In the United States, education reform is instrumental in increasing the significance of ensuring that all children and adults have access to high quality and effective education. But 2016 U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is facing a challenge to pacify the escalating "opt-out" movement before the upcoming New York primary on April 19.
America is no stranger to education reforms. However, there have been increasing debates between the education-reform movement and the opt-out movement, which is against standardized tests.
Education-Reform Movement vs. Opt-Out Movement
Education reform aims to make public education into a market of an input-output system, where high-stake accountability is generated from curriculum standards tied to standardized tests. The opt-out movement, on the other hand, encourages students to boycott standardized tests, New York Magazine notes.
Hillary Clinton and her thoughts on Education Reform
U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has distanced herself from the education reform movement. The reason? The 69-year-old Democratic nominee thinks the federal government requires too many tests for American school children.
"[Hillary] thinks they are just too much, that it's national overreach, and the most it could ever do is to help people at the very bottom levels of achievement," former U.S. President and Hillary's husband Bill Clinton said Monday in Cheyenne, Politico magazine quotes.
Hillary Clinton's thoughts seemed to be a reversal of her past support for the No Child Left Behind law, which directed the annual testing requirements more than 10 years ago. But husband Bill Clinton stressed that his wife's statements don't necessarily mean that there shouldn't be tests or measures.
"The idea of having to give a national test every year for five years in a row for people from the third to the eighth grade doesn't make as much sense as investing the same amount of money in helping the teachers to be better teachers," Bill said. "That would make more difference."
In 2001, Hillary Clinton voted for the No Child Left Behind law when she was a New York senator. The law first required states to test all students in reading in math in third through eighth grades and once again in high school but after years of debate, the Congress revised the education law last year while maintaining the same schedule of testing.
The Burgeoning Opt-Out Movement
Meanwhile, more parents are joining the opt-out movement against standardized tests. According to Today, parents are increasingly questioning the importance of the state-mandated standardized tests and are keeping their children from taking the exams.
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