The Rise and Fade of Education’s ‘Opt Out’ Movement
An anti-testing movement redraws its battle lines
During the late years of the Obama administration, parents in New York State built a standardized-testing boycott that shook the education bureaucracy and inspired similar “opt out” movements nationwide.
New York’s powerful education leaders were stunned almost three years ago when 20 percent of the state’s 1.1 million eligible students refused exams. That astonishing rate ticked up to 21 percent in 2016. The numbers translated into influence for the leaders of the protest, who wanted to reverse testing policies adopted in New York and elsewhere largely because of Obama’s Race To The Top initiative.
“We have a seat at the table now,” said Jeanette Deutermann, a Long Island parent who became the most prominent leader of New York’s “opt out” movement. “We have access to the policymakers.”
But obtaining power and keeping it are different challenges. Now, the statewide protest has begun to stagnate almost everywhere outside its Long Island birthplace. The movement is having a bit of an existential crisis, and its leaders are searching for a way to jumpstart it.
Any regression could not only undermine the boycott’s relevance in the Empire State but also weaken the protest in…
