Jeffery Corbett, president of the Oklahoma PTA, released the following statement today:
Oklahoma PTA Encourages Parents to Opt-Out of Field Test
January 27, 2015: In an effort to keep the parents, guardians and students of Oklahoma’s public schools informed about the administration of field test questions in standardized tests, Oklahoma PTA has asked the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) to release specific information regarding a field test writing prompt included in both the 5th grade and 8th grade writing assessments for 2015.
“Parents are frustrated by the overwhelming use of standardized tests,” stated Jeffery Corbett, President. “Oklahoma PTA believes that parents have the right to make informed decisions regarding whether or not their child provides unpaid research to the billion-dollar testing industry. They deserve the opportunity to opt their child out of the field test.”
The state department has informed districts that these tests will contain two writing prompts: one that is operational and one that is a field test. A prompt provides the student with one or more passages to read, followed by a question to which an essay response is generated. A field test prompt was part of these tests as recently as 2013.
The OSDE did not inform districts which prompt is for the field test, so parents are not able to obtain that information from their school.
In July 2014, members of Oklahoma PTA unanimously adopted a resolution objecting to the mass administration of field tests, stating that students should not be expected to conduct corporate research for any testing company.
Information obtained through the scoring of field tests is not provided to the student, parent, teacher or school district. The testing company, however, obtains valuable data to help develop tests that will then be sold back to the State of Oklahoma for a profit. This, of course, comes after public tax dollars are spent not teaching students, but instead administering tests to them, creating a meaningless loss of instructional time.
“By calling for an opt-out of the field test prompt, we are taking a strong stand against testing as education,” Corbett stated. “Our future, our children, deserve more than to be great test takers.”
The response to the field test inquiry will be shared with PTA members and made available to the public at http://www.okpta.org once it has been received from the OSDE.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh, how I hope Tulsa chooses Deborah Gist as their new commissioner of education. That will be so much fun to watch from a distance.
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More Broad Superintendent probs in Dallas.
http://live.dallasnews.com/Event/Talk_DISD/mobile&Theme=8101
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Ok. I just have to vent. Our president just pledged $4 billion, to India. Here we have states jumping through hoops of fire to compete for RTTT funding for our schools and again, our president is handing money over to other countries. What little funding we do receive is already tagged to go to the testing companies, charters profiteers, vouchers for religious schools, or some teacher evaluation VAM scam. It amazes me that we continue to send money we don’t have, to other countries, while our education system crumbles, our roads and bridges crumble and our infrastructure is aging and unfunded. When will the madness stop?
Just think what we could do if the money we send to other counties and on all those wars were instead invested in our own country! What if we stopped wasting money on testing and actually spent it on resources for educating our children.
Thanks to all of those brave parents and students who stand against these tests. I hope The Opt Out wave spreads quickly.
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It’s all been a field test. We’re still “piloting” PARCC etc. Our State DESE here in MA quotes the Gates Foundation on the issue of student feedback. met project I believe it is. At the end of the Gates document on met project and student feedback, they admit it has not been well piloted/field tested, and more information would tell. Why has our State DOE chosen to base a new initiative on an untested, non-educator based idea?
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Could be because Mitchell Chester is president of PARCC.
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Okay, OK!
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