CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A state Board of Education member said “opting out” is not an option for West Virginia students when it comes to the new Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium testing implemented this year.
Lloyd Jackson, state board member and former West Virginia state senator and Senate Education Committee chairman, said it’s “regrettable that people are taking that position.”
The opt-out movement started in West Virginia schools last month after nearly 200 students at Spring Valley High School in Wayne County refused to take the test.
Parents claimed they were concerned with the Common Core/Next Generation standards because their children’s results would be collected in a national database.
Harrison County Schools Superintendent Mark Manchin, responding last week to the Wayne County boycott, said he couldn’t allow that to happen in the Harrison school system.
Also last week, House of Delegates member Mike Folk (R-Berkeley) filed a lawsuit with Berkeley County Court to end Common Core test funding.
Folk told MetroNews the testing was a “large waste of time and resources” and an “unconstitutional attempt on the part of the federal Department of Education to take over our state educational system.” He claimed it drains funds from school systems.
Jackson contended the tests are vital for measuring progress and determining what areas schools need to improve.
“The only way we know that is by measuring the performance of the very product we create, and that’s really good-performing students,” said Jackson. “If we can’t measure that, it’s really difficult to know how our schools are doing.”