With the math and English 3-8 exams next month, hundreds of parents across Long Island have chosen to have their children opt-out of state tests.
For parents and students struggling to acclimate toward rigorous testing standards, a movement that has spread across Long Island against common core has sparked via open forums, hearings and town hall talks from state legislators.
“We all want what’s best for our children,” parent Mary Goodfellow said. “Common core is the most hostile federal takeover of our educational system. Bottom line, it’s money. The testing of our children to the extremes we have been seeing is ridiculous.”
The Mineola School District does not have an official opt-out policy and if a test is in front of a student, they’re expected to complete it.
“It’s our expectation that children are taking the exams,” District Superintendent Michael Nagler said.
Nagler said books will be given to students who have finished the exam. This seems to be in-line with the much debated “sit-and-stare” rule, where students whose parents have opted them out of taking the test, are still required to be in the building when the exams are handed out.
“Every student will be given an exam and when the majority of the students are finished with the exam, tests will be collected and they’ll be given a book,” Nagler said.
Six families opted out during the last round of common core exams, Nagler said. Mineola is currently in its third year of teaching common core English and second year in Math.
“I’m not sure of the exact number, but it was no more than 10 [students],” he said. “I don’t want to politicize it. It’s really about ‘Do these exams inform instruction?’ Right now, I don’t think they do. But that doesn’t mean I support not taking it.”
Five years ago, Mineola adopted The Northwest Evaluation Assessment (NWEA) and the district feels that is a better evaluation tool than the common core. Twelve districts on Long Island utilize the system, which analyzes state test scores to determine educational growth in students.
“The NWEA does this report specifically for Mineola because we request it,” Nagler said. “It’s a good way to look at our data…[but] these are not a predictor of what the final results will be. We use this to inform instruction and take a benchmark of how students are doing right now.”
According to NWEA results, between the fall and winter, Mineola would need to be 67 percent proficient in math and 73 percent in reading.
“Those normally would be 50 percent because it’s benchmarked across the country,” Nagler said. “We’re looking at higher numbers to try to correlate this test to our state exams.”
