Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing? – Parents United for Public Education

Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing? – Parents United for Public Education

Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing?

With the recent guidance issued from the Department of Education that says that states must give standardized tests this school year (despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the many other reasons testing should be cancelled), we’ve decided to republish this post about opting out of testing.

We will continue to update the post and resources as more information becomes available about adjustments to the processes for this school year.

Data on teacher’s perceptions of the PSSA’s effectiveness as an indicator of student achievement from the June 2019 “Standardized Tests in Public Education” report by the PA General Assembly’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee

Over recent years, there have been a handful of parents, district wide, who contentiously objected to the high stakes attached to the state’s standardized tests: PSSA and Keystones. In some years, there have been more organized efforts, like those in 2014-15 that lead to over 17% of families from Feltonville School of Arts and Science opting out of the PSSAs.

We fully support the right for parents to opt their children out of high stakes standardized tests. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is one of a few states that has a legal provision for parents to opt their children out of the PSSA and Keystone exams.

Standardized testing has been at the forefront of what is going wrong in public CONTINUE READING: Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing? – Parents United for Public Education