OPINION: Is Opting Out a Cop Out?
I’ve been reading lately about parents who are keeping their kids out of public school testing this week. They are “opting out” of the new higher standards that New York schools have adopted as part of an effort to increase the low number of kids who graduate high school prepared for college.
How someone chooses to raise their child is up to them, but as a parent of a public school student myself, I welcome the steps our schools are taking to improve education. What I tell my daughter is simple — study hard and do your best. I would never tell them to sit out a test at school. And I can’t imagine my parents letting me get away with that when I was a kid.
I’m concerned about the type of message we send young people when we tell them to “opt out” because the tests are too hard. Does this mean they should “opt out” of homework, too? Science can be hard. Math is hard. Should we opt out of them completely? Where does it end?