Many parents who refused to allow their kids to take annual state assessments last year have not been convinced to change course — even as state officials have shifted toward a rethink of standards, tests and teacher evaluations.
Tests are shorter — but only by a few questions, parents say. Tests are untimed — but now students may be stuck stressing over problems even longer than before, they say. There is a moratorium in place on using test scores in teacher evaluations — but why not scrap the connection all together, they say.
While parents at the heart of last year’s opt-out movement, which took education officials by surprise when over 200,000 students refused state assessments, are happy they clearly sent a message to policymakers, they are still unsatisfied with the pace and degree of change in state education policy.
“I think State Ed is putting on a great show,” Scotia-Glenville parent Jaime Riegel said of the state Education Department’s effort to address parental concerns over testing and boost participation this month. “I’m more of a believe it when you see it person, and all I see are stressed-out students and stressed-out teachers.”
The reasons parents give for refusing the tests for their children range from strident opposition to the Common Core standards to concerns with the increasing focus on student testing to fears that creativity and critical thinking and the love of learning were being lost in the classroom.
“Why do you want my third-grader to take hours and hours of tests?” said Ruth McFarland, a mother of three Mohonasen students, including two who will refuse the tests when they start this week. “For some reason we feel a need to test our kids too much; it’s not necessary.”
“I think it’s detrimental,” said McFarland’s sister Becky Ryan, parent of five Mohonasen students, who agreed with her as they explained their opposition to the tests at a diner in Rotterdam last week.
They both said they see the tests as leading toward an education that focuses too much on preparing for narrowly tailored assessments and not enough on other topics. They also worried the tests took their kids’ education out of the hands of the teachers they trust.
“We want to keep it in the classroom with the teachers — the professionals — we trust,” McFarland said.
Last year test refusal rates varied widely across the Capital Region, with 7 percent of Schenectady students refusing to take the English Language Arts assessment and 60 percent of Mohonasen students refusing the same tests. The refusal rates for the math assessments were even higher. In Schalmont schools, 38 percent of students refused the math tests; 39 percent of Scotia-Glenville students didn’t take the math test; more than half of Waterford-Halfmoon students refused the test.
The opt-out movement has undeniably had an impact on the policy discussion around the state’s education standards and the annual tests used to assess student, school and district progress toward meeting those standards.
The Education Department has already started a review of the standards — but it remains unclear how deep any changes will go and whether they will appease parents deeply concerned with Common Core. The Board of Regents also adopted a moratorium on using student test scores in teacher evaluations. Tests became a much larger portion of those evaluations under last year’s budget law, which drew the ire of teachers unions and parent groups and fueled the test refusal movement last spring.
And in perhaps the most symbolic signal of the movement’s power in shifting the discussion yet, Regent Betty Rosa, a critic of the tests, was elected chancellor last month and ascended to the position April 1. Rosa was endorsed by statewide opt-out groups and ultimately the only regent nominated for chancellor.
Within minutes of being elected by her colleagues on the board, Rosa grabbed headlines with a statement that quickly made its way onto the Twitter feeds and Facebook pages of many opt-out parents and groups.
“If I was a parent and was not on the Board of Regents, I would opt-out at this time,” Rosa said in a new conference after her election. “Parents should be informed, and parents should make their own personal decisions.”
But messages from the Education Department this year have encouraged parents to let their kids take the state tests this year. For example, the Education Department’s website this weekend featured a series of videos of teachers explaining “why assessments are important,” under the header, “Take the NYS Assessments.”
Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has repeatedly stressed at regents meetings and other public forums that education officials are listening to the voices of parents and working to address their concerns. But she has also argued for the value of maintaining standards and has called tests “an essential part of the student experience.”
“I know the need to correct our course is urgent, but we can’t get there overnight,” Elia wrote in a letter distributed last week to newspapers throughout the state. “I’m asking New Yorkers to trust in the adjustments we’ve made so far and the purposeful changes we’re going to make.”
But to some parents, Elia’s words ring hollow.
“Proposed revisions to the [Common Core] standards fall short,” said Tricia Farmer, a Burnt Bills-Ballston Lake mother of two boys who has refused tests since Common Core was adopted in New York over four years ago. “The standards are fundamentally flawed.”
Farmer said the standards are too stringent for the youngest grades and not rigorous enough for older students. She argued they emphasize narrow ways of finding answers and discredit other methods.
She and other parents are worried the result of the department’s standards review, which will includes teachers, parents, administrators and other across the state, will be nothing more than small changes coupled with a large marketing effort.
“They can’t just tweak the standards they have; that’s just rebranding,” Farmer said. “They will never get anywhere; you can’t just be satisfied with a few cosmetic changes.”
Reach Gazette reporter Zachary Matson at 395-3120, [email protected] or @zacharydmatson on Twitter.
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