Erin May is the mother of two boys in the Lafayette Parish School System. She may also be on the verge of launching a revolution to take education back from the bureaucrats. Mrs. May’s sons are required this year to take the PARCC exam in Louisiana. PARCC is the Common Core exam in Louisiana. The exam will not be used to help her children improve their education. In fact, the results will not even be back until after the children are in the next school grade.

Mrs. May says her children are already over-tested and under-taught, something so many parents can relate to. Further, she looked at the sample questions on the PARCC test and she, a teacher herself, could not make heads or tails of that they questions wanted. So Mrs. May has done something revolutionary. She has opted her children out of the PARCC exam.

They are not going to take it. Their results, which again are not used for their benefit or assessment, will be given a zero. If enough parents do what Mrs. May has done, they school system will get an F rating in education scores, which can then be used to spark additional reforms.

If enough parents, in enough schools, do what Mrs. May has done, it would force change. The Assistant School Superintendent gave away the game with this quote:

“I don’t know what can be done,” admitted Assistant Superintendent Sandra Billeaudeau. “It’s kind of like parents didn’t get to do away with Common Core, so they are going to protest by not taking the test … It can have a grave impact. It’s not fair to that teacher who has worked very hard, and her Compass score will be impacted by receiving a zero.”

Parents have been speaking out more and more loudly against Common Core and the school systems would rather attack the parents than make changes. Mrs. May’s actions could force change.

The other awful aspect of this is that teachers are more and more being forced to administer tests that will not even help children. The teachers are being held accountable for tests that have no impact on improving education, but justify the existence of a bureaucrat. The whole structure designed around common core is designed to make test designers rich, keep bureaucrats employed, turn teachers into babysitters, and turn children into good little automatons for Fortune 500 companies.

Hopefully many, many more parents will join Erin May.