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][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.

[b]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.[/b] 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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OP again. To each her own, no paternalism needed.  I've reviewed models of the 3rd grade exam on-line and decided that I don't want my child to take it.  I strongly prefer the SCAT for her (mainly because it does the job in an hour, and leads to access to CTY camps). I don't want to protest anything, I just don't want my super curious and creative, bilingual and biliterate kid anywhere near the PARCC.  I fail to see value in bullying parents and educators who wish to opt out for whatever reasons (if 95% of the students in your school don't submit to this particular test, you'll pay!).  What, exactly, are we "ruining" by marching to our own drummers in small numbers?  Apparently, hardly anybody in DC opts out.  By contrast, in NY, epicenter of the opt-out movement, 20% of families walked away in 2016.

If the exam is as well-crafted as you claim, why aren't private schools serving the rich beating down the door to gain access?  [/quote]

Private schools use the erb which compares them to other independents.  You don't sound cut out for public education given your insistence on the curriculum matching your personalized preferences.  Maybe home school as even privates don't dictate to any one parents desires.[/quote]
Every taxpayer who wants public education is cut out for it.  In New York state, more than 20% of families "insisted" on opting out last year.  More than 10% opted out in NJ, South Carolina and Wisconsin.  The opt out movement is gaining strength nationwide for good reason.  State standardized tests are not well designed or used.  If wanting well designed and useful tests for my tax dollar, or none, constitutes a personalized preference, guilty as charged.  As things stand, teachers don't see PARCC questions or answers on Common Core based tests, and don't get the scores until kids have already advanced to the next grade, making it impossible for them to use the tests to intervene to help struggling students.  This wasn't the case with the IOWA tests and others used in my generation.

It's a bad system that parents should challenge as they see fit, or live with it, no judgment.  [/quote]

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