It’s testing season. Each year I administer whatever Language Arts assessment is currently required by law. I glance over the Pearson booklet at the rows of earnest faces nervously listening to the directions of their state assessment. They know results will be used to determine whether or not their receive a diploma. Their eyes communicate “we will do you proud” while their scrunched up noses say, “you’d better have taught us what we need to be successful on this thing.”

Walking the rows, I think about how 78.6% of the students in my building qualify for free and reduced lunch. At least 8% are ELL and 13.4% are in Special Education programs. More than anything, my students need education opportunities that will set them on a trajectory out of poverty and in pursuit of their version of the “American Dream”. Yet we know that this dream is guarded by a variety of gatekeepers, most vital of which is access to quality post-secondary education. One such gatekeeper is the ominous standardized test.

I understand the urge of parents and teachers to want to resist this system and opt out. Yet, every time the topic of standardized testing is brought up I can’t help but wonder….Does the opt-out movement actually widen the opportunity gap???

I’m hard pressed to find research on this topic and I have no time for a PhD. Yet, the continued presence of a culture of low expectations for low-income students and students of color leads me to believe there is a relationship between low expectations, low performance results, and opting out of testing.

One of the primary arguments for standardized testing is that it produces data teachers can use. Standardized testing provides apples to apples comparisons for conversations about learning and growth. At the high school level, it is a key– opening doors to post secondary options. In contrast, crusaders against testing declare that it is racist, irrelevant, a waste of time and money, a ploy by the corporate education reformers, etc. The bifurcated debate tends to be simplistic and I’m glad some are writing that the issue is more complex than for/against language we use.

Meanwhile, the result of this debate is a solo message that to fight over-testing we just need to “opt out”. Although I I am critical of many things about our culture of over-testing, I discern three major problems with opt-out rhetoric. First, it gives only one solution to the issues of over-testing. Second, the language of opting out is inaccessible to low-income communities, especially those of color.  The third and most poignant reason opt out language is disconcerting to me is that it doesn’t address the implied privilege of opt-outers (yes, I made up that word!).

Time and again the people who are most outspoken about opting out of testing look the same. They are white. They sit in a middle/upper class income bracket. They know how to make noise and not be punished for it. They can get the information, fill out the paperwork and navigate bureaucracy in their primary language. Take Nathan Hale for example. It’s striking to me that OSPI reports they are predominantly white, middle class, and English-speaking. Would a browner, poorer, more linguistically diverse school be able to do the same thing? Perhaps.

The parents and communities that can and do opt-out are advantaged in another way. They can choose when it is and isn’t convenient to opt out. They can enroll their kids in AP classes and take the corresponding test. They can take college entrance exams. They can provide their students with tutoring to be successful on any test they want. Again, these families choose.

Theoretically, anyone can join with the Nathan Hale families, the Obamas, and Tom Cruise. But I’m skeptical. Those families are even more elite than we are lead to believe. Even if student test scores were poor, these parents they buy admission into a four-year university through measures (generational wealth and networking) not available to families in impoverished communities.

Opting out does not impact all students equally. It especially does not positively benefit the students at my school. I postulate, it is actually widening the opportunity gap for them. It widens the gap because in our current system a high score on a standardized test results in essential financial resources to pay for college. This gap exacerbates the system of have and have-nots giving, what one writer refers to, an “edge” to the wealthy.

Rather than an opt-out form, I’d argue that my students benefit more from the rigorous instruction that sets them up for passing any AP, SAT, ACT or SBA, and equips them to beat the legacy of low scores associated with their socio-economic status or skin color. They blossom from the positive attitude of teachers who believe they are and will be successful in Honors and AP courses. They are empowered by a narrative that says they are more than a test score but recognizes they need a strong academic foundation to overcome certain academic hurdles. Finally, if all the other elements are in place, students will one day grasp their version of the “American Dream”  because of the scholarships and grants they earned and the access they now have to higher ed.

“Teach More, Test Less”. Yes. But let’s develop a more comprehensive approach to over-testing. More than opt out paperwork distributed in multiple languages, I’d like to see solutions that maintain high standards yet transform the system for all students. Here are a few ideas tossed around in the lunch room:

• Stop penalizing the highest need schools for low test scores.
• Give us fewer, more meaningful tests.
• Focus on well-written assessments that produce data points for immediate use.
• Use assessments as ONE of many measures of achievement and growth for schools.
• Remove the punitive, high stakes label from summative tests.
• Provide high-needs schools with more resources to mediate student learning gaps so they can perform at the level of wealthier counterparts.