In Sag Harbor, Sending a Message on Student Tests
Members of Sag Harbor’s teachers union clashed politely with the school superintendent in a forum on standardized test refusal Thursday that was attended by about 40 people from the district and neighboring communities.
Jim Kinnier and Anthony Chase Mallia, who are math teachers in the Sag Harbor schools, disagreed with Katy Graves, the district superintendent, that students should take New York State’s standardized math and English tests for grades three through eight.
The tests begin next week. Sixty-minute sections in English language arts will be given on Tuesday, Wednesday, and next Thursday. Similar testing periods in mathematics will be the following week
<br />
“I would like to capture real data on our students to show that we’re doing a really great job. . . . The opt-out movement will not give us that,” Ms. Graves said following the forum, which was held at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor.
Mr. Kinnier and Mr. Mallia hope parents will see refusing to allow their children to sit for the tests as a way to get the attention of state officials, in particular Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. They believe the governor's education reforms – which include increasingly tying teacher evaluations to test scores – are doing more harm than good.
“I haven’t been overly enthusiastic about the opt-out movement. I feel bad that the kids are being put in this place. . . . They’re in the middle of this,” said Mr. Kinnier, who is the president of the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor. "From my perspective, we’re out of strategies. There’s only one strategy left that I see.”
That, Mr. Kinnier said, is to have the children refuse to take the tests. “In my view, to let your children take the tests is to endorse the governor’s efforts to make public schools be like charter schools. I don’t want to be here either, I don’t want to have this opinion, but I only see two possibilities. Either sit here and take it, or do this.”
Ms. Graves said the number of refusal letters Sag Harbor has received was not available on Thursday night, but last year, she said, the district received six. She said students who do not take the tests will be allowed to take part in other activities elsewhere in the school while the tests are being given.
In the neighboring East Hampton School District, an email from an administrator to a parent, which detailed initial plans to have students who refused the tests sit at their desks and wait silently while the tests were going on, made its way to Facebook on Wednesday night.
Richard Burns, East Hampton’s superintendent, said in an interview on Thursday morning that the decision had not been set in stone and that the district would, in fact, allow students to have age-appropriate reading material in a separate location. This is a decision consistent with the previous year, when the few students who refused to take the test – Mr. Burns said there were three – were allowed to sit elsewhere and read. He said the district initially took a wait-and-see approach this year.
“We make decisions depending on need. I think it makes more sense to have a separate location, though we’ll be tight in terms of space,” he said. So far, Mr. Burns said, the administration has received refusal letters from eight elementary parents and two middle school parents.