image from slavinfpo’s site at flickr.com/creativecommons

I often hear Bay Area parents complain about the STAR testing required by the No Child Left Behind Act. In Berkeley, some take it a step further. They simply keep their kids from filling in the bubbles. In fact, so many Berkeley High students skipped the test last year that the school doesn’t have an API score (although maybe they didn’t need parental encouragement to boycott the test).

Parents do have the right to excuse their children from all or some of the STAR tests (Ed Code 60615). That puts schools and districts in a tough spot, though, since the federal law requires them to test 95 percent of their kids. Read the rest of this entry »