Parents may choose to refuse standardized tests for many reasons, including concerns about test quality, excessive testing, student stress, or the use of…
Parents, students, and educators in New York can raise concerns when a school district mishandles state exams, pressures families about test participation,…
A child who consistently earns high scores may seem like the least likely candidate for opting out of standardized tests. For some New York families, however,…
Testing policy in New York is shaped by several institutions, each with a different responsibility. The State Education Department administers assessments and…
A child’s teacher often sees the effects of testing stress before anyone else does: headaches, sleeplessness, tearfulness, disengagement, or fear of making a…
The phrase “instructional shift” describes a change in what students do during English language arts lessons and what teachers emphasize. In the Common Core…
A local opt-out Facebook group can give parents, teachers, and community members a practical place to share testing information, compare experiences, and…
New York’s annual testing season produces very different opt-out patterns from one county to another. In some communities, refusing state assessments has…
New York State education policy is shaped through formal rulemaking, board decisions, guidance, assessments, and legislation. Public comments become most…
Families seeking alternatives to the Common Core for math instruction often begin with a simple concern: children need mathematics that is clear, coherent, and…