The movement calling for students to “opt out” of some state assessments may be exaggerated in scope, and problematic for a number of reasons.
But that doesn’t mean its proponents aren’t on to something.
As Andrew Rotherham argues in U.S. News & World Report, the opt-out movement is, at its core, demanding some of the same things as school choice supporters: The right of parents to control their children’s education, and a system better tailored to the needs and predilections of individual students.
Instead of escalating the opt-out fight, education leaders should channel this sudden enthusiasm for parental rights, parental choice and self-determination to address a broader basket of education issues. If parents are able to opt out of a test they ought to also be able to opt out of a specific teacher’s class or a school as well. The teachers unions could show some consistency by supporting the rights of parents to transfer to better public schools that don’t turn student tests into an unprofessional three-ring circus needlessly stressing out kids.
Bills pending before the Florida Legislature give them an opportunity to do just that.
Rotherham continues:
Fundamentally, the call for opt-outs is a call for more parental freedom. In contemporary America, accountability is usually regulatory-based (think financial markets), choice and market-based (for instance clothes) or some combination of the two (like restaurants). It may well be that test-based accountability has run its course in public education. If so, the opt-out movement – ironically fueled by self-interested teachers unions – may be pointing us to what’s next: a lot more choice and unbundling of services in public education.
Measurement, in the form of testing and publicly reported results, can help that unbundling along. It’s easier for parents to move among schools or choose other education providers if they can readily compare results. Schools can demand greater autonomy when they’re more accountable.
If choice becomes the prevailing form of school accountability, it might allow the pendulum to swing away from top-down regulation, and offer a cure for testing anxiety among students and policymakers alike.
This framing turns the argument of testing and school-choice critics like Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano on its head. Romano, in his way, has embraced one of the key tenets of the school choice movement — the idea that one size does not fit all.
