Keep Calm and Refuse the NYS Tests

While her son’s fourth-grade classmates were taking the nation’s first round of tests under the controversial Common Core program, Heidi Indelecato decided to teach her son a lesson in civil disobedience.

“We respectfully refuse to participate in the test,” said Indelecato, whose son Benjamin attends school in Lancaster, N.Y., which on Tuesday became the first state to administer testing under the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

So while other kids sat poised with their No. 2 pencils above Scantron sheets, Benjamin studied with his mother, who documented the occasion with a picture of the pair wearing T-shirts that read: “Keep calm and and refuse the NYS tests.”

Common Core was adopted by 45 states, although Indiana withdrew last month. The set of standards, devised by the nation’s school superintendents at the behest of the National Governors Association, seeks to set a uniform standard for grades K-12, to ensure kids all over the nation reach the same minimum level of learning.

The program involves testing of students in grades 3-8 and high school testing is scheduled to begin next year.New York implemented the standards a year early.

Read more from this story HERE.