Good Evening Massapequa Family and Friends,
We hope that you were able to enjoy your holiday and spring recess from school. Unfortunately, the break was darkened by the passing of the state budget with its damaging educational reforms. Now we must return to school Monday to spend yet another day preparing for the state assessments, which begin on Tuesday, April 14, with the administration of the ELA.
We want to take a moment to thank the countless parents and public education supporters for the unprecedented advocacy for our schools. Although our Governor likes to paint a different picture of public education in NYS, we know, as does the rest of country, our schools should be held up as examples of what public education should look like. We also know that poverty, and all the ills that it brings, is the primary factor in what causes a “failing school.”
We also want to express our sincere gratitude for those who are choosing to have their children opt-out of the state assessments. We know that this decision was not made lightly and requires a great deal of courage. Please remember that we support you in your decision and know that you are taking your advocacy for our schools to the highest level by making this stand.
Please understand that our frustration with state assessments has nothing to do with not wanting to be evaluated. We have always had a very rigorous evaluation process in Massapequa, a process which assesses all of the much needed characteristics of an effective educator. Our frustration lies with the controlling weight that has been placed on flawed assessments. The state assessments, which are developmentally inappropriate and offer no instructional value, were not designed to evaluate us. And even though we are outraged that the concerns of parents, teachers, administrators, and educational researchers were ignored by our political leaders, we are now forced to dedicate even more time to what has already negatively changed the education of our children-test preparation. As altruistic we all may wish to be, the simple fact is that our jobs are now controlled by these unsound tests.
With all the information that is out there, we would like to highlight a few important facts:
• If you are having your child opt-out, please do so by the first day of testing. If your child starts the test and then the decision is made not to have him or her continue, the test must be graded as if it were completed.
• Prior to April break, the Massapequa Public School District announced that students, who are not taking the assessments, will be allowed to read in a separate location, due to the increase in the number of parents who are choosing to opt-out their children.
• The failure to meet the 95 percent participation requirement has no impact on a district’s state aid. SED is not authorized to withhold state aid based on participation in assessments. The District is doing its job by administering the tests.
• At the individual teacher level, it is impossible to determine the impact. There is an expectation that higher achieving students are more likely to opt-out. That has not been the experience in every district, but if that is the case, it still does not necessarily harm the teacher’s growth score. The model is based on a relative scale how each student in a teacher’s classroom compares to other students that scored the same in prior years (up to 3 years history, also taking into account ELL, SWD, poverty) with the results averaged and then compared to all other teachers. In this model, high achieving students can earn a teacher a low growth score if they didn’t do as well this year as the average of their peer group, even if they are a level 3 or 4. Low achieving students can earn a teacher a positive growth score, even if the student’s results are below proficiency, if they did better than their peers.
• It is possible that if too many students opt-out, a teacher will not get a growth score. Currently, a teacher needs a minimum of eight students with both pre and post assessments (a total of 16 scores) assigned to the teacher for at least 60% of the year. Therefore, no growth score can be held against the teacher.
We ask that you join us in continuing to reach out to our representatives and the Regents in an effort to correct this horrible injustice that our Governor has inflicted on our public schools, our dedicated teachers and most importantly, our students. Please be assured that we value your children as more than a test score and will continue to work diligently to offer the best education possible within the limitations that the “test and punish” mind-set places on us all.
On behalf of our teachers, thank you again for your advocacy.
Tomia Smith, President
Massapequa Federation of Teachers
A Union of Teachers and Secretaries
