How to opt out of PARCC at Deal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scattering testing times at short notice is a calculated strategy to deter from parents from opting out/cutting into the tester's bottom line. It's used by school systems to raise hurdles to civil disobedience. Some DC schools will let students come to school, be marked present, stay in the building supervised by an adult caregiver registered with the school, then return to class once testing has been completed that day (no unexcused absence incurred). Other schools expect parents opting out to keep students home on testing days, but not on make-up test days (without trying to push a make-up test on your kid). I don't know how Deal handles opt outs, but our new ES principal has been pretty reasonable this year (former head wasn't).

As was pointed out on the other thread, your child's teachers' assessments won't be impacted if a few of his or her students don't take the PARCC - the Dept. of Ed, school systems and schools do not strive for 100% compliance, particularly for white or Asian high SES students. Moreover, hardly anybody in DC has opted out since the DC-CAS was introduced in the late 90s. If you're going to opt out this year, you don't have to worry about teachers assessments. Your kid's PARCC won't be graded (because your kid will have no PARCC).

If you want to try to help individual teachers as you opt out, you can send your principal and admins up the DCPS chain a a signed letter, cc'd to the teacher, offering a family recommendation for the instructor. The letter mentions that you are opting out of the PARCC although you very much appreciate the teacher's excellent work. We do this every year.

You rock, PP. We're quietly opting out of PARCC at our EotP DCPS. Child has perfect attendance record this year and admins are working with us, though doing some arm twisting. We've made a plan with admins to remove our child from school during the testing blocks, returning her to class the minute testing is done.

We refuse to be forced to increase profits for Pearsons Education Ltd. shareholders and executives as public school parents via 10 hours of annual PARCC testing. When our child was tested to qualify for a Johns Hopkins CTY summer program, Hopkins only needed one hour or testing to determine that she is gifted. Pearsons, and 800 million dollar corporation, is able to rake in profits from public school systems because the overwhelmingly majority of parents cooperate. Most couldn't handle the logistics of opting out, as you point out. We consider forcing us to increase profits for a major corporation to be a form of tyranny, however mild.

We don't care if DCPS winds up dragging us to social workers and before judges - we won't support this sort of privitization of our public schools. We want our kid to learn to stand up for our deeply held family values. We've developed our own little curriculum for the 10 PARCC hours - the history of civil disobedience in America.

I sincerely hope that you will similarly eschew test scores and STAR ratings when choosing a middle and high school. Will you similarly opt out of APs, SATs and ACT when it comes time to apply for college? These are just enriching the College Board and the ACT organization.

At least we'll be able to exercise choice on the standardized test taking front down the tack. We'll leave it to the kid to decide which tests to take as a teen, including International Baccalaureate exams graded by the non-profit IB organization. The child can always apply to test optional colleges if s/he wishes. There are many more of them with every passing year.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the anti-corporate;anti-Pearson sentiment completely.

Brace yourselves for college prep and application process during which you will fuel the College Board's seemingly bottomless bank account with SAT testing fees. You will then voluntarily tell the College Board every last detail about your family's finances through its CSS Profile (required by about 300 colleges and universities.)

You may also pay the ACT corporation for the right to test your kid. And, then, you'll pay all these entities AGAIN for them to send your information to the colleges your kid may want to attend. Just trying to till the earth a bit that the fight against the corporatization of educational testing extends through every tentacle of the U.S. system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the anti-corporate;anti-Pearson sentiment completely.

Brace yourselves for college prep and application process during which you will fuel the College Board's seemingly bottomless bank account with SAT testing fees. You will then voluntarily tell the College Board every last detail about your family's finances through its CSS Profile (required by about 300 colleges and universities.)

You may also pay the ACT corporation for the right to test your kid. And, then, you'll pay all these entities AGAIN for them to send your information to the colleges your kid may want to attend. Just trying to till the earth a bit that the fight against the corporatization of educational testing extends through every tentacle of the U.S. system.

You forgot the fees to have the CSS sent to colleges and for AP scores to be sent where you are enrolling (after you have paid to take the exams).

Thankfully very low-income students can get waivers but that’s a tiny number.

[Anonymous]

At least for high school, I wish OSSE would follow other states and use the SAT or ACT for achievement purposes, instead of the 10th-grade PARCC. .

It would be a two-fer (one test serving 2 purposes) and save the city money. Right now the city pays for every student to take 2 free PSATs (10th and 11th), 2 free SATs (11th and 12), and high school PARCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fair point.

The first group of parents who opted out on NCLB mandated tests, at a MS in Scarsdale NY, faced many barriers. Flash forward 15 years and opting-out has become so commonplace in the State of NY, the national opt-out epicenter (where 20% of students refuse to take state standardized tests), that the test has been re-designed to induce parents to opt-in. This year, results in NY are not linked to teachers evaluations for the first time, and there are no longer testing time limits.

Here in DC, the opt-out movement hasn't gained much traction. The small number of families (1%?) who opt out should expect headaches and hard work as local opt-out pioneers.

Wow. Opt outs in NY are changing the obsession with testing? Great!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scattering testing times at short notice is a calculated strategy to deter from parents from opting out/cutting into the tester's bottom line. It's used by school systems to raise hurdles to civil disobedience. Some DC schools will let students come to school, be marked present, stay in the building supervised by an adult caregiver registered with the school, then return to class once testing has been completed that day (no unexcused absence incurred). Other schools expect parents opting out to keep students home on testing days, but not on make-up test days (without trying to push a make-up test on your kid). I don't know how Deal handles opt outs, but our new ES principal has been pretty reasonable this year (former head wasn't).

As was pointed out on the other thread, your child's teachers' assessments won't be impacted if a few of his or her students don't take the PARCC - the Dept. of Ed, school systems and schools do not strive for 100% compliance, particularly for white or Asian high SES students. Moreover, hardly anybody in DC has opted out since the DC-CAS was introduced in the late 90s. If you're going to opt out this year, you don't have to worry about teachers assessments. Your kid's PARCC won't be graded (because your kid will have no PARCC).

If you want to try to help individual teachers as you opt out, you can send your principal and admins up the DCPS chain a a signed letter, cc'd to the teacher, offering a family recommendation for the instructor. The letter mentions that you are opting out of the PARCC although you very much appreciate the teacher's excellent work. We do this every year.

You rock, PP. We're quietly opting out of PARCC at our EotP DCPS. Child has perfect attendance record this year and admins are working with us, though doing some arm twisting. We've made a plan with admins to remove our child from school during the testing blocks, returning her to class the minute testing is done.

We refuse to be forced to increase profits for Pearsons Education Ltd. shareholders and executives as public school parents via 10 hours of annual PARCC testing. When our child was tested to qualify for a Johns Hopkins CTY summer program, Hopkins only needed one hour or testing to determine that she is gifted. Pearsons, and 800 million dollar corporation, is able to rake in profits from public school systems because the overwhelmingly majority of parents cooperate. Most couldn't handle the logistics of opting out, as you point out. We consider forcing us to increase profits for a major corporation to be a form of tyranny, however mild.

We don't care if DCPS winds up dragging us to social workers and before judges - we won't support this sort of privitization of our public schools. We want our kid to learn to stand up for our deeply held family values. We've developed our own little curriculum for the 10 PARCC hours - the history of civil disobedience in America.

I sincerely hope that you will similarly eschew test scores and STAR ratings when choosing a middle and high school. Will you similarly opt out of APs, SATs and ACT when it comes time to apply for college? These are just enriching the College Board and the ACT organization.

At least we'll be able to exercise choice on the standardized test taking front down the tack. We'll leave it to the kid to decide which tests to take as a teen, including International Baccalaureate exams graded by the non-profit IB organization. The child can always apply to test optional colleges if s/he wishes. There are many more of them with every passing year.

So when the stakes benefit your kid - civil disobedience doesn't apply. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a pain.

Civil disobedience is not supposed to be easy, or free of repercussions.

There is no law stating that students have to take the test. The law is that the school has to administer it.

[Anonymous]

DCPS teacher here. We were given documentation that said the policy is to not allow opt outs. So we aren’t this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teacher here. We were given documentation that said the policy is to not allow opt outs. So we aren’t this year.

It has been that way for a few years, right?

Some states have formalized and documented opt-out procedures. DC has not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teacher here. We were given documentation that said the policy is to not allow opt outs. So we aren’t this year.

What level are you talking about? Grades 3-5? Middle school? 10th grade PARCC?

Teacher, what does this mean? What mechanism does a school have to prevent parents from opting out? How can you, as teachers, prevent parents from finding out when testing will be done and removing their child from school during those blocks of time, returning the kid to class once testing has ended on a particular school day?

You can mark the kid absent for the hours of testing, but what good will that do? You're hoping to drag the family opting out before a social worker, a judge or both? If the child has an excellent attendance record, what tool does DCPS or OSSE have to enforce compliance? They can't retain the kid in their grade for failing to take the test under the law, and judge is really unlikely to nail a family for criminal child neglect if about the only school the kid has missed all year was to opt out of the PARCC.

Unless more than 5% of the students in a particular school opt out, the school's scores don't suffer. To my knowledge school in DC has had anywhere near 5% of students opt out, so why bother hassling parents who opt out?

Sounds like we're talking about idle threats. Our admins are working with us on opting out - they either didn't get the memo, or are disregarding it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teacher here. We were given documentation that said the policy is to not allow opt outs. So we aren’t this year.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fair point.

The first group of parents who opted out on NCLB mandated tests, at a MS in Scarsdale NY, faced many barriers. Flash forward 15 years and opting-out has become so commonplace in the State of NY, the national opt-out epicenter (where 20% of students refuse to take state standardized tests), that the test has been re-designed to induce parents to opt-in. This year, results in NY are not linked to teachers evaluations for the first time, and there are no longer testing time limits.

Here in DC, the opt-out movement hasn't gained much traction. The small number of families (1%?) who opt out should expect headaches and hard work as local opt-out pioneers.

Wow. Opt outs in NY are changing the obsession with testing? Great!!

This is funny to me because for generations, NY has required passing scores on a suite of standardized tests in different subjects (the Regents' exams) in order to graduate from high school. There's no opting out, unless you have severe special needs. They don't even allow the "local diploma" any more for people who can't pass all the Regents.

[Anonymous]

I’m just surprised parents who want to opt out haven’t started telling their kids to intentionally get all the questions wrong if they’re forced to take the test.

Sounds like admins and teachers would be champing at the bit to get the kids out of school rather than bring down test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scattering testing times at short notice is a calculated strategy to deter from parents from opting out/cutting into the tester's bottom line. It's used by school systems to raise hurdles to civil disobedience. Some DC schools will let students come to school, be marked present, stay in the building supervised by an adult caregiver registered with the school, then return to class once testing has been completed that day (no unexcused absence incurred). Other schools expect parents opting out to keep students home on testing days, but not on make-up test days (without trying to push a make-up test on your kid). I don't know how Deal handles opt outs, but our new ES principal has been pretty reasonable this year (former head wasn't).

As was pointed out on the other thread, your child's teachers' assessments won't be impacted if a few of his or her students don't take the PARCC - the Dept. of Ed, school systems and schools do not strive for 100% compliance, particularly for white or Asian high SES students. Moreover, hardly anybody in DC has opted out since the DC-CAS was introduced in the late 90s. If you're going to opt out this year, you don't have to worry about teachers assessments. Your kid's PARCC won't be graded (because your kid will have no PARCC).

If you want to try to help individual teachers as you opt out, you can send your principal and admins up the DCPS chain a a signed letter, cc'd to the teacher, offering a family recommendation for the instructor. The letter mentions that you are opting out of the PARCC although you very much appreciate the teacher's excellent work. We do this every year.

You rock, PP. We're quietly opting out of PARCC at our EotP DCPS. Child has perfect attendance record this year and admins are working with us, though doing some arm twisting. We've made a plan with admins to remove our child from school during the testing blocks, returning her to class the minute testing is done.

We refuse to be forced to increase profits for Pearsons Education Ltd. shareholders and executives as public school parents via 10 hours of annual PARCC testing. When our child was tested to qualify for a Johns Hopkins CTY summer program, Hopkins only needed one hour or testing to determine that she is gifted. Pearsons, and 800 million dollar corporation, is able to rake in profits from public school systems because the overwhelmingly majority of parents cooperate. Most couldn't handle the logistics of opting out, as you point out. We consider forcing us to increase profits for a major corporation to be a form of tyranny, however mild.

We don't care if DCPS winds up dragging us to social workers and before judges - we won't support this sort of privitization of our public schools. We want our kid to learn to stand up for our deeply held family values. We've developed our own little curriculum for the 10 PARCC hours - the history of civil disobedience in America.

I sincerely hope that you will similarly eschew test scores and STAR ratings when choosing a middle and high school. Will you similarly opt out of APs, SATs and ACT when it comes time to apply for college? These are just enriching the College Board and the ACT organization.

At least we'll be able to exercise choice on the standardized test taking front down the tack. We'll leave it to the kid to decide which tests to take as a teen, including International Baccalaureate exams graded by the non-profit IB organization. The child can always apply to test optional colleges if s/he wishes. There are many more of them with every passing year.

So when the stakes benefit your kid - civil disobedience doesn't apply. Got it.

If you see value in PARCC testing, and want your child to participate, terrific, go for it. What we see is a form of aggressive bullying whose primary purpose is to enrich Pearson Education Ltd. executives and shareholders, an infringement of the liberty of DC public school families (though hardly any will mind). If the test were created and implemented by a governmental or non-profit entity, we would cooperate.

I'm going to hope that the standardized tests our children will take in high school will fit the bill--e.g. IB Diploma examinations given by a non-profit--but they are a decade off. We decide when civil disobedience is in order in our lives, not other parents, school system teachers, administrators or leaders. If we are punished in a court of law for our decision, so be it, we will explain our objections to judges, and blog about our experiences to encourage other DC public school parents to challenge. We would strongly prefer to opt out under the radar, without being hassled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m just surprised parents who want to opt out haven’t started telling their kids to intentionally get all the questions wrong if they’re forced to take the test.

Sounds like admins and teachers would be champing at the bit to get the kids out of school rather than bring down test scores.

Admins know that very few 3rd graders could handle such an assignment (they'd be under pressure to try their best, and would) and Pearson Education will still profit from a test a kid bombs. Not an acceptable solution.