It starts here:
New Jersey State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan’s (D-South Plainfield) new opt-out-of-testing proposal, A-4165, guts the ability of parents, teachers, schools, and the state to make reality-based judgments about student achievement, school quality, and whether or not New Jersey is providing equitable opportunities to poor students and children with disabilities.
Well, let’s be fair. Assemblyman Diegnan’s bill may be educationally unsound, but its political underpinnings are robust. After all, the anti-testing movement is in full froth, gathering adherents as politically diverse as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and hard right-winger Rick Santorum. So let’s look at the bright side: Assemblyman Diegnan’s bill offers New Jersey a valuable opportunity to examine the implications — fiscal, administrative, educational — of mandating that local school districts offer procedures for parents to opt-out their children from annual state standardized testing.
Read the rest here.
