‘Opting Haven out of the state-mandated tests is our family’s act of civil disobedience’
Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National
New York has been at the center of a national “opt-out” movement in which thousands of parents have refused to allow their children to take new standardized tests aligned to the Common Core standards or to similar standards in states that had originally adopted the Core but dropped them and designed their own. New York officials had signed on several years ago to a multi-state consortium known as PARCC, which developed new tests aligned to the Common Core, which public schools in the state have been implementing. But New York decided not to administer PARCC for various reasons and contracted with Pearson to design its own set of tests, which students have taken for a few years and will take again this month. The state now wants to design yet another new test and is seeking proposals from test companies.
Last year some 60,000 students declined to take the tests in New York, and this year many more are expected. In this post, one mother explains in a letter to her daughter’s teacher why she is opting her child out of New York tests being given this month. The author is Britt Hamre, a lecturer in the Elementary Inclusive Program and co-odirector of the Inclusive Classrooms Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. She wrote the following letter to her daughter’s teacher about why she will not her child to take the state of New York’s Common Core tests this month. Here it is, with her permission.
Here’s the letter from Britt Hamre to her daughter’s teacher:
Dear Grace,It is with the highest level of respect for you that I’m writing to inform you that Haven will not participate in the state mandated standardized tests this April. Using student test scores to rate and rank students and teachers is an ethically unsound practice and is degrading to the profession of teaching.This year I have been in awe of your incredible skills as Haven’s teacher, and I know that no standardized test can come even close to capturing what she has learned in your classroom. Furthermore, your bravery and resolve in the face of the top down pressures from the State of New York may weigh on you, but you do not let that determine your curricular decisions. Instead you teach with your heart and soul, and your excitement has ignited Haven’s passion for social studies, reading, writing, and mathematics. No standardized test can measure the spirited dinner conversations Haven has initiated this year about immigration, thanks to your elaborately designed integrated social studies curriculum. I listen carefully as Haven describes class field trips in New York City, her excitement about historical fiction, and her deep analysis of primary sources and questions regarding privilege, prejudice and access. I cannot count the number of times Haven has greeted me at the door with, “Mom, did you know…?!” No test could possibly be designed to measure the multitude of ways in which she extends the investigations you start in class, or document the initiation she has taken to write her own books at home about the immigrants living in her mind. Her learning is demonstrated in her written work, performance of role-plays, various conversations, not to mention your regular curriculum newsletters, extensive and detailed narrative reports, and personal emails. Watching Haven learn this year has deepened my own commitment to preparing teachers to design integrated curriculum that examines enduring questions and takes up multiple perspectives. Haven’s learning is travelling far beyond the walls of your single classroom. I do not need a test score to‘Opting Haven out of the state-mandated tests is our family’s act of civil disobedience’ - The Washington Post:
