From: Sherry Griffith [mailto:sgriffith@acsa.org]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 12:49 PM
Subject: FW: Parent Opt outs

TO: ACSA Members and Other Interested Parties:

Attached is the spreadsheet on the number of parents opting out their child from our state STAR testing. PE stands for Parent Exempt and Pct is percentage points. As noted by CDE below about 70% of our school districts statewide have at least one parent opt out.

Note that while the numbers are small it cuts across all ethnicities with the white/Caucasian subgroup the largest with Hispanic following. The highest number of parent opt outs is parents of students with disabilities. As for the Caucasian subgroup this speaks to the issue we have raised that there are groups of  parents in school districts like Davis or in some charter schools feeling these tests are not necessary for their child. Also note the high numbers who are not economically disadvantaged.

We are working with Congressman Miller’s staff on getting language into NCLB to ensure California will not be penalized for parent opt outs in the future.

Sherry

Note from California Department of Education below:

Sherry - The attached Excel file contains the data on parent opt. outs you requested.  Note that all the percentages are very low.  However, even just one parent opt. out can cause a school to go into program improvements if that student drives participation for a subgroup below 95%.  A quick analysis by district showed that a vast majority of districts (about 70%) had at least one parent opt. out.  16 districts had more than 100.  Hope these data suit your needs. - Eric