The UFT joined with parents, community groups and its state union affiliate to launch a petition drive aimed at banning the use of standardized testing for grades 2 and younger.

During a conference call with reporters on Nov. 14, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said that while research proves standardized testing of the youngest students has no value, “there are school districts across the state that are doing it, including New York City.”

Mulgrew noted that the groups were not asking for an end to analyzing individual students’ developmental stages “because that’s what we have always done as teachers.” But bubble tests for students in pre-K through 2nd grades must stop, he said.

In late November, State Education Commissioner John King reversed his decision to have kindergartners take standardized math tests.

Jeannine Smith, a 1st-grade teacher in the Middle County School District in Suffolk County and a mom of four young children, said she can learn more about a student in a three-minute conversation than any standardized test can tell her.

“A standardized test will never tell me that a child doesn’t know their shapes or their colors,” Smith said. “We don’t ever get to look at the responses they give on tests, and therefore it doesn’t help shape how we teach them.”

She said she feels the true reason for the testing is to use the results to evaluate teachers.

Angelica Rivera, the mother of twin boys in pre-K in Buffalo public schools, said she fears that introducing testing at such a young age will rob her children of the chance to develop a love for learning.

“Every day my kids come home with stories about their friends and they sing songs that they learn in school,” Rivera said. “They love to read books and show me how they write their names. There is no bubble to fill in to show that a child is learning how to socialize, how to share and how to be respectful. You can’t measure a child’s love for learning with a bubble test.”

Mulgrew explained that the New York City Department of Education could have chosen other kinds of assessments for these grades, but that the DOE claims it has been ordered to give bubble tests by the State Education Department, which in turn said it has ordered no such thing.

“The city DOE can immediately ban pre-K to 2 testing, and they can sign the petition and call for the governor, Legislature and commissioner to do the same thing,” said Billy Easton, the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education.

The UFT and New York State United Teachers are being joined by the Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change and other advocacy groups in organizing the petition drive. The groups plan to present the signed petitions to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, members of the state Legislature and the State Education Department.

“Our public officials need to be listening to their constituents,” said Easton.