Update on the opt out movement, field tests, school overcrowding and the Skinnies
April 20, 2015
Dear Friends,
1. Please remember to sign up for our Skinny award dinner June 9, where we will be honoring the leaders of NY’s historic test refusal movement: NYSAPE, Change the Stakes, and NYC Opt Out. For more information and to buy your tickets, check out this link: http://twitthat.com/wii20
2. Today’s NY Times has an extended article about the amazing growth of opt out students; although their estimate of 160,000 students refusing the tests this year is far less than this spreadsheet showing more than 200,000:http://twitthat.com/uTY6q
Also, the claim of some of the civil rights groups quoted in the article that testing provides data that is “crucial for catching and combating inequities in public schools” has been convincingly disputed by many, including teacher activist Jesse Hagopian http://twitthat.com/gcYcC, scholar Wayne Au http://twitthat.com/ljUkL, and the Network for Public Education http://twitthat.com/gVeAT.
3. The Pearson field tests begin on June 1, and testing expert Fred Smith explains why you should opt your child out; he also provides a list of NYC schools and grades tested: http://twitthat.com/eQx3x
4. Even with all the controversy surrounding Pearson, the poor quality of their exams and other products, DOE is proposing granting the company a new $8.6 no bid contract; see my letter to the members of the Panel for Educational Policy, who will be voting on this contract tonight: http://twitthat.com/5VveS
5. Finally, despite the fact that school overcrowding has already reached a critical level, and that many of the Mayor’s new initiatives are space intensive, including preK expansion and wrap-around services for community schools, and despite his ambitious plans to encourage the development of 60,000 new market-rate housing units and 200,000 affordable units, there is no real plan to create schools for all these children. The new five-year and ten-year capital plans for school construction have been released, and in some regards they are even more disappointing than the plans Bloomberg put forward in 2007. For a comparison, see my testimony before the City Council this week here: http://twitthat.com/QTchS
Hope to see you at the Skinnies,
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-529-3539
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