In response to other posts, Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out offers this advice to parents and teachers:
My advice is to take action. Currently we are asking people to begin to canvas neighborhoods and share the word of opt out. WE are going to have to do this. No one will do it for us. And while we sit around and wait for some corporate politician to change policies in our favor we have kids suffering – they do not have time to wait. Imagine how many childhoods will be lost this year at the hands of corporate education reform. I am angry – most angry because we have the ability to stop this – and instead we keep hoping that someone will share our message in mainstream media or we hope that Obama will hear us. The truth is this – the ball is rolling fast and it will take years to stop it IF we rely on politicians to do this for us. We cannot wait on the media to help us. Corporate media share what they want when they want – they toss us around like a cat playing with a mouse. We are quite capable of spreading the word of opt out. What are we waiting for? Share this link far and wide. Last year my main form of exercise was swimming. This year it will be walking. http://unitedoptout.com/liberator-call-to-action-time-to-canvas-the-neighborhoods/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great. Now I have to ask, why are schools following the dictates/mandates from the Govt.?
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Because the public schools are part of the “Govt”.
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Mom – if you used your brain, you’d know that federal funding is crucial for many of our high-need schools. My district cannot afford to lose federal funding – as little as it is – for our special ed students. When your choices are operating in the black and following federal mandates, or operating in the red and telling the feds where to stick it, well, that’s not really much of a choice.
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Xian Barrett (CTU/CORE Leader/”Teacher X” blogger) wrote on of the most important statements of the day:
We are the leaders we have been waiting for.
Exactly right, and our next step is to STOP the testing THIS year. Parents: REFUSE
permission for your child(ren) to take “standardized” state tests.
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Oh, boy, would I love to counsel my students’ parents to do this!
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I am forever grateful to folks at United Opt Out! They are on the frontline of this fight every day – taking the bullets for teachers and leading the way.
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The first step is to correct the common misperception that testing is good for kids and that high test scores mean much of anything. I posted before the fact that my local public school has the highest test scores in the district is a big selling point, and parents are willing to put their kids into classes with 40+ kids because of that. If the school were to announce that they weren’t doing testing any more, it would be the parents who would be outraged about it (fortunately for them, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening).
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This is a PERFECT response to the “parent trigger” . . . the parent option . . Let’s call this movement “parent’s COUNT” . or Parents who want their Children Out of UNnecessary Testing . get my kid out of the testing mill and into a respectful, meaningful, engaging EDUCATIONAL program!
mb mbutz24@aol.com
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As a parent, I certainly entertained the idea of trying to opt out in the past (my kids are now past the last grade to which these tests are administered here in Colorado), but given the fact that our system would automatically downgrade the school for exams not taken, and that such grades are directly related to teacher pay in that school, I could never bring myself to do this. How can I ask the teachers our family loves to take a pay cut for this?
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I would love to opt out, but my daughter is in 8th grade in Texas, which carries with the the threat of retention. I don’t know how to win that battle or even if it’s possible. I can’t risk her being retained…
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It is important to take action to continually improve education for the sake of children and their future in this complex economy. “Outsiders to education may think that including test score data as part of teacher evaluation
makes obvious sense – but coming on top of a decade of focus on scripted curriculum, high-fidelity implementation of adopted textbooks, high-stakes accountability, teaching to the test, & massive layoffs, it feels to teachers like one more blow. It is lucky for us – and for kids – that teachers are a tough and committed bunch of people. But we need to stop taking them for granted.
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