachers speak out against them.

As a mandated reporter and educator of English-language learners (ELLs), I refuse to remain quiet.  Since 2013, I have had to administer these horrendous Pearson Common Core tests to my students.  Each year I tell myself that I will follow the lead of NYC’s Teachers of Conscience by refusing to administer them. But I haven’t yet taken that step.  Instead, I have this blog.

The 2016 NYS testing season begins on April 5, 2016. It includes Pearson’s NYS Common Core ELA and math tests (a total of six days), the NYSESLAT for English-language learners, the state science test for 4th graders, Common Core field tests for select grades in select schools, the Chinese Reading Assessment for students in Chinese dual language/bilingual classes and the Spanish (ELE) Reading Assessment for students in Spanish dual language/bilingual classes. This means that out-of-classroom teachers, like myself, will have to suspend their teaching programs (mine is mandated) in order to test students.  Our kids who are most in need of support – both academic and emotional – will be deprived of their services during this time.  It also means that teachers will feel disingenuous as they encourage students to do their best on non-teacher created tests that insult our intelligence.  Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests have been widely discredited for being poorly constructed, developmentally inappropriate, and invalid.  The New York State Education Department (NYSED) manipulates cut scores in order to legitimize the false narrative that our schools are failing.  Not only are cut scores constantly changing but the NYSED sets them AFTER the tests have been scored. Thus, the NYSED’s claim that 70% of our students are failing is invalid.

It is a truly soul-crushing time of the year for everyone involved, except – perhaps – for Carmen Fariña.  Will she be deprived of valuable instructional time to administer and to score meaningless tests? Will she have to watch students, as young as 8-years-old, shut down, cry, throw up, call themselves stupid? Will she go home at the end of a grueling testing day in tears? Will she have to to explain to a scared and confused newcomer ELL why he/she has to take the ELA test after just 12 months in the system followed by the NYSESLAT? Fariña is not in the trenches. We are, and – for the sake of our beloved students – our stories deserve to be told.  

NYC teachers – I implore you to use this blog post to share your views about Pearson’s Common Core tests.  We will not be silenced or disenfranchised. We want our students to thrive, and to be motivated to make the world a better place.  This testing program is a kick to the stomach.  Enough is enough.
 

 

 

NYC Parents: Here’s the TRUTH about the 2016 NYS Tests

New York City parents may be hearing that the New York State (NYS) Common Core math and ELA (English-language arts) tests will be better this year and are of value to educators and students.

This does not tell the whole story.  Here’s the truth about the 2016 NYS tests. 

• Pearson created the 2016 tests.  Questar Assessment Inc., which, in 2015, was awarded a $44 million, five-year contract by the New York State Education Department (NYSED), is in the process of developing test questions for future tests.  However, their tests won’t be used until 2018. According to a January 2016 NYSED memo,”Questar Assessment, Inc. has replaced Pearson and is responsible for the construction of this year’s test forms and guidance materials.” Questar did not create the actual 2016 tests and test questions. 

• While a total of 156 NYS educators may have reviewed the 2016 tests, NYS educators did not participate in the writing of the 2016 test questions. The actual development of the 2016 tests was done by Pearson.  According to the New York State Education Department (NYSED), teachers will work with Questar to create field test questions in 2017. I would like to know how these 156 educators were selected – were any critics chosen?- and if their recommendations for change – if any – were taken seriously. 

• The shortening of the 2016 NYS Common Core tests is insignificant. Students will still spend a total of six days taking the math and ELA tests (three days each).  The tests are untimed this year so students could potentially sit for an even longer period of time to complete the assessments.  The below comparison charts show how minimal the changes to the tests are.  Also, shaving off a few questions does nothing to improve the quality of the test questions.  The tests are still bad.

• Using NYSED’s online test archive, Kemala Karmen, a NYC parent and co-founder of NYCpublic.org, “calculated how many more test items a NYS student in 2016 will be required to answer than a NYS student in the same grade had to answer in 2010” (Karmen, 2016).  In an email, Karmen wrote, “A 5th grader this April will be faced with 117 questions (combined math and ELA).  2010’s 5th grader? 61.  That’s 56 more questions, or an increase of 92%.”

In addition to illustrating the sharp increase of test questions since 2010, this graph, created by NYC parent Amy Gropp Forbes, shows how insignificant the shortening of the 2016 is. 

• The NYS Common Core ELA and math tests are not the only assessments administered this spring.  NYSED recently released the 2016 field test assignments for NYS schools.  Please click on this NYSED link to see if your school has been signed up to field test future math, science or ELA test questions.  The June 2016 administration of the field tests is of no value to teachers or students, the latter of which are being used as guinea pigs.

• Similarly, many NYC parents are unaware of the excessive and developmentally inappropriate testing our English-language learners (ELLs) are subjected to. After only 12 months in the system, all ELLs in NYS must take the ELA test (ELLs are not exempt from the math test in their first year because translated versions of the assessment are available).  During the recent parent-teacher conferences, it pained me to share with parents my goal for second graders who were at the expanding (advanced) English-proficiency level: to test proficient on this year’s NYSESLAT (New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test). Administered each spring, the NYSESLAT is a grueling four-part test, now aligned to the Common Core, which assesses ELLs’ speaking, listening, reading and writing proficiency levels in English. It is a content-based assessment, not a true language test, and, in my professional opinion, it is wholly inappropriate to administer to ELLs at any grade level. Sentence writing, for example, is expected of ELLs in kindergarten. Spending my precious minutes discussing this highly flawed standardized test was bad enough, but my rationale for getting students to test out (test proficient or pass) tightened the knot in my stomach. If my expanding (advanced) ELLs do not pass the NYSESLAT this school year, in third grade they will have to take it again right after the widely discredited NYS Common Core ELA and math tests.  I signed up to be a teacher, not a tester.  

• I can’t think of a single working NYC teacher who finds the NYS Common Core tests to be a “valuable experience for our students” (as per New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) chancellor Carmen Fariña’s 3/15/16 letter to parents). Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests are not teacher-created, nor do they accurately reflect the contextualized skills and knowledge that students gain in the classroom. The tests are developmentally inappropriate, poorly constructed and contain ambiguous questions. In 2014, 557 New York State principals signed this letter denouncing the tests. Despite the so-called changes to the 2016 tests, the content and the skills that are tested remain the same.

In painting a broader picture of the impact of NYS’s Common Core testing program on public education, it’s important to highlight that everything revolves around the highly flawed NYS Common Core tests.  Despite the NYCDOE’s argument that multiple measures are used to determine a child’s promotion to the next grade, the testing program is the sun around which all other aspects of public education orbit.  Schools with low test scores – due to poverty, high numbers of English-language learners and/or students with disabilities – are particularly vulnerable to scrutiny, micromanagement and excessive testing.  These schools face state reviews and pressure to adopt Common Core test prep curricula (ReadyGEN, GO Math! and Expeditionary Learning, for example), all at the expense of offering students an authentic and inspiring education that truly meets their social, emotional and academic needs.

I have spent the past 10 years in Title I elementary schools in New York City.  Our students go on fewer field trips, are exposed to a narrower range of books, and participate less in the arts.   In Title I schools, beginning in kindergarten, there exists such a strong sense of urgency to prepare students for the skills they will need in order to do well on the state tests that not a moment is to be “wasted.” Cutting and pasting in first grade is wrongly viewed as lacking rigor.  As a result, it’s not uncommon to find a second grader struggling to use glue and scissors.  Folding paper, I’m discovering, is an undeveloped skill nowadays.

In schools with low test scores, there is no free play and, for the most part, recess only happens at lunchtime (weather permitting).  Any classroom “play” must reinforce academic skills.  School days can be suffocating for students and teachers alike.  Curriculum pacing guides must be followed faithfully, which has killed spontaneity and deprives students of opportunities to learn about topics outside of the curriculum. I’ve even had to sneak in Martin Luther King, Jr. and Chinese New Year.  My rich author study units highlighting the important works of Ezra Jack Keats and Leo Lionni, among others, are collecting dust.  I mourn this loss of freedom every day I go to work.  Forget about using students’ interests to shape instruction.  “Choice” is only offered to students within the confines of the Common Core-aligned curricula.

Andy Yung, a talented pre-K teacher in Queens, presented this slide at last weekend’s Jackson Heights People for Public Schools event. 

What is of chief importance to “struggling” schools is the raising of scores on poor quality tests that do not reflect how each student has grown in his or her own way.  As part of their test preparation program this year, a Bronx elementary school has already administered two NYS ELA and math test simulations: one in December 2015 and the other in March 2016.  Each simulation lasted six days (3 periods each day) and was harder than the real tests, according to a teacher.  While this is an extreme case – and arguably abusive – test prep is still occurring citywide even at schools with high test scores.

The organized opt-out movement here in NYC is led by local parents and educators who spend an inordinate amount of time researching the NYS Common Core testing program and educating themselves on developmentally appropriate pedagogy.  Change the Stakes and NYC Opt Out, among others, report the truth through social media and through testing meetings that are being held all over NYC.  While some NYC parents may have initially gravitated to this movement in order to protect their own children from educational malpractice, a growing number of opponents of the state testing program are opting-out for justice.  Boycotting the tests and depriving the state of data is seen as the only way to effect change in our schools, and to curb the further privatization of public education (see what’s happening right now in the United Kingdom).

These parents and educators envision a different educational experience for all children of New York State.  Bronx principal Jamaal Bowman  speaks out against the current NYS Common Core testing program.  As reported in this November 2015 Huffington Post article, “Jamaal Bowman knows his kids and with the research to back up his approach, he makes it clear that by empowering teachers and inspiring children toward their passions, in an atmosphere that embraces our diversity, we have the capacity to realize the goals that the current reforms are failing to produce.”  I also appreciate Brooklyn New School principal Anna Allanbrook’s weekly letters to parents , which showcase her school’s whole child approach and contrast sharply with NYS’s test-based education reform initiatives.  In Allanbrook’s March 7 letter, she links to a speech delivered by principal Bowman and writes, “Jamaal suggests that all parents exercise their right to opt out of high stakes testing, advising parents to demand more holistic assessment of their children. Jamaal’s words remind us of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” These are brave, ethical NYC school leaders whom I greatly admire.

What about all the thoughtful and experienced NYC classroom teachers who find fault with these tests and don’t view them as a valuable teaching tool?  The teachers of the MORE caucus of the UFT (United Federation of Teachers) support opt-out and oppose Common Core, Danielson teacher evaluations and high-stakes testing. MORE candidates, such as Jia Lee, who testified against high-stakes testing in a U.S. senate hearing last year, are running in this year’s UFT election. Teachers of Conscience refuse to administer both state and local standardized assessments.  Teachers’ legitimate concerns, based on years of experience and knowledge of developmentally appropriate pedagogy, are absent from the official story that’s being told to NYC parents. In fact, NYC educators are being silenced and, as a result, are afraid to speak out.  This is an attack on our democracy and goes against the so-called critical thinking that the NYCDOE purports to be promoting through Common Core.

This is just a glimpse of what’s really going on in NYC public schools.  There is, of course, more to the story.   Here is a link to view the March 2016 NYCDOE’s Student Participation in Grades 3-8 New York State Tests Parent Guide.  Regardless of your child’s performance level, it is a parent’s right to opt out.

The NYCDOE 2016 guide states, “if, after consulting with the principal, the parents still want to opt their child out of the exams, the principal should respect the parents’ decision and let them know that the school will work to the best of their ability to provide the child with an alternate educational activity (e.g., reading) during testing times.”  

For more information about opting out, please visit these sites:

Ten Reasons Why NO Child Should Take the NYS Common Core Tests

www.optoutnyc.com

changethestakes.wordpress.com

morecaucusnyc.org

NYS Allies for Public Education 

Long Island Opt-Out Info

unitedoptout.com

Defending the Early Years – deyproject.org

networkforpubliceducation.org

badassteacher.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Longer Silent: NYC Teachers of Conscience Speak Out Against High-Stakes Testing and Corporate Education Reform

On the afternoon of Tuesday, May 5, 2015, a group of concerned NYC public school teachers and parents – representing the Movement of Rank and File Educators (the MORE Caucus of the UFT), Teachers of Conscience and Change the Stakes – convened in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park to demonstrate against corporate education reform and its destructive and secretive high-stakes testing program.  We displayed posters and spoke from the heart about our individual experiences.  For the first time in months (years?), I felt truly appreciated for the work I do in the trenches.

Rosalie Friend, a member of Save our Schools and Change the Stakes as well as an educational psychologist, declared that she was standing up for us and our professional standards. Film editor Michael Elliot has been an unsung hero as a public school parent activist.  From Chicago to New Jersey to the boroughs of New York City, Michael has been documenting our work, which includes the burgeoning grassroots opt-out movement. Please watch Michael’s other videos on shoot4education.  They include the May 5 speeches given by NYC Teachers of Conscience Jia Lee, Marcus McArthur, Eunice Eun and Chen Lin, Alexandra Alves, Megan Moskop, Lauren Cohen, Holly Spinelli and Colin Schumacher (in absentia). A group of teachers also sang a clever song – If Cuomo Had A Heart – that highlighted Governor Cuomo’s wrong-headed educational plan for our state.

 

Michael Elliot and Rosalie Friend 

Prior to speaking, Teachers of Conscience wore tape over their mouths to convey to the public the lack of transparency with regards to these tests. We are not allowed to divulge any test content.  

Here is the transcript of my speech.  You can also view it here on YouTube.

This week, our youngest learners – students in kindergarten, first and second grades – are taking NYC Performance Assessments in English-language arts (ELA) as measures of student learning (MOSLs).  They are for teacher evaluation purposes only. Scores from these tests count towards 20% of our overall rating.

What our students are being asked to do is developmentally inappropriate.  The task fails to consider early childhood studies, which show that “the average age at which children learn to read independently is 6.5 years.” Some don’t read independently until age seven and THIS is normal. (Please see Defending the Early Years for more information).

What is NOT normal is bombarding first graders with information from two different science texts and expecting them to judiciously select relevant facts to answer two written response questions.  What is NOT normal is expecting first grade students to independently read and to gather facts/evidence from a non-fiction text that is two grade levels above their reading level. My first grade students are being asked to independently read a 3rd grade text – level M – without my support.  And they are to use facts from that book to answer questions independently.  In addition, this text contains errors.  The wrong photograph is used to describe a key fact, but I cannot go into more detail about this, unfortunately.  Now my struggling readers can’t use the photographs to help them answer the questions.

What is WRONG is that my students are losing valuable instructional time to take these flawed tests.  What is WRONG is that my “professional development” time is being used to score these tests.  What is WRONG is that working first grade teachers played no part in creating these tests that are being used to rate us.  What is WRONG is that the New York City Department of Education did NOT correct the errors that were pointed out the them.

As a Teacher of Conscience, I have a moral imperative to know my students well and to understand their learning.  I am discerning when considering the reliability and validity of assessment methods.  I speak out to correct the wrongs.  

Ten Reasons Why NO Child Should Take the NYS Common Core Tests

Dear parents and educators of New York,

I teach elementary school in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York.  In 2013 and 2014, I administered Pearson’s New York State Common Core tests to English-language learners (ELLs). There is nothing meaningful about these assessments; no teacher I know supports them and I will not allow my child to take the tests when she enters third grade (even if the high-stakes are removed).  Here are ten reasons why Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests should never see the light of day.

1.) They are too long, especially for students in grades 3-5.  Over the course of six days, my 5th grade ELLs spent a total 13.5 hours sitting for the ELA (English-language arts) and math assessments. Here is what the 5th grade ELA assessment looked like last year (2014):

Day ONE: 27 pages long, 6 unrelated reading passages, 42 multiple choice questions

Day TWO: 3 unrelated reading passages, 7 multiple choice questions, 3 short response questions (written), 1 extended response question (written)

Day THREE: 3 reading passages, 5 short response questions (written), 1 extended response question (written)

Additionally, the below graph – created by Lace to the Top – shows that the third grade Common Core tests are twice as time-consuming as the SAT.

2.) They are developmentally inappropriate.  Lace to the Top recently analyzed third grade Common Core test samples and determined that Pearson’s NYS Common Core test questions are 2-3 grade levels above the grade being tested.  The reading passage used for third grade was shown to have a readability average of 7.3 (7th grade)!

3.) Pearson’s NYS Common Core standardized tests, which are costing the state $32 million, are not teacher-created, nor do they accurately reflect the contextualized skills and knowledge that students gain in the classroom.  The tests are poorly constructed and uninspiring, and they contain ambiguous questions.  557 New York State principals signed this letter denouncing the tests.

4.) With Pearson’s Common Core state tests at the center of K-8 education in New York State, curriculum has narrowed, particularly in schools in low-income areas whose test scores tend to be low.  Fearing increased scrutiny and potential closure, raising test scores has become the main focus in many schools.  Some schools are little more than test prep factories with diminishing enrichment and project-based learning opportunities. Beginning in kindergarten, students are being taught test-taking strategies, most notably through the context-lacking close reading technique used in Common Core-aligned English-language arts.  Pearson’s developmentally inappropriate and poorly constructed scripted reading program – ReadyGEN – is test prep for the NYS Common Core ELA test.

5.) The Common Core’s testing program encourages standardized testing in grades K-2. Title I schools in particular feel pressured to show – through periodic data collection – that students are learning the skills needed to perform well on the grades 3-8 Common Core state tests. This is what the standardized testing program looks like in my Title I first grade classroom this school year:

• Sept/Oct 2014 Common Core-aligned NYC Baseline Performance Tasks in ELA and Math (MOSLs used for teacher evaluation purposes only).
• Running Records administered one-on-one 4-5 times per year (they test reading levels).
• 12 Common Core-aligned end-of-unit GO Math! assessments (each comprised of 24 multiple choice questions and a multi-step extended response question).
• Monthly Common Core-aligned ReadyGEN writing assessments testing students’ understanding of narrative, persuasive and informative writing.
• Mid-year benchmark assessment in ELA – End of unit 2 ReadyGEN test comprised of 5 multiple choice comprehension questions, 5 multiple choice vocabulary questions and 1 written response.
• Mid-year benchmark assessment in Math – GO Math! test comprised on 40 multiple choice questions; 15 questions on skills not yet learned.
• May/June 2015 Common Core-aligned NYC Performance Tasks in ELA and Math (MOSLs used for teacher evaluation purposes only).

6.) The New York State Education Department (NYSED) lacks transparency and ethics.  In upholding the corporate education reform agenda, which seeks to privatize public education, the NYSED’s intention is to perpetuate the false narrative that our schools are failing.  Fred Smith, a NYS testing expert and statistician, and Lace to the Top have reported at length about Pearson’s poor quality tests and the NYSED’s unreliable test data, specifically its delayed release of technical reports, which evaluate the Common Core tests, missing test questions and predetermined test scores.  The NYSED manipulates cut scores in order to legitimize its above-mentioned agenda; not only are cut scores constantly changing but the NYSED sets them AFTER the tests have been scored. Thus, the NYSED’s claim that 70% of our students are failing is invalid.  

7.) An inordinate amount of planning and organizing time is devoted to preparing for the state tests. Giving the state tests is an administrative and logistical nightmare at the school level. Out-of-classroom teachers are pulled from their regular teaching program to administer and score the tests. Countless hours are spent bubbling testing grids and organizing them alphabetically by class. IEPs (individualized education program) are examined closely to ensure that students with special needs receive the correct testing accommodation(s). These include directions read and re-read, extended time, separate location, on-task focusing prompts, revised test directions, questions read and re-read. ELLs and some former ELLs are pulled from their regular classrooms for testing because they are entitled to extended time in a separate location. Also, there is professional development for teachers on testing policies and procedures including “reporting prohibited conduct by adults, student cheating, and other testing irregularities.”

8.) English-language learners (ELLs) must take Pearson’s NYS Common Core ELA test after just one year in the system.  Students with IEPs are also required to take the tests unless they qualify for the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA), which too is flawed. For a variety of reasons, it is misleading, insulting and grossly irresponsible of the NYSED to claim that 97% of ELLs and 95% of students with IEPs in grades 3-8 are “failures” in ELA.  These figures completely disregard the growth students make in our classrooms.

9.) Our students are suffering. I’ve heard countless stories of kids who are sickened – both physically and emotionally – from New York State’s toxic Common Core testing program. I’ve personally witnessed students’ tears, anger and despair, and it’s heartbreaking. There is nothing humane, nothing redeeming about these tests.  Morale is plummeting as teachers and administrators feel complicit in the state’s abuse of our children.

10.) Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed basing 50% of a teacher’s evaluation on test scores from these highly flawed Common Core state assessments.  Not only are these test scores unreliable but the American Statistical Association has warned against using the value-added model (VAM) to rate teachers and schools.

As you can see, the negative impact of NYSED’s punitive Common Core testing program is far-reaching. But we – as parents and educators working together – can take back power by refusing these tests.  In order to save public education, a cornerstone of democracy in the United States, we must start thinking communally rather than individually.

Taking these tests is not “good practice” for our young learners; in fact, administering the tests is bad pedagogical practice.  In addition, high test scores do not guarantee admission to selective NYC middle schools.  Contrary to popular belief, opting-out does not hurt schools.  With regards to opt-out’s impact on teachers, Change the Stakes, a NYC-based organization that opposes the NYSED’s testing program, writes,

It is not helpful to speculate about which students should or should not opt out in order to protect teachers’ evaluations. The bottom line is that the current teacher evaluation system is flawed. Opting out in large numbers is the most powerful way for parents to let policymakers know that we do not want our children, teachers and schools evaluated based on standardized test scores.

Our students and teachers are not failures; rather the NYSED has failed us.

– Katie

Here are some useful resources about the Common Core testing program:

• NYC-based Change the Stakes has updated their FAQ!
• NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)
• Teachers of Conscience 
• United Opt Out: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform
• Network for Public Education (NPE)
• Lace to the Top

 

Fred Smith on the NYSED’s Delayed Release of the 2013 Technical Report, Part I

 

photograph courtesy of the New York Daily News

Below is Fred Smith’s initial reaction to the long-awaited release of the Technical Report of the 2013 New York State Common Core Math and English-language Arts (ELA) tests. Smith, a NYS testing expert and statistician, has long been sounding the alarm on the New York State Education Department’s (NYSED) lack of transparency.  He is also an active member of Change the Stakes and has launched a campaign to Say “NO!” to Pearson stand-alone field tests, which were administered throughout New York State in June 2014. Currently, Smith is scrutinizing the item analysis data contained in the overdue 2013 Technical Report and “will be parsing some of its fuzzy verbiage.” At first glance, Smith reports, “there are a number of serious questions regarding the ELA exams that add weight to the concerns of educators and parents about their composition and use.”

Fred Smith: The New York State Education Department (NYSED) just posted the 2013 Technical Report— seven+ months past Pearson’s deliverable deadline. All 339 pages of it, in which the NYSED and the publisher have continued to deny useful information that the technical reports contained before Pearson took over the state testing program.

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/reports/2013/ela-math-tr13.pdf

So now we can see what data they are showing us about the quality of the 2013 Common Core-aligned baseline tests three months after the 2014 exams have been given. The foundational 2013 Common Core ELA and Math tests were described last year as providing a “transparent baseline.” NYSED acts in bad faith and its words peter out in sheer derision.

No matter what the selective disclosure of the delayed data shows, this is an unacceptable way to operate and the antithesis of transparency.

Here’s one piece of clever obfuscation: Embedded Field Test Items (p. 8)

“In 2010, the Department announced its commitment to embed multiple-choice items for field-testing within the Spring 2012 Grades 3–8 ELA and Mathematics Operational Tests; this commitment continued for the Spring 2013 administrations of the Common Core assessments. Embedding field-test items allows for a better representation of student responses and provides more reliable field-test data on which to build future operational tests. In other words, since the specific locations of the embedded field-test items were not disclosed and they look the same as operational items, students were unable to differentiate field-test items from operational test items. Therefore, field-test data derived from embedded items are free of the effects of differential student motivation that may characterize stand-alone field-test designs. Embedding field-test items also reduced the number of stand-alone field-tests during the spring of 2013 but did not eliminate the need for them.”

Yes, imagine if General Motors said: “And we are committed to selling cars with brakes, as it makes driving safer. But when we can’t do that as much as we’d like to, there are times we have to sell cars without brakes.”

Thank you, Fred, for your insights.  Stay tuned for Part II.

-KL

 

To the NYCDOE – Put Children First & Opt-Out of Pearson’s Field Tests

Taking Back Our Schools/Save Our Schools rally in New York City – May 17, 2014

“Children First. Always.” is the motto of the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). I rage inside whenever my eyes happen to fall upon this misappropriated phrase – a leftover from the Bloomberg reign – on the NYCDOE’s home page.

It is at once laughable and insulting to make such a claim as New York State education policy puts corporations, like Pearson, first.  Next week Pearson, together with its bedfellow, the New York State Education Department (NYSED), will begin administering stand-alone field tests. The official assessment window is June 2-11, and the administration of these tests follows a flurry of test-taking that has left both students and educators in New York City burned out and fed up.  Is this what ed deformers mean by grit? Here’s what our elementary and middle schools have endured since April 1, 2014:

• Pearson’s Common Core ELA assessment (three days)
• Pearson’s Common Core math assessment (three days)
• Four-part Common Core-aligned NYSESLAT (NYS English as a Second Language Achievement Test) – speaking, listening, reading comprehension and writing (for English-language learners ONLY)
• Measures of Student Learning (MOSL) ELA Performance Assessment for schools that chose this as their local measure for teacher effectiveness rating purposes
• Measures of Student Learning (MOSL) Math Performance Assessment for schools that chose this option as their local measure for teacher effectiveness rating purposes
• New York State Science Performance Test (grades 4 & 8 only)
• New York State Science Written Section (grades 4 & 8 only)
• Chinese Reading assessment (for students in grades 3-12 receiving bilingual or dual language instruction in Chinese)
• Spanish Reading assessment (for students in graders 3-12 receiving bilingual or dual language instruction in Spanish)
• CTB/McGraw-Hill Mathematics Benchmark Assessment Aligned to NYC Core Curriculum Option Go Math! (optional, not all schools participated)
• CTB/McGraw-Hill English Language Arts Benchmark Assessment (optional, not all schools participated)
• ELA and Math portfolio assessments for potential holdover students

Change the Stakes, a New York City-based parent and teacher group that opposes high-stakes testing, has done an admirable job of raising awareness of the detriments of field testing.  They report that 1,682 NYC public schools have been assigned to field test either the math or ELA test, and another 103 are signed up for the science field test.  The following information about field tests is published on their website.

What’s Wrong with Field Tests?

• 
Field tests are an integral part of high-stakes-testing, a system that narrows curriculum and dampens children’s natural enthusiasm for learning. When the stakes are unreasonably high, it encourages widespread teaching to the test and cheating, wastes ever-shrinking resources, and results in inaccurate measures of student performance.

• 

Field tests provide misleading data. Children aren’t motivated to do well on “trial” exams.

• Reputable researchers spell out their aims, invite participation, and pay subjects. This is not the case with test publishers. Children provide free labor for product-testing, while their parents and even their schools are kept in the dark.

Why Opt Out? 

• No child is required to take a field test, and opting out will in no way harm their record, their teachers, or their school.

• Publishers of field tests see them as essential for creating standardized exams. Without field tests, they argue, there would be no exams. So opting out is a powerful way to demonstrate your opposition to high-stakes testing.

Our students are suffering.  As a result of excessive testing and low-quality Common Core curricula, we are seeing an increased level of behavior problems in our classrooms. More and more students are shutting down, refusing to do work, particularly at this time of year.  I support Change the Stake’s call to opt-out of the upcoming stand-alone field tests. The New York City Department of Education should do the same.  They truly need to put our children first. 

 

Where are the 2013 Technical Reports?: A Call for Transparency at John King’s NYSED

photograph courtesy of Susan Watts/New York Daily News 12/13/13

On April 14, 2014, sociologist Aaron M. Pallas posted an illuminating report on the lack of transparency at the New York State Education Department (NYSED) with regards to its controversial standardized testing program.  It’s posted on his blog  A Sociological Eye on Education.  I was struck by Pallas’ mention of the missing technical reports of the 2013 NYS Common Core assessments that Pearson was contracted to deliver to the NYSED in December 2013.  At present, the reports have yet to appear on the NYSED website. Did Pearson fail to deliver the reports, which is costing the state $75,000, or is the NYSED sitting on them the same way it sat on the 2012 technical reports, which weren’t made public until July 2013? Click here to read the 2012 English-language Arts technical report and here to view the 2012 Mathematics technical report.

In his latest blog post, Pallas writes:

“New York sent teachers’ Mean Growth Percentile scores to its 700 school districts in August 2013, which enabled teachers to receive their overall evaluation scores and categories by September 1, 2013. But no one—neither teachers, parents, journalists nor researchers—has had access to the information necessary to evaluate either the quality of the tests or the quality of the Mean Growth Percentiles. That’s because the technical reports that tell us about last year’s state assessments have yet to be released to the public.

Let that sink in for a moment.”

Fred Smith, NYS testing expert and statistician, has long been sounding the alarm on the NYSED’s lack of transparency.  He is also an active member of Change the Stakes and has launched a campaign to Say “NO!” to Pearson stand-alone field tests, which are to be administered throughout New York State in June 2014.  Smith sent me the following note:

“Aaron Pallas gives a powerfully succinct explanation about why the lack of transparency here is intellectually dishonest and beyond objectionable from a scientific perspective.

In simple terms, the failure to produce or make the report available in a timely fashion has been calculated to give SED and Pearson after-the-fact wiggle room to shade its presentation in order to make poorly designed and constructed tests appear less glaringly bad. Even worse, absent the report, researchers and analysts cannot examine the quality of the test instruments.

The entire performance here is another example of SED and Pearson acting in cahoots — with SED running interference for Pearson in order to make the Common Core a fait accompli. Together they have spared no effort to preserve, protect and defend a “sloppy roll-out.”

Parents and educators in New York must continue to put pressure on the NYSED to release the 2013 technical reports.  Use #PearsonTechReports and #BoycottPearson on Twitter.  Please also read and share Fred Smith’s fact sheet on opting-out of Pearson field testing this June.

Thanks, Katie