Robby Soave
Daily Caller
April 22, 2014
A school district asked the police to prohibit certain students from setting foot on school property because their parents had privacy concerns about Common Core-aligned standardized testing, and wished to opt their kids out.
The incident happened at Marietta City Schools in Marietta, Georgia. The Finney family didn’t want their three children — in third grade, fifth grade and ninth grade — to participate in the state-mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, partly because of the vast amounts of data the government is collecting about their children, and partly because they think the tests don’t serve a compelling educational interest, according to The Marietta Daily Journal.
Their sentiments are shared by a growing number of parents around the country, who increasingly see standardized tests as a costly bureaucratic tool that allows the government to gather personal information about kids. Criticisms of the tests are closely linked to criticisms of Common Core, the new national education curriculum standards that are fiercely opposed by both conservative grassroots and teachers unions.
“They are collecting data on our children,” said Mary Finney in a statement. “Now, with Common Core there is such a large amount of information and data collected on children. People don’t realize it. We don’t want to sound like we’re wearing tin-foil hats, but they want to track our kids from kindergarten through college.”
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!