If you don't let your kids take state tests is CPS coming after YOU?!?

There has been a lot of talk recently as to whether or not Child Protective Services will come after individual parents if their children refuse the state tests.

I would like to answer some questions.

What does Child Protective Services specifically do?

One of the things they do is prosecute cases against parents for child abuse or child maltreatment. These are the definitions of child abuse and maltreatment from the NYS Office of Children and Family Services Website.

Child Abuse

Generally, the term abuse encompasses the most serious harms committed against children. An "abused child" is a child whose parent or other person legally responsible for his/her care inflicts upon the child serious physical injury, creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury, or commits an act of sex abuse against the child. Not only can a person be abusive to a child if they perpetrate any of these actions against a child in their care, they can be guilty of abusing a child if they allow someone else to do these things to that child.

Child Maltreatment

Maltreatment refers to the quality of care a child is receiving from those responsible for him/her. Maltreatment occurs when a parent or other person legally responsible for the care of a child harms a child, or places a child in imminent danger of harm by failing to exercise the minimum degree of care in providing the child with any of the following: food, clothing, shelter, education or medical care when financially able to do so. Maltreatment can also result from abandonment of a child or from not providing adequate supervision for the child. Further, a child may be maltreated if a parent engages in excessive use of drugs or alcohol such that it interferes with their ability to adequately supervise the child.

Is a Parent guilty of child maltreatment if they allow their child to refuse the state tests?

The above would seem to indicate that they are not . If a parent places a child in imminent danger or harm by failing to exercise the minimum degree of care in providing a child with education that would be considered child maltreatment.  I hardly think allowing your child to refuse the state tests puts you in that category.  In my experience, when CPS brings a case relating to education it's usually because the child is not going to school.

Can CPS bring a case against the parent for allowing their child to refuse the state tests?

Now that's a different story. This is all about interpretation.   There is only one way to make a complaint to CPS about a child not getting the proper education, you must call  the New York State Child Abuse Hotline.  The counselor on the phone will take information from the complainant and then decide if the case will be investigated. For a case to be investigated the counselor must determine whether or not the child is being harmed. So how do you determine if the child is being harmed? Well that's all up to interpretation isn't it? The counselor on the phone, their supervisor or even someone higher up determines the threshold question of whether the child is being harmed. If they do believe the child is being harmed they would have to investigate.  Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that people in this county have been prosecuted for political gain and wouldn't say it's out of the question for it to happen again.

Should we be concerned?

Probably not but we can't be positive. But isn't the damage already done. In this age of immediate and widespread dissemination of information, a statement by a quasi important figure that is meant to scare parents, is extremely powerful.  When an issue gets into the public consciousness whether it's true or not people get concerned.

It's a hard argument to make when a parent says that they heard somewhere that they could get arrested or have their child taken away if they don't take the state tests. Who should that parent believe?  Their trusted friend or the internet?  

The New Common Core Talking Points

I just read an editorial in Newsday entitled "Common Misperceptions About the Common Core". The article puts forth in no uncertain terms the talking points of the pro common core faction. The author admits that the rollout of the common core curriculum was fraught with disaster. He admits The State Department of Education made many mistakes. They didn't prepare the curricula, or prepare teachers how to teach it. He also shows fault at the local level by districts not developing their own curricula or training their teachers. He agrees these mistakes caused big, big problems. 

But according to the talking points, that's all over now. Don't worry. Just move along.  The problem was the implementation so now that it's implemented, everything will be fine. Nothing to see here. 

They are trying to get the public to take their eye off the ball. A parent might be persuaded to believe that hey, the government sees they made a mistake and they are fixing it. Isn't that what we want?

We can not take our eyes off the ball. The issue is not implementation. The issue is that our State pushed through a new curriculum that is educationally and developmentally inappropriate for our children.

Dept. of Ed no longer wants to assess students with disabilities using alternative assessments.

States currently may count as proficient, scores for up to 2 percent of students using the alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards. So up to 2 percent of children in each district may be counted as proficient based on their modified achievement plan (contained in the IEP).

The secretary of education would like to do away with this option. He gives the following reasons. "We have to expect the very best from our students and tell the truth about student performance, to prepare them for college and career," said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "That means no longer allowing the achievement of students with disabilities to be measured by these alternate assessments aligned to modified achievement standards. This prevents these students from reaching their full potential, and prevents our country from benefitting from that potential."

So lets see if I get this straight. All children who were judged by alternative assessments will now be judged based on the state standards. And the reason they are going to be judged by the state standards is so they can now reach their full potential. So I think what he is saying is if we just set the bar higher, our children who have disabilities will miraculously shake off the restraints of the modified curriculum that was holding them back and stand tall next to the new, better state standard.

What nonsense.

Couple of questions though. Won’t this new policy conflict with a child’s right to a Free and Appropriate Public Education? How will an IEP be followed if it allows for a modified achievement plan?

Proposed Data Privacy Bill does nothing to protect students data.

Sen. Flanagan, the chairman of the New York State Committee on Education issued a report and four pieces of legislation today regarding the recent changes to our schools. The first piece of legislation I read through was the Data Privacy Bill (S6007-2013).

On its face it seems to be a bill that could be quite helpful. It creates a Chief Privacy Officer appointed by the Commissioner of Education who will help; create a Parental Bill of Rights for Student’s Data, handle complaints, set penalties for violators and other related processes. The bill also sets forth the penalties for the unauthorized release of information.

The Bill lays out the penalties the Chief Privacy Officer can impose upon third-party vendors. If there is a data breach, the third party vendor, can be precluded from accessing data up to five years, can be denied the ability to enter into new contracts, or may just have to do some retraining with their staff. Most importantly, if the Chief Privacy Officer decides a data breach was inadvertent or done without intent or gross negligence the commissioner may decide that no penalty be imposed upon the third part vendor.

So in the end, the state is free to allow a third party vender who has a data breech to suffer NO PENALTY. That’s right. I’ll say it again. NO PENALTY.

This piece of legislation does not address the concerns of parents and educators across the state who don't want their children’s information shared with third parties. It does not address the fact that New York State is one of only two states using inBloom and the only state that uploading the data is mandatory. This is the bare minimum, created to show that “something is being done” when in reality is does nothing to protect student data.

My take on the forum with Commissioner King at Ward Melville High School.

I attended the forum at Ward Melville High School with Commissioner King and regent Merryl Tisch. It went about how I thought it would go. Many impassioned speeches by superintendents, heads of teachers associations, respected teachers and parents. They made statements strongly opposing the implementation of the common core, high stakes testing, teacher evals and data collecting. They stated these initiatives were all implemented without being sufficiently vetted and are not educationally appropriate for our children.

Mr. King did not address any of these issues directly. He tried to explain why these new rules would help students and teachers. He backed up his statements with no facts. Just a lot of nonsense statements like saying it is hard but this is best for everyone.

The fact is, what else could he say. He is not the architect of these new rules. He has no real say about what is implemented and what is not. He is a mouthpiece (and not a very good one) pushing the agenda of the Governor and state legislature. He has no real power to effectuate change.

What I believe  these meetings did accomplish are the following

1. Those who were in attendance are more  galvanized than ever. Listening to the wonderful speakers who made many valid points was very encouraging.

2. The forums got a fair amount of media attention locally. Most local news channels did a story and Newsday has been writing articles asking the state to rethink their education policies.

3. Because of this media attention, more parents are starting to understand the challenges facing their children. Many people I have spoken to don't think it's a big deal if their kids are tested. They think it's great that the teachers are evaluated. They like that the standards are more rigorous. They are finally starting to understand that while new initiatives may be reasonable in theory, the reality is that they are destroying the learning experience for our children.

How Southold School District is requesting inBloom delete all of their students data, and why it might work.

It seems that even if a school district refuses their Race to the Top money, Commissioner King still believes all data in that district must be shared with New York State vendor, inBloom. The Southold school district in Suffolk is trying something a little different.

Superintendent Gamburg has found a clause in the contract between the state and inBloom that states "If a school district decides they no longer wish to use the SLI system (Shared Learning Infrastructure) they may request that district student data be deleted from the SLI data store.” Below I have attached the letter he has sent to inBloom CEO Iwan Streichenberger. He sites that clause and goes on to say that his reason for requesting that student data be deleted from their system is that the data is highly sensitive and it should not to be subjected to the potential for misuse.

I am eagerly awaiting for Superintendent Gamburg to post their reply.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/180517991/Letter-to-InBloom-from-Southold-1-pdf