Researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University, are conducting a survey on opting out of standardized tests. You can help them by completing their survey.
I am writing to ask for your help in promoting the 2021 National Survey on Opting Out. Thanks again for all your feedback and help with our research project.
Over the past five years, our research team at Teachers College, Columbia University has conducted a series of studies of the Opt Out movement. Our studies are not associated with any grant or other funding from either public or private sources. Therefore, our analysis is completely independent.
Our main project is the National Survey on Opting Out, which we conducted twice in 2016 and 2018. The purpose of the Survey is to understand who is involved in the Opt Out movement and why. We define involvement in broad terms to include parents who opt their children out of standardized testing and others who sympathize with the Opt Out movement. The survey is informed by interviews and conversations we had with activists around the country (e.g., Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas, and Washington). For New York, we relied on extensive interviews conducted by David Hursh and Bob Lingard; among others they interviewed Jeanette Deutermann and Lisa Rudley.
We would appreciate your help in promoting the 2021 National Survey on Opting Out. Feel free to share the link with your contacts and on social media. We are active on social media, with updates about the study:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OptOutNtlSurvey
Twitter: @OptOutNtlSurvey
The survey is anonymous and responses are confidential. The survey is shorter than last time and should take you approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Link: https://tccolumbia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6i2cmIQ2O3L9ggu
Thank you in advance for your support!
Oren Pizmony-Levy & Nancy Green Saraisky
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Oren Pizmony-Levy, PhD
Associate Professor & Program Director
International & Comparative Education Program
Department of International and Transcultural Studies
Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street
370 Grace Dodge Hall
Box 55
New York, NY 10027
Tel (office): 212-678-3180
Email: pizmony-levy@tc.columbia.edu
Website: http://orenpizmonylevy.com/
This was sent to me a few days ago…..I completed it. I don’t actually remember doing it the first time but I guess I did? Good to know that even though there has been no headway in getting rid of the tests, there are some people still committed to the movement.
My pleasure.
LisaM’s last sentence points to the common dilemma I’ve felt as a student, parent, teacher and citizen during the last 55 years: if “there has been no headway in getting rid of the tests” (or achieving whatever else we regard as a serious concern), then at what point do we switch our efforts to a different movement demanding that our share of school funding be transferred to other schools–public or private–willing to meet our needs?
The needs I refer to include freedom from over-testing, freedom from bullying, acceleration for capable students, access for all students to STEAM (science, tech, engineering, arts, math) classes and other special or “gifted” programs at their level, not scheduling remedial classes during a student’s art and music periods nor during lunch recess, and adequate funding and staff to accomplish this.
Survey done.
Waiting to go get my second COVID vaccine shot and looking out my window at April 1st snow. Did the survey. Thanks to the people who working on this issue.
Done.
glad I saw this. I probably gave way too much info, but I’ve been stewing about this standardized testing issue for over a decade (I heard they were getting rid of it in 2008 in Texas, but all they did was slap a new name on it, revise some standards, and make it more anxiety-inducing for the students).
I quit trying to get teaching jobs because of this stinking test, and since private schools–all religious in my neck of the woods–tick me off in general, I’m out of teaching for the foreseeable future. If they got rid of those tests and meant it, I’d be jumping on the computer to get credits and recertify fast as I could. But nope, Texas will cling to those soul-sucking monstrosities because it lines too many pockets.
Today, my dream would be for all the students in Texas to walk out on test day. Just walk out, go sit outside the school on the grass or wherever and refuse to go back inside until they remove the tests from the building and resume normal classes. I’d go cheer them on at every campus I could reach if I heard that was going on.