“Sit and Stare” to Prepare for Democracy?
Why did thousands and thousands of students opt out of standardized testing this spring? Which tests did they choose to skip? And how did school leaders react? Did they punish, ignore, or–horrors–reward the protesting students?
Opt out numbers are hard to come by. I have seen estimates ranging from 30,000 to 300,000 in just one state, New York. Even though the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data,’ it’s pretty clear that the opt-out phenomenon is tangible, real and growing.
Identifying the adult players in this battle is an interesting challenge. Some are Tea Party types who are opposed to anything–not just in education–that smacks of ‘big government.’ Here’s one website. This faction of “opt out” is way out on the right politically.
The left has an “opt out” faction as well, albeit less organized. For them, opting out is a way of protesting what they see as the excessive influence of large corporations in our schools, with the testing company Pearson often being singled out for criticism and scorn.[1]
With the blessing of the New York State Department of Education, Pearson has been “field testing” questions at about 4,100 schools. For those students it’s another day of testing, in addition to the six days of state-mandated, high-stakes tests. Some parents have refused to let their children take these additional tests, as Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News has reported.
Gonzalez believes that the extra tests won’t produce any reliable data because the kids know these extra tests don’t count and therefore don’t take them seriously.
When New York State signed with Pearson to let that company try out its tests on certain students, it reminded some critics of an earlier time in America’s history when landowners could assign their “Sit and Stare” to Prepare for Democracy? | Taking Note:
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| UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform |
