Ron and Don: ‘It’s not learning, it’s memorizing stuff’

Call it what you will &#8212 Common Core Testing, Smarter Balanced test or the SBAC &#8212 students across Seattle are refusing to take it.

“What ticks me off is that there are kids out there that aren’t wired to take these kinds of tests and they are brilliant and these tests don’t tell us that. So it pisses me off,” said KIRO Radio’s Don O’Neill Wednesday afternoon.

That sentiment perhaps reflects why no juniors at Nathan Hale High School have taken the optional test. A total of 95 percent of juniors at Garfield High School have opted out of taking it, KING 5 reported. At Roosevelt High School and Ingraham High School, 80 percent of juniors have opted out.

State Superintendent Randy Dorn previously warned parents and students against opting out, stating that without a 95 percent participation rate, the Department of Education could cut funding to schools and label Washington as “high risk,” KING 5 reported.

The test has become controversial among teachers and parents. There’s even a Facebook page called “Seattle Opt Out” for the opposition. That controversy made its way onto the airwaves as KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show discussed it Wednesday afternoon.

“I’ll take the test,” Don said. “‘I’ll ace the test. I’m one of the greatest test takers of all time. And what I’ll show you is that taking a test doesn’t matter; a test like this. Because it just shows that a lot of times people can go through and memorize stuff. And you can know something for a season of your life but it’s not necessarily learning, it’s memorizing stuff.”

“I was so good at this in high school,” he added. “In all my honors programs I was surrounded by really smart people and then I was just really good at memorizing and taking tests. And a lot of times I would get better test scores than they were.”