Headaches. Queasy stomachs. Red eyes. These are a few of the aliments Georgia parents report their children experiencing every April.
It’s not the pollen count. It’s the CRCT, the annual testing ritual that leaves many children anxious and afraid.
A case of the jitters before a big test is nothing new. However, today there are more tests and more consequences attached, including promotions, teacher evaluations and school ratings. Nationwide, parents and teachers are rebelling against a testing frenzy they contend is fueled by policies that value drill-and-kill testing over real learning.
An estimated 10,000 people attended a February rally in Texas to demand fewer tests. Facebook pages have sprung up to help families figure out how to opt out of testing in their state. In Pennsylvania, parents are relying on a religious exemption, while Florida parents are utilizing a state regulation allowing alternatives to state exams to prove proficiency.
New York became ground zero for the opt-out movement last week when the state rolled out tough new exams based on the Common Core State Standards. At a Long Island middle school, more than half of the eighth graders opted out of the tests. A third of students did not take the exams in a New York City elementary school after a parent boycott.
One of the leaders of the movement is Colorado instructional coach Peggy Robertson, a founder of United Opt Out National, an effort to end “corporate education reform” and “eliminate high-stakes testing in public education.”
“In schools today, one testing window closes and another opens,” said Robertson in a telephone interview. “I get all excited that we are done with testing. But then there is another test. It seriously never ends. These tests are an insult to the students in my classroom. These tests require my learners to consider only finite answers, which keep my students from developing their skills as creative, critical and conceptual thinkers who can problem-solve and be active citizens in our democracy.”
Georgia doesn’t have an organized opt-out movement or a defined process on how to do it. But Robertson said she’s been fielding more queries from Georgia parents. “I had three potential Georgia opt-outs this week. None of them followed through, but I have feeling next year will be a different story,” she said.
The state Department of Education told me that the CRCT is mandatory, but Robertson contends that parents can simply decline to have their kids take the test, then follow up with a hearing to see that their children get promoted to the next grade based on teacher input and grades.
“What is interesting about Georgia is that this hearing process would become so cumbersome — quite honestly, impossible — if a mass opt-out occurred. In New York, there was one middle school with close to 250 opt-outs,” she said. “Georgia simply couldn’t find the resources and/or time to perform 250 committee hearings for one school. Which, of course, proves the point once again that opt-out places the power in the hands of the parents, if they would recognize this.”
“Many people seem to assume that the CRCTs and EOCTs are measures of something worthwhile,” said Gerald Eads, a professor at Georgia Gwinnett College and former testing director for the state of Virginia. “The tests only tell us whether a student did or did not meet or exceed highly arbitrary points. The tests are not made to do anything else. The information sent back to the schools is of virtually no use to teachers or students as to what they might do better.”
“I do not by any means argue that all tests and testing are bad. I have hope that the Common Core, an actual curriculum requiring reasoning and analysis, and its associated testing could help bring some measure of sanity back to public schooling,” he said.
“I’d love for parents to keep their kids away from the state minimum competency tests,” said Eads. “Parents – and teachers – in other states are saying no. Perhaps it’s time for parents who want better public schools for their children to take direct action. To borrow an old saying: ‘Just say no.’”
