STAR test waivers might lead to state takeovers? (letter to John Laird, Santa Cruz Assemblyperson)
John,
According to the Wall St. Journal (see below), if a school in California goes for an extended period without meeting the threshold of participation required to receive an API rating, it could be taken over by the state. As a parent who opposes the ongoing testing craze, and who desires to see his children opted out of testing, this seems like blackmail to me.
“Spurred by a former school-board member who opposes testing, Drake parents excused 37% of eligible students in 2001 and 29% in 2002. Drake administrators say the lack of a rating imperils the school’s image and its chances for government and private grants. If a California school goes long enough without a score, it could also be taken over by the state for failure to show improvement, but the no-score policy hasn’t be in effect long enough for that to happen.”
“I certainly wonder how you can have a state accountability measure, and then permit parents to exclude their kids,” says superintendent William Levinson. “It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
Also without a ranking is Edison Elementary School in Santa Monica, Calif., a bilingual charter school where parents opted out 67 of 80 second-graders last spring from state testing, which covers grades 2-11. Since the school doesn’t teach reading and writing in English until third grade, second-grade parents “feel it is a waste of their child’s time and a little bit torturous for them to take a standardized English test,” says teacher Elizabeth Ipina.
Last April, five school districts — along with a charter school that didn’t receive a score — challenged the 2001 rule in state court in San Francisco. They contend they shouldn’t be “denied the chance to have their schools’ performance measured and compared with other like schools” nor “deprived of a multitude of state and federal funding opportunities” just because parents are exercising a legal right. The case is set for trial in March.
(http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1040679713632480553,00.html)
I’m a graduate of Edison Elementary in Santa Monica. The school has an outstanding record, and is a nationally recognized model for bilingual immersion (instituted after I attended) - the quality of its program is evidenced by both the performance of its graduates and the fact that very well off parents from all over the district line up every year to attend a school in the “barrio”. The school has already been forced to become a charter institution due to Ron Unz’s anti-bilingual education initiative, the STAR testing regime is just another example of how state mandates and one-size-fits-all measurements hamper innovative programs that don’t fit into bureaucratic cookie-cutter slots. Why should Edison have to prove itself, when local residents (who would know better than anyone else) are already pounding down the doors to get in?
It seems absurd to me that no exemption can be carved out to protect schools from being taken over in the event of non-qualification due to waivers. Why should these schools and districts have to sue to force the state to exercise common sense? Would it be possible for you and your fellow legislators to do something about this?
Regards,
Thomas Leavitt
