Lee County, Florida, made history tonight. Despite threats from state officials that they might cut funding, the school board voted to opt the entire district out of state testing.
“The school board has voted to opt out the entire district from all statewide, standardized testing – effective immediately. The decision was received with overwhelming cheers and applause in the packed auditorium.
“The motion passed three to two, with board members Don Armstrong, Tom Scott and Mary Fischer in support of the vote.
“Board members Jeanne Dozier and Cathleen Morgan said they would prefer the district wait until an alternative plan is in place. Superintendent Nancy Graham warned the district that the abrupt decision could be harmful to students.
“There is an unmistakable emotion in the room tonight at the Lee school board meeting as the board deliberates a motion to opt out from all statewide tests.
“The standing-room only audience cheered and booed as more than 33 concerned citizens took the podium to speak their thoughts on the possibility of the district opting out of standardized tests. The audience was filled with protestors wearing red “#boycott shirts.”
“The flood of red represented various activist groups in Lee County, including Teaching Not Testing, Florida Citizens’ Alliance and the Libertarian Party of Florida.
“Because 33 people requested to give public comment tonight, each speaker only has one minute to voice their thoughts.
“Chairman Tom Scott reminded the audience that school board policy prohibits booing, cheering and clapping. The audience, at times, could not help itself as citizens gave impassioned one-minute speeches.
“Emotions came to a head when mother Lori Jenkins took the stand. She said her son has a terminal heart condition and was at home on a leave from school, yet the district still sent someone to proctor his exam at his home on his deathbed. The audience gasped with disgust.
“He’s terminal, he’s going to die, but he goes to school! He does the stupid remedial classes!” Jenkins yelled. The audio was cut off when she hit her one-minute limit. She continued to yell into the mic as the audience called for the board to let her speak. Jenkins received a standing ovation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Indiana needs to take a cue from Lee County, FL.
i live near there, unfortunately Lee county board is full of nutjobs. the board just put every professional that works there in danger. if the state cuts funding then 82k+ students will be left hanging and employees could all be in danger of losing their jobs… its the biggest employer in Lee county as well. i don’t like the testing or at least the way its used and florida funds schools like crap but just opting out isn’t legal, seems like a tea party political ploy ala shutting down the government
It is legal Daniel. Get over it!
Why is someone using my tag to post? I am the original Titleonetexasteacher: I hope that the other one has not been posting a bunch of things that I would not say.
Diane can we stop people from using other people’s usernames?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I don’t know about calling a whole county ‘full of nutjobs’; I read hundreds of comments at the facebook comments page for the article. There were few rabid comments; most sounded reasonable.
He said the BOARD was full of nutjobs – not the whole county. Most school boards have at least a few. Our board is not paid, yet dedicates an enormous amount of time to meetings, etc. You are bound to get some crazy budget slashers along with those who want to serve for the children and give away free stuff to everyone.
I would think it would be perfectly legal to opt out of testing – not sure why the state would find it necessary to cut funding. What do they really care? In our little district in PA, we receive 1% funding from the feds, supposed to be 50% from the state (it isn’t – more like 40%) and the rest from property taxes. I can understand the Feds wanting to control testing – they are the ones who gave us the unconstitutional legislation in the first place. But the State of PA? They’d be saving tons of money and could lay off all those involved in the testing if we’d ALL refuse to take the tests. Dreamworld…
Yes, when the powerful lose their power, they usually do retaliate in ugly ways that cause harm to a lot of innocent people – ask the families of those girls killed at 16th Street Baptist Church. I guess in your mind that means the Civil Rights protesters should have kept their mouths shut to “protect” the kids.
I’d guess that Lee county parents have been duly threatened about what will happen if they continue to opt out, but it sounds like there’s overwhelming support to opt out anyway. Sometimes you just have to take the risk of harm in the short term for the greater good in the long run.
Waiting til there was an alternative in place would just replace one set of tests with another. Time to move on — you go Lee County. And how can elimination of excessive testing hurt the students like the Superintendent indicated. Sure wish my Florida county would stand up for it’s students like Lee County.
It’s time for a revolution in Florida. I’m also glad to know that the Superintendent of the Miami-Dade School District has declared that Miami-Dade kindergarteners WILL NOT take the SEVEN end of course exams mandated in Florida.
Cheers to Florida! OK Texas, what are you afraid of?
Could you please change your username? I have been that name for more than a year.
Please change your username: you obviously capitalized the one that I have been using, to pretend to be me.
Tott,
Got your email am waiting for the other person to reply.
Duane
Both of you email me at dswacker@centurytel.net with TOTT as a reference and I will get you in contact with each other so you two texan totts can settle this dispute.
Reblogged this on Jade Southwick and commented:
Ridiculous! Those kids probably cannot even read!
Sanity is coming back, thanks to Diane!
Finally, Florida is doing something worthwhile in the education arena we all should be proud of. Now, all states and school boards, please follow Lee County ASAP!
May Lee County be the first of many.
This county is about 2 hours south of me and I couldn’t be more proud of the the school board of Lee County, FL.
I have no doubt there will be swift and ugly pushback from the state — remember how our commissioner responded to the pleas to end the testing madness of a mother of a child who had just died by calling her a “political operative” with an “agenda”. She is nothing if not a disciple of the JEB! Bush educational grifting syndicate.
But I also believe that other districts will be inspired to speak out and take a stand as well. Miami Dade County has already indicated that they will resist the state’s mandate to test Kindergarten students to oblivion. May many more counties follow suit!
The message here, for me, is that parents, teachers, students, and citizens are finally starting to realize that they don’t have to follow the lead of the NEA, the AFT, the PTA, etc. and kowtow to the edubullies every whim. They can push back and say “No!”
Once that genie is out of the bottle no amount of Gates/Broad/Walton money will be able to put it back in the bottle. Empowerment has a way of spreading like a wildfire once it catches.
Hurrah! Bravo! The vote heard ’round the educational world!
Sorry — to a mother whose child had just died.
And was asking the state to halt testing of chronically ill children.
I’ll get this comment right eventually, LOL.
Nice to hear you hopeful again. 🙂
I’m overcome … The School Board majority listened to the people. My heart goes out to Lori Jenkins. You may cut off her mic but not her message.