BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's  top school board is resisting efforts to waive penalties for schools whose students refuse to take Common Core standardized tests.

Instead, members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education asked for a tally of the participation rate and will decide later whether the "opt-outs" are so widespread that they want to take action.

A BESE committee voted 7-4 against the penalty waiver Thursday, but agreed to get testing participation information after Common Core exams are taken March 16-20.

Some parents who oppose the multistate English and math standards are refusing to let their children take standardized tests aligned with Common Core.

School leaders are concerned about the opt-out implications because students who skip the test will produce zeroes for themselves and their schools in school performance score calculations.

 

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