Re: testing and opt-out rights

["Dorn, Sherman" <SDorn@tempest.coedu.usf.edu>]

In this case, Art Burke is factually correct: lawsuits challenging graduation tests usually fail. The general precedents to follow here are Debra P. v. Turlington (Florida) and the MALDEF lawsuit in Texas. In the case of Florida, the plaintiffs did convince the courts that imposing a graduation test was not defensible when substantial portions of the population had been victims of segregation, and the court delayed implementation in Florida until after the cohort of children who had entered school before the Swann (1971) decision, a Supreme Court case that pushed federal judges in Florida to rewrite almost all of the existing desegregation orders. 

For more information on graduation exams, see the Center on Education Policy's series of annual reports (http://cep-dc.org) and the High School Exit Examination database (http://www.hsee.umn.edu/). 

Sherman Dorn

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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:43:38 -0400
From: aburke5054@aol.com
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: Re: testing and opt-out rights
Message-ID: <8C9B2E1F5AB8B7B-B74-7E8B@WEBMAIL-MA16.sysops.aol.com>

I am not aware of any federal law granting general "opt-out" rights in 
the context of achievement testing.

Graduation tests have survived legal challenges - Arizona and 
Massachusetts relatively recently....

-----Original Message-----

From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
To: LiteracyForAll@yahoogroups.com
Cc: arn-l@interversity.org; ca-resisters@interversity.org
Sent: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:46 am
Subject: [arn-l] testing and opt-out rights

OK, here's a civil rights question.  Maybe somebody can consult a
friendly lawyer who specializes in federal education law...

I thought that CA had the parental opt-out provision because such a
right is guaranteed to families by federal law....