Title: As Common Core Testing Is Ushered In, Parents and Students Opt Out - The New York Times
Headings: As Common Core Testing Is Ushered In, Parents and Students Opt Out
As Common Core Testing Is Ushered In, Parents and Students Opt Out
Content: And even parents who share in the antipathy toward the tests are torn by the implications of formally allowing their children to bow out of them. Colorado’s Board of Education voted in January to allow school districts to skip portions of the state tests, only to be told by the state’s attorney general that it did not have that authority. At a testing information session for parents in Sparta, N.J., according to a local news report, an assistant superintendent repeatedly said: “ I’m not here to fight with you. I am here to give information on the mandate.” The Common Core standards, a set of challenging learning goals designed to better prepare students for college, were developed by a coalition of states. But they became closely tied to President Obama in the public mind as his administration offered money to states that adopted the standards, which conservatives portrayed as a stealth federal takeover of schools. Tests that gauge how well students are learning the new material have become part of the way many states evaluate their teachers. This makes the tests a target for teachers’ unions, a bulwark of the left. So the new batch of tests in New Jersey, created by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, is faced with an unusually diverse list of enemies.