Attention Parents.
The easiest time to opt out is at the beginning of school. Your kids have taken the test. They have told you it is a waste of time. Out of 45 states once part of Common Core, Delaware is one of 9 left taking this horrible test. You have not gotten the scores back because they are afraid you will opt out once you see them… They have set a deadline to opt out that will be crossed before you get your scores….
Point is: you don’t need those scores to know you want to opt out… You want to opt out… Here is the short list of reasons including the one above.
- Legislatures in almost every state have dropped the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Delaware is one of the few that didn’t. The test is that bad.
- The Delaware General Assembly House voted 36 to 3 to allow you, the parent to opt out… That is a 12 to 1 ratio in favor…
- The Delaware General Assembly Senate voted 14 to 7 to allow you, the parent to opt out… That is a 2 to 1 ratio of people who despite getting the hard sell from the governor to stand firm against parents and allow corporations to masticate your children, chose to allow you, the parent to opt out….
- The General Assembly will meet this fall in a special session to override the Governor’s veto if you, the parent become active in your state government and call all the representatives to demand it.
- 100% of child psychologists across the country have said the Smarter Balanced Assessment unlike any other test out there, is very harmful to your child’s development. They strongly urge all children to opt out.
- The test is a joke. Every grown up who has taken the test (which you can do as well) has said “what the fvck are these questions even asking?”
- The scores are graded on a curve… and it doesn’t matter how well your child does on the test, he is still going to be given the score the DOE wants him to have… It is not like tests you remember in school where if everyone gets all the answers right, they all get an “A”… Being graded on the curve means that even if all the kid’s answer correctly, the bottom 70% of those answering perfectly, will still fail. It will be decided on the psychological profiling questions every child must answer….
- The answers are so immature, professional adults don’t know which is right. Therefore they can be changed at will and no one ever sees the scores or the tests to collaborate that the score received came from the test that was taken… They get their appointed score based on their race and income level.. Pure and simple…
Opting out has never been easier… Copy and paste the form below and send it with your child on August 31st….
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Delaware’s Official Opt Out Form.
Dear Principal at ____________________________________ School.
I, the parent of _______________________________________ am choosing to opt my child out of the most ridiculous test ever known to man: the Smarter Balanced Assessment. He is not to take that test when it is administered to his class.
Please put him in study hall or a classroom where he can read something he finds worthwhile when those in his class who did not opt out, are scheduled to take the test…
Thank you in advance for your prompt response…..
Signed______________________________________________
Parent and legal guardian of ______________________________________________
Copyright held by the Delaware Department of Education/2015
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kavips 
3 comments
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August 10, 2015 at 7:25 am
jeffreymhartman
I graduated high school in 1995. My friends and I were way ahead of this current opt-out business. We were one of the first 11th grade cohorts to take the PSSA in Pennsylvania. As soon as we found out the test wouldn’t affect our credits, a band of five or six of us decided we simply weren’t going to bother with the test. We sat down, opened the answer forms, marked “B” for every answer, closed the books, and handed them to the proctor. Done. Each of us who had agreed beforehand went through with this. The proctors were angry but had no recourse. We did it because A) we were lazy and B) we thought subversion for its own sake was fun. Had we put more energy into it, we could have convinced maybe a dozen or more others to join us.
I don’t necessarily agree that standardized tests will be the death of American education. I’ve taken ten or more different tests and I don’t think they’ve done permanent damage to me. I’ll take the GRE again this fall after having not taken it since 2004. All of that said, getting kids to not take a test should be easy—teenagers in particular. They don’t like to take tests and they do like to do whatever their friends are doing. A social media campaign that appears to have been started by a teenager could be enough to convince hundreds if not thousands to skip a test. They’ll feel like part of a movement. It would be amusing to watch.
I suppose the form above involves fewer steps, so that is s probably the more sensible route. Thank you for sharing it. The angry teenage protest route would be more fun, though.
August 10, 2015 at 9:48 am
kavips
Agreed. 🙂 What a great idea… How does the “Hartman Movement” sound?
August 11, 2015 at 8:31 am
jeffreymhartman
I had been thinking “Straight A’s” which would be the name of the movement as well as the action students would take (they’d mark “A” for every answer). However, having a statewide protest named after me would be flattering in some way.