To test or not to test: Should parents be able to decide whether kids take state exams?
Should parents in Georgia decide whether their children take annual state exams?
A reader told me that her daughter was showing signs of test anxiety because her elementary school was already in the midst of prepping for the April CRCT.
So, the parent asked, “Can we legally opt-out?”
No, says the state Department of Education, which sent me this response: “Given both state and federal law require all students test, we encourage parents to discuss their concerns with their local districts. Some districts have policies above and beyond state policies.”
When I last wrote about testing concerns, a parent posted that Georgia students can get around taking the CRCT, although the subterfuge seemed extreme to me and likely to cause the child even more stress.
The parent wrote, “All that is required is that you withdraw them from school and home school them through the two-week window of testing. As long as the student had done well in all core subjects the entire year, there is no way for a school to justify holding a child back. Know your rights. If there are problems, there is an appeal board that usually consists of the parents, teacher, principal. We did opt out last year. Took child out of 8th grade for week of testing and the following week (used to retest) and then re-enrolled child after two weeks of home schooling.”
I am not sure how many kids would be comfortable formally withdrawing from school for two weeks.
But should there be a process under which students can win a reprieve from testing? Should the decision be based on student performance? Should students with exemplary grades be exempted from testing, as they often are in college classes?
FairTest has information on the growing opt-out movement.
I am pulling out a comment from this post from our resident testing expert Jerry Eads:
Most of the entries above assume that the CRCTs and EOCTs are a measure of something worthwhile. Au contraire. The tests only tell us whether a student “met” or “exceeded” totally arbitrary points on one minimum competency test that has one thing in common with the space program: low bid. The information sent back to the schools is of virtually no use to teachers or students as to what they might do better; the tests are of no use for instruction.
For too many students, the tests have driven schooling to be nothing more than trying to memorize factoids to regurgitate and then forget as quickly as possible. Learning quickly becomes drudgery instead of the joy that it should be. Effectively, students learn virtually nothing on the way to becoming citizens. Students (and teachers) learn to hate school, radically increasing the dropout rate for students and the attrition rate for teachers (particularly the good ones).
By the way, the ONLY purpose for the SAT and ACT is to predict FIRST year survival in college, nothing more. Even though they are two of the best made tests in the world, they don’t do that very well at all, and are of hardly any use to colleges in guessing whether a student will be successful.
I think it’s a great idea for parents to keep their kids away from the state minimum competency tests. Perhaps sooner rather than later the state would end this cruel enterprise that does little more than drain resources and worthwhile learning from schools.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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124 comments Add your comment
Cliff
January 28th, 2013
4:27 pm
I don’t think you should be able to opt out. But I do really question the value of CRCT and am concerned it interferes with education for most students. First of all, it’s a test the school is measured by, not your children. So it has no value for your children, yet schools spend considerable time and resources emphasizing it to demonstrate their performance. And as one commenter noted above, because the test is so early in the second semester, you feel like nothing is learned the last four weeks of school. I understand the reasoning for having CRCT and assessing schools, but it really seems inefficient to require assess every school this way, and waste so much time and energy. The truth is, as much as folks complain about the state of public education in the United States, most of us are happy with the schools our children attend and the education they receive. We have our complaints, but overall we are satisfied that they are being prepared middle school, high school, and eventually college. We don’t need our schools graded every year to see if they are meeting state wide standards; we know the people that teach there are qualified, and mostly energetic and genuinely want our children to succeed.
20/20 hindsight
January 28th, 2013
4:37 pm
Too bad none of these issues were brought up prior to Pres Bush enacting “No Child Left Behind”
Devil's Advocate
January 28th, 2013
4:39 pm
Pride and Joy,
You must have your head in the sand because all you did is twist my comments and firmly place blame anywhere but at the parents (who happen to be the subject of this article) and the students who supposedly have test anxiety. It’s obvious where you stand.
I happen to be a parent and have never witnessed any cheating related to the CRCT. Stuff happened in Atlanta, get over it. Cheating happens in just about every walk of life but that doesn’t mean everyone is guilty. By your logic, every church, police station, and business in the world is guilty of wrong doing because of the select few criminal actions we’ve heard about over time.
You need to go back and read the article above. It talks about parents (not teachers or administrators) pulling kids out of school to avoid standardized tests. That is gaming the system by the parents who would do such a thing.
As for cheating, I see parents go to great lengths to spend a lot of money on high quality “solutions” for various student projects where the child barely lifts a finger. The parents plan and implement the beautiful project and the child gets an ‘A’ but do you think the child really learned anything from “doing” the project? Nope. It’s one thing to help your child and facilitate the progress of the project, it’s another to fund and outsource it’s production as if it were something for work.
I also hear about parents constantly bothering teachers when their child doesn’t get a grade high enough for their liking instead of asking the child why he/she didn’t do better. A mistake in grading is one thing but not liking the grade and pressuring for alterations to maintain a certain average or GPA is gaming the system.
Susan
January 28th, 2013
4:40 pm
I find it encouraging that some universities, such as Furman, are making the ACT and SAT optional as they realize that one test is not a good indicator of a student’s abilities or aptitude. And not every state has standardized testing. Perhaps Georgia will one day be one of those states.
sebastian
January 28th, 2013
4:54 pm
My wife and I have had our son in a Christian school since he was in K4. They do not take standardized test. They go the grades of the school year. One year when he was in the fifth grade we allowed him to go to public school. He passed all of his classes but did not do well on the reading portion of the test. He had never taken a test like that before. They wanted to keep him in the fifth grade over again just because of the test. We put him back into a Christian school the next year and he has been doing well ever since. I am not going to say he has been making all A’s but he is doing well. Now he is in the eighth grade. My wife was never a great standardized tester but has her masters and graduated with a 3.77 GPA. So do these test real measure ones understanding of subjects taught?
Colleen
January 28th, 2013
4:59 pm
My son went to a private school from 2 years old until 12 years old because their hours allowed for the same before and after school teachers for the same cost. Our local school was a joke. He started taking timed test weekly in kindergarten. I remember thinking it was too much stress. Instead it allowed him to overcome his stress at a time where it would not affect his entire life was handled as a simple way of life. He learned quickly and developed a challenge for learning more. GA has one of the worst educational rankings in the country. We have consistently been in the bottom 5 states year after year. Why oh Why would you want to exempt your kids from a tool that allows them to prep for the stress of life? Why wouldn’t you instead teach them better preparation and coping skills? Do you really believe they will make it to college or even work without ever needing another test? Wake-up GA! We have become so engrained in protecting our kids from daily hurts that we stopped teaching them to work, face results, strive to improve, and be educated. You may not like what the test skills are reporting, but learning to handle stress of pressure early helps them to succeed later. No wonder our education levels are no longer putting us as a superpower country. We have to stop over protecting our children and teach them to live!
Ann
January 28th, 2013
5:33 pm
Preparing for rote memorization tests does not equal education or long-term learning. As testing has increased in recent decades, the number of college freshmen needing remediation courses has also increased. And, Georgia is still in the bottom five.
@ Devil’s Advocate – I agree with your comments regarding parents helping too much with projects. Any parent who does more than a little facilitation or encouragement with a project is doing their child a major disservice in life. Unfortunately, those parents get caught up in their child’s “success” being some sort of status symbol for the parent. And, one day, this will come back to haunt them, in one way or the other.
Pride and Joy
January 28th, 2013
5:41 pm
Devil’s Advocate, when it comes to cheating on tests, teachers take the cake. It isn’t the kids. It’s the adults.
And you and others on this blog cannot decide why you hate parents.
So many teachers on this blog say parents are lazy and don’t care about education and cannot be bothered to lift a finger when it comes to school and then we also hear from people like you who say parents are too involved and do their kids work for them. You’re never happy and never satisfied.
Let me make sure you understand one thing. The testing is FOR YOU.
Higher scores mean more federal money for your school to pay you and your bonuses.
It’s not the kids we have to worry about cheaing on the tests — it is the adults. Atlanta is NOT ALONE in the cheating scandal but they are the worst to date.
Parents on this blog are dam*ed when we do and dam*ed when we don’t.
Teachers here either call us negelectful idiots who don’t care or parents who do everything for their child as “helicopter parents.”
I do parenting right and so do millions of other parents.
Your constant saying otherwise makes me go out and buy a whole bunch of blocks of cheese — they go great with all of your whines.
Sissy
January 28th, 2013
6:06 pm
This needs to be taken away. My grandkid went to school EVERDAY, made the grades and came up with 783 instead of 800. She had to repeat the 5th grade. Had I know this, she should have made bad grades, stayed home every other day, at least she would have EARNED the retaining. It’s sad enough you have to wait if your birthday falls after Sept. 1. She fell into that also. So now she is in the 6th grade and really could be an 8th grader had it not been for the test and date of birth. I feel if the kid turns 5 or 6 BEFORE they go out for the Christmas holidays instead of Sept. 1. Do without the CRCT—
Atlanta Mom
January 28th, 2013
6:09 pm
@Home-tutoring parent
Lots of STEM kids do better on the Math SAT II than on the regular math portion of the SAT. There is no geometry on the SAT II. If your child is like most STEM kids, he/she took geometry in 8th grade and forgot most of it by 11th grade. The SAT II tests math which was taken much more recently.
No big mystery here.
duck junior
January 28th, 2013
6:50 pm
My school uses kids’ CRCT scores as part of a formula for determining student placement the following year. Generally, the smarter the kid, the higher the score. Sometimes kids move up from on-level classes into advanced classes and sometimes kids move down from advanced classes to on-level classes. Teacher recommendation is also part of our formula. If a kid withdrew from school for two weeks then re-enrolled, he or she would not get my recommendation for advanced classes, even with very high grades.
The teacher
January 28th, 2013
6:52 pm
Already Sheared – yes I do EMPHASIZE in caps with punctuation when I’m right – especially when I’m making the point to someone who really doesn’t know – unless you’re a teacher and that’s what you do…I’m in the classroom day in and day out working to educate my students with little to no support from home!!! They are dropped off at the door, and that’s the last they’re heard from – until May! Maybe what you’ve “seen” isn’t what it appears as far as no teaching after the CRCT’s…with the hoops we are expected to jump through to “engage” students, the game, or movie, or computer time, or heaven forbid – free reading you are seeing has a purpose, and is being delivered in the only way it seems that students can learn – fun! If making fun of my expressive style (caps and punctuation) is the only way you can think of to get back at my comments, I now know why you think you know everything!!!
bootney farnsworth
January 28th, 2013
6:55 pm
God help us, another Finland spouting robot
3schoolkids
January 28th, 2013
7:20 pm
The CRCT is a waste of time, if you are going to require annual testing at least make it worthwhile. The way some of the questions are worded to trick students shows mastering of content is not being measured, logical ability is. Isn’t logical reasoning only being regularly taught to gifted students at the elementary level? And can anyone give me one year out of the last 15 where ALL of the sections on the CRCT actually reflected curriculum content for the year? Why are we still using it?
That said, I also think withdrawing your student for 2 weeks and then re-enrolling is riduculous. It hurts the school and it hurts the student. I’m wondering if she came up with this idea herself or was it “hinted” to her? Has anyone ever compared seat funding numbers with school testing reports? There is a lot of withdrawing going on across the state just before the CRCT.
FYI the homeschooling law does require nationally normed standardized testing of the parent’s choice beginning in 3rd grade. However, it is only required every 3 years, not every year. That seems much more reasonable to me. Seems to me the school systems could use an evaluation method to identify areas where mastery of content is lacking, with standardized testing every other year, or every 3 years instead-at least until eighth grade.
To test or not to test: Should parents be able to decide whether kids take state exams? | Get Schooled | Headlines for School Leaders | Scoop.it
January 28th, 2013
7:45 pm
[...] Should parents in Georgia decide whether their children take annual state exams? A reader told me that her daughter was showing signs of test anxiety [...]
RCB
January 28th, 2013
8:18 pm
If I were a teacher and a project was handed in obviously done by the parent, I would give an F. That’s why we need testing. Maybe the parent who keeps hovering, complaining, and making excuses should take the test, but I doubt the score would be much higher than their child’s. Not all parents are even qualified to understand the testing.
JW
January 28th, 2013
8:45 pm
Amen to Jerry Eads’ comment pulled out at the bottom of the post.
As for homeschooling testing requirements… Yes, homeschooled students do have to take a standardized test every 3 years beginning in 3rd grade. However, it is NOT the CRCT, which as Mr. Eads’ pointed out is a minimum competency test that was purchased from the low bidder (and I would add, has gone through numerous changes through the years that have not improved it’s quality in the least). Homeschooling families can choose a standardized test that fits their needs. Many families do the ITBS, Scholastic, or California achievement tests that public schools also give, but there are many other options. These tests give a national comparison. The CRCT gives only a state comparison and a poorly designed one at that.
long time educator
January 29th, 2013
6:35 am
We should give a nationally normed test, like ITBS, every couple of years for the parents to see how their child performs compared to children around the country in the same grade. The CRCT is worthless and alot of money was wasted creating, imposing, publishing, administering and training for very flimsy results, including the most important result which was that it was to be a gateway test. Almost NO students have been held back as the law required, so even that result was circumvented. If we test little children (K-2), the test needs to be much shorter. I tested small group first graders last time, and the second hour of testing on each subject was overkill. The children are too bored, tired and over it by then. Does no on take into consideration the attention span of young children? I hate giving the tests and it takes much more time than the two weeks in the spring. Most systems are giving benchmark tests all year long, at least 3 times a year. We are finishing one right now, and it has dominated the schedule for two weeks because it is given on computer and we only have one computer lab and 12 computers in the media center. This is SUCH a waste of time and SO futile! If we would go back to allowing teachers to be the professionals who make a professional judgement assigning grades and determining if students should pass or fail, it would be much cheaper and you would gain about a month to 6 weeks of instructional time. Why don’t we go back to this? And if parents do not agree with teacher’s decision, a test could be used to make the final determination.
Neil Murray
January 29th, 2013
7:28 am
Granted, most standardized tests are clumsy, and many teachers are incompetent. Those problems need to be addressed. That said, students need to learn that stress is part of life. If you can’t take the heat of a high-stakes test, how are you going to take the heat of an employer breathing down your neck?
AlreadySheared
January 29th, 2013
12:08 pm
@The teacher,
A hit dog will holler.
Me: ‘all learning essentially stops after they are administered’
You: ‘with the hoops we are expected to jump through to “engage” students, the game, or movie, or computer time, or heaven forbid – free reading…’
Apparently, I do know everything.
Oops, I mean APPARENTLY, I do KNOW EVERYTHING!!!!
JW
January 29th, 2013
12:44 pm
@Neal Murray
Really? An 8 year old needs that kind of stress? No. They don’t. Homeschoolers that do not do high stakes tests as elementary and middle school students STILL do BETTER than public schooled and many privately schooled students on college entrance exams. AND do better in college b/c they are already used to engaging in self directed learning. Follow them on up through college into their careers and they are just as successful or more so.
Once a year high stakes testing is unnecessary, especially with the 3 times a year benchmark testing many schools are engaging in now. Those benchmarks give a much better picture of how a child is moving through the curriculum and take FAR less time overall than the CRCT. The ITBS still has value as a national comparison, but should only be given at key grade levels (maybe 4th, 8th, and 10th).
JW
January 29th, 2013
12:51 pm
Back up on the homeschoolers and testing….
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp
And regarding college….
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp
And….
J. Gary Knowles of the University of Michigan studied 53 adults to see the long-term effects of being educated at home. He summarized his findings as follows:
I have found no evidence that these adults were even moderately disadvantaged. . . . Two thirds of them were married, the norm for adults their age, and none were unemployed or any on any form of welfare assistance. More than three quarters felt that being taught at home had actually helped them to interact with people from different levels of society.
J. Gary Knowles, “Now We Are Adults: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Status of Adults Who Were Home-educated as Children,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, April 3-7, 1991. (newer research on this is just hitting the journals and I don’t have access at the moment)
To test or not to test: Should parents be able to decide whether kids take state exams? | Get Schooled | School Leadership 2.0 | Scoop.it
January 30th, 2013
5:03 pm
[...] Should parents in Georgia decide whether their children take annual state exams? A reader told me that her daughter was showing signs of test anxiety [...]
long time educator
January 31st, 2013
5:06 pm
Sissy, If your granddaughter was retained based on the CRCT scores, she should be receiving remedial help this year. It costs the state more to provide remedial teachers and provide an extra year of school for students who are retained. They do this to give her a chance to catch up and be successful and hopefully graduate high school. Let’s say you could place her in 8th grade. She would be way over her head and probably drop out as soon as she could. All students can learn; not in the same way, or on the same day, but all students can learn. They are not trying to punish her; they are trying to help her.