Guest post by Donna Wake

Associate Professor and Associate Dean, University of Central Arkansas

I was recently invited to speak as part of a panel at a conference on “bridging the achievement gap.”  In the lead up to the conference, I prepared by doing some reading and updating my knowledge of the research. Bridging the achievement gap, after all, feels like an admirable goal. Who doesn’t want to help kids to bridge the gap? It sounds almost as good as no child left behind, right?

But the more I thought about bridging the gap, and the more I read, the more unsettled I began to feel. I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly. Not until the day of the conference when my feelings of unease coalesced around an impromptu story I shared in response to a question asked. This is Emma’s story.

Emma is 8 years old. Her mother and I have been friends for many years now. Emma is in the 3rd grade in a large elementary school (name of state withheld). This is her fourth school. Her father is in the military and has served 2 tours in Iraq and 1 tour in Afghanistan since Emma’s birth. She’s moved across two states and multiple classrooms in her short academic career. She’s a tough kid with some great skills. She’s sensitive. She’s thoughtful. She’s reflective. She’s empathetic. She’s a rule follower. She loves to read and write. And she’s smart.

Emma was tested for the gifted program in Kindergarten at the request of her teacher. She was placed in the gifted class for first grade. She lost her status when the family moved schools in 2nd grade. I think it is important to note that Emma’s parents were not asked for input in this process at any point.

This year, in her newest school, Emma was tested again for the gifted program at the request of her teachers. I would like to say from the outset that I was opposed to this. Not for Emma’s sake, but because I have a philosophical and pragmatic problem with the idea of “gifted” in our school settings. Put simply, I think all kids should have access to “gifted” curriculum and resources. I also think that kids who receive the “gifted” label may be prone to developing a sense of superiority and entitlement. Be that as it may, Emma was tested. Her parents were ok with this decision because they liked the instructional style of the GT classroom and felt it was more inquiry and project based allowing for exploration and problem solving.

Unfortunately, Emma did not make the cut.

In this school district, kids qualify for the gifted program by meeting a set cut-off score on TWO tests. One test measures verbal-linguistic skills. The other test measures visual-spatial abilities. Emma did not make the minimum required score on the second, visual-spatial test. She did well, but not well enough to be labeled as “gifted.”

The school made the decision to place Emma (and other students who did not score quite well enough) in the gifted classroom with the “gifted” kids. So for the entire academic year, Emma was in a room where half of the kids were coded as “gifted” and the other half were kids who were, well, almost “gifted.”

Of course, the kids know the lay of the land. They always do. You can call groups whatever you wish – red/blue, robin/eagle, tiger/chipmunk – the kids know. In this room, they actually knew they were either “gifted” or “not gifted.” So Emma’s already fragile sense of self-worth was challenged.

The issues accelerated in the last 8 weeks of the school year, after the end of testing. Emma’s teacher decided that the “gifted” kids in the room would undertake an elaborate enrichment project. They started by visiting a local news room and watching the production of a news show. I should mention that only the “gifted” kids got to go on this field trip. The other half of the class stayed at school. The “gifted” kids continued the project in the classroom by scripting and creating their own news production. Kids did research. Kids wrote stories. Kids blocked scenes. Kids shot and edited digital footage.

This sounds like an awesome project, right? But remember, this project was just for the “gifted kids.” What did Emma and the other less-gifted kids do during this 8-week project? They watched. And they worked on math worksheets. All day. Every day. Worksheets.

Now, I have no idea why the teacher of this classroom chose to segregate her curriculum the way she did. Maybe there were legal reasons. Maybe there were pragmatic reasons. Maybe there were financial reasons. I have no idea, and I really am not trying to vilify her in writing this account. I’ve never even met her. Which at this point is probably a good thing. But to me, a 20 year veteran of classrooms, this made no sense to me at all. Why on earth would someone choose to treat students so differently and inequitably? Couldn’t anyone see the impact this would have on the students in the room? And indeed. The impact was inevitable.

Imagine my frustration when Emma very carefully explained to me that she was “dumb.”

I was flabbergasted. How could this bright, beautiful young woman possibly feel she was dumb? She is a voracious reader and writer. Her past academic record and experiences are good. She is not a perfect kid, and certainly she has areas of strength and weakness, but Emma is not dumb.

Shelving my anger for a minute, I began to ask Emma some very open-ended questions. She was more than happy to explain. She felt dumb because she didn’t get to do “that TV project” the other kids were doing. After all, Kay-lee who acts like she knows it all must because she gets to be on camera for that TV project. Emma knows she’s not good at math, because they keep making her do math worksheets, and why would she have to do that if she wasn’t dumb, particularly at math? It went on and on. Her logic was impeccable.

I left Emma’s house that night feeling frustrated, disgusted, and outright angry. Beyond Emma’s story is the fact this isn’t an isolated incident. I am well into my 2nd decade in a profession that I love, but it is a profession that continues to astound and disappoint me. The decision this teacher made and its impact on Emma’s mental and emotional state continued to haunt me in the weeks and months following my visit. At the end of the year Emma requested to not be placed in the gifted room next year. Really, who could blame her?

So what did this have to do with my panel and “bridging the achievement gap”? On the surface this appears to be an unrelated story. I mean, really, Emma missed the “gifted” cut-off by a few points. We have little to complain about in Emma’s story compared to those kids who are segregated from good instruction for far more egregious reasons.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? It’s all the same broken system. It just seems to me that in the system, we come up with ways to “label” kids. On the surface, these labels do not seem bad. After all, they help us try to figure out how to sort and categorize kids so that we can serve them and somehow match our meager resources to meet their needs. So we assign them a “tag” – gifted, basic, low SES, ELL, on the bottom side of the “achievement gap.”

Only these labels, they backfire on us. The unintended consequence is that we do treat kids differently, in ways that are noticeable (by the kids!), and in ways that are not aligned with best practices or common sense. Labels create a hidden curriculum that tells kids their worth to us and to the larger world. In fact, when these labels are present, common sense appears to fly out the window. Indeed, in the case of Emma’s classroom, common sense may have shattered the window as it left the building.

We appear to base labels on a very narrow set of criteria, often created by non-educators. In terms of those “basic” kids on the bottom side of the gap, those criteria include their abilities in literacy and mathematics. But what about all of the other skills and attributes we value in our kids? Ourselves? Our culture? What about content areas like the arts, like sports, like interpersonal and intrapersonal skills? What about those more content-based-but-somehow-less-valuable areas like social studies and science? Do these not “count” in our current system? Are they truly relegated to the sidelines as electives or not important? Yet many adults I know would contend these areas are more important in the context of the real world quality of life experiences.

Please believe me, I am not discounting literacy and mathematics. I am a literacy teacher. I think it is important that kids work and grow in these content areas. However, even these content areas are very narrowly defined by standardized testing. On the standardized literacy and math tests, no kid will be ever asked to write creatively, to dream big, to make new worlds, to talk about citizenship, to discover, or to problem solve. Yet we label them based on a few random days’ work in April on skewed ideas of what we should measure and what we should consider as important in defining our children.

Even more horrifying, labels are used to vilify teachers and the teaching profession. Listen, I am all for accountability. I have seen my share of poor teachers who needed to be removed from the profession. On the other hand, I cannot think it justifiable to hold a teacher of any ilk to a narrowly-defined standard that may be unreasonable and unreachable. Any Kindergarten teacher knows that some of kids come to school already knowing how to read while the others come to school hungry, dirty, and without having had a good night’s rest.

Those hungry kids are the majority of learners on the bottom side of that achievement gap. And most teachers I know work hard to support those kids as they move through their school careers. Most teachers I know help their learners navigate a system that (to our learners and their families) is perplexing and mysterious, one that historically has not served them well. Most teachers I know try to find the strategies and approaches and methods that work to best serve these students.

But let’s face reality, the problems in our society are a lot bigger than can be fixed by one teacher, one district, or even one education “system.” We aren’t talking about an achievement gap; we are talking about an equity gap and an opportunity gap. To fix this, something larger must happen in our culture first. And until it does, there will continue to be an “achievement gap” and worse yet, people who believe they can magically close such a gap through more tests.

So here is my message to Emma’s third grade teacher. Let’s start using some common sense with our kids. Let’s find our voices. Let’s advocate for ourselves and for our kids. Let’s dispose of our fear of rocking the boat. Let’s teach based on the relationships we build with our students. Let’s teach things like empathy and creativity and passion and inquiry. Let’s stop labeling kids based on narrowly defined constructs. Let’s see the whole child and all the gifts they bring to our classrooms. Let’s do what we know is right by working with each of our kids, where they are, who they are, and by giving them what they need to the best of our ability.

All the kids. Not just half the room.

University of Arkansas colleague Dr. Dennis Beck penned the following piece relating the unique experience of homeschooling in the accountability era through the story of his daughter’s experience with the third grade standardized test. 

I live in Arkansas, and we homeschool. My oldest child has never taken a standardized test before, and was now being required to take one.  We value education rather highly in our family, and talk about college and career quite a bit. We have great conversations about topics that she cares deeply about. We also talk about how her interests may someday combine to form a career – a series of things that she could pursue together and in the process earn an income. Well, when I first described the standardized test to her she was dumbfounded.  Why would anyone want to waste her time in such a manner?  Didn’t they know that even the format of the test (multiple choice) made it nearly impossible to gauge what she was learning?  Add to that the reality that there is no real way to compare each student’s individualized learning path with that of another, and she was thoroughly confused.

She was also more than a little anxious. So we bought her a book with a few sample problems and she learned how to color in bubbles on a test sheet.  I asked her if that made her feel smarter. “Not really” was her disinterested reply.  So I explored the possibility of her “opting out” of the test. I was told in a rather condescending way that my daughter was required to take the test, or that she would be counted as truant and referred to the courts. The result might be that we would be forced to place her in public school the next year (a bit of an overreaction?!?).

So we decided to have her take the test.  We told her that it didn’t matter how she did on the test and that she was really the best person to assess her own learning because she knew her own strengths and weaknesses. We also told her that if she encountered a problem that she didn’t know or a word that she didn’t know the definition of, she should try her best or just skip the question and move on to the next one.

After the test, we talked about her experience.  This is a young lady who is thoroughly enthused and engaged by art, music, literature, math, science, history and other subjects when she is learning at home, but when placed in an artificial testing environment, she immediately disengaged. She told us about how the instructor wouldn’t answer any of her questions, that the questions were extremely easy, and how most of all, she didn’t learn a thing.  Later she even mentioned doodling on her paper when she finished early.  She was bored.

Since taking the test, she has asked me what will be done with the tests.  Arkansas’ official policy is that no one, including the state, sees the exam results except for the parents – to which I sarcastically wonder why she had to take an exam that I do not value and will not look at in the first place? My daughter also wanted to know whether the test makers will consider what she wrote at the end of the test, “I did not learn a single thing as a result of taking this test.  It was a complete waste of time. Please do not make me take it again.  I would like to be learning instead.” She has also wondered how any of what on the test would prepare her to succeed in college.

Just in case you were wondering, my daughter is in the third grade.

Now I’m the anxious one. I’m worried that my daughter will be steered off the path of authentic, meaningful learning and taught that learning is about being able to regurgitate information on an exam and to color neatly inside the bubbles on the test sheet. I’m worried that she will be trained by society that everything worthy of learning is black and white and answerable in 4 or 5 different choices.  I’m also concerned that she will be raised in a community where people don’t question what they are learning and don’t spend time reflecting on why and how they are learning something. Where people are effectively told to shut up and go along with what the state says because they know best.

I don’t want her to become another cog in the machine of “progress”, however you define it. And I recognize that the over-testing phenomenon that has hit our nation is only a symptom of a much larger problem.  Instead of embracing individualized instruction for all students, we choose to compare them to each other. Are comparisons useful enough to warrant their use, given the huge amount of data that show how destructive they are to students’ self-efficacy? No.

I want all of my children to grow up loving learning.  I want them to understand that education is not preparation for some job in the future; it is life itself (John Dewey). Thus it should be enjoyed just as life is enjoyed – one moment at a time, uniquely for each person. I want them to grow up knowing that “revolt is the right of the people” (John Locke) and not just willingly allow themselves to be squeezed into doing things the way their society tells them. I want them to know that “the person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Thus they will spend their lives seeking out rich learning experiences, whether in formal or informal education.

Yet people like my daughter and I are being labeled as problems and threatened to conform or else suffer legal action. We are being asked – demanded – to align our educational approach to an approach that has no backing in educational research. Those who seek to do this, and to implement regular comparisons of student learning should be recognized as the backward, flat-earthers that they are, and treated as such. People learn at different paces, and have a huge variety of interests and strengths.  That is reality – not their artificial world of lock-step widgets that all advance at a particular time and in the exact same way.

Dennis Beck is an Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Arkansas. He enjoys teaching instructional design and how to thoughtfully integrate technology into instruction.  But he finds most of his enjoyment in spending time with his wife and children – learning and living the rich experiences life has to offer. Contact Dennis at debeck@uark.edu

Our dear colleague, Dr. Freddie Bowles, posted this piece over at www.corndancer.com, and we thought it was very worthy of reprinting in this space. She’s a foreign language educator and national board member, conference co-chair for the Association of Teacher Educators. To see the full version with more images and graphics, link over to the original. 

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Talk Back, Push Back, Hold On: ATE Returns to St. Louis in Search of Positive Solutions for a Profession Under Attack by Private Interests 

by Freddie Bowles

I recently returned from the 94th annual meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators in St. Louis, Missouri, where over 900 teaching professionals gathered to discuss, share, and learn about the theme “Advancing Teacher Education that Matters in Teaching, Learning, and Schooling.”

As co-chair for the conference, I felt like a conductor of a collaborative work, holding high hopes that our magnum opus might receive a standing ovation.  Orchestrating such a large event requires the combined efforts of all players, so I must applaud the team effort of a magnificent group of professionals.  President Nancy Gallavan chose an outstanding trio of keynote speakers to support her theme:  Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Dr. Diana Hess, and National Teacher of the Year Jeff Charbonneau.

While St. Louis was celebrating its 250th birthday in February, ATE was celebrating the 25th anniversary of our first meeting in St. Louis.  As a special treat for conference attendees, President Gallavan invited all former ATE presidents to speak about their own legacies as association leaders, a choice befitting these historical connections and President Gallavan’s background as a social studies teacher.  Moreover, we honored our Meetings Director, Dr. Billy G. Dixon, who served ATE as president at the St. Louis meeting in 1989.

The Cynical Corporate Move
Toward Profit-Driven Schools

“Advancing Teacher Education that Matters” resonates with those of us in teacher education programs, given the recent campaign to demonize our work as arcane and inept by a host of entities, ranging from corporate sponsors to consortia of privately funded think tanks.  The most recent attack is led by a quasi-professional education group funded by foundations such as Gates, Walton, Carnegie, Gleason, and Joyce.

At the forefront of this coordinated, profit-driven attack on public education is the National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ), a political lobby based in Washington D.C. and founded in 2000 by supporters who “believe the teaching profession is way overdue for significant reform in how we recruit, prepare, retain, and compensate teachers” (2014, retrieved from website).  NCTQ pursues a “case for a comprehensive reform agenda that would challenge the current structure and regulation of the profession.”

At the heart of the NCTQ agenda, though unstated, is the cynical mission to privatize public education and shift state and federal funding from the public sector to the private sector, transforming our schools into profit centers for big business.

Dabblers and Busy-Bodies
Undermine Democratic Ideals.

While those of us in teacher education programs welcome constructive feedback as we strive to prepare our teachers for 21st century classrooms, we do take offense when busy-bodies outside the profession deem themselves saviors for our public education system.  (Yes, busy-bodies: a quaint term but appropriate nonetheless.)  It is especially alarming when a large number of the reformers have only dabbled in teaching and hold a surface-skimmer’s view of teachers as babysitters with long summer vacations.

Immense amounts of money and time are poured into criticizing our public education system, which, despite the assault against it, remains a hallmark of long-cherished democratic ideals.  Public schools offer citizens of all hue and home the tuition-free opportunity to become literate, productive members of society.  It’s that simple — and it works much better than critics want the public to know.  However, the stranglehold of faux accountability and punitive intrusions exercised by so-called reformers on state and federal agencies is undermining our best efforts to succeed.

If an equal amount of time and money were invested in improving the infrastructure of urban and rural schools, providing early childhood programs, and supporting curricula that addresses the cognitive, creative, and kinesthetic domains of all children rather than testing them ‘til the cows come home, then perhaps, yes perhaps the corporate meddlers and fast–track teacher-prep programs would fade back into the trendy shadows from whence they came.  But with so much public money at stake, and so many mega-corporations eager to gain a foothold in the revenue stream, that’s highly unlikely.  So we deal with it.

But I digress, I suppose.  I came here tell about the ATE conference in St. Louis.

Dr. Cochran-Smith Deconstructs
The Hidden Agenda of Reform.

Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith, former elementary school teacher and now the Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education for Urban Schools and Director of the Doctoral Program in Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College, opened the conference with her astute deconstruction of Education Reform’s hidden agenda.  Dr. Cochran-Smith urged us to “talk back, push back, and hold on to what we do well.”

Using the metaphor of an alphabet soup, Dr. Cochran-Smith chose five acronyms that pervade the conversation regarding school reform.

1. ATCP
Alternative Teacher Certification Programs.
Forty-four states have approved programs for some rather unconventional approaches to teacher preparation.  Some require no apprenticeship or internship experiences.  Some are delivered solely through online programs, and others simply ask that your child’s future teacher have a bachelors degree.  I guess that’s better than it was back in the day when the only requirement to be an elementary school teacher was a high school diploma.

2. RRTG
Race to the Top.
RRTG is a federal pilot program, floated much like a carrot leading a cash-hungry donkey, that became de facto education policy.  Dr. Cochran-Smith views RRTG as part of the greater issue of accountability, where learning is equated with test scores.  She reminds the audience that teaching and learning are akin to complex brain functions and cognition.  According to the ED.gov website Race to the Top Fund, “Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform.”

3. NCTQ
National Council on Teacher Quality
A research and policy group, it is privately funded by an A-list of corporate players (see the web About NCTQ and then ask yourself where their children go to school).  While the organization purports to “provide an alternative national voice to existing teacher organizations and to build the case for a comprehensive reform agenda that would challenge the current structure and regulation of the profession,” the methods utilized to accomplish this disregard all standards of valid and reliable data collection.

4. EdTPA
Education Teacher Performance Assessment
It’s one more assessment — and costly, too, at almost $300.00 per test — for students who go through traditional teacher preparation programs.  Incredibly, students who opt for ATCP programs and other fast-track teacher prep options would not be required to take this test.  However, students in a traditional teacher education program already have Praxis Core, Praxis Pedagogy, and other Praxis subject-specific tests to “prove” they are qualified to teach.  They are regularly observed and assessed using any number of observation protocols such as The Framework for Teaching by the Danielson Group.  Note that on the web edTPA, the goals include “Improve the information base guiding improvement of teacher preparation programs.”  No mention is made regarding improvement of programs such as Teach for America.

5. CCSS
Common Core State Standards
CCSS is a successful effort begun in 2010 by a group — most are non-educators — to fast-track a national set of standards into implementation by 45 states.  The website prides itself on the fact that “The federal government was NOT involved in the development of the standards.  Local teachers, principals, and superintendents lead the implementation of the Common Core.” (See the webState Standards Initiative | Frequently Asked Questions.)  The quoted text does not say that local teachers, principals, and superintendents created CCSS.  They were only involved after the fact.

Dr. Marilyn Cochran-Smith

Dr. Cochran-Smith’s articulated presentation of the reform juggernaut reinforced the sobering understanding of the combined effort by reformists and capitalists to paint for public consumption a propagandist’s picture of a failing democratic institution.  Once the public believes that our public schools are awful and desperately in need of redemption, these investors and reformers can “come to the rescue” and create the right kind of training program for the right kind of teacher for the right kind of school using programs and products created by their own publishing arm, Pearson — for the right price, of course!

Alternative Routes ‘Churn Out’
An Unstable Cadre of Teachers.

The second keynote speaker, Dr. Diana Hess, Senior Vice-President of the Spencer Foundation and professor of Curriculum and Instruction at University of Wisconsin-Madison, focused on the issue of “short term teachers” as it relates to teacher quality.  Her presentation, “Beyond Churning: How to Keep Strong Teachers in the Classroom,” was a startling reminder of how detrimental it is to our learners when the cadre of teachers becomes an unstable force beset by high attrition and frequent movement from school to school and district to district.

She pointed out a number of factors that pull teachers away from the classroom:  the public’s lack of confidence in public schools, a bi-modal teaching force (younger and older), a loss of teacher leaders, non-competitive salaries, and a lack of retention initiatives.  Dr. Hess also emphasized that the teaching profession is booming with over 3.3 million teachers.  However, many of these teachers enter through an alternative route with little preparation and experience in the classroom, often leaving after their commitment to their program has been fulfilled.  They most often “churn out” after a two or three year obligation.  Public discourse and private disinformation also lead to disenchantment of newly-minted teachers, who face top-down directives and instructional changes initiated from private groups (NCTQ and CCSS) and adopted by state departments of education.

Dr. Diana Hess
Photo by David McCarthy

These phenomenal speakers provided a somewhat dire picture of teacher education, but many conference participants chose to counter with a proactive stance, looking for avenues of inspiration and turning the conversation around to positive solutions of support for our professional teachers.  At several committee meetings I heard a familiar and resounding theme in the discussion, focusing on talking back, pushing back, and holding on to what we do best.

Humor, Passion, Enthusiasm
From the Teacher of the Year.

The third keynote speaker, National Teacher of the Year Jeff Charbonneau, engaged the audience with humor, passion, and an enthusiasm for the profession that roused a standing ovation.  His presentation was especially appreciated by a number of pre-service teachers in attendance for the special annual one-day conference offered by ATE just for them.

Mr. Charbonneau teaches at his alma mater, a small school in Zillah, Washington.  He teaches chemistry, physics, and engineering — and then he enters stage right to teach drama, and then finds time to guide journalism students on the yearbook — and like many rural teachers, takes on a number of extra-curricular activities in school and in the community.

His goals for students are “to understand a challenge and learn the method of accomplishing something, and then to be a problem solver.”  His motto is “What if?”  Jeff shared a “what if” story of how he modeled problem solving with his students.  First they raised enough money from the town’s people to buy 100 robots and start a robotics program at Zillah.  Then they shared the finished products, the robots, with other underfunded schools, giving the machines away each year after the annual robotics competition.

Jeff Charbonneau with President Obama
Image from a Video by Tch, the Teaching Channel

Making Standards Work

Mr. Charbonneau listed five attributes of success he teaches to his “kids.”

• Confidence…. Teach them to be self-sufficient so they can become group sufficient
• Courage…. Teach them to stand firm and make good choices so they are good PR Professionals.
• Legacy…. Teach them the history of their school and community.  He led the yearbook staff in a project to scan every yearbook from 1919 to the present and make the scans available to the school.
• Citizenship…. Teach them to be good citizens.  He tells his students that when they see a job that needs doing, make it happen.
• Overcoming obstacles…. He asks us to help every child figure out what the obstacles are and give them the tools to overcome them.

Mr. Charbonneau disagrees with critics who say our public school system is broken.  The real problem, he said, is that teachers are just really bad at PR.  He encourages us to turn our strengths into a stronger system that values experience, gives support to students and administrators, remains flexible and teacher driven, and showcases the many accomplishments of our kids and the schools that nurture them.  He added that the real impact of great systems is giving students HOPE!

He finished by asking, “What do we teach?”  His answer?  Success!  “All students of all backgrounds and abilities need to be successful no matter what the circumstances.”  And why teach, he asked.  “I do this because I am creating the NEW US.”  How?  “By creating relationships first.”

With over 900 in attendance and 400 plus sessions and presentations, the 94th ATE Annual Meeting offered everyone an opportunity to create and solidify professional relationships, share their own teaching successes, and build a community of learners to support our efforts in creating the NEW US.

Reposted from the Arkansas Times this morning:

There’s a dirty secret in the hallways of all public high schools in Arkansas this week—the state is giving a bogus test to all eleventh graders on Tuesday and Wednesday: The Arkansas Grade 11 Literacy Exam. That’s right, for parts of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday, your 11^th grader is going to spend time under high stakes testing pressure, chained to a chair, unable to so much as use the bathroom for large chunks of time all for no good earthly reason. Subjecting your students—who by the way have been tested more than any students in American history—to another test is asinine and here’s why.

What’s transpired is that the state of Arkansas adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2010 and the teachers in the state are teaching to those standards. CCSS has replaced the previous standards, the Arkansas Frameworks, but there are holdover tests from the previous testing regime brought to us by No Child Left Behind (or untested). Rather than take a year off from testing until the new tests aligned with CCSS are introduced, the state is making its juniors first and then grades 3-8 later take batteries of meaningless tests. This is wrong.

I’d love to tell you more about why all of these tests are actually an awful idea, about the adverse physical and emotional reactions that students have to them, the mountains of research demonstrating that our culture’s obsession with testing is netting us next to nothing, and the fact that standardized tests have and are being used to punish schools and districts where economically disadvantaged and racially diverse students live. I could share with you the analysis I completed with a colleague in 2008 about how the Grade 11 Literacy Exam itself was and is actually a bogus test prior to this clear mismatch between standards and assessment. In short, about 60% of the Literacy Exam is made up of questions that are simple while the ACT, a much better test, is all about questions that require critical thinking. In other words, Arkansas’ own test—if we are to believe that teachers were or are teaching to it—could be holding back students who want to go to college.

Nonsense.

If your child’s math teacher made your son study for a math test and then when he arrived, gave the class a test on an obscure detail of US History, wouldn’t you—dear parent– make that math teacher’s email, cell phone, and ears ring like Saturday night in Las Vegas?

Testing math students on their knowledge of history wouldn’t be fair. Giving an old test to students learning in new ways isn’t fair either. And if you agree with me, contact all of the 11^th grade parents you know and share these simple steps to opt their daughter or son out of the Grade 11 Literacy Exam. Civil disobedience and challenging clear and unjust wrongdoings needs to be a lesson that the students in Arkansas learn firsthand this Tuesday and Wednesday.

I urge you to take a stand on behalf of your student but more importantly, on behalf of all students in this state and send a clear message to Little Rock and Washington D.C. that their obsession with testing, while wrongheaded, does not override your parental rights. Regardless of how you feel about this or any standardized test, I feel 100% confidence in saying that you, as a parent, should and do have the right to hold your students out of things at school that you deem to be inappropriate or harmful.

Act now by following these five steps:

1. Talk to your student and ask whether or not this test is something meaningful to them.
2. Familiarize yourself with resources available at Edusanity (: http://www.edusanity.com/2013/04/26/does-educational-testing-interfere-with-parental-rights/) and the United Opt-Out movement (http://unitedoptout.com)
3. Discuss this with other parents of students at your local school; there is power in numbers.
4. Contact the school and tell them that you plan to opt your student out of the exam.
5. Complete the following form letter and send it, along with your 11^th grade student, to school tomorrow.

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Dear teacher, principal, or other test-administrator, please release my son/daughter from the Grade 11 Literacy Exam being given at __________________ school this week. It is my parental right to protect my child from dangerous, harmful, and senseless behavior and from my perspective, this test is not the best use of my child’s time. The U.S. Supreme Court supports a parent’s right to guide their child’s education as an ‘unwritten liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Student Name _______________

Parent/Guardian Signature ___________

During the time that other less fortunate students are taking this test, please allow my daughter/son to perform any or all of the below-listed activities, any of which would be more educationally beneficial than sitting through another standardized test, especially this bogus assessment tied to old frameworks.

• Doodle on a piece of paper for the two days. One never knows, a new pattern or perspective might be gained free of the limits of bubble sheets.
• Read a book or two or three. Research actually supports this as educationally valuable as opposed to what the state is attempting to do to my son/daughter.
• Write a story about their friends whose parents didn’t get the message and are suffering through a pointless test. Creative, meaningful writing has been all but lost from the curriculum.
• Play video games on a phone or personal electronic device. Even that would be more educationally beneficial than taking this test.
• Help the secretarial or custodial staff complete safe tasks around the office or building.
• Be released to attend a lower grade and provide free tutoring for students.
• Catch up on homework.
• Shoot baskets in the gym.
• Nap.

 If you attempt to use scare tactics to threaten my child, I’ve instructed him/her to audio record anything and everything you say to be used at a later date. Thank you for  respecting my wishes for the well-being of my child.