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Blog: FCAR
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Bill of Rights for Test Takers:
A Family and Student Testing
Protection Act
Purpose: To protect students, families and local communities from
abusive assessment practices, violations of due process and civil rights.
Problem I:
Students are being denied promotion, access to programs and schools, or barred
from receiving high school diplomas or graduation certificates based solely on
standardized test scores. These students are disproportionately poor, African
American, and from immigrant families whose home language is not English. There
are also large numbers of students, including the very talented, and students
with disabilities who do not perform well on conventional standardized tests.
Remedies:
1. The use of standardized tests as the sole or primary basis for determining
promotion, student access to advanced programs, schools, and awarding of
certificates or diplomas is prohibited. Non-standardized, qualitative modes of
assessment should be available to students or particular groups of students
whose education is served by alternatives to standardized tests.
2. An Educational Impact Report is required prior to imposition of a system of
assessment or particular method of assessment by a governing authority. This
report would seek to determine immediate and longer term effects on students,
schools, and local communities (disaggregated by race, gender and family
income), and to assess the human and material resources required to fulfill the
assessment requirements. Assessment goals or standards may not be raised or
changed if the resources required for meeting these standards are not provided.
3. Parents have the right to exempt their children from tests and assessments
that they deem as harmful or inappropriate. No punitive consequences may be
applied by governments to students or schools if parents choose to exercise
their right to exempt a child from taking a particular test or set of tests.
Problem II:
Among the more destructive provisions of NCLB and state testing regulations is
that schools that fail to meet certain numerical targets set by standardized
tests scores face being ‘restructured’ or dismantled. There are numerous
documented cases of exemplary schools that have closed or are under threat of
closure.
Remedy:
No school or program within a school may be disestablished or restructured based
solely or primarily on rankings of students on standardized tests.
Problem III:
The pressures on schools to raise standardized test scores, particularly those
that serve poor and children of color, narrows the curriculum, ignoring crucial
areas of children’s and adolescents’ development and growth. Among the
casualties are music, the arts, bilingual education, community internships,
civic education, fitness and health education.
Remedy:
State and federal governments have the authority to set general guidelines and
standards under this Act. However, governments are forbidden to mandate local
school priorities, or specify curriculum content and pedagogy.
Problem IV:
The federal government using power it claims under the NCLB Reading First
program is dictating to states and school districts how reading should be
taught. The US Department of Education currently approve funding for materials
that meets the federal government’s interpretation of the NCLB Reading First
provisions
Remedy:
The determination of good and appropriate practice resides with the teachers and
local educational authorities. A legal requirement for ‘scientifically based’
materials and approaches may not be construed as granting government the
authority to dictate to schools’ personnel policies, teaching methods, and
expenditures for texts and curriculum resources.
Problem V:
Parents and students are rarely informed by schools of their rights with respect
to testing and assessment. Information about test content, technical
specifications and methods of analyzing and reporting test results are often
kept secret and withheld from students, parents and the public.
Remedy:
Student and family testing and assessment rights including those specified in
this Act must be prominently broadcast and displayed. Teachers and school
officials have both the right and the obligation to inform families, and
students of their rights. These rights include the right to be fully informed
about of a test’s technical details, such as standard error of measurement , on
whom and how was the test normed or scaled, how cut scores or proficiency levels
were determined, and what content, skills, or competencies are being measured
and evaluated by the test.
May be reproduced
March 28, 2007 v 1.3
hberlak@yahoo.com
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