Valley Streamers continue to refuse tests

Despite changes to state tests last year, Valley Stream students continue to refuse to take the English Language Arts test, which were held this year on April 11 through April 12.

The amount of students who refused to take the test in each school district remained relatively stagnant for the second year in a row. In District 13, 37 percent refused to take the test — down 3 percent from last year. In District 24, 51 percent of eligible students refused to take the test — down about 5 percent. In District 30, 26 percent of eligible students refused to take the test —an increase of about 6 percent. At the middle school level, about 54 percent of the students did not take the ELA test — an increase of about 2 percent.

Students in grades three through eight are eligible to take the ELA test, but students throughout New York State have been refusing to take the tests since 2012. The opt-out movement started as a way for parents to protest the state’s quick adoption of the Common Core learning standards. After about 20 percent of the state’s eligible students opted out, state officials changed the test in 2016. The changes included fewer questions, the elimination of time constraints and the elimination of an official evaluation consequence for educators.

In a comment to a Valley Stream Herald Facebook post, Christine Rispoli-Woluewich, wrote that she thinks these changes are a result of the opt-out movement. “What I hear is happening from the refusals is [that] there are some positive results,” she wrote. “I feel by the people opting out, it’s helping to work in the right direction.”

But other parents wrote that they felt more should be done. Antoinette Cascio Lorello, wrote on a Valley Stream Herald Facebook post that the tests are taking time away from other subjects. “They [the students] take enough tests and I’d rather see the time spent on cursive writing, language arts or science,” she wrote.

Simona Simone, Robert W. Carbonaro’s Parent Teacher Association president, also said in a Facebook message to the Herald that the changes did not make much of a difference. She said, for example, that unlimited time to complete the test is not much of an improvement because students are taking longer to finish the test and that the standards the students are being tested on are not age-appropriate.

“The tests are poorly written, developmentally inappropriate, a waste of taxpayer dollars and can negatively impact good school districts,” Simone said. “I teach my children to be leaders and not followers. This is not ‘opting out of life.’ I also teach them that if they believe strongly in something and even if it’s not popular, it’s ok to stand up.”

The state Mathematics test will be held from May 1-2.