The "Speaking My Voice" Part of the Writing Life

One of my personal commitments is that I take the time to bring my voice to issues that I care about (or at least some of them ... there are so many). I also like to help others in their efforts to amplify their support for or opposition to shared issues of concern.

Today, instead of working on my own writing endeavors, I've taken the time to get informed about some key educational issues being considered by our state lawmakers, and to bring my voice and my perspective into the conversation. Today I wrote to lawmakers to share my support for four Senate Bills that are currently before Oregon's Senate Committee on Education: SB 456 (that removes the current standardized testing requirement for high school graduation); SB 433 (that provides further support for those parents and adult students who want to opt their child out of standardized testing), SB 428 (that calls upon the Secretary of State to perform an audit of standardized testing methods in Oregon schools), and SB 664 (that adds a requirement to include education about the Holocaust and genocide in Oregon school curriculum).

Thanks to fellow community advocate, Lisa Shultz, I learned how to navigate through OLIS to read about these bills, and to review public testimony that's been delivered thus far, etc. If you click on this OLIS link, for example, you can see the different SBs that were before the Senate Education Committee at their February 27, 2019 meeting (which I was unable to attend). If you click on a SB link, for example SB 456, you will see where the bill is currently, and that there was a hearing on February 27, 2019. If you click on the 2-27 Public Hearing link, you will see a page full of links to the written testimony that was given on that date (on the left side of the page). If you click on the little arrow on the right side of the Senate Education Community summary page next to the 2/27/2019 date, you will be taken to a recording of the hearing on that date. Pretty cool.

As I said, I wasn't able to attend the hearing on February 27th, but I did want to weigh in on the issues. I wrote the following letters, and sent them to the Education Committee members. I've copied them below in case they are helpful to you as you formulate your own opinions and/or choose to follow/lend your voice to these issues as well.

Here goes:

Letter One: 

March 5, 2019

TO: Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee

RE: Support for SB 456

Dear Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee,

I am a parent, community volunteer, children’s author, and vocal library and literacy advocate in Portland, Oregon. I am writing to share my support for SB 456 and my strong opposition to standardized testing as a requirement for high school graduation.

My two children have attended all levels of public school in the state of Oregon (my oldest is currently a sophomore in college, and my youngest is a junior in high school). I have been a guest author and/or community volunteer in a variety of schools throughout the state. During the 15 years I’ve been involved with Oregon’s schools, I’ve witnessed a significant shift in our public education system, focusing more and more on standardized testing and less and less on meaningful areas sadly deemed “extras” in our budget-challenged environment (e.g., art, music, reading for pleasure, library services, and even information literacy skills).

Our state is routinely strapped for funds, limiting our ability to provide a robust and well-rounded public education for our children, but yet, we continue to find the funds to pay for aggressive standardized testing protocols that have not been shown to benefit our children, our teachers, our schools, or our communities. The only stakeholders that have arguably benefitted from aggressive standardized testing protocols are the organizations whose business models depend on the endless loop of testing/consulting/ training/ and re-testing we have allowed our education system to fall prey to. While these profiteers lobby for more and more testing (so they can sell more test guides and more consulting services to help teachers teach to the test and help schools improve their test scores), our students, teachers, and schools suffer.

Yes, students should be able to demonstrate a basic level of proficiency in the essential skills of reading, writing and mathematics to earn a high school diploma. Students do this most effectively by receiving instruction and regular evaluation and grading reports from licensed teachers. Linking standardized tests to high school graduation requirements implies that these tests hold value for our students and their future. They do not.

Please support SB 456. It is time to put an end to Oregon’s unhealthy relationship with standardized testing and the special interest groups that profit from ongoing support for this testing.

Sincerely,

Dawn Prochovnic

Washington County, Oregon

(I have also provided letters of support for related SB 433 and SB 428) 

Letter Two: 

March 5, 2019

TO: Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee

RE: Support for SB 433

Dear Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee,

I am a parent, community volunteer, children’s author, and vocal library and literacy advocate in Portland, Oregon. I am writing to share my support for SB 433.

As a parent who has long been opposed to standardized testing (see my letter in support of SB 456), and who has opted my own children out of “Smarter Balanced Testing,” both to exert my rights as a parent, and to shine a light on the controversial issues surrounding standardized testing (call it civil disobedience, if you will), I was pleased with the successful passage of the Student Assessment Bill of Rights (HB 2655). Unfortunately, HB 2655 is not being implemented in a way that adequately protects students or their parents who wish to opt their children out of standardized testing.

Prior to the passage of HB 2655, I opted my children out of “Smarter Balanced” testing based on the religious exemption that was available at the time. To quote in part from my opt out letter at that time:

“…According to the Oxford Dictionary, religion is ‘a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.’ We ascribe supreme importance to [Our Student’s] access to a comprehensive education.

Strict adherence to state and federal high-stakes standardized testing, including the extensive classroom preparation that occurs prior to test administration, prevents our child from receiving a comprehensive education. Until focus on testable skills diminishes to a reasonable extent, we will continue to withhold our child from participation in the testing program, and we ask that you honor that decision.”

Our local middle school honored my requests to opt out of Smarter Balanced testing without incident. The situation has been different at the high school level—likely because the stakes are now higher for our schools and our school’s administrators, (especially since standardized testing is the current go-to method for Oregon schools to ascertain that students are proficient in certain essential skills and thus eligible to graduate high school—again, see my letter in support of SB 456).

I am a capable, intelligent and engaged parent, yet every school year it takes me hours of phone calls, web searches, and networking with other likeminded parents to find out where our school district’s current opt out form is buried, when and where it needs to be turned in, and when the testing will take place at my child’s school. This is inappropriate, and it circumvents the intent of HB 2655, the current Student Assessment Bill of Rights. 

I’ve been vocal about my decision to opt my student out of Smarter Balanced testing, and I’ve been vocal about how others parents have the right to do the same (or at the very least, I’ve shared with other parents where the opt out forms are buried on our school district’s website, and where and when they need to be turned in by). I’ve been publically shamed at parent meetings at my child’s school for my decision to opt my student out, and I’ve been privately contacted by school administrators with requests to revisit my decision to opt my student out. I’ve also been asked by administrators to please consider how my decision negatively impacts our school, our teachers, and our students who are at risk of not graduating because they have not yet demonstrated their achievement of essential skills. 

I’m confident and courageous, as are my children, and yet I’ve found it to be uncomfortable and intimidating to assert for my child's rights on this topic. (It is not lost on me that writing this public letter in defense of opting out could arguably impair my relationship with the administrators at my child’s school. I hope not.). Furthermore, my child’s school is now referring to the upcoming standardized testing by a different name, (no longer the Smarter Balanced test), so I don’t even know if HB 2655 protects my student’s right to opt out at this time.

Please support SB 433. HB 2655 was a nice start, but it is inadequate.

Sincerely,

Dawn Prochovnic

Washington County, Oregon

(I have also provided letters of support for related SB 456 and SB 428) 

--> Letter Three: 

March 5, 2019

TO: Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee

RE: Support for SB 428

Dear Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee,

I am a parent, community volunteer, children’s author, and vocal library and literacy advocate in Portland, Oregon. I am writing to share my support for SB 428.

It is time for our state to take pause and audit/evaluate how it is we evaluate our students. As our schools continue to place greater and greater emphasis on the preparation for and implementation of standardized tests, we rob our children of the robust and well-rounded education they deserve, an education that includes the richness of art, music, reading for pleasure, library services, and even information literacy skills.

But that’s not all. Our testing protocols aren’t even logical, practical, or efficient. 

Consider for example, the experience of my two children. Both of them passed their reading and math essential skills benchmarks via OAKS testing during middle school (the writing test was not offered in middle school). My oldest child, who is now in college, got strong A’s in the college level, AP/Advanced Placement English and writing classes she took in high school, and she tested in the top percentiles in her college entrance exam pre-tests. This would suggest to a reasonable person that she was on track to (easily) pass the “alternative” writing essential skill benchmark when she took her college entrance exams, (which she did). However, she was still expected to sit for the Smarter Balanced standardized tests during her junior year in high school. Why? What a waste of resources.

Even though our family took the time and energy to opt her out of the duplicative Smarter Balanced testing, (see my related letter in support of SB 433) she was robbed of valuable instructional time and learning opportunities while her teachers prepped her classmates for the standardized tests. Further, she was robbed of valuable instructional time leading up to national Advanced Placement (AP) test dates because of several days worth of “essential skills” standardized testing. To note, Smarter Balanced testing would have yielded her zero benefits. Successful AP testing resulted in several college credits being earned, and THOUSANDS of tuition dollars being saved.

Fast forward three years later, and my son finds himself in the same boat. He’s already passed one AP English test (with the highest score possible, which will earn him college credit at nearly any university in the United States), yet the protocol for his high school is that he is expected to take the standardized test later this school year to assess that he has met the essential skills benchmarks. We are opting him out, too, but I continue to be frustrated and disappointed at all of the learning he is missing out on because of this duplicative standardized testing.

Please support SB 428. It’s time to re-evaluate our evaluation methods in our schools.

Sincerely,

Dawn Prochovnic

Washington County, Oregon

(I have also provided letters of support for related SB 433 and SB 456) 

 Letter Four: 

March 5, 2019

TO: Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee:

RE: Support for SB 664

Dear Chair Wagner and Members of the Senate Education Committee,

I am writing to share my strong support for SB 664.

Our family descends from Henry Prochovnic, a Holocaust survivor. Henry’s name and the name of his parents and siblings who did not survive are written on the Holocaust Memorial in Portland’s Washington Park. My children have learned about the Holocaust because we have talked about it as a family, but I’ve been genuinely surprised by the number of students that do not know very much at all about this period of history. Case in point, just recently our local high school presented a student production of the Diary of Anne Frank. I was taken aback by how little the high school students knew about this time in world history prior to seeing this production.

The Holocaust is a bleak and dark stain on humanity, and it is a time in history that we as a society cannot afford to forget or repeat. It is mind boggling to me that this subject is not already a required topic for Oregon’s schools. Please work to change this. Please support SB 664.

Sincerely,

Dawn Prochovnic

Washington County, Oregon

Please feel welcome to use these letters as a resource and guideline or inspiration in your own advocacy work.