The Opt-Out Update
In some New York (Long Island) school district, organized Opt Out movement families are providing their children with a lanyard indicating that they are opting out of the “ELA” tests (see above). In addition to informing the schools that they want to opt out their children, the parents are making double certain that the schools and others get the message.
The opt out movement is gaining momentum as more parents are opting their students out of standardized testing.
Here are a few actions that are occurring across the country made up of many voices.
More than 6,000 students in the public schools of Long Island have opted out of the New York State testing program that began on April 1, 2014. The exams, called the ELA tests, are part of New York’s launch of the Common Core. The Common Core has become so controversial now that the actual testing programs are in place in most states that several states are trying to “rebrand” it, with Florida and Arizona giving the testing associated with Common Core new names. The New York tests this year require four hours of “reading” and four hours of “math.”
The number is at least 6,000. The Long Island students opted out of the “reading” portion of the tests, according to Newsday. “Forty-one school districts in Nassau and Suffolk [counties], in response to a Newsday request sent to 124 districts island-wide, said about 5,575 students refused to take the test,” Newsday reported. “An additional district lumped together 224 refusals and absences. Other districts did not The Opt-Out Update | Seattle Education: