As Common Core testing is stirring controversy across the country, Mississippi schools are being told the test is not optional and to document the names of students that don’t take the test.
“Statewide testing is so important that is has actually been codified into state law,” Mississippi Superintendent of Education Carey M. Wright wrote to district superintendents last week. “Mississippi law mandates that basic skills tests ‘shall be completed by each student.’ … In summary, student assessments are not an option. They are a requirement.”
Common Core opponents wave signs and cheer at a rally opposing Mississippi's continued use of the Common Core academic standards on the steps of the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015. Both Gov. Phil Bryant and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves have vowed that the state will quit using the standards. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi’s 20-day window for administering the test began on Monday. Individual school districts pick which days of that window to administer the test. But despite that requirement, many parents are reportedly pulling their children from the PARCC exam. PARCC is short for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, which is prepared by London-based test maker Pearson.
“Document the names, grades and actual assessments for students who refuse to be tested,” Wright goes on to instruct the district superintendents. “Your district test coordinator will need this information to input into Pearson’s online delivery platform at the end of the PBA [Performance Based Assessment] and the EOY [end of year] cycle.”
Keeping the names of students that did not take the test was not a matter of amassing any personal data, said Patrice Guilfoyle, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Education.
“The student data is because under state law, 95 percent of students must be accounted for. If you don’t take the test, we have to have their names,” Guilfoyle told TheBlaze. “There is no personal information collected. It’s to determine which students are tested and how students performed. We have the information for the students who took the test. If you don’t fill that sheet out, we need a way of knowing you didn’t.”
On Tuesday, a New Mexico court heard arguments between two competing testing companies, which could potentially have a national impact. New Mexico is a state where students also reportedly walked away from the test.
Last week in New Jersey – which also does not allow opting out of the test – many parents just refused to allow their children to take the exam.
In Mississippi, Kelly Watson whose third-grade daughter Faith attends Martin Bluff Elementary School in Gautier, Mississippi, said she was bothered to see that information that is collected for students that don’t take the exam.
“It makes me feel uncomfortable,” Watson told TheBlaze.
But, in her district, she said parents did not have much of a choice.
“I tried to opt her out and they told me you don’t have the authority,” Watson said.
Guilfoyle, of the state Department of Education, said the letter to district superintendents was based on extensive research by the Mississippi Attorney General’s office that determined the tests were legally required.
But, she said that the state provides latitude for school districts to decide how to handle the matter if parents don’t want their children to take a test.
“There is no state penalty,” Guilfoyle told TheBlaze. “We let the school districts decide.”
