Beginning in March, Maine schools will be administering the Smarter Balanced Assessments (i.e.: Common Core testing). Because this is a psychological evaluation on your child, it is important for parents to fully understand what this data will be used for, where it goes, and why this information is being sent to the federal government.
Here are questions you may want to take directly to your School Board before agreeing to have your child tested:
1) The Smarter Balanced Assessment is a psychological evaluation. Do school administrators plan to fully inform parents that their child will be subjected to a psychological evaluation? The code of ethics that guides licensed psychologists says that individuals must be fully informed when subjected to such an assessment. Therefore, school boards have an obligation to fully inform parents that their child will undergo such a test.
2) Why is Maine administering an assessment that has not been validated by an independent organization? That means that the test developers have no outside confirmation to prove that the test questions measure what they claim to measure or can produce consistent results in repeated administrations. That is contrary to the law.
3) How is a child ranked as proficient or not proficient based on a psychometric assessment?
4) Why do we continue with an assessment that many people in the field of education have voiced grave concerns over and do not want to use?
Many school districts are becoming frustrated with the amount of time devoted to testing — which comes at the expense of time focused on instruction — and they are pushing back at the federal government. Right now, Chicago, Colorado, parts of Florida and potentially California are refusing to administer these tests.
We must inform Maine school boards of our dissatisfaction with the SBAs. If they fail to listen, we as parents, we have every right to opt our child out of these invasive, inappropriate assessments. Unless we speak up for our children, nothing will change.
Donna Dodge, Denmark
Co-founder, Mainers Against Common Core
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