By GREG TOPPO 
 AP Education Writer 
 

 LOS ANGELES (AP) — In its strongest stance yet against
 standardized testing, the National Education Association on Friday
 voted to support legislation giving parents the ability to let their
 children skip the tests. 
 

 ``If you want to know how your child is doing, you don't wait seven
 months to get the results of a standardized test,'' said Judi Hirsch,
 an Oakland, Calif., algebra teacher who introduced the measure.
 ``You ask your kid's teacher.'' 
 

 The teachers union has long warned against an overreliance on
 standardized tests, which are a cornerstone of President Bush's
 proposed education plan and a key element of many school district
 programs. Bush wants the test results to determine how much
 federal funding schools should get. 
 

 The measure directs the NEA's lobbyists to fight mandatory testing
 requirements on a federal level. It doesn't direct state delegations to
 lobby for laws allowing parents to opt out of testing, but it does
 promise union support to state-level lobbyists who do so. 
 

 ``The delegates have indicated that they do not want high-stakes
 testing,'' said Mary Elizabeth Teasley, the NEA's director of
 government relations. While the union doesn't oppose testing in
 general, it favors using a variety of indicators to help schools decide
 whether children are learning. 
 

 The NEA's 9,000 delegates on Friday also approved a resolution
 encouraging state and local school officials to use several kinds of
 assessments when testing whether students have learned. 
 

 Congress this year is expected to approve sweeping K-12 education
 legislation that includes mandatory state testing in reading and
 math. Every public school student in grades three through eight and
 one year in high school would be tested. President Bush campaigned
 on the theme, which has widespread support in both the House and
 Senate. 
 

 Meanwhile, more school districts are mandating standardized tests
 as they move toward giving taxpayers a complete picture of student
 performance. Some tests, deemed ``high-stakes,'' even determine
 whether students graduate or are promoted. 
 

 Across the nation, small groups of parents and students have begun
 boycotting the tests. 
 

 Most recently, dozens of high schoolers at a New York City school
 boycotted the state Board of Regents exam in English, saying the
 time spent preparing for the exams could be better used for other
 school projects. 
 

 Last spring, two-thirds of the eighth-graders at Scarsdale Middle
 School in prosperous Westchester County, N.Y., boycotted state
 exams. Similar boycotts have been staged in Michigan and
 Massachusetts. 
 

 ``I'm delighted,'' said Deborah Rapaport, a Scarsdale parent who
 helped organize the May boycott. ``It's going to be one more thing
 that (school districts) have to pay attention to, that their own
 teachers are not happy with a testing-oriented system.'' 
 

 Hirsch said many standardized tests, which place children's
 performance on a 0-100 percent scale, put an average student at
 50 — a figure usually associated with a failing grade. 
 

 ``It's just a total setup for failure,'' she said in an interview. ``We
 know poor kids, working-class kids, are going to do poorly.'' 
 

 U.S. Education Department spokeswoman Lindsey Kozberg said a
 standardized test score is an important tool for teachers and parents
 looking for answers about children's performance. 
 

 ``It's a source of information that every parent, every teacher,
 every school administrator and every educational policy maker in the
 country needs to have about student progress,'' she said. ``This
 data is what's going to tell us what's working and what isn't.'' 
 

 In other action, the union approved forming a partnership with the
 American Federation of Teachers, once a rival union. AFT members
 will vote on the partnership July 11. 
 

 The NEA has about 2.6 million members nationwide. AFT has more
 than 1 million members, most located in urban school districts. Unlike
 those in the NEA, AFT members belong to AFL-CIO. 
 

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 On the Net: 
 

 National Education Association: http://www.nea.org
 

 American Federation of Teachers: http://www.aft.org