Please send an email to Rep. Paul Boyer and nicely ask him to please allow this bill to be heard. His phone number is 602-926-4173. Please also email the other sponsor, Rep. J. Christopher Ackerley, and co-sponsor Senator Sylvia Allen. Click HERE to send an email to Rep. Boyer. Click HERE to send an email to Rep. Ackerley. Click HERE to send an email to Sen. Allen. It’s also very important to contact Governor Ducey! Click HERE to send him an email.
Monday, Feb. 15, is the last day that bills can be scheduled.
Very simply, HB2056 permits a parent to opt his/her child out of statewide assessments. It’s a very important bill for hundreds of well-informed parents who tried to opt their children out of AZ Merit last year and who were treated very harshly and disrespectfully by their schools. HB2056 respects the right of parents to protect their children.
It doesn’t take a "statewide assessment" for a child’s teacher to determine a student’s progress. Alternatives can be used for this purpose, as well as to find out if a pupil should be promoted from third grade and/or if they have met the requirements for graduation.
Many so-called "statewide assessments" capture private, sensitive student information. The big companies that develop these assessments make millions of dollars on the tests, and they frequently gather and use student data for their own purposes, as well as sell it to sister companies. These tests often gather personal information via psychoanalysis (like the AzMerit does for AIR), and that information is entered into the SLDS which is now linked to the U.S. Department of Education. See Data Collection on Your Child and Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems. Why should parents allow their children to be used as guinea pigs for testing companies, data collectors, and textbook profiteers?
The current "statewide assessment," AZ Merit, was never validated and is literally useless in assessing a student’s progress. Yet, AZ Merit is required by the State of Arizona for children as young as 8 years old, beginning in Grade 3, and through high school. Teachers try to prepare students for the exam, but because they have signed a "security" statement that they will not look at the exam, no one except A.I.R., one of the world’s largest behavioral and social science research and evaluation organizations, who developed the test, knows what’s on the test.
Students don’t even know exactly when they will take the test. It could be anytime throughout the month of April into early May. Results from AZMerit are not reported until four to six months after the tests are completed. and teachers are not permitted to see how students answered specific questions. Teachers didn’t design the test, don’t know what’s on it, don’t grade it, and can’t help students correct wrong answers.
Parents have a right to say no to ANY assessment developed by a company or so-called "non-profit" that is using their students information to line their pockets and sister companies’ pockets. This is in violation of 4th amendment rights. Parents should be able to say "NO" without any repercussions.
See Also:
Why Parents are Opting Their Children out of High Stakes Testing
$100,000 Reward for Common Core Test Validity Reports
AZMerit’s "Uniquely Arizona" Practice Tests Not so Unique After All.
Parent’s Right to Control the Education of their Children: AZ Merit Opt-Out Sample Letter
Common Core’s Final Legacy: Educational Malpractice and Child Abuse