Hurray! It's great to see the passionate discussion about Opt Out. Caution: there is a lot of misinformation about Opt Out, including misinformation from some principals, teachers and parents, esp, if they have not encountered Opt Out.

1. SOLs are not to be used from grade promotion. If you get any pushback from a principal, ask for the policy in writing. This is advice from United Opt Out organization.

2. 3rd - 8th grade is straight forward Opt Out. The only courses to consider are middle school courses that earn high school credits, ex. Algebra, Geometry and in some cases, World Studies. 8th grade English is not a high school credit class. HS students have to take the 11th grade English SOL.

3. Students who Opt Out receive a zero. It means nothing. It is not calculated in the grade. It should not be used for grade promotion, per the VA state regulations.

4. It will not effect funding. The opt out score notes parent Opt Out.

5. It may effect accreditation. But, the VA General assembly passed a bill that starting in July 2017 - 95% of students are required to use the test for ratings. So, if the Opt Out numbers are higher.... Not much they can do about it.... Meanwhile the VA DOE is convening again to reduce further the number of SOLs. Everyone knows kids are over tested.

6. By Opting Out, parents are sending the message to Richmond, that you support TEACHING not testing. You value creative education and using a variety of assessments. You want to protect your child, your child's teacher and your school from the high anxiety of the testing culture.

7. Your kid gets to do some learning or reading, when other students are testing. That's what my kids did!

8. If parents continue to allow their children to be tested, NOTHING will change. Schools will continue to be held to meaningless tests that have narrowed the cirriculums and wasted millions. The tests cost VA tax payers between $37 - $46 million per year.

9. The Opt Out movement is a grassroots movement led by parents and educators, who are saying No More Testing! 2015 NY Opt Outs were 200,000+ and 2016 Opt Outs have reached the same level. Nationwide Opt Outs are 600,000.

Want to learn more? Join us - NOVA Opt Out - 2nd meeting - April 24, 6pm - Herndon - at 2531 John Milton Dr. For more information - https://www.facebook.com/NOVAOptOut/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always get a bit confused when I hear people complaining about the SOLs, is the concern the amount of class time spent on prep or the actual amount of time students spend testing? I understand the first concern, but not the second. Students really spend very little time on the actual tests, they are spread out and most finish them in an hour.

Not in middle school. My algebra students regularly take 3-4 hours. (Still trivial in my opinion, but there's no way you can do 50-60 questions in 60 minutes).

You can if you don't care.

Anonymous wrote:I always get a bit confused when I hear people complaining about the SOLs, is the concern the amount of class time spent on prep or the actual amount of time students spend testing? I understand the first concern, but not the second. Students really spend very little time on the actual tests, they are spread out and most finish them in an hour.

Not in middle school. My algebra students regularly take 3-4 hours. (Still trivial in my opinion, but there's no way you can do 50-60 questions in 60 minutes).

I always get a bit confused when I hear people complaining about the SOLs, is the concern the amount of class time spent on prep or the actual amount of time students spend testing? I understand the first concern, but not the second. Students really spend very little time on the actual tests, they are spread out and most finish them in an hour.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All kids who failed an SOL were placed together the next year. That would be your kid too. At our elementary school. Why have your kid risk the consequences? So you can feel can good about YOU taking a stand.

I don't believe that. This is called tracking, and I guarantee it doesn't happen in FCPS, at least not in elementary school. Unlikely any of the other school districts are doing that either. I am a teacher, and I know how classes are composed, and sol scores aren't even available when classes are made, much less taken into account.

Principal discretion

It's not tracking, it's called cluster grouping and yes I've seen it done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

2) Opting out of the test does not equal opting out of the prep.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I'm an elementary school teacher and this really isn't true. Kids in K-3 get PALS testing (but not SOLs before 3rd) In 3rd, they get the COGAT and Naglieri, but there is really no other standardized testing other than the SOLs done in elementary school.

I don't know what elementary school you are in, but I am in FCPS and cogat and naglieri are given in 1st and 2nd, and in 3rd kids get 3-4 sol's plus additional esol tests if they are in esol. Depending on the school they also get various county or school reading, writing and math assesments. K-2 gets DRA and a math assessment, and sometimes PALS or ECAP, a writing assessment, sometimes a spelling assessment, and additional tests if they are in esol. The testing burden for the kids is nominal in k-2 because they don't sit and bubble all day like in 3rd, but it's not nominal for the teacher, who has to stress all year about those tests and who spends a lot of time sitting in the hallway testing kids instead of teaching.

ESOL testing and end of unit tests are not considered standardized testing. Schools have always given tests and quizzes.

Anonymous wrote:I'm opting my 3rd grader out this year. He's doing well academically and the SOL scores are meaningless at 3rd grade. Those tests are a ruining our schools... And one of the few things we know for certain is that standardized tests in no way whatsoever improve student learning or performance.

I hope all of you who are opting out are writing your legislators.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are there 5 SOLs in 8th grade? That is crazy. I think 3 should be the max.

Two are taken in February.

1, the writing, is taken late February-early March. 4 are in May/early June (science 6-8, civics, reading, math)

I'm opting my 3rd grader out this year. He's doing well academically and the SOL scores are meaningless at 3rd grade. Those tests are a ruining our schools... And one of the few things we know for certain is that standardized tests in no way whatsoever improve student learning or performance.

Anonymous wrote:Why are there 5 SOLs in 8th grade? That is crazy. I think 3 should be the max.

Two are taken in February.

Anonymous wrote:
All kids who failed an SOL were placed together the next year. That would be your kid too. At our elementary school. Why have your kid risk the consequences? So you can feel can good about YOU taking a stand.


I don't believe that. This is called tracking, and I guarantee it doesn't happen in FCPS, at least not in elementary school. Unlikely any of the other school districts are doing that either. I am a teacher, and I know how classes are composed, and sol scores aren't even available when classes are made, much less taken into account.

It sure DID HAPPEN in FCPS. No way you can know what happens at all schools

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SOL tests are in a couple of weeks and there has still been no test prep other than the quarter end tests.

Do you even know what test prep looks like? Are you in the classroom every day? Any teacher not preparing all year for SOL's is some form or another is going to be in big trouble. You just don't really understand what goes on in a classroom and how the curriculum is altered and pared down to keep the focus on what's on the test and nothing else. OR there really has been no test prep because you are in a high-income school and no one has to worry about test scores. If so, then lucky you, but anyone with even a moderate percentage of FARM in the school is getting prepped to death.

Two teacher household here. Neither of us feel as though we "alter" or "pare down to keep the focus on what's on the test and nothing else". We do teach the Program of Studies, which includes the standards, so in that sense we are teaching the SOLs, but not "to the SOL" tests.

I just looked at the profiles and my school has a FARM rate of about 6%. So maybe that does have something to do with it.

Anonymous wrote:Why are there 5 SOLs in 8th grade? That is crazy. I think 3 should be the max.

Well at some point I'd like there to be a writing test. I wish the 5th grade would have stayed. They're always interested in dropping the writing ones because those take longer to grade. Alternate the science and social studies if it's a problem. I took the IOWAs every year and it had a slew of different subjects. There were 6-8 subjects that kids were tested on as they got older. Maybe these tests are just too longer per subject and each subject needs to be scaled back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SOL tests are in a couple of weeks and there has still been no test prep other than the quarter end tests.

Do you even know what test prep looks like? Are you in the classroom every day? Any teacher not preparing all year for SOL's is some form or another is going to be in big trouble. You just don't really understand what goes on in a classroom and how the curriculum is altered and pared down to keep the focus on what's on the test and nothing else. OR there really has been no test prep because you are in a high-income school and no one has to worry about test scores. If so, then lucky you, but anyone with even a moderate percentage of FARM in the school is getting prepped to death.

We are in a high income school and no one talks about these tests at all. No one cares including the teachers.

Why are there 5 SOLs in 8th grade? That is crazy. I think 3 should be the max.