New York State assessments begin on April 1, but parents across Long Island, New York State and the country are choosing to refuse the tests for a whole host of reasons.
Some of the reasons that parents want to go on record as “refusers” are: the test scores are being used to close community schools, the scores are being used to critique hard working teachers who serve struggling populations, the children are being tested on material introduced midway in their educational experience rather than from kindergarten and the data collected will be stored in a cloud without parental consent.
Also, the standards being tested are not developmentally appropriate, the standards being tested were not piloted, the tests being administered were not created by educators but by a testing company, last year’s tests had field questions embedded in the tests so that students didn’t have time to finish the test questions that counted, the test results are not used to inform instruction, curricular areas such as history, science, the arts, and physical education are taking a back seat to test prep, instructional time is lost to test prep and administration, cash-strapped districts are spending money on test prep and testing materials, and local control of our public schools is being eroded.
We are fortunate that, here in Port Washington, we have not necessarily seen all of the consequences of excessive testing, however, as part of a larger state and national system there has been extensive damage to school districts, their students and their teachers. For more information contact pwparentsrefuse@gmail.com.
There are a number of websites to access to become better educated about this very pressing and important matter:
New York State Allies for Public Education: www.nysape.org
Class Size Matters: www.classsizematters.org
Long Island Opt Out Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Longislandoptout
Lace to the Top: http://www.lacetothetop.com
—Nanette Melkonian
