Test Rejections

A week or two ago, I noticed Radio Free Hamilton's Even More HCS Students Opt Out of Math Tests

Fewer HCS elementary and middle school students took this week's state-mandated math tests than took last week's English language arts (ELA) exams.

An actual majority refused to take the tests here. In the state as a whole, it was only about a sixth, but Tens of Thousands of New York Students Refuse Tests

Pressed for a reaction to the boycott, which is fueled by allegations that Common Core is rigid and age-inappropriate, and that the tests are excessive, Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to split the difference in characteristic style, by minimizing both the importance of the schooling standards to which his state government (like most) has committed, as well as belittling objections to the same.

"My position was, the department of education had not done a good job in introducing the Common Core, and they had rushed it, so we said, for a period of five years, the test scores won’t count," Cuomo told reporters. "So they can opt out if they want to, but on the other hand, if the child takes the test as practice, then the score doesn't count anyway."

"The grades are meaningless to the student," he added, not exactly shoring up the argument for committing time and effort to filling in ovals on a sheet of paper.

Former U.S. senator from New York, and current presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton went a step further last week, referring to education as a "non-family enterprise."

So... Maybe parents and students have no business raising a fuss, in her view.

Ouch. Well, What If They Threw Common Core Tests and Nobody Came?

Maybe Common Core would have received a better reception if it had been imposed on the country in 1946, after years of regimentation and top-down decision-making from the New Deal bureacracy and the war effort. A gray standardized approach might have suited a collectivized era. But it was decades too late.

... as with so many things, one size doesn't fit all.