Kids Endangered By New 3rd Grade Testing Policy

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Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein just announced their plans to leave back 15,000 third graders based SOLELY on a single test score on the city-wide English or Math test! No grades, classroom work or teacher evaluation will count! Just the test score-that's high stakes.

Is this Mayor Bloomberg's way of playing politics with our children? By holding back the least successful test takers the Mayor will make the city look good on the 4th grade scores just in time for his reelection campaign.

What happens when children are held back? When you're 8 years old, the results are devastating. Every single study in the past twenty-five years has concluded that holding kids over at this young age does not lead to higher performance and increases by 50% the likelihood of a child dropping out of school later in life.

Leaving behind 8 year olds destroys their self esteem and their desire to learn.

Bloomberg's testing policy is guaranteed to do one thing: ruin good education. Excessive emphasis on standardized tests takes music, art, class trips and other enriching experiences out of the curriculum. Test prep drains precious time and resources from real learning.

$150 million tax payer dollars will be spent on this new policy. MONEY THAT COULD be better used to hire more teachers, lower class size, and bring needed resources into the classroom!

What You Can Do:

• Share this information with your friends and neighbors
• Call the Mayor at: 212-788-3106 and call Chancellor Klein at: 212-374-5110
• Say No to using high stakes tests to punish our children.
• Say No to the 3rd grade retention policy.