Right to Education | World Education Forum 2015

Right to Education | World Education Forum 2015:

Right to Education

Ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030.

Education is a fundamental human right and occupies a central place in human rights, as it is a right in itself and indispensable for the exercise of all other human rights.  As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which marginalized children, young people and adults can lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully in communities and society.

Inspired by the moral foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to education is enshrined in a number of instruments. The right to education has been strongly affirmed in international law, most importantly in the Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960). 

The World Education Forum (2000) reaffirmed education as a fundamental human right, and set objectives for achieving EFA goals based upon political commitments by the international community to achieve the right to basic education for all.  The Millenium Declaration (2000) affirmed by world leaders the same year and reaffirmed at the UN Summit in 2005 form an agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives. Two of them echo EFA goals 2 and 5: MDG 2  and MDG 3.

WEF-2015 will take stock of what has been achieved since 2000 and build the path to Education for All to 2030. 

Related links

• Global Database on the Right to Education Global Database
• UNESCO’s work on the Right to Education
• Global report on Out-of-school children
• UNESCO eAtlas series with separate editions on literacy, teachers and out-of-school children
• All in School, the global initiave on out-of-school children

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 Right to Education | World Education Forum 2015:

Students on testing: Taking tests is not a job skill | Bright Light Small City

Students on testing: Taking tests is not a job skill | Bright Light Small City:

Students on testing: Taking tests is not a job skill

Testing from the inside out: This week, on May 20, the debate team at Minneapolis’ Northeast Middle School is hosting a “community panel on standardized testing.” With the help of French teacher and debate team coach Michael Grandys, these kids–whose school lives have been defined by testing–will be going directly in to the belly of the beast, and taking the rest of us with them. (I will be on the panel on the 20th, and, more importantly, so will a lot of other people, including students.)

After I met a few of these kids at a pre-panel event, I couldn’t resist asking them why they wanted to host a debate about testing. I just assumed that, since they have grown up within the low expectation-slashing embrace of No Child Left Behind, being tested would be as natural a thing as breathing for these kids. Turns out it’s not that simple.

These kids have brains in their heads and feet in their shoes.

Here’s what the students I spoke with–8th grader Margret Ritschel and 7th graders Eleanor Craig and Ginger Benson-Nicheallochain–had to say. My questions and prompts are in bold; their answers (not in multiple choice format, unfortunately) are the bullet points that follow.

Tell me how you got interested in the topic of testing.

• I have hated testing since I was little and thought the whole thing was really unfair.
• I got involved in the panel on standardized testing after our coach, Mr. Grandys, went and saw Jesse Hagopian speak in March. He then talked with us about testing, and I got intrigued with it. I did a bunch of research and just got really passionate about it. That’s why I’ve decided to speak out about it.
• There is just so much pressure with testing. Our teachers feel a lot of pressure to teach to the test, but the tests don’t match up with what we’re doing in class.

How do the tests not match up with what you are doing in class?

• We are all in advanced math classes, so the (federally mandated) MCA tests don’t match what level we are at. The test is for grade-level work only, and we are all working above grade level. So, before the tests, we get crammed with knowledge, and told “we’re doing this because it’s on the test.”

Wait. When I asked the Minnesota Department of Education about testing last year, their message was clear: they do not endorse or support the use of test prep. But it sounds like that message didn’t reach your school.

• No, we do test prep packets for three months out of the year, to get ready for the tests. The packets are 10-20 pages long, and we have to do them every day.
• The test prep packets are huge, and kids don’t have time to do them because we still have all of our other work to do. So, this leads to copying and searching on the Internet for answers.
• We get graded on the test prep packets, but we don’t have time to for them. 

Why do you think you have to do so much test prep?

• We hear the message all the time: You have to do well on these tests so our school can succeed and teachers can keep their jobs. One teacher said, “I kind of want a job next year, so do well on the test, everyone.”
• It’s so much pressure on students, but the teachers can’t help it. They have to do this
  

  “We know that adults learn best, just like children do, when they are engaged in a natural learning cycle that includes goal-setting, exploration, and reflection.”
  because they are getting graded on our scores.

Some people say the tests are needed, to see how students are doing and what they’re learning. What do you think?

• Testing is not learning. The quizzes and tests that teachers make are more fair, and they are about what we’re doing in class. And teachers don’t lose their jobs if we fail a spelling test. But with standardized tests, teachers can be fired if we don’t do well.
• There are two worlds: the testing world, and the real world. In real life, you can ask for help. On the tests, you can’t.
• With the tests, no one knows what’s on them. We don’t know what we got wrong or why. 
• Life isn’t multiple choice. In life, you have to think. And these tests don’tStudents on testing: Taking tests is not a job skill | Bright Light Small City:

What’s the legacy of Head Start, 50 years on?

What’s the legacy of Head Start, 50 years on?:

What’s the legacy of Head Start, 50 years on?

TRANSCRIPT

RELATED LINKS

• Federal government spending bill investing billions in education 
• Giving traumatized kids a head start in healing 
• States looking to expand preschool confront debate over results, funding 

GWEN IFILL: Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson announced the creation of Head Start, the government program designed to support low-income children and families.

In our latest American Graduate report, the NewsHour’s April Brown has the story of how it’s changed the lives of millions of children.

That’s part of a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

APRIL BROWN: In Lisette Steinwald’s preschool class in Silver Spring, Maryland, the theme of what it takes to make a salad can be found in a variety of activities throughout the day, from reading, to a little show and tell.

The 4- and 5-year-olds she teaches in the Head Start program at Montgomery Knolls Elementary School spend about three-and-a-half-hours with her every day during the school year.

STUDENTS (singing): Curve it around and slide to the right to make a number two.

APRIL BROWN: They’re learning skills designed to ease the transition to kindergarten, and are following in the footsteps of more than 30 million children who have gone through the program in the United States over the past five decades.

NARRATOR: Head Start, a head start for poverty’s children.

APRIL BROWN: Head Start got its start in the summer of 1965, as one salvo in President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. The early education program for low-income children supported their social, emotional and physical needs and got them ready for elementary school. It drew high-profile supporters, including the president’s wife, Lady Bird Johnson, and actor Gregory Peck.

GREGORY PECK: Sadly, there are little children who are already headed for lives of frustration and misery. No one ever read them a story, taught them a nursery rhyme, showed them about colors, letters and numbers. When they start school in the first grade, they will be so far behind the others, that they may never catch up.

DARREN WALKER, President, Ford Foundation: In 1965, I was sitting on the porch of our little shotgun shack in Ames, Texas, with my mother and a woman approached the house. She introduced herself and told my mother that she was representing a new program called Head Start.

APRIL BROWN: Darren Walker’s mother signed him up in the program’s inaugural year, and he recently shared his story at a gathering of supporters and alumni from around the country hosted by the National Head Start Association.

DARREN WALKER: Head Start changed my life. It allowed me to begin to imagine, to think about the world outside of my environment and to think creatively about what my life might be.

APRIL BROWN: Today, Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, the nation’s second largest private philanthropic group, which is a funder of the NewsHour.

In honor of Head Start’s 50th anniversary, the organization is paying for new research on early brain development in an effort to improve outcomes. Walker says the foundation has come full circle since it supported research in the 1960s that led to the creation of What’s the legacy of Head Start, 50 years on?:

The Purpose And Potential Impact Of The Common Core | Shanker Institute

The Purpose And Potential Impact Of The Common Core | Shanker Institute:

The Purpose And Potential Impact Of The Common Core

 I think it makes sense to have clear, high standards for what students should know and be able to do, and so I am generally a supporter of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). That said, I’m not comfortable with the way CCSS is being advertised as a means for boosting student achievement (i.e., test scores), nor the frequency with which I have heard speculation about whether and when the CCSS will generate a “bump” in NAEP scores.

To be clear, I think it is plausible to argue that, to the degree that the new standards can help improve the coherence and breadth/depth of the content students must learn, they may lead to some improvement over the long term – for example, by minimizing the degree to which student mobility disrupts learning or by enabling the adoption of coherent learning progressions across grade levels. It remains to be seen whether the standards, as implemented, can be helpful in attaining these goals.

The standards themselves, after all, only discuss the level and kind of learning that students should be pursuing at a given point in their education. They do not say what particular content should be taught when (curricular frameworks), how it should be taught (instructional materials), who will be doing the teaching and with what professional development, or what resources will be made available to teachers and students. And these are the primary drivers of productivity improvements. Saying how high the bar should be raised (or what it should consist of) are important, but outcomes are determined by whether or not the tools are not available with which to accomplish that raising. The purpose of having better or higher standards is just that - better or higher standards. If you're relying on immediate test-based gratification due solely to CCSS, you're confusing a road map with how to get to your destination.

Accordingly, the evidence on the relationship between standards and achievement is far from conclusive (see the CCSS chapter in this Brookings report by Tom Loveless). One big problem is that standards in the U.S. are normally set at the state level, which limits the power of analyses designed to isolate the impact of changing standards, particularly given that so many important policies, including curricula and curricular materials, vary widely between districts within the same state, and even between schools in the same district.

Moreover, since many states have still taken a pass on providing useful CCSS-aligned curriculum frameworks – and most of the new “CCSS-aligned” tests have been developed without regard to (or prior too) the curricular documents that do exist – any observed relationship between changing standards and student achievement may be due to alignment (or misalignment) between the standards, the curriculum, and the tests.

Still, sadly, anyone familiar with contemporary education policy debates can predict the coming debate. Over the next 5-10 years, there will be endless attempts to attribute observed achievement increases (unfortunately, usually cross-sectional, and usually measured by proficiency rates), or lack thereof, to whether or not states adopted the Common Core. In fact, this has already started among early adopter states, such as Kentucky.

Much of this discussion, like most attempts to use NAEP for policy arguments, will be little more than careless speculation, motivated largely by pre-existing opinions about the CCSS. Over the coming The Purpose And Potential Impact Of The Common Core | Shanker Institute:

U.S. Supreme Court denies teachers' Katrina layoffs suit | NOLA.com

U.S. Supreme Court denies teachers' Katrina layoffs suit | NOLA.com:

U.S. Supreme Court denies teachers' Katrina layoffs suit

 It's the end of the road for the thousands of New Orleans public school employees who said they were wronged when they lost their jobs after Hurricane Katrina. They lost in Louisiana in October, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied their appeal Monday (May 18), according to court documents.

The Louisiana Supreme Court's decision against the plaintiffs was doubly negative -- most of the court's justices threw the case out, and said they would have ruled against the plaintiffs anyway -- and doubly surprising, because the teachers had won at trial in theappeals court. The trial judge awarded damages that could have totaled $1.5 billion.

About 7,500 teachers and staff were part of the suit. It charged that the Orleans Parish School Board did not follow proper procedures when it laid off almost its entire workforce after the 2005 storm. Moreover, plaintiffs said, the state Recovery School District, which took over most of the schools, should have given them priority in hiring.

Despite Monday's ruling, the plaintiffs aren't giving up. Willie Zanders, their attorney, said he will turn to the executive branch and Congress to investigate the possible misuse of $500 million in post-Katrina grants to the schools. At the time, Louisiana Education Superintendent Cecil Picard based his request on the need to pay school staff, Zanders said. But trial Judge Ethel Simms Julien of Orleans Parish Civil District Court said in her decision that the state "diverted these funds to the RSD."

In the best-case scenario, Zanders said, Congress would require Louisiana to repay the money to the federal government then pass legislation directing the money to the laid-off school employees.

"You don't quit after 10 years. If you believe in something, you fight. Justice has no time deadline -- or we'd still be in slavery," Zanders said.

Justice has no time deadline -- or we'd still be in slavery." - Plaintffs' attorney Willie Zanders.

Representatives of the Orleans Parish School Board and Louisiana Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears cases when they concern the federal Constitution. The plaintiffs argued that their due process rights had been violated under the 14^th Amendment. They also said the case brought up "the unsettled important question of state-mandated priority consideration for employment" discussed in two 1972 decisions, according to their reply brief to the high court.U.S. Supreme Court denies teachers' Katrina layoffs suit | NOLA.com:

Broad Foundation Announces Finalists for 2015 Charter Schools Prize - Charters & Choice - Education Week

Broad Foundation Announces Finalists for 2015 Charter Schools Prize - Charters & Choice - Education Week:

Broad Foundation Announces Finalists for 2015 Charter Schools Prize

Texas-based IDEA Public Schools, Illinois-based Noble Network of Charter Schools, and Achievement First which operates in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island have been selected as finalists for the 2015 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools.

Announced this morning by the Los Angeles-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the award honors high-performing charter management organizations that serve low-income students of color. 

The three finalists were selected from among the 20 largest charter management organizations in the country.

A group of national education experts select the finalists based on student performance and college readiness data, according to a press release from the Broad Foundation. (The Broad Foundation provides support for Education Week's coverage of personalized learning and system leadership.)

The winner will be announced at the annual National Charter Schools Conference in New Orleans June 22, and will receive $250,000 from the Broad Foundation.

Achievement First and IDEA were finalists for last year's prize, but the award went to KIPP.

Editorial: Private schools, public tab - Times Union

Editorial: Private schools, public tab - Times Union:

Editorial: Private schools, public tab

THE STAKES:

How about fixing public schools first?

With New York's public education system in turmoil from years of flailing over tests, teacher evaluations, curriculum, taxes and funding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan have tossed yet another bomb into the classroom — taxpayer support for private schools.

A governor who perennially complains about schools' insatiable appetite for money has suddenly found millions of dollars to burn though for his Parental Choice in Education Act. It's a public-private partnership of the worst sort — the public pays the tab, private schools and wealthy donors reap the benefits.

Perhaps Mr. Cuomo sees this as another way to break what he calls the "public education monopoly" — as if public schools were not something in which we all have a stake. But Mr. Cuomo seems to have conflated public education with his animosity for teachers' unions.

His proposal would allow donors to take a tax credit of 75 percent of their donations to nonprofit education foundations, up to $1 million. Senate and Assembly versions of the bill would allow up to 90 percent. That's money shaved off a person's or a corporation's tax bill — and they could roll it from year to year if the credit exceeded their tax liability.

That this is really a tax break for affluent donors is evidenced by the cumbersome process involved. The state would require taxpayers to apply for the credit before even making a contribution, by first filling out a form saying how much they planned to donate and to whom. It's a program for folks with accountants on speed dial rather than for average New Yorkers who just want to help out their parish school or local charter school.

The governor's program would cost taxpayers $70 million this year, only $20 million of which could go to public schools. The Legislature proposes $150 million, rising to $300 million by 2018; up to half could go to public schools, the other half to foundations or other entities benefitting private schools. But after paying taxes, who's lining up to write another check to public schools?

Half the money given as scholarships would have to go to low income students — defined as children in a household of three making about $55,000 a year. And the rest? That could go to students whose families earn as much as $300,000 a year under Mr. Cuomo's plan, and a whopping $550,000 in the Senate version.

Oh, there is one more benefit for poor families in all this: a $500 tuition tax credit. It's hard to see how such a small amount could make private schools costing tens of thousands of dollars affordable to people struggling just to pay their everyday bills.

What's perhaps most troubling here is how Mr. Cuomo has railed about the need to put public education on a crash diet, even as advocates accuse him of underfunding needy schools in cities and less affluent rural areas. Now, suddenly, a state that supposedly could not afford to keep throwing money at public schools has $50 million to $150 million a year for private and parochial schools?

With the Democratic governor and GOP Senate majority leader pushing hard for this bomb of an idea in the waning days of the legislative session, it falls on the Assembly to remind them that public schools are the public priority. Private schools are just that: private. Taxpayers should not have to prop them up, least of all while the state is hobbling public education.

Editorial: Private schools, public tab - Times Union:

KJ Got Some Splainin to Do | The Sacramento Bee

Mayor Kevin Johnson must explain his staff increase | The Sacramento Bee:
Mayor Kevin Johnson must explain his staff increase

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The burden of proof is squarely on Mayor Kevin Johnson to justify increasing the size of his staff from seven to 12.

When the $700,000 expenditure came up at last week’s City Council meeting, Johnson was in Knoxville, Tenn., in his role as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Now he’s back in town. He should take his first opportunity at Tuesday’s council budget hearings to publicly explain why it’s so essential to Sacramento that his office get five more staffers.

Without a convincing case, it looks like a way to get around voters’ overwhelming rejection last November of the “strong-mayor” measure.

Johnson has big dreams for “Sacramento 3.0,” including thousands more downtown residents, an “innovation district” in the railyard and a possible new performing arts center, so he could use some staff support.

It’s also true that the proposed budget includes 22 more positions in the Police Department, more money for parks maintenance and other improvements in services to residents, so basic needs are not being neglected. And in a $404 million general fund budget, $700,000 is a relatively small sum.

Still, Johnson owes taxpayers a good explanation why more staff in his office is the best way to spend still-limited city resources.

Also, the mayor – and City Manager John Shirey – must clear up why three of the five proposed new staffers were squirreled away in the budget for the city manager’s office.

It certainly wasn’t clear in the budget documents that those staffers would report to the mayor. Council members said they didn’t know about the three positions until reading a May 10 story by The Bee’s Marissa Lang and Ryan Lillis.

Johnson carved out a far bigger role in the budget process this year. With that comes more responsibility. He shouldn’t need prodding to defend his proposals.Mayor Kevin Johnson must explain his staff increase | The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article21320925.html#storylink=cpy

NEA’s Lily Eskelsen Garcia Remains Faithful to Gates Funding | deutsch29

NEA’s Lily Eskelsen Garcia Remains Faithful to Gates Funding | deutsch29:

NEA’s Lily Eskelsen Garcia Remains Faithful to Gates Funding

On April 26, 2015, education historian Diane Ravitch moderated an hour-long discussion between National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten at the second annual conference of the Network for Public Education (NPE).

Only minutes prior to the conclusion of the session, Ravitch “Barbara Waltered” Garcia and Weingarten with the following question:

The Walton, Gates and Broad Foundations are at the forefront of the  privatization movement. Will you commit not to accept funding from them and not to collaborate with them? [56:56]

She then asked for their “yes or no” answers:

Lily?

Garcia: Yes.

Randi?

Weingarten: Yes.

A beautiful moment. The audience stood and applauded first Ravitch’s question then the Garcia-Weingarten response.

The session soon ended, and Garcia wasted no time backing out of that one.

In fact, in a blog post dated three days prior to her conference appearance (??), Garcia defended her right to say “yes” and mean “no.”

In her oddly-dated post, Garcia attempts to set Gates apart from Walton and Broad. In reality, NEA has no problem with refusing money from Walton because the Waltons hate unions.

As for the Broad Foundation, Garcia criticizes it as “all charters all the time.”

But when it comes to taking cash from the Gates Foundation, Garcia states that Gates is “complicated.”

She might as well have noted that with “all charters all the time” Broad, it is also “complicated” since some NEA locals have accepted Broad funding in the past. But let’s just set that aside for now.

As supposed evidence that Gates can be trusted (and that accepting his money is fine), Garcia cites part of the Gates Foundation website that offers a brochured Gates sell:

We are focused on results. Those that can be measured. And those measured in ways beyond numbers. We see individuals, not issues. We are inspired by passion, and compassion for the wellbeing of people. Our methods are based on logic, driven by rigor, results, issues, and outcomes. Our innovation means trying new things, learning from our mistakes, and consistently refining our approach. Our strategies help us define our path to success, but our effectiveness is based in the aggregate power of our initiatives to impact holistic change.

That is enough for Garcia. She considers Gates trustworthiness as established.

She does not add that the Gates Foundation is clear about making grants “according to our funding priorities” and by directly contacting organizations to invite them to apply for grants under those Gates-determined priorities.

As evidence of Gates’ goodness, Garcia notes that Gates funds “the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (which the NEA helped found).”

Let’s talk about Gates money and National Board.

In March 2014, Gates shelled out $200,000 to help pay for National Board’s conference. Coincidentally, in March 2014, Bill Gates gave a keynote at that same NEA’s Lily Eskelsen Garcia Remains Faithful to Gates Funding | deutsch29:

The Common Core “Deep Learning” Message that All Students are Gifted is Wrong:

The Common Core “Deep Learning” Message that All Students are Gifted is Wrong

MAY 18, 2015 BY NANCY BAILEY 2 COMMENTS

…in the ordinary elementary school situation, children of 140 IQ waste half their time. Those of 170 IQ waste practically all their time.

— gifted education pioneer Leta Hollingworth, found in Genius Denied, by Jan and Bob Davidson

A recent report implied that with the right kind of environment and “deep learning” everyone can be gifted. The belief is that students have these capabilities just waiting to be actualized with the right curriculum. The idea is that if the right projects and innovations are used, all students will be enlighten and giftedness will, I guess, cease to be. I mean, if everyone is gifted, no one is gifted. This kind of thinking causes harm to both the gifted population and those who are not gifted.

Deep learning appears to be a spinoff of Common Core State Standards indicating that students can finally be provided deeper thinking about what matters because…well, after all, how many first graders have you known who understood Mesopotamia?

This train of thought jumped out at me recently in a description of one of the High Tech High (HTH) schools in California. I have written about High Tech High before (Bill Gates loves them) and I am not sure what they are doing with Common Core. They appear to push for curriculum unlike the current one-size-fits-all being foisted on traditional public schools.

But they criticize gifted education by describing some of the worst practices that have been used by public schools to address the needs of gifted students. Let’s face it, few public schools have ever done gifted education right.

Many elementary schools have once-a-week pull-out programs where gifted children do activities all students would love—a fact that HTH likes to highlight. Of course, this evokes envy by other children, and many teachers resent the disruption.

In high school, most gifted students are relegated to advanced placement classes (AP), or International Baccalaureate (IB), never designed for gifted students in mind. Both AP and IB are better than nothing but not good enough. While HTH may do their The Common Core “Deep Learning” Message that All Students are Gifted is Wrong:

Action Alert for Milwaukee | BustED Pencils

Action Alert for Milwaukee | BustED Pencils:

Action Alert for Milwaukee

Last week Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) and Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) decided that their vast experience as suburban Wisconsin legislators qualified them to introduce a bill that would literally take away Milwaukee Public Schools from the people of Milwaukee.  Yes, they proposed a “public school take over bill.”  These bills have been passed in many urban areas across the country and have been proven to simply be a private take over of urban poor and minority populated schools.  Later in the week it was announced that the bill was killed.  However, the movement to privatize urban public schools has been way too lucrative to just let die.  Instead of a bill, the Milwaukee School Take over Bill  has been simply slated to be passed as part of the state budget process—truly undermining the political and social capital of the citizens of Milwaukee.

ACTION ALERT

PLEASE ACT IMMEDIATELY AND FORWARD LINK TO FAMILY/FRIENDS

Attempts to stick privatization into state budget this Tuesday…

WE CAN NOT LOSE ELECTED SCHOOL BOARDS!

Remember Act 10 was just about public workers, then came Right to Work…

This could be looked at as it’s just MPS, then it spreads everywhere…

TAKE ACTION NOW (really easy with this link)

 http://capwiz.com/nea/wi/state/main/?state=WI

Listen to the BustED Pencils show below.  I talk with an assortment of guests from Milwaukee about what’s happening on the ground and what you can do to help.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bustedpencils/2015/05/16/suburban-republicans-assault-on-milwaukee-public-schools

Action Alert for Milwaukee | BustED Pencils:

Michael Mulgrew: The better tests N.Y. kids deserve - NY Daily News

Michael Mulgrew: The better tests N.Y. kids deserve - NY Daily News:

The better tests N.Y. kids deserve

It’s time to ring down the curtain on a long-running farce: New York’s current statewide standardized tests. These exams — administered last month — give parents misleading information, encourage schools to focus on test-prep rather than real learning and are all but useless to teachers, the people who need them the most.

Let’s look at the tests’ recent history. Are 80% of the New York State students proficient in reading (the 2009 tests) or fewer than 27% (the 2014 tests)?

And who bears the responsibility for progress or the lack thereof? When city scores on the state tests rose, despite the fact that teachers and other observers said the exams were too easy, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg took credit for the gain. When scores fell dramatically because of a new test and a political decision to set a very demanding passing score, Gov. Cuomo blamed teachers.

Meantime, independent of Bloomberg’s boasting and Cuomo’s alarmist jeremiads, the most reliable and consistent testing instrument in the nation — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — has shown modest but generally consistent gains in reading and math by New York City students.

This spring, hundreds of thousands of New York families demonstrated their unhappiness with the state’s testing regimen when they refused to let their children sit for these wasteful and wrong-headed state exams — having watched as weeks of their children’s regular class time and enrichment courses like art and music were lost to cramming for tests that provide such little value.

Parent unhappiness with the tests has reached unprecedented levels. On Long Island, Comsewogue reportedly had an opt-out rate of 82%, and Plainedge Middle School 74%. In New York City nearly three-quarters of the eligible children at the Earth School in Manhattan reportedly didn’t take the test, while more than one-third opted out at PS 321 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

While the UFT supported parents in their decision, we also know that there is a place for tests in our schools — but not the current tests provided under a $32-million contract with Pearson.

As a teacher, I relied on tests — but shorter, periodic assessments that I used to identify the areas where each of my students needed more instruction. If the state Department of Education really wants to help students, it must develop the capacity to create and manage its own array of tests that comply with federal mandates and state curriculum standards, yet are actually useful to teachers.

Unlike the current tests, which provide only a single score for each child in reading and math, these new tests must be able to identify each child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Also, unlike current exams, which are not returned until the school year is over, these new tests must be administered and scored in time for teachers to help kids in the areas where they are falling short.

In addition, if the state is to restore the confidence of both parents and teachers in the testing process, it must be transparent. Every question and its alternate answers must be publicly available when the test is complete, unlike today’s “gag order” that relieves Pearson from the necessity of releasing — and forbids teachers from even publicly discussing — most test questions, and subjects the state to a financial penalty if the questions get out.

A testing program that met these standards — and offered the opportunity to actually help students rather than just measure them by an artificial standard — could regain the support of both teachers and parents.

Would it be expensive? It would almost certainly cost more than the current annual average of $6.4 million the state pays Pearson, particularly considering that all-new questions would have to be created every year.

But in a state that invests more than $20 billion on aid to education, spending a few million more per year to provide teachers with a better tool to help their students is an investment worth making.

Mulgrew is president of the United Federation of Teachers.Michael Mulgrew: The better tests N.Y. kids deserve - NY Daily News: