The students opted out, with either their parent\u2019s permission or if they were over 18 years old, decided on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s outstanding,\u201d said Mancos School District Superintendent Brian Hanson. \u201cI will be honest with you, they are not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the Mancos School District is not alone, students across Colorado are opting out of the state-mandated Colorado Measures of Academic Success, Science and Social Studies test, referred to as CMAS.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur kids have finally decided that enough is enough,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n
Parents of hundreds of high school seniors in Boulder County, Douglas County, Montrose County and elsewhere are pulling their children out of new state science and social studies tests this month in an escalating battle over Colorado\u2019s battery of standardized tests.<\/p>\n
The parental refusals \u2014 or \u201copt outs\u201d \u2014 are concentrated in a few of the states\u2019s highest-performing and most affluent school districts.<\/p>\n
At nine Douglas County high schools, nearly 1,900 seniors \u2013 or half \u2013 didn\u2019t take the tests, according to preliminary data from the district.<\/p>\n
In the Boulder Valley School District, officials projected at least 1,200 refusals at three high schools.<\/p>\n
In Mancos, all 17 of the high school seniors opted out.<\/p>\n
Hanson said the students have had a far reach in social media and elsewhere. In fact, the students have been asked to present at the Colorado Association of School Board\u2019s conference early next month.<\/p>\n
Hanson emphasized that students aren\u2019t against teachers\u2019 tests, just the state\u2019s standardized tests.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the standardized testing movement that has got out of control,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cThere has got to be a better way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve reached the breaking point,\u201d he added. \u201cPeople don\u2019t want to teach any more. We are pushing back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taryn Gordanier, a junior at the Mancos High School, is taking part in a local campaign to end to the testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cTesting is a loss to valuable instructional time,\u201d she said. \u201cWe feel these tests are put before our education, and we are not No. 2 \u2013 we are No.1.\u201d<\/p>\n
Districts and schools face consequences if their participation on state-mandated tests dips below 95 percent. For districts, it could mean a lowering of their accreditation level and other sanctions, and for schools it eventually may mean adopting more stringent plans requiring additional steps to meet state requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
students opted out, with either their parent\u2019s permission or if they were over 18 years old, decided on their own. \u201cThat\u2019s outstanding,\u201d said Mancos School District Superintendent Brian Hanson. \u201cI will be honest with you, they are not alone.\u201d And the Mancos School District is not alone, students across Colorado are opting out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-116383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116383"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=116383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}