School Board Meeting

OPT OUT
3/18/15
QUESTIONS FOR THE DISTRICT
1. General opt out questions
What is the US DOEs position on the opt- out movement?
Has any school district in the United States of America ever lost federal funding for opting out of
standardized testing? If so, which districts are they?
Can parents and students legally opt out?
Is opting out encouraged or discouraged by the district?
If students do opt out, will they receive effective instruction during test time?
If so, what exactly will students do while others are taking the test?
Where would the opt-out instruction take place? Would they be in the classroom with the
students taking the tests?
2. Choice and opting out
What happens if your child wants to apply to a magnet or charter school and they opt out of the
exam?
What happens if your child is in a magnet or charter school and one opts them out of the test?
What if you apply for choice and you opt out?
Will students who opt out be considered absent?
Will the teachers evaluations be compromised if parents opt out?
3. Growth model?
When will students take the standardized tests?
When will the district receive student scores?
Will the test allow us to effectively measure student growth during the year?
Can you explain the growth model of testing and discuss whether this test would be considered
an example of one or not?
4. Data privacy
Where does the data collected go?
Is it protected?
How do we know the data is secure?
Could there ever be a security breach?
Does the district control the data once it is collected?
Who controls it & where is it stored?

School Board Meeting

OPT OUT
3/18/15
Clintons Improving Americas Schools Act mandated approximately 6 tests per year total taken
by students.
Under George W. Bushs No Child Left Behind Act (2002) standardized testing surged
dramatically to approximately 14 standardized tests per year, with some districts requiring even
more.
President Obamas multi-billion dollar Race to the Top Grant (2009), fueled even more test
giving, test taking, test scoring and school labeling. Today, many states even require one
formal assessment a standardized test in kindergarten.
In order to administer the standardized tests and then score them, school districts contracted
with agencies and companies to provide these services because they did not have the internal
peoplepower to do so.
Into this void stepped four already large corporations
1) Pearson,
2) CTB/McGraw Hill,
3) Education Testing Services, and
4) Riverside Publishing which is associated with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Figueroa, 2013, p2).
Pearson is the worlds largest education company and book publisher (Figueroa, 2013, p2) and
makes over $9 billion annually.
CTB/McGraw Hill -Pearsons biggest competitor- makes over $2 billion annually (Figueroa, 2013,
p2).
This means that as a nation we spend a heck of a lot of money for our children to take
standardized tests.
Although many support standardized test taking, others do not. A vocal debate is raging on this
issue, so I decided to research the opt-out movement.
There are various reasons for Opting-out, which include:
1. Testing is a big business
The companies which create tests are the very same companies which come up with the NEW
and improved tests students must take. For instance, Pearson has helped develop the new
common core standards (Figueroa, 2013, p4), and the Fordham Institute estimates that
implementing the new standards could cost up to 8 billion dollars. These profits do not go back
into education, in fact, they go right back to the company, which certainly makes some people
very rich.
Furthermore, when students do not do well on tests, the remedies on hand, such as tutoring,
remedial classes, and replacing administrators and teachers (sound familiar folks?) provide
opportunities for private corporations to profit from public funding (Hursch, 2007, p297 ).
Furthermore, test companies have immense lobbying power
Companies such as Pearson spend hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying politicians
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In fact, in 2011 there was a NY Times Article which reported that companies such as Pearson
were paying American politicians expenses to international destinations to attend education
conferences (Figueroa, 2013, p3).
2. Teaching Time for Content in School is diminished
* Some 11th grade teachers will only have 16 days of teaching actual content because there are
so many tests to take
* Elementary children take the practice test, which takes a number of days, and then have to
take the real test
* In addition, some students actually have to take the test prior to content being taught because
there are not enough computers in the school for everyone to take the test at the same time.
3. Standardized tests often do not provide useful data for teachers during the school
year
Students take the tests in the spring, and the district gets the results in the summer; this means
that the teacher cannot alter the teaching instruction during the school year to impact the
students immediate educational needs
4. Testing Standardizes and narrows the Curriculum so that it is less and less
connected and inter-related to students lives, interests, and culture
which according to many educators, such as Paulo Friere is the very spark needed to
revolutionize learning and get students involved in education
5. High Poverty schools are often punished for low test scores
Standardized tests measure proficiency, not actual learning. This means that even in cases
where students are learning, if they dont reach proficiency standards, the school is penalized for
not meeting AYP as we saw with our priority schools.
6. Standardized Testing has not eliminated the achievement gaps
Ultimately the goal of standardized testing was to decrease 2 achievement gaps: (1)
international achievement gap, and (2) the racial achievement gap. Both gaps still exist.
Those are some of the reasons for the opt out movement.
CONCLUSION
So I asked myself, what could we do with billions of additional educational dollars to actually
increase student learning and decrease achievement gaps using best practices?
So Id like to know
How many full time art teachers, music teachers, gym teachers, librarians and technology
experts could we employ?
How many paras could we offer jobs to and maybe even pay a livable salary?
With billions of additional dollars, in how many districts in how many states could we decrease
class sizes, in all grade levels, not just K-3? Because pushing in extra help for a few hours per
day does not really decrease class size, no matter how many people with EDDs tell you that.
With billions of dollars how many field trips could our students go on?
How many museums and art centers and murals and gardens could they visit?
How many computers could we buy, and how many bathrooms could we remodel so our children
and their parents dont have to smell piss when they walk into their schools?
How many full time social workers and therapist and counselors could we employ
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for our children and young adults and teenagers

who grapple with poverty and the lack of jobs we suffer from in the state of DE
and who experience depression and trauma and fear and anger induced by a lack of adequate
and affordable housing?
How many custodians and bus drivers and administrative assistants could we give raises to?
How much funding would be available to train our educators to be culturally competent - or even
more culturally competent - so that we could tackle systemic racism, sexism, ableism, and
heterosexual privilege in our schools?
How many talented and gifted programs could we grow? How many FT permanent TAG teachers
could we place in each and every school?
How many students could we work with one on one so they are not expelled, suspended, and
kicked out of our schools?
How many students with disabilities could we take the time to identify and understand, educate,
and inspire?
How many wellness centers could we put in our schools, to help nurture strong students?
We dont know, and we wont know, because we dont opt to do those things.
What we opt to do, as a nation and as a district, is to continue require standardized testing.
As a result, we are seeing the grassroots opt out movement grow.
But this movement isnt just about standardized tests, this movement is about challenging
educational reform, and questioning the fundamental manner in which we have decided to
educate our children.
Henry Giroux, in his book Youth in a Suspect Society (2009) states There has been a deafening
silence in most of the reports about how conservative policies have systematically disinvested in
public schools, turning them largely into dull testing centers for middle class students, and
warehousing units and surveillance centers for working class and poor youth of color.
His words ring true, and I believe that the opt out movement in this country is important because
it is breaking the deafening silence through action.
Opting out is a viable alternative to standardized test taking.
It is an action against the corporatization of our schools.
As such, next month I will introduce a resolution to support the Opt-Out alternative in Red Clay.
Thank you.