Quite the Day on the Opt-Out Front

First up, apparently poor Minnesota got hit by an overloaded processor AND some kind of hacking which lead to a shutdown of their testing on Tuesday.  Minnesota is using PARCC and that means our friends at Pearson had some explaining to do.  Pearson got it back and running but the Minnesota ODE was not quite prepared to say all was well.  From MPR:

"We still need to hear from Pearson exactly what the issue is, how they have resolved it, and receive an assurance that testing can resume smoothly," department spokesman Josh Collins said.

The department hopes to restart testing on Thursday if it gets those assurances, he added.

The hacker attack went away after about 30 minutes.

I'm just going to interject at this point.  Look, even without opt-outs, multiple states had to shut down testing.  ANYONE who knows how testing goes at a school, knows that it is a carefully planned event and anything that changes, throws the whole thing out of whack.

My point is that anyone - Arne Duncan, I'm looking at you - who believes that these state test results should be taken seriously is wrong.  It is wrong for students, for teachers, for districts. 

Then we have the New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition group of 50 parent/educator groups, who have come out with their demands for public education.  From their press release:

The educational program of the state is in chaos. Leadership is more important than ever. On Sunday, April 19th the Editorial Board of The Journal News declared, “The stunning success of the test-refusal movement in New York is a vote of no confidence in our state educational leadership” in calling for Chancellor Merryl Tisch to step aside. 

New York State Allies for Public Education, a grassroots coalition of over fifty parent and educator advocacy organizations from all corners of the Empire State, stands with the Editorial Board of The Journal News.

 They go on:

“Parents have been left with no choice. We will submit our refusal letters, which is our parental right, on day one of school, next year and every year and if those in power will not listen, we will free our children from a test driven, developmentally inappropriate education,” said Jeanette Deutermann, Nassau County public school parent and Long Island Opt Out founder.

 But next door in New Jersey, public education officials say they will drop the hammer.  From NJcom (bold mine):

Any New Jersey school that fails to have 95 percent of its students take the PARCC exams will be placed on a corrective action plan, and schools with especially high opt-out rates could have state funding withheld, state Education Commissioner David Hespe said Wednesday.  

"We are going to do whatever is necessary to make sure that we have a comfort level moving forward that we are going to hit that 95 percent," Hespe said. "This is not a no harm, no foul situation here."

 Like what?

Hespe said Wednesday that the first step is corrective action plans, which could require schools to hold more informational meetings about PARCC or to schedule face-to-face meetings with any parents who want to opt their children out of the tests.

What school or district would have the time to sit down with every single parent?  To what end?   Are they going to threaten or shame parents?  Good luck with that.  What if the parent refuses the meeting?

Before levying any additional sanctions, the state would take into account whether this is the first year a district missed the 95 percent target, how much it missed it by and whether the school took actions either to prevent or promote opt outs, he said.

"We are going to go and we are going to spend some time there and we are going to find out what happened and why," Hespe said.

Apparently that "prevent" went as far as one principal telling teachers to tell on other teachers who may have spoken to parents about opting out (not even promoting it but just answering parent questions.)

That last line is pretty funny.  What happened?  Parents did not get listened to when they express ed their concerns about their child's education.  That's what happened.