The “Opt-out Movement” of parents withdrawing their children from the upcoming testing tied to Common Core State Standards isn’t really a “movement” and the cases have been isolated, one local official told media members March 25.

Speaking at a media roundtable on the Smarter Balanced Assessments, Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD) Superintendent John Welch, said he doesn’t see the Opt-out Movement as a growing trend, though PSESD is not tracking the number of parents opting-out of the assessments.

His comments came as part of a discussion with the media designed to demystify Common Core and Smarter Balanced myths and included a panel of educators, superintendents, principals, education administrators and Ben Rarick, the executive director of the State Board of Education.

The roundtable was facilitated by ReadyWA, a coalition of state and local education agencies, associations and advocacy organizations.

The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) won’t know how many students opted out of the tests until all the tests are administered and all the data is collected. The two most visible cases of parents and schools opting out so far are Seattle’s Nathan Hale High School and Vashon Island schools.

The education service district is encouraging parents not to opt out of the Smarter Balanced Assessments.

“Parent refusals could result in schools not meeting federal Adequate Yearly Progress, which has an impact on how they can spend some federal money,” said Nathan Olson, OSPI spokesperson.

AYP is an annual measure of student achievement on state tests in reading and math, as set forth in the 2001 No Child Left Behind act. Districts that do not meet AYP are required to “set aside” 20 percent of the Title I funds they may receive from the federal government to hire private vendors for tutoring or to bus students who want to transfer to a school that met the goals.

Sixty-eight percent of state residents support the new Common Core State Standards and 75 percent agree that the new assessments “are better geared to accurately measure what students really know and can do,” according to ReadyWA.

Overall, the panel members said the new state standards and testing are forcing students to delve deeper into content areas and practice their skills with real world applications.

“We’re not just learning a little bit of math, we’re becoming masters,” said Elaine Dondoyano, math intervention specialist at Seattle’s Rainier View Elementary School.

Bonney Lake High School English teacher Emily Wojciechowicz reported that her students were reading deeper to get at “why” questions the material asks them. The new standards are helping students read and write better across all content areas, she said.

So why the push for the new Common Core State Standards and Smarter Balanced Assessments? The simple answer offered by educators is to make students more college- and career-ready. Washington has the 12th-largest achievement gap in the country, according to ReadyWA. Of recent high school graduates, 57 percent have to take at least one remedial class in math, reading or writing.

On top of that, Washington’s economy is in need of skilled workers to fill the many unfilled high-tech jobs that are in the state, Welch said.

ReadyWA projects that there will be 50,000 unfilled jobs for highly skilled workers in the state by 2017. Currently there are 2.5 times as many entry-level, science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)-related jobs as there are STEM graduates in the state.

This spring, students in grades 3 to 8 and 11 will take the Smarter Balanced Assessments. The tests replace the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) and the High School Proficiency Exams (HSPE).

ReadyWA expects that fewer students will meet the higher proficiency for the first few years because the tests are asking for more. Students’ scores will represent a new baseline. In August, the State Board of Education will set a new lower threshold score for exit exams and graduation purposes.

The board intends to set a new standard equivalent to the old standard for a transition period this August, said Ben Rarick, the executive director of the State Board of Education.

The third-grade test results will be released in early June. The state test scores will be released to the districts in late June and the public release of those scores is late July.