More Rockville Centre students opt out

Nearly two-thirds of eligible Rockville Centre School District students sat out the English Language Arts state assessments in grades 3 through 8 last week, mirroring numbers that the district saw last year.

A total of 1,023 students — 61.9 percent of the testable population — opted out of the exams. Parents chose not to have their students take them in protest of what they see as onerous, stress- and anxiety-producing standards put in place by the state. The tests are given over three days and take many hours to complete.

The math assessment was scheduled to be given this week.

The number of ELA opt-outs fell just short of last year’s total, when a record-setting 1,036 students declined to take the ELA exam.

“I don’t think that a whole lot has changed in a year, and the same people that made the decision last year made the decision this year to opt their children out,” said Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, who has been a vocal opponent of the tests, claiming that they are useless. The tests don’t matter for students, Johnson has said, because they can’t be used to place students in classes offering extra help. And the state has frozen the use of the exams for teacher evaluations, so they no longer serve that purpose.

Johnson has said that the exams the district gives that come from the Northwest Evaluation Association are superior gauges of student progress. NWEA tests take 45 minutes instead of three days, and teachers and parents get the results back within a week, not months later. Teachers can immediately see which students are struggling in what areas, and then tailor lessons to help them.

The Common Core curriculum, on which the ELA and match assessments are based, is being re-evaluated at the state level, and Johnson says he believes the exams will one day be helpful to the district again. Asked if he would use them in the future, he said, “When the state gets its act together, we will.”