Schools and districts are in the challenging position of balancing the requirements of state law (all students must be assessed) and honoring parent requests that their students do not participate in the state assessments. Some parents and students have reported feeling pressured to have their students participate in the assessments. Some schools and districts are frustrated by parents refusing to have their child participate in the state assessments, as it could have a negative impact on the school/district rating. The tension has been increasing as more parent and student voices are speaking out against participating in the new state assessments.
But according Deborah S. Delisle, the US Department of Education assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, who made it clear Wednesday they will look at each state’s context differently when thinking about what sort of sanctions to impose when it comes to opt-outs.
“One of the things we will judge by is, what has the state chief done, to get [folks] to [go ahead with testing],” Delisle said. “Let’s say he sent a letter that said, ‘oh what the hell, just opt-out. It’s not a problem, we’ll deal with it, no ramifications.’ We would deal with that differently then if the chief goes around to every district saying, ‘Hey look, [this] is federal law, you’ve gotta comply,’ and everything in between.”
Translated? This means all threats are bogus… Your children aren’t… You need to opt them out of taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment.
kavips 
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March 21, 2015 at 6:01 pm
Rob
Wallmart Foundation Heirs & Big Banks investing in Charter Schools.
Click on,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/18/1371729/-Walmart-heirs-foundation-advises-hedge-funds-on-how-to-profit-from-charter-schools
March 22, 2015 at 6:01 am
anonymous
Opting Out is on the rise, with or without the “testing.”
Equality begins at home. Folks hear that kids are coming to school in terrible condition. If parents want the best results for their kids, they must raise their children as the ‘best parents’ do – which is having their child, happy healthy and READY TO LEARN, which involves proper parental oversight of every hour of everyday. Which eliminates arriving at school – hungry, disruptive, to sleep at a desk, traumatized, drugged, needing psychological/medical attention, etc. Most of these conditions sound like they should be prevented/handled by the parents, families of said children or by default, other slacking state agencies, i.e. health dept, social services, police, family court, etc.)
News Journal’s ‘Our Views’ says,
“Critics of charters say those schools allow the charters to cherry-pick students at the beginning or to eject students during the school year for discipline or other reasons. That is something the traditional schools cannot do. ” End quote.
Given, traditional public schools can’t cherry-pick. So perhaps charters should need to randomly enroll, not cherry-pick..
However, lack of discipline at any school` school cannot be an option.
Why can’t traditional schools eject for discipline reasons? I think they probably do ‘eject’ for discipline problems, (or they’ll rightfully end up subject to huge law suits.) And they should have a right to ‘eject’ students on the very same grounds charters eject for, (if reasonable.) Then it’s time to see what exactly is wrong with the parents.
The point would be, to put the responsibility where it belongs – on the parents (their students) to meet requirements for attending school to learn. School is not a day care, a baby sitting hangout, a warehouse. Parents (and/or their children) are the ones who must conform to meeting standards which allow teachers to teach. It shouldn’t be that traditional schools have downgraded standards that accommodate troublesome kids of terrible parents.
Older folks can look back to a time when a teacher or principal sent home a note or bad report on a child – good parents handled their job. That kid might not be coming out to play for a while, with parents hovering over homework or allowing no TV, no dessert, etc.) Grounded.
Equality begins at home. Parents should be required to present charter schools and traditional schools with a student prepared in a manner ready to learn (within that student’s inherent learning abilities, of course.)
School personnel, being the adults who come into daily contact with neglected/problem children, have an obligation to report abuse and behavioral problems and should be held responsible for failing to report same to proper authorities. One wonders how much of the “no snitch” mentality goes on with school personnel. Perhaps “no snitching” should become a redefined legal offense, with consequences.They are in authority of children, they must report abuse or wrongful behavior.
Disruptive pupils are – outside the spectrum of normal behavior and into a spectrum of needing ‘special’ oversight (which should demand the participation of parents, parenting classes, participation of other child agencies) until such time the parents can present kids able to function in the classroom settings without becoming disruptive of others. And of course, student physical violence should never be tolerated, always reported and dealt with by the proper authorities.
News Journal’s View goes on:
“They {traditional schools} are obligated to take all students. Therefore, a form of adverse selection has developed, with parents using charters to get away from troubled or disruptive students and the charters themselves using their own selection process to keep the trouble or disruptive students out.” End quote.
Hello failed parents. Learning begins at home; equality begins at home.
Being obligated “to take all students.” shouldn’t apply if “all students” include those violating the rights of well behaved students; those who threaten violence or those who disrupt learning. Lowering the behavioral bar is unacceptable, counterproductive. The bar on parenting should be raised instead.
It sounds like, the public school system – is bending over backwards, catering to the whims of negligent parents with “troubled and disruptive students.” which is leaving ‘good parents’ one option – opting their children out of the traditional Delaware public school system.
Kavips, kindly list other locations where trouble and disruption are acceptable? Work places? Libraries? Airplanes? Parks? Legislative Hall? Prisons? Traditional public schools?
The answer is: It’s accepted in homes of failed parents, in failed neighborhoods where kids are subject to the greatest threats, from their own parents, families and neighbors. In other words, kid’s got problems at home and he’s bringing the problems to school with him. Got beat up at home last night? No food at home? Parent in prison, not home? No bed at home? In-home abuses? Too dangerous to come outside of home as well? Who’s allowing all this? The parents, the families, the neighbors. And the last thing an abusive adult will say to a child is, and you better not say anything about this. Is it any wonder Murder Town is filled with “no snitchers?”
Is a child who is beaten, starving hungry, not taught basic socialization, verbalization, left to fend her him/herself, etc, equally prepared when compared to what the best parents do every day? Of course not.
Continue to ignore illegal parenting and no matter what ‘compromises’ public and charters might come up wit -, every year, there will be a new large crop of kids arriving – prepared to fail and good students scrambling to get out of their way.
Prepared to fail. Is that what politicians want to accept for traditional schools? Who knows, maybe it is. There’s big money being saved in free releasing pollution even as it changes the entire world; perhaps there’s big money to be saved by ignoring neglected kids as well.
The problem with using the ‘dump on’ phrase of ‘single parent’ is, it took two to create a child. The absentee parent, who is most often male, is more negligent, often a non supporting family court deadbeat but is left out of the blame equation, as the custodial female parent takes the blame. (Why those damn ‘single mothers.’) No mention is ever made of the un accountability and irresponsibility of the brotherhood of baby daddies, as negligent absentee, non payment, male roll models of uselessness.
Also the phrase “kids of poverty” is being used to sugar coat unnecessary and purposeful negligence and abuse. Children are usually quite broke and all dependent. Good parents can think back when kids, no matter if lower/middle/upper, were naturally penniless except for paper route money, chore money or a small allowance of $2 or $3 perhaps. (A kid with a pocket full of dollars, that would be weird.) They weren’t called ‘kids of poverty,’ but mostly ‘good kids’ mostly, who came to school clean, fed, pleasant, rested, homework done, ready to learn, from the same streets now known as Murder Town where teens are now too often found with large amounts of cash, drugs and guns. The term “children of poverty” is being wrongly substituted for the poor financial and life decisions of parents with neglected and damaged children. (Got 4 kids, no home, are addicted, no job – having another kid.) How then to take care of five kids? They can’t and won’t. Just call them ‘kids of poverty’ and don’t expect much, right? But don’t blame either of the parents.
Except laws are to protect children as well. Perhaps the federal government needs to address the failings of all state agencies condoning generations of illegal and offensive parenting that effects learning. Not protecting children from bad parents, may be a greatest injustice and inequality thrust upon the young trapped in Murder Town, where young minds are rewired daily and forever, to deal with the drama and trauma of parental negligence.
We all have heard of the absolute worst parents/guardians, (often they are a married/coaches/millionaires/politicians aren’t they. So much for troubled ‘single parent children of poverty.’ And sometimes a best parent is the divorced mother, who put her trash to the curb, or a father or a grandmother – as the person who gives kids a chance to be a normal, happy, bright kids.
Why have schools become ‘enablers’ for other agencies to ignore children suffering, when there are hundreds of people with jobs with job descriptions that are supposed to deal with child abuse and negligent parents?
With or without new testing, charters will have new plans, concerned parents will be opting out their kids from traditional public schools and traditional schools will remain the schools of trouble and disruption.
Charters don’t need “the test” to help drain traditional schools. Charters need traditional schools to keep doing what they’re doing, catering to the parents of troubled and disruptive students, until perhaps the time comes when some charters decide to take on the ‘children of abusive parents’ project as well.
March 22, 2015 at 11:26 am
anonymous
Jack’s Got An Ace of Spades Up His Sleeve
“It’s a public payer, the state is the payer on this category,” he added in support of the highly safe investing opportunities in charter schools.” per David Brain, former Pres & CEO at EPR Properties. Recession proof/guaranteed.
Deal’m boys. Perfect for Delaware, over run with drugs, crime, guns, shootings and murders in its city known as Murder Town. Charters provide the opt out escape route for frightened parents, with a highly safe pay out for investors based on paying up or folks loosing their homes. Safe investing/public player payout.
The state’s broke and broken but Jack pulls out his Ace of a fat pipeline from retirees with homes with an across the state tax plan, to double the school taxes on even the lowest income 65 year old plus crowd, until the surviving elderly give up their home or drop dead. What a deal/what a steal.
March 22, 2015 at 2:00 pm
Rob
Anonymous,
Code Name-Are you Saying.. -“All kids with Discipline Problems are Black”?
May I say,.. Charter Schools have significantly contributed to De-Facto Segregation over the last 10-years
Also, if Markell reforms the Tax Code so that the richest DE 1% with Gross Incomes $500,000+/year increase their ‘Marginal Tax Rate” then maybe the State can still sustain Charter Schools & Wall Street & the Big Foundations can Maximize their profits.
March 22, 2015 at 4:38 pm
kavips
A lot of wind and words were just wasted to say that maybe charter schools should become more like public schools… Why?
The solution is very simple. Eliminate Charter Schools, and then ALL students will be educated better than they are today.
March 23, 2015 at 8:07 am
anonymous
Rob says, quote,
Code Name-Are you Saying.. -“All kids with Discipline Problems are Black”? End of Rob’s quote.
Rob – It’s lowly of you to try to pull a false ‘race card’ out from some dark place in your mind by lamely typing a false, lying, cowardly racist sentence, and quoting yourself, no less, when it is you, Rob, who composed and decided to enter a ‘race card’ into the conversation from out of your mind only; and you, Rob, who is quoting yourself, in a sentence which pretends to ask what one is saying, when one would never think or entertain such a stupid racist sentence – as you have, Rob.
Rob, one is very well aware of the damages white racist males have caused and continue to cause around the world.
Further, anonymous would have no problem saying the referenced public school coaches were white, married, pedophile, public school employed males; and the referenced millionaire offenders are white males, the referenced corrupt politicians were also white males.
In addition, Rob, the outstanding ‘divorce mother’ I mentioned is black, the mentioned good father is a gay white male and the caring, responsible grandmother is black. But one doesn’t think in terms of race, but instead, chooses to think of what’s wrong and what’s right.
Rob, what a slippery, trashy, low life ‘race card’ pulling stunt you tried to pull. But that doesn’t work on someone able to see through your shabby attempt but one does hope Rob isn’t involved in the “education” of children. He may try to enter such thoughts in the minds of babes.
Rob, just because you put a question mark at the end of your racist statement, doesn’t mean you didn’t think it, compose it and offer it, well, because you did.
The racist sentence Rob composed and put in quotes, thereby quoting himself, instead causes one to compose the following statement:
“Rob, you think like a white racist.”
You may quote me on that.
March 23, 2015 at 8:34 am
anonymous
Something for Rob to think about:
https://www.google.com/search?q=photos+ceos&rlz=1CAACAJ_enUS620US620&espv=2&biw=1350&bih=670&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=dxUQVY_JIonBgwSb4IPIAg&ved=0CB0QsAQ
March 23, 2015 at 6:46 pm
Rob
Dear Anonymous,
No Race Card pulled here. Just a ‘Perception’ Reality.