Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy opting out of standardized tests

DS8 attends public school part time. He does no academics there. They have recently notified us that he is supposed to take this year's PARCC. We think this is a silly idea, as he is really not educated there (aside from the fact that we have many problems with PARCC and the information that will used from DS's results).

Has anyone here opted out of standardized testing? If you did, was it a hassle? Did you write a letter? Any input is appreciated!

Some websites with sample letters include:
United Opt Out: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform
Fair Test: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing

You might need to check the rules in your area to see how much of a big deal it is to refuse.

We homeschool and so we don't have to bother with these tests. Basically these tests would just be a waste of time because they wouldn't give us any useful information.

VERY tempted to opt DD out of the PARCC this year. The 11 hours of testing sounds like a complete waste of time. I know the school will really want her to take it. I have zero concern that DD is at (above) grade-level standards. Just how many tests does a child need to prove it? Do they really need that many hours of testing - ever? PARCC - and all of its prep - has become a ginormous distraction to otherwise joyful learning in our school this year.

Pm sent somewhere on earth

My state did a lot of chest bashing and teeth gnashing over Common Core that, once you peeled back the layers of bad terminology and silly posturing, turned out to be based on some reasonable objections regarding implementation, rather than the standards themselves, and one of those objections was PARCC. The state has continued with adoption of CCSS, but PARCC has been postponed indefinitely.

On the other hand, when we were homeschooling our DD9, we were under no obligation to take state assessments, but we opted in for the state test, which she could still take at the public school for free, and we paid for the SB10 as well. They made for highly valuable data points.

We had an interesting experience with our state standardized test that I think might be worth sharing...

First of all, we homeschool, but are still supposed to take the standards tests in 3rd, 5th, 8th, etc. and submit them to our educational services district. So, in the spirit of complying with all applicable laws and rules, we did so.

DD did fine, hitting the ceiling on the verbal portion and scoring at grade level in math. The math score surprised me (she is a lot less confident in math, but is still working above grade level and doing fine).

Her feedback on the math was extremely enlightening. She indicated that the test was really frustrating because she didn't understand some of the terminology used and didn't understand what some of the questions were asking. Or she said she the problem made sense but none of the answers seemed to align with the problem in any way. From the examples she remembered right after the test, I agreed. Her also HG/PG friend told her how they spent time in her accelerated school doing "kinds of problems" learning specifically for the test and far below the level they were actually working at. That is the teachers focused on "these are the kids of problems you will see on the test" exercises to help these kids (who again, were advanced in math) be more comfortable with how the testing experience would go.

It seems logical that the lack of this type of targeted instruction coupled with her lower level of confidence in math overall may have given her an artificially low score. This did nothing to improve her confidence by the way.

As a coda, when I attempted to submit her official scores to the district, they refused to accept them because they lost the earlier paperwork and don't actually communicate with any of the schools DD previously attended. That will certainly inform our decision making in the future.

We live in the same state as Ivy, and mandatory state testing was one of the things that kept us with our cyberschool. Basically, we'd have HAD to test DD and pay for the privilege out of our own pockets... (truly not kidding)

and she wouldn't have been eligible for accommodations in her testing environment... meaning that her safety would have been seriously at risk while we did our level best to comply with state law.

No thanks.

Exemptions here are pretty unusual. In other places, it's not that difficult to accomplish legal compliance without jumping through a more-or-less useless hoop.

This is true, but I also understand that enforcement is lax. ;-)

I think our primary takeaway was that standardized testing can be traumatic and harmful, even to a gifted child, and especially without the specific test prep that schools do.

We live in a state that has virtually no homeschooling requirements. So, compliance is not an issue. They want DS's score to help the school. DS is not going to sit for 8+ hours for PARCC to help the school out. (And having just looked at the PARCC sample test, I don't blame him.) He will be doing MAP testing, which I consider to actually be valuable.

We sent in our refusal letter and haven't heard back.