NEWS

Parents, teachers push back against Delaware testing

Matthew Albright
The News Journal
Caitlin Kook, 9, works on homework. Her mom plans to keep her from taking the new tests.

The stress that Delaware's high-stakes standardized tests place on students, teachers and schools is leading a small, but vocal contingent of parents to say, "Keep my child out of it."

At their backs are educators, advocates and lawmakers who want to see enough parents pull their kids from the exams that the results are rendered invalid and the state is forced to grapple with the possibility it is overtesting kids.

The opt-out movement could, if more parents join, strike at the heart of a school-reform movement that has steered education policy in Delaware and many other states in recent years, especially since federal Race to the Top grants were awarded.

State education leaders are trying to halt the opt-out movement before it gets off the ground. They say data from tests are invaluable tools for educators, policymakers and parents and point out that schools risk potentially painful federal sanctions if too many students don't take the tests.

That has not convinced parents like Jackie Kook.

Kook, who teaches in the Christina School District, has told her daughter's school in the Red Clay district not to give her the test.

"Part of it for me is protecting my own child and removing her from that environment of high-stakes pressure," Kook said. "But the other part is that I see what all this testing is doing in the classroom, and I just don't want my daughter to be part of it."

Jackie Kook works on a reading exercise with her daughter Caitlin, 9. Kook, a Christina School District teacher, is opting to take Caitlin out of state standardized testing.

Kook sees her daughter sometimes spending an hour a night at home doing math homework and worries that standardized tests' focus on math and reading is driving schools to prioritize those subjects over everything else.

She sees test scores being used to judge teachers and label schools and sees the state make policy without much consideration of other factors, such as the poverty students face. And she sees students spending time preparing for the test and spending hours in computer labs that she thinks should be better spent learning in the classroom.

"My daughter's not going to see less emphasis on the test just because I made the decision to opt her out," Kook said. "But if we saw enough parents do it, the system could change."

Kook and parents choosing to opt out their kids are in largely uncharted territory.

The Department of Education does not acknowledge the ability for parents opt out, saying state law requires schools to test kids and provides for only rare exemptions for severe disabilities and emergencies. But parent advocates like those in the state Parent Teacher Association point out that state law also does not explicitly prevent parents from pulling out their kids.

There is no official form to fill out, so parents are submitting form letters found on the Internet.

The federal Department of Education requires states and school districts to test at least 95 percent of students. They also require that 95 percent participation rate for every "subgroup," whether it's black students or low-income students or students learning English.

Should the state or districts fall below that figure, they could face sanctions, the worst being loss of funds for programs that serve low-income, rural and migrant students.

That gives districts a strong incentive to keep as many students as possible taking the test. Several parents who asked to opt out received letters from district officials citing the department's stance, that state and federal laws require testing.

But the opt-out movement does have some influential supporters.

The Capital school board passed a rule requiring its schools to accept parents' decision to opt-out. A bill in the Legislature would explicitly give parents the option and prevent the state from penalizing schools when students skip the test.

The Delaware PTA and Delaware State Education Association education union both say parents have a right to opt out, though neither has yet officially voted to endorse doing so.

"Our view is that every parent should have to right to make that decision on behalf of their child if that's what they think is best," said Teri Hodges, the state PTA president, who is opting her daughter out. "I personally don't feel that the Smarter Balanced in its current form offers any individual value for me as a parent regarding my daughter's growth in school."

Jackie Kook’s T-shirt offers several reasons for opting out of the new standardized tests.

Is it necessary?

Using testing data to drive decisions has been one of the hallmarks of the Department of Education during the tenure of Gov. Jack Markell and Secretary of Education Mark Murphy.

Some of the biggest investments the state made using its $118 million federal Race to the Top grant involved work with data. One of Markell's favorite Race to the Top initiatives is Professional Learning Communities, in-school groups where teachers work with each other and with data coaches. They comb through student scores to find what specific areas each student needs help with.

Tests are more than just abstract figures on a chart, state officials say.

"For our educators, parents and community at large, state testing is an important part of understanding how schools, districts and the state are doing in educating and preparing students for college and careers," spokeswoman Alison May wrote. "This is the primary way we can know if we are making appropriate progress toward educating students on the academic standards."

Testing data help the state figure out if it is closing the gap between white and black students and rich and poor students. Parents can look at testing data to see if their children are proficient at the same level as students in other schools.

That has not convinced all parents of testing's value.

David Brenton has a son who excels in his day-in, day-out classwork. But when he has brought home the results of state tests, they said he's underperforming.

"When it comes time for testing, he just struggles," Brenton said. "There's something about the testing environment that short-circuits his thought process and breaks his focus. The whole testing thing has not been helpful to my son's earlier education."

This year, Brenton's daughter is in the third grade, and is supposed to take Smarter Balanced the next few weeks. He has read online about how the new test will take hours and that most students are not expected to pass.

He hears officials talk about how important the data that standardized tests gather is to education. But, though he's asked questions of his school, district and the state Department of Education, he has yet to be convinced the test is worth it.

So he has opted his daughter out.

Parents are not the only ones supporting opt-outs. They are backed by teacher advocates and others who are fed up with a Department of Education and "school reform" movement they believe are test-obsessed.

"Teachers are not against tests," said Frederika Jenner, president of the DSEA education union. "But tests are being used for things they were never intended."

Test scores are now used to judge how teachers are performing, though the state has put a hold on that policy for a year as it moves to the new test. Test scores are used to measure which schools are good and which schools are bad.

Department officials have cited sagging scores when closing charter schools. When the state picked six Wilmington schools for its controversial Priority Schools plan, it chose the schools based on their low test scores.

Big end-of-the-year tests might be seen as useful for policies like those but aren't nearly as useful for day-in, day-out education, Jenner said. Teachers are trained to keep tabs on where each student stands and tweak their work accordingly.

State Reps. Sean Matthews and John Kowalko, who sponsored the bill that would allow parents to opt-out, hope enough parents will pull kids out of testing that Delaware is forced to have a conversation about whether tests are being overused.

"There are teachers and parents who are crying for us to stop this test-and-punish mentality, but no one is listening," Matthews said. "Representative Kowalko and I are hoping that enough parents are getting out of the test that the data becomes invalid, and we have no choice but to have the discussion over what's really best for our kids."

Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.