What The "Opt Out" Numbers Really Mean?

This week. the NYSED published the latest "opt out" numbers and astonishingly 20% of the State's students "opted out" from taking the test.  This was quadrupled the 2014 "opt out" rate and the unfortunate and threatening comments from the new NYSED Commissioner. MaryEllen Ella, would strongly suggest that next year will be a repeat and may be even higher!

The highest "opt out" numbers were found in solidly white middle class school districts in Long Island and scattered throughout upstate New York.  While the New York Times published a graph that shows the higher income school districts were more likely to "opt out", the truth is that the richest school districts had "opt out" rates that were lower than the middle income school districts.  What was very obvious was that the urban and lower income school districts of color had the lowest "opt out" rates.  The "opt out" rates depended on many factors

• Demographics (race and income)
• Superintendent action (threats)
• School Boards
• Parent activists organizing
• Teacher Unions 
• Urbanization

To me, the more involved parents are in their child's eduction, the more likely they participated in "opting out" their child.  Parents were upset that their child had to spend six days of their education in taking these ridiculous Common Core based tests that the NYSED set "cut scores" that ensured that two out of three would not be proficient.   Moreover, the tests are too difficult and not grade appropriate that make the students fear and loath these tests.  Finally, the  tests will determine 50% of their teacher's evaluation and teachers will forgo instruction to do mindless test preparation making student learning a chore instead of an adventure for knowledge.

School Districts with the highest "opt out" rates.
Chateaugay...............................89%
Dolgenville.................................89%
Comsewogue,............................79%
New York Mills............................77%
Rocky Point................................75%
Plainedge..................................75%
Sayville.....................................72%
West Seneca..............................72%
Onieda.......................................69%
Whitesboro................................67%
Onteora.....................................62%
Fairport.....................................61%
Rockville Center.........................59%

By contrast, the school districts with a majority  of students of color had low "opt out" rates.

New York City...........................1.4% 
East Ramapo..............................2%
Hempstead................................3%
Elmont.......................................4%
Syracuse....................................6%

Even in the heart of the "opt out" movement on the Nassau-Suffolk border, the poor minority community of Wyndanch had an "opt out" rate of only 11%, yet the surrounding middle income school districts like Farmingdale (63%), Babylon (59%), Plainedge (75%) and Lindenhurst (57%) had five to almost seven times the "opt out" rate as Wyndanch did.

The NYSED's response is that "opting out" is a disservice to our kids.  The real disservice is the ridiculous 6 days of testing that requires schools to spend months of test preparation rather than educating our kids, with the results not known till August. Until the NYSED simplifies the Common Core based tests and make them grade appropriate and goes to a Regents based program with a three hour not three day test that can be graded within a day or two, the "opt out" rates will remain high and go even higher as many parents realize that this is not education but mindless testing.   Even the non engaged parent will start to realize that their child's fear and loathing of the mindless test preparation and the teacher evaluation tied to it will result in months of prepping for the tests and not real education and learning in the classroom.

Its high-stakes testing first and student learning last as teachers, fearful of losing their jobs, will do what's necessary to make sure their students will do well on the test and if that means constant and continuous test preparation at the expense of real student learning, then so be it.