By Karenlyn Barone
The group of parents, who all have children in fourth grade, said almost all of the homework and class work their children do is focused solely on material covered on the state tests.
"By third grade the teachers were telling the students what they needed to know for the tests the next year," said Patti Nicoletti, the mother of three children, whose son Jack is in fourth grade at Centre Avenue School. "They're only learning what is necessary to pass the state tests."
The English Language Arts exam is given in January and the parents say that from September until the test is given, the children are inundated with work that relates to the test. The focus of both class work and homework is English, with the other subjects basically ignored -- until it's time to prepare for the test in another subject.
"As soon as the ELA test was taken, my son immediately started cramming for math, which was the next test," said Marion O'Hara, who has children in fourth grade, second grade and kindergarten. "Now, my son Sean's homework is over 40 questions per night in science, in preparation for that test."
Students in fourth and eighth grade are required to take tests in math, English Language Arts and science. The state Education Department contends that these tests will eventually make passing the Regents easier.
Wendy Venza, the mother of a fourth-grader and an eighth-grader, said that since the school district is gearing learning toward the tests, children no longer do special projects or have time to learn all the wonderful things they should be learning in fourth grade. In fact, students only had time to read three books this year.
"Because of the state tests, our children's whole fourth grade learning experience has been taken away from them," said Barbara Humes, the mother of second-, fourth- and eighth-graders.
Echoing that sentiment, a local elementary-school teacher spoke candidly with the Village Herald with the promise of anonymity. "The fourth-grade tests in particular have taken the fun out of school for the students and the teachers. I have seen children fall apart and cry while taking the test because they're under such pressure. And now no teacher wants to teach fourth grade for more than a few years because of these tests," the teacher said.
The concerned parents are confident that many teachers feel the same way, though, understandably, they can't speak out against the system.
At the core of the issue is the state Education Department, and the parents agree that although the state's intention was to raise educational standards, it is actually lowering them by placing so much importance on test scores. The parents are intent on finding a way to change the system, or at the very least change the public's perception of the meaning and value of the test results.
Districts are under a tremendous amount of pressure to achieve high scores, which, the parents say, leads to competition between districts and, in some cases, cheating to enhance scores. They don't believe this was the intention of the Board of Regents, They say that what they have now is not a good, sound educational system.
"We are teaching children how to be great test takers, but not how to be critical thinkers," said Humes. "And there is no way that three days out of the year that the children take each test can be a realistic assessment of what a child knows."
East Rockaway Superintendent Arnold Dodge has been instrumental in connecting the parents and their concerns with the powers that be. He has directed the parents to write and call their local and state officials to make their pleas on behalf of their children.
"I'm not happy when so much of what we do is driven by what the newspapers are going to print about us," said Dodge. "There are so many wonderful things going on in this district in support of the children, and these test scores are just a snapshot. None of us would want our lives to be judged by that brief a glimpse of who we are."
Dodge concedes that test scores for his district's fourth-graders did drop this year, and that the district will attack the problem. "We took a hit in the fourth grade, so we will go after that," said Dodge. "[We are] far from ignoring [the results]. We are redesigning some approaches and addressing it."
Dodge's frustration comes in trying to balance education among individual students' needs, creative programs, traditional educational values and the mandated tests.
"East Rockaway is immeasurably ahead of other districts in the things that are a true measure of greatness in a school district," said Dodge. "It incenses me as an administrator and an educator to think that those outside the community are telling parents and educators what is best for their children. How dare they decide what makes a school great."
Mandated testing is set to spread in the coming years, as parts of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act are implemented. With the bill tying funding to student performance on mandated exams, critics of the act say this is only the start of many teaching-to-the-test problems.
"President Bush wants to be known as the education president, but then he puts through the No Child Left Behind Act," said Humes. "It just makes things worse."
