Readers Write: Opt-out backers support achievement

We write in response to Letters to the Editor opining that BOE members who support the opt-out movement, and Port’s incoming School Superintendent Dr. Michael Hynes, lack commitment to student achievement. Just the opposite is true. Given that one letter writer mentioned her Harvard degree, we share evidence-based research and information recognized by Harvard (and other well-regarded institutions) in response.

A science-based connection exists between play and learning. A plethora of research shows play-based learning enhances children’s life-long academic, social, emotional, and developmental learning outcomes.[i] According to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, “[P]lay is central to how children learn: the way they make sense of their world; the way they form and explore friendships; the way they shape and test hypotheses about their intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environments. Much is known about the importance of play in children’s development.”[ii]

Dr. David Elkind, internationally renowned early childhood development and education expert from Tufts University (and published by Harvard University Press), was a pioneer in recognizing and promoting the importance of play-based learning to children’s social and cognitive development.[iii] Similarly, Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige, nationally known for her study of evidence-based pedagogy in early childhood education, recognizes and promotes the importance of play-based learning.[iv] Dr. Carlsson-Paige has been a keynote speaker at the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.[v] (She presented at Conversations on Main in Port, which we attended). Based on her expertise, Dr. Carlsson-Paige criticized the K-3 Common Core standards and standardized testing in those grades.[vi] She joined more than 500 early childhood professionals, including educators, pediatricians, developmental psychologists, and researchers, many of whom were the most prominent members of their fields, in signing the “Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative,” a critically important statement opposing the K-3 Common Core standards and associated standardized testing. Among the signatories on this Joint Statement were Harvard faculty, including internationally renowned Dr. Howard Gardner.[vii]

In the U.S. there is a widespread belief that teaching all kindergarteners to read will help them become better readers. Dr. Carlsson-Paige is among many education experts who understand scientific evidence does not support this;^[viii] indeed, a recent Harvard Medical School study suggests the push for early academic achievement might actually harm children.^[ix]

A plethora of research supports the many cognitive and physical benefits of recess.[x] The American Academy of Pediatrics has a recent position paper on its importance and benefits,^[xi] and the Harvard Medical School also reports on the subject.^[xii] The bottom line? “[N]o research supports the notion that test scores go up by keeping children in the classroom longer, but there is plenty of evidence that recess benefits children in cognitive, social-emotional, and physical ways.”^[xiii] Similarly, a “growing body of research has already shown that yoga can improve focus, memory, self-esteem, academic performance, and classroom behavior, and can even reduce anxiety and stress in children.”[xiv]

Nevertheless, when No Child Left Behind ushered in test-based accountability in 2002, administrators pushed aside “non-tested” subjects, and play and recess, for test prep. Alarmed, early childhood education experts urged a return to play-based learning and recess. As a result of the overwhelming evidence, the “Pedagogy of Play”[xv] is returning as an important classroom component. The Harvard University Center on the Developing Child is on the forefront of this movement.

Dr. Daniel Koretz is a current professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who studied educational assessment and testing policy and the consequences of test-based accountability.[xvi] In his new book The Testing Charade (University of Chicago Press), Dr. Koretz asserts that test-based accountability has failed — that high-stakes standardized testing undermines the goals of instruction and meaningful learning, fails to improve academic performance, doesn’t improve practices it purports to measure, harms schools and students, and wastes money.[xvii] He further asserts excessive test prep artificially inflates scores and skews results.[xviii]

Dr. Koretz’ work follows that of Dr. Diane Ravitch — the first education policy expert to call test-based accountability a failure. Dr. Ravitch[xix] is a former USDOE Assistant Secretary who once championed test-based accountability but reversed course after witnessing NCLB’s damage to students and schools.[xx] Dr. Ravitch now staunchly rejects test-based accountability, and has been featured at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.[xxi]

Dr. Helen Ladd is an education policy expert who earned her Ph.D. from Harvard, is on the faculty of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, and has repeatedly been named Education Week’s top 100 most influential education scholars.[xxii] Dr. Ladd researched the harmful impacts of high-stakes standardized testing and found an inherent flaw in standardized test-based accountability is it does not benefit (and even harms) disadvantaged children (overwhelmingly African American and Hispanic).[xxiii] Dr. Ladd similarly deems test-based accountability a failure.[xxiv]

Finally, the opt-out movement. Youth anxiety in the U.S. has increased to near-epidemic levels. Experts point to a number of reasons why anxiety has increased among students. “’I see two major issues,’ says Rob Benner, a Bridgeport, Conn., school psychologist with nearly 30 years’ experience. ‘One is testing anxiety, and the other is anxiety over social media.’”[xxv] In NYS, 76% of school psychologists reported students experienced greater anxiety over the grades 3-8 NYS Common core tests than local assessments.[xxvi] Although there is growing awareness of the harmful impact these tests have especially on English Language Learners^[xxvii] and children with special needs,^[xxviii] the statistics show these tests also negatively impact general education children. Moreover, the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented reports a negative impact also applies to gifted learners, as they may spend a disproportionate amount of class time in test prep and become frustrated by the focus on repetition of basic concepts.^[xxix] The opt-out movement – comprised of parents who want the best educational opportunities for their children, many of whom are high-functioning and high-achieving children — formed primarily as a reaction to this anxiety and harm, and to the narrowing of curriculum and classroom instruction, including the loss of literary fiction, the humanities, and the arts, which harms all children.

Testing done right is valuable and not harmful. Parents who refuse the state tests understand this, and that is precisely why they opt out: because they demand academic excellence and understand these tests are flawed and lack validity and, therefore, lack academic value. These parents understand – and education experts, NYS teachers and our Port administration have pointed out — the tests are developmentally inappropriate, are misused to rank and sort children and schools, narrow the curriculum, reduce the ability of teachers to challenge students appropriately, and decrease opportunities for authentic student learning and achievement and, therefore, harm students.^[xxx] Not to mention, the millions of taxpayer dollars that are wasted, lining the pockets of testing corporations that profit from our children without academically benefitting our children. Research shows a strong relationship between parent engagement and educational outcomes. The opt-out movement is a parent-engagement movement. Indeed, it is when parents understand the curriculum and support their schools that achievement soars.^[xxxi]

Dr. Hynes knows well the research, and has consulted with and learned from education policy and childhood education experts world over.^[xxxii] Based on the evidence, Dr. Hynes introduced yoga/mindfulness into Pat-Med classrooms, extended recess from 20 to 40 minutes, and introduced play-based learning in elementary classrooms.[xxxiii] Port residents with grown children may be unaware that Port school children currently enjoy 30 minutes of recess, are being taught mindfulness, and that the district is purposefully reviving and reinstituting play-based learning.

Our current BOE conducted a diligent search and voted unanimously to bring Dr. Hynes to Port. One of the stated reasons Dr. Hynes was chosen is because his whole child education practices are already valued here in Port. We, too, want Port to offer the finest education possible. Research shows that whole child education practices — already in place here, espoused by Dr. Hynes, and the opt-out movement — will set our children on that path toward life-long achievement, and fulfillment.

Co-founders, PW Advocates for Public Education*

Deborah Brooks

Diane Livingston

Nanette Melkonian

Allison White

*PW Advocates for Public Education is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Port Washington Union Free School District. The mission statement of PWAPE is to share K-12 research and education best practices, including evidence favoring whole child education policies (i.e., play-based learning and recess), and against the misuse of flawed standardized testing.

[i] https://www.legofoundation.com/media/1063/learning-through-play_web.pdf (note the various authors from Harvard), and https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/19/03/playing-learn, and https://developingchild.harvard.edu/innovation-application/innovation-in-action/urban-thinkscape/, and https://developingchild.harvard.edu/media-coverage/learning-through-play-education-does-not-stop-when-recess-begins/ (featuring Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., Professor of Child Health and Development at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Graduate School of Education; Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital; and Director of the university-wide Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University), and https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/142/3/e20182058 (Michael W. Yogman, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, is the lead author of this AAP clinical report.)

[ii] https://www.pz.harvard.edu/projects/pedagogy-of-play

[iii]https://www.pgpedia.com/e/david-elkind, and https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/09/child-play

[iv] https://www.nancycarlsson-paige.org/, and https://www.pebblecreekmontessori.org/playing-is-more-important-than-you-think/, and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/24/how-twisted-early-childhood-education-has-become-from-a-child-development-expert/?utm_term=.8ed97169b4a1

[v] https://www.landmarkonmainstreet.org/event.cfm?id=293

[vi] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/05/02/6-reasons-to-reject-common-core-k-3-standards-and-6-axioms-to-guide-policy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.23c7bf622028, and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/29/a-tough-critique-of-common-core-on-early-childhood-education/?utm_term=.d25c6c8f0884

[vii] https://www.edweek.org/media/joint_statement_on_core_standards.pdf

[viii] https://deyproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/readinginkindergarten_online-1.pdf (citing Harvard study https://www.hepg.org/hel-home/issues/26_5/helarticle/kids-haven%E2%80%99t-changed;-kindergarten-has_479)

[ix] https://fee.org/articles/harvard-study-shows-the-dangers-of-early-school-enrollment/; and here in Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201505/early-academic-training-produces-long-term-harm

[x] https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/ae_spring2017recess.pdf, and https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/pdf/Recess_All_Students.pdf, and https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/school-recess/index.html?cmp=cpc-goog-ew-ks+topics&ccid=ks+topics&ccag=recess&cckw=%2Bbenefits%20%2Bof%20%2Brecess&cccv=content+specific+ad&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxO7Q6Yji4gIVy0oNCh3TAQnMEAAYASAAEgLxovD_BwE

[xi] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/1/183

[xii] https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/the-importance-of-recess