Saving your child from the experience of taking harmful high stakes tests, and promoting the importance of classroom instruction by a certified, quality teacher are critical first steps towards ridding our state of this horrible and costly practice. It will send a clear message to your child’s school, school district, Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction(OSPI), and the state legislature that you have had enough with all the mandates being placed on your child, your child’s teacher, and your child’s school.
Refuse.
Opt Out.
It is costing millions and millions of dollars of limited tax payer dollars to continue the use of invalid and unreliable testing instruments. This money should be going directly to the classrooms and used for instructional purposes and learning experiences.
Consider your child’s test may be scored by someone hired off of Craig’s List at $11.20 an hour. They are not educators, yet they read your child’s responses, and assign a score.
Consider the problems given in the test itself. View the kinds of questions your child faces in the report entitled, “The Smarter Balanced Common Core Mathematics Test is Fatally Flawed and Should Not Be Used“. From there you can download the full report. The items are quite confusing and worth exploring.
Consider the latest research :
- Critical Questions about Computerized Assessments and Smarter Balanced Test Scores
- Scientists Raise Concerns about Health Risks with EdTech. How Will The U.S. Department of Education Respond?
Consider the hours teachers are spending test prepping. It is not their fault. They have to. The platform used on the computer requires your child to deal with confusing interfaces. Therefore, the teacher, in all fairness, needs to expose your child to the ins and outs of utilizing all the controls and understanding how to interact with all the tabs.
Consider how 8, 9, and 10 year olds are sitting in front of computer screens from 9:00 a.m. until the bell rings at 3:00.
Yes.
Many children take this long to complete one section of the test. And… there are four total sections to complete. See: “Description of The SBAC… This Is What Children Face.“
The exhaustion experienced by these children is incomprehensible. College aged student’s finals don’t take this long. Yet our youngest learners are expected to perform for hours at a time. Can you say developmentally inappropriate?
D E V E L O P M E N T A L L Y I N A P P R O P R I A T E.
Consider the size of their hands. Many tiny hands do not span the keyboard. Yet they are asked to write full paragraphs into a window with a Microsoft Word Toolbar above. See how “Using Computers Widens The Achievement Gap in Writing“. This means teachers need to devote more instructional hours and their only choice is to instruct them in programs like Microsoft Word and using typing programs. How long did it take you to learn to type?
Ask yourself… is this the most critical learning necessary for an 8, 9, 10 year old?
- Can they read? Do they love to read?
- Are they curious? Do they want time to explore their world in the classroom?
- How are they progressing in math concepts and skills?
- Is there time for your child to be exploring social studies and science?
- What do you value most for your child in their classroom with their teacher?
- Do you desire to see evidence of their classroom work?
- Do you like to see a story they wrote on their own and made up from their imagination?
Consider the narrow focus of the test. (Math and Reading)
Consider your child’s teacher is not allowed to look at the test items. (Either are you).
Consider the test scores don’t come back until August or September of the following school year. What benefit do they have to the teacher then? She has a whole new class of children with different needs than the class before. The new teacher can look at the scores, but she is now expected to teach the new grade level standards.
Consider the exhaustion, stress, and tears teachers see in their student’s eyes.
Consider the morality and ethics of withholding a child’s ability to graduate based on this test. Thirteen years of their education, passing classes, and solid report cards boil down to this one test. (The Washington State Senate just passed this requirement with a vote of 27-20, and it is now on to the House. Stay Tuned.)
Consider whose money is backing these policies.
Consider which Legislators are “bought” and voting for these mandates.
O P T O U T.
R E F U S E.
Send a clear message to Olympia.
Send a clear message to Washington D.C.
This. Is. Not. Okay.
Passionately Submitted,
RAZ ON FIRE
IGNITE! ... Fire is Catching 
Thank you for bringing so many specific points to light — like directly telling those who might listen that their children’s tests could be graded by $11-an-hour hires. In our state the radio commercials soliciting these “test-graders” make a point of suggesting that the work can all be done in “casual attire,” and my immediate gut reaction is to think: OMG they are hiring stoners to evaluate our children…
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