The local campaign against the educational culture created by standardized assessment testing in public schools has resulted in one Berkshire school district superintendent issuing a stern warning to parents that opting their children out of the state-issued tests this spring could potentially damage the district’s standing with the state as well as incur unspecified consequences for students.
In response to buzz about the possibility of local families refusing to let their children take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test (PARCC), David Hastings, superintendent of Southern Berkshire Regional School District, in a letter sent out March 29th, strongly urged parents in the district to allow their children to participate. The letter (a copy is reproduced at the end of this article) has generated indignation among some parents in the district. According to SBRSD School Committee member Maria Rundle, the letter’s contents will be discussed at their Thursday, April 7 meeting.
The most problematic paragraph concerned the legality of opting one’s children out of the tests. According to Superintendent Hastings, “Everyone should know that in Massachusetts, parents and guardians may not legally refuse their child’s participation in state assessments. In other words, adults may not opt their children out of MCAS or PARCC testing without consequences, including truancy for individuals or negative consequences for our schools.”
In fact, there is no law on the books stating that it is illegal for Massachusetts public school students not to take state-mandated tests. As Superintendent Hastings acknowledged in an interview, no one is going to be led away in handcuffs for not permitting their child to take them. The actual repercussions for students who refuse the test are minimal, except in the 10th grade, when the MCAS test score becomes part of high school graduation requirements. As far as what was intended in the letter by “truancy,” Hastings said the state would have to provide guidance about what would be considered an excused versus unexcused absence. There is no explicit mention in notices, letters and memos from the state of that issue. Hastings says that, to date, about half a dozen SBRSD parents have submitted letters stating their intention to opt their child out of the tests.
Because the state does not provide much clear guidance about how to respond to opting out, Rundle says she intends to recommend at this week’s SBRSD School Committee meeting the creation of a process for parents who want to choose that option, just like there is a process for parents who homeschool. The meeting will also address the specific points brought up in Hastings’ letter, including the question of truancy. Rundle’s motivation is to inform parents. “It would be great to not have to wait for the wheels of policy to grind, but to be able to give parents good answers before this testing cycle.”
As for the danger of SBRSD being punished by the state, Rundle says, “I’ve lost so much faith in this testing culture that I don’t care if our level is 2,3, or P, but I respect that it means something to him [Superintendent Hastings], and he wants to protect us.” If the state does drop the district from a Level 2 to a Level 3, “At that point, we can start having a conversation about parents’ rights to make choices versus state taking that right away from parents. It would be very hard to say that they are dropping us not because the educational quality has decreased, but because parents have decided to do what they think is best for their own children. It’s a very intense situation right now. We need to talk about the harm done by the tests, and opting out is the only lever to shift the direction in how to educate our kids.”
Rundle added that her aversion to high stakes testing is not an aversion to placing her children in difficult situations. “I want my kids to be stressed out and have struggles! This is not about one stressful day. This is about the other 179 days of the school year, how testing is impacting the curriculum. But our district alone isn’t going to move this conversation forward.”
This year Southern Berkshire Regional School District (SBRSD) and Berkshire Hills Regional School District (BHRSD) will be piloting the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, a rigorous set of standardized English and Math tests for 3rd through 8th grade students. PARCC is aligned with the Common Core standards, which most states have adopted.
The PARCC tests will be administered in SBRSD and BHRSD during the last week of April and into May. Unlike the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, tests, PARCC tests are timed. Students in third through fifth grades will spend between 75 and 90 minutes per day, over the course of 7 days, on the English Language Arts and Math tests. (Fifth graders will also take an MCAS Science test.) Sixth through eighth graders will take the tests in longer blocks. Students with learning disabilities and English Language Learners will be allowed extra time. Tenth grade high school students will continue to take MCAS tests.
Over the past couple of years, Mitchell Chester, the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education in Massachusetts, has released various statements regarding his and the state’s expectations of schools in regard to test participation. In a statement released on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) website on October 15, 2014, Chester said: “State law requires that all students who are educated with Massachusetts public funds participate in a statewide student assessment program under the direction of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.”
The state law he referenced — Massachusetts General Law 69, Section 1i — does not, as Chester pointed out, include an “opt out provision.” Neither, however, does it include an explicitly stated requirement that all students take state mandated tests. The onus of the law’s prescriptions appears to be entirely on school districts, dictating all they must do to measure students’ academic outcomes, including, but not limited to, the use of standardized tests. (General Law 69, Section 1i is available online.)
In his Commissioner’s update from January 29th, 2016, Chester seemed to soften his language. “We ask principals and test proctors to handle refusals with sensitivity. Students should not be pressured to take the test, nor should they be punished for not taking the test.”
But then a more recent notice to superintendents across the state, he again took a sterner stance. “Every year, some families ask whether students are allowed to opt-out of taking a statewide test. In brief, the answer is no. Testing is a mandatory part of the curriculum, the same as a spelling test or math test, and statewide assessments are most useful when all students take them. The state does not have an opt-out form. We understand that students might refuse to take a test on their own or at their parents’ suggestion or that parents might write a letter refusing on behalf of their child, but we hope everyone understands that in such cases, the school, the district, and the family would miss out on useful and important information about the child’s performance and achievement.”
The threat that school districts face, and the fear which is driving some communication with districts and parents, is that of the possibility of state sanctions for low test participation rates. Although DESE has promised to “hold harmless” school districts for this year in regard to student performance, the “hold harmless” promise does not extend to participation rates. Schools at the highest rating, Level 1, have been informed that their rating will be dropped to Level 2 if their test participation rate drops below 95 percent.
For SBRSD, the ramifications of going from their current Level 2 to a Level 3 could be more significant. Superintendent Hastings, in his letter, warned that schools risk “losing our autonomy to state oversight next year,” and might be forced to “eliminate skiing or other special programs unique to our District in order to dedicate more time on learning in [our schools].”
However, it appears that the only incident of a Massachusetts school dropping a rating level due to low testing participation rates occurred last year at Monomoy Regional High School, on Cape Cod, a school which includes grades 8-12. The school was downgraded from a Level 2 to a Level 3 rating because fewer than 90 percent of students in the 8th, 9th and 11th grades took the spring, 2015 PARCC test, after having been assured by state officials that schools would be “held harmless” for the test’s rollout year. But Monomoy was in the unique position last year of being a new regional school with no 2014 test scores to compare with those of 2015. This blank slate status is what resulted in its downgrade, according to Jacqueline Reis, a DESE spokeswoman quoted in an article about Monomoy in the Cape Cod Times.
After an appeal by the district, the Massachusetts DESE reinstated the Level 2 rating for Monomoy, although the school’s information on the state’s accountability website will include what some might see as unflattering language reflecting their low participation rates. During a phone conversation, DESE spokeswoman Jackie Reis said she was “not aware of” any other Massachusetts schools districts whose rating had been dropped due to test participation rates.
Some parent members of the Facebook group started on March 13th by Sanzone, “Berkshire County, MA Opt Out” — which as of this writing has 396 members — found Superintendent Hastings’ letter to parents “threatening,” “insulting,” and “uncalled for.”
One mother of young children in the district, who did not want to be identified, said, “In the end the letter made me realize the only way to get the state to listen is to opt out.” But another mother was of the opposite opinion, wanting her daughter to sit for tests and get the practice with standardized test-taking that she had not gotten in private school, so she’d not be traumatized by college entrance exams later on.
Charlotte Lydon of Housatonic had her first birthday in December, but her mother, Melissa Lydon, is already an active member of the Facebook group. Testing in public schools has been on Lydon’s radar ever since her own experience with test anxiety in the late 1980’s. “I love public schools, but I don’t want my daughter subjected to standardized tests because I believe that kids tested at a young age start to have negative feelings about school. More homework, more testing is the opposite of what they need to become creative, entrepreneurial thinkers.” The situation is making Lydon consider that homeschooling might be in her future. “But it would make me sad, because I want her in public school.”
The state’s approach this year to school districts with lower than required test participation rates remains to be seen. DESE Spokeswoman Reis did clarify that, although the state has discretion in whether or not to penalize a school whose numbers came in under the 95 percent or 90 percent thresholds, it would likely use that discretion only in “clearly extenuating circumstances,” in cases where schools “had a measles outbreak and 30 kids missed a week of school, for instance.” Not, in other words, in circumstances where parents voluntarily chose to refuse the test for their child.
But some parents just don’t buy this claim. Kristin Sanzone of New Marlborough, the initiator and manager of the Berkshire County, MA Opt Out Facebook group, does not believe that the state would “penalize an otherwise well-functioning school for parents exercising their rights.” She believes that the opting out numbers in SBRSD schools will be at least in the double digits, which, with the district’s small numbers to begin with, will likely result in participation falling below the 90 percent threshold for a Level 2 school.
At Muddy Brook Elementary School in BHRSD, principal Mary Berle says that one parent has submitted an opt out letter to date. While the school, which has achieved a Level 1 designation, does not, according to Berle, prioritize testing, she sees it as a useful part of a much larger educational picture. “Good teaching prepares students well, and our practice is for kids to know what the test format is, but we do not teach to the test. We look at curriculum holistically, and one piece of that is taking tests. The literate life is what we are here for.” At the end of his letter, SBRSD Superintendent Hastings also added that standardized tests are “just one of many assessments that our students experience throughout the school year.”
From Berle’s perspective, there are clear benefits to the tests, and many parents recognize them. Berle said there is a family delaying its move out of the area until the PARCC tests are administered because of the scholarships available if their child achieves a high score. “I have just as many parents who are concerned about ensuring their child does take it.” She added that adults often have to take tests in their chosen careers, in education, medicine, and the law, for instance. “I have taken four to five tests for my own career, and I just spoke with a doctor who has to take boards every ten years. It is a part of life for almost anyone who has a profession.”
BHRSD Superintendent Peter Dillon added, “Students who do well [on high school tests] are eligible for the Stanley Z. Koplik and the John and Abigail Adams Scholarships which provide tuition waivers for state colleges and universities. It might be a significant mistake to take standardized tests for the first time in high school.”
The letter from SBRSD Superintendent David Hastings to parents of district students:
