100% Opt Out Movement

Opt Out of All 4j Standardized Tests

Here's why the 100% Opt-Out Movement matters: By parents expanding the concept and breadth of opting out, this could conceivably force the system to respond in an authentic, respectful and accountable way. It places the testing system on the defense, that is, they will have to justify the over 112 standardized tests given for an ever-expanding set of rationales. If it is in the student's interest to take a test such as ELPA, then parents can certainly make that choice. Right now, parents have no idea how many tests are given, which ones, what they are for, when they are given, etc. The system is unaccountable and gives as many tests as it wishes, whenever it wishes, and for whatever reason it wishes. This has got to stop and parents can be the ones to do it. But it will have to be a critical mass of parents, otherwise the system will run roughshod over parents' rights in order to safeguard the testing-based model of education.

Read educational researcher and author Alfie Cohen's recent Opinion 
in the New York Times

on the failure of standardized teaching and assessment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/opinion/sunday/schools-testing-ranking.html

"The standards-and-accountability movement is not about leaving no child behind. 
To the contrary, it is an elaborate sorting device, intended to separate wheat from chaff. 
The fact that students of color, students from low-income families and students whose first language isn’t English are disproportionately defined as chaff makes the whole enterprise even more insidious."

Read Deanna Chappell Belcher's Outstanding

Guest Editorial in the Register-Guard based on her 
Candidacy for Eugene 4J School Board

https://www.registerguard.com/opinion/20190608/deanna-chappell-belcher-school-boards-can-be-beacon-of-democracy

Read CAPE members recent Register Guard Letter to Editor and Guest Editorial

by Jerry Rosiek

https://www.registerguard.com/opinion/20190523/eugene-showed-it-wants-bolder-school-district-leaders

by Paul Bodin

https://www.registerguard.com/opinion/20190521/bodin-empathy-as-core-curriculum

Read Diane Ravitch on Oregon's Education Legislation 

Oregon: While Teachers Strike, Corporate Reformers Kill Bills to Stop Testing Pre-K-2 and to Expand Opt Out

https://dianeravitch.net/2019/05/10/oregon-while-teachers-strike-corporate-reformers-kill-bills-to-stop-testing-pre-k-2-and-to-expand-opt-out/

Diane Ravitch, former US Under Secretary of Education in the Bush and Clinton Administrations, now a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University, presented for CAPE via Skype two years ago at the UO.

It's going to have to take a movement by parents saying, "Stop! There's Far Too Much Testing!" to turn this thing around. Parents, it's easy to protect your kids from excessive Smarter Balanced testing. This will ultimately save other kids, too.

Go to your district website. Download the opt-out form. Make copies for your friends. Turn it in at your school. And, don't let administrators intimidate you or coerce you. 

Opting-out is your legal right.

Eugene Weekly

CAPE Democracy in Education Column

https://eugeneweekly.com/2019/03/21/up-against-the-machine

Read up on status of two education bills in Salem:

PreK through 2nd Grade            Too Young to Test

High School Essential Skills    Removing Barrier to Graduation