MEDIA ADVISORY: Rochester area educators to call on state Tuesday to fix flawed state exams

ROCHESTER, N.Y. April 22, 2019 — New York State United Teachers will hold a press conference at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, to call on the State Education Department to immediately address significant issues with state tests for children in grades 3-8.

NYSUT Board member and Spencerport Teachers Association President John Kozlowski, NYSUT Board member and BOCES United Professionals President Andy Jordan, and Victor Teachers Association President Mike Modleski will be joined by members of the state Legislature at NYSUT’s Rochester Regional Office, 30 N. Union St., in Rochester to discuss flaws with these exams and the ways in which the state must address them.

NYSUT has launched the Correct the Tests campaign to raise awareness of the serious issues with the grades 3-8 ELA and math tests and demand state action to fix these invalid tests that are harmful to New York students. A press conference on this issue was also held in Albany at SED.

The union is drawing attention to the fact that:

• 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; and
• computer-based testing is problematic and has been rolled out too quickly.

Parents and educators are encouraged to visit CorrectTheTests.com for more information about the problems with these tests and parents’ rights to opt their children out of taking the tests. The website also provides an outlet for parents and teachers to submit stories about testing issues in their schools.

New York State United Teachers is a statewide union with more than 600,000 members in education, human services and health care. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.