Opting Out is the best way to say NO to the machine.
It is the only way to stop the machine from sorting and processing your child.
When you opt out, you join a mighty force of determined parents. Determined to protect their child.
Carol Burris writes for NPE Action:
“The NYS Common Core exams begin this week. Although we are glad that the tests are shorter in length, there is no indication that the content of the tests and the proficiency levels have changed.
“When content is too difficult and curriculum is developmentally inappropriate, learning is negatively impacted. This is especially true for young children. The result is not higher achievement but rather frustration and stress. While you can excessively test prep to produce high scores, that does not mean that a deep understanding has occurred.
“That is why Opt Out is still important. It is how New Yorkers send a powerful message that they want curriculum that fosters a love of learning and intellectual growth. They do not want skill and drill pressure for inappropriately set benchmarks.”
Opt out.
An inappropriate test with a rigged cut score designed to move where the politicians want it to go is what students in the state are confronting. Proficiency, as defined by these tests is a political, not an academic term. The meaning of “proficiency” varies from state to state, and it can vary from year to year in the same state. Students’ data become property of the “machine,” and students’ privacy may be compromised as the number of data breaches increase. The results are useless to students, parents and teachers. The state will use the results to justify expansion of privatization. There is no upside to subjecting students to this unfair testing. Opt out!
This post from this blog explains the dynamics of how these tests are unfair and how state can rig the cut scores. https://dianeravitch.net/?s=common+core+cut+scores+rigged
OPT OUT! OPT OUT! OPT OUT!
Have a good trip, Diane.
Keep in mind, too, there is much guessing going on by some and some not even reading the questions after a while. There are also students whose thinking is clouded by fear; they can’t think clearly. Truly a waste of time.
I shared this on FB this morning.Ellen Cogan
Refuse the tests and refuse the data mining! I-Ready must be the next to get rid of!
I think that this is so important for the parents to have decided to do to rebel against a system that does not foster a love of learning or of even a deep understanding of content. I think that by having these students opt out this is a sufficient way of sending a message to the governmental “educational reformers” that we are not going to back down in the fight for true learning. As the blog post mentions while the tests are now much shorter there is no proof/evidence that the content of the tests have changed or if the considered proficiency levels have changed. By only listening to 1/3 of what the people are saying the government is choosing to ignore us. Yes, we can teach the test prep and yes, maybe the test scores will improve, but where is the learning? Where is the passion to learn and develop your own ideas through critical thinking. We have dressed educational reform in this rhetoric of aiding in critical thinking and deepening understanding but how can we do that when your “knowledge”is only represented by a multiple choice question? There is never just one answer, there are millions of answers, each student has their own way to get to an answer, there is no multiple choice in real life, it is what you make it. I think that as teachers, we are doing our best to combat this as teachers, but as parents this is the best method to ensure that maybe just maybe there will be a change.