Transcript :

Nathan Place

OPTING OUT: FINAL CUT 2

Karen Sprowal: It just literally changed the culture of the school. Children were peeing in the bed, children were having crying spells, the anxiety… Teachers were always stressed, walking on pins and needles… And it seemed to be all about the test—this narrow focus on just this test.
This year the New York Department of Education introduced Common Core tests. These tests are attached to teacher evaluations, they’re attached to schools’ progress reports, which determine whether the school’s deemed a failing school and closed…
My son, Matthew, started exhibiting a lot of anxiety.
Matthew Sprowal: It was too much pressure on me because I thought it was gonna be really hard and I thought I could have got my teacher fired and I really like my teacher.
KS: This week as an act of civil disobedience Matthew is opting out of all tests.
What we agreed to do is that he would go into school and as they sit for the test, he is to write “999,” which is the code for refuse. So Matthew did that, they removed him from the class and gave him a book to read and let him sit in a second grade class.
MS: After the first day I felt like it was boring and I really wanted to be with the class.
KS: I think he’s still quite young to understand the magnitude of what he did. For him personally I think at that age you don’t want to be an outsider. You wanna kinda go along with your peers…
However, there were whole schools in places like Long Island and Westchester where teachers actually opted out and walked out and refused to give the test. So it’s gaining a lot of traction…
The struggle continues. We continue to push back and say no.
MS: No, I don’t think there’s gonna be consequences from the school and the DOE.
KS: I anticipate that a portfolio will be created for Matthew, and that where he’s lagging at will be brought up in the next 42 days, so that he is promoted. That’s what I anticipate to happen, and if it doesn’t happen… there will be hell if it doesn’t happen.
These high stakes tests are a snapshot of how a child is doing, and for that snapshot to be something to be his permanent record that’s attached to a teacher’s evaluation, to a school’s evaluation, to a principal’s evaluation, to whether he gets into a good school or not, or to whether he gets promoted or not, I’m more fearful of him taking that test than him not taking it.

more info:

April was a month of stress for many children and parents in the New York City public school system, as students finally took the new standardized tests they’d been preparing for all year. But one parent, Karen Sprowal, had her son refuse to take the test—and she’s not the only one.
Sprowal, 50, says the new tests, which conform to the national standards set by the “Common Core” program, have turned her school’s curriculum into an endless series of drills and practice tests, and have caused stress among students and teachers alike. Her son Matthew, 10, feared that if he performed badly on the test, his teacher would get fired.
That fear was not completely unfounded. In New York City, students’ grades on the tests are tied to teacher evaluations, school evaluations, principal evaluations and whether or not students make it to the next grade.
In protest of this “high-stakes testing,” as they call it, New York education advocacy groups such as Class Size Matters and Change the Stakes have offered parents an alternative to taking the tests: “opting out.”
The Sprowals opted to take that alternative.
For the six days of testing, Matthew sat the tests out in a second-grade classroom and read quietly. On the sixth day, he and his mother attended a protest at Tweed Courthouse, near City Hall.
Sprowal says opting out carried its own stresses, but still prefers it to the tests.
“The tests don’t work for us—period,” she said.