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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Student from Urban Academy Laboratory High School
6:31:58
·
3 min
Avery Severe testifies about the importance of funding for affinity partners like the New York Performance Standards Consortium. She shares her experience transitioning from a Regents-based school to a consortium school that uses performance-based assessments.
- Severe emphasizes how consortium schools allow students to have more control over their learning and graduation projects, making them more excited about learning and better prepared for life after high school.
- She highlights the benefits of performance-based assessments (PBATs) over Regents exams, allowing students to explore topics deeply and develop their personal voice.
- Severe advocates for increased access to consortium schools, noting that not every neighborhood or borough has one, despite student interest in alternatives to Regents-based education.
High School Student
6:31:58
Good afternoon.
6:32:00
Council Finance Chair Brannon.
6:32:03
My name is Avery Severe.
6:32:05
I'm a junior in high school and I attend Urban Academy Laboratory High School, which is a member of the New York Performance Standards Consortium.
6:32:17
Thank you for giving me the chance to explain how important funding is for affinity partners, like the consortium, to New York City Students.
6:32:26
I attended a Regent based school in ninth grade, and one time my English teacher told me that I wrote a really, really good essay, but I couldn't get a good grade on it because it wasn't Regent style writing.
6:32:40
And that just that that sent me down.
6:32:46
You know?
6:32:47
It made me feel less confident in the education I was getting because I came from a place where we were more focused on honing a personal voice in our writing, and I was getting told I couldn't have a personal voice in my writing, so I had to get out of that school.
6:33:05
I just I didn't like where it was going, so I left.
6:33:08
And I transferred to a school in the consortium.
6:33:11
I came to Urban Academy, which was very alternative to the school that I was coming from.
6:33:17
And like all other schools in the consortium, Urban uses performance based assessments or PBATs in place of the regents exams to graduate.
6:33:26
And in other consortium schools, students are in control of their graduation projects, what topics and questions they will explore, and with the support of their teachers, they do projects like these for every discipline.
6:33:39
So like math, science, English, social studies, even art.
6:33:43
There's a library proficiency at my school where we get familiar with library science.
6:33:50
And since being at a consortium school, I'm more excited about learning and less jaded about being assessed.
6:33:57
And without the regents looming over my head, I get to spend more time working on, like, essays and projects and art that truly reflect how I interpret what I'm learning in school.
6:34:07
And I'm less scared of messing up, and I'm more prepared to tackle big topics because I know that genuine learning takes trial and error, and genuine learning doesn't mean what will get me a good grade on the regions.
6:34:22
Like, curating all these projects is is really, really hard, but it just it makes me feel more prepared for life after high school.
6:34:33
And I think that every student in New York deserves the opportunity to feel more prepared, and I know from speaking to my friends that still attend region space schools that they don't necessarily feel that, and a lot of people wish that they had the opportunity to learn at a consortium school, but there isn't one, like, in every neighborhood, in every borough, yada yada.
6:34:57
But the the regions aren't for everybody, and consortium schools offer an option for students that learn differently.
6:35:05
And, thank you for listening to me talk today.
6:35:08
I'm so sorry I went over time, but I care a lot about these schools.