Educators, critics assess meaning of test boycotts.

Given a few American students who have refused recently to take required state assessment tests, some educators and critics are assessing the significance.

With his parents' permission, Macario Guajardo, a fifth grader in Edinburg, Texas, skipped school on the February day when classmates took a statewide reading test to be promoted to sixth grade. Macario says the test caused him "a lot of pressure." Mia Kang, a San Antonio high school freshman, balked at taking a practice test in February. A Colorado sixth-grader was going to skip the state test until her father found out she would have been held back a grade.

Texas schools will test 2.8 million students this academic year. Macario and Mia are the only boycotters known to the Texas Education Agency, says spokeswoman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe. "The system can survive having one or two kids protest, but they are really hurting themselves and their classmates," Ratcliffe says.

One child who bows out potentially could make a difference in whether a district meets adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind--that 95 percent of students participate. "If adults had the necessary insight and courage to take a stand against this absurd transformation of schools into test prep centers, the kids wouldn't have to take their stand," says Alfie Kohn, an education commentator.