Failure is not an option.

That was the message of a group of angry parents who announced Monday that they would not let their kids take this week’s New York state standardized exams because of the possibility their children would flunk.

At a news conference Monday, parents explain why their kids won’t be taking this week’s Common Core exam. Photo: Sebastien Malo

The new Common Core English Language, Arts and Mathematics Test has spurred controversy among parents after local authorities announced that it will be much tougher than that administered in previous years. They have also said that students taking the test were expected to do poorly at it.

Parents of public school third to eighth graders who are required to take the exam have rung the alarm bell, saying they fear the experience of failure would leave their loved ones traumatized.

Private school students do not have to take the standardized test.

Cynthia R. Coperland, the mother of a public school fourth grader in lower Manhattan, said her eldest wouldn’t take the test today.

She said she was troubled by pressure growing on her 8-year-old son, who has come to speak in multiple-choice terms in his everyday life.

“They are talking to us in test speak. They are asking questions such as, ‘Which do you prefer, a- ice cream, b- turkey’,” she said.

“Our children are becoming ill. They’re anxious.”

Another parent, Jeanette Deutermann from Long Island, spoke of kids “begging and crying” when sent to school since preparation for the test had begun at school.

Many schools have redoubled efforts to prepare the kids for the test, holding revision sessions and giving extra homework.

Deutermann and other parents involved in the boycott said they estimated a few hundred families in New York City had opted kids out of the test, and another 500 in Long Island.

In New York, the boycott is spread among 33 schools across the city’s five boroughs, they said.

Parents refused to say which schools were involved in the boycott because they wanted to protect the staffers at the schools – some of whom, they said, had been helping.

Brooklyn resident Andrew Drury, a father of two, said both his children would do without Tuesday’s test. He said he had not thought about the boycotting until “the issue came up among parents and got my attention.”

The reaction of his sixth-grade son, he said, was one of mild disappointment that he wouldn’t take the exam. “He was looking forward to it,” he said. “But he trusts me. He was cool with it.”

He estimated that about one-third of families at his son’s school, the Institute for Collaborative Education in Manhattan, pulled out their children from the examination. More than 475 students attend the secondary school.

Exposing a rift between parents and authorities, the announcement of a coordinated boycotting effort came shortly after New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced a campaign to raise awareness about the city’s initiative to revamp its core curriculum.

The redesigned curriculum is intended to bring the city’s education system in line with the Common Core standards, academic guidelines promoted by the Obama administration that focus on critical thinking, abstract reasoning in math and reading comprehension.

Walcott said the New York City Department of Education, would run ads about the new curriculum and tests in the city’s subway and Spanish- and English-language newspapers, starting Tuesday.

The city has so far spent $125 million to train teachers on the Common Core. It is expected to spend another $50 million on textbooks updated with Common Core objectives.

New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott faces a boycott of today’s exams for third through eighth grades. Photo: Azi Paybarah/Flickr

Speaking to the wave of concern over the test, the chancellor emphasized the need to raise the bar to better prepare city children for college and for an increasingly competitive job market.

He offered firm words for worried parents. “Tests are difficult,” he said. “Tests are challenging.”

Parents have been using form letters, prepared by the parent group Change the Stakes, to inform school principals of their decision not to have their children take the test.

It requests that the children not taking the test be counted as “refusal” rather than “absent.”

It also asks “that the school please provide an alternative activity” to those not taking the test.

At stake is the children’s admission to competitive junior high or high schools, which depends in part on results on standardized tests.

The parents acknowledged they had received no assurance from school principals or the Department of Education that their demands would be met.

Asked about the boycott, Chancellor Walcott did not alleviate their fears of failure, noting that with the new exams “there will be a higher risk of retention” — leaving kids back if they do not qualify to move on to the next grade.

Still, he added, “We hope they take the test.”