Voices from the Trenches; Teachers Respond to the Impact of NY State Tests on Their Students

From a Teacher in a Bronx Middle School

"The children were expected to sit in absolute silence for three hours! The older special emotionally disturbed children in the school started a riot in the cafeteria !! Direct result of over testing and frustration due to expectations that are outrageously unrealistic and necessary !! Excuse my vocabulary ,but this is absolute bull shit!!!"

From a Manhattan  Middle School/ High School Teacher

Tests at our middle school for students with emotional disturbance have led to major fights and aggressive behaviors. Yesterday, a student was taken to hospital on stretcher and another taken out of the school in handcuffs- middle school! This is an outrage. The tests are purposely impossible so next year, when tests are easier, the government can show 'progress.' They are using our children as pawns in their political schemes with zero concern for their actual educations or their overall well being

From a Brooklyn Teacher and Parent

The biggest hypocrisy of all is the DoE's descrbing its mission as "Children First." No, it's testing first, It's Data First. It's bidding by publishers first. Children come last in this equation. It's disgusting. And... as I've mentioned before, THE CHILDREN NEVER GET TO SEE THE RESULTS OF THEIR TESTS. They will not know which answers they got right or wrong, or if all the instruction on using graphic organizers and chunking text and all that made a difference. The tests will be shredded before kids (or teachers) ever get to see them. So they can not even be used as instgructional tools. Where's the "Children First" in all of this?

Does Anyone Setting Education Policy in NY State Send Their Kids to Public School?

We have an interesting conundrum in the state of New York when it comes to education policy. Not one of the three most powerful people who are shaping public education in this state, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Board of Regents Chair Merryl Tisch, and State Education Commissioner John King send their children to public schools

Is it any wonder that public schools administrators, teachers, and parents are the last ones they consult when determining how many, and which tests to administer in the state's public schools, and how those tests should be used.

Their approach represents paternalism at its best, and insider dealing at its worst, as the policies they have instituted bring huge profits to test companies and consulting firms which can be the source of political contributions. high paying jobs, and board of director positions to public servants who help them get state contracts.

One other thing should be kept in mind, and this hails back to the "interlocking directorates" that social critics discovered among Captains of Industry at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century. And that has to do with elite social networking. The schools our state education leaders send their children to are the same ones that CEO's of big companies send their children to. And the places they go for vacation are the same ones those CEO's frequent.

This is yet another reason why our high public servants, when they have a chance to appoint an Education Commission, choose CEO's over teachers, principals and parents every time. They are picking their friends and future business partners

Do you think I am being paranoid here? Or am I describing important underlying conditions for the Test Catastrophe which has descended upon our schools?

In NY Today, Largest Act of "Test Refusal" In American History

I am so proud of the thousands of parents and children who sometimes alone and under duress, sometimes with the support of teachers and administrators, decided to Opt Out of testing in New York State today. This has resulted in the largest collective act of "Test Refusal" in the history of this nation, and it is only the beginning of what will become a huge national movement. New Yorkers are proud, they are smart, and they are tough. Anyone who thinks that the parents of this state are going to stand idly by while state officials wearing ideological blinders or driven by expectations of profit fill schools with tests which bore their children, stifle their creativity, and in the worse instance, reduce them to tears, better wake up and smell the cappuchino. "Something's happening here," to quote Buffalo Springfield, but this time it's perfectly clear. Parents in this state are going to take back our public schools and make them places where children are respected, nurtured, allowed to play and allowed to dream!

To The Children and Families in New York State Opting Out of State Tests

Today, in New York State, democratic renewal takes the form of thousands of children refusing to take tests they and their families deem oppressive. We are all in your debt. You are setting an example for an entire nation where testing has gotten completely out of control due to political opportunism, cynicism and greed. Many teachers, principals, school superintendents- and even a few state education administrators- agree with you but few have been willing to risk their careers to fight a Political Juggernaut that they regard as unstoppable because so much Big Money has been behind it. So it has come to you, ordinary citizens and their children, to stop this Runaway Testing Train.

But there is nothing ordinary you are doing. Taking this action, sometimes in the face of intimidation and threats, is the living embodiment of the democratic spirit in this nation, the same kind of courage that led Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her seat in that Montgomery Bus in 1955, and the four North Carolina College students who refused to leave the white section of a segregated lunch counter in 1960. Those actions eventually sparked a movement to sweep away segregation, but there was no guarantee that would be the result when those individuals took them. They only knew that their conscience would no longer allow them to endure this kind of wrong doing, which at the time was enshrined in law.

The tests that children opting out of today were imposed by state law. Parents are being told that refusing these tests is illegal. But challenging unjust laws, with dignity and purpose and in a spirit of peace, is what makes democracy work when government authority rides roughshod over peoples rights

So once again, in behalf of millions of people around the nation horrified by what testing is doing to our public schools, I thank you for your courage, I thank you for your sacrifice, I thank you for your example

You are truly making history today.

The Man Behind the NY Parents Revolt-Governor Andrew Cuomo

To the shock of many people, New York State has become the center of a large and growing parent's revolt against excessive testing. Thousands of children around the state will be Opting Out of state tests this week, even though the New York State Department of Education has insisted such actions are illegal and could have severe consequences for the parents and families who participate and for schools where students refuse the tests.

This revolt is not only due to sheer amount of testing taking place - six straight days of tests, 90 minutes a day for third graders- along with the high stakes attached to them, it also stems from the contemptuous attitude the State Education Commissioner John King has taken towards parents, teachers, and principals who question the usefulness of so much testing.

But let's not kid ourselves, the bullying of families, children and teachers by the State Education Department is a direct extension of the personality of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who rammed a teacher evaluation protocol through the State Legislature that the best principals in the State warned would lead to an orgy of testing and fill school communities with stress.

But our Governor, who was elected in a landslide, sends his own kids to private schools, and has Presidential aspirations which he hopes the billionaires behind
School Reform will support, thought he could dictate education policies which would l keep federal dollars flowing, and write off any opposition from teachers and parents as self-interested whining..

What he didn't count on was that the proliferation of tests his policies required would enrage parents around the state, most of them in communities where the public schools were functioning well, whose children were coming home in tears because test prep had taken over the school curriculum and made their school experience oppressive and boring. In such communities, the new tests and teacher evaluations, introduced with great suddenness as a result if legislation passed in the dead of night had the character of an Alien Invasion or the actions of a Totalitarian Regime.Schools filled with art and music and science and school trips, where teachers loved the children and loved their jobs-- and which parents paid high taxes to fund- were suddenly becoming zones of stress and fear as a result of unilateral actions by the State Government There was no discussion and no appeal. It was the state's way or the highway.

Given the intellect, education, and experience of many of the parents appalled by these policies, the Governor's dictatorial approach was bound to backfire. And it has. You now have a full fledged test revolt in many of the State's highest performing schools districts. And as for Governor Cuumo's Presidential aspirations, they may be disappearing as fast as the incorrect answers rubbed out by Michelle Rhee's eraser when she was Chancellor of DC's public schools

America's Education Nightmare

Imagine if someone gave you the following scenario- The wealthiest and most powerful people in the country are going to spend huge amounts of money trying to improve education. But instead of using those funds on getting talented and idealistic young people to devote their life to teaching, they were going to direct their funds so that such people gravitated to high paid positions creating and administering tests, assessing and evaluating schools, and joining private companies profiting from the rapidly growing education marketplace. 

That scenario, which an objective observe would say was destined to dismal failure, has become the reality in education policy around the country The money flowing into education from the federal government or private sources has overwhelming gone into management, assessment and quality control rather than recruiting and empowering great teachers and enriching the classroom experience so that children are excited about learning. Indeed, this top down approach has driven great teachers out of the profession and make children hate school.

All over the country, teacher morale is plummeting and children and families are in a state of shock over the uncontrolled proliferation of tests. There is a rebellion brewing, though the powers that be that created the current reality seek to suppress it and mock it. But none of their packaging and propaganda and bluster can hide the fact that you can't improve schools by management techniques that make teachers had their jobs and children hate going to school.

We need a moratorium on testing and school closings, and an redirection of existing funds into enriching classroom instruction while adopting policies which affirm the character of schools as community institutions not just one size fits all institutions shaped by a national blueprint.

If we don't do that, and reverse course quickly, we will lose a generation of teachers and more than one generation of children.

Obedience to the Law Is Freedom

'Obedience to the Law is Freedom'. Thus declared a sign hung over a barbed wire covered gate at a US Army Base, Fort Dix, in 1969. It became a symbol for the movement against the War in Vietnam. Today, it has a chilling resonance to parents who have been told that Opting Out their children from state tests is illegal and will incur severe penalties. To those brave individuals, I cannot recommend a course of action- as that must be determined by the dictates of one's conscience- but I will share a passage on just and unjust laws from one of the greatest human rights documents we have, Dr Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail:

"One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."