Parental Rhetoric and Response to High-Stakes Testing: Social Media in the Opt-Out Movement

• In Event: Inside the Opt Out Movement: The Role of Parent Protest in Educational Change

Abstract

Objectives:
The accountability systems developed by the Race to the Top grant process require states to use high-stakes testing to measure the progress of teachers and schools. These measures necessitate the compliance of students and parents to the testing protocol in order to provide robust and reliable data. The purpose of this research project is to investigate how parents and students are responding to the testing regime, with a particular focus on the resistance and rhetoric of parents who opt out.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Employing a social capital framework of the opt out movement, the study examines the positioning of parents inside and outside of the school system. In particular this research investigates how social media builds unexpected social capital networks that were previously unavailable to interrupt institutional arrangements.

Methods and Data Sources
This qualitative study analyzes the social media postings on opt out sites and facebook groups in New York State. Additionally, 21 semi-structured interviews of opt-out parents were conducted. All of the data was coded using emergent coding and analyzed in NViVo software. Themes that emerged from the postings and participants were organized and analyzed using a social capital framework.

Results
Results from this qualitative investigation suggest that informal networks of parents are crucial in providing access to factual information regarding testing policy, and that these informal networks interrupt purposively evasive or misleading information communicated by school officials. Additionally, social media postings suggest that opting out was normalized for both parents and students through the shared experiences and community created in online forums

Scholarly significance
A significant amount of money has been invested in the high stakes testing regimes adopted by Race to the Top states. This large investment in the testing regime could result in misleading and erroneous data if the opt out movement maintains or grows in strength. By examining the rhetoric and response of parents to the testing regime, policy-makers are better able to understand how to craft accountability policies that are in concert with the values and needs of parents, students and families.

Author

• Rebecca Page Johnson, Elmira College