z45\doc\web\2000\09\ohio.txt
see ohio.doc for formatted version


All:  The speech is included as an attachment which retains the original 
formatting, but I have also copied it below Sarah's letter for those who 
can't load MSWord files.  Fred
____________________________


Attached is the excellent speech on education that Steve Rea from Ohio gave
before the recent Diaprax conference in Texas. He and Dean Gotcher wanted it
sent to the loop. It can be forwarded to other loops as long as it is done

in its entirety and the following information is attached: Tapes (video and
audio) of the conference speeches are now available from the Institute for
Authority Research, .5147 S. Harvard #221, Tulsa, OK 74135 -- ***NOTE new
address!).


Sarah Leslie

____________________________
"SCIENCE FALSELY SO CALLED"
By Stephen Rea


INTRODUCTION
In 1998 I won a landmark education case, State ex rel. Stephen Rea v. Ohio 
Department of Education (Case No. 96-1997, in Mandamus). Relying on the 
U.S. Freedom of Information Act and the State of Ohio Availability of 
Public Records Law, I requested copies of assessment testing materials used 
on my daughter at West Branch High School, Beloit, Ohio. I specifically 
wanted copies of my daughter's OPT -- Ohio Proficiency Test -- which is a 
"high stakes" test based on the outrageous outcomes of OBE. I also wanted 
her OVCA, which is a test based on the Work Keys assessments and is used to 
measure a student's vocational skills - again another test.
My continued requests fell upon deaf ears, all the way up to the Ohio State 
Superintendent of Schools. I argued that all classroom materials generated 
with government-funded dollars constituted public records per se.
I was told that I would be allowed to view the requested materials, but 
only if I agreed to sign a secrecy agreement that carried a fine and 
imprisonment clause if violated. On 28 August 1996, I filed a complaint 
with the Ohio Supreme Court, which was accepted for trial.
In a powerfully worded majority opinion, the Court ruled in my favor. The 
Court said, "the legislature has made it clear its intent that parents, 
students, and citizens have access to these tests in order to foster 
scrutiny and comment on them free from restraint." The Court further said, 
"It is paramount that such tests are subjected to the keen eye of the 
public to ensure that the state does not stray from its duty to properly 
educate Ohio's citizenry."
I think it is highly interesting that my court case victory, which 
establishes precedent for parents in Ohio and all across the United States, 
has been the best kept secret of the Conservative Right.  My story has not 
been published, except in local Ohio newspapers and in Charlotte Iserbyt's 
book, the deliberate dumbing down of america (see p. 415).
Why is this? Perhaps the answer can be most readily found in the issue of 
dialectics as it pertains to education reform, particularly in the area of 
testing. It is my belief that Conservatives and Christians have compromised 
and found common ground on this key area, perhaps out of ignorance, and 
have so far missed a critical opportunity to win a major battle for 
parental rights in this country. But it is not too late, and perhaps my 
Court victory will encourage others to fight for their legal rights.
At this point I'd like to read you several quotes which illustrate the 
state of education in America today:
Education reform should be enforced…. Measures to reward good and punish 
evil should be implemented.
The American education system is being carried out against the popular will 
by means of a variety of coercive measures. Despite official denials and 
intermittent efforts to discourage some of the more extreme manifestations, 
since the early 1990s if not before, coercion has been an integral part of 
the program…. Mandatory assessment testing, values clarification and 
databanking continue. The federal education department has issued thinly 
disguised injunctions to get the job done by whatever means necessary… the 
emphasis is on "real action," "effective measures," and "practical 
results." For the first time, articles in the American media are openly 
advocating coercion in education reform…. The education reform plan remains 
highly coercive, not because of local deviations from federal policies but 
as a direct, inevitable, and intentional consequence of those policies.


THE INTEGRATION OF PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION
The compromise and common ground between education, educational testing and 
psychology is not anything new. From the very beginning psychology was 
wedded to education, and neither holds to a Christian view of man. William 
Wundt established the world's first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, 
Germany, in 1875. Wundt first proposed the concept that education could be 
a process of exposing students to experiences that would produce certain 
reactions - in other words, stimulus-response. According to the history of 
the earliest beginnings of education reform found in the little book, The 
Leipzig Connection by Paolo Lionni, "Wundt asserted that man is devoid of 
spirit and self-determinism. He set out to prove that man is the summation 
of his experiences, of the stimuli which intrude upon his consciousness and 
unconsciousness."
A number of Wundt's disciples migrated over to America and began to 
introduce his concepts. Cattell, Wundt's first assistant, was the first to 
propose that students do not see letters but "word pictures." "Cattell was 
exposed to the ideas of Galton and "quickly absorbed Galton's approach to 
eugenics, selective breeding, and the measurement of intelligence." Based 
on these ideas, Cattell began psychological testing. Please note: Since its 
origins in eugenics, testing has always had a darker side, as it has been 
applied to the selection of human beings for various purposes, based on 
evolving criteria of what is better or best. Cattell later became head of 
Columbia University's new psychology department from which he and others 
launched psychology into the mainstream of American life.
Edward Thorndike was trained directly by Wundt's disciples. He was the 
first to apply research on animal behavior to human children, laying much 
of the groundwork for the later work of B.F. Skinner at Harvard University. 
Thorndike's ideas about education are quite acceptable in today's reform 
climate. He was the first to propose the de-emphasis on academics in order 
to train children for "vocational interests and aptitudes."
In the 1930s the early social-psychologists began experimentation on test 
questions that could determine the attitudes, values and beliefs of a 
child. Hilda Taba of UNCLA, Ralph Tyler of the University of Pennsylvania, 
and their colleagues took Thorndike's theories in behavioral psychology and 
designed new ways to integrate these concepts into testing with built-in 
rewards and punishments. Their work formed the basis of the modern-day 
psycho-behavioral assessment tests.
The most interesting and important figure in the integration of education 
and psychology was John Dewey, who in the early part of this century 
advocated their use to transform society into a socialist utopia. From this 
point forward these two "disciplines" were united in their assault upon 
American children. If you have any doubts about the interconnections 
between education and psychology, especially as it applies to testing, you 
only need to pick up a copy of the deliberate dumbing down of america by 
Charlotte Iserbyt, which establishes a rock solid chronological document 
trail through the past 100 years.
Let me speak very bluntly before I continue. Ignorance of these issues can 
lead you to compromise. In fact, the education reformers are counting on 
you not knowing the things that are published in this book.
The history of modern education reform has been one of deception upon 
deception. The public, especially the Christian public, has been kept in 
the dark. Each generation of reformers simply kept changing the names, but 
the basic foundation remains the same. Modern education is built upon a 
pillar of humanistic psychology and steeped in the doctrines of socialism 
and globalism. The only thing that has changed is the improved behavioral 
psychological methods of indoctrination and enforcement. Historically Ivan 
Pavlov and B.F. Skinner are recognized as the forerunners and architects of 
the behavioral methods of psychology that would eventually be mandated for 
use with schoolchildren in classrooms across America (e.g., the Reading 
Excellence Act of 1998, H.R. 2614).
Most parents today have no problem with using standardized educational or 
psychological testing instruments. But, as we've seen firsthand in Ohio 
with the introduction of the OPT (Ohio Proficiency Tests), the assessments 
themselves - as well as the testing process - are fraught with perils, 
errors and inconsistencies. A Cleveland Plain Dealer article (Feb. 25, 
2000) exposed how part-time pizza flippers were being paid to score the OPT 
assessments at the rate of 30-35 exams per hour. When you consider that 
this coming year 4th graders who do not pass the reading portion of the OPT 
will be flunked, this becomes much more serious. And, there are more horror 
stories. Tests have been lost, pages have been missing, children have been 
brainwashed, teachers have been bribed, and the list could go on and on.
Are the OPT tests actually a measure of what the child actually knows in 
terms of reading skills? Testing experts have always conceded that 
psychological and academic tests are flawed instruments with highly 
unpredictable variables and outcomes. Influences on the testing results can 
include such variables as test administration, location, testing 
conditions, rapport, test anxiety, improper administration procedures, or 
teaching to the test. Tests with psychological content can only go so far 
in predicting what a certain might act in a certain way in a certain 
situation. But human nature being what it is, there is a distinct 
possibility that the person won't act that certain way at all!
Psychological tests require that specific, narrow definitions be used in 
measuring humans. These tests utilize pre-set parameters, hypothetical 
situations, and rely upon human self-reporting. Education reform 
instruments, which combine academic testing with psychological profiles are 
simply not 2+2+4 type tests, which measure concrete things. This is a big 
myth - a big lie!  In the context of the text constructs, these assessments 
obtain personal information about your child's opinions, values, beliefs, 
attitudes and feelings and then proceed to prescribe a state-approved, 
socially and politically correct answer to this psychological matter. We've 
seen the scoring rubrics, and believe me, the children must answer the 
questions according to politically correct criteria!
There is one other major point that must be brought in here. Many people 
have been easily swayed by the use of fuzzily defined terminologies. They 
have put undo weight on so-called "scientific" research studies on 
education. We now know that much of this research is phoney-baloney. The 
research data has been manipulated. I encourage everyone to read 
"Shamanistic Rituals in Effective Schools." This is a speech given by Brian 
Rowan, Senior Research Scientist at the Far West Laboratory for Educational 
Research and Development. He was a colleague of William Spady, one of the 
major "change agent" reformers in the past decade. In this speech with the 
strange occultic-sounding title, Rowan explains how educrats buffalo the 
public by skewing the research data. It is a frank account of how to take 
statistics and manipulate them in order to obtain more federal monies for 
your so-called "effective" program. If you want to find out the truth, read 
Appendix 26 of the deliberate dumbing down of america. Here you will find 
the complete text of Rowan's "Shamanistic Rituals" speech, which by the way 
was funded by your tax dollars!


THE DATABANKING DISASTER
When the databanking of student test scores from these psychological 
attitudinal tests is mixed with psychological methods of manipulation, 
using rewards and penalties, it is popularly called "high stakes" testing. 
In other words, "high stakes" means psychology plus databanking. What it 
means is that your child will be assessed on his feelings, opinions, 
beliefs, values and attitudes and that the results of his test score will 
be held in a databank. This information will be used to determine your 
child's future, his teacher's future and the future of his local school 
district. We already know that this private information is not kept in a 
databank but sent to numerous subcontractors all over.
Make no mistake about it. The onus is on y our child. It is your little son 
or daughter, sitting at the desk in the classroom, sweating over questions 
he can't figure out. If he or she fails to pass the test, he/she will fail 
to pass on to the next grade. That is the punishment part of the test. If 
the test is passed, a pizza party might be the reward. This is truly a 
"high stakes" test for your little Johnny or Susie! In Ohio we are hearing 
increasing reports on the evening TV news about little 4th graders getting 
ulcers and other stress-related illnesses from the tremendous pressure 
being brought to bear on them to pass the OPT assessment. One attorney, who 
has recently filed suit against a "high stakes" testing company, called the 
test an "academic death penalty - if you don't pass it, you're done." 
(Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/19/00)
In response to this impending testing disaster, which is coercing teachers, 
administrators and students to comply with the new reform plans, some 
parents in Ohio developed a handout entitled "A Child's Testing Bill of 
Rights". We wanted to focus attention on the fact that the pressure was 
being placed on your child by the mandated federal and state reform plans. 
A copy of this is attached, and I encourage you to adapt it and distribute 
it in your own states.


THE DATABANKING DIAPRAX
What I find most amazing is that there has been virtually no opposition to 
"high stakes" testing from the Christian community or secular 
conservatives. Instead, it appears that dialectics is operating in full 
swing. Chester Finn, the author of America 2000, with Conservative Right 
credentials best exemplifies the diaprax of Conservative Right and Liberal 
Left. While pretending to be "conservative", he openly advocates socialism. 
Finn openly acknowledged that testing and databanking alone could run the 
education reform engine. This is an amazing admission, with direful 
repercussions.
As early as 1992, Finn stated, "Clear standards can be the centerpiece of 
radical change."(Wall Street Journal, 3/23/92.) I don't know why people are 
so fooled by a simple change in terminology. "Standards" is the new educrat 
word for "outcomes"  -- from the "outrageous outcomes" of OBE. What Finn is 
saying here is that the "outcomes" or "standards" can be the centerpiece of 
radical change. Homeschoolers, beware! This summer the Ohio Department of 
Education tried to re-write the standards so that they would include 
homeschoolers!
Chester Finn also called for an end to the huge bureaucratic role of the 
U.S. Department of Education, an idea that appeals to many conservatives. 
But pay attention to what he is really saying:  "What should remain in 
Washington? Not a lot: statistics; perhaps a bit of research; the 
assessment of student performance at the international, national and state 
levels...." (Wall Street Journal, "A Primer for Education Reform," 
1/13/95). In other words, Finn is saying that the collection of personal 
student data from assessment testing would stay at the federal level, 
presumably in a databank. Finn, by the way, is a colleague of Lynne Cheney, 
wife of George W. Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney.
There are many other quotes that I could use, but these stand out as key 
points. I have learned (the hard way) over the years that some leaders who 
oppose education reform are more than willing to compromise on "high 
stakes" testing. We already know from the carbon-copy, early-1990, David 
Hornbeck state reform plans that assessment testing is foundational to the 
entire process and plan of education reform. So why are we compromising?
Let me explain why databanking student assessment scores is so dangerous. 
Databanking allows for school "choice". It allows for vouchers, private 
academies, and other magnet or charter schools. Because of databanking the 
federal government will easily be able to keep tabs on how well compliance 
to the new standards is coming along. It will be easy to monitor the 
progress of reform because little Johnny and Susie will be taking the test. 
Their scores and their personal data will be sent to a federal databank. 
There they can be monitored continually on a year-by-year basis, to ensure 
that they conform to the new state standards/outcomes. I predict that the 
private schools and/or these "choice" families will receive government 
monies based on the successes of their child. They may be eventually denied 
monies if their child, or their school, does NOT comply with the new 
standards (outcomes).
In other words, the entire public system of education in America could be 
dismantled, but education reform will still be alive and well. All because 
the "feedback mechanism," that is, the assessment test, will be in place. 
Homeschoolers especially need to beware. Some education reform documents 
spell out how they will monitor and rope in the homeschoolers, using 
rewards and penalties to enforce compliance. Bribing homeschool families 
with new computers is just one of many tools to bribe them into taking the 
assessment tests.
Here's the key. The test is the only reliable indicator of how well a 
student's values are being transformed from the old to the new. Databanking 
gives the federal, state and local governments great power to control the 

public. Substituting secularized character education for values 
clarification curriculums enables the State to teach its values while 
appearing to be conservative. We've seen firsthand in Ohio how the 
character education bandwagon can backfire as outside experts brought in by 
leading conservatives fed right into the outrageous outcomes of OBE.
Finally, the databanking of schoolwork done by your little Johnny and Susie 
starts well before the assessment test is actually administered. B.F 
Skinner was the first to promulgate the idea that computers could combine 
behavioral psychology with the databanking. He predicted in 1960, "The 
important features of the device [the computer] are these: Reinforcement 
for the right answer is immediate. The mere manipulation of the device will 
probably be reinforcing enough to keep the average pupil at work for a 
suitable period each day… A teacher may supervise an entire class at work 
on such devices at the same time…. A gifted child will advance rapidly but 
can be kept from getting too far ahead…." (This quote, and many more worse 
than it, can be found in Charlotte Iserbyt's book.) We are already seeing 
evidences in Ohio of computers being used as training agents for children 
to master the assessment tests, functioning as tutors that reward and track 
a child's progress. Computers are a great aid to "teach to the test."
Today we have behavioral psychological methods widely endorsed by the 
so-called "conservative" Right such as direct instruction and mastery 
learning. These methods are nothing but refined versions of B.F. Skinner's 
old programmed learning of the 1960s. These methods, from their very 
inception, were designed to be used in tandem with the computer, thus 
allowing the all-knowing, all-seeing State to intercept and track Johnny 
and Susie's schoolwork and to reward and/or penalize them instantaneously.
PARENTAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
You might think that I am alarmist when I say that I believe that in the 
future that families will be rewarded and punished based upon their 
compliance with the standards/outcomes of education reform. This belief is 
rooted in plenty of evidence.
The Iowa Research Group first reported on the introduction of "Family 
'Threshold' Outcomes", a proposal presented to the Iowa Board of Education 
in December 1992. Iowa families who measured up to the minimum or positive 
threshold outcomes would be categorized as "a self-actualizing family which 
interacts with the community, identifies and secures appropriate assistance 
when necessary, and consistently contributes to the well-being of the 
community." Those families who didn't interact at a certain level with the 
community and its institutions were defined as dysfunctional and required 
intervention. Just think about it for a moment - Who would monitor this? 
What criteria would they use? What if your children weren't perfect? What 
if your house was a mess? This opens a can of worms that could turn into a 
nightmare quickly!
The ill-conceived Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act of the mid-90s 
authored by Michael Farris of Home School Legal Defense Association, which 
was supposed to protect parental rights, would have expanded "state control 
over parental rights," in the words of esteemed law professor Charles Rice. 
He went on to state that "the PRRA is an imprudent and dangerous bill" 
(letter to GenYvette Sutton, Feb. 5, 1996). Dr. Rice's points, well taken, 
were that by putting into law that parents have certain "responsibilities" 
that it would become a free-for-all for the federal government, allowing 
the Federal State to step into private family life by defining and 
prescribing these "responsibilities. Another can of worms opened!
Education reform is not simply about education. We must never forget that. 
Education reform is systemic reform from the top down. It will alter every 
aspect of your life, and every aspect of American society and culture. It 
will eliminate freedom -- from cradle to grave, womb to tomb.
Let me take you back to the beginning quotes of my speech and this article. 
In them you recall that rewards and penalties were mentioned as official 
State activities. I would now like to reveal the true nature of these 
quotes. I took the liberty of changing a few words - but only a few words! 
-so that you can now see how ominous the state reform plans really are. 
Here are the correct quotes:
Birth control should be enforced…. Measures to reward good and punish evil 
should be implemented.
The Chinese family planning program is being carried out against the 
popular will by means of a variety of coercive measures. Despite official 
denials and intermittent efforts to discourage some of the more extreme 
manifestations, since the early 1970s if not before, coercion has been an 
integral part of the program…. Mandatory IUD insertions, sterilizations, 
and abortions continue. The national family planning journal has issued 
thinly disguised injunctions to get the job done by whatever means 
necessary… the emphasis is on "real action," "effective measures," and 
"practical results." For the first time, articles in the American media are 
openly advocating coercion in family planning…. The Chinese program remains 
highly coercive, not because of local deviations from central policies but 
as a direct, inevitable, and intentional consequence of those policies.
These quotes are taken directly from a Chinese family planning document and 
an insider's report. They can be found in A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's 
Fight Against China's One-Child Policy by Steven W. Mosher. This book 
chronicles the Chinese Communists' utilization of Skinnerian methods of 
mass behavioral management, using State-sanctioned rewards and penalties to 

enforce compliance. The official tally of coerced abortions since the 1970s 
has been estimated in the tens of millions.
It is another myth to think that this has nothing to do with education 
reform. Family planning has always been a big component of education reform 
plans. Many pilot projects around the country, especially including Orange 
County California, have teamed up education reform with school-based 
clinics in an ominous move that changes the local school into a "hub" for 
all government services. Like the Chinese, there are certain "quotas" that 
will be enforced for numbers of babies born out of wedlock (see Oregon's 
1993 State reform plan, for example), and the easiest way to comply with 
these State-prescribed outcomes is to take your daughters to the abortion 
clinics. Easy problem, easy solution! "It takes a village…."
Many early state education reform plans of the 1990s showed the school as a 
"hub" for social services, health care, and job training. They also showed 
things like "church," "recreation," "child care," and "volunteer". Why was 
"church" in the education reform plans? The answer is pretty tough to 
swallow. The Republican (i.e., "conservative") federal bills that 
transformed welfare reform in the later half of the 1990s (such as the 
Welfare Reform Act of 1998) gives huge amounts of federal monies to 
churches that would implement these programs, working hand in hand with the 
State. Churches only need demonstrate their ecumenicity before they obtain 
the federal cash to operate social services. It now appears that the 
federal government is enlisting (bribing) churches in its efforts to 
re-mold society into a socialist utopia. I am reminded that "the love of 
money is the root of all evil" (I Tim. 6:10).
Tony Evans, a big Promise Keeper leader, actually used the "hub" diagram on 
his church literature, to describe his pilot program in offering 
federally-funded social services activities in his church. Significantly, 
Tony Evans also offered assessment tests at his church, tests that would 
measure your individual and group compliance to certain "spiritual" 
objectives. Some churches have termed these as "spiritual gifts 
inventories". I wouldn't touch one of them with a ten-foot pole!


PSYCHOLOGY VS. THE SPIRIT
This brings me to my final point. I do not believe that Christians should 
be participating in psychology, or psychological testing instruments. From 
the ancient Greeks, the word psyche has to do with one's soul. The word 
logia or logos means science, doctrine or theory of. In other words, 
psychology is the theory of the soul. The Greek word pharmakeia pertains to 
mind-altering drugs, or altering one's state of consciousness. It is 
related to witchcraft. In my mind, putting a child in front of a computer 
for hours on end, or drilling the child for hours on end with repetitive 
signals, using rewards and punishments (such as direct instruction), might 
produce an altered state of consciousness. At best it is brainwashing, at 
worst it opens the mind to the occult!
We know that mankind has always attempted to define itself apart from God, 
the Creator. We know that modern psychology attempts to cloak itself in the 
garb of "academic" and "scientific". The shortcomings of modern psychology 
are evident to the Christian: it does not account for repentance, 
salvation, regeneration, sanctification, justification and the Holy Spirit 
working within us.  The Scriptures make it clear that we are to examine 
ourselves and that some day we will give an account to God for our behavior 
(Rom. 14:12, for example). Psychology, through the use of testing, claims 
to examine and predict human behavior. Psychology, through the use of 
behavioral conditioning methods, claims to be able to manipulate, shape and 
mold human behavior. This is a false science, however. We know from the 
great stories of biblical history that human beings have defied the odds, 
have overcome great obstacles, and have accomplished great things - all by 
the power of God in their lives. There is no tool, no assessment, no method 
that cannot be overcome by the "power of God at work in us." (Eph. 3:20).
The great pastor, Charles Spurgeon, summed it up best when he stated:
"I believe in science, but not in what is called 'science.' No proven fact 
in nature is opposed to revelation. The petty speculations of the 
pretentious we cannot reconcile with the Bible, and would not if we could. 
I feel like the man who said, 'I can understand in some degree how these 
great men have found out the weight of the stars, and their distances from 
one another, and even how, by the spectroscope, they have discovered the 
materials of which they are composed; but' said he, 'I cannot guess how 
they found out their names.' Just so, the fanciful part of science, so dear 
to many, is what we do not accept. That is the important part of science to 
many - that part which is a mere guess, for which the guessers fight tooth 
and nail. The mythology of science is as false as the mythology f the 
heathen; but this is the thing which is made a god of. I say again, as far 
as its facts are concerned, science is never in conflict with the truths of 
holy Scripture, but the hurried deductions drawn from those facts, and the 
inventions classed as facts, are opposed to Scripture, and necessarily so, 
because falsehood agrees not with truth."
Parents should not subject their children to this assessment testing, 
databanking and the behavioral methods of manipulation that go hand in hand 
with them. They should OPT OUT! This is the most positive solution that has 
been used so far. Unfortunately, there will be great pressure put to bear 
on you for not subjecting your child to this torture. In Ohio, for example, 
schools must count as zero any child who is opted out. This means that the 
scores for the whole school go down because of one or two children. Schools 
have resorted to bribery and other methods of coercion to ensure 100% 
compliance. Therefore, gird up your loins and be prepared for a fight.
Please don't waste your time trying to argue with me afterwards about my 
stand in all of this. I won't compromise. However, I'll be happy to speak 
with anyone personally about my particular court case, my new case with the 
federal Department of Education, and what you could do in your own state. I 
believe that taking many of these issues to court is another way to fight 
and resist this massive state intrusion into our children's private lives. 
My home phone number is 330-332-9386.


A Child's Testing Bill of Rights


Whereas:  The Ohio Proficiency Test (OPT) and the Ohio Competency Analysis 
Profile (OCAP) tests have been found to include psychological components 
and attitudinal questions;


Whereas:  According to the Ohio Supreme Court in Rea vs. the Ohio 
Department of Education (96-1997) parents have the right to view, copy and 
discuss all aspects of the OPT and OCAP;


Whereas:  Federal law provides that any psychological or attitudinal 
testing must have informed written parental permission.


Therefore,




1.	A PARENT has the legal right to view and retain the content and results 
of the Ohio Proficiency Test (OPT) or any test administered to their CHILD 
at school. Informed written parental permission shall be required before 
the OPT or any test with affective psychological content is administered to 
a child.


2.	No CHILD shall ever be forced, compelled, penalized, punished, 
threatened or otherwise coerced by a teacher, administrator or other school 
personnel to take the Ohio Proficiency Test, or any attitudinal survey or 
questionnaire that has psychological content.


3.	No CHILD shall ever be rewarded or punished, in any manner whatsoever, 
by a teacher, social worker, psychologist, counselor, administrator or any 
other school personnel on the basis of the OPT score.


4.	The Ohio Proficiency Test score shall never be the sole criterium for 
receiving a high school diploma.


5.	The OPT or other individual test score shall never be the sole criteria 
upon which rests a CHILD'S grade retention, academic progress, scholastic 
abilities, future potential or future employment.


6.	No CHILD shall ever be forced to undergo behavior modification, operant 
conditioning or other manipulative psychological techniques in preparation 
for any phase of the proficiency testing process. No CHILD shall ever be 
forced to undergo any psychological treatment or remediation as a result of 
a test score without informed written parental consent.


7.	No CHILD or ADULT shall ever be forced into a career track, given 
incentives for choosing a career track, penalized for refusing a career 
track, or placed into a career track on the sole basis of the Ohio 
Proficiency Test and/or OCAP scores.


8.	No PARENT shall ever be forced, compelled, penalized, bribed or 
otherwise rewarded, coerced, threatened with charges of truancy, loss of 
custody of the child, or imprisonment or fines if they choose to opt out 
their child(ren) from taking the OPT or any other test. The right of a 
parent to remove a child from any testing situation for any reason, 
including religious, shall not be abridged or denied. Furthermore, no 
DISTRICT shall assign, or be required to assign, a "zero" to any CHILD who 
for any reason opts out of the Ohio Proficiency Test.


9.	No TEACHER shall ever be rewarded or penalized, financially or 
professionally, based on the sole criteria of Ohio Proficiency Test scores 
of the children under his/her tutelage. No TEACHER shall ever be compelled, 
forced, coerced, bribed or enticed with financial or other incentives to 
"teach to" the OPT to the exclusion or detriment of their academic 
classroom lessons.


10.	No ADMINISTRATOR shall ever be rewarded or penalized, financially or 
professionally, based on the OPT scores of children in classrooms in a 
district. No CLASSROOM, SCHOOL BOARD or SCHOOL DISTRICT shall ever be 
rewarded or penalized, financially or otherwise, based on a school profile 
or the sole criteria of performance on the OPT scores of children in the 
district.


O.P.T. - OUT


Repeal Ohio Proficiency Tests


"It is paramount that such tests are subjected to the keen eye of the 
public to ensure that the state does not stray from its duty to properly 
educate Ohio citizens."      -Ohio Supreme Court, May 29, 1998


Tapes (video and audio) of the conference speeches are now available from 
the Institute for
Authority Research, .5147 S. Harvard #221, Tulsa, OK 74135 -- ***NOTE new 
address!).