There are some third-graders in Florida who are being forced to retake third grade. This is not because they were bad students—let’s forget about arguing the concept of leaving kids behind in the third grade for the sake of this story—in fact, some of the students are considered “honor students.” No, they are being forced to retake the third grade because they refused to participate in a state-mandated standardized test.
An undetermined number of third-graders who refused to take the Florida Standards Assessment in reading have been barred from moving to fourth grade in some counties. A lawsuit filed by parents against state education officials as well as school boards in seven Florida counties says counties are interpreting the state’s third-grade retention law so differently that the process has become unfair. Test participation, therefore, is more important than student class academic achievement.
On Friday, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers held a hearing in the suit about the third-grade retention law, which was passed years ago, when Jeb Bush was governor and at a time when there was no movement among parents to opt their children out of standardized tests. Now the opt-out movement is growing, and officials in Florida as well in other states are trying to figure out how to handle students who won’t take mandated standardized tests. It is unclear how many students in Florida opted out of the 2016 test, though in New York state, 21 percent of public school students did.
There is very little to be said in favor of standardized tests. There really has never been much of anything but laziness and a perverted sense of what an actual education should be working towards in the conception of standardized testing as a merit. For the many “educators” and “school reformers” who have pushed for programs that promise good standardized test scores, the results of how this has improved students’ actual education are non-existent. Jeb Bush helped turn the state into a standardized testing waste zone. A couple of years ago, the mania over standardized testing led to the very depressing story of sixth grader Ethan Ridiske, whose mother was being pressed to explain how he couldn’t keep up with the homebound curriculum of taking a standardized test, when he was in a morphine coma—in the last weeks of his young life. Stories like Ethan’s and others have highlighted the need for parents and students to fight back against pretend educators and corrupt politicians.
Education officials in states where opt-out numbers are growing are now trying to figure out how to handle the movement. Under the recently replaced K-12 No Child Left Behind law, there was a mandate that 95 percent of students in every school had to take a mandated test for accountability purposes. When there was no opt-out movement, compliance was easy. Now there is a debate about whether the 95 percent mandate exists under the new K-12 law, the Every Student Succeeds Act. There is no stated 95 percent mandate in the law, but the Obama administration has proposed new regulations to implement ESSA that would include one. Critics have urged the Education Department to change the draft regulations.
The fact of the matter is that most of these students are able to prove very easily that their reading comprehension is up to par, easily, with what is on these idiotic tests.
"Parents of students who received report cards with passing grades — some of whom were honor roll students — seek emergency declaratory and injunctive relief alleging that, because they opted out of standardized testing for their child, defendants arbitrarily and capriciously interpreted statutes and rules in a manner that requires retention, rather than promotion, of third grade students," Sarasota attorney Andrea Mogensen wrote on behalf of the 14 parents suing the state and seven school districts, including Hernando and Pasco counties.
"The result is that students with no reading deficiency are retained in the third grade," Mogensen wrote, "solely because they opt-out of standardized testing."
Gary Fineout is a reporter and blogger whose Twitter account kept the day’s court proceedings up to date in social media.
Judge Gievers left open the very real possibility that she would be ruling on the injunction by the end of this week, which would allow the children to begin the fourth grade while these idiots from the state try to pretend that aren’t sinking in moral and legal quicksand.
There’s more from Fineout below the fold.
Here’s a “fuck you” to teachers everywhere.
Here’s another “fuck you” to the concept of educating people.
Sounds like those attorneys really care for the children … or just the social promotion.