A reader suggests a massive way to resist standardized testing:
“Diane and all my favorite people at this blog,
“I am not sure are where to post this but today I had an idea. I have been teaching in a MD public high school for many years. I have been a loyal reader of this blog for two years but never commented before. Today at an excruciating, propaganda filled faculty meeting at my school, we were informed of how for three weeks in March our school would stop functioning as a school and instead become a branch of Pearson Education as we administer the PARCC. Seriously, no normal instruction for weeks. Next when someone had the gumption to ask about the OPT OUT movement, we were told that it was against MD state law to opt out and if asked, tell parents and students exactly that.
“Thus, my idea. Why not start a nationwide movement of civil disobedience. For all multiple choice questions, students could simply bubble ‘A’. That one simple act performed over and over by hundreds of thousands nationwide would represent a powerful statement.
I know that this may be more doable for middle and high school students who are in tune with social movements and who do not have to pass a test to be promoted to the next grade. But seriously, why not. Let’s call it the BUBBLE ‘A’ movement. it will render all tests invalid and show that this idea of using students and teachers for nefarious, profit making schemes is unacceptable and immoral. It must stop. Now!
“Anybody?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I love it. Parents could stand outside schools blowing bubbles. Create a spectacle!
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I can provide the logo! Bubble This! Can’t load it here but you can find it at https://www.facebook.com/havebrain Children should be playing with bubbles, not filling them in!
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Great idea if people will do it. So upset about the Pearson, et al. takeover!
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Isn’t that asking students, in grades as low as third, to engage in civil disobedience while parents and teachers do nothing? Isn’t that asking the children to protect themselves while the adults stand idly by?
I also worry that these symbolic acts still leave the students taking the tests, wasting their valuable class time, while Pearson et al STILL GET PAID?
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It’s not symbolic when the results of the tests are invalidated because of too many “bad” answer sheets. (not that those tests are valid to begin with, they are not)
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Señor Swacker: as that famed Mexican superhero of yesteryear proclaimed, “No contaban con mi astucia!” [they didn’t count on my smarts/cunning!]
And they didn’t count on yours.
Yes, when everyone bubbles in “A” or another letter or number or symbol like “$” then reliability (consistency/stability in measurement) and validity (the ability to make accurate and trustworthy inferences/judgements about the results scores) are about as long-lasting and firm as a snowball in a, er, very very hot place.
😏
Speaking only for myself, when it comes to high-stakes standardized testing, each individual and each family will have to make up its own mind about the big questions like right and wrong, going along to get along, and sacrificing genuine learning and teaching in the service of $tudent $ucce$$.
The time is now to take a stand because, as Jim Hightower reminds us:
“If you don’t speak out now when it matters, when would it matter for you to speak out?”
😎
P.S. Which brings up the question: why not split the difference and try to please everybody?
Jim Hightower also reminds us:
“The middle of the road is for yellow lines and dead armadillos.”
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My school will be in lock down every day until 11:30 during PARCC.
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I agree to protesting bubble tests, however, that will leave the impression that teachers are trying to duck accountability. Instead I suggest we protest for the right to innovate in public education. To allow any school system to break away from the bubble test when they devise a system and philosophy of education that serves all kids.
If the focus is on teachers, like in Wisconsin where I marched, we will continue to lose. When the focus is on kids, and how to better serve kids, we will succeed. More ideas are here:https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475817713
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I agree we must focus on what the children need, not testing but a challenging learning environment.
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We just need to refuse to proctor these tests. A little civil disobedience is needed to restore our democracy once again.
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I’m having trouble believing that there could be a state law against opting out. If there is, it should be unconstitutional. I think the “BubbleA” is a good one but I also think a call to rise up against these tests should also happen even before the tests are supposed to be given. Good luck to all!
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“The Bubble ‘A’ Blues”
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New Hampshire students cannot Op out either. There is a law saying students must take state tests…SBAC for our students. There is no penalty for them not taking the test, but the State DOE says they are breaking the law. Ironically, the state motto is “Live Free or Die.” Maybe they should add “unless you’re a student in grades 3-8 or an 11th grader.”
I love the Bubble A. Hope this idea goes viral.
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Check law first. I like Karen’s idea!
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Is there really a state law in Maryland forbidding opting out? That should be investigated. If found to be untrue (as I am guessing it is), that needs to be pointed out to whomever said that.
If that is indeed true, then parents could all keep their kids home from school on the testing days.
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Mike, Districts schedule “make-up dates” for students absent the first week of testing. The Indiana Superintendent who spoke of home schooling and then re-enrolling had this in mind. Now that PARCC is administered in two phases, even that will be more complex.
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Not having an “opt out” clause in the law is not the same as “opting out” being illegal. It would be like saying that there’s no law that says you can wear jeans on Sunday, ergo, jeans on Sunday are illegal. These states are trying to pretend that not having an opt out clause is the same as the law saying you can’t opt out. Any time you hear someone claim that there’s a law against opting out, you need to ask them to prove it – cite the statute.
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PS If indeed opting out is illegal in Maryland, then people need to get after their state legislators to change that law! It is outrageous!
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Indeed, MD law does not provide for an “opt out” option. Here, we “refuse” to have our kids participate.
And since you suggested it, people are working on the legislative side, but it’ll be at least another legislative session before anything is likely to happen. *sigh* Not enough lawmakers even take notice of the testing or the protests. 😦
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I like this idea!
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This will result on failing results for students, teachers and schools. Students must refuse the test and not mark them to refuse and make a difference in NY.
Sent from my iPhone
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That would be a much greater possibility if the NEA & UFT/AFT unions would support it. Unfortunately no one is really calling out the unions for their lack of inaction to support teachers/public education. With 4 to 5 million members such a test boycott would help solve this problem quickly.
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Awesome idea. How about calling in sick on the first werk of testing, so no one trained to assist the testing would be available and Admin. would get the message and the Board would get the idea, also.
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Indeed a parent who had inquired about opting her child out showed me a copy of a letter she received from the MD State Dept of Ed saying that a parent has no say in such matters. Schools decide what is taught in class. ( Notice they deem PARCC equivalent to teaching and curriculum). They say the only thing a parent can lawfully opt their child out of is sex ed in 5th grade.
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do it!
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Any more Marylanders who want to opt out/refuse PARCC in MD, if you’re on Facebook come join us on the Maryland R.E.F.U.S.E. page!
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In Ohio we are tying 50% of a teacher’s rating into student performance (growth) on flawed standardized tests. As a parent, I am livid. Way to put pressure on students to perform well. No wonder kids are stressed! Don’t bother telling me students don’t know teacher ratings are tied in, as teachers themselves are making sure to inform the students. Also, how is this going to discourage “teaching to the test”? If my job depended on how well students performed on a test, the majority of my time would be spent making sure they ace that thing. My question is, where were the unions at when this happened?
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My students had been doing that for years!
I hear it’s “illegal” to opt out, but ok to refuse tests. Don’t ask me… Also, you can pull kids out to home school them, then “change your mind” and re-enroll them after tests. But I agree, parents need to be out front of the school making their feelings heard.
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You go, folks! Starve the data beast!
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Find out about Opt Out/refusals in your state by going to:
unitedoptout.com
Standing up for your rights as a parent/student/teacher and potentially participating in acts of civil disobedience, is something we should be willing to do to avoid this testing madness, that amounts to dismantling of public schools and arguably,child-abuse in many cases!
A week or two of opt out or other mandatory, anti-standardized testing actions/activities,like the “Bubble A” ideal mentioned above, done on a national scale, would be a good method to help people stand up to the edu-bullies that are forcing this testing assault on our students/children.
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I think that is a splendid and effective idea! We had a national boycott during the Vietnam
War with the National University Strike and it had long reaching implications.
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I support the purpose…I think it would likely backfire. Samuel made some sense asking to consider what would be asked of third graders.
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The original post did mention that this wouldn’t be done in grades where tests are required to move to the next grade.
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you are correct…I did not notice that….I am not trying to win an argument, I have just learned to expect media backlash with a holier than thou attitude. So I ask….are there places where tests do have to be passed to move to the next grade?
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In my state, 3rd grade students either have to pass the beginning of grade tests, have a reading portfolio that consists of mini tests taken over a four week period with I believe a 70% passing rate or pass the reading portion of the end of grade tests. If none of those criteria are met, the student is required to attend summer school or they are retained in third grade.
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Unfortunately in my state of TX my kids would be unable to graduate for not having passed the EOC. I would not want to put them in that position.
I hate that I have to turn the cog of the machine of evil, in order to help my students in life:(
I am looking forward to the day that I can move to Vermont. It seems sane there.
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Early in my career at Evanston Township High School (I retired in 2012) I was one of the proctors for students entitled to extended time on a state mandated test. Two observations are relevant here: Not a single student used the extended time and one student bubbled in his answer sheet so that it read “BAD BOY.
Perhaps we need more BAD BOYs.
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This year, one of my students bubbled his answer sheet to read “Jesus,” because, as he said, “Jesus is the answer.”
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One more thought: Pearson and Arne would just spin the fail rate as 100% of children in America are not college and career ready.
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Whoever sees choice as nirvana has learned absolutely nothing from Sophie’s Choice.
Right now, I am quite literally a serf to the federal government. They have levied my income on all fronts, because I owe student loans and back taxes, plus interest and penalty fees, which I have been unable to pay due to the low pay I earn: They garnished my paycheck 15% in my first job and they’ve taken all of my paychecks in my second job. At first they took 15% of my Social Security retirement checks –which pay too little to live on so I must work until I die—but starting in March, they are going to take my entire SS check every month. (They’ve taken thousands from me in tax refund checks, too, but I have never gotten any accounting of the money they’ve gotten from me and it looks like the amount I owe never decreases.)
I cannot survive on what the government is leaving for me to live on and I cannot afford to pay someone to help me deal with them. I was already really struggling because my landlord raised my rent very significantly, when my income has been declining each year, and I have had no money to move or to submit an offer in compromise to the government. So I have applied for more jobs, while fighting homelessness for the past few years, and now I will truly become homeless in the next couple months if nothing changes, as I have no savings and long ago sold my valuables to pay my rent. Having faced this seemingly insolvable dilemma so much, I’ve often thought that I would truly rather commit suicide than spend my golden years as a homeless person slowly dying on the streets.
Now, I have suddenly been offered a third job as a “grader.” Because some colleges hire faculty for that position today, I didn’t know what I was applying for when I responded to the ad, since the company has their own college. However, when offered the position recently, I found out that it’s as a grader of CC tests. So, now I have the choice of contributing to the high-stakes testing horror that our nation’s children and teachers are facing, becoming homeless or dying.
Whoever sees choice as nirvana has learned absolutely nothing from Sophie’s Choice.
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Reteach,
I hope you take the job.
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I appreciate your feedback, concerned mom.
This added choice really is no nirvana though. I have a hard time compromising my ethical principles, and I also think that job is not likely to save me because the IRS will probably soon find out about it and take that entire income as well, while leaving me with more taxes to pay, including the payroll taxes that the company gets out of having to pay themselves because they are hiring graders as independent contractors, not as employees. That’s what’s happening with my second job, where IRS is taking my entire income, because that school hires faculty as contract workers as well.
And here’s the thing: IRS is going after people like me, who grossed just under $24K total from my two jobs last year (my rent is $17K), while they let these companies get away with claiming that the people who work for them are self-employed. I have some flexibility in performing my second job, but from what I can tell about working for the testing company, they have very specific job expectations and rubrics that must be followed and there is no wiggle room to allow for professional judgement. That differs dramatically from true independent contractors. According to the IRS:
“You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed.”
I got into this mess with the IRS to begin with due to being misclassified as an independent contractor in yet another job, even though I worked in schools full time and they, too, told me what, how and when things were to be done. They paid contractors so unpredictably, too, that I kept falling behind on my living expenses and then I didn’t have the money to pay the taxes that I owed. Hiring educators who are not unionized as independent contractors has become a common practice in many arenas, because it is how employers have figured out how to get away with payroll tax evasion, as well as avoiding labor laws, such as having to pay unemployment insurance, minimum wage, overtime, etc. Apparently, our government thinks that’s just fine in this climate where deprofessionalizing education has become the norm.
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That’s terrible. Are there any lawyers in your area that will help you pro bono?
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I looked around but wasn’t able to find anyone. I became discouraged after a lawyer relative wouldn’t help and said I should just file for bankruptcy, when everything I’ve read has indicated that taxes and student loans are the two debts that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy.
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An awful lot of high school kids (and probably a lot of middle level kids) probably do something like that anyway. But asking younger children to do that puts them in an awfully tight spot between the two groups of people they are supposed to trust most (and whom they spend most of their time with). It’s never a good idea to put young children in the middle between their parents and their teachers, especially considering that the goals of both should be at least roughly aligned. Young children don’t have the cognitive capacity to deal with the dissonance.
Parents simply need to make it clear that their kids will not be taking the tests. Period. Call it what you want, but if you have an issue with it, you can speak to my lawyer (even if you don’t really have one). Just the “l-word” alone tends to make administrators rather nervous. If parents feel that the tests aren’t right for their kids, they need to take the burden on themselves.
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Meant a response that went below to be a response to your comment here.
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What would make this explode nationally overnight is social media. Any 12 – 17 year-olds out there looking to get involved in a giant, moral social movements against corporate control could within hours gain traction. If Twitter can get 100 million involved in commenting on the color of a dress, just imagine tens of millions pledging to Bubble A and throw a wrench into a fascist testing initiative. Who out there can get this to young Twitter/ Facebook crowds? #BubbleA Testing starts this month for millions. Let’ do it now!
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Oh and one more thing. SomeDAMPoet where are you? Please add one of your brilliant compositions to this movement by rewriting War Pigs”and adapting it to “Test Pigs”.
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So the kids should fill in the bubbles on test prep worksheets accurately or to the best of their ability for months and months leading up to the test, then take a dive on test day? Boy does that sound like a lose-lose to me.
A boycott of the test prep, though? That is a movement that’ll attract a wide spectrum of parents.
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Excellent idea! Bubble away!
But I can’t honestly believe that opting out is illegal. Sounds like a bluff to me.
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Copied from an actual school response from a different school district from me but still in MD (and this is typical – we went thru almost exactly this last year with the MSA):
“Thank you for contacting me about your concern. The guidance we have received from MSDE (Maryland State Department of Education) relating to the administration of PARCC testing does not include an option of “opting out” of state-mandated testing. Therefore, I will be unable to honor your request that XXXX and XXXX not participate. Students that are present when the test is administered to their group are required to test.”
So it’s true: no “opt-out” option. But – no penalties for *refusing* to test. 🙂
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It hurts the school and teachers more especially if teacher evaluations are tied to student progress such as in IN. By opting out of test they get a no score which goes against the schools grade over all. Ridiculous testing!
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See eloquent teachers’ statement “Science Park teachers: PARCC is 30 days of destruction” 2-28 post Bob Braun’s Ledger blog. They cite # of days devoted to testing rather than teaching …it’s ~1/6 school calendar.
NJ State Constitution calls for thorough and efficient system–always scratched my head re defining efficient. But this can’t be it.
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I think a national “boycott the test” day/month should be organized. But it would have to be during a testing window in which all states test. April 15th is perfect for Florida but I am not sure about the rest of the nation. Teachers would need a sick out to test the waters first before an actual boycott occurs. A prior sick out can help gain the publicity for the boycott. Teachers can easily use their Microsoft (thanks Bill Gates) Outlook account to lookup all the teacher’s emails in your entire district. The school emails I found (e.g.. 6234-ALL@dadeschools.net, 2345-faculty@dadeschools.net) contain all the teachers at a given school number. This list can be copied and pasted into an anonymous gmail account for sending to your entire district to inform of the sick out and boycott. “Red fever” can easily catch on with a well written mass email with attached bulletins to warn of the spreading testing sickness.
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Florida begins testing this Monday. The majority of elem will run for 3-4 weeks at most. Could work for MS and HS.
Here’s what we’re fighting in FL now.
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Another option that works on paper tests – it would be trickier on Chromebooks – is The Bartleby Project: http://www.bartlebyproject.com/
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What the writer proposes here is not “civil disobedience” but an unethical action that might not be understood by students as anything but some version of “cheating” no matter how good the cause.
Opt-out is “civil disobedience” and should be encouraged everywhere and the efforts of administrators to willfully confuse parents about their rights to opt-out should be actively opposed at every step.
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Further to Dienne’s comment above, there are only three legal questions at issue.
The first is whether, under state or local law, the test is “mandatory” for children in your child’s grade. “Mandatory” in the sense of “the school is required to administer the test to your child.” If the answer is no, then you can opt out.
If the answer to the first question is yes, then the second question is whether state or local law or practice provides for an exemption to the otherwise “mandatory” test that could apply to your child. Usually, when state or school officials say that children are not allowed to opt out, what they are really saying is that there’s no recognized exemption for people who just don’t want to take the test. If there is no recognized exemption, then you have to go to question # 3.
Question # 3 is, what, as a practical matter, will happen if your child doesn’t take the exam? If the answer is “nothing,” then you can opt out without fear.
In reality, the only question that matters to parents is the third one, and the answer varies depending on the state and city and often the individual circumstances of each child. Parents who want to opt out but are concerned about the consequences should ask their children’s teachers, principals, and superintendents this question. Take their answers seriously, research them, and ask followup questions. Do not treat this as a question that’s hypertechnically legal or that has an “aha!” moment. It is ultimately a practical question.
Of course, beyond the practical question, there is the political issue, i.e. “They can’t shoot us all!” That’s not something that I would expect most parents to proceed on the basis of, though.
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Re: your first paragraph: yes yes and yes. I’m surprised how rarely this gets said here.
And frankly I don’t think that a parent could do what you propose in your second paragraph without still putting a big burden on the their kids. Where I live, testing season is a big, big, big deal. The school gears up for it bigtime. The kids know it’s a big deal. If they didn’t know it’s a big deal, then they figure it out when their teachers tell them over and over that it’s NOT a big deal and offer them meditation strategies for how to be calm about it. In this environment, if a parent wants to opt their kids out, it is a very big deal that will require a lot of discussion (or a lot of Gaslighting) that kids may or may not be able to deal with.
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I agree. My child will take the test with no coaching in how to answer from me. I try not to discuss it.
Why don’t the schools and districts (who complain about how the test results are used) opt out of hyping these tests to our children?
If every district/school in the state committed to no test prep and just administered the test on the three days or so that children actually take them, my bets are the results would be similar or even if they were lower (which would also happen if we all told our children to fill in ‘a’), they would probably be lower across the state.
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Terrific comment. I agree. The tests are bad, they are too long, and many feel that they are being used unfairly. Got it. But why let it destroy the curriculum and culture at your school year-round? Particularly if teachers only influence 1-14% of a child’s score?
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I think bubbling in “D” would would be better in the higher grades. That way if anyone asked why they did it, a well informed student could answer: “Based on where cut scores are set, I thought I was supposed to be a “D” student?”
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When the corporate reformers pay the politicians to pass laws forcing parents to have their kids tested, “Bubble A” will be the next strategy! I like it.
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I think the BUBBLE A movement is the BEST IDEA I’VE HEARD
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