No Child Left Behind and standardized testing, can I refuse.....?

Question

No Child Left Behind and standardized testing, can I refuse.....?

to let my child take the standardized testing? Legally as her parent can I say, no, my child will not beparticipating in your stupid tests, or can they kick her out of school if she doesn;t comply with their crappy testing rules?

people keep telling me to homeschool, as much as i would like to, I am not the only parent in my childs life, and the choice to homeschool has been vetoed, so its not an option, all I can do is hope that the testing that alot of you are saying is to simply see if my daughter is learning at the rate she is supposed to, is soon eradicated. That is NOT the purpose of the testing, and those of you that believe it is are simply sheep that believe anything our "wonderful" government feeds you. It is simply to get more funding for the school, it has nothing to do with the education and welfare of our children.

Answer 1

If your child is in a public school you really can not refuse the test. I wish parents had that right but they do not. I, as a teacher, would like to address your questions about how the test is used.
These state tests are used to determine effectiveness of the school as a whole and based on each group of individuals as well (race, gender, grade, etc.) If the school fails in ONE area the whole school is labeled failing. So if the school your child is in has one demographic group fail the test, she is in a failing school. Believe it or not, these schools that are put in corrective action receive MORE funding and are supposed to receive MORE help from the district. OF course this is pretty much a farce and does not happen. Instead, the teachers (especially the younger and those that are new to the school) get blamed for being ineffective and are often times replaced.
Teachers RARELY get information about how each individual does on these tests. You get a composite type score and a break down of how the students from each demographic area did on the test as a whole. I have yet to see anything that tells me how well Sally or Trevon have done on this test. Without that information in the teacher's hands it is IMPOSSIBLE as a teacher to use this data to help individual students. In class, I tried to give tests that covered the standards that would be tested on the state exams. However, I guarentee that I did not ask the questions in the same way as the state does. I definately lean toward short answer and essay questions as I can then see what a student has learned and is able to articulate to me instead of if they can memorize facts and data.

These state tests are flawed. The idea behind NCLB is a great idea, every aspect of the public schools needs to be held accountable. The current NCLB does not do that. It simply holds teachers accountable for their piece of education. I firmly believe that any education reform is going to begin with education at home and with educating families as a whole. So many parents lack education that it is scary (I speak from the perspective of an inner-city school teacher). If parents do not value education and success at education, then there is no way teachers or any other educational professional can succeed in their job. We, as teachers see students on average about 1 hour (total of 8) each day (middle and high school) and about 7 hours each day in elementary school. That means the other 16 to 17 hours of the day someone else is seeing them (lets hope they get 8 hours of sleep and adjust that to another 8 hours at home). If a child comes to me as a middle school teacher for 1 hour, how can I teach them to read at higher levels if they lack the ability to read at grade level? I have 175 students to be responsible for. Now, how do I, as a teacher, find the time to teach every one of these kids to advance their skills if 30 to 40% of them read 2 or more grade levels below their average?

Really, until you take the law and look at how it is applied and then come spend some time in a classroom to begin to get a grasp of what teachers deal with each day, you can't speak about the failing of a school. It is a failing of a community! We, as teachers can do a lot but we have very limited time and, with testing, we have even less time to work with individual students.

Just my $1.75 worth (got to account for inflation, my opinion is worth a little more than 2 cents now!)

Answer 2

I also have to ask what are you afraid of? Standardized testing is just that; a test designed to equally and fairly test how well the students are learning. They do not discriminate and they are not unfair. To call the test stupid makes me question your motives.

Now to answer your question: If the test is required, say like the California Exit Exam, no you cannot hold your child back from this testing. What you need to do is call the school districts main office and ask if the test is mandatory. If you don't like what's going on there's a thing called home schooling you should look at.

Edited: You make a blanket statement that these standardized testings are NOT used to see how well the student is learning. Why don't you back it up with fact rather than just say it so-matter-of-factly. It's like the high school exit exam being argued against here in California. If your kid is too stupid to pass the test they don't deserve to move onto the next grade. How difficult is it to understand that kids must be tested to ensure they're comprehending the material. It kind of irks me that kids who fail may end up being yet another financial burden to my tax dollars.

Answer 3

I am not aware of any loopholes you can exploit to allow your child to avoid taking the standardized tests. Sorry. I understand your aversion to these exams; because they really don’t assess anything of value, except the child’s ability to take tests. I don’t think kids should be measured by a test that estimates a child’s academic achievement on the basis of such narrow criteria.

Its interesting that children back in the 1940’s through the 1980’s seem to have had a better grasp of the rudimentary aspects of math, science, English and history, when standardized tests were rarely employed or didn’t factor much into the curriculum. Now that standardized tests are becoming such a seminal aspect of our children’s academic upbringing, we see children that are deficient in these aforementioned areas, as well as students who are not as academically well rounded as those who walked the halls of their school a generation or two prior to them.

Most of these standardized tests ignore history and science while solely focusing on English and mathematical reasoning. It seems as if these tests, and the philosophy that is behind them, are training our children to become mindless automatons who spew out formulated answers, without having to challenge the child to think creatively or elaborate as to why an answer is correct. That is not true education. It is just a form of intellectual slavery.

An education that is preoccupied only with mathematics and proper rules of grammar is an incomplete education. An education that ignores the humanities deprives our world of future men and women who can think about their surroundings in profound and innovative ways. This sort of education, if it can even be called a real education, does our society a disservice.

I empathize with your reluctance to conform to this system. Unfortunately, in order to not put your child through much turmoil, you might have to submit to this system. My advice to you is be proactive in the education of your child. Don’t leave her intellectual development solely up to the schools. Work with her after school, and on the weekends so that she can have the well rounded knowledge that undoubtedly you benefited from.

Answer 4

I don't know........good question though.
To answer this other response:
Yes, I am afraid. Students spend time preparing for these tests instead of studying the curriculums like when I was in school.
Schools are forced to conform to these preparations because these tests effect funds received from our federal government.
Mathematics is scary if you have a child in school now......calculators in my day were not used until Algebra and by then you knew the basics of Mathematics, NOW, calculators are openly used before students even know their multiplication tables

Answer 5

What are you afraid of? Why don't you want your child to take the test?

The greatest gift you can give your children is a REAL education - not the mind-bending information that they hand out at government schools, but the ability to reason and make informed decisions for him/herself.

Either enroll your child in a private school, or make sure that you spend lots of time teaching your child the morals and values that YOU want him/her to have.

Answer 6

As much as it needs to be, this has not been made an issue yet. Parents need to support the teachers who are fed up with the standardized testing. More people need to speak out about how this is cutting into crucial teaching time. It's just now becomming obvious how this is hurting our kids, but a lot of teachers have been upset about it since it started.

Answer 7

As a student I can honestly say that most of my freshman and sophmore years were spent preparing for the gateway test and nothing else. There wasnt even enough time to cover everything on the gateway. I think that we would have been able to learn more if we weren't only going over information on the test.

Answer 8

yes you would end up either taking her to a private school or home schooling

Answer 9

yes, you can refuse, but it is just a way to make sure your child has learned what they are supposed to have by their age.