‘Opt-outs’ expected on upcoming tests

New York state testing begins next week, and a large number of students are again expected to refuse the tests in the Seaford, Wantagh and Levittown school districts.

The “opt out” movement grew last year, with more than 60 percent of students refusing the tests in Seaford and Levittown, and nearly half in Wantagh. The English Language Arts exams, for students in grades three through eight, run from April 5-7, with the math assessments scheduled for April 13-15.

Parents have expressed concerns about the stress the tests put on their children. They also were outraged that test scores were tied to teacher evaluations, but that has been scrapped for at least the next four years. This year’s tests will also have fewer questions, and will be untimed.

Still, parents say that while the large number of opt outs has attracted the attention of lawmakers in Albany, changes to the testing program have not gone far enough. “It’s really, really minimal the changes that they’ve made,” said parent Heather Umhafer, leader of the test refusal movement in Seaford. “We feel like they’re giving us crumbs and we want much, much more than that.”

Pointing to a statement from Gov. Andrew Cuomo last September that the implementation of the Common Core curriculum and corresponding tests was “deeply flawed,” Umhafer questioned why little has changed. “Why are we giving flawed tests to children?” she asked.

Umhafer’s oldest child, a son in sixth grade, has never taken the state tests. She was one of the first parents to have her child refuse the tests in 2013, when the tests were first tied to the new Common Core curriculum. Seaford’s opt-out rate on the ELA test skyrocketed from 25 percent in 2014 to 61 percent last year.

One of Umhafer’s biggest concerns, she says, is that teachers are forced to spend a lot of instructional time preparing the students for the tests. She is hoping for changes soon, because as her son gets older, he is losing years of “authentic learning.” She also has a child in second grade.