Looks like parents at PS 40 and PS 116 in Manhattan are taking the advice of Robert Pondiscio and the legions of parents who would do the same thing if they could find enough allies and boycotting some of the testing mandated this year by the DOE. The parents are upset that their kids were selected to take "field tests" to help testmakers devise future exams, in addition to having to take the real state tests in math and ELA and diagnostic tests to generate progress report data.

I don't think [the field test is] going to be a strain on any particular child, but it replaces classroom teaching, and it is a waste of everybody time, PS 40 parent told the Times. But according to Louise at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, individual kids are feeling the strain of one test after another. Louise, who says she's sick of testing, wrote yesterday that her 5th-grade daughter became distressed last week that the following day she would have to take "what seemed a sudden standardized math test that her teacher told me had something to do with appraising teacher performance." Louise asks, as did the Manhattan parents boycotting the tests, "Why put a kid through this kind of anxiety?" Perhaps Louise should spearhead a boycott at PS 321. I'm sure she'd have no trouble finding followers.