What If Parents and Teachers Call for Publishing of Tests

I've requested to see my son's fourth grade ELA test, responses and item scores. --- a nyc parent

If I am to be held accountable as a teacher based on a test, I want that test in the public domain. --- a nyc teacher

Parents and children protest at PearsoPinsin NYC, June 2012

 What an idea that has been floating around. To request the materials. And if they don't give them, then go to court. How can they rate a teacher based on materials that may be flawed? Every parent we can get involved and every teacher should be asking for copies of the tests.

Here are some emails from parents and teachers:

No agency of the government has the right to compel a minor child to perform *any* task the results of which a parent is not allowed to witness. Quite aside from the fact that denying access to a test after it's taken means it can have no educational value for the child, our fundamental right as parents to oversee all aspects of our children's upbringing is violated by keeping the tests secret. All parents whose children did take the standardized tests should demand to see them.

Note that the state-mandated academic tests are quite different from voluntarily taken psychological tests, for example, whose exact contents are not revealed to patients in order to preserve the integrity of research. Such tests are never forced on children against the wishes of parents.

They are also completely different from tests like the SAT, taken voluntarily by children who are almost of age and already assuming
responsibilities like driving (and therefore able to judge for themselves whether the benefits of taking the test outweigh the disadvantage to them of not being able to review the results in detail), and different from professional licensing exams, entered into voluntarily by full-fledged adults. In all these cases there is no coercion.

---------------

Parents need to see that the material being used to judge and punish children, teachers, and schools is complete and utter trash. Poorly written, dull, confusing, inane "passages" on the ELA test. Deliberately confusing, awkwardly worded, "trick"y math problems. I imagine a flood of requests would gum up the works, but I'm curious to see how high up the burden goes. Will it inconvenience the school administration or the state ed department?

----------------

What parent is not interested in seeing how their child "performed" on this overly determinative test?   Im interested both for him and on behalf of his incredible fourth grade ELA teacher. My son certainly decreased her value added score this year and he had the best ELA year ever, creating work (for the first time) that sugnificantly moved him in the direction that I value: a rigorous, critical and impassioned thinker and writer.

UPDATE: Read a similar commentary from a NYC teacher and parent:
http://lkell00.blogspot.com/2012/08/join-anti-testing-movement-why-high.html