What we have learned after thirty years or more of standardized testing, is that the tests mirror family income education: they measure gaps but do nothing to close them; our kids spend (waste) too much time preparing to take the tests; the test results are massively misused for rewards and punishments instead of for diagnostic purposes; the testing industry is rich and powerful and hires lobbyists to protect its hegemony.
Make 2014 the year we opt out. Do not let your child take the state tests: do not let your child take field tests; do not let your child take practice tests.
Seek out information about your state’s laws by writing Peg Robertson of United Opt Out.
Here is a recent post by education activist Angela Engel of Colorado:
In the sixteen years since I first administered the CSAP test to my fourth grade students at Rock Ridge Elementary School, here’s what we’ve learned:
Wealth and poverty are the greatest indicators of test performance
High-stakes testing correlates to segregation
High-stakes testing increases inequities in opportunities and resources and further harms low-income children and youth
Test scores are not an accurate indicator of a student’s knowledge or potential
Emphasis on standardized testing kills creativity, imagination, and innovation
Commercial tests are more expensive and are far less informative than classroom assessments collected over time and evaluated by professional teachers
High-stakes testing does not improve schools, teachers or students
High-stakes testing has cost billions of dollars with no return on those investments
Standardized tests and the stakes and labels associated with these tests are destructive to children and youth and fail to honor their unique ways of thinking and learning
Over these many years, I have worked to challenge high-stakes standardized testing. I have published a book and articles, written legislation, lobbied on behalf of kids, spoken to audiences, organized and educated. I’ve come to understand that the public’s collective will and their intolerance for injustice is the greatest agent of change. We can still try and change the laws, we can continue to inform the people, and we can also refuse to conform. We can live by a different set of rules; standards that respect our children; choices that are responsible to our spending; and decisions that heal the opportunity divide and lead to cooperation.
The Coalition for Better Education is beginning their annual Colorado campaign to educate parents and students about their rights to refuse the test and OPT OUT. All money goes directly to billboards. In the words of Don Perl, “no amount is too small.”
______
Dear Colleagues:
I have randomly gone through the names of those who have been strong activists in the past for our billboard campaign to inform parents of their rights to exempt their children from the fraud of high stakes standardized testing. As most of you know, we have advertised on Colorado highways since 2005 to raise awareness of the boondoggle of CSAP (now TCAP) and each year more and more parents have opted their children out of the tests.
This is a critical year for voices raised against the corporate takeover. They are more forceful than ever. Consider the latest publications – Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error, Jim Horn’s The Mismeasure of Education. The Progressive has a new website exposing the corporatization of public education, http://www.publicschoolshakedown.org. The strike of the Chicago Teachers’ Union a year ago had much to do with raising awareness of the privatization of what is a public trust – public education. Our mission has also been included in the wonderful collection of stories in Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education by Professors Nancy Schniedewind and Mara Sapon-Shevin.
I have just signed a contract with Mile High Outdoor Advertising to put two billboards up on the Eastern Slope. We will have these boards from January through March and I am attaching two photos of last year’s boards. Those two boards will cost us $2,200. We have a bank account in the Weld Schools Credit Union which now has about $500 in it. So, we need to raise something like $1,700 to cover the cost of the boards. We have no administrative costs whatsoever. So, however you could spread the word, however you could contribute to this campaign will be very much appreciated. Any contribution at all will help move us toward our goal.
Checks go to:
The Coalition for Better Education, Inc.
2424 22nd Avenue
Greeley, Colorado 80631
In appreciation and solidarity,
Don Perl
The Coalition for Better Education, Inc.
http://www.thecbe.org
Please forward this newsletter to your friends and ask them to visit http://www.AngelaEngel.com.
Angela Engel, 8131 S. Marion Ct., Centennial, CO 80122
Here’s NY Education Commissioner
John King behind-the scenes:
Beatuiful!
Oops, bad spelling teacher…… Or, typing teacher (back when they existed).
Wonderful find, Jack
Standardized testing is the foundation that the privatization of public education house of cards is built upon, under the guise of “reform.”
Parents: Opt out your kids from ALL standardized tests, as well as from ALL test prep. Then the cards will topple and government will be forced to put your tax dollars into your neighborhood schools, instead of funneling that money to the many private enterprises that are profiting off the backs of your children.
Cosmic Tinkerer: after five years on ed blogs, I have come to the same conclusion about the importance of standardized testing to the leading charterites/privatizers.
Take away their very thin and shaky fraudumetrics—first and foremost the scores generated by high-stakes standardized tests—and they have very little or nothing left to fall back on. *Keeping in mind that standardized tests are inherently very limited and imprecise in what they purport to measure.*
Without sparing myself, the state of innumeracy in this country lends itself to the mathematical intimidation the edubullies use to misinform, mislead and mismanage.
Hence the importance of this blog and others in leading most to us to a better understanding of just what all the numbers and stats mean and don’t mean and can’t mean.
“Nothing can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” [Voltaire]
Least of all the schemes and rationales of the edufrauds: all breadth and no depth.
🙂
This is what John King really thinks of
parents who “opt out”, or even complain
about his “education reform.”
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2013/10/fine-dining-with-new-york-state.html
King draws an asinine analogy between
parents bitching about Common Core, or
excessive or inappropriate-for-grade-level
testing or whatever…
to…
the lack of restraint to a customer
would show at a restaurant when that
customer has a problem with
the wine or food served to him:
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2013/10/fine-dining-with-new-york-state.html
He puts himself in a higher order of class
than those belly-aching parents because
when a waiter brings him substandard
food or wine… well… in such a situation,
he doesn’t complain, or send it back. He
sits there and eats it whether he likes it
or not…
(*** actual quote… no joke***)
JOHN KING: “When I’m in a restaurant,
and the waiter opens the bottle of wine for
me to taste, I never say ‘No,’ send it back,
even if it’s horrible. The same with my
meal; if I don’t like it I’ll eat it anyway.”
AND DAMN IT!!! THAT’S WHAT THE
PARENTS AND STUDENTS IN NEW
YORK STATE SHOULD DO AS WELL!!!
YES! Opt out!
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20131020/OPINION01/310200071/Iowa-View-Opt-Out-Movement-growing-schools-test-test-test
awesome!!!