A group of Florida parents are suing the Florida Department of Education over a state law which requires students who fail the state’s standardized reading test, saying students should be allowed to pass based on their performance in class instead.
The fourteen parents filed a lawsuit against the FDOE for refusing to pass the students because they opted out of standardized testing for their children.
“The result is that students with no reading deficiency are retained in the third grade solely because they opt-out of standardized testing,” wrote the parents.
The FDOE’s policy, they allege, allows students who take the tests and score poorly to excel and move onto the fourth grade even if they score poorly.
On the other hand, a student who performs well in the classroom, passing a class, can be held back because they didn’t take the statewide standardized test.
Florida law mandates at least 95 percent of students have to participate in standardized testing to receive an individual letter grade and important federal funding but the plaintiff parents say that poses a problem with how children learn.
“Test participation is treated as more important than actual performance,” wrote the plaintiffs.
Florida technically doesn’t keep track of opt out test scores. Instead, the state simply marks tests as “NR2,” which means a test was incomplete -- only one reason for its incompletion being opting out entirely.
Florida has made some exceptions to promote students into fourth grade, allowing some students to take alternate tests or show their reading proficiency via a portfolio of their schoolwork throughout the year. Most students have obliged in taking standardized tests, but the number of students opting out has increased, throwing some school districts into a frenzy.
Plaintiffs say the department “dropped the ball” on the portfolio exemption since it gave inconsistent guidance throughout the school year on what constituted a portfolio.
The department’s disorganization is to blame for students having to repeat the third grade, say plaintiffs.
To make matters worse, the parents say, is that they weren’t even notified their children would be held back until late in the school year or after the school year had concluded.
The advent of the Common Core State Standards has amplified concerns over standardized testing, leading many of them to refuse testing for their children. The decision to opt children out of standardized testing is one which has grown immensely over the years.
Anti-Common Core groups have joined in to support the parents in their lawsuit, honing in on Florida legislators as the crux of the problem because of their “test-centric” policies.
“The Florida legislature has not only bent over backwards to refrain from challenging federal influence in what should be local control of education, but has passed laws that are intentionally mirror images of federal mandates,” said Luz Gonzalez of Florida Parents Against Common Core. “What we parents expect of our legislators is far greater than a continuance of a test-punish-and-deceive culture.”
Gonzalez says state lawmakers have a duty to uphold citizens’ -- and parents’ -- rights to make decisions for their children’s needs.
“We expect our state legislators to vigorously insist on our state rights as well as parental rights,” she continued. “We also demand that the agency tasked with administrating education policy, in Florida that would be the Florida Department of Education, think, act, and communicate with proven knowledge of what is happening in Florida schools as well as demonstrate forethought and innovation about resolution to potential problems.”
The FDOE does not comment on pending litigation at this time.
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
