Test Refusal Movement Builds Momentum Here
This article has been updated to include numbers from the Springs School, whose administrators had not returned calls as of press time last week.
The test refusal movement has picked up momentum on the South Fork, with the number of students refusing to take the English language arts state tests in local schools this week up dramatically from last year.
The numbers vary widely by district and worry some school officials who are concerned that the state and federal money their districts receive based on test participation may now be in jeopardy.
The range of refusals goes from 2 students in Amagansett to 62 in East Hampton and 138 in Sag Harbor — up from either no refusals or just a handful this time last year.
State law requires school districts to administer the standardized tests to at least 95 percent of the students in third through eighth grades in order to be eligible for state funding. According to data reported by school administrators, that was not the case in many of the districts between Bridgehampton and Montauk.
“I was unhappy that there was such a flurry, especially in the middle school,” Richard Burns, superintendent of the East Hampton School District, said on Tuesday. “I’m not really sure what caused that . . . but I’m very concerned about funding. This year 9.3 percent of eligible students opted out of the test in East Hampton.
“We’re going to have to hold our breath to see what our governor and the New York State Department of Education have to say,” said Katy Graves, superintendent of the Sag Harbor School District, where 28.2 percent of students opted out. “We don’t know what that impact would be,” she added.
"Our job is to make sure we follow the regulations that the state provides us," Eric Casale the Springs School principal, said on Thursday. Referring to a potential loss of funding, he added, "I can’t worry about things that are out of my control at this point. . . . It would be hard for us to speculate what they’re thinking up in Albany." Seventeen percent of the Springs School's eligible students, or 79 students, did not take the tests. Last year, the number opting out was closer to 20 or 25, Mr. Casale said.
In Bridgehampton 22.4 percent opted out of the tests. In Montauk, it was 17.3 percent and in Amagansett 3.2 percent.
While the numbers in most local districts were higher than last year, they did not reach the peaks that other districts in western Suffolk County and Nassau County experienced. In the Three Village Central School District, for instance, a school representative said 49 percent of the children refused the tests. In the Rockville Centre School District 60.5 percent of students opted out, according to Newsday. In Patchogue-Medford, Newsday data shows, 65.8 percent of students opted out, and The Washington Post reported that 82 percent of eligible students opted out in the Comsewogue School District.
In Sag Harbor, a forum held last Thursday night at the Old Whalers Church saw members of the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor explain to a crowd of about 40 people that the tests are part of a wider range of issues in modern public education.
Jim Kinnier, a high school math teacher and president of the association, said that refusing the state tests is the “last strategy” he sees to get the attention of state education officials.
He said he believes it’s wrong to tie 50 percent of teacher evaluations to student test scores, and that he believes the tests are flawed in a major way. While he liked some parts of the Common Core curriculum, he said, particularly the geometry, he believes its implementation was flawed and that the content of the tests does not correspond to the actual ability levels of the students. Mr. Kinnier also believes Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is using the tests — and the supposed failing schools and teachers he anticipates they will identify — as an attempt to mold public schools into charter schools. Those, he said, have not proven to be more effective than the traditional public schools.
“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,” Mr. Kinnier said. “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.”
At that forum, many parents said they chose to opt-out their children because they object to the Common Core curriculum, the national standards on which the tests are based, and because the tests cause so much anxiety for the kids.
Dawn Dunn, whose son refused the sixth-grade test in Springs, said she realized last year that the “hours of homework” he was bringing home every day were all for test preparation. “I felt that much of my child’s education was being wasted, and the teachers were teaching toward a test that they never get to see,” Ms. Dunn said yesterday. “The tests are really useless, and they’re abusive. I’m hoping that they rid us of these types of state tests. I’m all for testing children, but these are ridiculous.”
She also said she was opposed to the tests being used to evaluate the teachers.
“That’s not a great way to evaluate a teacher. Every child is different, and every class is different. I would also like to see the whole Common Core curriculum be reworked into something more recognizable by parents.”
By Tuesday, when it came time for the tests, more than 28 percent of Sag Harbor children had refused them. Ms. Graves said she was not surprised by the outcome.
“I think our teachers are very well respected here in the district, and our parents do listen,” she said yesterday. “I think this was really more about our parents supporting our teachers.”
She did agree with some of the viewpoints that others have expressed: Tying such a big percentage of test scores to teacher evaluations is unfair, she agreed, and the legislation passed alongside the state budget means a loss of local control.
But Ms. Graves lamented the loss of a tool she said was helpful in showing that Sag Harbor is a high-achieving district. On last year’s English language arts state test, out of the 64 school districts within Eastern Suffolk BOCES, Sag Harbor’s seventh-graders ranked third, fifth-graders ranked fourth, and the eighth-graders ranked fifth.
“These were always about taking a look at how our curriculum is doing . . . and how we’re moving along implementing the curriculum in our district,” Ms. Graves said. “They were never used to evaluate a specific teacher or the children in particular. It was the only measurement that we had that looked across the whole state. For Sag Harbor, we’ve lost that standardized measurement.”
But other school officials are not so concerned with losing that measurement. Bridgehampton’s superintendent, Lois Favre, and Amagansett’s superintendent, Eleanor Tritt, said their school districts have built in other methods of finding out how their students are progressing.
Some also say the testing system is flawed because results from one school year typically come after the following school year has already started.
“The state test simply tells us how we as a teaching team are progressing with the new standards,” said Ms. Favre, whose district saw 15 out of 67 eligible students refuse the test on Tuesday. “Data provided with regard to individual student performance from the state is generally too late to the party for any planning we need to do to begin instruction appropriately each September.”
Still, in Amagansett, where only two students refused the tests on Tuesday, Ms. Tritt agreed with those who have said the tests may not be valid due to their content.
“The tests should be used only for the purpose they were designed for,” she said. “They were not designed to evaluate staff, they were designed to assess student learning . . . and there are better ways to assess children than on a single state test that may not be reliable.”
In the case of all local districts, children who are not taking the tests have been allowed to read quietly in separate areas outside of the classroom while the tests are being administered.