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alternative assessment, FSA, FSA Opt Out Movement, Good Cause Exemptions, High stakes testing, how to opt out, Opt Out, Opt Out Florida Network, opt out movement, Opt Out Orlando, Portfolio, real teaching, Retention, state bullying, Teachers, testing, Third grade, Third Grade FSA, Third Grade Promotion, Third grade retention
Jennifer Sabin is an Admin in Opt Out Polk and was the subject of this article in The Ledger (below). She is an academic advisor at Southeastern University. Jennifer is also a former eighth grade Language Arts teacher from Polk County, Florida, with a BS in Communication from the University of Miami, a mom of three beautiful children and a former Polk County school board candidate. Jennifer has been opting her kids out of Florida’s high stakes tests since 2016.
This article was originally posted in The Ledger
Link to original article:
‘Test and punish system’: Parents can opt their children out of statewide testing
Kimberly C. Moore The Ledger
Published 7:13 a.m. ET Mar. 12, 2021
LAKELAND — Charlotte Sabin, 13, has been opting out of state Florida Standards Assessment testing for five years now, beginning when she was in the third grade, with no repercussions.
“I was kind of nervous because I was the only one in my school doing it,” she said about not participating with the rest of her third-grade class. “But I also felt really cool because I was sitting there going, ‘All you have to take this test and I’m going to go eat doughnuts.’ The next year, I had a friend who opted out and it was cool because that was the only time in my life I’ve ever been a trendsetter.”
Charlotte, who attends Lawton Chiles Middle Academy, goes to class on testing days, breaks the seal on her test, fills out her name, then her mother, Jennifer Sabin, checks her out of school and the pair head to the doughnut shop. It has become an annual tradition.
It was Sabin who talked to her daughter about what she feels is the importance of opting out of statewide testing, something she and other critics refer to as the “test and punish system.” That’s because kids who do well in class otherwise are retained in the third grade if they don’t pass the test. In addition, high school seniors who pass all their classes can be held back from graduating if they don’t pass the FSA. And teachers whose students don’t make something known as “adequate yearly progress,” can have bonuses withheld, which, they say, is unfair for teachers instructing struggling students.
Charlotte said her mom “explained that it was a really important thing for her … she explained that it helped the teachers and the students. It would be a great thing to do because it could help bring change. And if you do this, other people might do it, too. I like helping people. It’s fun.”
Sabin said opting out of testing is something most parents don’t realize they can do — despite what any administrator or guidance counselor might tell parents.
Opt Out Polk
Sabin heads up a group called Opt Out Polk, which helps to answer questions from parents who are considering having their child not take the statewide test. Some parents say the test gives their children crippling anxiety, while others say one test should not make or break a child’s progression from third grade to fourth. Failing any portion of the FSA can also keep a high school student from graduating.
Read more about opting out
To read more about opting out of testing, go to: https://theoptoutfloridanetwork.wordpress.com/
Standardized testing in Polk County began last week and lasts for several more weeks as students in different grades and in different subjects fill in the bubbles on their answer sheets, click on the right answers on a computer or write essays.
“I think I first realized it because somebody told me, ‘Have you heard of Opt Out?’” Sabin recalled. “I was frustrated with the way the test was being used and I didn’t want my kids to participate in that system of evaluation.”
Sabin teamed up with The Opt Out Florida Network, finding a little-known option for parents: the good cause exemption, which allows parents to use other assessments instead of the FSA, or a student-work portfolio from throughout the school year.
According to the Polk County Public Schools webpage, the determination of a good cause exemption for promotion to fourth grade includes:
- Standford Achievement Test, Tenth Edition, scoring above the 45th percentile.
- STAR Reading Assessment — scoring at or above the 50th percentile.
- Istation ISIP Reading Assessment — scoring at or above the 50th percentile.
“Polk County Public Schools fully supports the option of third-grade portfolios as outlined in (state statute), which states that a student who demonstrates through a portfolio that he/she is performing at least at level 2 on the statewide standardized assessment is eligible for good cause exemption,” the website reads.
It is not known how many Polk County Public Schools students opt out because district officials say they do not keep track of that statistic.
Sabin, who is an academic adviser at Southeastern University, said the test was not originally designed to be used the way the state uses it.
“There’s no good reason to take the FSA,” Sabin said. “It wasn’t designed to evaluate students the way Florida uses it. It wasn’t designed to evaluate teachers the way they use it. The FSA causes harm to teachers and schools. We know it correlates strongly with socio- economic status. It makes it hard for students from low socio-economic status to perform well.”
Pros and cons of standardized tests
State standardized testing came about under the late Democratic Gov Lawton Chiles, who developed the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test — or FCAT — in the 1990s. When Republican Gov. Jeb Bush was sworn into office in 1999, he developed his A-Plus Plan, which for the first time tied state testing to school grades and held struggling schools accountable — allowing students at those schools to transfer to better-performing public schools, charter schools or even private schools and to take their per-pupil funding with them.
And that tie to money is when things got competitive and complicated with testing.
According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which “promotes educational excellence for every child in America via quality research, analysis, and commentary, as well as advocacy and exemplary charter school authorizing in Ohio,” standardized tests offer objective assessment.
They measure “students based on a similar set of questions, are given under nearly identical testing conditions, and are graded by a machine or blind reviewer. They are intended to provide an accurate, unfiltered measure of what a student knows,” the institute states.
The institute says the tests offer officials the chance to compare student achievement at the classroom, school, local and statewide levels.
And finally, the Fordham Institute says, “like it or not, standardized exam data remain the best way to hold schools accountable for their academic performance.” The measures enable education officials to identify the schools that need intervention, extra help or even closure.
But opponents say the playing field is not level because students are not all the same.
According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, which has 113,573 members who are superintendents principals teachers and education advocates from more than 129 countries, there are multiple reasons standardized tests are problematic.
“Standardized tests exist for administrative, political, and financial purposes, not for educational ones,” the ASCD website reads. “Test companies make billions. Politicians get elected by promising better test results. Administrators get funding and avoid harsh penalties by boosting test scores. Everyone benefits except the children. For them, standardized testing is worthless and worse.”
The association points out that “test companies (a multibillion-dollar a year industry) not only manufacture the tests, they also manufacture the courses and programs that can be taken to ‘prepare for the test.’” And, the association says, tests favor those who have socio- economic advantages because their parents can buy them books, computers and even tutors to help them.
“If you don’t have the money, and your school is in a low socio-economic area that gets less funding than rich suburban schools, then you’re not getting the same preparation for the test as those at the higher socio-economic levels do,” the association website reads.
The association added that standardized tests don’t value the diversity of students taking the tests, who have different cultural backgrounds, different levels of proficiency in the English language, different learning and thinking styles, different family backgrounds, and different past experiences.
The association says the tests cause unwarranted stress for students. And, because teachers know that test scores may affect their salaries and job security, they and their administrators have been caught on multiple occasions cheating.
In December 2008, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper investigation found suspect test scores at five Atlanta-area elementary schools. An investigation was launched and specially appointed state investigators cited multiple cheating violations, along with organized and systematic misconduct in Atlanta schools. The state investigators’ report named 178 teachers,principals and administrators at 44 Atlanta schools, with 80 educators confessing to cheating, according to the report. More than 20 pleaded guilty, while 11 were found guilty of felony charges.
Not all testing is bad
Sabin said that while she does not want her children to participate in something she views as ultimately unfair to everyone involved, she actually has no problem with teachers testing their students.
“There is a common misperception that those of us who support opting out are anti- assessment,” Sabin said. “It’s that assessment done by the professional educator that we rely on as to where (students) are and where they need to be. The teachers are constantly assessing what their students need to know The five question quizzes — those are the assessments that are valuable. The end of course exams do function differently…… It’s part of their course grade. They’re going to take a 30% hit to their grade, which is going to hurt their (grade point average). I don’t advocate opting out of EOC.”
She said, ultimately, FSA and tests like it are preparing students who want to go to college and graduate school, but not all students are headed in that direction.
“I don’t think we need to spend 10 years of a kid’s education to fill in a bubble in case they want to go to grad school,” she said.
As for Charlotte, without ever taking a standardized test, she is heading to Harrison School for the Arts next year — a high-performing public school with a highly competitive selection process.
“I’m really surprised that I got in, myself,” Charlotte said. “I would say that I’m pretty good at creative writing. After college, one thing I plan to do is become a book editor because I can get paid to read books. And encourage (authors) to make their book better and grow as a person, as well.”
Ledger reporter Kimberly C. Moore can be reached at kmoore@theledger.com or 863-802- 7514. Follow her on Twitter at @KMooreTheLedger.