It looks like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the national Democratic Party are getting nervous. Certainly Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, and Governor Andrew Cuomo are backing off. After months of threatening that high student opt-out rates on high-stakes Common Core aligned standardized tests would cause school districts to lose federal and state aid, the threats have evaporated. Poor MaryEllen Elia, the new state education commissioner and agent in charge of making the threats, has been hung out to dry.
The federal government's Race to the Top initiative mandates that 95 percent of the students in a district take the exams. Because of the Opt-Out movement many school districts in New York State fell below the threshold. Opt-Out is particularly strong in suburban communities on Long Island in in the Hudson River Valley.
This week Merryl Tisch announced districts with high opt-out rates would not be punished. Apparently she now realizes withdrawing money from a school district "what you're doing is you're hurting the kids" and its not an "effective way" to deal with the Opt-out movement.
Andrew Cuomo, who made use of test results to evaluate teachers a cornerstone of his education policies, appears to have conceded defeat on the issue. "At the end of the day, parents are in charge and parents make the decisions."
Meanwhile, as a keynote speaker at a recent Gates Foundation funded Educators4Excellence conference, MaryEllen Elia was strident in her opposition to Opt-Out, apparently unaware that Tisch and Cuomo were backing down. According to a transcript posted at the website Perdido Street School, Elia stated "opt out is something that is not reasonable. I understand that it can about as a result of people wanting to become involved in what they thought was the political way to approach it. I am absolutely shocked if - and I don't know this happened but if any educator supported and encouraged opt outs, I think it's unethical."
Elia added, "I don't agree with opt out. I will, uh, and am moving forward to do everything I can so that we can make sure that we don't have our opt out in any way grow and in fact when people I think become more aware of the importance of having the assessments."
Elia then concluded by threatening parents, teachers, and school districts that "The federal government has the ability to withdraw funds from districts and we have the ability as the state to say to any educator that's not an ethical thing you're doing. We have the ability to say to a superintendent, um, I just want you to know that you are an officer of the state and encouraging people to not follow the law is not acceptable."
More than 200,000 children in grades 3 to 8 in New York State alone opted out of either the English or math tests or both. It was about 20 percent of the potential test takers in the state. It was a major success for parents in the Opt-Out movement opposed to constant testing and test driven curriculum. The State Education Department acknowledged that the high opt-out rate has interfered with its ability to use test results to evaluate students, teachers, and schools.
Opt-Out is a parent-led campaign supported by many teachers against Common Core aligned high-stakes tests used to evaluate students, teachers, and schools. In 2015 it moved from the political margins and emerged as a full-scale social movement committed to the idea that education should be about children, not testing. States have not yet abandoned Common Core and Race to the Top mandated high-stakes testing, but as the Opt-Out movement continues to grow and its pace of growth continues to accelerate, I believe they will.
Message to Opt Out leadership: Suburban parents dismissed by the federal Department of Education and the New York State Education Department will be key voters in the 2016 Presidential primaries and elections. Now is the time to act. Send Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and the other candidates opt-out t-shirts. Let's see who is willing to wear one.