MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The South Orange-Maplewood School District may soon have a policy on record that would allow parents to opt their children out of taking the controversial Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam. The electronic standardized test is meant to measure students’ competency in math and language arts in grades three to 11 based on the Common Core educational standards, and is set to be given to students in just a few weeks.
The Board of Education approved the policy on first reading at its meeting Feb. 2. To become an official mandate, it will have to be passed on second reading at the board’s next meeting Feb. 23.
The policy states that although the board understands that state testing is a valuable component of measuring student achievement and ensuring accountability, which is why it is required to administer exams such as the PARCC assessments, it also knows that some parents may not want to let their children take part. In those cases, the policy stipulated, no negative action will be taken against them.
“The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education recognizes that some parents choose to have their children decline to take one more of the standardized tests,” the policy said. “It is the policy of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education that such parental decisions be met with educationally appropriate and non-punitive responses.”
At no point does the policy mention what such responses would entail. Instead, it directed the superintendent to establish a procedure based on that parameter. Susan Grierson, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, told the News-Record that the district is still working on its plan for students who refuse to take the PARCC test.
In a Feb. 14 email, Grierson said the matter would be discussed at the next board meeting. Board of Education President Wayne Eastman declined to comment beyond the language in the policy.
The proposed policy comes after the statewide “opt out” movement spread to the district. During the past few weeks, several parents voiced their concerns about the PARCC exam at Board of Education meetings, joining numerous other assessment critics statewide. They have all called on school districts to enact a policy that would allow students to opt out of testing without consequence.
Districts are mandated to administer standardized tests, however students cannot be forced to take them. Making things more confusing is the fact that the state does not have a policy concerning what to do with students who refuse.
A memo from acting Education Commissioner David Hespe only instructs superintendents to refer to their districts’ attendance and disciplinary policies for students who do not show up to school or try to disrupt the exam.
Left to act on their own, many districts are beginning to implement policies similar to West Orange’s procedure. Bloomfield, Montclair and Livingston are just a few of the districts across the state that have made it official that refusers will have a place to go during the test.
New Jersey lawmakers have also taken notice of the opt-out movement. In fact, two bills were passed by the state Assembly Education Commission on Feb. 12 in response to parents’ complaints about PARCC. One proposed by Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan would prohibit test results from being used in teacher evaluations or student placement for three years, while another proposed by Assemblywoman Mila Jasey would forbid schools from giving standardized tests to students in kindergarten through second grade. If approved by the General Assembly and the state Senate, both would take effect for the 2015-16 school year.
Diegnan, chairman of the Education Commission, has also proposed a bill that could have made the opt-out movement moot had it already been in effect. His bill would establish a state policy giving parents the option of providing school districts with a written notification that they do not want their children to take the PARCC assessment at least 14 days before testing begins. In return, the bill states that districts would be required to provide “educationally appropriate alternative activities” to those students in a separate room.
Diegnan told the News-Record he would like to see those activities consist of the same subject matter the students would be missing by not taking the exam. If passed, the bill would also take effect for the 2015-16 school year.
The bill was discussed by the commission on Feb. 12, but it was held from a vote due to a question on federal funding. According to the No Child Left Behind law, school districts could
risk losing federal funding if less than 95 percent of its students take standardized tests. However, New Jersey received a waiver to the law that only affects the funding of schools designated as “priority” and “focus” schools.
Diegnan explained that the question now is whether that waiver eliminates that participation requirement. If it does not, he said the question then becomes whether districts could really lose funding since many other states in similar positions as New Jersey have not. Once those issues are resolved, he said, he hopes to vote on the bill in March.
David Saenz of the state Department of Education public information office told the News-Record that the waiver does not invalidate the participation requirement. The assemblyman said he took a particular interest in the PARCC situation because he has never seen such concern raised about an issue in the 14 years he has been in office. With so many worries and questions out there, which he said were brought on by the fact the test was rolled out too quickly without parent input, Saenz said the bill giving students the chance to refuse the assessment is only logical.
Though he would have preferred that the results not have counted for teacher evaluations this year, he said that since the results will not affect students this time, the PARCC test is still worth taking so that the state can see what does and does not work.
“I think it is advisable to take it to just see what the problems are so we can correct them,” Diegnan said in a Feb. 13 phone interview. “If nobody takes it, it is difficult to correct the issues.
“Maybe we should only give it once a year,” he said. “Maybe we should give it every other year. Maybe special needs kids should be exempt from it. Maybe there should be a different kind of test given for vocational schools. But we are really not going to know that until we try it.”
The first performance-based round of PARCC testing in South Orange and Maplewood runs from March 2 to 6 for grades five, eight and 11, and March 9 to 13 for grades three, four, six, nine and 10. The second end-of-year exam will run from April 27 to May 1 for grades five, eight and 11, and May 4 to 8 for grades three, four, six, nine and 10.