Opt Out
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/04/11/why-every-child-should-opt-out/
"Want to end the obsession with standardized testing? Opt your children out of the state tests. Ignore the threats from state and federal officials. The tests today have taken over too much of the school year. Teachers should prepare and give tests that cover what they taught.
What if all students opted out of testing? That’s democracy in action. The elected officials who mandate these tests would take notice. They might even discover that no high-performing nation in the world tests every child every year.
The tests today are pointless and meaningless."
https://iamaneducator.com/2016/04/21/off-the-deep-end-the-swim-test-vs-the-standardized-test/
This one's from local educator Jesse Hagopian:
"Parents and teachers across the country have united to demand an education system that recognizes children’s needs aren’t satisfied by filling in bubbles on an exam. So, before we throw our schools into the deep end, let’s demand authentic assessment now!"
Opt In
http://edexcellence.net/articles/draft-essa-regulations-a-mixed-bag-for-educational-excellence
"Before ESSA, a No Child Left Behind provision required all students to take the same tests. As it was interpreted by both the Bush and Obama administrations, the provision also barred material from those tests that was significantly above or below grade level. As a consequence, most current assessments do a lousy job of measuring academic growth by pupils who are well above grade level. They just don’t contain enough “hard” questions to allow reliable measurement of achievement growth at the high end. In other words, the ceiling on those tests is so low that most advanced students can pass them even before the school year starts.
Thankfully, ESSA allows computer-adaptive tests (CATs)—such as those developed by the Smarter Balanced consortium—to be structured and administered in ways that measure growth at every level, without overburdening any student with a ridiculously long paper-and-pencil test. And if combined with a real academic growth accountability model—one that holds schools to account for ensuring that all their students make progress over the course of the school year—this can finally create incentives for schools to attend to the further learning of their high-achievers. Making sure that every state allows for above-grade-level testing is critically important as we implement ESSA."
Some Facts:
- Advanced learning had initially publicized that starting next year you will need to take the standardized tests in order to qualify but not to maintain eligibility in AL programs. Even that seems to have been rolled back.
- If you want to opt-out the usual procedure is to email your teacher and sometimes building coordinator or principal.
- 5th grade SBAC data is being used by some Middle Schools for math placement although there are alternatives.
