“We should be completely prepared for lots of folks to get cold feet starting now,” said Andy Smarick, a policy analyst at Bellwether Education Partners. States that have already moved to Common Core tests have seen student scores plunge and parent protests soar — and as the spring testing season creeps closer, similar outcomes “are staring our leaders in the face” in states from coast to coast, he said.
“Claims of ‘We’re not ready,’ and ‘This will be too disruptive’ are sure to spike,” Smarick said.
The nascent district rebellion comes against a backdrop of growing public frustration with standardized testing in general. In New York last spring, as many as 60,000 students refused to take the state’s Common Core tests. Similar opt-out movements have swelled in states from Georgia to Connecticut to California, where a coalition called “Pencils Down” has been organizing parents to boycott the exams.
A few teachers in Florida and Colorado have even staged small mutinies of their own, announcing that they would not give standardized tests to their students. A public letter from a Colorado teacher titled “I refuse to administer the PARCC” caught fire on social media last month.
Supporters of the Common Core have taken note of the public mood and tried to get ahead of iti/blockquote>