Testing Skeptics Aim to Build Support for Opt-Out Strategy
Riding what they see as a wave of anti-testing sentiment among parents, opponents of high-stakes assessments believe a strategy known as opt-out-having parents refuse to let their children take state-mandated tests-could force policymakers to take note of their cause.
Once considered a rarity, the opt-out push has prompted high-profile boycott efforts and meetings in large districts such as Chicago and led more parents nationwide to join forces with anti-testing advocates in arguing that the assessments are unnecessary, excessive, and, in some cases, even harmful to students.
Such efforts come at a time when states across the country are preparing to field-test assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and when controversy over the common core in many statehouses has reignited the debate over testing overload.
In Chicago, where students started taking the Illinois Standards Achievement Test last week, teachers at two schools will likely face disciplinary action for refusing to administer the assessment. Parent advocates last week were asserting that up to 2,000 students in grades 3-8 opted out, though a Chicago school district official disputed that tally, estimating the number to be fewer than 1,000.
Rallies and meetings promoting parents' rights to refuse student testing are planned in a wide range of communities, from Denver to Port Jefferson Station, N.Y. And a new national coalition called the Testing Resistance & Reform Spring, which officially launched in February, hopes to coordinate such local efforts to start a more substantial assault on reforming and scaling back high-stakes testing.
"Opting out is one powerful tactic to make policymakers aware that parents are fed up with testing overkill," said Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, based in Jamaica Plain, Mass., which is part of that new coalition. "Opting out, at its core, is a form of civil disobedience."
But opting out can be a murky and messy process in most states because few specific guidelines exist outlining what rights parents have to refuse testing on behalf of their children.
Michelle Exstrom, the director of the education program at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said state laws generally require districts to administer the assessments, but students are not required to take the tests. Federal law, she said, is largely silent on the issue of opting out.
Once considered a rarity, the opt-out push has prompted high-profile boycott efforts and meetings in large districts such as Chicago and led more parents nationwide to join forces with anti-testing advocates in arguing that the assessments are unnecessary, excessive, and, in some cases, even harmful to students.
Such efforts come at a time when states across the country are preparing to field-test assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and when controversy over the common core in many statehouses has reignited the debate over testing overload.
In Chicago, where students started taking the Illinois Standards Achievement Test last week, teachers at two schools will likely face disciplinary action for refusing to administer the assessment. Parent advocates last week were asserting that up to 2,000 students in grades 3-8 opted out, though a Chicago school district official disputed that tally, estimating the number to be fewer than 1,000.
Rallies and meetings promoting parents' rights to refuse student testing are planned in a wide range of communities, from Denver to Port Jefferson Station, N.Y. And a new national coalition called the Testing Resistance & Reform Spring, which officially launched in February, hopes to coordinate such local efforts to start a more substantial assault on reforming and scaling back high-stakes testing.
"Opting out is one powerful tactic to make policymakers aware that parents are fed up with testing overkill," said Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, based in Jamaica Plain, Mass., which is part of that new coalition. "Opting out, at its core, is a form of civil disobedience."
But opting out can be a murky and messy process in most states because few specific guidelines exist outlining what rights parents have to refuse testing on behalf of their children.
Michelle Exstrom, the director of the education program at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said state laws generally require districts to administer the assessments, but students are not required to take the tests. Federal law, she said, is largely silent on the issue of opting out.
Variations Seen
While some state legislation allows the parents of students with disabilities to opt out of testing, Ms. Exstrom characterized opt-out policies as "vague."
In California, the education code explicitly grants parents permission to refuse the test on behalf of a student. In Illinois and New York, the student, not the parent, must refuse the test. (Parent advocates say forcing students, some as young as 9, to refuse the test is unconscionable-in New York, some parents are being advised by advocates to pin "I refuse" notes on their children's shirts, instead.)
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education advises that while parents may have the right to opt out of state tests, such a decision could end up hurting Opt-Out Activists Aim to Build on Momentum in States - Education Week:
