A group of activist parents have turned the tide against high-stakes testing in Texas. They organized, informed themselves, informed others, and button-holed their state legislators about the overuse and misuse of testing in Texas’s public schools. Because of their activities and their persistence, they persuaded the legislators to reduce the number of tests needed to graduate. They are continuing their campaign by exposing the cost and continued overuse of standardized testing.
The group is called TAMSA, or Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment, but admirers often call them “Moms Against Drunk Testing.”
They created a powerpoint to explain their concerns.
The powerpoint can be seen here. Watch it and consider doing the same thing in your state. If we organize and mobilize like TAMSA, we can turn around legislatures across the nation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
In a developed nation, with divisive budget cuts in education, Administrators, Teachers, Parents and Students of pubic schools are now pawns of corporate imperialism.
Historically, the majority of schoolteachers are women. Women employed in an unrecognized profession, caring for the future of our world. The same low paid scapegoats for societies ills are often housekeepers with the added responsibility of raising children, unpaid slaves.
In a punitive age of information, abuse is rampant. Now data is a weapon to convict and oppress. Yet, the greatest cause of failure is economic injustice, poverty. The true “TEST” is one of humanity.
Dr. Noble
LMN1@nyu.edu
Title: In defense of EDUCATION.
Impressive research done by Texans that want to bring sanity to the conversation of education. It was interesting to note that Texas has paid Pearson almost a billion and half in the last five years. What a waste of valuable tax dollars!
“Defies Measuement” from Peter Greene at Curmudgucation:
Well worth watching and sharing
YAY!!!
They have an excellent FB page where parents can report how schools bully parents and students if they opt out. The people on that page get sage advice and to coin a movie title, the won’t back down.
I just saw this on our district’s website here in Las Vegas, NV. I’m just curious, does anyone know if we have any sort of opt out movement here? My kids are older, so I’m not active in this as a parent. We don’t have any high stakes attached to the testing yet for high school; we have two more years before they figure out how to set pass scores for high school graduation.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Superintendent’s Mailbag – Opting out of the SBAC tests
Each week, the Clark County School District (CCSD) responds to some of the emails it receives from parents and district employees. This week, the district addresses an inquiry about the new SBAC testing.
A parent asked, “Is there an opt-out form to refuse SBAC testing for my child? If not, why not?”
In response to your inquiry, parents are not allowed to opt their child out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium – commonly referred to as SBAC – testing. The reason for this is that Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) provide no opt-out provisions for either testing or data systems. Furthermore, Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Dale Erquiaga has stated that federal and state laws leave no room for him to establish such a procedure.
As a principal and teacher in the great state of Texas, this is encouraging news. Education reform is always ongoing, but it has to start somewhere.
The link is a great resource summarizing all the latest research on the negatives of high risk testing.
http://welsteacher.com/2015/03/25/high-stakes-testing-its-broke-yet-we-keep-doing-it/