William Bennett: Opting Out Isn’t About Shielding Kids. It’s About Protecting Teachers

As New York prepares for the third year of administering student assessments that align with the Common Core, teachers’ unions have intensified their efforts to encourage families to "opt out" of these tests. Union leaders and their supporters have launched numerous multimillion-dollar campaigns throughout the state to persuade students to refuse taking the state tests. They have employed strategies such as robo-calls and emails to parents, even though state officials have already made significant concessions, including a temporary halt on using test results to evaluate teachers.

Why are the unions continuing to ramp up their efforts, despite the olive branch extended by New York officials? The reason is clear: tough, high-quality standardized exams hold union members accountable and make it more challenging for grade inflation to occur.

Let’s be clear: there are productive ways to improve education and accountability policies, but opting out is not one of them. Refusing to participate in assessments puts students, parents, and teachers at a disadvantage and does little to address genuine concerns about the quality and quantity of state tests.

Last year, the opt-out movement gained momentum by capitalizing on public frustration with excessive testing. They were partly correct in identifying the problem. There were and, in many cases, still are, too many tests being administered. However, the anti-testing activists’ rejection of sincere attempts to enhance New York’s student assessments demonstrates that their objective is not to refine or improve the tests, but rather to eliminate them entirely.

Since last year, New York officials have made adjustments to the state tests, such as reducing the number of questions in math and reading, with further reductions planned for next year. They have also eliminated time limits for students, involved 156 state teachers in reviewing the tests, and declared that the results will not impact teacher evaluations until the 2019-2020 school year.

Despite these concessions, some of which were reasonable, the opt-out movement remains unsatisfied. This year, the New York State United Teachers union is advocating for legislation that would permanently ban the use of test scores in evaluating teachers. This clearly reveals the true motive behind the entire movement.

It has become evident that New York’s opt-out movement is not aimed at protecting students from excessive testing, but rather it is a tactic employed by teachers’ unions and far-left policy leaders to eliminate any meaningful accountability within student assessments.

This contradicts what many education reformers, from both political parties, have agreed upon for decades: standardized testing is crucial to evaluate student performance across districts, states, and countries, providing parents and teachers with an accurate understanding of a child’s academic progress.

By comparing state test results to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a rigorous exam considered the gold standard in testing, it became apparent that many states had lowered their standards and created easier tests. This created an "honesty gap," where students appeared to perform significantly better on state tests than on NAEP exams, indicating a gap between their actual knowledge and abilities.

In 2010, New York’s deputy education commissioner acknowledged, "It actually seems that the problem of this gap – what we call proficient and what NAEP calls proficient – has been getting worse."

To address this issue, New York adopted stronger education standards and exams aligned with the Common Core in that same year. Today, New York has successfully closed the "honesty gap" and has proficiency requirements that are more rigorous than those of NAEP. This demonstrates that New York recognized the problem and had the courage to confront it. The current state tests provide students with an accurate representation of their readiness for college and careers. Consequently, these tests should not be disregarded.

High-quality tests are in the best interest of children and can be administered without excessive testing. Opting out runs the risk of undoing the significant progress that New York has made in recent years. Parents should resist the teachers’ unions’ call to abandon the tests.

Other states across the country will closely observe New York’s actions. It is imperative that New York gets it right.