When Angela Bernhardt's sixth-grade daughter sits down for Friday's math field test, she'll be done in a matter of seconds.
There won't be any arithmetic or square roots—she'll simply write "refused" on the front page, hand in the exam and read a book for the remaining 40 minutes.
Bernhardt, an Upper Nyacker with two youngsters in the Nyack School District, is one of hundreds of parents in Rockland, Westchester and Putnam who is boycotting state-mandated field tests alongside their children this week.
"There's excessive testing in New York," she said.
Children will not face academic repercussions for refusing to take the exams—this week's tests are being used to formulate and fine-tune questions for future assessments.
"We're doing free research for testing companies like Pearson," Bernhardt said, noting the exams impede on classroom time. "If they're going to take our time, why not donate something to our schools?"
State tests from to high school are also used to gauge students' learning and teachers' effectiveness.
"It's starting to feel like kids are the pawns in the conflict between teachers unions and the state," Bernhardt added.
The testing also costs local school districts millions of dollars each year in administrative, equipment and grading costs that are not reimbursed. And less money for school could mean larger class sizes, or fewer programs, parents said.
The decision to boycott the tests in Nyack came about only three weeks ago, but parents' ire over superfluous exams is nothing new. Bernhardt helped found (REF), a Nyack and Valley Cottage-based group that aims to slash tests and bring more state money into local schools' coffers.
It's a concept that has supporters across the board; Bernhardt says her daughter's sixth-grade teacher is fine with the boycott, and Nyack Schools' superintendent James Montesano more state-mandated testing will "hamstring [students'] innovation."
"I've never seen the level of assessment and level of importance placed on assessment we’re at currently," he added.
Bernhardt insists the parents are not calling for a complete 180—"we're not anti-testing, we're not anti-accountability," she said—but instead a significant scaling down.
Across the river, in Hastings-on-Hudson, Tracy Pyper has picked up the reduce-testing banner and founded Public Education Matters, an organization akin to REF. Tracy Pyper's husband, Peter Swiderski, is the village's mayor.
"We do not like the way educational policy is turning," she said. "We do not like the trend toward testing and over assessment.
And parents like Pyper—who has two kids in the school system—agree. The district passed out field tests to 130 sixth-graders Wednesday, and 67 children opted out. An additional eight were absent.
"It's a significant number," Pyper said, noting that parents can to band together and create a "fewer tests" voting bloc.
As of Thursday morning, a petition put together by Bernhardt and Pyper had accumulated 274 signatures of parents across the lower Hudson Valley agreeing to boycott the field tests.
(The petition can be viewed here.)
In a survey published in The Washington Post, 8,000 parents sounded-off about state-mandated field testing in New York. The results were jarring—75-percent of parents reported their child was "more anxious in the month before the test," and 95-percent were "opposed to increasing the number and length of tests."
Officials from the New York State Department of Education's office of Assessment Policy, Development and Administration (APDA) did not return Patch's call for comment.
Though the boycotts throughout the Hudson Valley are only slated to last through the week, Bernhardt and others are looking ahead.
"For next year...we will ask the community what they're interested in doing, and there will be a variety of suggestions," Bernhardt said.
This summer, local parents, teachers and high school seniors are planning to pen letters to governor Andrew Cuomo, saying he will lose their vote if the testing continues.
"Albany is not listening to teachers and administrators," Bernhardt said. "There has to to be a better way."
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A closer look
Westchester County communities with residents protesting the field tests: Croton-Harmon, Dobbs Ferry, Harrison, Hastings-on-Hudson, Ossining, Sleepy Hollow, Somers, Scardale, Tarrytown
Rockland County communities with residents protesting the field tests: Nyack, Upper Nyack, West Nyack, Valley Cottage, New City, Ramapo, Piermont
Other communities with residents protesting the field tests: Newburgh, Rochester, Binghamton, Lancaster, West Genesee, Liverpool, Onteara, Kingston, Rondout Valley, New Paltz, Levitown, Great Neck, Long Branch
What has been happening recently - pressed by the dimwitted George W. Bush, Ted Kennedy, and Andrew Cuomo - is a terrible misuse of tests. The key mistake is the belief that schooling makes you smart. The two candidates on the Republican ticket in the 1864 election had only one year of school between them. Andrew Johnson was illiterate when he married. His wife taught him to read. Abraham Lincoln's speeches are studied still and ring true. Nobody quotes Franklin Pierce. Angela Merkle, trained as a physicist, closed down all of Germany nuclear plants in reaction to Fukushima. Nobody was killed by the radiation release at Fukushima and no such deaths are expected, yet 19,000 human beings were washed away by the tsunami. I never heard of a tsunami in Germany. its problem is in starting crazy world wars.
I too believe it is a great lesson to teach your kids that if you think something is wrong to do something about it. Becoming active and do things like writing letters, petitions, working on campaigns to get people elected that will create programs which you feel are right are all great lessons. I, hope also, that the lesson includes accepting responsibilities for your own actions and if you do protest, that one would accept the consequences that come with protesting what you think is wrong. It might seem perfectly clear that these tests are wrong and not participating is a perfectly good thing to do. However, what if a student decided that surprise tests are wrong and wanted to protest by not taking it. Would the student be willing to get a zero and possibly fail the course for his or her action? If so, great however, we all know how that would go. Deciding what is right and wrong isn't always clear cut. Simply picking and choosing what rules we will follow and which ones we won't based on whether or not we agree with them isn't a great lesson.
So I say, damn the torpedoes! The more tests the better. I am delighted that our kids are having the opportunity to take more tests. Even if they are draft tests to help the matriculation standards. Bring-em-on!
I'm sure that doesn't do any good to the child's self esteem. I helped my son (8 yrs.old in third grade) study for these "tests" and he was very confident that he did well. With that said, I'm not happy with the qulaity of education my son is receiving, eg; Teacher tells him not to use words like stuff and things, but most of the books he reads these words are repeated over and over agian. Coming home with photocopied homework with questions involing colors while photo copies are black and white. Giving enough space for a 5 word written answer for a 20 word answer, and the list goes on.
I don't want to reveal the name of my district because I think it would embarrass them to have it known that they advocated the path of least resistance because it would be less work for them in the short term. Unfortunately, I have seen this district opt for its own immediate self-interest over the possible improvement of public education time and again. In sum, they like the status quo, especially when anything else would require more of them. The resistance to change, even when such a change could provide a vast improvement to the way things are done, is immense. I don't think I ever looked at my district the same way after that meeting.
You are tested every day while you are living on this planet. The only time it stops is when you are in the ground. No wonder there are so many people dependent on the government for not only money but also direction in their lives.
(for the Record the Catholic Schools participate, and why wouldn't they? They traditionally do very well)
I kept my 6th grader home for the hour of the test. When I brought him in I heard an announcement that the test was running longer because a few rooms were not finished. More educational time lost. Evaluating our children's progress is valuable. Helping a testing company evaluate their questions is not. Let them hire focus groups during non classroom time if feedback is so important to them.
Somehow we need a level of accountability ... even if it's flawed. I'm also against ever putting children at the center of some parental activist decision. If parents are against it, well, fine. There are better ways to go up against the issue than placing youngsters in the middle of the war. Leave them out.
Every thing we add to a student's day lessens instruction time. This has been the pattern for a long time.
Why would one "protect" their kids from the environment that dominates their young lives, anyway? Parents should promote an awareness and understanding, on their kids' level, on what goes on to create that environment. Active participation by residents, especially parents and children, is the best way to ensure that the schools have the direction and support they need to deliver a quality education. By encouraging the kids to leave the tests unopened on their desks, they are learning the importance of making a collective statement, within the rules, in an effort to drive change. This is a far better lesson than the drudgery of test preparation.