Students in handful of California schools opt out of Common Core tests

By Sarah Tully, EdSource

Parent David Whitley and Linda Cone, a retired teacher, protest exterior of Yorba Linda High School in Yorba Linda on May 6, 2015.

By Sarah Tully, EdSource

Parent David Whitley and Linda Cone, a retired teacher, protest outside of Yorba Linda High School in Yorba Linda on May 6, 2015.

Junior Hayley Krolik of Palo Alto was simply too decorated and stressed out to have the Smarter Counterbalanced Assessments.

The 17-year-old student at 1 of the nation'south highest-ranked schools had two Advanced Placement tests coming upward. She was taking the SATs on Saturday. Plus, she was losing out on study fourth dimension because of a youth grouping retreat the previous weekend.

And so, when Hayley establish out she could legally and easily skip country testing, she asked her parents to sign her out – equally about one-half of her 11th-form classmates also did at Gunn High School.

Few California schools have reported loftier opt-out rates on the Smarter Balanced Assessments, new tests based on nationally developed Common Core Land Standards that students are taking for the kickoff fourth dimension this spring.

Only iv schools in the state identified by EdSource Today with at least half of their students opting out have similarities: They are all high-achieving loftier schools in flush areas. Many of the juniors, the only loftier school grade required to accept the assessments, told school officials that they preferred to spend time studying for AP tests, SATs or other school-related activities because the Smarter Counterbalanced tests don't straight touch on their lives. The high schools are Gunn, Palo Alto, Palos Verdes and Calabasas.

One other high school, where more than than one-third of students are low-income, also had about forty per centum of juniors opt out: Westmoor High School in Daly Urban center, where 178 students skipped testing later on students found out it was an option, according to Superintendent Thomas Minshew of Jefferson Union High School Commune.

Largely, the decisions to opt out had zero to do with negative opinions about the Common Cadre standards themselves.

"I thought information technology was the easiest thing to do considering I had so much coming up," Hayley said. "I didn't meet how spending my time taking these tests would be really beneficial."

In other parts of the country the reasons for opting out have unremarkably been far unlike, including general opposition to the Common Core standards and how scores on tests aligned with them are beingness used. In New York, teachers unions take urged parents to exempt their children from the tests, and most 200,000 children have been able to avert taking them.

Rules on opting out of educatee testing vary by state, with some – like California – easily allowing parents to sign out their kids and others forbidding it.

"Information technology is non ceremonious disobedience in California because it'south legally authorized," said Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open up Testing, or FairTest. "So it's not been seen as an organizing tool in the aforementioned way (as in some other states)."

California loftier schools

In California, 4 of the high schools with high opt-out rates are in wealthy areas with highly educated residents.

The two Palo Alto schools are in Silicon Valley about Stanford University. Calabasas, northward of Los Angeles, is where the Kardashians phone call home and singer Justin Bieber once lived. Palos Verdes, a peninsula community in Los Angeles County, boasts body of water-view homes that average $ane.5 million. Iii of the schools ranked aureate, or top three percent, on the U.S. News and Globe Report listing of best high schools.

In Calabasas and Palos Verdes, the seed of the opt-out idea started with Common Core opponents who spread the word about parent exemptions. But it caught on among 11th-graders who wanted to skip for personal reasons, school officials said.

At Gunn Loftier Schoolhouse, i 11th-grader posted an article on a grade Facebook page. Others started asking about the possibility of skipping the tests and many decided to convince their parents to sign off, Hayley said. Parents also shared information on their own junior-class e-mail list.

At Calabasas High, about seventy percent of the junior class initially skipped testing largely because it was scheduled close to AP and other tests. But about students are now planning on taking the makeup test at the end of May, said Mary Schillinger, banana superintendent of Las Virgenes Unified School District. As of final calendar week, 184 students had signed up for the makeup examination, which will bring up the participation rate to between seventy and 75 per centum.

Some Westmoor students reported that they wanted to study for AP tests. Simply the Smarter Balanced Assessments came a few weeks earlier the AP tests were scheduled, leading Daly Urban center's Minshew to believe students simply wanted to skip the tests.

Common Core protests

While only a few schools in California are known to have high opt-out rates, pockets of Common Cadre opponents scattered throughout the state are trying to heave those numbers past holding protests and handing out forms outside of schools.

In Orange County, for case, a loose-knit group of about 30 retirees and parents of public, private and home-schooled children is making the rounds outside of campuses with buckets of opt-out forms and signs. On a contempo Wednesday morn, protesters leaned into cars to give documents to parents pulling up to Yorba Linda Loftier Schoolhouse, about iii miles from the Richard Nixon Library and Museum.

"That is the about effective manner of fighting Mutual Core – non having kids take the test," said Linda Cone, a retired teacher who wore a sandwich-lath sign stating, "Forms Hither Opt Out."

It'due south unclear how many parents end up turning in those opt-out forms. Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School Commune has yet to gather opt-out numbers. In nearby Newport-Mesa Unified School Commune, where some of the protesters live, thirty parents had turned in opt-out forms as of last week.

Another reason why information technology is difficult to figure out how many parents in California have opted out of the new tests, officially known as the California Cess of Pupil Progress and Performance, is that the California Department of Education hasn't collected parent exemption numbers from districts, which will submit them subsequently testing is completed.

Pupil exemptions

At the five high schools, the students often convinced their parents to sign the forms, instead of the parents taking the initiative.

In Palo Alto, Lori Krolik, Hayley's mother, said she trusted her daughter's judgment that she could better spend her fourth dimension staying dwelling house to study for AP and Sabbatum tests. But Krolik made sure her girl had a plan on how she would spend the time.

"I wasn't trying to send the message about the Mutual Core," Krolik said.

Susan Hooker, the parent of a Calabasas 11th-grader, said her son opted out because his friends were as well skipping the examination. Hooker said in an email that she has no "philosophical objections" to the test and her son volition take the makeup.

It's unclear what, if any, consequences at that place will exist to opting out from the test.

Schillinger said Calabasas High could lose some state funds because the campus receives funding based on Average Daily Attendance and students who didn't take the test skipped school those days. Students who opted out in the two Palo Alto schools as well stayed out on those days, simply schoolhouse officials don't believe they will lose funds every bit a outcome. Some students at Palos Verdes High, who skipped the exam, attended schoolhouse on those days.

The federal government, under the No Child Left Behind law, requires that 95 percent of students have land tests. If they fall below that number, the schools are labeled every bit failing to make "Adequate Yearly Progress," with the possibility of a range of progressively harsh sanctions kicking in as a result.

But sanctions are unlikely, as they but apply to schools that receive federal funds for low-income students, called Title i funds.

More affluent schools, like four of those with loftier opt-out rates, don't receive Championship ane funds. However, Westmoor High, which has virtually 37 percent low-income students, could be at run a risk of losing some Title 1 funds.

Superintendent Minshew said he is worried nigh possibly losing funds, only there is nothing he tin can practise about it because parents accept the right to opt out their children.

The schools might be excluded from future rankings on the U.S. News & World Report list of best loftier schools, which uses state examination scores. If those scores or similar results are unavailable, the schools would be ineligible under the current methodology, said Sophia Sherry, a spokeswoman for U.Southward. News & World Study.

Gunn Loftier Schoolhouse ranked 26th in the land and 157th in the nation on the list released last week. "I am concerned about the lack of data nosotros will have almost our students' ability to show proficiency of the Common Core State Standards," said Principal Denise Herrmann in an e-mail in response to a question nigh the U.Southward. News & World Report rankings.

Non all parents sympathized with students opting out of the tests at their schools. Laura Ainsworth, co-president of the Parent Faculty Society at Calabasas High, whose daughter is a senior there, said she worries how the high number of opt-outs will impact funding and the schoolhouse'south reputation. Some teachers ended up with ii students in class to take the tests. Other students said they wanted to sleep in, while others decided to report for AP tests, Ainsworth said.

"You might non like it, but it's a office of life.… You lot simply have to juggle and be mature nigh it, peculiarly if you are a inferior in high school," Ainsworth said. "You can't opt out when you go out of school and into the workplace. Real life is coming pretty fast."

Description: A previous version of this story included the incorrect calendar month of testing at Westmoor High School. This story was updated to include the correct timing of the Smarter Balanced Assessments.

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Source: https://edsource.org/2015/11th-graders-opt-out-of-common-core-tests-to-study-for-others/79975