The Batavia City School district is not expected to meet the 95-percent mandated participation rate for the Common Core standardized tests that started today and continue into next week. A letter released from the office of Superintendent Christopher J. Dailey said the district could lose local control of the schools and the funding for teaching positions as a result.
“No one wants to see funding stripped from our schools,” said Brian Odachowski, a father of two daughters. “No one wants to lose teachers. But there is an obvious growing number of parents who are not buying into these standardized tests and Common Core as a whole.”
On Monday Night, Loy Gross, math tutor and co-founder of United to Counter the Core, met with a group of nine parents and three students to talk about testing refusal. The parents agreed that their kids are stressed out about the tests and none are participating.
Gross's 15-year-old daughter was taking college-level math classes and getting a 4.0 when she took the Common Core Regents math test last year. She only just passed. Gross pulled both of her kids out of school to homeschool them in September. “These tests are no good. They are designed for the kids to fail,” she said.
Eighth-grader Gabrielle Crespo said she doesn’t understand the material and doesn’t think she will do well on the exam.
“2x + dog = kitty poop. That’s what math is like in my head,” she said.
Crespo’s mother, Julie Bolas-Carasone, is frustrated that she can’t help her daughter do her homework.
“There is no material given to the parents to help,” she said. “The staff just tells us to ‘Google it.’ Google is great, but what about those of us who don’t have Internet access at home?”
Parents are not only frustrated because they can’t help their children, they are concerned that their children may not have reached the targeted cognitive level of the test. Common Core testing is also used to evaluate teachers across New York State and some people believe the educators are teaching in fear for their jobs.
“The kids can sense the fear from the teachers and it’s stressing them out,” Bolas-Carasone said. “Teachers are not teaching because they’re passionate.”
The Common Core tests are graded as a cut-score on the level of one through four. Three and four are considered passing grades. The school receives the results for each student, but according to parents, they do not receive the tests back. Parents voiced concerns of not knowing how to help their children succeed when they don't know where they struggled on the tests.
According to the New York State Education Department Web site, 2014 saw an improvement from the previous year. Statewide, math scores rose in levels three and four from 31.2 percent to 35.8 percent. English Language Arts went from 66.9 percent to 69.6 percent. The scoring represents proficiency level.
Parents at the United to Counter the Core meeting last night said they do not believe the test results accurately reflect their child’s proficiency.
“The only way to win this game, is not to play,” Gross said.
For the record, I have a son
For the record, I have a son and two daughters. The standardized testing applies to my son and younger daughter, who fall in the 3rd to 8th grade testing range.
The test put out by Pearson
The test put out by Pearson are designed for the students to fail them. the whole point is to remove parents from the picture. remove power from the local level, superintendants and school board and transfer it to the state and federal gov't. once the schools are deemed failing by the governors, they wll be taken over and turned to charter shcools that are controlled by panel of non elected people.
I just want to say again,
I just want to say again, that I do not blame the teachers at all. I love the teachers at my daughter's school. They are wonderful and so is the principal. They help as much as they can, and what is sad, is that my daughter is afraid that she will cause the teachers to lose their jobs, because she wont do well enough. I am blessed to have these teachers in her life and it would crush her if they deem the school poor and they lose jobs.