Tens of thousands of Long Island elementary and middle school students refused to take the state math exam on the first day of testing Wednesday -- a repeat surge of the record boycott on last week's English Language Arts assessment and a huge increase over last year's opt-outs, a Newsday survey shows.
In 39 districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties, 32,704 of 67,612 students in grades three through eight opted out of the state math exam.
That's 48.3%.
From Putnam County, there is this update:
MAHOPAC, N.Y. -- A majority of Mahopac Central School District students eligible to take the state Math exams for grades 3 through 8 this week have opted out, Interim Superintendent Brian Monahan disclosed Wednesday.
According to data provided by the school district, out of 1,946 eligible students, 1,013, or 52 percent, have opted out. Just 933 have participated.
The majority refusal rate for the math tests comes following last week's administration of state English Language Arts (ELA) testing. The opt-out rate for ELA was about half, Monahan said.
From the Times Herald:
MONROE - The second round of a burgeoning boycott was in high gear on Wednesday as thousands of students sat out the state's math tests.
Just as many school officials and opt-out supporters expected, the number of students to refuse the tests appeared to be way up, including here in the mid-Hudson.
Locally, the preliminary opt-out numbers are even higher than last week's, when the state English Language Arts tests were offered. Some advocacy groups estimate at least 155,000 students statewide refused the ELA tests, which is about triple the total number of kids that opted out last year. In the Monroe-Woodbury district, nearly 47 percent, or 1,535, students, did not take the math tests on the first day, according to district officials.
Last week, 43 percent of eligible students refused the ELA tests.
From the Poughkeepsie Journal:
The "opt-out" movement to refuse Common Core-aligned state exams continues to gain momentum, with a growing number of students refusing the math tests in nearly every Dutchess County district.
State math tests started Wednesday, about a week after some local districts saw more than 40 percent of their students refuse a round of state English Language Arts tests.
A conservative estimate shows more than 5,000 Dutchess students refused last week's ELA tests: at least 27 percent of about 18,400 plus public school students in grades 3-8, according to a Journal analysis of refusal numbers and enrollment data.
That's up from 2014, when less than 1,100 students in the county refused ELA tests.
It's a trend seen across the state: at least 184,000 students refused ELA exams, according to United to Counter, an activist group that has been tallying test refusals and is opposed to Common Core.
But officials report that even more students are refusing the math tests.
Wappingers mom Tracy Amenta said "the absurdity" of the ELA tests, which her son took this year, prompted her to have him refuse the math tests.
Her son, a seventh-grade Van Wyck student, was never anxious taking exams, she said. But on day one of the ELA assessments, he became "frustrated by the actual test and...the wording and questions," she said. He was also upset because "most of his friends" had refused the ELA tests.
And the Times-Union:
State math tests began Wednesday, and many of the students who opted out of the Common Core exams are sitting out again this week.
Many Capital Region districts reported slightly more students refused to take the math tests than sat out last week's English Language Arts test. The math assessments will wrap up with a final day of testing for grades 3 to 8 on Friday.
In previous years, state math tests have had higher refusal rates than the ELA exams, so the increase was expected, officials from area school districts said.
But the percentage at Mohonasen schools in Rotterdam, which posted the highest Capital Region opt-out numbers last week with 55 percent of students refusing state ELA tests, jumped to 60.6 percent as the first day of math testing came to a close. District spokesperson Adrienne Leon said 71 more students opted out on Wednesday.
"We had a good system in place last week, so we were ready today for it again," she said.
The opt-out percentages for districts in Bethlehem, Albany and Schenectady also increased by at least 5 percent from last week's numbers in each district.
United To Counter The Core had this update this morning:
ELA: 190k; Math: 34k and rising... (yes, we know it's anticlimactic. But it takes time to get the numbers. Stay tuned...)
Right now our numbers come from news reports, administrators, union representatives, teachers, and other individuals inside the schools who are willing to give us information. We will verify these numbers by FOIA letters beginning immediately after the math tests.
Watch https://www.facebook.com/media/set/… for these headcount totals to rise throughout the week, and keep an eye over the next month or so for the FOIA numbers to come in!
These math counts United To Counter The Core has are very, very preliminary - these numbers are going to rise sharply as we get more information.
The Van Wyck student who took the ELA exam, became frustrated by the actual test...and the wording and questions..." and then opted out of the math exam is most telling.
While only anecdotal, that story suggests that all the propaganda the Endless Test regime proponents are throwing out there to convince parents to have their kids take the tests isn't going to work when the tests are designed to frustrate students and have a high failure rate.
More and more, parents are learning just how rigged these exams are (as opposed to "rigorous.)
They're designed for high student failure rates, they're designed to make the system look like its failing, they're designed to make teachers look like they're failing - but in the end, the Endless Testing regime is failing as more and more people opt out of it.
More as we get it.
The biggest problem with not getting even higher opt-out numbers is that a great number of parents don't understand what the test is about.
ReplyDeleteI was speaking with a neighbor last week and asked him if his 5th and 6th graders were going to take the tests. He said that of course they were taking the test. "I need to see how well they are doing and if they will pass!"
I let him know how the results are reported to the parent, when they are reported and that they never get to see which answers they got right or wrong. I even gave him NYSAPE info.
The night before the ELA testing started he put together the opt-out letters as did several other neighbors who have children in those grades.
Many Many parents just don't understand what is really going on here but with word of mouth the numbers will grow next year.
It's soul-satisfying to think of the sweaty liver-chewing that's taking place at the Gates, Broad, Walton and other so-called education reform malanthropies, TFA, the federal DOE and all the astroturf and fifth columnist organizations they've spawned.
ReplyDeleteThey'd better start worrying about whether the all-testing-all-the-time gravy train is going to end. There may come a time in the not-too-distant-future when the host will finally reject these parasites, and they'll be forced to "go on to better things."
Cuomo, Flanagan and Tisch and their attack squads are whistling into the wind. The parents have spoken about what they think of all this excessive testing. Opt out numbers will only grow in future years.
ReplyDeleteThe Cuomo/Flanagan/Tisch evaluation plan is doomed to fail. A friend who is a superintendent participated in a legal conference yesterday with other superintendents and school board presidents. The attorney that gave the conference represents dozens of Long Island and Westchester districts. The bottom line to it all was that the whole law is a mess, loose threads abound and no one has any answers. Districts will be jammed up by the law and it is going to create a whole host of problems.