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Morales Blasts Misinformation From School Districts About Test And Lack of Response By PED

Senator Howie Morales

  Santa Fe – Written communications from school district superintendents containing numerous false statements of fact about the upcoming PARCC standardized examinations today drew the ire of Democratic Senators.   Public school administrators across the state this week sent letters and e-mails to parents of students, warning that dire consequences would occur if parents permit their children to opt out of the PARCC test, including dis-enrollment of students and loss of federal funding.  The controversial PARCC tests will be administered to thousands of students in grades 3 -11 beginning Monday.

“The use of scare tactics by school administrators to intimidate parents and students into taking the PARCC exam is reprehensible. The refusal of the Public Education Department (PED) to clear up this misinformation and answer legitimate questions by the public is completely unacceptable,” said Senator Howie Morales (D- 28- Catron, Grant & Socorro).  “Threats to dis-enroll students from school; to forbid them from participating in athletics, and that millions of dollars of federal funding will be lost if students opt out of the test – our parents and kids deserve better than this campaign of falsehoods.  None of these things are true and PED should be taking charge to right this wrong immediately.”

One typical example of disinformation is the Belen Consolidated School (BCS) District acting superintendent’s February 26th letter to the parents of school children.  It states that:

“School districts in New Mexico are required to administer the PARCC test to 95 percent or more of all students. This requirement must be met to continue receiving federal funding.  BCS receives more than $4 million dollars a year in federal funding.  This funding provides students with books and computers, tutoring and summer programs as well as support in the classrooms with counselors and specialists.”

This is completely untrue. There is no connection in law whatsoever between federal funding and a 95 percent participation rate of students in PARCC testing.

The BCS superintendent’s letter also claims that “NMPED and BCS do not have policies that allow students to ‘opt’ out of the testing.”   This is also false.

Communications from other school district administrators mirror and expand on these false claims whose only goal is to scare parents who may be skeptical of the PARCC exam from allowing their children from opting out.