For reasons unbeknownst to me, a reputable news source located in Washington, D.C. has removed an article from their website in the past few days; This severely harms the blog post I prepared in response. Despite their removal of the post in question, I wish to discuss the topic. As a substitute, I quickly tracked down a Fox News blurb that gives a similar impression of the topic.

The general idea is as follows: For a variety of reasons, parents and schools are opting out of standardized tests. Parents don’t want their kids to take the tests, and schools are not stopping this from happening.

Some of the reasons parents may do this:

-Prevent child’s stress induced by taking long exams.

-Boycott a system which they believe harms the school system.

-This can be either concerns raised about narrowing curricula, or

-General negative attitudes toward standards-based policies which utilize test results.

-Among other reasons; we could probably identify a host of viable rationale.

Whatever the reasons, this revolt against standardized testing has serious consequences. Here are a few things I suggest thinking about as a response to this ‘news’:

-Do you find the reasons for boycotting valid?

-Is it to protect the children from some harm inherent in the testing administration?

-Can this be interpreted as a new form of school choice?

-Is it a political action where parents are simply using their children as weapons?

 

My largest concern is from a scientific perspective.

-If some kids are not taking the test because parents are voluntarily opting them out, what are the implications for the validity of the results?

-Is it likely that kids with parents who opt out represent a specific subgroup of the population, thus making any results obtained invalid?

-Will their absence from observation impact the integrity of the test results and, by extension, policies based upon the conclusions drawn from them?