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The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments were created to measure students’ academic progress, but in reality they do more harm than good. Students should take a stand by opting out of these ineffective, biased and unhelpful tests.

The state of Minnesota created the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in 1997 to provide statewide testing and accountability for students in third, fifth and seventh grade. By 2005, the MCAs had expanded to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act.

Previously, students needed to pass the MCAs in order to graduate. However, in 2013 the Minnesota State Legislature enacted a law that changed graduation requirements. As a result, students are no longer required to pass the MCAs if they were in eighth grade during or after the 2011-2012 school year.

Not only are the MCAs not mandatory, they also create a school system based on test preparation rather than on the needs of students. This test-based environment promotes lying and cheating within schools by putting pressure on students to succeed.

While the excess of standardized tests harms everyone, they are especially detrimental to low-income students, English language learners and students of color due to racial and economic bias within the tests.

According to The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization striving to provide high-quality and equitable education for all, the process of assembling a test excludes the consideration of minority groups.

There are variations in the way students think, grow and develop based on their cultural background. When tests are assembled, this cultural bias goes undetected, creating a gap in test scores.

Students can take a stand against unfair and harmful standardized tests by taking advantage of their right to opt out.

The Supreme Court decisions in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Meyer v. Nebraska and Prince v. Massachusetts support a legal guardian’s right to excuse their student from these tests.

According to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), the MCAs are not directly connected to the funding of schools or districts, allowing students to opt out of the tests guilt-free.

The MCAs are meant to help the district measure students’ progress toward meeting Minnesota’s academic standards. The MDE states that teachers and principals look at test results to reinforce areas in which students are doing well and to improve areas in which students are doing poorly.

However, according to The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, classroom surveys reveal teachers don’t even find standardized test scores helpful.

Even if the MCAs are able to show students are failing to meet standards, teachers can’t create specific curriculum to address these discrepancies because the test results aren’t specific or individualized enough to determine the help a student needs.

The best way for teachers to accurately gauge their students’ needs and progress is to observe students in the classroom and to allow students to show their knowledge in a way other than a timed, limited-option tests.

In order to create an equal and healthy environment around testing at Park, students, teachers, parents and administrators should strive to foster conversations about the continuation of these discriminatory and ineffective measurements of learning proficiency.

More information on the benefits of and reasons for opting out of standardized tests is available through United Opt Out at unitedoptout.com.