This teacher will not allow her children in pre-K and K to be tested. If everyone opted out, the testing regime would collapse.
I have been a high school teacher for 16 years. My own children begin pre-K and K this year. I have already informed their schools that my children will be “ill” on standardized test days. I had to take this route because as far as I can find, WA does not have an “opt out” opportunity for testing. The pre-K and K teachers voiced the concern that if the kids were absent the they would be counted as a zero for test scores and that would reflect badly on their teaching ability. My response was that I have very few methods to protest standardized testing and one easy method is to simply not allow my student to be tested. I also said that I would encourage as many other parents as possible to keep their students home on testing days as possible.
I choose this school for my child because in my innovative district this is one of two Montessori programs offered pre-K-8. I want the school to continue to succeed but not on the backs of students who spend too much time testing. Until it can be shown that academic standards improve educational outcomes and that testing is a fair assessment of learning, my children will be absent. I hope all parents are willing to stand up for the rights of their children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
fyi
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Yesterday my six year old apparently announced to her 1st grade teacher that “the governor is making us practice for all these tests but we don’t have to take them if we don’t want to.”
This was the result of her having asked me who/what a governor was, and whether I liked him. I explained to her that our governor was Dannel Malloy, and that I disliked him because he had a low opinion of teachers, and that he was making decisions that were not good for schools (hence all of the age-inappropriate test prep and homework she was doing leading up to the CMTs in a couple of years).
Her classmates then demanded a five minute break (the teacher obliged them). Now I am afraid I have become THAT parent…
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I encourage you to continue being “that” parent! Were that more parents would do as such!
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I teach second grade. I remember the year one little boy stood up and announced to the class that next year at that time they would need to take the CMTs (he had an older sibling taking them). I was glad most of my students had no idea what he was talking about.
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The little ones here don’t just get tested on designated days of standardized testing. They are pulled aside and assessed with sight word lists, etc from early on in kindergarten. Also, apparently under the new Common Core regime, in our system at least, tests will no longer be called tests but “EVENTS.” Seems a bit misleading to me. Parents will have to do their homework just to figure out when to opt out.
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“Events” (BWB-to confuse with excrement of bovine origin)
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I am doing the same in wisconsin
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Just saw this in my 3rd grade son’s take home folder…apparently it is “College AWARENESS WEEK” in my son’s class. Really? They need to check to see if the Kindergarten class is doing this. If not, then the district needs to get put on notice, how dare they wait until the third grade? Hell, why wait until Kindergarten, why not pre-K?
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There’s a school in Brooklyn with a sign over the main entrance which reads “Welcome to PS _ Where College Begins in Kindergarten.” No joke.
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Back in the 90’s the government in Victoria, Australia tried to implement a program of standardized testing called the Learning Assessment Program (LAP). I was a school principal at the time. Many of many parents kept their children home on the testing days and others wrote to me stating that their children were no to sit the tests. As a result of this exercise of parent power the statistical validity of the tests as a measure of achievement was undermined. The tests remained but they never became the high stakes monster that testing regimes have become in the USA.
Sadly, our Prime Minister has been listening closely to Joel Klein and is now having a second, national bite at this particular cherry. It is a profound source of concern to those concerned for education in Australia. Our standing in PISA test remains high, but we are not as high as we used to be before the implementation of aspects deriving from the Global Education Reform Movment (GERM). Instead of emulating the failing practices of the USA we should be refocusing on the good practices of the past.
As every farmer knows, it doesn’t matter how many times you weigh the pig, it won’t make it any fatter.
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Hooray for this brave teacher-mom in Washington!
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Well stated!
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I am concerned about parents being forced to comply with testing in WA – if they do not test in high school they do NOT graduate. I teach in WA, but I live in OR and my son attends school in OR. From what I can tell, there is no high stakes requirement in OR and I will have the option to opt my son out. If parents in WA are concerned, someone is going to have to file a lawsuit I think.
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In CT, The high school test (CAPT) is a graduation requirement as well. I am not sure how to opt out of that one. I do know that some have success opting out of our lower grade tests.
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Post Writer,
Perhaps you might contact the Snohomish people that opted out en masse last year? I don’t know if they did a sick-out, or if they did something different…
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” If everyone opted out, the testing regime would collapse.”
This statement alone would begin a revolution.
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Years ago, when my daughter was a 4th grader, I pulled her out of standardized testing because she had such overwheming test anxiety. Call me kooky, but it seemed wrong for a child to cry in fear over taking a test. Her teacher was a pro and obliged us. Later, when I was discussing this with some other parents, one mom said “Well, how will you know how your child is doing?” Simple: I help her with her homework and stay involved in what she’s learning. I don’t think one day of testing tells me squat about my child’s progress. If more parents were better informed about these tests and what their child should be learning in each grade, opting out would be the norm because the tests would be truly useless.
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Diane,
This is definitely the school district that you cheered last week: Tacoma Public Schools! I know because I work there as a substitute and have worked in both of those Montessori schools. This school district is not as it was painted last week: the innovation that they brag about is driven exactly by these tests. I dont’t see it as innovation where special programs are available to select few, they get (probably) unproportional amount of funds to run their programs while other schools are operating underfunded in outdated facilities and outdated academic materials (e.g. US history textbooks from 1987 in a sped class) The above mentioned Montessori programs have not shown great gains at all, in fact they are some of the worst in the district. The money spent on these expensive classrooms could have been spent wiser in my opinion. They recruit 3 year olds in these 6 hr per day academic programs and expect them to sit in circles, listen quietly, and learn the alphabet and all the academics with the kindergarten and first grade students. There is hardly any playtime and or even naps allowed for these very young students. The teachers are struggling because the students are fighting back with their behaviors. The little babies are expected to be self learners when they need the help most. Nobody’s questioning the appropriateness of this system here, except for this teacher. I really I applaud the her opposition to testing of very young children.
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I am in Seattle and just this week opted out of the MAP test for my kindergartner. It was no problem whatsoever.
They just gave her some paper to draw with and she returned to the classroom with the first group of kids to finish the test.
In my note to the principal, the proctor, and her teacher, I explained that I’d looked at the test sample offered for K-2 on the NWEA website (this is the company that created the test, supposedly it’s a non-profit http://www.nwea.org/) and I found the wording of the questions and the method for submitting the answers confusing. I also said that when we discussed it as a family my daughter said the idea of the test gave her a stomach ache and I thought it was best to avoid stomach ache causing scenarios at school.
Because I was volunteering in the art room on Tuesday afternoon, they brought me into the computer lab to observe the kids taking the math portion of the test. The user interface was different from what I had seen, simpler, more straight forward, but some of the questions didn’t seem appropriate for kindergarten level. I saw several ones where the child was asked to select the appropriate arithmetic sign for a given equation (4 _ 7 =11, and the choice is + – or x). Not sure they know multiplication yet. It was pretty short and they broke it up into two time chunks with art class in between. I think they wanted to reassure me that the test wasn’t stomach ache inducing, but there was one little girl, sweet and friendly kid I’d come to know, who couldn’t finish and she was offered to come back the next day to do it. She wondered quietly if she was the only one in her class who had to come back. She was a little deflated by the prospect, but was so frustrated that she couldn’t finish it at the time. The proctor is easily the most empathic woman I’ve met in a while and was very reassuring about the girl returning the next day, but my take away was the test was dispiriting for the little girl and it shouldn’t happen in kindergarten of all places.
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