To: The Florida State House, The Florida State Senate, and Governor Ron DeSantis
Opting Out of High Stakes Testing
We, the undersigned parents/guardians, exercise our 1st and 14th Amendment rights of the federal Constitution to opt our children out of standardized testing that is misused as an inaccurate and inappropriate tool to judge student achievement, school quality, and teacher effectiveness. We, the undersigned citizens, support parents/guardians in their effort to opt their public school-aged children out of standardized testing that is misused as an inaccurate and inappropriate tool to judge student achievement, school quality, and teacher effectiveness. Additionally, we collectively agree that our tax paid money should no longer be used to pay for the mass production of these tests, the grading of these tests, and the forensic examination of the legitimacy of the completed tests.
Why is this important?
Overemphasis on Florida state sanctioned standardized testing has resulted in the documented retardation of the intellectual, creative, and social growth of a significant portion of Florida’s K-12 public school student population, has resulted in the discriminatory disenfranchisement of Florida’s minority students, second language students, and its special needs students; and has unfairly maligned Florida’s K-12 public school educators by attaching test scores to pay and job security.