Test, Charter Parent/Teacher Protest Roundup

Blown away! Boycotting Teachers from Chicago sent these flowers of solidarity to Colin, Emmy and myself!.. Jia Lee

Two of my students from last year just emailed me a video of themselves tearing up their ELA prep books... Lauren Cohen feeling proud

 Lots of coverage on the tests but not very much on Thursday's anti-charter Cuomo giveaway. Testing opponents reaching critical mass. Charter issue still resonating with only a few. It must grow into the thousands before it will have an impact. Leonie has a full report on her blog:

NYC Public School Parents

Pictures and words from our amazing rally yesterday; protesting Gov. Cuomo's forced charter takeover of our public schools - Yesterday, we held a terrific rally with hundreds of parents and kids, filling the steps of the NY Public Library, outraged at the onerous provisions in ...
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Eva can hire spies and video crews to film every event but won't pay rent.

Thursday Rally, Leonie & Hired Harlem Success Spy

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  Tesa Wilson Success is always doing that crap!
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  Natasha Capers She shows up and films everything we do

   

  Edith Baltazar summarized the coverage of the protests:

  Protests against the NYS 2014 ELA tests

   

  NYC public schools held protests Friday, including schools in Brooklyn, and Manhattan's Upper East Side, Greenwich Village, Tribeca, Murray Hill, and Upper West Side.

  
  

  Parents from other District 3 schools, and parents of alums, came to join in PS 87's demonstration today.
  

  
  

  Many thanks to the Brooklyn schools whose rallies last week inspired today's rallies.

  
  

  
  

  http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/more-than-37-nyc-principals-say-no-to-the-commissioner-the-state-exams-are-unfair-flawed-need-to-undergo-public-scrutiny-nyc-public-school-parents/
  

  
  

  http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/protests-grow-against-nyc-standardized-tests.html
  

  
  

  http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video/10044327-parents-teachers-hold-protests-against-common-core-exams/
  

  
  

  http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/04/11/anti-exam-rallies-fill-the-sidewalks-outside-dozens-of-schools/
  

  
  

  http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/dozens-of-nyc-schools-protest-state-english-tests-1.7679418
  

  
  

  http://online.wsj.com/article/AP0aca62fc0362480ab4e5954d834323e5.html

  
  

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/11/an-infuriating-admission/
  

  
  

  http://www.myfoxny.com/story/25222883/parents-join-protest-over-state-english-exams
  

  
  

  http://www.ny1.com/content/news/education/206820/manhattan-principals-latest-to-blast-recent-ela-test
  

  
  

  http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140411/tribeca/nearly-40-manhattan-public-schools-protest-state-english-exams
  

  
  

  http://www.myfoxny.com/story/25222883/parents-join-protest-over-state-english-exams (background story before the protests)

   

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  Hundreds Protest In New York City Against Cuomo’s Attack On 1.1 Million Public School Children http://www.hotindienews.com/2014/04/11/43444

  

  
  

   

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  NYC schools protest ‘unfair’ state English tests

  By Associated Press

  April 11, 2014 | 9:08pm

  Modal Trigger

  

  Robert Bender, Principal of PS11, left, and Councilman Corey Johnson, right, lead parents and students of PS 11 in a chant to protest the use of ELA standardized tests in public schools. Photo: Stephen Yang

  
  

  Principals at some three dozen New York City public schools led protests Friday against this year’s New York state English tests, which they said were poorly designed and confusing.
  “The multiple-choice questions were so convoluted as to be meaningless,” said Adele Schroeter, the principal of Public School 59 on Manhattan’s East Side. “Hard but fair is OK. Hard but unfair I don’t get.”
  
  
  
  Students in third through eighth grade took the English tests over three days last week and will take math tests April 30 through May 2.
  Scores in both English and math plummeted across the state last year, the first year that the tests were supposed to be aligned with the Common Core curriculum standards that New York adopted in 2010.
  The principals who protested Friday said their students worked hard but many struggled to understand this year’s tests.
  Lisa Ripperger, principal of Public School 234 in Tribeca, said the tests “continue to not be well aligned with Common Core expectations.”
  The anti-test protests started last week at Public School 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, whose principal, Elizabeth Phillips, complained in a New York Times op-ed that the questions “were focused on small details in the passages, rather than on overall comprehension, and many were ambiguous.”
  State Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn denied that any questions on the English tests were ambiguous.
  Dunn said each question had one correct answer but students had to carefully distinguish between “the fully correct option and the plausible but incorrect options.”
  Phillips and the principals who protested Friday said they would love to describe the questions in detail but they are barred from doing so by a state-imposed “gag order.” They said the state Education Department should release the questions so the public can judge their validity.
  “This exam is property of New York City and New York state and you should demand to evaluate and scrutinize this exam!” said Robert Bender, the principal of Public School 11 in Chelsea, who led a rally of about 200 teachers, parents and students.
  Dunn said some questions will be released when the scores are released this summer. The entire tests were made public before last year.
  P.S. 11 parent Jenny Sheffer-Stevens noted that US Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday that protests over implementation of the Common Core standards were “noise and drama.”
  “This is New York City,” Sheffer-Stevens said. “We know from noise and drama, and we are about to show him some.”