

I Opted My Kids Out of Standardized Tests - wallflower
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/03/standardized_testing_i_opted_my_kids_out_the_schools_freaked_out_now_i_know.html

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beloch
I opted my children out of flossing.

The dentist couldn't understand why I would do this. I told him it was my
legal right, and a decision that my husband and I had thought through
carefully...

Yeah, yeah. Silly comparison. However, I'm trying to make the point that
testing, so long as it isn't the end-all motivation of all teaching efforts,
serves a useful purpose and, while there are other possible methods of
evaluation and feedback, testing is the backbone of most school systems at
present. As such, teachers understandably fail to understand when parents opt
their children out of tests. This might explain why those teachers and school
officials had such difficulty making logical arguments in favor of it. To
them, it was like opting those children out of flossing.

The author of this article does make the case that the school didn't argue
very convincingly in favor of the tests, but neither did she make any form of
convincing argument against the tests beyond stress. Arguably, learning that
early and thorough preparation reduces stress is a tremendously important
lesson for kids, even beyond what they're actually studying! Testing also
teaches children to remain calm under pressure, and that random chance ("Oh, I
won't study that. What are the odds it will be a question?") is a cruel
mistress.

Yes, it is your legal right to opt your children out of both taking tests and
flossing. Take a stand! Hooray for your legal rights!

~~~
jacobolus
> _testing is the backbone of most school systems at present_

Any school system for which a state standardized test is the “backbone” of
student “evaluation and feedback” is completely and utterly broken.

There may be some schools like that, but I hope to never interact with them.

Every school I’ve ever interacted with had student assignments with careful
grading, teacher-created tests relevant to the material being studied, report
cards with grades or ideally written feedback from the teacher, etc. I would
consider those the “backbone” of student assessment. State standardized tests
are mostly a waste of time and pretty unrevealing about students, in
comparison to actually looking at the students’ work.

~~~
beloch
That's not a valid generalization. I grew up in a city that was/is tops in
it's province for education. This province is consistently at/near the top of
the country, and that country's education system is consistently rated in the
top ten world-wide and always well above the U.S.. We had standardized tests
in grades 6, 9, and 12. They were weighted heavily towards our grades (50% in
grade 12) and were, hence, a pretty big deal. The grade 12 tests also serve
the same function for universities as SAT's, only on a per-subject basis. e.g.
If you apply to a University mathematics program, they might not care about
your results in social studies.

Note: A key difference between these exams and SAT's is that curricula in the
U.S. are often designed to help students pass SAT's, while the standardized
tests here are designed to test the province's curriculum.

~~~
dainla
If you're from another country, you really don't understand the problem.
Teachers time is spent teaching kids how to pass the test, not teaching kids
what they need to know to succeed in life.

It is a very broken system

------
Tehnix
Not an American, so don't know much about your school system tbh, but what is
bad about these tests?

The benefits of them (I guess), is that you can collect data on how kids are
doing around various parts of the country, and maybe look at some areas where
the kids are doing poorer than others to see if the education is lacking.

I don't see any downsides at all other than "my kids might get stressed" which
is rather silly.

edit: just to clarify, I am all for the ability to opt-out if you want, but it
seems these testings are generally disliked.

~~~
zmmmmm
> The benefits of them (I guess), is that you can collect data on how kids are
> doing around various parts of the country, and maybe look at some areas
> where the kids are doing poorer than others to see if the education is
> lacking.

The thing is - this is easily achievable by sampling. You don't need to test
_every single kid_ to figure out broad trends. The tests reveal nothing at
that level that couldn't be ascertained through other means.

> I don't see any downsides at all other than "my kids might get stressed"
> which is rather silly.

The biggest downside is that inevitably the minute such a system is introduced
nearly the entire educational program becomes bent on preparing kids for the
test. If it can't be tested, it just falls through the cracks and isn't
taught. But we all know schooling, especially in younger years, is about so
much more than being able to reproduce a small set of measurable skills.

I also think your "rather silly" comment is a bit flippant. For someone who is
not bothered by tests this might seem reasonable. But for kids that are not
ready, introducing them to high stress testing situations can scar them badly
and impair their performance for life. For a child that does not react well
(through lack of maturity) to a testing environment, it means inevitably they
will do very poorly on the test, which will feed back into their self esteem
and have a high risk of setting back their educational progress.

~~~
Tehnix
>I also think your "rather silly" comment is a bit flippant. For someone who
is not bothered by tests this might seem reasonable.

It's not like I love exams myself? This is simply something people should
learn to deal with.

>But for kids that are not ready, introducing them to high stress testing
situations can scar them badly and impair their performance for life.

If your kid gets scared for life by a test, then I'm afraid you simply haven't
prepared them for life at all. Test might be frightening, I'll grant you that,
but it's such a normal part of the education system and a lot of other things,
that it simply is something one must learn to cope with in some way or
another. There's often counseling or guidance you can get if you really have
anxiety.

>it means inevitably they will do very poorly on the test, which will feed
back into their self esteem and have a high risk of setting back their
educational progress.

Then you deal with that by helping them as I mentioned in the last sentence in
the paragraph before. It can also be an indicator that the child simply hasn't
learned what it was expected to have learned, and therefore isn't ready to
progress yet.

Kids aren't fragile little things that'll break so easily. I'll stand on my
earlier claim and would say "sparing" them of such things will do more harm to
them later on in their life than it will do them good. You can't always hold
you child in the hand, and if they never learn to deal with stressful
situations it will have a much larger impact later on in life.

------
crystalmace
Stories like this make me so glad I'm homeschooled. Even though I'm in Canada,
and homeschooling for me just means taking all of my courses online, I am
continually thankful that I am not forced to be a part of the public school
system. At least I am able to take courses that are designed to teach, and not
to prepare one for a test. Indeed, some of the courses I've taken didn't even
havtests or final exams, but instead projects that demonstrated the knowledge
and skill that you acquired through the course. I find that a much better
indication of how I did throughout the course and what areas I need to improve
on then any piece of paper that has been 'standardized'.

~~~
jonah
That's great to hear. When I was homeschooled we had to take the same
standardized tests as the public school kids. We always did extremely well but
it was a stressor for us and my mother the teacher. More recently they've
eased up on that requirement in my home state apparently.

------
chris_mahan
My answer to this is to buy lots of book for my son to read. He's 8. He can go
through a 400 pages novel in 4 days.

(wings of fire series, spirit animals, that sort of things)

When we go to the bookstore the rule is: if you want it I buy it. I don't care
if its about dragons or elephants. It's still cheaper than private school.

------
joelhooks
I proactively opted my kids out of these bullshit tests too; by never sending
them to government schools in the first place. What a total waste of 12 (of
the best) years of your life...

~~~
biafra
How much is it per month/year to send your kids to a non public school in the
US?

~~~
cwal37
Generally, it is prohibitively expensive. I come from a wealthy suburb where
the private schools are a bit worse than the public ones, so it worked out for
myself and my siblings as our parents could not have remotely afforded to send
us to private schools. So far we've all gone on to great schools and careers
after high school, so it's not always such a bad thing to be in the public
school system, despite the OP's blanket statement.

EDIT: Here's a link to some older costs:
[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_063.asp](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_063.asp)

~~~
joelhooks
My blanket statement regarding the precious waste of time children are coerced
into is not limited to government schools.

A little hyperbole! I went to school, and also have a job.

------
jcampbell1
The author is slow, and a lawyer.

While I was reading the first page, I was screaming, your kid is smart, thus
"IT MATTERS TO YOUR KID'S TEACHERS".

By the second page the author somehow figures it out after posting on Facebook
and getting tons of comments from friends that explain it to her in
excruciating detail. I would not hire this person as a lawyer ever. I have no
idea why she wrote this article.

~~~
nknighthb
Where did you come by a connection between "lawyer" and "middle school
educational policy"? If she were a lawyer for a middle school, you might have
a point, but she's not.

~~~
jcampbell1
Good laywers can read between the lines. That is their job. She did not stop
and think "Why does this principle care? Why is she making this call? What are
the motivations?"

Would not hire as a lawyer.

~~~
nknighthb
I don't typically stop and think about the motivation of administrative
drones, either. I would hope no lawyer I hired would waste time in such a
manner unless it was actually relevant to the matter I hired them for.

I, too, would not hire her as a lawyer, but that's because she isn't one
anymore. She's been an instructor and professor for more than a decade, not a
practicing attorney.

~~~
sanderjd
Remaining willfully ignorant by dismissing of activities and occupations you
have judged negatively without having any knowledge of what they entail is no
way to go through life.

~~~
nknighthb
If I stopped to investigate the motivations of every bureaucrat who tried to
discourage me from exercising my rights and outright _lied_ about their
motivations in the process, I'd really never have time for anything else.

What's worth defending here?

~~~
sanderjd
It's not for them, it's for you. Making it a point to understand those who
cross your path in life makes you a better person. And it doesn't take all
that much time, just a little empathy. It's ok to dislike things and people,
but I really hate the "I don't know anything about it, I don't _want_ to know
anything about it, and I strongly dislike it" attitude that I thought your
comment exhibited.

------
nknighthb
> _In Colorado, kids are required by law to test. The “refuse testing” option
> on the enrollment forms? It’s “being phased out” because it’s “confusing.”_

Then the option isn't confusing at all, it's quite clear. What's confusing is
this: Why was it there in the first place?

~~~
dragonwriter
It was probably there before the law was changed to make the testing
mandatory.

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InclinedPlane
The school system in America isn't getting better it's just becoming more and
more kafkaesque over time. It's amazing anyone manages to eke out a real
education out of the system as it is.

~~~
greatsuccess
Yes and you see it in full grown adults, whose only capability was ingrained
in them to conform to social norms until they got their degrees.

Once they have done this, and therefore are completely entitled, they take out
their entitlement anxieties on everyone else who was smart enough to learn
what they needed to and didnt give a shit about social conformity or status
entitlement.

Their collective anger at themselves is what creates homelessness.

------
xname
In most cases, standardized test is the only way to keep teachers and schools
accountable in a public school system. Public school system, test-free, and
accountability, you cannot have the three things at the same time.

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vacri
Surely a tenured Associate Professor of Law has a better idea of how to fight
a bad law than just throwing her hands up in the air and saying "I wish there
was more I could do that just opt out of testing"?

~~~
dragonwriter
I am sure she is aware that fighting a bad law is usually a political action,
and one of the first steps is publicizing the existence of the law in a way
which leads the audience to conclude that it is bad and should be opposed.

In fact, I think she demonstrates that pretty well.

~~~
vacri
A fair point, but it's not how she's painting herself, and she makes no
mention of what the next step is.

------
greatsuccess
The rule of thumb in social situations I use is, the minute someone pressures
you into something, its the wrong thing to do.

