DD12 had to take the new common core exam for our state (called Smarter Balanced, which makes me think of a fake butter product). She'd been doing homeschool brick and mortar classes but then joined an online charter in the latter half of the year. The teacher made an impassioned plea for taking the test so as to avoid penalizing the school. DD won't be attending next year (she gave it a good try, but online is just too isolating for her) but we appreciate what the school offers, so she agreed to take it.

The teacher made it clear that they didn't expect anyone to pass, that it was testing the test more than the students, that the students would not have had a chance to learn the new material to go with the test... and, that she'd sat through the test with a student who required accommodation and many of the questions, particularly in math, didn't make any sense to her either... but please try your best.

I find this highly ethically questionable, but the affront to logic for DD was just too much. "So I'm supposed to try my best, even thought it doesn't count and they don't expect me to do well and a lot of the questions won't make sense?"

So we picked her up:
"How was the test?"
"OK, some of the math questions were really confusing... also, I was supposed to write a fiction story for language arts, but I didn't want to so I wrote a letter to the district telling them how much they suck instead."
"Er... well, I hope you used correct punctuation and grammar."

One completely unexpected and unintended side effect from homeschooling is that DD is completely over the bureaucracy and politics of public schooling. She's just not buying what they're selling.