Elia's Whistle Stop Education Tour

Education Commissioner Elia is in WNY touting the very state exams that she would not allow her own children to take.

Her goal – stop the Opt Out Movement from growing. Last year 20% of the eligible grades 3-8 population were exempted by their parents from taking the tests. How many students spoiled their tests because their friends weren't taking them? We'll never know because once a test is written on, it can be scored. And it counts against the school.

Let's remember the purpose of these tests – To show that public schools are failing to educate our children. This way the government (federal) can force the school to be privatized under the various capitalist written education laws - No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top (or Bottom as opponents call it), and the Every Student Succeeds Act (aka Everything Stays the Same Act. It just re-codifies NCLB and RTTP).

After years of horrible tests that students were forced to take, Elia is on a whirlwind whistle stop to to “gain our trust back” because there have been “significant changes made.”

Right.

And Santa Claus is real. I know this because the Easter Bunny told me so.

There will be fewer questions. Exactly six.

There will be exactly one less reading passage.

All students will have unlimited time to sit and take the test.

Over twenty teachers have previewed the questions and sent back bad questions until they were written correctly. Whatever that means. We'll still find errors when we administer the tests.

About 65% of the questions will be made public this year. The goal will be 100% in the near future.

The tests will be graded faster (by non educators and on a curve) and the results sent back faster. Still no word on how to make any sort of use of the results. The state hasn't come up with that yet.

Test scores won't count against a teacher's evaluation until 2019. (Suggestion – How about never?)

So, we are still having tests that have no academic value being administered to students that don't want to take them and graded by non-educators for teachers that have no guidance on how to use the information.

Right.

I'm all for high standards for students.

I believe every child can learn and achieve.

I also believe we are turning students off from learning by pushing these tests on them.

I hear it every day in class: Do we have to know this for the test?

It's never: When will I use this in life?

Isn't that what school is supposed to prepare students for?