Up to half of Long Island public school students could opt out of math exams this week, in what has become an annual protest by parents against Common Core testing.
Superintendent Michael Hynes from the Patchogue-Medford District predicts that 50 percent will opt out of the math exams in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties. That’s the same amount that opted out of last month’s English exams.
“I don’t foresee this going away anytime soon. It’s the one thing that I believe parents feel they have as far as an instrument to voice their concerns about what’s happening.”
Hynes says the opt out movement is what led the state Education Department to shorten exams last year.
“There are much better ways of showing what a child can or cannot do, as opposed to bubbling in nonsensical A, B, Cs or Ds on a, I would say, ‘assessment.’”
This is the fifth year that parents have opted to not let their children take Common Core exams.
