Six Reasons to Opt My Child Out of State Standardized Testing

1. I trust teachers. Education was my child's teacher's calling, and thus she sought training through her degrees, peers, administrators, and professional development. She spends hours each week with my child. My child's teacher will always be a better judge of my child, both academically and as a whole person, than any test score. I trust a person I can have a conversation with far more than a corporation selling a product.
   
2. I trust administrators. Administrators were once classroom teachers. They evaluate our local teachers' performances better through utilizing their experiences and education than reading a print out of test scores.
   
3. Our money for education should be invested locally on personnel, facilities, and other programs and resources. Tests cost millions of dollars. Investing this money locally would return miraculous outcomes. Why send our money to large corporations who are interested in profits not our local children?
   
4. If you want your child to grow taller, you don't simply measure her more often. Students should be reading, writing, and creating to learn, not to demonstrate what they have learned. Time and resources should be spent teaching and learning as the most meaningful assessments are seamlessly woven into daily activities by teachers.
   
5. Children are not vessels to be filled. Education contains a huge human component through both the students and teachers. Standardized tests disregard this element while teaching to such tests devalue the inherent individuality of humans. Over reliance on testing devalues any growth that can not be measured statistically with a bubble answer sheet including curiosity, creativity, relationships, and metacognition.
   
6. Standardized test scores represent the socioeconomic status of the test takers. Districts already know this information and the tests provide no solutions. Consequences for schools that rate poorly on evaluations composed of mostly test score data are discriminatory. The accreditation process is a superior way to rate a school.