WHEREAS, Mayor Bloomberg has during his 12 years running our school system created a culture driven by standardized testing; and

WHEREAS, New York City has virtually the only school system in the state where standardized test scores are the most important — and often the only — factor in decisions about children’s futures; and

WHEREAS, test scores became under Bloomberg the sole basis for decisions on student promotion to the next grade, until the policy was first quietly rolled back in 2010 with the start of more difficult state tests and then effectively suspended this year when low scores on the state’s Common Core-aligned tests led to the decision to grade students on a bell curve rather than a hard cutoff; and

WHEREAS, children’s admission into gifted-and-talented programs, which used to be based on multiple measures, is now decided solely through a single test, which has resulted in fewer students than ever getting admitted to these programs, more children from middle-class and wealthy families getting coached for the test, and the absurdity of ranking of 5-year-olds’ scores within tenths of a point; and

WHEREAS, standardized test scores are also the main consideration in the letter grades assigned to schools on the Department of Education’s school progress reports, with these letter grades often becoming determining factors in the closing of schools; and

WHEREAS, the obsession with test scores has led to a narrowing of the curriculum to focus primarily on reading and math instruction at the expense of other important subjects, including art and music; and

WHEREAS, the current intensity of the standardized test taking and test prep affects children emotionally and physically leading to anxiety, frustration, low self-esteem, headaches and other physical ailments; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT calls on the Panel for Educational Policy to end the destructive overemphasis on test scores by: basing student promotion on a thoughtful decision by the teacher and principal; deciding admissions into gifted-and-talented programs and the specialized high schools through multiple measures that give a truer account of a students’ potential; and halting the practice of issuing school progress reports and school letter grades; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFT calls on the Panel for Educational Policy to put test scores into perspective as one among many measures of a child’s ability and progress and to focus instead on improving curriculum and ensuring that teachers and schools get the support and resources they need to give our children the education they deserve.