Nearly 150 professors at universities in Massachusetts issued a statement in opposition to high-stakes testing.
As the national movement against the misuse and abuse of standardized tests grows, the mainstream media is starting to take note and report on it.
More than 800 school boards in Texas; prominent superintendents like Joshua Starr and Heath Morrison; teachers at Garfield High in Seattle; students in Portland, Oregon, and Providence, RI.
Every day, the reaction against high-stakes testing gets stronger and louder.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Do we dare hope?
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It’s about time more higher educators in the education field speak out against high-stakes testing!
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now they have something to say…
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There is a National resolution that individuals can sign on in protest of “high stakes” testing: http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/
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This, of course, is great news, but testing dates are (at least in Illinois) in early March–starting, I think, next week-? So–will parents & older students opt out of this next testing round? Will brave administrators back teachers, who will refuse to administer these tests? Remember, Garfield H.S. refused, & their parents backed them up by opting their kids out (300/400 opted out, & it has been reported that only 75 students actually took the MAPs). People, can you–will you–do the same with the state assessments/”standardized” (NOT standardized–remember, these tests are neither valid nor reliable)tests? Let’s make 2013 the year of NO testing, NO VAMs, NO undeserved teacher humiliation, NO teaching to the tests.
NO tests…period. OPT OUT NOW!
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3, 5, 8, & 10
Only ELA and math
Complemented with local authentic assessments… quizzes, tests, projects, portfolios…
Testing is not going away completely so while the boycotts and petitions continue, necessarily, we need to ask “What’s the viable and valuable alternative?”
Benchmark testing in transition years (transition to the “next level” or cluster of learning) could be beneficial and take the high-stakesness out of the tests.
We’ve always tested kids – in the old days we used the Iowa Basics or some other tests to see how we (adults, curriculum, a school/district) were doing and for a one time reference for where kids or a student fell on a national norm. That helped keep curriculum on target without scripts and teaching to the test.
Not testing annually and not testing every subject takes the wind out of the sails of high stakes and using one test for one teacher’s evaluation. If it benchmarks how the whole school is doing in literacy and math – or how grades 3-5 are doing before sending kids to middle school or how the whole middle school is doing, that’s not such a bad thing because everyone contributes to literacy.
Even the original NCLB was not intended to test every subject every year.
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I’m with you 100%.
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After all, are they not supposed to be thinkers?
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
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