NYC Educator: Newsday Asks Opt-Out to Please Crawl Away and Die

NYC Educator: Newsday Asks Opt-Out to Please Crawl Away and Die:

Newsday Asks Opt-Out to Please Crawl Away and Die

When I was 12 years old, I think, my first job ever was delivering newspapers. I delivered Newsday for several years. I also sold a hell of a lot of subscriptions. Whenever anyone moved in, whenever a new house was built, and whenever anyone wasn't on my route I'd knock on the door and sell new subscriptions. It was easy. There was nothing like it and it was pretty much the best source of local news. I read it every day.

Now Newsday is a piece of drek owned by the would-be monopolists at Cablevision. It's writtenone of the stupidest editorials I've ever seen.  Newsday thinks the opt-out movement has done its job, and that now it's time to sit down and shut up. You see, the tests were "fine" because they were "vetted" by "at least 22 New York public school teachers."

It’s unfortunate that 20 percent of students statewide and more than 50 percent of those on Long Island opted out of those exams this past spring. So while the tests were fine, the broad results released by the state on July 29 are practically useless for evaluating classes, schools and districts on Long Island.

You see what they did there? Not only did they understate the percentage of students statewide who opted out, but they also failed to note that the tests were fundamentally different from those the year before. Even the state itself acknowledges that, sometimes. Newsday then attributes these changes to the "parent and teacher revolt against Common Core standards in recent years," the same revolt that it opposed tooth and nail, each and every step of the way. Newsday says opt-out has now achieved its goals and should therefore go away and leave it alone.

Newsday loves standardized tests:

Results of standardized tests are just about the only measure that equally compares student skills across classes, schools, districts and NYC Educator: Newsday Asks Opt-Out to Please Crawl Away and Die: