HB 50 (The Opt Out Bill) Passes the House in a Markell-Crushing Landslide
Kudos to Rep. John Kowalko, Mike Matthews, Rep. Kim Williams, John Young, Kevin at Exceptional Delaware, Kavips, and everyone else that I am not mentioning or forgetting right now on all your work on fighting for our children’s education in Delaware. This was an important victory in a first battle, but the war is not over.
The official vote was 36-3. That is a devastating blow to the Governor, to the Department of Education, to any “reformer” of education. Here are how the votes broke down:
Does anyone know why Barbieri voted “No?” He’s usually quite progressive and I have a great deal of respect for him. I can’t imagine him casting any vote without good reason.
Wow
Here is an excerpt of a response Mike Barbieri sent to someone regarding this bill. “This particular test seems to be an issue for many people and clearly people are frustrated with this particular test. That being the case, it would appear that the fight should be with the test and the process engaged by DOE to initiate such a test. By putting into law the right of a parent to opt out of Smarter Balanced we facilitate a number of parents/students in avoiding the test, but, do not address the concern about the decision making regarding standardized tests. By having a number of parents opt out of having their child take the test, all we accomplish is to have fewer scores to use to compare performance. It may skew the data up or down based on who opts out. Again, this does not help with strengthening the validity of the test nor does it address the dislike of this particular test.
In the conversations about the testing there have been a number of issues raised about why such tests are being used. All, or none, may be valid. What I do know is that we need to resolve the testing issue and start to engage in civil discourse regarding assessment tests and how to measure students. When I first got into office there was frustration with the DSTP. Every year since that has been eliminated there has been some concern about the tests being used.
I am very concerned about the education of our youth and the things we have instituted that thwart that education. We need to look at the whole system and how we can continue to strengthen it. Our youth will only be successful if we provide them with the best education possible.
It has been attributed to me that I am making my decision because of my loyalty to the governor. That is not, and never was, a factor in any vote I cast. That, like the attributions posted regarding standardized testing, is a belief not based on any reality. I vote based on my own study and understanding of legislation and in keeping with my own conscience. My disagreement with this legislation should not suggest I have any less interest in the success of all students than you do. “
and “I think I know better than parents” Don’t forget that AQC
This bill was a simply up or down on a parent’s right. The rest of the discussion about the test itself, while meritorious (the discussion), is not what this bill was about.
Bad vote.
I’ve stayed out of this issue because I don’t have any children and frankly I don’t care that much whether your kids are idiots or not. (I do pay tons of school tax, which as a socialist I take great pride in doing so.) By the time the current crop of students get into positions of authority I’ll have enough dough to retire to someplace else and it’ll hardly matter to me…. and I’ll be dead before they can do too much damage… However…
I do feel compelled to say I’m very suspicious of these “parent’s prerogative” arguments because they can be made to justify any position, however capricious or wrong-headed. Don’t want to vaccinate? Parent’s prerogative. Don’t want to take physics because it contradicts your biblical beliefs? Parent’s prerogative.
If this position is taken all the way to its logical conclusion everyone should be home schooled or put in private schools where each detail of the curriculum and the assessments is approved by parental vote. Or better yet each lesson is perfectly unique for each of your special little wonderkids.
The arguments I’ve heard for this opt-out legislation are mostly political and have very little to do with education. That’s fine as far as it goes. I don’t like the idea that big corporate (Pearson, et al) has so much influence or that performance results may be used to buttress some conservative initiatives like charters or vouchers or union busting. But you are all way off base here I think.
Barbieri is right. If you have issues with this particular test, that’s cool. But the idea that there shouldn’t be a test or any significant data on which to base future education policy is utterly ridiculous. The idea that each parent can just pick and choose ‘a’la carte’ how assessements should be done shows incredible amounts of presumption and arrogance in my view.
It’s my understanding that the class material, lessons and curriculum will remain based on the assessment. So what does opting out of the assessment achieve for the student? The student will be taught the same material in the same manner. What is gained beyond showing everyone you as mom or pop are in charge?
So all you know-it-all parents won the political battle. Congratulations. It’s seems like a pretty hollow victory from my vantage.
DG, can you provide any evidence that standardized testing is being used to the betterment of the system or the children? The truth happens to be that the labeling, shaming, and punishing that results when politicians misuse testing data are running professional out of high needs schools and creating constant disruption from the “latest” “greatest” policy. Disruption is bad for children. Stability is better.
Then why would anyone take a parental right away in this case?
The vaccination comparison is specious, there is a clear and present public health danger.
Failing to take a standardized test only stops politicians from having “how big is yours” contests.
Well, jeez, if John Young says so, it must be so.
The tests are like drug laws, you pass a bill and say “look what we have done” There are too many entrenched interests and no will to spend money so, expect the status quo.
AQC, you certainly deliver there. It’s not a hard question: show us how relentless standardized testing has improved our schools and/or why a parent should not have the right to opt out?
This HAS to have been posted here before. But, if not, you’re welcome. John Oliver on standardized testing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
I’m not arguing the pros or cons of standardized testing. I’m arguing that intelligent people can have a reasoned debate, agree to disagree and move on. A legislator should be able to disagree with a faction of the party without getting disparaging labels or having their motives questioned.
I wrote “bad vote”. I am not impugning his right to vote as he see fits. If having a vote criticized is a disparaging label, then Mr. Barbieri needs to thicken his skin.
The things he said the bill was about, were not what the bill was about, IMO.
So, I believe he made a bad vote, and that vote is against the interests of parents rights.
If he can’t own his own vote with an explanation that speaks to the actual bill, that’s his choice. He, as all legislators, must live with how we see his vote.
I may be the only person who sees it this way.
I may not.
Who knows?
I have said this many times, I don’t have a problem with standardized testing – I have a problem with the way the test is used. If the test was used to identify problems and then correct them I would be thrilled. But this test punishes struggling schools while awarding a gold star sticker to more affluent schools.
If this test actually required additional resources, smaller class sizes, etc. to schools who didn’t perform well that would make sense, sorta like, “Hey, School A students failed the test. We need to help that school ASAP.” But that isn’t what this test does. This test, imo, will be used to bust teachers’ unions (the ultimate end game in all ed reform) and to label “failing” schools as “priority schools” slated for charterization/privatization. They already showed their hand on this. High stakes testing is all about a corporate takeover of public education. They want those education tax dollars.
Basically, if opting out derails the corporate “education” agenda then that’s fine with me. I’m not sure how else to stop the privatization of our public schools.
I wrote to Mike Barbieri, and he responded. I appreciated that because he isn’t even in my district. What I do wonder though, is Earl Jaques comment prior to the vote about HB50 “disrupting the forum” about planned legislation “we”, as Jaques put it, wanted to put forward to reduce the amount of Smarter Balanced testing to three grades. Were Barbieri and Dukes part of this proposed legislation? Why wouldn’t Jaques have put it through anyways?
In regards to Barbieri’s comments about “The arguments I’ve heard for this opt-out legislation are mostly political and have very little to do with education” show a clear disconnect between Barbieri and the citizens of Delaware. While Kowalko and Senator Lawson introduced the bill, it was because they were listening to their constituents, not because they wanted to wage a huge political battle. Kowalko saw the results of the priority school announcement and the damage standardized, high-stake tests can do to public schools. Lawson was present at the board meeting when Capital passed their opt-out resolution. While there are political implications from this bill, Barbieri should not confuse that with the fundamental rights of parents and their ability to speak in unison about an issue they believe in their heart and soul to be of paramount and immediate concern.
Let’s remember, the bulk of the legislators passed House Bill 334 which allowed the assessment to happen this year, so there may have been a trust factor with some legislators in doing the right thing when it came to opt-out. I believe that trust was restored with the House yesterday when they voted yes in a 12:1 majority. It is my hope we will be able to say the same about the Delaware Senate, and yes, I’ll go there, Governor Markell.
My apologies to Mike Barbieri, it was the comment of Dorian Gray, not Michael Barbieri, that said the opt-out bill is more about politics than educations. Therefore, my comment about Barbieri, “…show a clear disconnect between Barbieri and the citizens of Delaware” was based on my thinking Barbieri wrote those comments.
With that being said, Dorian Gray, who wrote “The idea that each parent can just pick and choose ‘a’la carte’ how assessements should be done shows incredible amounts of presumption and arrogance in my view”, must not believe in the United States of America because if I’m not mistaken, the very foundations of this country were built on the ability of citizens to not only find their voice but use it. So hurry up and get that dough so you can get going… While your doing that, us “arrogant” parents will continue to look out for our kids!
Enduring the risk that the oh mighty, all knowing (and quite immature) Kevin O. will out me on here, as he has done on other blogs, I will say, simply as a mom whose priority is to my kids and I am so not a political person, I opted one kid out of the test (with a simple handwritten note, that I wrote right in front of 3 or 4 school employees, and they seemed like they couldn’t care less) and my other kid is taking the test. I opted out my kid who I was pretty sure would bomb it. He just took the SAT two weeks prior, I knew that was enough for him (and unneeded, he goes to vo-tech, has no interest in college, and will probably make more money as an electrician than many college grads anyway and without going into debt).
From what I’ve heard, the test is to grade the school, not the child. For any parent who is on to this, why would they put their kid through it, especially a kid who they think might struggle or stress over it? Especially if it isn’t even about individual kids and their individual needs?
To Dorian, wow, the vision of all home schooled kids.. wow, what a game changer. And one that would probably save us all.
” What is gained beyond showing everyone you as mom or pop are in charge?”- Are you kidding? What does that even mean?
Sadly as this thread shows, there are still many out there who simply do not understand why this is an issue, and why bearing down to continue the Smarter Balanced Testing process, is a giant mistake. First, we should acknowledge that arguments framed here for both sides make good sense. Although previously panned across the blogasphere even that comment of Barbieri makes sense, ……. that is if taken in isolation. Dorian’s viewpoint likewise does indeed make sense……. if taken in isolation… AQC’s viewpoint also makes sense, if taken in isolation…..
I guess it is rather hard sometimes, for someone who is intellectually isolated (not always a bad thing) to gain the realization that they are isolated because they are too isolated to know how isolated they really are…
It would be like having a giant row over serving free lunches )…. Some would be against it due to the cost, some would be for it, due to their humanitarian instincts or sense of social-justice, care, compassion, or whatever… They would argue up and down, across the board, back and forth over all the implications of either expanding or of getting rid of free lunches in our schools….
Neither would be right… neither would be wrong…. They could both be right depending on whether or not you subscribed to either of their values, and we on the outside would listen to both sides and figure which approach would be better for us and then push for it by voting or calling legislators….
But what if what they were serving wasn’t food… it was poop. Then the whole scenario changes… Doing nothing puts poop into little kids. Immediately something has to be done. Those arguing the merits and detriments still locked in their world of ideas, are perpetuating more children eating poop because nothing is getting done….
Barbieri’s argument makes sense in a world of food; it is horribly insufficient when that food is poop. and as every day passes, more poop is ingested….
That is why anyone not voting yes on House Bill 50 or making fun of parents “in an uproar over testing” really doesn’t get it… Just as arguing over free lunch makes sense when the lunch if food… arguing over it while only poop is served in school cafeterias, makes no sense at all.
That argument did get through… judging by 12 yes votes for every “no”….. It is about this single one test…. That is the poop in this scenario….
Just as until you sat down at a lunch table and put a bite of poop in your mouth… chewed it a couple of times, lick your lips and think to yourself, “this is really awful, it smells like poop”; then tried to figure how you could spit it out where no one would notice, but all eyes are on you so you chew it some more, (you can’t swallow, it won’t go down) so you chew, and chew, and chew, and the smell is making you want to vomit,( because it smells so much like that coworker of yours who seems to always fumigate the office bathroom just before you have to use it), so you use your diaphragm, squeeze it down, hold it with all your strength, work to keep your stomach down, and chew, and chew, and chew….. and then you notice it starting to taste super sweet….
Afterwards, you probably wouldn’t argue over the cost, or the humanity… instead, you’d say… “This is awful, our kids can’t eat this crap…. Get rid of it….”
If Barbieri had taken any of the Smarter Balance Assessments we put up for public perusal, or had anyone else who has recently dismissed parental concerns done so, we would not be having this conversation…. Because no one after eating poop themselves will give it to their children and force them to eat it … saying or else….
Here, kid… eat your poop or the Feds won’t fund your school next year.
There is a reason parents are opting out… It is not silly. The silliness comes from those on sidelines who think the food must be top sirloin with organic vegetables and a fancy dessert. As they try to stretch the free food argument to fit in with their world view, they will say some silly things…..
And when they say silly things… the rest of us will all know…. they have no clue over what they are speaking because they have not taken the poop into their mouth, chewed it in front of people, then swallowed it….. just one swallow; they will convert…. They’d have to be really sick, to like the taste of poop.
And so, if you are making arguments… desist.. Instead, take the test…. find out what poop is really like….
Pencadermom,
You “out”yourself as a shallow and immature person if you refuse to even consider that parental rights to do what’s in the best interests of their individual child should not be forfeited to the government. Your persistent and “immature” (there’s that word again) written disrespect for Kevin shows an almost gleeful appreciation for your own failures to engage on behalf of other children and parents and wallow in your own petty attempts at character assassination.
John Kowalko
HB50 is largely symbolic since parents, technically, could already opt out of the test. That said, there are reasons why this bill and vote were important.
The bill sends a message. It alerts parents that opting out is an option while sending a message (enough is enough?) to the Governor and DDOE.
As a grassroots effort, the opt out group has been extremely successful. Not only are many people discussing this issue, but parents are actually opting their kids out of the test.
So, why has it come down to this largely symbolic vote? Because, as usual, once people find out what’s going on it’s too late to stop it or have a say. Opting out becomes the only option left if you want to slow down/stop something. This is standard operating procedure and it’s tiresome. Quickly, and quietly, implement your agenda and when citizens complain/have questions tell them it’s too late, it’s already a done deal – just for fun toss in a quip about them not caring enough to attend a “meeting” two years ago that no one really knew about.
SBA relies on everyone taking the test. If large groups of students opt out it skews the data, making the punishments attached to SBA difficult to apply. And that’s really the point of opting out – to find a way to slow down/stop an agenda whose only point seems to be undermining public education. None of this is about improving education. None of this is “for the children” – if it was, then it would actually, you know, contain provisions that actually benefit children, but it doesn’t.
What the test results will be used for is the biggest problem. They aren’t being used to identify struggling students in order to help them. If the test was used to identify students struggling in math and then took steps to actually help those students in math that would be awesome. But this test is being used to label schools and teachers, making them accountable while completely ignoring the challenges faced in certain schools. How valid is a test when I can already predict results? Is this test telling us anything we don’t already know? Of course not. We know which schools will fail before the test is even given – we know and we ignore that fact mainly because there’s no money to be made in addressing those problems – AND the end game of this test has already been revealed.
Six schools were labeled “Priority Schools” based on a test that the Governor and Mark Murphy deemed inadequate for evaluating student/teacher/school achievement. BUT this inadequate test was good enough for labeling 6 high needs schools. The reason this was adequate was due to the consequences spelled out in the MOU, which were closure, conversion to charter or privatization. Those two things (because closure was always BS) were the entire point of the MOU. Those two things (charterization/privatization) were the only non-negotiables in the MOU. That was the end game – and it still is the end game… only the test has changed.
*Outing is not permitted on this blog.
Pencadermom, I have no clue who you are, nor does it matter. We all take our shots at each other over on Kilroys. When you mentioned you opted your child out, I was truly happy for you. I assumed your child went to a certain school based on MANY conversations you’ve had about that school, and you viciously attacked me for absolutely no reason. Not really sure what that was about, but I responded in kind. If you want to call that an “outing”, sure, uhm, go ahead and call it that. I have never professed to be “all-knowing” as you call it. In fact, when I make a mistake, I’m pretty fast at correcting it. But facts and opinions are two different animals. I have just as much right to opt my son out as I do to state my opinion. Yet you sit there and judge me along with your two obnoxious buddies over there and act like your own crap doesn’t stink. If you want to write about education over there, you may want to understand how much politics does play a huge factor in it. Peace! Namaste!