Add The SLO's And The City Tests To Next Year's Battery Of State Tests

A parent made the following comment on the Newsday article about the Opt Out movement:

My son gets almost 90's on every one of his "real" tests. He doesn't need to sit for 420 minutes of standardized testing in April, nor countless dozens of other hours for SLOs, benchmarks, field test questions and what every else they throw at these kids that is NOT used to determine a report card grade.

While outrage is beginning to grow over the state tests, let's not forget that this coming school year children may have to sit for city "assessments" as well as the state standardized tests.

The city "assessments" will be used to grade not children but their teachers, as required by APPR.

Not every school will be using the city "assessments."

Some may choose to develop their own "assessments" or may use some variable of the state tests that have not been used to calculate the state testing component of teacher evaluations.

But the point still stands: Students will be facing multiple standardized "assessments" in every grade in every subject so that their teachers can be evaluated per the new APPR system imposed by John King and hailed by Michael Mulgrew and the UFT.

If anything, the APPR insanity that requires teachers to be evaluated by both state measures and local measures adds strength to the Opt Out movement.

If parents are already upset over what the state has done to state testing regime, wait until they see city "assessments" added to the school year, along with the Pearson field testing, the state standardized tests, and the various other reformy measures like Student Learning Objectives (SLO's) that kids will be toiling away at not to improve their knowledge or skills but simply so their teachers can be evaluated and the NYSED and the Regents can expand their school privatization agenda.