Arizona parents opposed to standardized testing have a new champion in state Rep. John Ackerley, a Sahuarita Republican.
Ackerly is sponsoring a bill to let parents opt their kids out of statewide assessments — something many already do, asserting the testing is harmful, although strictly speaking, they are violating the law.
The bill not only formally allows opting out, it mandates a school’s grade will not be harmed, as it is now.
“There are going to be parents who have their students not take the test for whatever reason and right now their decision to do so pits them against the school,” said Ackerley. “It sets them up for a fight.”
HB 2246 was approved by the House Education Committee but still needs to be approved by the full House and Senate. Supporters include new state schools chief Diane Douglas and Tucson Unified School District Superintendent H.T. Sanchez.
State law allows parents to withdraw a child only from learning activities or materials that question “beliefs or practices in sex, morality or religion.” A succession of attorney general opinions say statewide achievement tests are neither learning activities nor materials, so parents may not refuse mandatory testing.
Schools are required to test 95 percent of students — a rule designed to prevent them from encouraging parents to keep children home who might not test well.
But today, many parents are taking that step without any encouragement, arguing the amount of testing children are subjected to is excessive and has become a form of bullying.
The number of traditional Arizona schools that failed to test 95 percent of students more than tripled from 2013 to 2014 — going from 19 schools to 62.
Because schools are not required to explain why they missed the 95 percent cut off, the Arizona Department of Education could not speculate on the reason for the rise, said spokesman Charles Tack.
Tack added Douglas is a supporter of parental choice.
“She supports what the bill is trying to do and looks forward to seeing if it gets through so we can ensure that we are protecting schools and not penalizing them as a result of parent choice,” Tack said.
In TUSD, while opting out is not pervasive across the district, Sanchez said some schools like Ochoa and Borton elementary have had clusters of parents refuse — decisions that can come back to haunt the schools because those who opt out bring the overall campus scores down
That often leads to requirements to implement school improvement plans or turnaround models.
“There are all kinds of negative consequences and none are free — replacing staff or principals or sending a whole lot of intervention not because students couldn’t perform, but because parents opted out,” Sanchez said.
Kids put on the spot
For now, the district is required to administer the test to every student in attendance.
That has resulted in cases where schools are notified a parent is refusing testing, but when the kid shows up the test is placed in front of them anyway, forcing them to either go against their parents’ wishes or tell the authority figure giving the test no.
“That’s not a good experience,” said TUSD Governing Board member Kristel Foster, who wants the district to explore opt-out provisions used by other school districts, since she anticipates the number of opt-outs will continue to grow.
Cesar Aguirre has removed his daughters from testing at Ochoa Elementary School for three years, saying he is uncomfortable with them serving as “guinea pigs for so-called reform” while testing corporations profit.
Initially, Aguirre was able to work it out with the school so his kids had something to do during test preparation and the test itself.
Last year, however, he dropped his daughters off and by 10 a.m. received a call that his older daughter, Alissa, was not allowed to be at school if she wasn’t going to test.
“That was very hard for me,” said Aguirre told the TUSD Governing Board last spring, asking them to take a stand for parents against what he describes as a “standardized regime.”
Faced with keeping his daughter out for the entire weeks-long testing period or withdrawing her from the school, Aguirre sent her to school where the now 11-year-old refused testing on her own.
This year Alissa will once again have the test placed in front of her and will opt out. Aguirre is unsure of what to do for his second-grader, Jasmine, who has not done any standardized testing since she started school.
“It’s kind of sad but it has come down to my daughters having to be the ones to protest the test and say no,” said Aguirre. “Of course my oldest daughter was fine with it, but my youngest is very worried about not pleasing the teachers and the staff.”
Sanchez said he sides with Aguirre that parents know best.
“We know our kids well enough that if a test isn’t going to have an adverse affect — if they can go in fine and come out confident — no harm, no foul,” Sanchez said. “But some kids get sick and throw up and they want to avoid school. Different children take it differently and parents should have the opportunity to make that decision for their children.”
Others OK with testing
Other Pima County school districts say they have had little experience with parents opting out of testing.
Nonetheless, Daniel Hernandez Jr., president of the Sunnyside Governing Board, believes the bill has potential unintended consequences.
“It sounds great on paper, but it’s really another attempt by the Legislature to undermine the Common Core, for which we have been preparing for years,” he said. “This pulls the rug out from under students, teachers and parents because what we’ve been preparing for will no longer matter.”
Hernandez is also concerned about federal funding tied to school districts testing 95 percent of all students, and the services that would be lost at a time when education funding is at its lowest.
The Marana, Vail and Flowing Wells school districts have not taken a position on the legislation.
Brett Kramer, Marana’s chief improvement officer, recalls three instances of parents opting out, all at the elementary level.
“One parent I spoke with just didn’t want their child to be labeled,” Kramer said. “They don’t want that working on their child’s psyche if their child doesn’t do well. ... The parent didn’t want a standardized test score to label their child or to define their intelligence or performance.”
While Kramer understands the need to honor parental rights, he noted testing provides a systemwide measure for districts to see how well they serve students.
“I think there’s a lot more good that can come from the state-administered test than bad if the data is used properly,” he said.
Vail Superintendent Calvin Baker agreed that there is value in testing.
“The tests are truly an important measure of both how the individual student, the classroom, the school and the district have done,” he said.
Sahuarita Superintendent Manny Valenzuela recognizes there may be concerns with the assessment selected and how it is used but believes those are issues that require separate resolutions.
Flowing Wells Superintendent David Baker shared Valenzuela’s sentiment, saying what parents and schools really want is the ability to communicate reliable information about a student’s performance and to utilize the information for improvement purposes.
“Parents are becoming more and more confused with the assessment agenda,” he said. “Many are concerned about how these tests are being used to make judgment in a wide range of areas — promotion, graduation, school and principal evaluations, and even access to college scholarships.
“The idea that one test can do all of that raises the question of whether the assessment agenda really produces that kind of information,” he said.
While Sanchez understands assessment should be part of a student’s portfolio, he considers the current focus on testing excessive.
“There was a point in time in American education when a teacher’s grade meant something, and if a teacher said a student was ready to go on, they were,” Sanchez said.
“We’ve gone away from that but if we have a good curriculum, good internal assessment and good teachers, that grade should mean something. It shouldn’t be the maker of the test — how do they know more than a teacher who is there with students every day?”
