I learned something new at school today

what if that is what Mo wants to do right now?

You don't learn about what he knows. You learn about what has been crammed into his short term memory without context.

Reading around I've discovered that there is a real grassroots movement for opting out as a way to end NCLB testing.
They advise that parents opt out their kids as "conscientious objectors" to the testing.

Schools don't want kids to opt out because if more than 5% of them do the school is said to not be meeting it's AYP (adequate yearly progress) and if they don't meet AYP they miss out on federal funds. That's why parents aren't told about the option.

But he would not be breaking the rules by not taking the test.

The rule says he doesn't have to take the test.

Quote:

what if that is what Mo wants to do right now?

I hear you.

Fitting in is important.

But I hope that he becomes someone who does not feel that he has to follow popular opinion just because it's popular.

I don't think these tests are good for children.
Aren't parents supposed to help protect their kids from things they don't think are good for them --
even if they're popular things amongst some people?

Yeah well, respect is a two way street.

This sounds to me like the real problem you have is with the teaching methods as opposed to the test- even if they're in place because of the test.

I'm just curious to know whether or not you believe that something has got to make it into the short-term memory before it can be fully integrated, in other words 'learned' and stored in the long-term memory to be recalled and applied and manifested in a demonstrable skill-set.

And I think these tests can definitely be an indication of what a child has or hasn't at least made inroads toward learning.

A study of math scores on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the combination of four variables unrelated to instruction (number of parents living at home, parents’ educational background, type of community [e.g., “disadvantaged urban,” “extreme rural”], and state poverty rate) explained a whopping 89 percent of the differences in state scores. In fact, one of those variables, the number of students who had one parent living at home, accounted for 71 percent of the variance all by itself. See Glen E. Robinson and David P. Brandon, NAEP Test Scores: Should They Be Used to Compare and Rank State Educational Quality? (Arlington, Va.: Educational Research Service, 1994). The same pattern holds within states. In Massachusetts, five factors explained 90 percent of the variance in scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam, leading a researcher to conclude that students’ performance “has almost everything to do with parental socioeconomic backgrounds and less to do with teachers, curricula, or what the children learned in the classroom. ” See Kevin J. Clancy, “Making More Sense of MCAS Scores,” Boston Globe, 24 April 2000, p. A19. Another study looked just at the poverty level in each of 593 districts in Ohio and found a .80 correlation with 1997 scores on that state’s proficiency test, meaning that this measure alone explained nearly two-thirds of the differences in test results. See Randy L. Hoover, “Forces and Factors Affecting Ohio Proficiency Test Performance,” available at http://cc.ysu.edu/~rlhoover/OPT. Even a quick look at the grades given to Florida schools under that state’s new rating system found that “no school where less than 10% of the students qualify for free lunch scored below a C, and no school where more than 80% of the students qualify scored above a C.” See Jodi Wilgoren, “Florida’s Vouchers a Spur to Two Schools Left Behind,” New York Times, 14 March 2000, p. A18. Then there is the SAT, which, far from being a measure of merit (sometimes pointedly contrasted with affirmative action criteria), is largely a measure of family income. Break down the test takers by income, measured in $10,000 increments, and without exception the scores rise with each jump in parents’ earnings. See “1999 College Bound Seniors’ Test Scores: SAT,” FairTest Examiner, Fall 1999, p. 13; the information is also available at www.collegeboard.org.

I don't know - you talk all the time about Mo being different and you not wanting him to feel different - how is this going to make him feel anything but different?

It sounds to me as if you're using this test as a means to protest against the school. If you're so unhappy with it, why is Mo still there?