ALBANY, NY — New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) on April 1 launched a new campaign demanding state action to fix flawed, what it called “invalid tests that are harmful to New York students.” The “Correct the Tests” campaign is intended to raise awareness of issues with New York’s grade 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and math tests.

In 2015 the state legislature passed legislation requiring that the results of some of these tests be tied to teacher evaluations.  The legislature voted to repeal that requirement earlier this year but NYSUT says the tests still create too much “stress and anxiety” in the schools.

“The state’s obsession with high-stakes testing is a failed experiment that needs to end,” NYSUT President Andy Pallotta said. “That is why teachers, parents and students around the state have been working for years to fix New York State’s broken testing system. If we are going to restore trust in the system, we need to fix these tests now.”

NYSUT asserts: the state tests are flawed and invalid; invalid scoring benchmarks mislabel children; ELA and math tests are too long; untimed testing can be cruel and traumatic; the tests are developmentally inappropriate; computer-based testing is problematic and has been rolled out too quickly.

NYSUT accuses the New York State Education Department (SED) of “creating a climate in which school administrators are attempting to intimidate parents into forcing their children to take these tests or isolating children who refuse to take them.”

In recent years many students in school districts across the state and in Sullivan Count have opted out of the testing. Statewide about 200,000 students, or 18% of the student population, opted out of the testing, although SED officials say that number is declining slightly over time.

To further complicate the testing picture some students in the state have begun to take the tests on computer, rather than with pencil and paper, and this year there was a glitch at some of the schools. Use of the computerized testing was halted on April 1, while the testing company, Questar Assessment Inc., worked out the glitch.  Digital testing was expected to resume on April 2.