Arizona Parents Have A Good Chance To Assert Right To Opt Out

Arizona parents have a good chance this legislative session to assert with confidence their parental right to opt their child out of mandatory standardize testing and invasive surveys. Groups like the Mommy Lobby fought the battle valiantly last year against the chamber-of-commerce types and faux Arizona teacher representative forces, but with little ammo.

This year, Rep. Chris Ackerly’s HB2056 would guarantee a parent’s right to opt out, and Rep. Mark Finchem’s HB2044, will require schools to obtain informed consent from parents before students can participate in surveys.

Unlike last year, the big guns are stepping up in opposition to the standardized testing scheme. On January 7, 2016, Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO), wrote a letter to John King, acting Secretary Department of Education, advising him of her “disappointment and frustration at the Dec. 22, 2015, letter signed by Acting Assistant Secretary Ann Whalen regarding participation rates on state tests and the U.S. Department of Education’s planned enforcement of the 95 percent participation rate requirement.”

According to Weingarten, that December 22 letter “signals intent to vigorously enforce the 95 percent test participation requirement and outlines consequences that include withholding funds.” She asserts that the letter “goes against the spirit of a Dec. 18 letter from Acting Assistant Secretary Whalen, issued less than a week earlier, indicating that the department would fully support states, districts and schools as they transition to implementation of the new Every Student Succeeds Act.”

In her strongly worded letter, Weingarten acknowledges that the “new ESSA requires states to test 95 percent of students,” and focuses primarily on the concerns of teachers. However, she comes through for parents when she writes: “Make no mistake, the opt-out movement — the reason that so many states did not meet the 95 percent participation requirement in 2014-15 — was a referendum on this administration’s policies that created the culture of overtesting and punishment. Your October 2015 “Testing Action Plan” admitted as much, and the overwhelmingly bipartisan passage of ESSA was a strong signal that the page must be turned on these policies.”

Diane Ravitch addresses the “threat” in her most recent posting about Weingarten’s letter to King. Ravitch reveals that the “threat” might take the form of sanctions such as withholding federal funds. “This is ironic: suburban parents opt their children out, so urban children (the main recipients of Title I funding) will lose funding,” writes Ravitch. “Good thinking, bureaucrats!”

While Weingarten calls on King to stop with the threats, she falls short of giving parents and teachers what they want: an end to the arbitrary testing. Weingarten wrote King, “With one year left in your administration, we ask that you step away from business as usual. America’s schools don’t need letters threatening to withhold much- needed funds. They need support as they work to figure out their new accountability systems, including how the 95 percent participation requirement will be included.”

Arizona receives relatively little money from the federal government, but much of its regulations come from the feds. The small risk of funds, along with fewer opposition forces, could create an atmosphere in which the two Arizona lawmakers might see their bills sail through the Legislature this year and take the lead in rejecting the feds obsession with high stakes and arbitrary quotas.

In the future, we will explore the meaning and implications of Whalen’s letter, and the video below, in which Senator Lamar Alexander addresses parents’ rights to opt out during the ESSA vote, as well as claims made by Senator Orin Hatch in his press release; Factcheck: 8 Myths About the ESSA, in which he reports:

Because this bill devolves the responsibility of education from the federal government to states and local districts, ESSA allows states to have opt-out laws, but must still test 95% of students. However, if a state misses the 95% threshold, states – not the federal government – determine any and all consequences.

What the bill says:

Title VIII, Sec. 8025L OPT-OUT PROCESS.—A parent of a secondary school student may submit a written request, to the local educational agency, that the student’s name, address, and telephone list- ing not be released for purposes of paragraph (1) without prior written consent of the parent. Upon receiving such request, the local educational agency may not release the student’s name, address, and telephone listing for such purposes without the prior written consent of the parent; NOTIFICATION OF OPT-OUT PROCESS.—Each local educational agency shall notify the parents of the students served by the agency of the option to make a request described in subparagraph (A).

Title I – Annually measure the achievement of not less than 95 percent of all students, and 95 percent of all students in each subgroup of students, who are enrolled in public schools on the assessments described under subsection (b)(2)(v)(I).