Just a reminder, PJSTA members should be wearing their “Learning is more than a test score” tee-shirts tomorrow for the first day of the 2013 ELA exam.

North Bellmore’s BOE joined Comsewogue’s last week in issuing a resolution against the use of standardized testing in New York State.

Another Newsday hatchet job here.

Long Island Opt Out’s Jeannette Brunelle Deutermann responded with the following…

Newsday, you have missed the mark yet again. There is an awakening that has been occurring throughout Long Island, New York State, and the Nation. Parents are finally educating themselves on the state of our educational system, and we are horrified by what we have found. Excessive testing on educationally inappropriate material, an experimental common core curriculum which eliminates inspired and creative learning, selling of our children’s data without our consent, and a system which vilifies the only component in this equation putting our children first; the teachers. John King, whose own children do not take part in state assessments, claims his goal is “college ready learners”. Instead he is creating an epidemic of children who are uninspired, dispassionate, bored, and stressed; An epidemic of children who hate school. What is the use of “college ready” when our children won’t even WANT to go to college?

Educators warned the State years ago that if they continued to leave teachers, parents and students out of the equation, the parents would eventually rise up. And rise up we have. Newsday has discounted us as troublemakers and complainers. We are over 7,000 strong JUST ON LONG ISLAND, and our numbers grow by the day. We will no longer sit idly by while businessmen and politicians dismantle our educational system. We will take back our schools. Thousands of children across the State will not be taking part in this week’s state tests. Do not discount us. We will be heard.