The new interim superintendent in Montclair, New Jersey, released the Opt Out numbers: 39% opted out in grades 3-11. That is a stupendous number and a victory for the parents who rejected the PARCC sham.
The story was posted an hour ago at NorthJersey.com: “Montclair School District Releases PARCC Opt Out Numbers” (for some unknown reason, I can’t get a link, but google and you will find the story).
Out of a total of 4,623 students in the district registered to take test in grades 3-11, 1,795 refused, or 38.8 percent.
What the amounts also show is that the percentage of students who were opted-out by their parents, with some exceptions, rose as the grade levels got higher.
According to the information provided by the district, 3,170 students across the district in grades 3-8 registered, with 968 refusing to take the test. The number of students who were opted out is 30.5 percent.
In grades 9 through 11, 1,453 students registered, with 827 not taking the test, or 56.9 percent opting out.
The highest percentage of students not taking the PARCC tests were juniors at Montclair High School. About 66.5 percent or 319 out of 480 students opted out.
The lowest percentage was in the third grade level at Watchung School, with only one student opting out of the 76 registered, or 1.3 percent.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And not an April Fool’s joke?…Really great news.
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A bit of good news!
Thank you
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I wonder what the difference in opt-out rates was for people living north of Bloomfield Avenue vs those living south of it.
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Nice Tim!
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Tim,
Are you trying to channel TE?
And if your racial dividing line is for real, exactly how would you explain a disparity in opt-out percentages?
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I think Tim IS Teaching Economist.
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I am teachingeconomist.
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No FLERP. TE, is, your father.
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http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/montclair-school-district-releases-parcc-opt-out-numbers-1.1300245
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As of this morning 41% of the students in the school where I teach have opted out of Smarter Balanced.
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So when are the tests just cancelled? If 2/3 of the juniors aren’t taking the tests, WHY are they even giving the tests?
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TOW
Because they don’t care. They will use whatever scores they get.
As Arne Duncan said recently about PARCC opt outs, “Millions of kids across the country are taking the tests. We’re fine.”
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One k-5 schl in mtc district had only 1 of 76 kids opting-out–a school north of bloomfield ave, in the more affluent and whiter part of town; rephormy board of ed majority and its Broadie-trained supt. tried to suppress opt-out by not telling parents their rights of refusal(pta did the same), but numbers grew to 39% thanks to persistent 2-yr grass-roots efforts by group MCAS–Montclair Cares about Schools– finally forced the Broadie Supt. to resign, new interim supt. took over today, released the big opt-out numbers on first day.
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Ira: I’m not sure that’s correct–one 3rd grader reported there, not sure about other grades.
Tim: I can say that in my children’s Montclair schools the refusals cut across all socio-economic and racial lines.
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This might be a sign that the older, more mature students are becoming aware of what’s going on, and like most teens, decided to join the resistance and stand up to corruption/authority. The decision may have been the older students and not their parents.
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MCAS teamed up with film editor Michael Elliot to make a short film about the refusal movement in NJ. If you want to see the reasons a diverse group of NJ parents and students from all kinds of backgrounds, urban and suburban, are refusing, here’s the link) which Diane posted on this blog in early March:
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I just talked to two teens last night, and they would opt out because the tests “are stupid, make no sense, have nothing to do w/what is taught (this is in an upper middle class, suburban school district, one in which progressive ed. is valued, NOT “teaching to the test”) & are a waste of good school time.”
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