Reply to SOL opt-out

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There as been some discussion on these forums, but let's recap what has been said...

1) There's no actual movement to do this. You can choose to do it, but you will be tagged as one of "those" parents. [/quote]

Not true. The impulse to opt out now has a level of organization behind it: http://www.novaoptout.com/ 
Is the movement in this area as big as it is in NYC? No, but it wasn't that long ago that NYC didn't have many parents opting out, either.

[quote]2) Opting out of the test does not equal opting out of the prep.[/quote]

True, but when you write to say that you are opting out, you can also request that your child be given something else to do or be allowed to read quietly.

[quote]3) This can hurt gifted and talented identification/appeals and math placement since its one less data point and those decisions are driven largely by data points. This is especially true for kids heading into middle school, but also in terms of math groupings in ES.[/quote]

The SOLs are not the only, or even the main, source of data for student evaluation. In Arlington, at least, any parent can ask that their child be assessed for gifted identification and can parent-place for middle school math.

[quote]4) Getting kids accustomed to taking these tests will help them later when they really mean something.[/quote]

Kids take tons of standardized tests even without the SOLs. If your kid tests well, the practice s/he gets on the SOLs is unnecessary. Maybe it's helpful for kids who don't; I know parents whose kids get more wound up the more tests they take, and the parents are hoping that time and maturity will do what endless testing does not. In any case, the tests that "mean something" don't happen, at the earliest, until 7th grade, when kids taking algebra need to pass the SOL to get high school credit.

[quote]5) They don't really take that many tests. It's under 3 a year across all the grades.[/quote]

When you add in test prep and standardized tests that aren't the SOLs, a lot more time is getting wasted on filling bubbles than three days a year.
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