Asking Assemblywoman Paulin to do more about state tests

I sent this letter to the Assemblywoman.
Dear Assemblywoman Paulin,

I was heartened to read your letter on the state tests. I must say I was also surprised. The last time I spoke to you on the topic, you said something on the order of, "I'm just not hearing enough from parents on the issue for things to happen." I was told pretty much the same thing when I followed up with your staffers over the past two years.

I don't know what prompted your new interest. I know the education commissioner heard from so many angry parents in Poughkeepsie two weeks ago that he retreated to Albany and canceled upcoming meetings. "Bad parents, bad! If you won't behave then you'll lose your right to comment publicly." (I also do know the meetings were reinstated after someone with a brain in Albany realized this was a bad PR strategy for the state's vaunted education "reform" program. I also do realize that Assembly people like you are now being sent along to these forums. I assume you're to act as minders for our commissioner of testing.)

Days after that Poughkeepsie meeting, the commissioner sent out his own letter. Suddenly, he wrote, he'd realized that we're giving too many tests. Wow!

If his letter, if your letter, are the result of angry parents in Poughkeepsie, we need more Poughkeepsie parents. I hope last week's meeting was just as distributing to the commissioner, though I somehow doubt it. We're more genial in Westchester. That's a shame for the kids.

Your letter did not mention the most egregious problem with the test's given this past May. In deciding to test against the Common Core standards, the state decided to test children on what they WEREN'T taught. We both know that no district, not even Scarsdale, had a full Common Core curriculum in place. Most don't even now, with tests rolling around again in May. The testing program was a farce before this. But testing children on what they haven't even been taught? That's cruel. Why hasn't this been protested loudly by anyone in elected office? Why wasn't this critical point in your own letter? I think, perhaps, it's fear. What would happen if all those parents we haven't heard from suddenly realized their kids had been tested on what they hadn't been taught? There'd be anger, and not just in Poughkeepsie. Even anti-testing superintendents couch their protests in muddled language. We can't mention that elephant in the room. How ridiculous would we all look if we admitted we tested kids on what they weren't taught?

And there is a real impact from this on kids, real cruelty. This is from a letter 50 plus NYS principals sent to King. They are a bit braver than the rest of us (and they include Scarsdale district employees):

“Even if these tests were assessing students’ performance on tasks aligned with the Common Core Standards, the testing sessions—two weeks of three consecutive days of 90-minute (and longer for some) periods—were unnecessarily long, requiring more stamina for a 10-year-old special education student than of a high school student taking an SAT exam. Yet, for some sections of the exams, the time was insufficient for the length of the test. When groups of parents, teachers and principals recently shared students’ experiences in their schools, especially during the ELA exams with misjudged timing expectations, we learned that frustration, despondency, and even crying were common reactions among students. The extremes were unprecedented: vomiting, nosebleeds, suicidal ideation, and even hospitalization.”

Serious stuff, no?

Do I sound frustrated? I am. When I started questioning this five years ago, Pelham school officials pointed at Albany. When I asked you, you said there wasn't enough voter interest. In that time we tested and tested and tested. And the schools didn't get any better.

I understand politics. You're a Democrat, Cuomo's a Democrat and King's a Democrat. You need to protect each other. I'm a Democrat too, and I want the kids protected. I don't understand why my party backs education "reform" policies that are so similar to and as poor as the GOP's. Whichever party you turn to, you get the corporate "reform” agenda. Test the kids to make the schools better. They're not getting better? Then test them some more. Test them, even, on what they haven't been taught. For me, this is not about teachers or unions or commissioners or governors. It's about the kids. It would be nice if political leaders also acted like it was, rather than behaving like political followers. I appreciate you're working hard to defend the fluffy puppies of our state. You need to be there for the kids too--sooner, louder and more often.

Best regards,

Rich Zahradnik