Why not just ask us directly?

I am 14, and am currently in the Eye of the Storm, between the ELAs and Math tests.

Feeling? "Flying Blind". With the pineapple question, and Pearson sneaking Field Test questions onto the real test(Wow, NY, it only took you several years do realize we don't care about Field Tests). It would also be nice if adults would tell us if state test performance even affected us other than driving down our parents' property values.
How about "Defensive"? Parents love comparing how well we do this year to last year, forgetting that this year Pearson was contracted(cough*millionsoftaxpayerdollars*cough) to change the tests and recycle junk from other states, er, make them more difficult. C'mon people, remember what you learned in science class(Perhaps why they don't give state science tests each year?). You have to keep all but one variable constant, or your findings are about as valid as what the hobo down the street in the tinfoil hat spouts. Even if you don't mind the terrible job Pearson does, you still have to remember the noise that skews scores. Something as small as opening the curtains means the difference between an A and a C-.(http://architecture.mit.edu/h...)
Perhaps "Exhausted". The tests this year are the biggest yet. They tagged on two reading passages and fifteen comprehension questions on the LISTENING part of the ELA. Maybe Pearson thinks Albany will pay them more if they make a longer test...

If you are a parent of a school-age child, here is a letter you can send to Governor Cuomo. It was circulated by Carol Burris, the Long Island Principal recently voted "principal of the year" by the School Administrators Association of New York State.

The Honorable
Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

Dear Governor Cuomo:
When you became governor, you told us that you would be the lobbyist for students. I am writing to ask you to keep that commitment.
During the month of April, all elementary and middle school students will be subjected to six days of testing. For fifth through eight graders, testing will consume 90 minutes of instructional time each of the six days, for a total of nine hours of testing. It will be somewhat less (seven hours) for third and fourth graders. But for students with learning disabilities, time for testing can be up to eighteen hours. Nine hours of testing is longer than the SAT, GRE and even the LSAT examination.
This year, students as young as kindergarten have been bombarded with tests and test preparation, because of the rapidly imposed Common Core standards and the evaluation of teachers by student scores, imposing SLOs beginning in kindergarten. These NYSED “reforms” have created a climate that is unhealthy for my child.
You have placed yourself in the forefront of these educational reforms and I am asking you to step in and reroute the pathway they have taken. The New York State testing program has undermined the implementation of higher standards, by creating a test-driven environment that does not serve our children well. High stakes testing is wasting precious taxpayer dollars and, more importantly, my child’s learning time. It reduces time for the creative opportunities that my child needs and enjoys, while increasing unhealthy emotional stress in our children.
I am asking that you:
• Propose legislation that allows me to actively “opt out” my child from testing, rather than our present option, which requires my child to refuse to take the test.
• Propose legislation that mandates that all state tests and student results on those tests be available to teachers and parents after test administration.
• Revise the New York State APPR legislation and remove the inclusion of student test scores as a part of teacher evaluation. This use of test scores has accelerated and intensified the negative consequences described above.
• Actively lobby the federal government to reduce testing requirements.
Impose an immediate moratorium on the utilization of the current tests for anything other than feedback to schools and research on the design and developmental appropriateness of the tests.
• Recommend reductions in the duration of the tests.
Student assessments should be used for two purposes: to inform parents and teachers about a child’s learning and to improve the instructional program in a school or district. Tests should exist to serve the best interests of my child, not statisticians or for-profit testing companies. We ask that you be, as you said you would, the lobbyist for children, not corporations or special interest groups. Thank you for your consideration; I look forward to hearing that you have taken immediate action to redirect the path of the New York State Assessments.
Sincerely,

You are journalists and your questions "stands" a full year later? Your job is to ask the people in power, not just throw something onto social media and wait for the free content to roll in from the public.
When are you going to ask this question in an extended conversation with Walcott? Bloomberg? Gates? If they won't speak with you, ask it in an extended editorial. Ask it in a news story where you speak with other people about why the bureaucrats won't address it.

Elementary students: 3 days in a row. 90 minutes each day in a silent sanitized room. What does our commissioner robot and his evil overlord controllers want for the future of middle-class and below students (because their wealthy backers and private school dandies will never have to worry about "standards" and state tests)? Are we being mandated to train cubicle monkeys and service sector minimum wage workers? Real critical thinkers would pose a threat to the "reform" movement because so much of it is clearly wrong-morally and educationally.

I work with third graders. Two stopped and stared in a dead-panic for at least twenty minutes, hearts racing, freaking out over questions they weren't sure about.

One spent 45 minutes trying to read, then stopping, then trying to read again, only to tell me, "I can't do it. I can't do it. I don't deserve to go to 4th grade anyway."

After the test, many kids rushed to ask me what would happen if they got a 2 on this test, but a 4 on the math, or any other combination of scores. They said, again and again, how worried they were, and how they didn't want to fail. They didn't want to have to repeat the grade.

I remember feeling maybe 1/4 of this stress and panic when I had to take the SAT when I was 17. These kids are 7 and feel the weight of the rest of their lives on their shoulders while they take these tests.

I'm 14 years old and in the 9th grade. My grade was the very first to begin to take theses pain-in-the-butt tests in the 3rd grade. One of the things that has always seemed to stick with me about them was either my 3rd or 4th grade teacher telling me at the end of the year, when I inquired about a "Author's Fair" poster I saw her moving in her closet "I normally do an Author's Fair, but this year I had to do test prep instead"

This is what the tests do to our schools. Beware to the adults of the world. The test prep only generation is beginning to mature.

Can we add that teachers are then taken from the classroom- usually for a week- to grade the tests? So it's a total of three weeks.

My son (fifth grade) has opted OUT of the tests and he is doing GREAT! The day before the tests, while the other students were doing more booklet test prep, his teacher had him make a board game to help learn math concepts. Now, during tests, he is writing a persuasive essay about why owning a ferret should be legal in NYC...because he wants one. He has excitedly been researching ferrets and NYC policy. This morning he took down our dictionary (the actual paper book!) to learn the Latin words for ferrets and the like. He did this ON HIS OWN because he is excited and motivated to learn more! THIS is individualized learning and a MEANINGFUL learning experience! UNLIKE the last few weeks of test prep and actual tests. This is what ALL students SHOULD be doing.

Eight-year olds are taking tests longer than SATs, LSATs, and the Series 7 exam. Starting last year, field test questions were embedded along with operational questions, a.k.a., real questions--also starting in third grade. In 2011 the third graders had 4 hours of testing over 4 days. Now it's 7 hours over 6 days. High stakes are needlessly being attached to these tests. The NY State tests have been pushed through without being fully developed. The children are the guinea pigs.

I have two kids taking the ELA's: a fifth grader who thinks he is an old hand at it, and a third grader who is very nervous that she will have to redo third grade. while neither of them will confess to any anxiety or discomfort with the testing itself, their personalities have become very brittle and insecure this month and their usual boisterousness very dampened.

My fifth grader has also opted out and is also doing great. He is at a NYC school where 49 out of 150 have opted out. It is a remarkable bit of activism put together in less than two weeks! Our wonderful staff and principal were prepared and have created a series of alternate assessments for the children. Yesterday they wrote an essay comparing and contrasting passages from two books about civil rights that they had been reading in class. Today I believe they will be writing literary essays. There will math problems next week and some sort of creative project. These tests are meaningful assessments that will be learning opportunities for the students and the staff. We are very proud to be a part of this, and also very happy to report that those opting out represent a wide range of learning abilities. Also very happy to say that there has been nothing but respect between families taking the test and those opting out.

The pressure of test taking needs to be removed. Daily quizzes are the best measurements for success or failure (just as in real life). Tests should be designed as learning devices. All questions and solutions should be available to the public. It is a total waste of time if the test is not used as a teaching tool. The education business is supposed to be about teaching and learning, not a contest with winners and losers. The only test that should be secret is the SAT/ACT and it should be sort of like an IQ test with no feasible way to prepare for it other than doing your best day to day in school and through an understanding of the questions and solutions in the public question pool.

I am not sure which is worse -- standardized tests or daily homework. At least standardized tests come to an end. Homework goes on night after night and year after year. Although it does not affect children uniformly, I talk with parents often who are spending hours every night with young children, trying to get the work done, and that's plain wrong. Frankly, I would readily take a week or two of unrelenting pressure over a standardized test than I accept the notion that parents should be pressured to make their children work every night without any authority to place limits on what is being done. www.thehomeworktrap.com.

They're not babies and the desensitization process is good training for life. The tests are harder, but they're all in the same boat. My daughter's science teacher taught them to recognize and use stress responses which helped enormously. We knew that there would be more nonfiction so we read newspaper articles with our children in advance, and Dickens for complexity.

If we don't prepare our children to test well before SAT and ACT exams, compete at the global level and display grace under pressure from early ages, it won't be second nature and we've failed them. Yes, the tests are high stakes. Teach your kids, and yourselves, that if you prepare, you've earned your results, and if you don't get your first choice, that's okay. Look two or three steps ahead, plan several routes, and figure out the benchmarks.

And yes, I could not trust my kids' school to prepare them. Nothing like a fourth grade teacher who announces at Curriculum Night that she's not checking any student's writing, just that he or she completed the assignment. If you rely on a school, even a supposedly excellent school, you're not doing your job as a parent.

I am a former NYC resident who now lives and teaches in Pennsylvania. When I ask my students about standardized tests, the response is relatively uniform. Students do not have any tangible reason to perform well on these tests, so they do not exert extra effort when taking them. They understand that SATs will help them to gain college admission, but PSSAs (PA standardized tests) give them nothing but a label (advanced, proficient, basic, or below basic). In addition, I have specifically heard students in PA state that they WANTED to perform poorly on these tests. Their reasoning? They now know that teacher evaluations are linked to standardized test performance. If students do not like a particular teacher, they want to intentionally score poorly on the tests in order to have that teacher fired. These intentions, coupled with cheating scandals and other standardized test disasters, should be sending a clear message to our government that this system is not working. If you want to effectively measure what students learn each year, why not present them with a short, yet comprehensive pretest toward the beginning of the school year, and follow up with an end of the year post-test? These tests do not need to encompass multiple school days, but should assess a student's knowledge on important grade-level topics. Student growth (and ultimately, teacher effectiveness) can still be successfully measured in this manner without sacrificing multiple school days or placing undue pressure on the student.

I had no idea standardized testing had gotten so insane. Nine hours in six days? I was one of those kids who needed extra time on my exams. I didn't develop any text anxiety until High School, but I think if I were a 7th grader now, I would have developed that anxiety a lot earlier. My test anxiety (due to my High School being a testing-based school, with 4-5 different exams at the end of the week, every two weeks, and the administration/teachers being unable to accommodate my extra time needs) was why I lost my academic self-confidence in High School and why I dropped out of College... I'm furious with this! Kids who would be excelling in school are being discouraged at the age of 8. This is ridiculous.

I teach middle school science, and the tests have completely disrupted our students' schedules, essentially wiping out six teaching days. If we make the (likely) assumption that we can expect even more tests in the future, why not create a "regents week" for elementary and middle schools? Have students take three or four days of testing for half days, with one subject per day. This way, students are better prepared for the high school testing schedules, and there is minimal disruption to the school year.

Here's a copy of a letter voicing my concerns about excessive testing.

April 22, 2013

New York State Board of Regents and Dr. John B. King, Jr., Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York
New York State Education Department
89 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12234

Dear New York State Board of Regents and Dr. John B. King, Jr.,

I am an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher at a Title I elementary school in New York City. This is my seventh year of teaching in the same school. Prior to becoming a teacher, I worked in sales for textbook publishers. In defining what it means to be a teacher, I have always held the belief that, first and foremost, I must serve as an advocate for all of my students. It is this deep-seated conviction that has inspired me to write to you.

Last week, I administered the grade 5 Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) test to a group of 10-year-old former English Language Learners (ELLs). Over the course of three consecutive days, they were asked to answer a total of 63 multiple-choice questions on two different answer grids, and eight short-response questions and two extended-response questions in two different booklets. In order to do this, they had to first carefully read and re-read a large number of reading passages.

Most of the grade 5 students throughout New York State received 90 minutes each day (a total of four and a half hours) to complete the tests. As former ELLs, the students I tested received an additional 45 minutes of testing time each day. Thus, they sat in a testing environment for a total of six hours and 45 minutes. If they had not received extended time, most of the students would not have finished any of the exams at the conclusion of the standard allotted time of 90 minutes. While I was impressed by the students’ stamina, resilience and overall positive attitude, by the end of day two their test fatigue and frustration were visible. This week, they will receive the same amount of time as the state administers to them the 2013 Common Core Mathematics test. By the end of Friday, April 26, this group of former ELLs – fifth graders - will have tested for a whopping total of 13.5 hours.

I ask you to picture your own children and grandchildren – even your 10-year-old self – sitting for that long to complete such lengthy standardized tests. I have a three-year-old daughter and my stomach tightens at the thought of her being subjected to such excessive testing. This brings me to my next point. The 2013 Common Core ELA and Math tests come at the culmination of months-long test preparation in our public schools that include four Acuity Benchmark Assessments (two for each subject area) and countless hours of teacher-created test prep practice. This egregious amount of classroom time devoted to standardized tests is robbing our students of their right to a meaningful education.

I support the implementation of the national Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS). In lesson planning, I regularly refer to the Common Core app on my smart phone to ensure that my lessons reflect their rigor. While I’ve always cultivated an atmosphere of critical thinking in my classroom and have long utilized authentic texts such as The New York Times, the CCLS have aided me in taking my instruction to the next level, particularly with regards to writing. Because my school has adopted the push-in model for ESL instruction, I collaborate and co-teach with a classroom teacher during the fifth grade literacy block. Our unit on Abraham Lincoln – for example - serves as a bridge that takes students from slavery to The Civil War. Not only do we guide students through the complex, higher order thinking task of analyzing and writing about two contradictory speeches that Lincoln gave on slavery, but we constantly make connections to material already learned and to forthcoming material. Our lessons, therefore, are not taught in a random, disconnected fashion. Rather, they are overlapping and reinforcing. I am proud of the CCLS-inspired work that my co-teacher and I do, and I am proud of our ESL students – most of whom are “below grade level” – for meeting our challenges and for applying their new knowledge in other academic contexts. An ESL student who got only 31% of the questions correct on the Fall 2012 Acuity Benchmark ELA Assessment recently brought tears to our eyes when he correctly used the word threshold in his writing, a term that had been taught to him months prior in a different unit.

What differentiates this type of instruction from that related to the state assessments is that the non-test prep work we do in our classrooms is much more inspirational and meaningful to both students and teachers. While the reading passages on state assessments and test prep materials do indeed draw from a variety of authentic, multilayered texts, students are reading only short excerpts that are unlikely to make a lasting impression. Students do not make the same kind of emotional connection to assessment material as they do when analyzing a non-fiction topic in depth or when reading a work of literature in its entirety. The tests and test prep materials neither take into consideration nor honor the uniqueness – the kaleidoscope of emotions – of each individual student. The work I do in the classroom is what motivates me to go to school every day. I am grateful for the opportunity to open children’s minds and to help guide them on their pursuit of happiness. The high stakes testing, unfortunately, poses a roadblock to this.

“Lack of rigor” in our schools is not the only factor contributing to our nation’s broken educational system, as our one-size-fits-all standardized testing program seems to suggest. In my school, we struggle on a daily basis with the effects of poverty and home life instability. How do we as teachers and schools ensure the academic success of all kids whose families do not appear to value education? On top of our instructional duties, we face the Sisyphean task of getting parents more involved. In order to be successful students, kids need to come to school every day, and they need family support in being able to complete their work both at home and at school. The weight given to standardized assessments and the corresponding Common Core Learning Standards does little to address the root causes of dysfunction in our public school system.

I am deeply troubled by the path our state is headed down in assessing our elementary school students, and I strongly urge you to re-think both the design of and the importance placed on state assessments. You are making it that much harder to recruit talented individuals to the teaching profession. The tests are also souring the educational experiences of our youngest citizens, the ones we are preparing so hard for college and career readiness. However, we must also invest more in breaking the insidious, concrete-walled cycle of poverty in our nation. A much greater importance must be placed on fixing the root causes of low academic performance and educational inequities.

Sincerely,

Katie Lapham, NYC teacher

Get rid of these meaningless tests, close all the government schools, and home school your kids. They will grow up healthy,happy, and successful. A childhood spent in a school is a very sad childhood indeed. I want to cry everytime I see school children in the morning dragged of to school by their parents. I guess people are actully brainwashed into believing that school is good for them. Time to wake up and give these children back their childhoods.Forced schooling is abusive toward children and should be outlawed.

Schoolbook, if you want to see what parents are saying, go here:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.... From the responses, the tests are abysmal. My son's experience, like many of his classmates on day 2 was full of frustration. And it appears that the 2 reading passages and short and long responses may be part of embedded field test questions, as his 2 passages were different than those described by other 4th grade parents on blog. Gee whiz, all that struggle for nothing, but Pearson's pocket book. Our children are not guinea pigs!

Also, why not do a true interview/reporting with Walcott, King, et al following up from parents' many concerns last year, and if/how DOE etc addressed these very real concerns? That would be helpful.

I call the Common Core Curriculum as “Common Scare Curriculum” since it's really scaring teachers, students and parents. Implementation of it is total disaster. This is scarring all since it introduces lot more difficult concepts all of a sudden and not giving enough time to prepare for tests. I am not aginst of C3 but it's all about timming.

I have a fourth grader in Westchester. His teacher prepared their class for the tests without stressing them. She reminded them to take it easy and enjoy the week without homework. All their practice tests consisted of practicing reading comprehension and writing. Boo-hoo! Their tests were 70 minutes each day. He's spent more time than that on homework many times. I don't understand why it is unreasonable for fourth graders to take a 70 minute test, even though most of them finished early.

I don't see the opposition to assessments, be it of the educational system, or students. When kids grow up they'll be assessed. Prepare them young.

Part of the FAILURE of the Common Core Standards is the DENIAL that students with Special Needs and ELLs who immigrate over at 16+ yrs. of age simply do not exist in their "Universe". CCS which will collapse, I predict, in less than 5 years unless the CCS Lab people can strategize a plan that can get older immigrant students of HS age to pass CCS tests on or before their 5th yr of HS. OR Better just waive the exam and the same for stdts. w/ special needs or give them both much shorter exams if they are NOT exempt. This is yet another example of how business executives with absolutely NO education backgrounds have used biz plans, for big short-term profits and short-sighted or NO-sighted education outcomes. Pearson already admitted to a scoring gaffe that jeapordizes the academic futures of Talented and gifted children. So, what does that tell you. In PA stdts. will throw an exam to get a teacher fired. The shift to CCS could have been implemented with more supports in place for the schools to meet the needs of the afore mentioned stdts.. However, in our need to compete globally we are once again back to the vicious cycle of placing the cart before the horse. Incidently, in South America, Europe and Asia those cultures still function on socio-economically segregated societies. They all [wish to come] here, if only, to have the freedom of educational opportunities not found anywhere. Now we have the CCS, I had 2 ELL both 18y.o self-deport back to China for reasons of educational opportunities back home. meaning that it is easier for them to finish there. Their schools were willing to accept them back to finish because their schools in China were aware of the changes here. Go figure. One of the recent self-deportees had passed 3 of the 5 required NYS Regents exams in the year he was here. The ELA was the only exam her worried about because all other exams he could take in MAndarine but always answered in ENGLISH.Essentially, he sat with 2 exam books like a duel language textbook to make sure he understood the material, but wrote ALL of his responses in ENGLISH and PASSED those exams!!! THe CCS would NOT permit this type of testing because it is culturally designed for native and near native speakers. which means the ELLs taking the exams should immigrated over with their families no later than at elementary school ages. This of course is NOT reality. But then again, CCS is NOT reality. Stressing 7 y.o. with high stakes testing is grooming another generation of pharmaceutical dependent drugs: anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, ulcer meds etc. ALL in the name of education. I understand the drug business was slow & share prices have fallen. But this should work.
GOOD JOB!!

If these bogus high-risk, stress-inducing tests are still being administered by the time my now 9 month old son has to take them, I am opting him out. These exams have been shown to be riddled with errors and inappropriate content time and time again,and are nothing more than a money-making scheme. The Department of Education is in bed with Pearson and the like. It's disgusting.

I would just like to point out that Question #10 on the 8th grade Common Core Math exam Form D did not have a correct response. It was about matching a function to it's graph, and none of the graphs were even close to the function! It was upsetting to watch my students who I have taught so well struggle over something so stupid.

Also many questions on the Test were the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS that our school has had kids use from the "Ready" textbooks which are made by the company Curriculum Associates. I thought Pearson made the tests? I mean the questions were identical - exact same names, numbers, everything...

Pearson really can't come up with their own stuff? Overall I think they were definitely stepped up a notch, much more challenging... hopefully I prepared my students well.