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Next week starts STAAR season for Texas public school students. For a few parents across the state, that’s the deadline for them to decide whether to opt out — to refuse to let their children take the state-required exams.  Earlier this week, a Waco couple took their decision unusually public. They sent an opt-out letter to their children’s school and posted it on the Internet. It was quickly picked up on the informal network of national organizations that oppose high-stakes testing.  The letter from Kyle and Jennifer Massey had been downloaded more than 30,000 times by Tuesday morning, Jennifer Massey said.   “It took off faster than we expected,” she said.

STAAR — State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness — is the battery of tests given each year to public school students. Proponents say such tests are the best way to determine whether all students are learning the required curriculum. They say that use of the results for accountability — for students and the school system — have driven improvements in test scores and education.

Opponents, like the Masseys, say that an unhealthy focus on test scores has warped what happens in the classroom, so that too much time is spent on testing strategy and on drills that are designed to maximize test scores at the expense of other valuable skills that aren’t assessed by STAAR.  “We are trying to raise attention to the issue and to make people know this is a valid option for them,” Jennifer Massey said.

More on this story:  http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20140325-trickle-of-texas-parents-choosing-to-opt-children-out-of-state-testing.ece

 

"Austins Morning News" on News Radio KLBJ talked about this topic: Listen below

 

THE FOLLOWING A LETTER THAN CAN BE USED TO "OPT OUT"

Dear [Insert Principal] [insert date]

 

I am respectfully presenting a written statement to remove my child during the mandated standardized testing days this year. It is my parental right to choose to “opt my child out” of curriculum or instruction that is harmful to children as stated in the Texas Education Code CHAPTER 26. PARENTAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES Sec. A26.010.EXEMPTION FROM INSTRUCTION. (a) A parent is entitled to remove the parent ’s child temporarily from a class or other school activity that conflicts with the parent ’s religious or moral beliefs if the parent presents or delivers to the teacher of the parent ’s child a written statement authorizing the removal of the child from the class or other school activity. I believe it is morally wrong to put children through the ordeal of a week of pointless testing. I also believe the practice of high stakes standardized testing is morally wrong. High stakes standardized testing:

 

AFFECTS SOCIO-EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING: Our system of constant testing seems designed to produce anxiety and depression.

 

KILLS CURIOSITY AND LOVE OF LEARNING: Actually limits and reduces the amount of QUALITY learning experiences. Rather than focusing on a child’s natural curiosity, testing emphasizes (and drills in) isolated facts limiting teacher’s ability to create environments that stimulate a child’s imagination.

 

REDUCES A CHILD’S CAPACITY FOR ATTAINING NEW KNOWLEDGE: If children cannot actively make connections between different topics of study, they don’t remember what they learn from day to day. Most standardized tests are still based on the recall of isolated facts and narrow skills. (www.fairtest.org).

 

REPLACES HIGHER ORDER THINKING WITH SKILL, DRILL AND KILL: Most tests include many topics that are not important, while many important areas are not included on standardized tests because they cannot be measured by such tests. Teaching to the test does not produce real and sustained gains on independent learning measures. (www.fairtest.org)

 

NARROWS THE CURRICULUM: The loss of a rich curriculum has been documented in research, in the media, and in teacher testimony. Forget art, music, science and PE (in spite of the decades of research that correlates student overall school achievement to participation in these experiences). State-wide testing generally focuses only on math and reading. And with these critical subjects, teachers are forced to focus only on those test-taking strategies that reflect the way material is presented on the tests.

 

REDUCES SOCIALIZATION AS A CENTRAL CORE OF LEARING: The opportunity to learn to socialize through recess, and collaborative classroom activities reduces children’s opportunities to develop healthy social skills. Being seated alone at a desk all day isolates children from learning how to develop community-based problem solving skills they will need as adults.

 

WASTES VALUABLE EDUCATIONAL TIME SPENT TAKING TESTS: Texas Public Schools will spend one of every five days or nearly 20% of the school year conducting tests. According to the Texas Education Agency, Texas public schools will spend 34 out of the 185 day long year conducting tests mandated by the state government. This does not include the regular testing in schools such as six-weeks tests, quizzes, and final exams. (State Board of Education Member Bill Ratliff, Sept 12, 2011)

 

VIOLATES ALL CHILDRENS’ RIGHTS TO A FREE AND APPROPRIATE EDUCATION: High stakes testing leads to under-serving or mis-serving all students, especially the most needy and vulnerable, thereby violating the principle of ‘do no harm.’ For example, students living in poverty, who already lack critical access to books and free reading, are condemned to test prep instead of having opportunities to read. Monies desperately needed for vital school resources such as clean drinking water, supplies and roofs that don’t leak are being spent on testing materials. Texas spends $44 billion per year on public education, of that $1 billion is spent just on testing days. (Ratliff, 09/12/11) Texas Education Agency spent $88 million on Pearson standardized test products, such as TAKS tests, in fiscal year 2010 for testing grades 3-11 with plans to spend $470 million over the next 5 years. Pearson is part of a London-based media conglomerate, Pearson PLC. Our needed tax dollars for Texas schoolchildren go to London. (Egan (2010) Retrieved from http://austinnovation.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/pearson-taks/)

 

VIOLATES FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938: If a child is given work or assessments to do in the classroom that will eventually determine the income of a teaching professional, that student is providing the catalyst for the pay. In Texas, administrators and teachers are paid “bonuses” or additional stipends through “strategic compensation” programs that are dependent upon the school-wide TAKS (standardized tests) growth or other student performance goals. This breaches the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, which states that sixteen is the basic minimum age for employment. It also says that when young people work, the work cannot jeopardize their health, well-being, or educational opportunities.

 

Parental rights are broadly protected by United States Supreme Court decisions (Meyer and Pierce), especially in the area of education. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that parents posses the “fundamental right” to “direct the upbringing and education of their children.” Furthermore, the Court declared that “the child is not the mere creature of the State: those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35) The Supreme Court criticized a state legislature for trying to interfere “with the power of parents to control the education of their own.” (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 402.) In Meyer, the Supreme Court held that the right of parents to raise their children free from unreasonable state interferences is one of the unwritten "liberties" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (262 U.S. 399). The immorality of high stakes testing in the public schools, as stated earlier, constitute an unreasonable state interference in the operation of public schools.

 

The right to opt out of standardized test ought to be an option for every child’s parent or guardian — the right to say, without being pressured or penalized by state or local authority, “Do not subject my child to any test that doesn’t provide useful, same-day or next-day information about performance.”

 

With consideration of the Texas Education Code, Chapter 26, and the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, I would appreciate your cooperation in securing my right as a parent to opt out my child of standardized testing.

 

 

Thank you,

[Insert your name]

 

 Avoiding the stress of standardized tests

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