Reply to SOL opt-out

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[quote=Anonymous]Opt out is not just about the tests.  It's a kind of peaceful resistance that is meant to undermine the validity of test results, with the hope that once test results are so clearly invalid that they can't be used to judge teachers and schools, testing mandates will be relaxed and we can get rid of the test-prep heavy curriculum.

I was a teacher, and I'm not lying when I say that all we did all year was test prep.  Sure, it's the curriculum.  But if the curriculum says the student will identify the main idea, and we use all kinds of high quality texts to talk about and analyze main ideas, and they can't identify the main idea in a poorly written SOL passage with a confusingly stated question, then we don't pass.  So all year we read test passages and answer test questions instead of the high quality activities that we should be doing.  That's what education has turned into.  And we pressure kids into working harder and doing more sooner, until they are nearly at their breaking points, because that's what we have to do to pass.

Opting out is a way of ending this insanity.  No one is listening to teachers, so it's up to parents to put an end to it by simply not participating.

That's why you should opt out.  Not because Larla doesn't want to take a test.

Also, for the poster who said it's only 3 tests, not so.  There are three SOL tests, plus a whole bunch of other tests, plus two practice SOL tests during the other parts of the year (so that's 9 tests total, just for SOL's).  If you're in ESOL there are yet more tests, and there are reading tests and writing tests and other math tests, and it never ends.  And specialists aren't available to teach for the entire last two months of the year in my school because we are pulled to proctor tests.  The library and computer lab are closed for testing for over a month.  And the list goes on.[/quote]

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