Reply to Opting out of 2017 PARCC - Who has Experiencing with Opting Out? How did it work?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why wouldn't you want your kid to take the PARCC? It's a good exam and sets a high academic standard for our schools. 
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On the very, very small chance that this isn't trolling...because the tests are meaningless, invalid, and distract from learning for weeks or months at a time. They're just one of a great many examples of the privatization of public education.[/quote]

No, not a troll. Have you taken the exam? I have taken about 30 sample questions from the English and math tests. They're good! There is no way to do well on the English portion without being well read. Similarly, a student couldn't do well on the math portion without having a deep, fundamental understanding of mathematical principles. Ironically, with the PARCC, it is possible to know, for certain, whether a school is actually teaching children valuable skills that not related to just doing well on tests.

Last year's results were very telling, with supposedly good schools that showed poor results. The exam reveals how well differentiated learning is working at elementary schools. If all students do poorly, well, that's one thing. But if there is a small subset of students who perform exemplary in an otherwise low-score school, that means that when the high-scoring kids get to middle school, as a parent, I can be confident they will be just as knowledgeable / prepared as kids who went to other, overall higher scoring schools. And if we move to a different state, which also uses Common Core and PARCC, I know my kid will have learned the same things as the other kids and wouldn't be behind.

The exam is rigorous. It cannot be passed just by memorization or by being a good test taker.

As far as I can tell, the only parents against the exam are those: (a) whose children are not able to well on the exam; (b) who have not taken the time to actually review and try the exam themselves; and/or (c) who, well, are not able to recognize the value of the exam, because they do not have sufficient expertise themselves. For example, a former liberal arts major may not have the background needed to recognize the value in the math test (which is really well done). To these parents, I ask, before ruining the best thing to happen to DC schools, make sure your protest is at least informed.

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I think it just takes a lot of classroom time and attention for something that doesn't directly benefit students and doesn't allow teachers to teach as they see fit.

And it defines and prioritizes a narrow definition of what good teaching is.  Who knows what social-emotional skills third graders are learning, whether they are developing their creativity, and learning to independently pursue topics that spark their interests?

Meanwhile, did you see the threads last year about teachers who just showed movies for the rest of the yesr post-parcc?[/quote]

+100. Agree with all of this. Give school communities, and state and local governments a big say in defining and prioritizing what good teaching and learning is, and how teachers should be evaluated. If parents want to opt out of the PARCC, let them do so freely, as in Oregon, California and Colorado. Non-conformist parents can always coach their kids not to complete the test, or to purposely bomb it.  Bullying families into cooperating with testing can easily backfire, as at Wilson in 2016.  [/quote]

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