i submitted my refusal letter today to my sons school....now i have to wait on a response.... Please be informed that I am writing on behalf of my children,**** This letter is my formal notice to you and the **** District that I officially and respectfully refuse to allow ***** to participate in any standardized assessments or activities tied to the Common Core, SBAC, PARCC, and/or NJASK assessments during the 2014-2015 school year. In addition, I refuse to allow ANY data pertaining to my children to be used outside of the school or for any purpose other than for the individual teachers’ classroom instruction. This includes but is not limited to personal data of any kind or statistical data used to determine school ranking, to evaluate teacher effectiveness, or to be included in state or federal longitudinal studies. To be clear, my children will not participate in the following (included but not limited to): • Any “test-prep” activities associated/ aligned with SBAC, PARCC, NJASK, or Common Core. • Any “benchmark” exams associated/ aligned with SBAC, PARCC, NJASK, or Common Core. • Any progress-monitoring tests or assessments associated/ aligned with SBAC, PARRC, NJASK, or Common Core. • Any computer-based activity associated/ aligned with SBAC, PARRC, NJASK, or Common Core • Any surveys or field tests given by government or corporate entities or testing companies. • Any test used to formulate an evaluation or score for our children’s teachers or school. I respectfully request that alternate plans be made and/ or alternate assignments be given during times when standardized tests are being administered or standardized prep exercises are taking place. Please allow ****** to pursue other educational activities such as independent reading, creative writing, research projects, etc…. Similarly, I request that an alternative portfolio-style system be used to evaluate ******s academic performance, especially in regards to determining placement in academic classes. I also request written confirmation that my children will not face any punitive consequences in areas such as grades, attendance, behavioral evaluations, or placement in current/ future classes. Please know that my decision to refuse Common Core and standardized testing has no bearing on the education I feel the district offers my children. I am proud of this district and all it does to ensure academic success for its students. I hold the schools and teachers in the highest esteem. I implicitly trust the highly-qualified teachers in the classroom to do the job that they were trained to do— create a learning environment that support the individual needs of all children and develop their talents to become critical thinkers and productive, contributing members of our democratic society. I am taking this step because I refuse to support the ill-contrived public education reform propagated through Common Core and high-stakes testing. I oppose the manipulative policies and mandates devised by policymakers and corporations that forced the illegitimate implementation of Common Core and imposed high-stakes standardized testing. I oppose the harvesting and selling of student data and the use of high-stakes test scores for purposes for which they were never intended. I oppose the agendas of profit-seeking corporations like Pearson who have created a multi-billion dollar system of profiting off student failure and who have bullied their way into the classrooms, forcing their ideas of curriculum into instruction, thus taking away the teacher’s authority to make decisions about what is instructionally appropriate or relevant. I oppose the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our students, cultivating within students anxiety and a fear of failure rather than igniting a passion for life-long learning. I oppose the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our teachers, striping teachers of their instructional authority and minimizing teacher competency and efficiency to single set of data points that in actuality reveal nothing about a teacher’s ability to transform students’ lives. I oppose the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our curriculum, over-emphasizing test prep to the point where students cannot think outside of the bubble. I oppose the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our schools, diverting the appropriation of millions of tax-payer dollars to testing infrastructure at the expense of educational staff, support services, extra-curricular activities, and programs in foreign languages, the arts, and sciences. I oppose the damage Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on the quality of public education as a whole, transforming the idea of education as something that expands your horizons into something that is standardized, finite, and measured by the content of a standardized test. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who feel enough is enough. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who refuse to tolerate the manipulation of the public education system. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who refuse to have their children sold out to the highest corporate bidder. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who support, trust, and value our school teachers. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who refuse to compromise the quality of their children’s education. I only hope that the ***** District supports me in my decision. Thank you.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:15:07 +0000
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