Local Opt-Out Movement: Rockland at the Forefront

Hundreds of students in Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties opted out of New York State's standardized tests this week, according to news reports.

The Journal News has a running tally -- by school district -- online.

Dutchess County's largest district, Wappinger, reported 41 percent of its students refused to take the English Language Arts, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports.

Thirteen of the 54 districts in Putnam, Rockland and Westchester reported more than 25 percent of students opting out of taking the ELA when testing started Tuesday. Seven of those were in Rockland:

• Clarkstown
• Elmsford
• Hastings-on-Hudson
• Lakeland
• Mount Pleasant
• Nanuet
• North Rockland
• North Salem
• Nyack
• Ossining
• Pearl River
• Ramapo Central
• South Orangetown

Read more on lohud.com.

Things didn't go well for the state as the latest round of the controversial testing began, as there was a mistake in the test booklets.

Some of the test questions or tasks require students to provide organized answers. But.

In some cases blank pages had been provided in the back of test booklets as "planning pages," but they weren't labeled and students weren't instructed to use them. In other cases there were no blank pages.

Officials at the state Education Department sent out a notice at 9 a.m. by email. It suggested that teachers instruct students to use the blank pages or hand out scrap paper.

But teachers and principals noted that even if on a testing day they were looking at their email, by the time they saw the email, students had already started taking the test--some would have even finished.