opt out: implications for building equitable assessment systems … · 2016. 6. 23. · opt out:...

Opt Out: Implications for Building Equitable

Assessment Systems for All Students

National Conference on Student Assessment, Philadelphia (PA), June 2016

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Opt Out: A Classic Conflict?

• Individual Rights• The rights of parents to decide whether their children

should participate in state assessment

• Collective Good• The responsibility of the state to monitor and report

upon the effectiveness of education

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Session Overview

• Randy Bennett, ETS

• G. Anthony Benners and Tolani Adeboye, New York City Department of Education

• Joyce Zurkowski, Colorado Department of Education

• Scott Marion, Center for Assessment

• Q&A

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Opt Out: A Brief Review

Randy BennettETS

[email protected]

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Presented at the National Conference on Student Assessment, Philadelphia (PA), June 2016

The Political Reaction

• Legitimize opt out• ESSA

• Retains NCLB’s 95% test-participation requirement but removes sanctions for missing it

• States decide how to treat low-participation districts and schools

• Reduce testing requirements• Eliminate tests

• Cap testing time: Florida

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How Big is Opt Out?

• US ED cited 13 states as not meeting 2014-15 participation

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How Big is Opt Out?


• Incidence varied widely across US ED-cited states, their districts, and grades

8

How Big is Opt Out?



• States Cited by US ED

• California: 3% nonparticipation over all tested grades

• New York: 20% in grades 3-8

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How Big is Opt Out?






• Districts

• New York:

• Rocky Point, NY: 80% refused to test

• NYC: 1.4% did not participate

10

How Big is Opt Out?






• Districts

• New York:

• Rocky Point, NY: 80% refused to test

• NYC: 1.4% did not participate

• Grades

• HS opt-out rates often much higher than the rates in grades 3-8

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Why Does Participation Matter?

• State assessments• The only comparable measures of achievement at the building level

• The only measures of building-level achievement disaggregated by demographic group

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Why Does Opt Out Matter?

•Opt-out can:

• Distort results

• Prevent parents, educators, policy makers, and the public from understanding:

• How effective education is at the system level

• How effectively specific schools are educating particular demographic groups

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Does the Public Support it?

• Generally not

• Education Next national survey (5/2015)

• 59% of public opposed, 25% in favor

• PDK/Gallup national survey (5/2015)

• 59% of public-school parents would not opt their own children out, 31% would

• NWEA/Gallup national survey (1-2/2016)

• 15% of parents were planning to opt their own children out

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Who is Opting Out?

• Opt outs represent a demographically particular population segment

• CDE reported 2014-15 HS opt outs were somewhat more likely to be White and less likely to be low SES

• NYSED reported that its 2014-15 3rd-8th grade opt outs were:• Much more likely to be White

• Much less likely to be from low SES families and less likely to be English language learners

• Less likely to have reached proficiency on the previous year’s test

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Demographics and Views of Opt Out

• PDK/Gallup (2015) survey shows respondent views differ dramatically by racial/ethnic group

• Whites: 44% support opt out, 41% oppose

• Hispanics 35% support, 45% oppose

• Blacks: 28% support, 57% oppose

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Opt Out: A Civil Rights Issue

• Public statement released 5/5/15 by 12 organizations under the auspices of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

• African American

• NAACP

• National Urban League

• Hispanic

• National Council of La Raza

• League of United Latin American Citizens

• Asian

• Southeast Asia Resource Action Center

• Disability

• Disability Education and Defense Fund

• National Disability Rights Network

• TASH

• Women

• American Association of University Women

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Leadership Conference (2015) Statement

• “The educational outcomes for the children we represent are unacceptable by almost every measurement …

Until federal law insisted that our children be included in these assessments, schools would try to sweep disparities under the rug by sending our children home or to another room while other students took the test. Hiding the achievement gaps meant that schools would not have to allocate time, effort, and resources to close them. Our communities had to fight for this simple right to be counted and we are standing by it …

… abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools.”

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The Path to Opt Out?

• NCLB (2001) mandated school accountability requirements in return for Title I funding

• Motivation: Education reform

• US K12 education no longer internationally competitive

• Wide disparities in education quality and achievement for demographic groups

• Theory of action behind accountability requirements

• Standards would focus educators and students

• Testing would identify who needed help

• School-level consequences would motivate staff to improve

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The Path to Opt Out?

• NGA and CCSSO launched CCSSI (2009)

• ARRA (2009)• Race to the Top Assessment Program

• Race to the Top (RttT) Fund: $4.35B for states to individually pursue education reform

• Encouraged use of growth on standards-based tests to evaluate teachers and principals

• Use of evaluation for compensation, promotion, tenure, and removal

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NY: RttT Fund & CCSSI Collide

• In 2014, 96% of NY teachers were rated as “effective” or “highly effective”

• But only ~31% of students were proficient in ELA and 36% in math on NY’s Common Core-aligned assessments

• In March 2015, NY Gov. Cuomo asked state legislature to:• Reduce role of principal judgment in teacher

evaluation

• Increase weight of test-based growth indicators from 20% to 50%

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Views of Using Tests for Teacher Evaluation

• PDK/Gallup (2015) national survey

• 63% of public-school parents generally against, with only 43% in favor

• Why would public-school parents oppose?

• “The minute they tied teacher evaluations to those tests, they set up the classrooms to be about nothing except testing. … So, of course, [teachers are] going to make kids spend all of their time preparing for the test. Their careers depend on it.”

• A North Bellmore, NY parent quoted in PDK/Gallup (2015, p. K5.)

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What Happened in NY?

• A dramatic increase in the role of test results for educator evaluation combined with the introduction of a much more rigorous test led to:

• Pressure on teachers and principals to perform, resulting in:

• Excessive and narrow test prep

• Anxiety for students

• Unhappiness for parents about anxiety, and extent and nature of test prep

• Union, parents, and principals mobilized, leading to:

• Opt out

• Media coverage

• Lobbying of education officials and elected representatives

• Others with additional testing complaints joined

• Political (over)reaction

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Summary

• Opt-out matters

• Traditionally underserved groups depend on state assessments to document achievement gaps

• Opt-outs appear to be a relatively privileged subpopulation

• Demographic differences in support and participation have led to opt-out becoming a civil-rights issue

• The 2015 incidence of opt-out varied widely in the two largest ED-cited states from 20% in NY to 3% in CA

• For NY, a prime motivator was a dramatic increase in the role of test results for educator evaluation combined with the appearance of a much more rigorous test

• National polls suggest that the public opposes:

• Opt out

• Use of tests for teacher evaluation

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opt out: implications for building equitable assessment systems … · 2016. 6. 23. · opt out:...

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