Beacon City School Superintendent Landahl Hopes To Reverse State Testing Opt-Out Trend
/
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth
In a reverse course to what became customary for many Beacon parents, Beacon City School District Matt Landahl encouraged parents and caregivers this week via email to have their kids participate in the New York State Testing that begins on April 8th and 9th for English/Language Arts and April 21st-22nd for Math. He said that one of the reasons parents were encouraging or accepting their kids opt out has changed.
“One of the reasons the opt-out movement began over 10 years ago,” Dr. Landahl explained in his email, “was that, at one point, test scores were tied to teacher evaluations. That is no longer the case; test scores do not impact individual teacher evaluations. The tests are also not used to determine grades or grade advancement decisions, either.”
Regarding Beacon’s participation, he said: “The Rombout student ‘opt-out’ or test-refusal rates have been high over the last few years, and we want to work to increase test participation.” He explained that New York State expects that all students take the tests.
“A higher participation rate on the test helps us identify strengths and weaknesses of our overall academic program and performance, and it also helps us identify individual student needs.”
Making it less convenient to opt-out, Dr. Landahl said that the district is no longer accepting notes the day of the test to exclude a student from taking it. He encouraged parents to connect with appropriate administrators connected with their child, a list of which was provided.
Said a school parent and teaching professional, Nate Morgan to A Little Beacon Blog: “However, if the state test scoring is still tied to the initial metrics/measures, then they can still be abusive to students by mislabeling them as not college and career ready when they are, in fact, college and career ready. Linking the 3rd grade to 8th grade scores to teacher evaluation was a flawed problem, but not the exact nature of the problem with the 3-8 state test.”
Said Jessica Colon: “If it won’t affect teacher evaluations or students grades, what’s the point? Waste of students time and energy. I came from Beacon City School District. Graduated with a high school ‘regents’ diploma. Meant absolutely nothing.”
