"Since I found out two years ago how much experimental testing was happening, I’ve opted him out of dozens of tests. He has skipped the CPS Learning First Benchmark Assessments, the Scantron Performance Series tests, and the pilot Common Core. CPS administered each of these standardized tests in several subjects, several times a year. But there are no good reasons for this excessive testing."
No good reasons indeed and no good reason for parents to get the runaround, be threatened, intimidated, punished, or misinformed, a disturbing and familiar trend nationwide as parents attempt to exercise their parental rights.
Chicago parent,
Sharon Schmidt, chronicles how much effort it took to once again this year to exercise those rights and opt out her son of standardized testing. The Schmidt family has been exercising their rights in accordance to the law and provides the requisite information so that other parents have access to the facts. The lack of clear policy guidelines leads to unnecessary confusion. No parent should have to work so hard and write so many emails to clarify. This year, their son will not take the tests, but the school requires that he be kept at home on the testing days and be marked absent versus previous years when he stayed in school and did independent reading.
In a U.S. Supreme Court determination, Troxel v. Granville, the justices relied on the 14th Amendment:
(a) The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause has a substantive component that “provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720, including parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children, see, e.g., Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651. Pp. 5—8.
You can join the discussion about opting out in your state in two ways by joining the Opt Out group on Facebook. Here's how:
1) Type in the search: Opt out of State Standardized Tests - Your State i.e. Opt Out of State Standardized Tests - Ohio
2) Go to the page url: https://www.facebook.com/groups/OptOutYourState i.e. https://www.facebook.com/groups/OptOutOhio
You can find and additional information pertaining to your state at http://optoutofstandardizedtests.wikispaces.com.
