Brilliant or Insane?: CNN

What if Parents Say No to Standardized Testing?

By Mark Barnes

via oaklandcc.edu

Teachers hate standardized testing, but there's little they can do to stop it. Last year, CNN did a story about two children whose parents opted them out of a year-end standardized test. The video showed the students engaged in other activities, while their peers filled in bubbles on the test.

The parents said they believed the tests to be a poor way to evaluate learning -- something the average teacher has been saying for more than a decade. Yet the tests keep coming.

With more protests, could testing be eliminated? If thousands, even millions, of parents like the ones in the CNN story take the lead and opt out their children from testing, wouldn't it have to stop?

Like anything in politics, eventually it's all about numbers. A couple of kids not taking a test makes news but is insignificant, in the long run. Let's put a video of an entire class of students not taking a state-mandated test on CNN and see what happens.

Mark Barnes is an education author and consultant and the publisher of Brilliant or Insane. Learn more about Mark on our Team page. Follow him on Twitter here.