Diane Dalenberg SSU School Law

2/1/11

EDUCATION CODE section 60615 THE RIGHT TO OPT OUT

§ 852. Pupil Exemptions. A parent or guardian may submit to the school a written request to excuse his or her child from any or

all parts of any test provided pursuant to Education Code section 60640. A school district and its employees may discuss the Standardized Testing and Reporting STAR Program with parents and may inform parents of the availability of exemptions under Education Code section 60615. However, the school district and its employees shall not solicit or encourage any written exemption request on behalf of any child or group of children. NOTE: Authority cited: Sections 33031 and 60605, Education Code. Reference: Sections 60615 and 60640, Education Code.

WHAT WAS THE AVERAGE PARTICIPATION RATE IN CALIFORNIA between 2003-2010? 2003=97.8% in ELA and Math and NO - all subgroups did not meet participation rate 2004=99% in ELA and 98% in Math and YES - all subgroups did meet participation rate 2005-present- 99% in ELA and Math and YES - all subgroups did meet participation rate

ADEOUATE YEARLY PROGRESS - California, 2010: http://www.ed-data.k12.carus/Accountability/AYP.asp?reportNumber--1&fyr =0910&county=&district=&school=&level l4&tab=2

Subgroup Performance and Participation

Student' •

Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs) % Proficient and Above % PartiCipation

Subgroups' , :English/Language Arts

(56% Target)

Mathematics (56.4% Target)

English /Language

Arts

(95% Target)Mathematics •

(95% Target)

Mack Cr ...Moan Ammar 41.3 39.6 99 99

asouvl=r. Imaten Of aria ICE5VE 46.8 47.0 99 99

u.sas 76.7 82.5 100 100

Fifigino 71.6 72.1 100 100

etlantr. or Lett,. 41.8 46.8 99 99

Native Hoomear Or NOM: Leander 51.1 53.4 99 99

cruse 70.9 69.1 95 99

TA,.., Or more Pates 65.0 62.3 99 99

55122.- cour.,,t ant Oen:war:otos.:

41.2 46.4 99 99

&IOC' LC325e1 35.5 45.6 99 9.4

Stern:: wir. lament:ties 3 ::....t 35.0 57 96

"15 5:2 numeaseav Posits won valtd MU errolmert MUMS

Note: AYO int:salami app. , sattss meet not De ni7N:gtmeti

55555t2CL 2 5522,505p must rare 150 DLINts fr be la'W Or total C2,1*(11211t 0115 C:: 5:

CCM, See Stutlents sv :?smottls end l,r.aueues or trans, ,servs , Studeots for .easSent aSes Coons me rear.

ere rrienteteres 51200 t555 00 not Meet F.Y tercet a standara eCtoairy do meet AYr marulares cue to

IC 505

vatues. Same NIP Maicatd , as atternatve mettatddetermroatlan

V2 6E152: art wia

Source: Galacrnia Des-4rtms: C., anor.atton PoOry 3rd 5V2 FlatIon laisision. (act' aort.MIS% I/7120: :: 115C:: 500012 0. I/7a0:1;

In 2005, 65 percent of all high schools failed to meet AYP based solely on not meeting the 95 percent participation rate. Part of this failure is a result of California's postponement of the California Hi gh School Exit exam requirement until 2006. Another challenge for California is in meeting the needs of the thousands of schools that receive Title I funds, although some of the current requirements are not fully funded. Also students with disabilities ought not be sin g led out for failure for not meeting 100 percent proficiency (college ready) by 2014. (not sure of date on this "fact")

Access to a DAIT provider or other consultant/coaching services

% of students given access to Supplemental Educational Services (outside tutoring services)

Students wouldn't judge themselves on a test score (DD)

Parents must be given the opportunity to choose a non-PI school and the district must provide transportation.

% of low-performing students must have access to Supplemental Educational Services (outside tutoring agency)

10% of budget must be dedicated to "Highly Qualified Teacher S Upport"

Teachers would feel more freedom to teach to students and standards instead of to "the test" (DD)

District monitors benchmark assessments more closely, usually along with an outside consultant

Standardized test prep would be decreased and instructional time would be returned (DD) (DD)

Program Improvement (P1) Status!

Students and school would be judged on more than a couple of test scores (DD)

No API score given because of "invalid" participation rate

Alternative assessments or multiple measures would be used to analyze a school's progress (DD)

Title I funding could be cut ??? (after a lot of research still don't know exactly how???)

Parents empowered to take action on what they feel is best for their child and will most likely become interested and involved in

alternative assessments that measure what they help to develop as essential standards in that school (DD)

Specific State and Federal funding for ADA districts is tied to performance on STAR testing or AYP/API, so that funding source

would be negatively affected.

Schools would find it necessary to develop creative ways to "sell" their school and communicate what is valued at that particular school,

if it wasn't already done for them like it is when AYP and API are available to use for evaluation (DD)

Could potentially negatively affect real estate sales around district as many potential homeowners use AYP scores to evaluate houses

in attendance areas of neighborhood schools

Schools might elect to adopt Professional Learning Communities or engage in Professional Conversations as a type of professional

development (DD)

Forced "restructuring" of school or takeover (for schools in PI Year 5+ or lowest 5%)

Teachers might more frequently elect to use the Cycle of Inquiry process on assessments they truly value rather than always on

assessments that predict success on the STAR test (DD)

Data-driven instruction more closely monitored especially on state test-like activities and benchmark predictors (DD)

Parents who don't feel their neighborhood school is a good "fit" may be given the opportunity to find a school that is a better "fit."(DD)

Rebel school may be "attractive" to some families (DD)

Parents may get more involved in other aspects of school (DD)

Home values could sky-rocket as schools begin to utilize highly innovative practices that aren't always "standardized" (DD)

Students may get more involved in Project Based Learning (DD)

Professional Learning Communities & Cycles of Inquiry required (DD)

School would find it necessary to develop a marketing and PR budget to "sell" their school to a state test-driven society (DD) School may begin to develop negative reputation in community

(DD) Teachers may feel too "free" to teach whatever they want and not

feel like they are held accountable (DD) Students may be denied to future programs or schools without this

specific test data DD = Diane Dalenberg's interpretation of possible pro or con / SOURCES of "facts" in table: CDE, Google, District Office, Interviews

FASCINATING FACTS & THOUGHTS on Program Improvement & AYP: Forty percent of elementary schools made AYP in 2010 compared with 61% in 2009 and 26% of middle schools made AYP compared with 27% in 2009.(The state did not release similar AYP results for high schools after statewide graduation data was available.) A major portion of federal funding for K-12 education in Title I of ESEA is for students from low-income families. Schools receiving these funds are known as Title I schools. Their challenges are particularly tough and the consequences for not making AYP are more serious. Title! elementary schools making AYP dropped from 52% in 2009 to 30% in 2010. Middle schools receiving Title I funds dropped from 21% to 19% making AYP in 2010. (AYP results for high schools are pending the availability of statewide araduation data.) In August 2003, 1,200 schools were in or entered Program Improvement, according to the CDE. By September 2006, 639 schools moved into PI and 104 exited. In 2010, 567 schools were newly identified for PI and 83 exited after making AYP for two consecutive years. This means 3,197 schools, almost 52% of California's Title I schools, are in some stage of needing improvement. (Note: This information was not updated by the state after release of graduation rate data.) In 2010, 258 schools advanced to Year 5 of Program Improvement. While NCLB does not allow for a school PI designation beyond Year 5. more than 1,000 of the 1,292 schools in Year 5 of PI have been identified for PI for at least six years. Note: More than one-third of California's schools did not receive Title 1 funds in 2009. They are not subject to PI regardless of their AYP status.

SOURCE: http . //www.ed-data.k 1 2.ca.usiarticlesiarticle.asp?title=understan d in a%20the%20ayp

Taking A Stand O

n Testing

By Marc Fisher

Tuesday, March 25, 2003; Page B

Ol

W hat if they gave a test and nobody cam

e? What w

ould happen if, on the day teachers hand out the N

o. 2 pencils, parents decide that no child of theirs will

be left behind to fill in the bubbles?

Ad,rtiseirent

CAL:Oa

': W

f t

Marc Fisher can be reached by e-m

ail at m

arcfisher©w

ashpost.com or by phone

at (202) 334-7563.

Discuss this and other columns on the

Marc Fisher M

essage Boards.

In Virginia, M

aryland and across the country, the school year is now

a minefield of

standardized tests, interrupted only by test-prep lessons that have elbow

ed out the arts, field trips and creative teaching.

a N

ow, in m

ore than 20 states, parents are fighting back by keeping their children at hom

e

a on test days.

It's a simple yet pow

erful form

of protest, and it hits the ayatollahs of the accountability

movem

ent right in the gut, forcing them to choose betw

een their beloved exam

s and their long-standing belief in parents' rights.

Boycotts have not yet hit V

irginia's Standards of Learning tests or Maryland's

new H

igh School Assessm

ents, because those exams do not yet stand betw

een students and graduation. B

ut in states already using tests to determine w

ho gets a diplom

a, boycotts are becoming an effective w

eapon.

In Scarsdale, N.Y

., 60 percent of eighth-graders stayed home during state tests

in 2001. About 50,000 C

alifornia students opted out of state testing last year; in addition, hundreds of teachers refused cash bonuses given w

hen their students do w

ell on the tests.

.00■

11 G

enerally, kids who opt out of tests are am

ong the best students, so their absence drags dow

n the school's overall score -- and that has a direct impact on

schools' budgets.

Why such antagonism

to tests? Most boycotters don't m

ind the concept of standardized tests -- they're part of how

we m

easure performance in this

society. What they object to is the effect testing is having on A

merica's

classrooms.

"Testing is reducing the quality and quantity of the curriculum," says M

ickey V

anDerw

erker, president of Parents Across V

irginia United to Reform

SOLs.

"It is driving spending into test prep materials and aw

ay from high-quality

resources."

More im

portant, the testing at the cornerstone of President Bush's approach to

education is proving to be little more than a scare tactic. In a recent national

poll, 66 percent of teachers said they now concentrate on tested inform

ation to the detrim

ent of other material. A

nd 79 percent said they devote class time to

test-taking skills such as filling in bubbles.

Bush's testing regim

en in Texas, the vanguard of the movem

ent, appears to be leaving poor and m

inority students even further behind, according to Linda M

cNeil of R

ice University and A

ngela Valenzuela of the U

niversity of Texas at A

ustin. They found that schools in poor comm

unities have cut time devO

ted to higher-order thinking skills and problem

-solving to make room

for test- --

taking drills. Money once spent on books and lab supplies is used instead to

buy test-prep booklets and software.

Teachers told the researchers that although practice tests help raise scores on reading tests, "m

any of their students are unable to use those same skills for

actual reading."

What to do? The sam

e politicians who saw

high-stakes testing as a panacea (so m

uch easier than actually improving schools) w

ill change their tune when they

see armies of protesting parents.

Virginia's SO

Ls will becom

e a barrier to graduation next year. Thus far, resistance to the tests has been "quiet, w

ith some parents keeping their children

home on test days," V

anDerw

erker says. But "as students and schools m

ove closer to state-m

andated consequences, it is likely that resistance will becom

e m

ore direct and more focused."

In Maryland, Sue A

llison, coordinator of Marylanders A

gainst High Stakes

Testing, opposes asking parents to keep children at home on test days but plans

to urge school boards to issue diplomas w

ithout regard to test scores. That w

ould free students to boycott tests without fear of losing their sheepskins.

Last month, the D

istrict scrapped Stanford 9 tests for first- and second-graders, though the system

will keep the test in third through I Ith grades.

"We're w

orking to roll back the emphasis on testing that w

as foisted on us by the control board," said Steve Seleznow

, then chief of staff of the D.C

. schools. "Tests w

ere the only educational tool they knew."

But schools alone cannot push the pendulum

back toward balanced teaching.

That fight belongs to parents who have the courage to say no.

Student-centered ---yo schools, not

standardized tests, w

ill reform public

education, says Alfie K

ohn.

LFIE

KOHN H

AS

SP

EN

T m

ost of his life melting iron-

ic in saioa lrr fifth grad; he aptly titled a class assign-m

ent "Blisyworh" and handed it in his teacher. He led his

fellow sixth graders in protest by refusing to sing military songs in music class. And when the local AM

CHCIIII Legion chapter recognized him

with an award in ninth grade, his "shot I, train-

Aced speech" refilslog the honor triggered his first flurry of national publicity.

Today Kohn, who has degrees fmni Brawn and the University of Chicago, delivers more than forty speeches a year to parents, teachers, administrators, and busittesspeople. He is one of the most vocal cities of school reforms that call fur high-grilles tests, greater

Interview by M

elissa Minkin

accountability, and tougher stalidanis—Chan,

sound appealing on bumper stickers lint under,/

lion. Kohn it relentless in his drive to star•

"Tougher Standards" movement, a until Congre the No C

hild Left Behind A

ct of 2001 niandinin A

Kahn speech decodes the mystery of standar. it hills intellectual curiosity, beats dow

n innova sets up large gim

ps of students to fail. His btu value of com

petition, the wisdom

of traditional • of rewards and punishm

ent to control people, altruism

and empathy O

le soys 1/10/C unit, R

ecent titles include The Schools O

ur Children

Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher thefortlicorning W

hat Does It Mean To Be Wel

Unconditional Parenting.

dardized testing is a fine idea. M

ELISSA MIN

KIN: H

ow do you

think the movem

ent toward "tougher standards" and school accountability is actually lowering the quality of education in this country?

ALFIE KOHN: The desperate rush to raise standards in schools was not initi-ated by educators or for educational reasons. Rather. it was mandated by politicians and corporate executives for political reasons.... The effect is to squeeze the intellectual life out of class-rooms. Also, It has a disproportionately destructive effect an poor and minority kids, and it drives out some of our best teachers. Schools begin to look like test preparation factories

MM

: So what do standardized tests measure?

AK: Standardized tests are extremely good measures of the size of the houses , near a school. Study after study has found that you can predict as much as 90 percent of the differences in test scores without knowing a damn thing about what's going on In the class-room

s. All you have to know is the poverty level, other measures of socio-economic status, or whether students have crammed forgettable facts and iso-lated skills into short-term

mem

ory. They don't measure deep thinking; they don't treasure the ability to apply and connect disparate Ideas; they don't measure irony or creativity or decency.

MM

: Are you saying that test results don't matter?

AK: Test scores are not merely mean-ingless; the news is actually worse than that. Higher test scores generally are bad news That's true both at the indi-vidual level—

because research shows that high test scores are correlated with superficial thinking on the part of many students—

and at the aggregate level, because if a school boasts that its test scores W

eill up, parents ought to imme• cliately respond by asking what had to be sacrificed from their kids' education in order to /mite that happen.

Little kids are being denied the chance to have recess; art and music programs are being slashed. There are fewer dis-cussions of current events, fewer field

trips, fewer opportunities to read good books of the children's choosing, fewer high school electives. fewer opportuni-ties to do discovery-oriented science and interdisciplinary projects. The best is being sacrificed to raise test scores, and the news media uncritically report thigh] test scores as good news.

MM

: Many parents believe high-

stakes testing doesn't affect them

—their children are in private

schools, or affluent public schools that don't test, or if they do. their kids score well. W

hy should these parents care about the testing trend? W

hy should people without school-age children care?

AK: First, short-term self-interest. All

public schools• including affluent schools, are being tested, and those with the best educational program

s have more to lost. S

ome incredibly fine

curriculum units—

along with the tal-ented and frustrated teachers who created them—

are indeed being lost in these schools as a result of the pressure to raise scores. Even m

any private schools, exempt from state testing at the moment, are feeling the effects of this whole counterproductive "raise the bar" sensibility.

Second, long-term self-interest. We all

have to live alongside the graduates of. and dropouts from, our public schools. Ultim

ately, our whole social fabric is affected by what is done to other peoplek children. Despite the best efforts of pow-erful people like George W

Bush to sell us on privatization, education really is a pub-lic good, like it or not.

Finally; simple human decency If we're screwing over the most vulnerabl y mem-bers of our society—

children, no less—then no one with a conscience can be indifferent.

MM

: Do accountability and testing

have a role in the classroom?

AK: First, we have to distinguish between a any to tell whether your child is learning or needs villa help on the one hand, and finding a way to evaluate whole schools or districts on the other. For example, ill want to know how my kid is doing. I turn to the teacher who has been, ideally, offering specific tasks that provide

constant feedback about the level of my

child's knowledge and understanding. If my child comm home babbling excitedly about something she figured out in school today, or if the kids in a class continue to argue animatedly about an Idea after class is over, these are very good signs. You don't need standardized tests or grades to tell you what kids understand and where they need more support.

If WC

are talking, though, about accountability at n schoolwide level, then It is possible to sample the projects and portfolios of students to get an overall sense of the quality of teaching and learn-ing that is going on in that school. No knowledgeable educator would ever argue that you need a standardized test to hold schools accountable or to assess the qual-ity of learning.

MM

: Many schools are im

plementing •

scripted learning programs. How do

they fit in?

AK: I wouldn't dignify them by calling

dram learning programs. They were not designed to help kids make connections and distinctions. They were not designed to help kids become proficient thinkers, critical thinkers, and lovers of learning. They were designed to raise scores on bad tests.

Research, dating back decades, demon-strates that such scripted direct instruc-tion is useless in reaching any ambitious !cognitive development] goals. At best, they get kids to cough out answers on command for a shun period of time. lAnd these programs! drive the best teachers out of the profession. Some of these pro-grams have almost Orwellian names like "Success For All." Rarely do affluent white kids have to deal with them. W

hich is to say, the least ambitious and most appalling kinds of Instruction are visited almost uniform

ly On African-American and

Latino kids M cities.

MM

: Where is this testing trend

heading?

AK: A lot of us thought we had hit bot-

tom a few years ago, because of how testing has come to take over education system

s. Then Bush and his cronies pushed through something even worse than our wildest nightmares, which is a federal requirement that every state test

every *student every year, from grades three through eight and again in high school. It was passed with the approval of most Democrats In Congress, reminding tts once again that the relevant distinction Is not between Democrat and Republi-can, but between people who have some understanding of how learning happens and those who haven't a clue.

Half the states now either have or are phasing in a high-stakes graduation test In defiance of common sense and the accepted standards of education mea-surem

ent. which hold that It is unethi-cal to m

ake decisions about whether students get diplomas or are promoted to the next grade on the basis of a single test score. !Asa result,1 hundreds of thou-sands of students will be forced out of school—

despite years of academic accom-

plishments--because they're not good at taking standardized tests.

A disproportionate share of those stu-dents will be low-income and minority students. W

e've already watched it hap-pening in places that have pioneered this heavy-handed, top-down, test-oriented approach, like Texas—

which is an edu-cational nightm

are. We're seeing the

effects now in Massachusetts and New York City and elsewhere.

For some years, there have been

encouraging signs of a bottom-up rebel-lion in which teachers, students, and par-ents have organized meetings In their living room

s, set up local Web sites,

planned petitions, rallies, marches, boy-cotts. In California, North Carolina. and Florida, teachers who were awarded bonuses for high test scores--which is to say, bonuses for working In affluent districts--either publicly refused to accept the m

oney or...put it into a fund for schools that really need help. One of the

strongest reactions From parents has been! to refuse to allow their kids to par-ticipate in the testing. Though it has hap-pened In som

e rich and some poor

schools, the rich schools get all the atten-tion when It happens.

IA superintendent living near Rochester, New York! created 8.CO

MM

itlee 10 devise and im

plement a county diplom

a that would be awarded to students on the basis of multiple measures of academic per-formance instead of solely on the basis of passing that statek Regent's test. The idea was to devise a diploma that would be legally valid. practically useful. and educationally credible so that the power of the state government to require stan-dardized testing as the criterion fur grad-uation would be effectively neutralized. Instead of just boycotting the test, they

said, 'Letk make that state diploma unnec-essary.'

There is certainly a need to send let-ters to the editor. But some folks think we need to do more than that: we need to talk about civil disobedience, More ordinary parents. along with teachers, are becoming fed up with the whole corporate approach to school reform. Unfortunately, very few top policymakers understand why "the tougher standards movement" has the practical effect of lowering stan-dards in school.

In fact, my rule of thumb is: the closer you get to real classrooms, the more peo-ple understand what a menace it is to talk about standatzlizing education and testing kids constantly. I can tell from

the applause when I speak to groups of teach-ers, as opposed to groups of principals, as opposed to groups of superintendents, as opposed to groups of policymakers. The farther you get from real kids, the m

ore likely you arena think that man-

MM

: If you were choosing a school for your children, what would you look for?

AK: The best schools are those that take kids seriously—

their needs and con-cerns, their questions, and Interests. The lessons are organized around prob-lem

s and projects that speak to what kids want to know about them

selves and the world around them, rather than forgettable facts and isolated skills and discrete disciplines. Kids still acquire knowledge, but in a cot/text and for a purpose. Greet classrooms are inviting places, filled with stuff, with discrete activity centers, with stuff by the kids all over the walls. with lots of evidence

that kids are learning with and from one another. You don't tend to see desks in a row, or get the sense that the teacher m

akes all the decisions unilaterally. There's a kind of friendly, productive disorder. There's a sense that this place is a caring com

munity: it's not about

competition (who's better than whom) or about isolation (eyes on your 011.11 work). And the kids play on active role with the teacher In m

aking decisions, planning events, solving problem

s together. In short, its a place that feels warm

and collaborative, that invites kids to take risks and think deeply together about things dram matter.

A W

ant To Learn More?

www.alfiekohn.org w

ww

.faIrtestorg

Melissa M

inkin is a writer in Los Angeles. Her

last article for Hope was "Shaking Up Shake-

speare' (September/October 20021.

a school boasts that its test scores w

ent up, parents ought to im

mediately respond by asking w

hat

had to be sacrificed from their kids'

education in order to make that happen."

2 v4w

w.nopainae.com

I januaryeeebruary 2004 - !LOP

E

FL-me .

.