Lake County FL parents tell problems opting out of tests. Movement is growing quickly. Videos.

[madfloridian]

One parent in Orange County called 911 when the school would not let her take her child out of class. The article is at the Daily Caller.

One of the mothers in Lake County Monday the 9th had to get a lawyer on the phone because the school would not allow her to pick up her kid. The resource officer and principal refused to speak to the lawyer. They called the principal to handle it. More in the videos.

Lake County School Board Meeting: Parents Speak Out & Opt Out

At the Lake County School Board Meeting on March 09, 2015, Parents spoke out about the Florida Standards Assessment, the right to opt out of the test, and the school’s and district’s illegal detainment of students during the test from parents who tried to pick them up. Filmed in Tavares, Florida.

Please Share these videos, the world MUST KNOW what happened to Parents Opting Out at Lake County Schools!!

Agree with opting out or not, there should be admiration for parents willing to fight the system giving the test with many FL superintendents have called very flawed.

This is the video of the mother who called a lawyer. Sync is off but words are clear enough.

This is one of the parents who talked with legislators. Some agreed the district had the power to prevent students from being harmed by the test. She mentions that only 2 reasons allow schools to hold students from parents...custody issues and lockdowns.

This parent asks the board to use more info rather than keep students back in the grade until they pass the test. Of course there are ways. Portfolios of the students' work...they always counted. Daily and weekly class grades...they matter.

You know the saying speak the truth even if your voice shakes. That's what this mother is doing.

Last I heard last week over 2000 parents were in the fast-growing opt out movement. The consequences of poor test scores for these students and their teachers are too great to take this lightly.

[Warpy]

1. It was the students here in NM who rebelled

The test was PARCC, "The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers" and the kids had been stressed out over it for months, having been told their score would follow them around for the rest of their lives and determine whether or not they'd have careers or just jobs. Kids were getting physically ill over it and classwork was suspended while the teachers taught to the test so the schools wouldn't be labeled underperforming.

The only way this type of testing should be done is anonymously, the results telling the schools what areas of subject matter need work the next year.

I'm glad parents are opting their kids out and I'm glad older kids are rebelling against it. The Republican NCLB tests are overstandardized and their main use seems to be discrediting public schools and teachers.

I know in Florida, the standardized testing used flash cards for blind children and expected non verbal children to identify items verbally. The whole thing has been absurd from the beginning.

[madfloridian]

2. It has been absurd.

So much harm has been done to students, their self-confidence, and literally their futures. Not to mention harm done to teachers.

[DirkGently]

3. Late bump -- I know one of these women.

She was flabbergasted to find that the school's policy was something about kids opting out of the testing having to "sit and stare," apparently as some kind of shaming effort. They actually told her they would not let her take her child home until the test was over -- until she got a lawyer involved.

Everything about the ongoing testing push is a scam. It's a money-making scam for the test publishers, and worse, it's part of a strategy to shame poorer schools as justification for firing teachers, cutting resources, and ultimately, installing taxpayer funded charter schools run by for-profit corporations, which, it has been shown, accomplish even less than the public schools they replace.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. "sit and stare". Perchance to dream of education instead of tests.

Or, perchance of any number of things that involves imagination rather than rote "learning".

[DirkGently]

5. We have let MBA-speak take over education

Matt Damon, interestingly enough, said something on camera once about this, and I thought it was very astute. We have allowed this business-centric babble to take over, where everything in society is viewed as some kind of widget to be produced.

Nothing can proceed without being analyzed in terms of how much money it can make -- for the right people, of course. We have allowed them to shoehorn something as critical and complex as educating the nation's children into this dumbed-down, capitalist idea that nothing is worth anything except for what it can be bought and sold for on the market.

And the way we're supposed to analyze this is with simplistic metrics and the additional stupid corporate notion that you can motivate people and make things happen by withholding funding.

So they've created this ridiculous testing regimen, and proposed that the designed-in low scores justify firing teachers and cutting funding. Because ... you can "punish" teachers and schools into doing better?

And the end game of course is to replace all public services with for-profit industry. Every tax dollar that is distributed for the benefit of the population as a whole insults the notion that resources and benefits are supposed circulate from the rich to the other rich, and back.

Disgusting, insane, and incredibly damaging, to everyone.

[madfloridian]

6. Yes, we have let it happen...this punitive atmosphere in education.

Easy to figure why. When you have both parties pushing a policy and the media praising that policy....then people go right along.

There have only been a few blogger voices raised in protest. We have pretty much been ignored at most Democratic leaning forums, we have been considered to be Obama bashers.

The real anger now that might bring change is coming from the right. That will make a difference. Ah the irony...or whatever.

We have let it happen.

I was very impressed by that woman who fought for her child. When I was teaching I never heard or saw of a situation in which a custodial parent was denied the right to take her child home.

Maybe Obama and Arne are in over their heads and did not realize the totally mean unrelenting power of the "reformers".

Meanwhile often I have been considered disloyal to the party for posting about these policies.

[DirkGently]

8. I make a point of checking out your OPs, MadFL.

I suspect a lot of other DUers appreciate your consistent reporting and insightful commentary on education issues, particularly here in Florida.

The last thing you are is a bad Democrat. We need a few million more just like you.

[madfloridian]

9. Thanks for the kind words, but it's been made clear to me recently.

In so many ways. Every post now is taking a chance. The slightest misstatement or misquote is attacked viciously. I am considered suspect as a Democrat for posting about the harm corporate "centrism" has done to our party. I am considered racist by many. I could go on, but either I take it or decide not to do so.

Not just me either. Some of our members who have been here over a decade are feeling the same thing.

[DirkGently]

11. Don't give too much weight to screechy rhetoric, eh?

The loudest and most vitriolic talk tends to come from the weakest factions, here as everywhere.

Anyone who would attack your character like that is only admitting they have no valid argument and fear you're speaking some truth they find inconvenient or threatening.

There are still more of us than them.

[madfloridian]

7. She's right, they do use shaming tactics.

Glad she took a stand.