Education Week - April 13, 2016 - 20

Testing, Standards Debates Roil N.Y. Policy Landscape
vamped completely, the tests are
redone completely, and all stakes
removed from these exams, the optout movement will continue."
Several components of Cuomo's
2015-16 budget were scrapped before it was passed, such as his 50
percent test-score component in
teacher evaluations, but key aspects of his agenda, including handing over failing schools to charter
schools remain intact. Teachers will
still be evaluated based on a 4-point
scale, but it is up to the commissioner to determine the weight test
scores will have on exams.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Taking Stock
For the state's self-described reformers, the setback on the use of
assessments and evaluations is
disappointing. But they tout other
successes, such as the education department's authority as of this year
to take over "persistently failing"
schools and hand them over to independent operators, and the sparking
of a necessary-albeit combative-
debate over teacher quality.
"You can't solve problems you don't
have information about," said Derrell
Bradford, the executive director at
the New York Campaign for Achievement Now, a strong champion of
using the state's standardized-testing
program to improve schools. "Saying
you don't need test data to make decisions about how to improve schools
is like saying we can solve wealth inequality without income data and job
reports. It's just not real."
In recent weeks, as the latest
round of state testing got underway,
opt-out activists held protests and
launched a campaign that included
billboards and robocalls urging parents to opt out again this year. Local
reports indicate that large groups of
students are still steering clear of
the tests, known as regents exams,
which continue through mid-April.
The state schools chief, MaryEllen Elia, has crisscrossed the Empire State's rural regions and city
suburbs where opt-outs were most
intense last year in an attempt to
rebuild trust. She's told parents
and teachers that the state has
shortened the English and math
tests, reduced the stakes the results
have for teachers and students, and
tossed out confusing questions.
"I don't want you to think it's all
done, it's not," Elia told teachers
in Lancaster last week, according

Mike Groll/AP

Task Force Review

to the Associated Press. "But I also
don't want you to think we haven't
done anything and I didn't listen,
because I did, and we've made significant changes."
New York's education debate
mostly revolves around the role
assessments play in improving
schools. Cuomo, specifically, had
gone back and forth on when and
how to incorporate test scores in
teacher evaluations.
Shortly after being re-elected in
2014, Cuomo rolled out an aggressive education agenda that included
giving high-performing teachers bonuses of up to $20,000, easing the
process for school districts to remove
persistently bad or failing teachers,
and allowing charter operators to
take over failing schools. Most controversially, he said he wanted up
to half of teachers' evaluations to be
based on the state's common corealigned test scores. The other half
would be based on observations.
"The key to education reform is a
teacher-evaluation system," Cuomo
said in his 2015 State of the State
address. "Who are we kidding, my
friends? The problem is clear, and
the solution is clear. We need real,
accurate, fair teacher evaluations."

Budget-Driven Moves
The changes were tied to the governor's budget, a move many saw
as hostile and unfair. (The state is
under court order to increase its
education funding.)
Teachers' unions that aggressively fought his re-election said
Cuomo had declared war. Teacher
effectiveness was inevitably tied to
a student's home life, they argued.
The state's overdependence on testing would turn teachers off and ultimately be ineffective, they said.
"This was a one-size-fits-all, top-

20 | EDUCATION WEEK | April 13, 2016 | www.edweek.org

Carolyn Thompson/AP

and administration of the exams.
Then last month, the state's General Assembly replaced three of the
regents, including Chancellor Merryl
Tisch whose term was up after two
decades on the board and a term as
chancellor that started in 2009. She
had been among those leading the
push to adopt the new standards and
use test scores to evaluate teachers.
The new chancellor, Betty Rosa,
a former Bronx educator who was
already on the board, signaled her
own change of course when she said
that if she were a parent, she'd opt
out of the exams, too.
"We, as a board, must move away
from what was the so-called ... reform movement," Rosa said shortly
after the regents elected her chancellor. "I say, welcome the transformers. We collectively as a board
have a commitment of social justice
and equity."
Cuomo, whose office didn't return
a request for comment on his shifts
in position, has attributed the optout movement's angst to the state
education department's sloppy rollout of the common-core standards.
He's tasked the regents to come up
with more state-specific standards
and to rebuild parent trust.

down approach," said New York
State United Teachers spokesman
Carl Korn.
The backlash to policies being
pushed by Cuomo and the regents
was intensified by New York's testing-opt-out movement, the breadth,
scope, and power of which took
many by surprise.
Started by a group of angered parents and later supported by NYSUT,
the movement takes credit for more
than 200,000 students opting out
of last year's state exam, almost a
fifth of the state's student body and
a fourfold increase from the prior
year, according to the state education department.
Parents and teachers complained
that students were overwhelmed
with testing and about questions on
the Pearson-designed test.
"We're beginning to gain traction,
but the system is still very, very
wrong for kids" said Leonie Haimson, an opt-out activist and the executive director of Class Size Matters,
a New York City education advocacy
group. "Until the standards are re-

FROM ABOVE:
Betty Rosa, seated, is
applauded after being
elected chancellor of the
New York board of regents
during a meeting last month
in Albany. Rosa, a former
superintendent from the
Bronx, has voiced sympathy
for the testing opt-out
movement.
Students hold signs in favor
of opting out of state
assessments during a visit
by New York's education
commissioner, MaryEllen
Elia, to the William Street
School in Lancaster.

By September of last year, in response to the state's large opt-out
numbers, Cuomo appointed a task
force to review the state commoncore standards.
In December, a common-core task
force appointed by Cuomo reported
that the state's rollout of the standards and the tests associated with
them was clumsy and haphazard.
The report found that the state
education department-then led
by now-U.S. Secretary of Education
John B. King Jr.-had left teachers and parents out of the decisionmaking process. Professional
development had been spotty and
ineffective. And the standards were
inappropriate for K-2, the state's
English-language-learner population, and students with disabilities,
the report said.
"The common core was supposed
to ensure all of our children had
the education they needed to be college- and career-ready-but it actually caused confusion and anxiety,"
Cuomo said in December. "That
ends now. Today, we will begin to
transform our system into one that
empowers parents, teachers, and
local districts and ensures high
standards for all students."
After the task force came out with
its recommendations, the regents
put a four-year moratorium on tying
test scores to teacher evaluations.
Then last month, the General Assembly, which had undergone its
own political shift after the scandalplagued speaker abruptly resigned,
appointed the three new regents
to the board to replace two whose
terms expired and another who resigned unexpectedly. The new chancellor has since said she will work
closely with the state commissioner
to improve the test and review the
standards. The regents are expected
to vote on them this November, but
they won't go into effect until spring
2019. The state is reviewing its
teacher evaluations.
"Simply put, the education system fails without parental trust,"
Cuomo said in his State of the State
address in January. "Our goal was
to restore that trust, and we said we
would correct the state education
department's common-core-curriculum-implementation mistakes
and testing regimen. ... We urge the
state education department to do it
right this time, and we are all fully
available to assist in and monitor in
this effort."

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Education Week - April 13, 2016

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