Area high school students are hunkered down this week studying for the always ominous New York Regents tests, which begin Tuesday. Meanwhile, this past week saw a small uprising to the teach-to-the-test mentality.

Upper Nyack Middle School 5th graders took to the streets with a mini march to Village Hall this past Thursday, accompanied by parents, all in protest of standardized testing and the increasing reliance of teaching-to-the-tests in schools.

“They’re pressured to teach what is on the test,” Betsy Shollet, parent of a Nyack Middle School student, told News12 Westchester. “If a student is interested in something that’s not on the test, the teachers don’t really have time to follow through on those interests.”

The Upper Nyack boycott was all about math and English language arts field tests given to students to help test contractors improve standardized tests. According to Rockland Newsday reporter Meghan Murphy, selected school districts get tapped to administer the test tests, with some 430,000 third- through eighth-grade New York students participating last week.

The tests are voluntary but presented as part of the standard classroom curriculum, which usually means students do what they’re told.  50 of 74 eligible Upper Nyack fifth-graders opted out of test tests.

In the fall, NY state schools will begin a new teacher evaluation process that could involve up to 40% of a teacher’s classroom performance evaluation based on students’ performance on standardized tested — 20% of the new evaluation procedure will involve student measurement of test growth. The second 20 percent will be based on a locally selected measure of student achievement that must be collectively bargained, and could be based on student standardized test performance.

Growth in and reliance on standardized testing exploded under the No Child Left Behind Act passed into law in 2001. NCLB was a standards-based educational reform effort that sought to impose federal classroom performance standards rooted in test scores and other assessments. Criticisms of NCLB have ranged from the cost of its unfunded mandates and penalization of schools with low test scores, to the increasing classroom mind-set of “teaching to the test” and the entry of large corporations into the classroom via enormous testing material contracts.

The Upper Nyack protest parade was part of a coordinated effort that peaked with some 10,000 teachers, parents and students meeting in Albany’s Empire Plaza this past Saturday afternoon to protest the new teacher assessment models and schools’ reliance on standardized testing.

The rally protested the for-profit, corporatization of education, where companies such as Pearson Education are paid millions to produce educational tests and materials while teachers and programs are being cut.  The “One Voice United” rally was organized by New York State United Teachers and was sponsored by 21 other groups.

Photos stills of Upper Nyack Elementary protest courtesy of News12 Westchester.