Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will you opt your child out of the SAT, which OSSE pays for every single child who takes a PSAT and SAT at state expense? What about AP exams?

OSSE doesn't pay, it's just a bureaucratic funnel (many of whom don't even live in DC). DC residents do the paying.

Same with PARCC. The point is you choose public schools, and they choose vendor partners. You can't just choose the ones you like.

You folks don't see the irony.

You won't even consider a local school for your darling snowflakes if the test scores aren't high enough, but yet you want to opt out your own children when it's time for them to take those same tests. Hmm...

Anonymous wrote:Will you opt your child out of the SAT, which OSSE pays for every single child who takes a PSAT and SAT at state expense? What about AP exams?

OSSE doesn't pay, it's just a bureaucratic funnel (many of whom don't even live in DC). DC residents do the paying.

Anonymous wrote:Will you opt your child out of the SAT, which OSSE pays for every single child who takes a PSAT and SAT at state expense? What about AP exams?

False analogy.

The SAT and PSAT and AP exams all benefit the student. The PARCC doesn't. In fact, the PARCC harms them by subtracting constructive instructional days from their education. DCPS doesn't build those wasted test days back into the school year like they do for snow days. They're just lost.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:will your kid bring up the class average or bring it down? If you'll hurt the class average, you are also hurting your child's teacher at a DCPS. At a charter, if enough parents opt out you could put the charter at risk.

I don't understand what you're saying. My SN child in a highly performing school will almost definitely hurt the class average if he takes the exam. So by your reasoning, should we opt out to help the teacher?

Nobody's telling you what you should or shouldn't do. Every family makes that decision for themselves. But it sounds like reducing the teacher's chance at a bonus shouldn't be part of your individual calculus.

Generally speaking, I think it is a good idea to get kids used to taking standardized tests. They'll be doing it for much higher stakes later on: APs and SAT

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PARRC is most ridiculous.

Why?

You're really asking? Where shall I start? Pearson makes a killing on grading the PARCC, though graders make little more than minimum wage. Pearson is notorious for writing ungrammatical questions whose answers they don't score once they're called out on typos. They used to owned by the Financial Times (where I worked), but were basically dumped for poor management. The tests correspond to what's taught in classrooms poorly. Parents don't get results for 8 or 9 months, by which time kids are in the next grade being taught by a different teacher. Scores correlate very closely to parents' income, meaning that upper middle-class kids generally score 4s and 5s (you need days of testing to figure this out as a high SES family?). Test prep is all too common, eating up time that used to be spent on class field trips and other enrichment. High stakes testing hurts teacher morale. Kids who score high aren't rewarded; kids who score low aren't held back a grade. Etc. etc. etc.

A waste of time is putting it mildly.

Anonymous wrote:will your kid bring up the class average or bring it down? If you'll hurt the class average, you are also hurting your child's teacher at a DCPS. At a charter, if enough parents opt out you could put the charter at risk.

I don't understand what you're saying. My SN child in a highly performing school will almost definitely hurt the class average if he takes the exam. So by your reasoning, should we opt out to help the teacher?

Anonymous wrote:Get over yourselves. It isn't hurting your child to take the test. There is no pressure on the child, no need to study. Not everything a child does in life will benefit himself. Welcome to the real word

It is a waste of good classroom time, and there is pressure put on the children.

There have already been a bunch of threads debating the pros and cons of taking the PARCC. No need to rehash it all here, and no need for so much criticism of those who choose differently.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on this we'll do the PARCC.

-- OP

Based on this, we won't. We strive to teach our kids to march to a different drummer, privately, not to start movements. Hence, we will meticulously track all manner of absences from 3rd grade next year, prepared to challenge if DCPS sets the attendance police on us for opting out. Civil disobedience may have costs, but they're worth paying if you're acting on contrarian principle out of deeply held beliefs.

I certainly didn't sign up to further enrich Mc-Graw Hill or Pearsons when I enrolled my child in a public school. They make hundreds of millions of dollars testing PS students learning to the Common Core. No thanks.

you're ridiculous.

Most constructive, name calling when PPs take a position you don't support.

Anonymous wrote:The PARRC is most ridiculous.

Why?

Anonymous wrote:Get over yourselves. It isn't hurting your child to take the test. There is no pressure on the child, no need to study. Not everything a child does in life will benefit himself. Welcome to the real word

The real "word" is nonsense.

The PARRC is most ridiculous.

Get over yourselves. It isn't hurting your child to take the test. There is no pressure on the child, no need to study. Not everything a child does in life will benefit himself. Welcome to the real word