Open Letter to the New York State Regents from\u00a0New York State Professors Against High Stakes Testing<\/p>\n
March 30, 2012<\/p>\n
As lifelong educators and researchers, from across the State of New York, we\u00a0strongly oppose New York State’s continued reliance on high stakes standardized testing in public schools as the primary criterion for assessing student\u00a0achievement, evaluating teacher effectiveness, and determining school quality.\u00a0We write to express our professional consensus and concern, and to offer our\u00a0assistance to the Regents in generating educationally sound alternatives to\u00a0high-stakes testing as the primary strategy for assessment in New York State.<\/p>\n
Researchers and educational organizations have consistently documented, and a\u00a0nine-year study by the National Research Council has recently confirmed, that\u00a0the past decade’s emphasis on testing has yielded little learning progress. In\u00a0New York State and New York City, the consequences of testing policies have been\u00a0most disappointing.<\/p>\n
Disparate impact on students. Numerous studies document that the over-reliance\u00a0on high-stakes testing bears adverse impact on student achievement and has been\u00a0accompanied by widening racial\/ethnic gaps. Using New York City as an example,\u00a0we see that large numbers of students are performing below proficiency. High\u00a0numbers of the city’s public school graduates fail the CUNY entry tests and are\u00a0required to take remedial courses. Results on the National Assessment of\u00a0Educational Progress (NAEP) suggest a failure to achieve significant reduction\u00a0in the achievement gap separating New York City’s white students from African\u00a0American and Latino students since 2003. The negative effects of our high-stakes\u00a0testing environment are perhaps most pronounced for English Language Learners\u00a0for whom the tests were not designed, who cumulatively and consistently fail to\u00a0achieve proficiency within the limited school time (a year and a day) before\u00a0they are required to take the exam in English. In 2010, 24% of 4th graders\u00a0labeled as ELLs were deemed proficient in English Language Arts compared to 58%\u00a0of non-ELLs. By 8th grade only 4% of ELLs were classified as proficient\u00a0compared to 54% of non-ELLs. It is therefore little surprise that of the 2006\u00a0cohort, only 40% of ELLs graduated after four years compared to 75% for\u00a0non-ELLs.<\/p>\n
Negative impact on educators. High-stakes testing creates adverse consequences\u00a0not only for students but also for educators. Statisticians and educational\u00a0researchers have challenged the validity, effectiveness, and ethics of using\u00a0high stakes test scores to evaluate educators. As argued in an open letter to\u00a0Mayor Rahm Emanuel by CReATE (Chicago Researchers and Advocates for\u00a0Transformative Education), “There is no evidence that evaluation systems that\u00a0incorporate student test scores produce gains in student achievement. [and]\u00a0Teachers will subtly but surely be incentivized to avoid students with health\u00a0issues, students with disabilities, students who are English Language Learners, or students suffering from emotional issues. Research has shown that no model\u00a0yet developed can adequately account for all of these ongoing factors.” Given\u00a0various value added measures, it is not possible to actually identify with\u00a0accuracy the teachers who are most effective or least effective. This is already\u00a0causing some highly effective teachers to leave the profession and may very well\u00a0serve as a significant disincentive for aspiring new teachers to enter the\u00a0field. The recent release of New York City Teachers Data Reports unleashed a hugely demoralizing media attack on the professional dignity of teachers.<\/p>\n
Disparate impact on children who are disrupted by school closings. Finally, we\u00a0are extremely concerned about the misuse of test scores as the primary criterion\u00a0for the closing of schools. The 117 schools closings authorized by the New York\u00a0City Department of Education since 2003 disproportionately affect children\u00a0receiving special education services, those who receive free and reduced lunch,\u00a0and those who are English Language Learners.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, we stand with the 1400 principals who signed a petition against\u00a0teacher evaluations based on high-stakes testing. We offer our intellectual\u00a0support to the State to help generate public policies that bolster schools to be\u00a0intellectually vibrant environments where inquiry-based pedagogy is encouraged,\u00a0class sizes are reduced, educators are respected, parents are welcomed, and\u00a0students are granted dignity while learning. We make ourselves available to the Regents to create just policies to transform the public schools in New York.<\/p>\n
Bernadette Anand<\/strong>, Instructor and Advisor, Educational Leadership, Bank Street\u00a0College Open Letter to the New York State Regents from\u00a0New York State Professors Against High Stakes Testing March 30, 2012 As lifelong educators and researchers, from across the State of New York, we\u00a0strongly oppose New York State’s continued reliance on high stakes standardized testing in public schools as the primary criterion for assessing student\u00a0achievement, evaluating teacher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[3490,2244,3604,438250,438249,8487,1572067],"class_list":["post-3484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testing","tag-high-stakes-testing","tag-nclb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-state-regents","tag-open-letter","tag-race-to-the-top","tag-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3484"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3487,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3484\/revisions\/3487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ross\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGary Anderson<\/strong>, Professor of Education Leadership, NYU
\nJean Anyon<\/strong>, Professor of Urban Education, The Graduate Center, CUNY
\nLee Anne Bell<\/strong>, Professor, Barbara Silver Horowitz Director of Education, Barnard\u00a0College
\nDouglas Biklen<\/strong>, Dean, School of Education, Syracuse University
\nSari Knopp Biklen<\/strong>, Laura and Douglas Meredith Professor, School of Education,\u00a0Syracuse University
\nRobert Cohen<\/strong>, Professor of Teaching and Learning, NYU
\nEdward Deci<\/strong>, Professor of Psychology and Helen F. & Fred H. Gowen Professor in\u00a0the Social Sciences, University of Rochester
\nGreg Dimitriadis<\/strong>, Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy, University at\u00a0Buffalo, SUNY
\nArnold Dodge<\/strong>, Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Administration,\u00a0Long Island University -Post
\nMichelle Fine<\/strong>, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Urban Education, The\u00a0Graduate Center, CUNY
\nOfelia Garcia<\/strong>, Professor of Urban Education, The Graduate Center, CUNY
\nBeverly Greene<\/strong>, Professor of Psychology, St. John’s University
\nSuzanne Kessler<\/strong>, Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Purchase College, SUNY
\nWendy Luttrell<\/strong>, Professor of Urban Education and Social-Personality Psychology,\u00a0The Graduate Center, CUNY
\nErnest Morrell<\/strong>, Professor, English Education, Teachers College, Columbia\u00a0University; Director: Institute\u00a0for Urban and Minority Education (IUME); Vice President: National Council of\u00a0Teachers of English (NCTE)
\nLeith Mullings<\/strong>, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, The Graduate Center,\u00a0CUNY
\nMark D. Naison<\/strong>, Professor of African American Studies, Fordham University
\nPedro A. Noguera<\/strong>, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, Executive Director,\u00a0Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University
\nCelia Oyler<\/strong>, Associate Professor and director of Inclusive Education Programs,\u00a0Teachers College,\u00a0Columbia University
\nPedro Pedraza<\/strong>, Researcher at El Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies,\u00a0Hunter College, CUNY
\nDiane Ravitch<\/strong>, Research Professor of Education, New York University and Former\u00a0Assistant Secretary of Education
\nMichael Rebell<\/strong>, Professor of Law and Educational Practice, Teachers College,\u00a0Columbia University
\nRichard M. Ryan<\/strong>, Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Education and Director\u00a0of Clinical Training, Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester
\nIra Shor<\/strong>, Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center
\nLouise Silverstein<\/strong>, Professor of School-Child Clinical Psychology, Ferkauf\u00a0Graduate School, Yeshiva University
\nCarola Suarez-Orozco<\/strong>, Professor of Applied Psychology and Co-Director,\u00a0Immigration Studies at NYU
\nHenry Louis Taylor, Jr.<\/strong> Professor of Urban History and Director of Center for\u00a0Urban Studies, University of Buffalo, SUNY
\nEthel Tobach<\/strong>, Curator Emerita, American Museum of Natural History
\nSofia Villenas<\/strong>, Director, Latino Studies Program and Associate Professor of\u00a0Anthropology and Education, Cornell University
\nLois Weis<\/strong>, State University of New York Distinguished Professor, Educational\u00a0Leadership and Policy, University at Buffalo, SUNY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"