Testing opponents furious about Oregon's opt-out notice for parents
Testing opponents are furious that Oregon's official opt-out forms, required under a new law giving parents broad rights to exempt their children from lengthy standardized English and math tests, portray testing as highly advantageous to students and schools.
The Oregon Department of Education this week issued the official opt-out notice and form that that schools must send to parents ahead of next spring's standardized tests. The forms briefly describe the tests and explain a host of ways in which they help students, teachers, parents and school budget decision-makers gain important information about students' skill levels.
The portion of the form that has testing opponents most livid are the two sentences above the line where a parent must put their signature to get their child out of testing:
"I understand that by signing this form I may lose valuable information about how well my child is progressing in English language arts and math. In addition, opting out may impact my school and district's efforts to equitably distribute resources and support student learning."
Steve Buel, a Portland school board member who is a leader in the anti-testing group Oregon Save Our Schools, called the forms "maliciously misleading."
The forms were drawn up after wide consultation with teachers, parents, testing experts, school administrators and others, said Crystal Greene, the education department's communications director.
Given emotionally charged views about testing, "it is unlikely that we would ever be able to create a form that would please everyone," Greene said. But those who gave input largely agreed the final version was an improvement from early draft, she said.
Nationally, parents and teachers have generated a huge backlash against what they see as an epidemic of overtesting in U.S. schools, driven in part by the testing mandates of the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind law.
A recent study found that the typical student in a U.S. big city school district must take about eight standardized tests per year, for an average of 112 tests from kindergarten through high school graduation.
But that is not the case in Oregon, where standardized testing is largely limited to Smarter Balanced tests in English and math at the end of grades three through eight plus junior year of high school.
Still, the Oregon Education Association made it a top priority during the 2015 Testing opponents furious about Oregon's opt-out notice for parents | OregonLive.com:
