What We Are Doing To Vulnerable Children in New York State with the Insane Levels of Testing.

(Told to Me By Parent Activist Deborah Lang)

Elwood School District, Elwood Middle School, Greenlawn, NY (near Huntington)

Kyle is a 7th grader this year. Kyle's mom says Kyle has always had difficulty mastering core subjects but his grades have been passable. He is brilliant in some things. She says he can put together/take apart anything. He has fixed TVs, and can repair most anything around the house. At school, while his grades remained mediocre in core subjects, he excelled in band and tech. In fact, the only way his mom could persuade Kyle to keep up his efforts in the other subjects was the carrot of band and tech. Kyle went to school because of band and tech.
Well, this past September, the school advised Kyle's mom that because Kyle did so poorly on the assessments he is mandated to attended double periods of math and English. They took the place of band and tech. Kyle's mom called me crying, not knowing what to do, because now Kyle is refusing to go to school.

Testing has morphed into child abuse for some of our vulnerable children, especially when those tests are used to grade teachers, schools and entire school districts