I am sorry that I frequently ask for your financial support, but crowd-sourcing is the best way for parents and public education activists to make their case. Unfortunately, we do not have the deep pockets of the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, or hedge fund managers. If 1,000 people who read this appeal and others each send a gift of $10 or $20, it will make a difference.
Colleen Wood, a parent of students in Florida public schools and a member of the board of the Network for Public Education, asks for your help for parents who are in court fighting the state’s third grade retention law:
Friends – I know we are pulled in so many different directions, but I’m asking for your help in Florida.
Florida has a mandatory retention policy for 3rd graders who do not pass the FSA (Florida Standards Assessment). Statute spells out good cause exemptions and there are ways for districts to look at a portfolio of the students work all year, and to promote. There are also ways for the districts to fight parents, to force them to have their child take some standardized tests.
This group of 3rd grade parents refused and are now suing the state to have their students promoted to 4th grade. These are students whose teachers have testified they are on grade level, but certain districts are still refusing to promote them to make a point.
It is insane that we have to sue to do what is right, but we do. And 3rd grade retention is a central tenant of Jeb Bush’s education reform policies, even though we know there is no sound research supporting automatic retention. Discrediting it in court would be a huge step to undoing the damage he has brought to our state.
In court yesterday, Mary Jane Tappen, the Vice Chancellor for all Florida public schools said under oath that a student could have F’s all year and get a 2 on the FSA and be promoted. Or they could have A’s all year, not score at least a 2 on the FSA and be retained. Out loud. She said that out loud. District lawyers argued that report cards are meaningless. At least we’re getting them on record.
But here’s where we need your support:
financially – https://www.gofundme.com/stopgr3retention
Click here to support 3rd Grade Parents v. FLDOE by cindy Hamilton
David v Goliath: Parents prepare to challenge the FL DOE This past spring, hundreds of families consciously chose to participate, though only minimally, in the Third Grade FSA and their children, therefore, received no test scores. Many students (including many who failed the FSA) were promoted
donate here if you are able. The districts are now petitioning for a change in venue and want to have the case heard in each individual district, which would make the costs prohibitive to most parents. And FLDOE is burying the lawyers in paperwork to continually drive up the costs.
share on social media – please link to the donation page, use #180DaysCount or link to any stories. Here are a few:
Parents challenge Bush-era third-grade retention law in nine-hour hearing in state court
TALLAHASSEE – Parents whose children were retained after ‘opting out’ of standardized testing challenged a Jeb Bush-era state law requiring third graders to pass state reading tests in order to be promoted during a nine-hour long hearing in state court on Monday.
I am not a plaintiff in this lawsuit, but feel like these parents are doing what we have been asking and we need to provide all the support we can, in all the ways we can, as often as we can.
Thank you!
Colleen
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I want to thank you both from the bottom of Opt Out Sarasota’s heart. Even though our lone student was promoted using IReady, we are standing behind the parents of these third grade students. #180DaysCount
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I understand that the promotion ends up being arbitrary and grades meaningless . But what is the right way to do this. Elementary are critical grades. Don’t we need some consistent evidence to promote kids? If this is wrong and I agree it is, how should it be done knowing that one size does not fit all schools, all neighborhoods.
If this is wrong, what is a better way that does not just promote kids that would be better off not being promoted.
Stemology
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To answer your question stemmer, NO!
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What is the matter with this and what would be better?
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To what does the “this” in your question refer? And “be better” in reference to what? I don’t understand your comment. Please explain further.
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Why My Wife and I Are Opting Out Our Daughter From Third-Grade High-Stakes Testing
https://youtu.be/FHXFQb8c8f8
Transcript of the original text:
Good evening. My name is Andy Goldstein. I’m a teacher at Omni Middle School and the proud parent of an eight-year-old daughter who attends one of our public elementary schools.
It seems like it was just yesterday when my daughter entered kindergarten. At that time, I talked about her at our August School Board meeting in 2013.
I said that my hopes and dreams for my daughter were that she would develop a lifelong love for learning that would serve her well as she learned to construct a life that would serve her and serve others as well.
I told this board that my wife and I were not particularly interested in having her be seen as a data point for others to make money from.
Now, three short years later, which seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye, she is entering third grade.
Tonight, I’m speaking as a parent, who also is a teacher.
In Florida, third grade is the beginning of high-stakes, standardized testing for our children.
What are the high-stakes?
• Our children, on the basis of one test, will receive a number, a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, which, will serve to define them.
Some students, may do well learning throughout the year, but do not test well and may receive a 1, a one being the lowest possible score.
Some may come from disadvantaged backgrounds and will receive a 1.
Some may be special needs students, who receive a 1.
These numbers work to define our students as to whom they are. “I’m a one. I’m a Failure.”
This high-stakes testing policy, mandated by state law, works to stigmatize our students and they grow up with a limiting self-concept of who they are and what they are capable of doing and becoming.
• On the basis of this one high-stakes test, some schools—those comprised of the poorest students, who need the most help—are labeled with an “F.” Failures. This stigmatizes these schools, whose faculty and staff may be working hard to meet the high needs of the surrounding neighborhood they serve. It also serves to increase the segregation at these already segregated schools. What parents, given the means to choose what community they will move into, will choose a neighborhood with a school labeled “F.”
• There is a lot of money being made on the part of testing companies, publishers, and vendors, based on this annual imposition of this high-stakes testing.
• This high-stakes testing is part of a corporate agenda, an agenda by the rich and powerful to demonize our public schools and privatize them through the rise of publicly funded, privately managed schools called charters. Our state legislature, bought and paid for by corporate interests, is cheating our children by defunding our public schools.
• “That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital,” says Noam Chomsky, an MIT professor.
• Our third graders are still babies, really. Do they really need the pressures of this high-stakes testing? Recently, I read one account from a parent recounting the experience of her son when he was a third grader taking the FCAT. He was a good kid. He worked all year to learn. But he missed passing the FCAT by one point. He went to summer school to do more work and took it again. And again, he missed passing the test by one point. His mother was afraid to tell him, but he could tell by her reaction that he had not passed. He was crushed by the sense of failure. His mother, working on making dinner in the kitchen, called him to come down to eat. He did not respond. She had a premonition that something was the matter. She rushed up to his bedroom and found him hanging by a bedsheet. She got him down.
• Is there anyone who thinks this high-stakes testing is worth such a price?
• As a parent, I can answer with a resounding NO!
• My wife and I believe that our public schools should work to develop the whole, creative child in all of our schools, and in all of our communities of all colors and all socio-economic backgrounds.
• For these reasons, I’m announcing to you, our school board, that my wife and I do not support high-stakes testing in Florida, and will be opting out our daughter. Evidence for her learning will be through a portfolio.
• Thank you.
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