More California parents exercise right to skip standardized tests | Local News - KCRA Home

More California parents exercise right to skip standardized tests | Local News - KCRA Home:

More California parents exercise right to skip standardized tests

State launches its newest student testing program

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —California launched its newest student testing program Tuesday.

 Superintendent of Instruction Tom Torlakson made the announcement at Sutter Middle School in Sacramento, flanked by several local educators.

Watch report: More California parents exercising right to skip standardized tests

Students in grades 3-8 and high school juniors will take the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP, exam.

The new-generation computer-based tests will replace the old fill-the-bubble-with-a-No.-2-pencil tests.

The results will not affect grade promotion, Torlakson said.

"Think of it as an academic check-up, designed to give teachers the feedback they need to improve instruction," Torlakson said.

But opponents of the Common Core curriculum on which the CAASPP is based, have organized a national "opt-out" movement. They encourage parents to take a stand against the use of standardized testing as a barometer for performance by not having children participate.

Critics argue standardized testing puts too much pressure on students and teachers and has become the primary focus in the classroom.

Since 1996, California has had a law that allows parents to decline standardized testing for children for any reason.

The numbers show very few parents have exercised this right. However, the recent negative attention toward Common Core may change that.

According to the California Department of Education, fewer than 7,400 parents declined the STAR test (the previous test) in 2013. That's out of the 4.7 million students who took it. Officials said they did not have opt-out numbers for 2014, when the CAASPP was administered on a trial basis.

Twenty-eight students in the Sacramento City Unified School District refused the exam in 2013, district spokesman Gabe Ross said.

The number jumped to 94 during the first year of field testing on the CAASPP.

Ross attributed the increase to the technology change, saying some students at schools that preferred the paper and pencil method chose not to take part.

In the San Juan Unified School District, 97 students opted out in 2013. That number jumped to 238 last year. Spokeswoman Kim Minugh said administrators determined the increase was due to More California parents exercise right to skip standardized tests | Local News - KCRA Home:

Big Education Ape: The Other Side of Corporate Education Reform in Sacramento: BRIAN HEAP KCRA 3 Anchor/Reporter http://bit.ly/1xy8L2R

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

Click Here to go to the Website FairTest

Welcome California!

We hope you find useful information here.

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Table of Contents

Welcome California!

OPTING OUT

Letters Sent

Groups and Organizations

Laws

News

Misc

OPTING OUT

California Law Allows Opting out of Tests

The reference is Title 5 of the CaliforniaCode of Regulations, Division 1, Chapter 2, Subchapter 3.75 

"Standardized Testing and Reporting Program", Section 852, (a). 

Its under "more about STAR" on the SED website. 

"A parent or guardian may submit to the school a written request toexcuse his or her child from any or all parts of any test provided 

pursuant to Ed Code Section 60640 [a STAR is born}. The parent or guardian must initiate the request and the school district and its 

employees shall not solicit or encourage any written request on behalf of any child." 

The law is this: 

California Education Code Section 60615. "Notwithstanding any provision of law, a parent's or guardian's written request to school 

officials to excuse his or her child from any or all parts of the assessments administered pursuant to this chapter shall be granted." 

Reports of conversation with Linda Lownes (916-654-5371) in SED who said that districts may inform parents of this right, but they dont have to; that any announcement must be in the same wording to all parents in the district [for equity's sake]; and that the district may not send out a form letter for parents to use. She couldnt give me a reference for this, but instead told me it had been said to administrators at meetings. 

Then Les Axelrod (916-657-5198) in the Department, said he was speaking for the Department's lawyer (Carolyn Pirrillo,916-657-2453) and he said the Regulation is what there is; ie, the things said to administrators arent written down anywhere. 

So it seems to me that teachers are allowed to inform but not solicit or encourage parents to opt out. It also seems to me that means we need to organize advocates and parents to do the soliciting and encouraging."

[Source: Parents and Kids Against Standardized Testing - Discussion - California]

Letters Sent

Bill Kowba, Superintendent of Schools

San Diego Unified School District

http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2012/02/breaking-the-silence.html

Groups and Organizations

Opt Out of State Standardized Tests - California

https://www.facebook.com/EducationPerspectives?sk=wall

http://www.pencilsdown.org/california.html

http://www.testingabuse.blogspot.com

Laws

General Letter for CA including Ed. Code Sections:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=60001-61000&file=60604-60618

http://richgibson.com/ca-law.html

News

http://newark.patch.com/articles/opting-out-of-state-testing-is-it-an-option

http://eastbayhomework.blogspot.com/2010/04/skinny-on-star-testing.html

Misc

Education Perspectives for Central Valley, Inc., 6% Club

• Non-Profit Organization advocating for families with a support group for families opting out in California.

https://optoutofstandardizedtests.wikispaces.com/

PARCC Consortium Protects Pearson Using “Best Practices” Co-authored by Testing “Nonprofit” | deutsch29

PARCC Consortium Protects Pearson Using “Best Practices” Co-authored by Testing “Nonprofit” | deutsch29:



PARCC Consortium Protects Pearson Using “Best Practices” Co-authored by Testing “Nonprofit”

 On March 20, 2015, I published a post about the lately-produced Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) “Test Fairness and Security” statement.

Included in that statement is the following justification for monitoring social media “before, during and after” testing in the name of “test security”:

The PARCC states’ policy follows the best practices outlined by the Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], which recommends that there should be “procedures to monitor the internet and social websites before, during and after test administration for any evidence the items and/or answers have been shared” online.  In order to maintain test security, each PARCC state contracted with its test vendor, Pearson, to search for any live PARCC test questions that are shared through public social media sites. This is standard practice for large-scale tests including ACT and SAT. 

I previously noted that those CCSSO “best practices” are not available to the public to read. One must pay $30 in order to read them.

What I did not note (but will now) is that in its statement of “testing fairness,” the PARCC consortium does not disclose the co-author of those “CCSSO best practices”: The Association of Test Publishers (ATP):

Established in 1992, The Association of Test Publishers is a non-profit organization representing providers of tests and assessment tools and/or services related to assessment, selection, screening, certification, licensing, educational or clinical uses.

ATP members are pledged to promote and advance the integrity of assessment services and products and their value to society; and dedicated to the highest level of professionalism and business ethics within the test publishing community. …

ATP’s membership is composed of the leading publishers and assessment services providers in today’s testing industry.

According to its 2013 990 tax form, ATP is registered as a 501(c)6. Here is a general definition from the IRS:

IRC 501(c)(6) provides for exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade, and professional football leagues (whether or not administering a pension fund for football players), which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. ….

Reg. 1.501(c)(6)-l defines a business league as an association of persons 

PARCC Consortium Protects Pearson Using “Best Practices” Co-authored by Testing “Nonprofit” | deutsch29:

She gets $250,000 a year to spearhead Rauner education privatization plans - Government News - Crain's Chicago Business

She gets $250,000 a year to spearhead Rauner education plans - Government News - Crain's Chicago Business:

She gets $250,000 a year to spearhead Rauner education plans

(AP) — A former Chicago charter schools executive is earning $250,000 a year to spearhead Gov. Bruce Rauner's top education initiatives, a salary that is more than double what her predecessors received and places her as the highest-paid member of a Cabinet already under scrutiny for its lofty paychecks.

For weeks, Beth Purvis' role in the administration had been somewhat of a mystery. There was no formal announcement when she was hired, and during a House education committee meeting earlier this month, she stood and introduced herself when someone on the panel asked if anyone from the governor's office was in attendance.

Not until after several inquiries from The Associated Press did the Rauner administration disclose that Purvis — a key member of the governor's transition team — is now earning $250,000 a year to advise him on education policy. Purvis is being paid as an independent contractor and accepting neither state health nor retirement benefits, according to the governor's office.

CHARTER SCHOOL BONA FIDES

From 2003 until last year, Purvis, who holds a doctorate in special education, served as CEO of the Chicago International Charter School, a network of 15 schools in Chicago and Rockford. She previously worked as a special education teacher in Maryland and Tennessee, as a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and served on education advisory councils under the last two Illinois governors.

In an interview with the AP, Purvis said her salary is "commensurate with what I've been paid in the past" and cited her three decades of experience.

Rauner Friday called Purvis "a superstar" who is "well worth every penny."

"We need her leadership because we need to comprehensively transform education and vocational training in Illinois," Rauner said. "We have a mindset too much in government that everybody's identical, everyone should be treated the same. People should be compensated based on talent. We could pay everybody the same and have lots of mediocre folks."

DEMS RAISE QUESTIONS

But some Democratic lawmakers questioned whether the pay was appropriate for an employee of the state.

"We want the most talented people to take a turn serving in government," said Sen. Don Harmon of Oak Park. "But most all of us in public service are paid considerably less than if we used our talents in private enterprise. That sort of sacrifice is typically part of the public service deal."

The choice of Purvis also makes a statement about Rauner's priorities early in his tenure — a focus on lifting the state's cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state. And Rauner last month proposed a budget that included a $300 million increase to K-12 school funding next year while calling for cuts elsewhere, including a roughly $400 million decrease in funding to higher education to offset the bump.

Rauner already has come under fire for paying top members of his administration significantly more than their predecessors but criticizing the average state worker as overpaid. He's spent the first months of his tenure calling for "shared sacrifice" and issuing an executive order halting nonessential spending.

A PRICEY PAYROLL

A review by The Associated Press earlier this year found annual salaries of 10 top employees in his administration far exceed those of comparable aides to former Gov. Pat Quinn by roughly $380,000 — or 36 percent.

Previous governors have hired point people on education, but they've largely also had other duties at the same time, state records show. Kristin Richards, who served as former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's point person on education, was paid $120,000 in 2008 to oversee education and She gets $250,000 a year to spearhead Rauner education plans - Government News - Crain's Chicago Business:

Charter leaders fired, they spent thousands on cars, spas, concerts:

Charter leaders fired, they spent thousands on cars, spas, concerts

 Amid accusations its co-leaders used school credit cards for more than $94,000 in personal purchases, the Family Foundations Academy charter school has fired the pair, re-shuffled its board, and handed the reins to the leaders of Eastside Charter School in hopes of convincing the state that it should stay open.

The new leaders say the school's academics and finances are fundamentally sound, and argue that 825 students shouldn't have to see their school closed because of two leaders' bad decisions.

"Our motivation is the good of the kids here," said Charlie McDowell, who is now chair of both schools' boards. "They have a successful school and it's just not right for the school not continue because of this."

Family Foundations was supposed to have its charter renewed at last month's State Board of Education meeting, but Department of Education officials abruptly postponed the vote, saying they had been made aware of an audit alleging serious financial mismanagement.

The audit, commissioned by the school in spring of 2014 and conducted by Philadelphia-based Auphsite Consulting, looked at charges on school-owned credit cards held by Sean Moore, its chief operating officer, and Tennell Brewington, founder and chief academic officer, made from July 2012 through Februrary 2014.

The audit said the pair used American Express corporate cards attached to bank accounts that were created to house money for construction projects and money brought in from sources other than the state.

Those cards were used in addition to state-issued "p-cards," which state workers are supposed to use for work purposes, and they "quickly became the instrument of choice for incurring nonschool related expenditures by Mr. Moore and Dr. Brewington," the audit said.

Charter schools are public schools that receive public funds, so the two should have used p-cards for any school-related purposes.

DELAWAREONLINE

Christina again delays decision on Priority Schools

The audit could not account for $2,403.89 in p-card purchases. The big money, however was in the American Express Cards, which Moore used for a total of $73,956.02 and Brewington used for a total of $20,673.85.

Credit card records in the audit show purchases for car payments, furniture, flowers, fine watches, expensive meals and concert tickets, among many Charter leaders fired, they spent thousands on cars, spas, concerts:

P is for PARCC, Pearson, and Pushback | The Progressive

P is for PARCC, Pearson, and Pushback | The Progressive:



P is for PARCC, Pearson, and Pushback

 Jennifer C. Berkshire

Before the first day of PARCC testing, the results are in. Push back against indefensible state policies and the state will crack.

The special time you’ve been waiting for has at last arrived, boys and girls. It’s PARCC testing week! Think Easter but with a few key differences. Like instead of hunting for eggs, you’re after "college and career readiness." Also, those Peeps in your basket aren’t for realz but are being "piloted" to help determine what should go in your basket next year. Which is to say that it’s never a good idea to put all of the kids’ eggs in one basket, even if the state’s chief educational standards bunny happens to serve as the chair of an egg distributor. 

PARCC: In an eggshell 

First some answers to your questions: like is she really going to force us to endure an extended Easter metaphor that has little if any relevance to PARCC testing? No reader, because we have more important eggs to fry. You see, starting today, 200,000 young Bay Staters are taking a new, outstandingly predictive test that is so "highly aligned" with college and career readiness that the words college and career readiness are in the name of the actual test. Today’s test drive will help the state determine whether the test is the right twenty-first-century test for the state’s twenty-first-century test takers. Which raises our first high-stakes question: what about twenty-first-century test takes who refuse to take the twenty-first-century test?

In which the state clarifies its clarification

As we learned last year, "there is no provision in Massachusetts state law for parents to ‘opt out’ of the annual statewide assessment program." Last week the state clarified its position, again, to the effect that if parents should persist in exercising this non-provision, principals should gently but firmly encourage parents to rethink their refusal, reminding them "that students’ and teachers’ experiences will help the state decide whether PARCC is a worthwhile assessment." And then the kicker: "When a parent directs their child to refuse to take PARCC, they are forgoing their child’s opportunity to contribute to ESE’s evaluation of the test." As for kids who still decline the opportunity to be test drivers?

We ask principals and test proctors to handle refusals with sensitivity. Students should not be pressured to take the test, nor should they be punished for not taking the test.

About that security provision

Shall we pause briefly to assess what we’ve learned so far? For purposes of expediency I will reveal that the correct answer is "P," as in "push back against official positions that are indefensible and those positions are likely to be clarified." Speaking of which, the state’s largest teachers union pushed back hard last week against a requirement that teachers administering the new college and career readiness gauge sign a PARCC security agreement that specifies that:

Failure to abide by the terms of the agreement may result in an investigation that leads to sanctions including employment and licensure consequences, according to your state policies.

But as MTA President Barbara Madeloni noted, the agreement is as vague as it is ominous. BMad: take it away. 

This agreement is on PARCC letterhead but otherwise it is unclear who the parties to the agreement are. The school district as a governmental entity does not appear anywhere in the document. The link to the full document takes you to the Pearson website. Is this an agreement with PARCC? With Pearson? With the district? Who will enforce it and how?

Security, whatevs

Within hours of receiving the MTA’s letter, the Commissioner of College and Career Readiness, Mitchell D

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188048/p-parcc-pearson-and-pushback#sthash.uizHfVSI.YhlKHMPZ.dpuf

The Crosshairs of High Expectation and Poverty | The Progressive

The Crosshairs of High Expectation and Poverty | The Progressive:



The Crosshairs of High Expectation and Poverty

 José Luis Vilson

Everything is for the kids.

Want to create a new program? Say it’s for the kids. Want to implement a new policy? Tell them it’s for the kids. Need to raze an entire school in a densely populated school district? Preface it with “We did it for the kids.” Need to convince the public that a frivolous measure of student learning like a VAM score should be weighted more than the collective work of everything else the educator does? Just tell some sympathetic media that the kids benefit here. Want to tell kids you’re right only because you’re in the classroom? Hide behind kids. Need to take cover while people of color don’t like your racist remarks? Tell them the kids you work with are predominantly poor and definitely Black or Latino.

I’m not here for the “both sides” nonsense. This discussion merits more than that.

Our schools are currently underfunded, and our governments currently exacerbates this through long-standing property tax laws and inadequate state and federal formulas for funding schools. With such little political will to truly overhaul our public education system, frustrations ought to bubble. The safety net has withered from under us as our student population has become more diverse, and we’ve had little recourse in the educational debate but to stick to linguistic bunkers when discussing under-performing students:

“Kids don’t do well because of poverty!”

“Are you saying poor kids can’t learn?”

“Poverty means kids can’t sleep or eat well, and when they come hungry to school, they can’t concentrate.”

“That just sounds like an excuse to not teach students to the best of their abilities. We can’t accept that!”

These are arguments all worth listening to, even if the sources sometimes come off as suspect. On the one end, we have to acknowledge that poverty sucks the life out of our kids on multiple measures, from health care and life expectancy to school resources and college admissions. The more we use the word “poverty” to discuss learning and living conditions, the more we speak to social justice because, for many of our students, just getting to the classroom can be a struggle that many of my colleagues can’t comprehend. With the way poverty manifests itself in our schools, schools can’t always take the same trips, have the same lunches, or afford the same speakers to galvanize students. Schools in these environments are more likely to get shut down or restructured, and their teachers and administrators turn over more often because it’s that much more difficult.

On the other, too many of us in communities of color (not just Black or Latino, but Asian-American and Native-American communities too) have seen “highly trained” teachers who come into classrooms with pity and, eventually, resentment when teaching the students there. Many people of color acknowledge the condition they’re in, but they can’t afford for teachers to think of them as “poor” kids. In Latino communities for instance, when they hear “poor,” they also hear pobrecito, which translates to poor thing. People in poverty don’t want others to see their kids as poor things, but as people living in a condition they can’t control right now. They entrust their local institutions to do the best job possible, and for every good or average teacher who buoys up their children, there are those one or two who ruin the experience for a generation, too.

Racism, classism, and sexism manifests not just in the structures that hinder our most troubled schools, but also in many individuals within the system itself, carrying their rather visible knapsacks into our schools and dropping their bag of rocks on our kids.

That resentment leads people to turn to homeschooling or, in more recent times, charter schools. (Mostly white) activists are quick to dismiss the concerns of these parents, so, under the guise of “We want you and those schools don’t,” parents will turn to charter schools in these instances. Of course, it also means we have no idea what happens when our students get into school. For profit schools and the non-profit industrial complex have partnered up to shift the national dialogue about what school means, but those schools have made their names with zero-tolerance discipline policies and rampant de-matriculation too, so perhaps people are too quick to call it a solution.

With folks willing to give away our children of color to poverty pimps and school-to-prison-pipeline funders while so-called progressives build canoes for the kids to swim down the tubes (and all of them thinking they’re working against each other), perhaps political talking points for social justice activists of color just won’t do.

It’s important for all stakeholders to recognize that poverty matters and that achievement is a complex manifestation of environmental factors. It’s also why we shouldn’t treat outliers as miracles nor as rebuttals, but as case studies for us to examine in full (one of my bigger beefs with EdTrust / Doug Reeves 90-90-90 Theory). It’s important for all stakeholders to recognize that, despite and because of this, educators have to work to the best of their abilities because we are what’s left of the social safety net. Educators have to work in the aura of hope because our job is necessarily different, complex, and public. That also means our

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188039/crosshairs-high-expectation-and-poverty#sthash.YUtSlL5C.mvmxbhmZ.dpuf

CURMUDGUCATION: Whitney Tilson Is Better Than You

CURMUDGUCATION: Whitney Tilson Is Better Than You:



Whitney Tilson Is Better Than You

When we're talking about the kind of hedge-fund managing, faux-Democrat, rich fat cat, anti-public ed reformsters who are driving much of the modern ed reform agenda, we're talking about guys like Whitney Tilson.

The Tilson Story 

Tilson is a walking Great Story-- his parents are educators who met while serving in the Peace Corps. Tilson's father earned a doctorate in education at Stanford, which adds the story-worthy detail that young Whitney was a participant in Stanford's famous marshmallow experiment. That's an apt biographical detail. The original interpretation of the experiment was essentially that some children are better than others because they have the right character traits. More recent follow-up research suggests that a bigger lesson is that it's a hell of a lot easier to show desired character traits when you live in a stable environment.

Tilson became a big name in the world of value investing, and he has used his gabillions to fuel the charter school world. He's a big backer of KIPP, TFA and DFER. He is nominally a liberal Democrat, but he has no love for teachers and some pretty clear dislike for their unions.

He recently surfaced in an article by The Nation about how the billionaire boys club is remaking the New York City Schools in their own chartery profit-generating image. Tilson, in his weekly-ish ed reform newsletter, dismissed the article as "a silly hatchet job" and told his own version of how a bunch of Very Rich White Guys have commandeered the biggest apple of them all.

The true story here is very simple and the opposite of sinister – it’s inspiring to me: a number of very successful New Yorkers – believing in the power of education and that every kid deserves a fair shot at the American dream, and disgusted with an educational system that does just the opposite, in which the color of your skin and your zip code pretty much determine the quality of public school a kid gets, an unjust reality that goes on, year in and year out, not because the system is broken, but because it operates just the way it’s supposed to, to serve the economic interests of the adults in the system and the political interests of the gutless weasel politicians who kowtow to them – decided to donate millions of dollars, despite having absolutely nothing to gain personally, to create a counter-weight to the status quo, in which the unions historically said “Jump!” and the governor and legislature would respond, “How high?!”

Tilson likes to characterize himself as a scrappy underdog.

I’m very proud to say that we’ve been enormously successful. Despite being outmanned, outspentCURMUDGUCATION: Whitney Tilson Is Better Than You:

Wendy Lecker: The truth about the SBACs - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: The truth about the SBACs - StamfordAdvocate:

Wendy Lecker: The truth about the SBACs

 A New England state is leading the way on sane testing policy. Unfortunately for us Nutmeggers, that state is Vermont, not Connecticut.

There is a growing national consensus that standardized testing has deleterious effects on education. The National Research Councilconcluded that test-based accountability under the No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) had "zero to little effect" on achievement. Evidence from around the nation proves the focus on standardized testing has narrowed curricula and resulted in significant losses in learning time. Anxiety is prevalent among public school students, as more and higher stakes are attached to these standardized tests.

There is also a growing realization of what experts have known for years -- that the federal government demands that states overuse and misuse standardized tests. Experts know that standardized tests are of limited value, because they are unstable, unreliable and most importantly, do not measure the breadth of skills and experience that are the goals of education. Despite the well-known limitations of standardized tests, federal officials insist test scores be used to rank and rate schools, students and teachers, and impose real-life consequences, including sanctions on schools and possible school closures, firing teachers and even decisions regarding student placement and graduation.

When federal policy conflicts with a solid body of evidence, one would expect our state education officials, those charged with safeguarding the educational rights and welfare of our children, to provide guidance on sound testing policy.

Unfortunately, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's top education officials have failed to provide any useful guidance whatsoever. To the contrary, Connecticut officials willingly participate in damaging testing practices. Connecticut rushed to sign on to the federal NCLB waiver in 2012, without analyzing the costs or consequences. As part of the waiver, then Education CommissionerStefan Pryor committed the state to implementing the common core tests known as the Smarter Balanced, or SBACs. These tests are longer than the CMTs, and must be taken on a computer or tablet, requiring a certain level of computer skill and literacy. Commissioner Pryor also agreed to "cut scores," proficiency levels, guaranteeing that a vast majority of Connecticut students will fail the new tests. By agreeing to the waiver, Pryor also committed the state to evaluating teachers based on standardized test scores, even though the weight of evidence demonstrates that evaluating teachers on student these test scores is invalid and major Wendy Lecker: The truth about the SBACs - StamfordAdvocate:

‘You do not speak for our children’ - The Washington Post

‘You do not speak for our children’ - The Washington Post:

‘You do not speak for our children’

Earlier this year, 19 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the United Negro College Fund, issued a joint statement about what they would like to see in a newly written No Child Left Behind law, an exercise Congress is now attempting to complete.  The statement (which you can read here) surprised many parents and educators because of its embrace of faulty thinking about teaching and learning.

For example, it calls for the continued annual standardized testing of all students in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school even though there is no real evidence that this has improved equity or student achievement. It further says that alternative assessments for students with disabilities be limited “only to students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, up to 1 percent of all students.”

Up to 1 percent? One percent is only an estimate of the number of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This rule means that the other 99 percent of students with disabilities have to take the same new Common Core tests as students without disabilities, though with accommodations that can include extra time or having the test questions read aloud to them. The hardships this puts on students with disabilities and their families can be excruciating.

[Read: Revolt against high-stakes standardized testing growing — and so does its impact]

A few years ago in Florida, a boy named Michael born without the cognitive part of his brain was forced to take alternative standardized tests mandated by the state even though he couldn’t tell the difference between a car and a boat. The state finally gave him a waiver, but many parents with struggling children say that giving any standardized assessment to their child is useless. Early last year, Andrea Rediske, the mother of then 11-year-old Ethan, who was born with brain damage and suffered from cerebral palsy,was asked by the state of Florida to prove that her son could not take the state’s alternative exam — even while he lay dying in the hospital. He passed away in February 2014.

It is true that some members of the disabilities community have in the past embraced annual testing of all students under the idea that it is the only way that this subgroup of students will be given attention in their public schools. If schools are held accountable for the test scores of these students, the thinking goes, then educators will pay attention and give them the help they need. That was the underlying principle behind the annual testing of No Child Left Behind, but there isn’t real evidence that ‘You do not speak for our children’ - The Washington Post:

Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with 'topics' as country reforms its education system - Europe - World - The Independent

Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with 'topics' as country reforms its education system - Europe - World - The Independent:

Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with 'topics' as country reforms its education system

For years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy.

Only far eastern countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Politicians and education experts from around the world – including the UK – have made pilgrimages to Helsinki in the hope of identifying and replicating the secret of its success.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reform programmes ever undertaken by a nation state – scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”.

“This is going to be a big change in education in Finland that we’re just beginning,” said Liisa Pohjolainen, who is in charge of youth and adult education in Helsinki – the capital city at the forefront of the reform programme.

Pasi Silander, the city’s development manager, explained: “What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life.

“Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of  bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed.

“We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”

Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union - which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages and geography.

There are other changes too, not least to the traditional format that sees rows of pupils sitting passively in front of their teacher, listening to lessons or waiting to be questioned. Instead there will be a more collaborative approach, with pupils working in smaller groups to solve problems while improving their communication skills.

Marjo Kyllonen, Helsinki’s education manager – who will be presenting her blueprint for change to the council at the end of this month, said: “It is not only Helsinki but the whole of Finland who will be embracing change.

“We really need a rethinking of education and a redesigning of our system, so it prepares our children for the future with the Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with 'topics' as country reforms its education system - Europe - World - The Independent: