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Boycotts and a Bill Protest Mandatory
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS Nearly a year after a group of rebellious mothers in Scarsdale staged a boycott of the state's eighth- grade reading test - only to have their children's schools threatened with punishment by the state - the protest movement against standardized testing in New York is still simmering. At two competitive alternative middle schools in New York City, the School of the Future and the Institute for Collaborative Education, scores of students went to school yesterday brandishing letters signed by their parents giving them permission to sit out this year's test, which began yesterday. Some students wrote their names and a bold message: "I object to high-stakes testing," across the top of their test forms. In Westchester, two State Assembly members, Richard L. Brodsky and Amy Paulin, have taken up the cause. At their request, the state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, has agreed to meet today with county school superintendents, teachers and parents to discuss their concerns about testing. Mr. Brodsky, meanwhile, has introduced a bill in the State Assembly that would force the State Board of Regents to consider alternatives to existing standardized tests in public schools, like portfolios of work. "This is an issue that has united Bed-Stuy, the South Bronx and Scarsdale," Mr. Brodsky said yesterday. "There has got to be a way to find flexibility. This is the real world, not an academic vacuum." Each community and type of school, however, has a somewhat different reason for opposing the state tests. In Scarsdale, parents and teachers argue that the test distracts students from a curriculum that is more rigorous than state standards, forcing the schools to focus on familiarizing their students with the peculiarities of a relatively simple test. The best alternative schools in New York City - like the School of the Future and the Institute for Collaborative Education - say they cannot prepare for tests while shaping their curriculum around in-depth research projects. Many other public schools, both alternative and traditional, fear the tests will spur many of their students to drop out. The state faces its own dilemma: Without standardized testing, it is hard for the state to keep track of struggling schools where children may not be getting the education they need or struggling students at successful schools. Meryl Tisch, a state Regent, said she supported both tests and test preparation. Her own children went to private schools and did not take the state tests, she said. But they did take courses to prepare for a standardized test, the SAT's, and found that they actually learned valuable vocabulary, math and writing skills. Anticipating yesterday's boycott, the state has changed its regulations to crack down on boycotters. Schools are now required to administer the standardized tests whether parents want them to or not, Alan Ray, a spokesman for the Education Department, said yesterday. Last year, if students missed the test day or the makeup days, they were never given the test. This year, if they are absent on testing dates, they will be asked to take the test the next time they enter the school. If they refuse - or, as in the School of the Future yesterday, if they write a message across the form - their tests will be scored as zero, which will lower the school's overall rating. At that point, schools are required to find other ways of convincing the state that the student is not in need of remedial work. New York State is in step with President Bush's education bill, known as "No Child Left Behind," which will require annual reading and math testing in all states for grades 3 through 8 by the 2005-06 school year. Contrary to what boycotters say, a national telephone survey released yesterday by Public Agenda, a nonprofit polling organization, found that about three quarters of the students in grades 6 to 12 say that preparing for standardized tests did not force them to neglect other classroom work. In contrast, 84 percent of parents and 60 percent of teachers said too much emphasis was put on testing. State officials say children should be able to pass the tests without any special preparation. For the English test, the state recommends reading 25 books a year and writing 1,000 words a month. The tests, they say, are a kind of minimum check on the quality of education. If anything, state officials say, eighth grade needs to be monitored more closely than any other grade, because American eighth graders consistently lag behind those in the rest of the world in both reading and math. But opponents say that it is unrealistic to think that schools will not devote substantial time to test preparation in a quest for ever higher scores in their competition with schools in other communities or neighborhoods. Scarsdale parents say they are refraining from boycotts this year for fear that their popular schools superintendent, Michael V. McGill, could suffer repercussions. "If boycotting would in any way jeopardize his position, we're looking for another way to make our point," said Leslie Berkovits, the mother of three Scarsdale students. Jane Hirschmann, a high-school parent who helped organize yesterday's boycott in New York City, said she had been meeting monthly with a slowly growing group of parents of children as young as kindergarten, from all over the city. These parents, she said, are concerned that good teachers are leaving the system because they are dispirited by the emphasis on testing. They also worry, she said, that principals who feel judged by the tests are making school a grimmer place by taking children out of enjoyable classes like art, music and gym to concentrate on test preparation. Under the principals' contract, principals now get bonuses if test scores in their schools improve. "Principals know that tests are a reflection of their schools," Ms. Hirschmann said. "They also know they are a reflection of increases in salary. So come on, the name of the game is getting test scores up." Claire Kazar, an eighth grader at the Institute for Collaborative Education, said the school had encouraged her inventiveness, and outside of school, she has performed in seven shows at an Off Broadway theater. "There's no way you can memorize all the facts of life," she said. Claire did remember a few facts, nonetheless. She said her humanities class had been studying World War I by looking at the paintings of Picasso and Dali, and reading "The Time Machine" by H. G. Wells. "I'm not really worried about these tests," she said. "I've taken a lot of tests, and I've passed all of them. In fact, I got rather high test scores. But I wholeheartedly love this school, and these tests, if imposed, will destroy what I love about this school." By contrast, Matthew Ellor, one of Claire's classmates, could not remember any of the poets or artists they had studied. Math was more his forte, he said. Matthew has been studying the cello since he was 5. He did remember the name of the piece, "Chanson Triste" by Tchaikovsky, that he played to audition for Fiorello H. La Guardia High School, a competitive performing arts school. Preparing for the state test, he said, "would require a whole new way of studying, which I don't think is fair." All but about 20 of the 140 eighth- graders in the two New York City schools refused to take the English test yesterday, Ms. Hirschmann said. |
