Here are the more than 160 New York City schools that had significant opt-out rates in 2015. (Red = 20 percent opt-out rate or greater for both subjects | Yellow = Opt-out rate of 5 to 19 percent in at least one subject | Green = Less than 5 percent opt-out rate in both subjects)
More than 7,900 students spread across all five boroughs refused to take this year’s state tests — a record for the city and a more than threefold increase over last year.
Was your school one of the more than 160 with a sizable number of test boycotters this year? Now you can find out by checking the map above, which Chalkbeat compiled using data provided by the city education department. It’s stoplight color-coded: from green (most testing proceeded) to red (much of the testing came to a halt). There’s even more detail provided in the chart below for all schools where students took state tests this year.
Not surprisingly, liberal bastions in Brooklyn and Manhattan had the largest opt-out numbers. (Statewide, officials said that students who boycotted the exams were more likely to be white and less likely to be poor.) But as the map shows, schools in such far-flung locales as the Rockaways, Riverdale, and Brownsville also saw sizable groups of students sit out the exams, backing up advocates’ claims that the opt-out movement is gaining traction among a wider range of schools.
A caveat: The city only released opt-out numbers for schools that had 10 or more students who declined to take the test in either math or English, meaning that schools with nine or fewer opt outs this year aren’t indicated on the map. On the chart, fewer than 10 students is represented with an asterisk.
Update: Castle Bridge School in Manhattan and P.S. 372 The Children’s School in Brooklyn have been added to the above map. Both schools were initially left out because they were not included in the city’s database of state test scores.