Want Your Child to Opt Out of Testing? Not So Fast.
Everyone loves being right; however, in this case, it means more intrusion into our children’s lives so I’m not doing an “I told ya so,” dance. In February 2015 I wrote an article about the Opt Out movement (read it here). In short, education planners are actually wanting different assessments and different ways of obtaining the measurement of “growth.” Opting out of testing may actually push us closer to these creepy new tests. Rewriting NCLB, including the language about assessments, leaves it wide open to implement these new assessments into the classrooms.
If you’ve been paying attention then you have seen that Obama has now put a “cap” on the amount of hours that children can spend on standardized testing in the classroom. It seems an abrupt about-face from an administration that was doubling down on high stakes testing with the Common Core–but it’s actually not that big of a change.
According to this article, “The administration will encourage states to cap standardized testing time to 2 percent of classroom time — 21.6 hours for a typical NYC school child. That shaves just a sliver off the 20 to 25 hours that kids already spend taking the tests, according to the study by the Council of the Great City Schools, which includes New York. And it doesn’t deal at all with the weeks and months that teachers spend prepping their kids.”
I watched a painful video put out by the White House in which a (barely awake) president discussed how testing can be intrusive and how we need an “all around look” at our kids’ education. In addition to using tests to measure, Obama said they will also be using surveys and other means.
And there’s the word to watch out for: Surveys. I’m sure you’re aware that surveys are almost always personal and behavioral in nature and will be added to the dossier the government is building on our children.
You might be wondering what this has to do with the new classroom assessments that will be put into place eventually. Well, frankly, this is just a small step in the direction of doing just that. This is something that has to happen to make it look like the eventual abolition of most major high stakes testing was a process and not a preconceived idea and outcome.
It’s the old, “create the problem, then create the ‘solution’ to the problem,” and have everyone cheering you on for finding respite for their children.
It’s important not to forget, though…THEY CREATED THE PROBLEM AND THEIR SOLUTION WILL BE MORE DAMAGING FOR AMERICAN CHILDREN IN THE FUTURE.
