Parents throw brake on state tests

The letters piled in at Merrick school principals’ offices in record droves: parents did not want their children to take the state’s standardized reading and math tests.

Last week more than a thousand third- to eighth-grade students in the Merricks did not take state English Language Arts tests, which education officials have said assess whether children’s reading skills are on track to meet the requirements of colleges or careers following high school. Students in the same grades are sitting for state math tests this week, though how many will do so is far from certain.

Across New York, many parents, teachers and school district officials have vociferously objected to standardized tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards, re-tooled school curricula that the state adopted in 2010. They have argued that the tests, first launched in 2013, are flawed measures of student learning and teacher job performance from their design and content to implementation, eat up too much time inside and outside of classrooms, and create undue stress.

“Prepping for common core exams became the focus of the classroom,” said Merrick mother Stacy McHale Grossman. “My older son had a science fair; my younger son did not. Test prep booklets came home as homework. From the beginning we were one of the first to refuse. As parents we … did not like that our children were tested on age-inappropriate material. Common Core used excerpts of novels and does not foster a lifelong love of reading. [It] is one-size-fits-all education and did not take into account children with special needs and English-language learners.”

“Children are not a number; they are human beings who all learn differently,” McHale Grossman continued. “This testing culture fosters fear in our teachers to teach to a flawed test so they do not lose their jobs. We need creativity and fun back in our classrooms, not teaching to take a meaningless test.”

Local refusals

Though the State Education Department has repeatedly said the tests are mandatory, the drumbeat of parents refusing to allow their children to take the tests has grown increasingly louder.