The parent of a student in a school district with a waiver may excuse his or her child from participating in any standardized tests, including any statewide test. The department cannot penalize a school district, and a school district cannot penalize the student or the student's teacher if a parent excuses his or her child from testing.
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My name is Peggy Robertson. I am a Public School teacher in my 17th year of teaching, and one of the founders of United Opt Out National. I support parents in opting out of high stakes testing all over the country...because I see the damage it is doing to children every day. And as a teacher, I have a moral obligation to do right by our children.
These tests our children take today are high stakes tests, which means that something bad could happen, should a child fail a test - the children understand this. The children know that they could be held back a year. They know that their school could be shut down. They know that their teachers could be fired.The pressure and fear placed on our children and our teachers is immense. The school culture becomes toxic as a result.
When teachers are not testing, they feel great urgency to teach to the test due to the fear of failure. The more we test, the less time we have for our own authentic teacher assessments. Quite honestly, it is rare to see a teacher-created assessment anymore.
And these corporate tests do not inform our instruction. They narrow our instruction because the tests assess narrow learning. Narrow learning does not create thinkers and problem-solving citizens who can innovate and support a thriving democracy.
Narrow learning creates students who are obedient and follow directions.
Our country has more patents per million people than any other nation. Narrow learning via high stakes curriculum and testing will diminish our innovation very quickly.
As I help parents in opting their children out of testing, I hear stories of children who believe they are failures, children who fear their teachers will be fired, and children who sadly, state, that the test is all that counts anymore - they recognize that school has been reduced to a test prep factory.
I also hear about the damage high stakes testing does to our neediest children. Our second language learners and our children with IEPs spend more time testing and are denied more authentic learning experiences than any other children.
I speak with parents whose children pull their hair out, children who throw up, who cry, who bite their nails to the quick, and who cannot sleep at night due to these tests.
I speak to children who literally, physically, shudder when discussing the upcoming high stake tests. I speak to children who tell me they are bad readers because they failed the test, yet I know they have made one and a half year's growth as a reader.
Because I support parents in opting out of testing across the nation on a daily basis, I know very well the climate of the country in terms of parent unrest. Parents are angry.
Parents recognize that their children are being deprived of authentic learning. Parents also recognize that their children are being used for profit.
They recognize that these test costs, estimated in the billions for our country, are profiting the corporations while stripping our schools of funding for much needed resources. They recognize that corporate reformers creating and funding these testing mandates choose to send their own children to schools where high stakes testing and curriculum meant to create common children does not exist.
I ask that parents be allowed to opt their children out of these high stakes tests without negative repercussions for their children, their children's teachers and their school communities. Thank you.
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