Top Teachers Union Official Shoots Down Student Testing

Students should be given multiple pathways to graduation, including skipping out on testing such as Regents Exams and other methods of gauging student achievement, according to the head of New York’s teachers union. 

Melinda Person, president of the state’s United Teachers, said she is concerned about what she called “counterproductive, high-stakes” testing. “It’s a major issue that requires a new vision and bold action from New York's elected officials and education leaders,” Person stated. 

Citing her sons as an example, she noted they lost their enthusiasm for school in the third grade when they started “feeling the pressure of high-stakes testing.” Simply put, she concluded, “We need more teaching, less testing.”

The state’s top teachers union official went on to say that “Kids should be able to be kids, nurtured by safe learning environments and driven by curiosity, instead of feeling an unrelenting pressure to perform. Teachers should be able to teach with the respect and freedom to be experts in their classrooms.”

Person added, “At NYSUT, we continue to advocate for important reforms to high-stakes testing and the Annual Professional Performance Reviews. The current APPR system — which relies too closely on testing — was poorly designed and hastily rolled out. By contrast, we are working deliberately and thoughtfully with New York lawmakers and state officials to create a local replacement system to measure teacher accountability that prioritizes the love of teaching and learning, not punitive testing.”