“Unprecedented” numbers opt out of state tests–what’s next?
Today students in New York State begin three days of state-mandated tests in English language arts. But thousands of families across the state, from Syracuse and Buffalo to the Hudson Valley, Long Island to New York City, will sit out the tests, citing concerns with their relevance and the sense that the curriculum has been taken over by preparation.
“It shifts the entire focus of the classroom,” says Jeannette Deutermann, the organizer behind Long Island Opt Out, a Facebook group with almost 16,000 members. “They seem way too young to have that much testing and that much focus on the tests.”
An opt-out T-shirt worn by kids in Suffolk County.
The spring of 2014 has seen a wave of grassroots activism against both standardized tests and the Common Core that Bob Schaeffer, a longtime activist with the group Fairtest, calls “unprecedented.” The numbers are small, but they’re found around the country. Chicago, site of the 2012 teachers’ strike, and Colorado have seen the most action so far, although opt-out protests have been reported in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennslyvania, New Jersey, andAlabama among other states.
Now it is New York’s turn. This is the second year that New York State students are taking Common Core aligned exams, which last year showed a 25-30 point drop in scores compared to previous tests, raising the ire of parents. It is unusual for parent activists in heavily democratic Greenpoint, Brooklyn to be on the same page with those in more conservative Syracuse, hundreds of miles away in Western New York. But the same pattern is repeating around the country. The convergence of resistance to the Common Core, a cause championed by libertarian and other right-wing groups, with resistance to state standardized tests, often backed by progressive teachers’ unions and civil rights groups, has led to what Schaeffer calls a “strange-bedfellows alliance.”
But based on organizers I’ve talked to in Texas, Washington State, Colorado and New York while researching my new book, most of the opposition to school testing honestly doesn’t have a prearranged political agenda at all. ”The policy and funding elites–the Gates, Walton, and Broad foundations–major campaign donors, and the elite mass media are pushing for more tests and the Core,” Schaeffer says. On the other side, “There’s really a populist pushback–lots of just plain parents and teachers who think layering on even more test driven curriculum is not going to have the results we want.”
That describes Deutermann. She got involved in organizing “by accident” when the older of her two sons, then in 3rd grade, started crying and begging not to go to school. ”He had stomachaches at
Does Pre-K really help?
The big news in New York City this week is that Mayor Bill de Blasio got the money he was looking for to fund universal pre-kindergarten in the city. It’s also a national story, though, because many states and cities across the country, egged on by an Obama administration initiative, have been pushing for more early childhood education, particularly for the most disadvantaged children. Universal p