Save Our Schools-New Jersey, once widely in the news for opposing public charter schools and PARCC testing, is at it again. As part of its crusade against New Jersey’s standardized assessments, SOS has been circulating a form (see below) that encourages parents to opt their children out of the annual state tests that the NJ Department of Education uses to gauge state and district student proficiency in reading and math.

SOS-NJ hit its peak of visibility during the rage against PARCC assessments. Its campaign, done in concert with NJEA and nicknamed by some wits “#OptOutSoWhite” (the founder is a Princeton resident), proclaimed that these Common Core-aligned tests were too stressful for teachers and students. What they actually objected to were honest calculations of how much students were learning. These are the same objections that fueled animosity towards the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind and the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top: if we accurately quantify student proficiency broken down by “subgroups” (economically-disadvantaged, special education, English Language Learners, ethnicity) then New Jersey can’t claim to have the #1 state school system in the country.

As Newark Mayor Ras Baraka told an audience in April, while New Jersey may be #1 for white and Asian students, if you  compare our Hispanic students’ proficiency levels to students in other states, we’re #9 and for Black students we’re #17. 

What is wrong with SOS-NJ’s stance? Why do we need standardized assessments and why should parents have their children participate? Let’s ask formerly-wise Diane Ravitch, who said,

“Absent standards, poor and minority children do not have equal access to challenging courses; absent assessments, no one can know the size of the gap between schools or groups of students or whether that gap is growing larger or smaller. Without valid standards and assessments, there is no way to identify low-performing schools or to determine whether all students are receiving equal educational opportunity.”

In other words, standardized tests promote equity. That’s why, after elite colleges eliminated the requirement of submitting SAT or ACT scores in order to diversity enrollment, campuses became less diverse and so they are reinstating the requirement. As MIT’s dean of admissions, Stu Schmill, writes, eliminating standardized tests “tends to raise socioeconomic barriers to demonstrating readiness for our education.”

Save Our Schools’ website includes a list of grievances against standardized testing chock-full of distortions: these tests “encourage widespread cheating and corruption” and “punish schools and destabilize communities that educate the most challenging students.” None of that is true, especially since the NJ Department of Education has lowered “cut scores” and there are alternative pathways. There is no cheating or corruption. No communities are “destabilized.” What do we gain from these tests? The data to target interventions for students at risk of not learning how to read or do math.

Back in 2017, during Save Our Schools’ heyday, former Newark superintendent and NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf told the Star-Ledger,

“I look with astonishment at groups like Save Our Schools, highly represented by white wealthy suburbanites that have made it their mission to undermine the opportunity of poor African-American students to have access to quality education…I’m aghast at seemingly progressive individuals who so deeply misunderstand the profound injury their position will cause families of vastly more limited means.”

Want to opt your child out of NJSLA? Go for it, but remember that, by doing so you are undermining the state and your school district’s ability to calculate what is best for students. Your child may be fine, especially if you are part of Save Our School’s core cadre. Other people’s kids? That is whom you are hurting.

Notice of NJSLA Assessment Refusal

This document notifies the Principal and other relevant staff of School that our/my child who is in the grade, will not
be taking the NJSLA assessments in the spring of 2024, or any of the makeup NJSLA exams.

We/l recognize the following:

New Jersey does not have an opt out law but that refusing NJSLA or any standardized test is a right of every parent/guardian and does not require approval by the school district or charter school.

Classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025 have access to a menu of graduation testing options after taking NJGPA, including SAT,ACT, PSAT, ACUPLACER, and the portfolio review, without first having to take NJSLA.

Our/my district or charter school will not lose state funding because of NJSLA refusals. Legislation was enacted during the Christie Administration, prohibiting such funding cuts.

We/l expect that our/my child will not be punished for our/my decision to refuse testing, and will be permitted to read, or participate in some other enriching activity, during the test. We/l further expect that non-participation in testing will not affect any course placement decisions for our/my child.

This document shall serve as formal, written notification of our/my wishes.

Source: Save Our Schools NJ