>      By DANIEL GOLDEN 
>      Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
>
>      SAN DIEGO -- Sporting an "A" average and varsity letters in two
sports, Erin Binney took a battery of tests last spring to improve her
college-admissions prospects, including three SAT achievement tests and
Advanced Placement exams in U.S. history and chemistry.
>
>      But when it came to the state-required achievement test that is used
to assess teachers, schools and districts -- and has no effect on her
transcript -- the student at Rancho Bernardo High just said no. Instead of
being tested two hours each morning for a week, she slept late and did
homework.
>
>      Erin, now a senior, was one of 212 Rancho Bernardo students, or 8.7%
of those eligible for testing, who stayed home or went out to the beach or
breakfast -- up from a dozen such refuseniks in 1999, 49 in 2000 and 166 in
2001. Without Erin and other stellar students, Rancho Bernardo's score on
the Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, exams has plummeted, and
the school has missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of state aid
and teacher bonuses pegged to improvement.
>
>      Rancho Bernardo administrators can't force students to take the
test, or penalize them for dodging it. Erin and the rest were excused by
their parents.
>
>      It's a little-known fact of school life: "mandatory" testing often
isn't.
>
>                 HAVE YOUR SAY
>
>
>
>                  Should federal aid to schools be based on students'
standardized test scores? Participate in Question of the Day1. 
>                  
>            
>           
>      The Bush administration -- and nearly every state -- want to test as
many public-school students as possible. The federal "No Child Left Behind"
law, adopted last January, says 95% of the students in high-poverty schools
must take standardized tests like STAR or the schools forfeit funds granted
under Title 1 -- the biggest pot of federal education money available.
California requires elementary and middle schools to test 95% of their
students, and high schools, 90%. Even students with special needs or
limited English are supposed to be tested.
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>      Parents' Rights
>
>      But the push for universal testing is colliding with another
cherished educational value: parental rights. About 20 states -- including
California, Michigan and Wisconsin -- let parents waive testing of their
children, usually without having to give a reason. These waivers are
confounding school administrators and distorting test scores on which
school funding and reputations increasingly hinge.
>
>      Waivers spur particular resistance at upscale schools where students
excused from testing tend to be high achievers. At Rancho Bernardo, a
planned community laden with well-off retirees, several teachers and the
president of the parent-teacher association have opted their children out
of the test. Erin Binney and other top Rancho Bernardo students excused by
their parents say guidance counselors threatened to write unfavorable
college recommendations for displaying a lack of school spirit. Counselors
deny going that far, but they acknowledge that they consider test
participation when they select students to lead school organizations.
>
>      Some parents object to standardized testing, or to a particular
test. Some parents who speak Spanish or another foreign language feel their
children don't have a fair shot on a standardized test given in English.
And still others see no personal incentive for their children to labor over
tests that aren't included on school transcripts or required for
high-school graduation or college admissions. (Parents typically aren't
allowed to use the waivers for statewide graduation tests, now required in
27 states.)
>
>      "I felt kind of guilty, because I realized I could be taking money
away from the school," says Erin's mother, Joan Binney. "But Erin had just
started a job, she was competing in lacrosse, and she had to study for the
AP tests. It all gets to be too much."
>
>      'A Nation at Risk'
>
>      The movement to hold teachers, schools and districts to higher
standards dates back to a controversial 1983 report titled "A Nation at
Risk." It offered a grim portrayal of decline in the nation's public
schools and started what has become a steady rise in standardized testing.
>
>      The push for testing aroused concern among conservatives who favor
parental rights and fear government intrusion. At their prodding, states
began adopting opt-out rules for most state standardized tests in the early
and mid-1990s; California's was passed in 1995. Since then, a broader
coalition has taken up the cause, including the National Education
Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, which endorsed waivers
at its 2001 convention. Many NEA members resent state-imposed tests and
think they restrict their academic freedom and limit their ability to set
curricula. Various antitesting groups promote opt-outs on their Web sites
or have filed waiver legislation in other states, where students who miss
tests must make them up or be considered truant.
>
>      Paul Warren, California deputy state superintendent for
accountability, says waivers act as a valuable "pressure relief valve,"
saving schools from parents steamed up about testing.
>
>      Bush administration officials acknowledge the tension between their
goal of universal testing and state opt-out provisions. Eugene Hickok, U.S.
undersecretary of education, described waiver rules as a "potential
challenge" to administration policy, and said "full participation" in
testing "is in both the state's interest and the student's interest."
>
>      Nationwide, only an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 parents, mostly in
California, excused their children from testing last year, largely because
states and school districts don't publicize the option. But the relatively
small numbers have a disproportionate impact because they are concentrated
in certain schools.
>
>      Cost of Rising Opt-Out Rates
>
>      At Boulder High School in Boulder, Colo., the number of students
excused by their parents from the state test increased to 24 last spring
from five in 2001. Most belonged to a school activist group called Student
Worker that has colorfully protested statewide testing with videos,
posters, and imitation prison-inmate identification badges. For the purpose
of rating Colorado schools, students who opt out are lumped in the
"unsatisfactory" category, dragging down their school's score. Boulder
High's ranking dropped from "excellent" to the next-best category,
"high-performing." The high school also failed to qualify this year for
$10,000 in state funding for improved scores, although the money might not
have been available anyway, due to a state budget crisis.
>
>                 PLAYING HOOKY
>
>
>
>                  About 20 states let parents excuse children from
compulsory standardized tests used to assess schools and districts. Here
are the estimated number of students excused in five of the states.
>
>                        State  Students  
>                        California  50,000  
>                        Michigan  1,700  
>                        Colorado  1,220  
>                        Wisconsin  435  
>                        Pennsylvania  335  
>
>                  Note: California tests students in grades 2-11. Other
states test fewer grades. 
>
>                  Source: the states 
>                  
>            
>           
>      "When you feel so strongly, you have to act on it," says Max
Holleran, a high-ranking Boulder High student who received a parental
waiver. "If it hurts our school, so be it." His father, Michael Holleran, a
professor at the University of Colorado, says he shares his son's
reservations about testing.
>
>      Some schools have retaliated against teachers or students who
promote waivers. When Christopher Hu, then a junior at Scripps Ranch High
in San Diego, distributed a pamphlet to classmates in 2001 describing how
parents could exempt them from the test, the school confiscated the fliers
and threatened to discipline the straight-A student.
>
>      The school's reaction backfired. Parents excused 118 Scripps Ranch
students, or 7.9% of those eligible, from the test that year, and the
school's score dropped. After the American Civil Liberties Union intervened
on Christopher's behalf -- seeking to strike any record of disciplinary
action against him from his transcript -- school officials settled the case
by agreeing to that as well as apologizing to him and pledging not to
interfere with students handing out antitesting materials. Last spring,
parental waivers at Scripps Ranch dropped to two -- and its score
skyrocketed -- after the school conducted an intensive pro-testing lobbying
campaign, including visits by the principal and assistant principals to
each first-period classroom.
>
>      Until two years ago, California barred teachers from initiating
conversations with parents about waivers. That restriction was eased when
the state settled litigation with four school districts over testing
students with limited English. Under the settlement, the state can't stop
teachers from informing parents about the option, only from soliciting or
encouraging parental waivers. Last spring, an elementary school teacher in
San Jose was suspended for allegedly doing just that.
>
>      Carrots and Sticks
>
>      States have sought to expand test participation with both carrots
and sticks, with mixed success. Michigan drove down parental waivers to 200
in 2000 from 7,000 in 1999 by offering a $2,500 college scholarship to all
students who met or exceeded state standards on the test -- turned out to
be almost half of the state's enrollment. Despite the incentive, the number
of opt-outs rebounded in 2001 to 1,700; state officials couldn't explain
the turnaround. Figures for 2002 are not available yet.
>
>      California offers a smaller perk: $1,000 to students scoring in the
top 5% of the state's public schools or the top 10% of their high school.
Several Rancho Bernardo students said the money was not much of a lure,
because their parents could afford to pay for college. Still, Ryan Joynt
did take the test, and earned a scholarship. Helping the state to evaluate
schools is "almost a civic duty," says Ryan, a senior.
>
>      In California, students who opt out don't count in their school's
score, which is based on an average of students' scores on a battery of
tests. But if the school has too many opt-outs, it doesn't receive a score
at all. In 2001, the California Board of Education adopted a policy
invalidating the scores of schools with opt-out rates exceeding 20% -- or
in some case between 10% and 20% -- on the grounds that the scores would be
unreliable measures of the overall enrollment. Under this rule, 37
California schools did not receive an academic ranking last year, including
Sir Francis Drake High in Marin County north of San Francisco.
>
>      Spurred by a former school-board member who opposes testing, Drake
parents excused 37% of eligible students in 2001 and 29% in 2002. Drake
administrators say the lack of a rating imperils the school's image and its
chances for government and private grants. If a California school goes long
enough without a score, it could also be taken over by the state for
failure to show improvement, but the no-score policy hasn't be in effect
long enough for that to happen.
>
>      "I certainly wonder how you can have a state accountability measure,
and then permit parents to exclude their kids," says superintendent William
Levinson. "It makes absolutely no sense to me."
>
>      Also without a ranking is Edison Elementary School in Santa Monica,
Calif., a bilingual charter school where parents opted out 67 of 80
second-graders last spring from state testing, which covers grades 2-11.
Since the school doesn't teach reading and writing in English until third
grade, second-grade parents "feel it is a waste of their child's time and a
little bit torturous for them to take a standardized English test," says
teacher Elizabeth Ipina.
>
>      Last April, five school districts -- along with a charter school
that didn't receive a score -- challenged the 2001 rule in state court in
San Francisco. They contend they shouldn't be "denied the chance to have
their schools' performance measured and compared with other like schools"
nor "deprived of a multitude of state and federal funding opportunities"
just because parents are exercising a legal right. The case is set for
trial in March.
>
>      Pennsylvania parents used to exclude their children from testing
without saying why. In 1999, deluged by opt-outs, the state narrowed the
provision, requiring parents to cite a religious reason. Waivers declined
in some districts, but not Karns City, a blue-collar town outside
Pittsburgh where the school board opposed state testing as encroaching on
local control. In 2001, the board wrote parents in the district, inviting
them to object to their children's testing on religious grounds. About 65%
of high-school juniors were excused.
>
>      Under state pressure, the board dropped the campaign last spring,
and nearly all students were tested. But board member Tom Baughman, who had
his son opt out in 2001, says he will urge parents to use a religious
exemption again next year.
>
>      Murals and signs throughout the Rancho Bernardo campus proclaim its
status as a California "distinguished" school and a federal "blue-ribbon"
school -- prestigious designations that attract newcomers to the
neighborhood and sustain housing prices. But administrators say Rancho
Bernardo is likely to lose those honors because of declining test scores,
which they attribute to rising opt-outs.
>
>      Since 1999, Rancho Bernardo's score has dropped to 773 from 803 on a
200-1000 scale. According to a study by Poway Unified School District, in
which the school is located, Rancho Bernardo seniors whose parents excluded
them from the test last spring -- such as Erin Binney -- have a higher
grade point average, 2.89, than the district's overall GPA of 2.76.
>
>      Lori Brickley, a science teacher and former teacher-of-the-year in
San Diego County, helped popularize waivers at Rancho Bernardo. Ms.
Brickley, whose classroom walls are adorned with activist slogans, has
twice opted out her daughter Briana, now a senior. She and other teachers
in the area honed their antitesting sentiments while attending classes at
California State University at San Marcos, a hotbed of progressive education.
>
>      In the spring of 2001, Jennifer May passed along Ms. Brickley's
information to her parents. Her mother agreed to excuse her. Instead of
sweating over the test, Jennifer slept late and spent one morning at a
tanning salon. "We didn't give it a lot of thought," says her mother,
Kristin May.
>
>      Ms. Brickley says she "caught a lot of heat" for alerting students.
Guidance counselor Barbara Pruett says, "Some of us are opposed to teachers
using instructional time to express philosophical objections to testing."
The school considered altering transcripts sent to colleges to reflect a
student's opting out, but was told by the district that it couldn't do so
without parental permission.
>
>      Word of potential deliverance spread from Ms. Brickley's students to
the rest of the high school, and thence to the district's two other high
schools, Mt. Carmel and Poway. Since 2000, Mt. Carmel's score has dropped
to 776 from 796, while waivers increased from two to 143, or 5.6% of the
test population. Poway's score fell to 764 from 779 while parental opt-outs
soared from six to 151, or 6.5%.
>
>      "The students who opt out of the test are the ones we want to take
it," says Poway assistant principal Robert Gravina. He says Poway staff
will call all parents who opt out their children for next spring's testing,
stressing the test's importance and asking them to reconsider.
>
>      Write to Daniel Golden at daniel.golden@wsj.com2