Hartford Examiner (Connecticut)
March 21, 2011
HEADLINE: Questioning Pennsylvania mother's opt out of standardized testing

By Patricia Taber

A Pennsylvania mother, Michele Gray, opted her children out of the standardized testing required by the national No Child Left Behind law. She has been quoted to hope that others will also opt their own children out of these tests. She was able to opt out by using the religious objection, which is the only option to opt out of the standardized testing. This is where it stops mattering how one feels about the test and centers solely on the legitimacy of that claim.

Here in Connecticut testing has just concluded, but information about the CAPT and CMT tests can be found at the Connecticut State Department of Education website. (Over to the right by clicking on the links for Student Assessments or No Child Left Behind links which as of this article's publishing were not working. General information can be found at Testing in Connecticut: An Overview) This may be a result of too many people looking for information on Connecticut's own opt-out policies. As the tests are federally mandated, Connecticut also most likely allows opting out based only on religious objections.

It does not matter what the objections to this testing are when other reasons are used to get out of them. It is that claim of religious objection that causes this form of protesting the tests to be detrimental to the very children parents want to opt out. The majority of articles about this Pennsylvania mother read as though she in fact has no religious objection whatsoever. If this is the case, she is succeeding only in teaching her children that one can make any claim, however false, to get things to turn out their way.

The fact that the ultimate result of this possible lie is her children getting out of a test, may in their middle school-aged minds, negate the ethical, political and other real concerns the mother has about the tests. The use of dishonorable behavior or words (even for the best of causes) run a great risk of leaving the impression on children not that the cause is great, but that dishonorable behavior works.

This story and Michele Gray would be more impressive if she would either illustrate the specifics of her religious objection or stand up with nothing more than what she believes is right to fight both a system she believes is flawed. Instead she has opted out of both honesty and brave resolved to spare not so much her children from a test, but herself from the repercussions of standing up for what she believes.

As not even the Facebook page she is stated to have started could not be singled out of the several Facebook pages about standardized testing, it is even harder to determine the truth of the religious objection, the only thing that makes this story potentially objectionable. We can only wait to hear more specific details.