Opt-Out 2015 - Part the Second

Well, we knew it was bound to happen: the school is refusing our refusal. LOL

Hi Mr. and Mrs. Crunchy,

As with state-mandated tests, all students enrolled in Maryland Public Schools are required to be administered the PARCC assessment this year. Monkey will be taking the PARCC Mathematics and ELA assessments as is required of all students across the state in tested grades and subjects. Given that we are legally bound to administer the assessment to all of our students, we cannot accommodate your request for her to not take the assessment. Regarding Monkey's assessment last year, she is referring to a make-up session. Monkey was absent from the first session of her MSA test administration, and we assessed her during a make-up session as was required of us by the state of Maryland. This make-up process is the same used for any and all students who are absent during testing sessions, and this same process is in place for this year.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

*sigh*

Next step: Our refusal of their refusal of our refusal:

Dear Mr. Principal:

We are aware that M**** School intends to administer the PARCC test, that Monkey will be given the test. However, that does not mean that Monkey will actually take the test. That is the distinction.

This is not a request for M**** to not administer that test, or to opt out; it is simply to inform M**** that Monkey won't be taking the test. Short of someone putting her hands on the actual keyboard or trackpad, she cannot be forced to take the test - and non-testing students should not, according to the PARCC manual, be in the room with testing students. We are informing M**** of our family's intention and decision in advance so that appropriate arrangements can be made. We are happy to send work with her, or to suggest alternate activities, if that is helpful; we know the school will be busy during the testing windows.

As to the makeup session last year, she was in fact absent for the third morning session of the MSA, with makeups scheduled (according to a testing calendar I'd seen) not until the next week; if the makeup schedule had been changed due to the snow days last March, the courtesy of at least a phone call would have been appreciated, but - water under the bridge and all that.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely
The Crunchies

From the PARCC manual:

http://avocet.pearson.com/PARCC/Home#7053

Opt Out 2015 - Part the First (And Hopefully the Last!)

And so it begins....The start of our 2015 Standardized Testing Refusal. If you've been following along long enough, you know that last year we refused the MSA (Maryland's predecessor to the PARCC, and that while our older child's middle school was able to work with us and ultimately honored our wishes, our younger child's elementary school did no such thing; the younger was given the test with her class and took 2 segments of it out of sheer boredom, and when we kept her home for the third morning out of four, they took her out of class that afternoon and tested her, alone except for a single staff member.

So without further ado, here's this year's letter to the same school. There's a different testing coordinator at the school this year, and a different administration in the school system, and this time we have access to some of the PARCC manual and procedures in advance, so it will be interesting to see how things play out this year. I've already had some folks ask on Facebook if they may use our wording as is or adapted; by all means, be our guest. :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Which Of These Standards Is Bad?"

I've gone on record as not being a fan of Common Core, particularly the K-3 standards. Bookworm, the elder, was 2 cohorts ahead of our school district's Common Core rollout, while Monkey was the second cohort to get the shiny new Common Core-aligned Curriculum 2.0. While my kids have very different personalities, I actually expected things to go more smoothly for my younger child, whose capacity for perseverance was pretty high going into school, and whose natural inclination toward math and science seemed a perfect fit for the STEM emphasis that accompanies current US Public education approaches.

Hah. Not so much. Beginning in second grade (mostly toward the end) and for almost ALL of last year, there were increasing tears, hostility, argumentative behavior even out of school, tears, increased fidgeting, even the appearance of a vocal tic, and have I mentioned the tears? This from a kid whose second-grade teacher told me that she remembered her for her smile. And as a frequent substitute in that school and another school (where I saw Kindergarteners weekly), I have seen more than my fair share of Kindergarteners acting out in ways and to degrees that I didn't see when I left (I thought temporarily) teaching 12 years previously. I've heard from parents that I'm hardly alone in my concerns for my kid's emotional well-being; I've heard teachers talking to each other before and after school and in the lunchroom and being frank with each other about their concerns that this is too much too soon; I've seen the unguarded shell-shocked halfway-to-burned-out faces of K-3 teachers who didn't know I noticed, who thought they were hiding it from their classes and school volunteers (I'm ADD; I notice EVERYTHING except what I'm supposed to. LOL).

The first question that most pro-Common Core cheerleaders tend to ask is, "Have you read the standards?" My answer is "Yes, I have, actually." They're tedious reading; I have only gotten up through middle school as that's where my elder is at the moment, and I'm not thrilled about the K-3 standards. (For anyone who wants to see how innocuous they look, separated out, in writing - which as anyone who has spent ANY time in a classroom knows is not the same things as "in practice" - here is a link to the Kindergarten standards.) The next usual big red flag question/demand is, "Show me which of these standards is not developmentally appropriate for Kindergarten," often phrased as "Which of these things can't a normal 5YO do?"

*sigh*