Portraits of Protest in Florida: How Opt-Out Makes the Personal Political

Abstract

Background/Context Opting out of high-stakes standardized tests, a phenomenon so widespread in the United States as to be regarded as a movement, is nevertheless a misunderstood and often maligned force in educational politics. Purpose This article offers a counternarrative of opt-out activism—a more thorough and vivid account of what we view as an unfairly maligned movement with tremendous potential for improving and preserving our nation's schools. Participants In-depth portraits introduce three members of the Opt Out Florida Network: Cindy Hamilton, an unabashed leader whose children have graduated; Sandy Stenoff, her partner in protest whose children remain in the system; and Susan Bowles, who grapples with conflicting roles of pedagogue and protester. Research Design As a critical ethnography, this study uses a qualitative approach to expose and challenge the unjust treatment of the opt-out movement, guided by the following research questions: 1) How do opt-out activists understand and explain their journeys to activism? 2) What experiences, concerns, and commitments guide them in their daily fight against high-stakes standardized testing? Data Collection and Analysis Using transcript data from focus group and 1-on-1 follow-up phone interviews, the research team composed and analyzed narrative portraits, which offer models of resistance to neoliberal education reform. Conclusions Contrary to their portrayal as passive, anti-test, anti-accountability parents solely focused on their own children, the opt-out movement is an active community of highly informed individuals dedicated to effecting positive change in education. The nuance of narrative captures the messy realities of activism, illustrating how parents and teachers must work together, guided by a view of citizenship as shared fate, to fight for more equitable and educative schools.

Opting Out of Standardized Tests at the Secondary Level—A Geographic Analysis of Colorado

“…These findings presented in this study tell a much more complicated story-student demographics, school governance, and geography all coincide to create dynamics of a complicated and varying opting out movement in the state of Colorado. Casalaspi, 2021;Chen et al, 2021;McLoud, 2019;Paladino, 2020;Paquin Morel, 2019Rivera-McCutchen, 2021;Wang, 2017Wang, , 2021, Florida (Currin et al, 2019(Currin et al, , 2021Schroeder et al, 2018Schroeder et al, , 2020aSchroeder et al, , 2020bSchroeder et al, , 2021, New Jersey (Abraham et al, 2018;McKeon & Gitomer, 2019;Supovitz, 2021;Supovitz et al, 2016), Ohio (Evans et al, 2021), Oregon (Sundstrom, 2018), and the Catalan region of Spain (Collet-Sabé & Ball, 2020).…”

“…Abraham et al (2018) identify a counternarrative about testing in the New Jersey opt-out movement, one that McKeon and Gitomer (2019) see as exploiting social media networking potential. Currin et al (2021) and Schroeder et al (2020b) identify Florida opt-out activists as proceeding from a moral perspective evolved from systemic powerlessness, what one of Schroeder et al’s informants calls “moral madness.” Schroeder et al (2018, 2020a) also see gendered dynamics in this network, a feminist ethic of care, as part of the state’s opt-out activist discourse. The discourse around and within the movement is morally freighted.…”

“…Within the opt-out movement dynamics, many researchers have focused on either internal or public arguments (Abraham et al, 2018; Casalaspi, 2021; Chen et al, 2021; Currin et al, 2019, 2021; McKeon & Gitomer, 2019; McLoud, 2019; Paladino, 2020; Paquin Morel, 2019, 2021; Pizmony-Levy & Green Saraisky, 2021; Rivera-McCutchen, 2021; Schroeder et al, 2018, 2020a, 2020b, 2021; Taylor-Heine & Wilson, 2020). Abraham et al (2018) identify a counternarrative about testing in the New Jersey opt-out movement, one that McKeon and Gitomer (2019) see as exploiting social media networking potential.…”

“… 1. Studies on individual states include: New York state (Chapman et al, 2020; Casalaspi, 2021; Chen et al, 2021; McLoud, 2019; Paladino, 2020; Paquin Morel, 2019, 2021; Rivera-McCutchen, 2021; Wang, 2017, 2021), Florida (Currin et al, 2019, 2021; Schroeder et al, 2018, 2020a, 2020b, 2021), New Jersey (Abraham et al, 2018; McKeon & Gitomer, 2019; Supovitz, 2021; Supovitz et al, 2016), Ohio (Evans et al, 2021), Oregon (Sundstrom, 2018), and the Catalan region of Spain (Collet-Sabé & Ball, 2020). …”