WEBVTT 00:00:08.196 --> 00:00:16.956 Hello, and welcome to CICE the Podcast, a student-led podcast out of Teachers College, Columbia University. 00:00:16.956 --> 00:00:28.696 As students of comparative and international education, we started this podcast to connect academic research in the field to the current events they inform and explain. 00:00:28.696 --> 00:00:30.776 My name is Tracie Jarrard. 00:00:30.776 --> 00:00:36.696 I'm a student in the International Educational Development Program, and I will be your host for this episode. 00:00:45.017 --> 00:00:49.857 The scene is familiar to many of us on social media. 00:00:49.857 --> 00:00:52.257 It's a school board meeting. 00:00:52.257 --> 00:01:00.017 Parents are voicing concerns about their children's education and the school climate, one after the other. 00:01:01.157 --> 00:01:05.377 The atmosphere is tense, and the debates are heated. 00:01:07.077 --> 00:01:12.157 Videos like this seem to be tweeted and retweeted every few weeks or so. 00:01:13.537 --> 00:01:27.237 Parents seem to be more involved in their children's education than ever, and it feels like everyone has an opinion about what should happen in schools and who should be allowed to make those decisions. 00:01:29.677 --> 00:01:34.677 Parent-led movements to change what is happening in schools have been seen across the country. 00:01:36.497 --> 00:01:44.537 Back in 2015, a parent-led movement started gaining momentum in response to state standardized testing. 00:01:45.597 --> 00:01:48.497 This was called the Opt Out Movement. 00:01:50.137 --> 00:01:59.877 Last spring, I had the opportunity to join two of my professors here at Teachers College on their research project on the current state of the Opt Out Movement. 00:02:01.397 --> 00:02:12.877 I was tasked with circulating their survey across social media platforms, and this led me to various Facebook groups in support of opting out of state testing. 00:02:12.877 --> 00:02:18.757 The comments and posts revealed diverse motivations for being involved in this movement. 00:02:19.817 --> 00:02:27.157 Some groups were passionate about supporting teachers, and others strongly opposed to Common Core curriculum. 00:02:28.677 --> 00:02:36.217 I was fascinated that this movement appeared to bring together parents on both sides of the aisle. 00:02:37.337 --> 00:02:50.857 To better understand this movement, I sat down with Oren Pizmoni-Levy and Nancy Green-Saraiski to discuss the opt-out movement and their research on who is involved in this movement and why. 00:02:50.857 --> 00:02:52.857 Welcome to you both, Oren and Nancy. 00:02:53.057 --> 00:02:54.697 Thank you so much for having us. 00:02:54.697 --> 00:03:04.837 So Oren and Nancy, before we talk about your research, can you briefly explain what is this movement and how did you get involved in this line of research? 00:03:04.837 --> 00:03:06.677 Sure, why don't I start? 00:03:06.677 --> 00:03:23.717 I would say that the opt-out movement refers to the refusal by parents and caregivers in the United States to have their students sit for annual federally mandated assessment, standardized assessments. 00:03:23.717 --> 00:03:35.037 And this really has its roots in the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, ratified or signed into law in 2002. 00:03:35.037 --> 00:03:41.257 And that legislation was really designed to focus on closing the achievement gap. 00:03:41.257 --> 00:03:57.037 And one of the mechanisms by which the federal government wanted to do that was to institute this requirement of annual standardized testing for students in grades three through eight, and then once again in high school. 00:03:57.037 --> 00:04:08.197 And this was notable for a lot of reasons, not least of which because it marked a real scaling up of federal involvement in education. 00:04:08.197 --> 00:04:28.217 As you probably know, the US has a notoriously decentralized system of education, and this requirement for federal testing really put the federal government into arenas that had been historically really controlled by state and local governments. 00:04:28.217 --> 00:04:30.957 So it was certainly notable in that regard. 00:04:30.957 --> 00:04:47.577 And then if we fast forward again, just by way of background, to the 2010s and the early 2010s, we had some other seismic, pretty seismic shifts in the US education system that really led to the emergence of the hopped out movement. 00:04:47.577 --> 00:05:07.157 There was the development of the Common Core Scope Standards, which were a new set of educational standards and a series of standardized assessments to accompany those standards, that states were really pushed to adopt quickly. 00:05:07.157 --> 00:05:13.497 And in the adoption of the standards, they were also adopting a new set of standardized assessments. 00:05:13.497 --> 00:05:25.177 And you started around early 2010s, 2012, to read and hear about backlash to the standards and the accompanying assessment. 00:05:25.177 --> 00:05:47.777 And somewhat famously, I think it was around 2013, then Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was quoted in the New York Times as saying, this sort of nascent movement against standardized testing is really just a bunch of soccer moms who are mad that their students aren't really as smart as they think they are. 00:05:47.777 --> 00:05:48.937 And I'm paraphrasing with that. 00:05:48.937 --> 00:05:50.837 But that was the gist of his statement. 00:05:50.837 --> 00:05:57.937 This caused somewhat of an uproar in the education community and amongst the so-called soccer moms themselves. 00:05:57.937 --> 00:06:16.737 Then in the summer of 2015, the New York Times published a big article that called attention to the fact that in 2015, 20% of New York State students had not sat for these mandated exams. 00:06:16.737 --> 00:06:32.917 And so there was a real focus on these students who were opting out of tests even though there was a requirement that at least 95% of students sit for these annual tests or states were at risk of losing federal funding. 00:06:32.917 --> 00:06:36.357 And Orin and I had each been following this in the news. 00:06:36.357 --> 00:06:41.077 And when we saw that headline in 2015, we thought, wow, there's really something here. 00:06:41.077 --> 00:06:47.017 And it's something that we could shine sort of an academic lens on because it's been covered in the mainstream media. 00:06:47.017 --> 00:06:52.397 But to our knowledge, no one had really taken a deep look at who was opting out. 00:06:52.397 --> 00:06:53.597 Why were they doing it? 00:06:53.737 --> 00:06:55.257 And was it, in fact, Sacrament? 00:06:55.257 --> 00:07:00.577 Or was there something more nuanced and interesting going on? 00:07:00.577 --> 00:07:01.997 Orin, how about you? 00:07:01.997 --> 00:07:06.137 What led you to want to shed that academic lens on this movement? 00:07:07.537 --> 00:07:15.117 I will say that I came to this project with my interest in the intersection between social movements and education. 00:07:15.117 --> 00:07:24.357 Trained in sociology, I've been always fascinated by how collective action happens, why we see it happening. 00:07:24.357 --> 00:07:38.277 And specifically, I've been looking over the years on the emergence of movements like the International Testing Movement, or environmental and sustainability education, or LGBT issues in education. 00:07:38.277 --> 00:07:43.177 And here, all of a sudden, I saw a movement that really comes out of nowhere. 00:07:43.397 --> 00:07:45.677 I didn't see the roots of where it's coming from. 00:07:45.677 --> 00:07:48.817 I was fascinated by the sheer size. 00:07:49.457 --> 00:07:58.437 Just imagine 20% of New York State students not taking an exam, that it's federally mandated. 00:07:58.437 --> 00:08:06.237 Just imagine how much organization need to happen in order for something like that to happen. 00:08:06.237 --> 00:08:12.117 So after you conducted this first round of research, what did your findings reveal? 00:08:12.117 --> 00:08:15.737 Who was involved in this movement and what were their motivations? 00:08:15.737 --> 00:08:23.917 So before we talk about the findings, I think it's really important just to share with the audience, what was the research design here? 00:08:23.917 --> 00:08:26.897 Because we were really trying to understand the movement. 00:08:26.897 --> 00:08:27.937 So how do you do that? 00:08:27.937 --> 00:08:34.097 We started with a couple of very informal interviews with leaders in the movement. 00:08:34.097 --> 00:08:40.337 We were able to identify them by looking at Facebook posts or other social media. 00:08:40.337 --> 00:08:43.757 Nancy and I met with them for phone calls. 00:08:43.757 --> 00:08:45.797 Back then, it wasn't over Zoom. 00:08:45.797 --> 00:08:49.517 We heard a lot of interesting stories about how this movement came about. 00:08:49.517 --> 00:08:53.757 We heard stories about specific reasons or motivations. 00:08:53.757 --> 00:08:59.677 We heard stories about framing, how different actors frame the movement. 00:08:59.677 --> 00:09:14.637 And so from that conversation, we moved into the next stage where we had master students working with us looking at the media for different newspapers, to really look at the narratives that are in the media, who is being interviewed, etc. 00:09:15.697 --> 00:09:18.917 We then started crafting a protocol for a survey. 00:09:18.917 --> 00:09:30.357 And then in the spring of 2016, we launched the first national survey using a lot of social media channels to disseminate the link. 00:09:30.357 --> 00:09:38.177 And that was fun because we were able to see, as we were collecting the data, we saw some patterns about the movement. 00:09:38.177 --> 00:09:39.397 I'll give you an example. 00:09:39.397 --> 00:09:49.897 Diane Ravitch, the professor, our colleague from NYU, and a leader in this movement, shared the link on her blog post and on her social media. 00:09:49.897 --> 00:09:58.957 And I remember calling Nancy and saying, Nancy, we had 200, we had 300, we had 400, 800 responses within a couple of days. 00:09:58.957 --> 00:10:07.737 It was super interesting to see the dynamic of data collection and what can we learn from that about the movement. 00:10:07.737 --> 00:10:18.857 In addition to that survey, we did another project with a master's student, Ben Costman, from Teachers College, where we looked at public opinion on this phenomena, how the public understands this phenomena. 00:10:18.857 --> 00:10:28.037 And I'm inviting the audience to go and check out, everything is available online, publicly available so people can really read and engage with our work. 00:10:28.037 --> 00:10:31.457 Then came the election of 2016. 00:10:31.457 --> 00:10:45.537 We published our report, got a lot of attention, and we decided to repeat it in 2018 to see whether the election of Donald Trump and the appointment of Secretary of Education, the boss, whether that had any impact on the movement. 00:10:45.537 --> 00:10:48.237 So we repeated the survey again in 2018. 00:10:48.237 --> 00:10:50.417 And then we decided that we're going to take a break. 00:10:50.417 --> 00:10:54.837 We wrote some papers, we made presentations and conferences. 00:10:54.837 --> 00:11:01.917 And came 2020 where we were thinking maybe to do another follow up to see what is up with the movement. 00:11:01.917 --> 00:11:03.937 And then came the global pandemic. 00:11:03.937 --> 00:11:10.677 And we decided that since schools are not asked to do testing, there is no reason to do research on the opt out movement. 00:11:10.677 --> 00:11:13.657 And there is no reason to bother people with our research. 00:11:13.657 --> 00:11:16.077 And we took some time off. 00:11:16.077 --> 00:11:23.937 And we decided to do it again in 2021 when it seems like the request for schools and states to test students came back. 00:11:23.937 --> 00:11:28.657 And that's how we decided to renew the survey in 2021. 00:11:28.657 --> 00:11:32.917 To the best of my knowledge, Nancy and I are not planning another survey anytime soon. 00:11:33.957 --> 00:11:37.517 Orrin, you gave a great overview of how you conducted this research. 00:11:37.517 --> 00:11:42.777 And Nancy, could you just share a bit more about who these survey respondents are? 00:11:42.777 --> 00:11:46.897 What are the demographics of those who are involved in the opt-out movement? 00:11:47.977 --> 00:11:54.677 So what we found is that about 86 percent of our respondents are women. 00:11:54.677 --> 00:11:59.417 Approximately 90 percent of our respondents identify as white. 00:12:00.217 --> 00:12:08.137 And in terms of educational attainment, most of our respondents have bachelor degree or higher. 00:12:08.137 --> 00:12:16.717 So we are talking about highly educated white women as a huge portion of this movement. 00:12:16.717 --> 00:12:22.637 Many of our respondents, about 80 percent, identified as parents. 00:12:22.637 --> 00:12:37.997 But I also want to note there that that means almost a fifth of our respondents were not parents, which we think speaks to something, at least in the early years of the movement, about how broadly based the movement actually was. 00:12:37.997 --> 00:12:46.517 That we had, you know, 20 percent of people identified as opt out activists were people that did not have kids in the school system. 00:12:46.557 --> 00:12:52.917 And so arguably were not directly affected by the testing requirements. 00:12:52.917 --> 00:13:00.357 Did you find that people's motivation to participate in the opt out movement was associated with political party affiliation? 00:13:01.517 --> 00:13:13.577 We found that between 50 and 60 percent of our respondents identified as politically liberal, about 30 percent of them identified as middle of the road. 00:13:14.017 --> 00:13:23.257 And between 15 to 17 percent, depending on the research cycle, identified as conservative. 00:13:23.257 --> 00:13:30.337 Those numbers were slightly different when we asked respondents to identify their political party affiliation. 00:13:30.337 --> 00:13:35.897 We had between 47 and 50 percent of respondents identifying as Democrat. 00:13:35.897 --> 00:13:39.917 So slightly fewer said they were Democrats than said they were politically liberal. 00:13:40.977 --> 00:13:46.457 And we had a higher than percentage of respondents saying that they were independents. 00:13:46.457 --> 00:13:58.057 Around 32, 33 percent of respondents identified as independent, and only 12, about 13 percent to 15 percent of respondents said that they were Republican. 00:13:59.497 --> 00:14:02.457 What did the responses from these people reveal? 00:14:02.457 --> 00:14:04.397 What was this movement really about? 00:14:05.117 --> 00:14:23.157 So, their responses suggest that overall, this movement is not directly about students, and it's not actually about kids' performance, and it's much more about politics around education. 00:14:23.197 --> 00:14:41.037 So, when we asked respondents to identify the main reasons they were participating in the opt-out movement and related opt-out activities, about 35% said they oppose the use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers. 00:14:41.037 --> 00:14:46.957 So, the most common answer actually had to do with teachers and not students. 00:14:46.957 --> 00:14:59.617 Then about 32, 33% of our respondents said, standardized tests force teachers to teach to the test, and that's why, that's what I'm most opposed to. 00:14:59.617 --> 00:15:14.377 Other popular answers were the opposition to the growing role of corporations in schools, so the corporatization or privatization of schooling, and also that standardized tests take away too much instruction. 00:15:15.557 --> 00:15:18.737 About 25 to 30% of respondents identified that. 00:15:18.937 --> 00:15:40.937 So, that was sort of the top four reasons that participants gave for participating, and I will say that particularly in the earlier cycles of the research, that opposition to the common core was named as also a very prominent reason for participating in the movement. 00:15:40.937 --> 00:15:47.917 I will also say that reasons for participation varied along various dimensions, right? 00:15:48.057 --> 00:15:52.557 And one very interesting dimension is along political ideology. 00:15:52.557 --> 00:16:00.277 We found that while both political liberals and conservatives were participating in the movement, they were doing so for very different reasons. 00:16:00.277 --> 00:16:13.137 So, our liberal respondents, their reasons for participating were really around the protection of teachers, this anti-corporatization, and the anti-testing reasons that I just walked through. 00:16:13.597 --> 00:16:27.217 Conservative respondents, however, were participating in the movement as a protest against federal overreach into what they saw as authority that should have been vested only with the states, right? 00:16:27.217 --> 00:16:37.797 So, we saw along with political ideology dimension, amongst others, a real difference in why people were coming to the movement. 00:16:37.797 --> 00:16:41.437 Let me just offer one comment about what Nancy just said. 00:16:42.377 --> 00:16:45.417 You might ask yourself, why the demographics are important? 00:16:45.417 --> 00:16:55.657 And theoretically, from a research perspective, the demographics are really important because they say something about the resources that the movement has. 00:16:55.657 --> 00:17:05.237 The social base of the movement says something about what kind of resources they bring with them, the activists, and what kind of resources the movement is able to mobilize. 00:17:05.237 --> 00:17:12.257 And it also says something about privilege and optics of the movement, how this movement looks like to other people. 00:17:12.257 --> 00:17:22.497 Another thing to think about is that it's not the first time that we see a movement that brings together conservatives and liberals, or two sides of the aisle, so to speak. 00:17:22.497 --> 00:17:36.877 This phenomena is known in the literature as the strange bed fellows that brings together different groups or organizations from different segments of society that come together to collaborate on one specific issue. 00:17:37.597 --> 00:17:41.037 In this case, it's the actual behavior of opting out. 00:17:41.037 --> 00:17:44.397 But as Nancy said, they are coming from very different reasons. 00:17:44.397 --> 00:17:52.117 Nancy, you mentioned some parents said they opt out because they are opposed to the involvement of corporations in the education system. 00:17:52.117 --> 00:17:58.197 Could you explain why standardized testing is related to the privatization of schools? 00:17:58.197 --> 00:17:58.937 Sure. 00:17:58.937 --> 00:18:21.037 So, particularly in our 2016 survey cycle when the Common Core State Standards and their accompanying assessments had been recently introduced to schools and been facing a lot of backlash, we had many respondents identify this as their point of opposition in the opt out movement. 00:18:21.037 --> 00:18:33.437 One of the things our survey did was allow for not only responses to a battery of multiple choice items, but we gave respondents space to respond to open-ended questions. 00:18:33.517 --> 00:18:36.997 And we asked them, is there anything else you want to tell us? 00:18:37.437 --> 00:18:51.537 And to follow up just methodologically on an earlier point that we made, it was amazing, it was stunning, how much people had to say in the open-ended text. 00:18:51.537 --> 00:18:59.257 Of course, speaks to the amount of time and the amount of passion that respondents to the survey were bringing to these issues. 00:18:59.257 --> 00:19:17.777 But let me share at least one quote, just one quote that we got from one of our respondents, which I think is indicative of the kinds of comments people were making in response to this question of what they were opposed to in terms of corporatization of public education. 00:19:17.797 --> 00:19:22.137 So here Nancy is sharing a quote from one of the survey responses. 00:19:22.137 --> 00:19:24.997 She shares the following quote. 00:19:24.997 --> 00:19:35.357 I feel that textbook companies such as Pearson are promoting the importance of such tests and test prep materials in their best interests, not those of children. 00:19:35.357 --> 00:20:02.537 So, and this was a very typical sentiment when we asked our respondents to elaborate further on this idea of opposition to corporatization in schools, that they felt that these reforms and the sort of assessment regime they were protesting was just an angle through which or a backdoor way through which corporations could get afoot into public schools. 00:20:03.737 --> 00:20:11.937 You have both mentioned so many interesting things from your first round of research, and we will be sure to share the links to those papers in the show notes. 00:20:11.937 --> 00:20:16.597 You recently conducted another round of research last spring in 2021. 00:20:16.597 --> 00:20:21.657 What did you find in this recent survey cycle, and did it follow similar patterns to previous cycles? 00:20:22.917 --> 00:20:28.197 We found some similar patterns in terms of demographics. 00:20:28.197 --> 00:20:34.677 The movement still attracts many women and educated white respondents. 00:20:34.677 --> 00:20:52.397 We found quite stability in terms of the political ideology of the activists, but we focused the study more on the role of the pandemic, and to really try to understand how a global pandemic that has implications to schools, right? 00:20:52.397 --> 00:20:58.197 The closing of schools or the moving to online instruction versus hybrid or in person. 00:20:58.197 --> 00:21:01.417 How all of that really affected the activists? 00:21:01.417 --> 00:21:04.317 And we were really interested in this issue. 00:21:04.317 --> 00:21:07.117 So we found a couple of interesting findings. 00:21:07.117 --> 00:21:12.877 We found that the majority of the respondents view the pandemic as a significant crisis. 00:21:14.017 --> 00:21:27.577 Okay, that's not very unique finding because many liberals in the country view the pandemic as a significant crisis, and the movement has a lot of liberal respondents. 00:21:27.637 --> 00:21:35.817 And we found that 40% of them are reporting that the pandemic affected their household income. 00:21:35.817 --> 00:21:48.537 So while seeing that perceptions of the severity of the pandemic, we were surprised to find that only 23% said that the pandemic affected their activism around opt-out. 00:21:48.537 --> 00:21:51.877 Only 23%, one out of four. 00:21:51.877 --> 00:22:02.437 And when we read the comments, the open-ended comments about why or how it affected, we found a mixed bag of positive impacts and negative impacts. 00:22:02.437 --> 00:22:15.497 So negative impacts, for example, respondents said that feeling overwhelmed with the pandemic, they didn't have enough time to pay attention to activism around this movement, which totally makes sense. 00:22:15.497 --> 00:22:31.877 But on the other hand, we found that respondents said, oh, given the pandemic, the closure of schools, the online learning, it just didn't make sense for activists that the school is going to require students to come and take a test. 00:22:31.877 --> 00:22:35.077 Given what's going on, it was absurd. 00:22:35.077 --> 00:22:42.137 So that, in a way, mobilized many people to join the movement and be active. 00:22:42.137 --> 00:22:49.117 So we are still in the process of figuring out who was more affected than others, to see if there is any demographic difference there. 00:22:49.577 --> 00:22:52.577 That's something we will report in the next podcast with you. 00:22:52.577 --> 00:23:03.057 One of the things that we are curious about is the fact that only 17% of the respondents say that they learned about the movement over the past two years. 00:23:03.057 --> 00:23:04.357 What does this mean? 00:23:04.357 --> 00:23:17.237 This is an indication, we believe, that the movement might lose momentum at that point in 2021, in terms of mobilizing new audiences and new members. 00:23:17.237 --> 00:23:26.137 If we think about the future of the movement, then that's something we need to take into account, on how the pandemic might shape the future of the movement. 00:23:26.137 --> 00:23:27.517 That makes a lot of sense. 00:23:27.517 --> 00:23:31.617 The pandemic has changed the face of different movements we see around the world. 00:23:31.617 --> 00:23:39.697 Given this slowing momentum in the opt-out movement, will parental involvement shift to other movements related to education? 00:23:39.697 --> 00:23:42.617 What do you think is the future of the opt-out movement? 00:23:43.697 --> 00:23:57.757 I'm only a sociologist, I'm not a futurist, so I'll be very careful with what I'm saying, but we have enough indications that the infrastructure, the organizational infrastructure of the movement is decreasing. 00:23:57.757 --> 00:24:03.937 For example, the Facebook groups or the social media channels are inactive. 00:24:03.957 --> 00:24:16.237 Our amazing research assistants that work with us had to really try to contact people operating these Facebook groups in order to publicize the LinkedIn survey, and there was no answer. 00:24:16.797 --> 00:24:32.697 So that makes us believe that maybe the infrastructure is really shrinking, and I wonder, we wonder whether there will be enough power for the national organizations to mobilize everybody again this year or the year after. 00:24:32.697 --> 00:24:39.497 So it's really hard to predict the future, but we have a couple of indicators that suggest that the momentum is going down. 00:24:39.497 --> 00:24:44.557 I think it's also important to consider this movement in a world where we see other parent-led movements. 00:24:44.557 --> 00:24:57.157 And I'm curious, do you think there is a link between this opt-out movement and other movements like the conversations we see around the country on critical race theory or the don't say gay bill in Florida? 00:24:57.157 --> 00:25:02.477 Is there a common theme among these movements in which parents are so heavily involved? 00:25:02.477 --> 00:25:04.737 I can't venture a guess on that. 00:25:04.737 --> 00:25:19.197 I mean, certainly from a research perspective, we can only say we don't know because we haven't looked at parents in other movements and who they are and why they're participating. 00:25:20.357 --> 00:25:33.577 I think what we can say is that what we saw in the opt-out movement was the identification of citizen activists as parents. 00:25:33.577 --> 00:25:49.517 In other words, when respondents to our surveys were asked to identify themselves, they weren't participating as taxpayers, they weren't participating as educated professionals, they were participating as parents. 00:25:49.517 --> 00:26:08.237 And I think we can say certainly in education, but perhaps with regard to other education issues or in other venues, that that identification is going to be a driving force, certainly insofar as contentious issues in the political sphere involved kids. 00:26:08.677 --> 00:26:27.317 And so, it's hard to say whether there's a link between the opt out movement and other movements per se, but I think, you know, it's pretty clear that parents have a strong voice and have strong opinions about these issues insofar as their kids are concerned. 00:26:27.317 --> 00:26:28.817 I really didn't see that. 00:26:29.337 --> 00:26:30.157 We don't know enough. 00:26:30.157 --> 00:26:36.657 This is, we are recording this in spring 2022. 00:26:36.657 --> 00:26:44.577 The backlash against critical race theory, LGBT families and educators is a recent phenomenon. 00:26:44.577 --> 00:26:48.057 We've seen it over the past half a year or a year. 00:26:48.057 --> 00:26:59.577 So we don't know enough, but we do see one theme that goes across the movement, and it's the demand by parents to opt in. 00:26:59.577 --> 00:27:07.397 They want to be in the room where it happens, as Hamilton said in the musical. 00:27:07.397 --> 00:27:08.937 They want to be involved. 00:27:08.937 --> 00:27:16.277 They want to be heard, and they don't want to leave all the education decision to the government or to experts. 00:27:16.277 --> 00:27:31.177 I think that's something that we are entering a new era, and I hope that education scholars will pay attention to these conservative movements on the one hand, and also to this new mindset of parents on the other hand. 00:27:31.177 --> 00:27:43.997 I think that's something that was intensified actually in the pandemic, where parents had a lot of responsibility to educate their kids, and they engage more through the online or hybrid teaching. 00:27:43.997 --> 00:27:50.697 But I think there is another line of questions that we have around the movement that we need to pay attention. 00:27:51.257 --> 00:28:01.257 For example, a question that Nancy and I are really interested in is, what do these activists do beyond opting out? 00:28:01.257 --> 00:28:05.237 Opting out is one way to affect change. 00:28:05.237 --> 00:28:10.777 And we are really curious about other modes of civic behavior or civic activism. 00:28:10.777 --> 00:28:14.677 For example, do they contact politicians? 00:28:14.677 --> 00:28:17.277 If so, at what level? 00:28:17.277 --> 00:28:19.617 If so, who is doing this kind of work? 00:28:19.817 --> 00:28:28.257 Which kind of subgroups in the opt-out are taking this activism to the next level? 00:28:28.257 --> 00:28:30.317 So that's one of the questions we have. 00:28:30.317 --> 00:28:39.577 Another question that we are hoping to delve into with this new data we collected in 2021, is also views of solutions. 00:28:39.577 --> 00:28:44.317 Okay, so we framed the problem, but what is the solution moving forward? 00:28:46.017 --> 00:28:51.677 Are the activists really interested in just abolishing every type of assessment? 00:28:51.677 --> 00:28:55.777 Or are they having willingness to compromise somehow? 00:28:55.777 --> 00:28:58.797 And if so, what's the compromise would look like? 00:28:58.797 --> 00:29:05.977 Are we looking on going back 20 years ago to more sample-based assessment like NAEP or PISA? 00:29:05.977 --> 00:29:12.337 Or are we looking at moving away from any kind of standardized assessment and leaving it to school? 00:29:12.337 --> 00:29:14.637 That's one of the questions we are asking. 00:29:14.637 --> 00:29:26.737 And the third one is something really interesting that we found in 2016 and onward is that these parents are not just throwing every test away. 00:29:26.737 --> 00:29:47.197 It seems like they are still supporting of tests related to maintaining privilege in the education system, like tests related to AP courses or SAT or other kind of high-stake tests that will help kids moving on in the education sector. 00:29:47.197 --> 00:29:55.037 So we are really interested in this puzzle on what makes them oppose one type of test but not other type of test. 00:29:55.037 --> 00:30:06.097 And we hope that other colleagues will join us in this effort to really use this movement as a window to look at many other issues in education. 00:30:06.097 --> 00:30:23.617 The other thing I would say just to sort of bring it back to where we started, is that these mandates for federal testing were really part of an effort to close achievement gaps, right? 00:30:23.617 --> 00:30:28.277 As a way to find out how kids are actually doing. 00:30:28.277 --> 00:30:39.857 And I think our research leaves us with the question that we started with, which is that if testing isn't a route to that, how do you get there? 00:30:39.857 --> 00:30:56.537 And so, it's very interesting that this reform to increase federal participation in education through assessment led to such a backlash. 00:30:56.537 --> 00:31:02.437 And we're still grappling with the same issues around the achievement gap that we started with. 00:31:02.477 --> 00:31:08.657 I think the whole enterprise, really, there's a lot of work still to be done. 00:31:08.657 --> 00:31:13.857 Well, Oren, Nancy, thank you both so much for joining us today at CICE the Podcast. 00:31:13.857 --> 00:31:23.037 You've given us a look back at how this movement started and who was involved, and you've also brought us into the present day and shared how the pandemic has changed this movement. 00:31:23.037 --> 00:31:29.277 We look forward to reading the final results of your recent research, and we will be sure to link that for everyone when it's ready. 00:31:29.277 --> 00:31:30.837 Thank you both again. 00:31:30.837 --> 00:31:32.377 Thank you so much, Tracie. 00:31:32.377 --> 00:31:33.077 Thanks, Tracie. 00:31:33.077 --> 00:31:34.657 Thanks for having us. 00:31:37.237 --> 00:31:44.797 CICE the Podcast is part of Current Issues in Comparative Education, an open access journal in the field of comparative education. 00:31:45.737 --> 00:31:49.857 CICE is the oldest open student-led journal in the field. 00:31:49.857 --> 00:31:55.717 CICE the Podcast wishes to thank doctoral and master students who have contributed to this episode. 00:31:55.717 --> 00:31:57.417 Credits can be found on our website.