Five More Reasons to Join the Opt-Out Movement

As promised, the second half of my list of reasons to consider opting out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium field test is below.  This will be more than enough of my opinion --- I am interested in your thoughts!  Please share them in the comments.

6.  Local Control.   Connecticut has a proud history of being a state that has retained local (in many cases hyper-local) control of its schools.  This has it's challenges; especially with funding.  However, nothing could drive home the value of local control more that the way this top-down program is being implemented.  Attend the February 26th Board of Education meeting to hear a discussion of just how the SBAC testing is affecting our students and educators.
7. No Resources Have Been Provided.   Connecticut signed onto the Common Core in a failed attempt to qualify for Federal Race to the Top funding.  Still, even without the needed resources, cash-strapped districts are struggling to implement these changes at an impossible pace set by state and federal leadership.  While costs in human resources and lost instructional time are probably greater, the additional technology needed to adminster the SBAC is the most tangible.  For that, districts could apply for matching grants from the State.  So, Tolland had to be able to cover its side of costs for any grant received.  You can find the breakdown of how Connecticut towns fared in this process here.
8. Ethics.  Concern about the harm this testing might do students has been expressed by many educators.  Examples can be found in yesterday's post #3 and in the letter from NY principals below.  With this knowledge, how can we ask our district's teachers and staff to administer this test to their students?  In this case, I believe that the State of Connecticut is asking our educators to violate their own Code of Professional Responsibility. You don't have to be a part of that.
9.  We should not repeat the mistakes of others.  New York State has already rolled out their version of the SBAC.  It didn't go well. There's no excuse for not learning from their experience.
10A. Art.  Music. PE. Social Studies.  And any other subject not part of the standardized testing frenzy.  Tight budgets in the NCLB testing era caused a narrowing of opportunities for students as limited resources were allocated to subjects that were tested.  This, despite the evidence that exposure to the arts enhances learning in all areas. How much worse could this get with the instruments being introduced as part of Common Core?  I don't want to find out.
10B. Because you can. The State Department of Education doesn't really seem to know what it wants to say to parents who don't want their children to participate in this debacle.  The protocol that they have used in the past can be found here.   In the end, opting-out is the only voice they have left us.  This implemenation has been so hurried that our local educators --- the folks most likely to try and keep families in the loop --- are so busy trying to meet the demands of this scheme that they don't have any time to reach out.   I don't see any evidence that anyone higher up even has families in mind.  So, I propose we use the only means left to us.  

Let's opt-out.