In recent weeks, as Congress debated different issues in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a dozen or more of the national civil rights organizations issued statements supporting annual testing and opposing opting out of the tests.
But some city and state locals disagree with their national representatives. In Seattle, the NAACP local took issue with the pro-testing statement and issued its own strongly critical statement about the damage done by standardized testing. The Seattle chapter opposes high-stakes testing and supports opting out.
In Texas, the largest group affiliated with LULAC, the Latino organization, opposed the national organization’s stance.
The national League of United Latin American Citizens supports high-stakes testing, but their Texas chapter does not.
“LULAC began in Texas, and Texas LULAC has consistently been against high-stakes testing,” says University of Texas professor Angela Valenzuela. “The national organizations do not at all reflect the studied opinion of LULAC in our state.”
Valenzuela is a former education committee chair for the group’s Texas chapter and was also part of the Latino-led resistance to standardized testing in the 1990s, when the state first began denying high school diplomas to students for failing state tests. That policy prompted a lawsuit from Dr. Hector P. Garcia’s American GI Forum on behalf of poor students of color almost 20 years before affluent Anglo parents rallied state lawmakers to their cause.
Valenzuela’s own children opted out of tests in the early 2000s, and she knows of other Latino students who avoided the tests out of protest, without a large movement behind them, and graduated anyway. But challenging schools and facing threats from officials is a lot to ask of parents who may be poor or don’t speak English.
Anecdotally, opt-out activists say their growing movement is getting less white, but it will always be easier for affluent parents to take part.
[Ruth] Kravetz, who helped organize this year’s opt-out drive in Houston, says black or Latino parents account for about 70 percent of those she knows opted out this year. It’s “crazy talk,” she says, to call the testing in Houston’s schools today a civil right; she expects next year’s opt-out effort will draw even more working-class parents as more people realize it’s their best chance at change.
In June, Community Voices for Public Education joined dozens of civil rights and education groups in a letter highlighting the broad local support for opting out. “High-stakes standardized tests, rather than reducing the opportunity gap, have been used to rank, sort, label, and punish Black and Latino students, and recent immigrants to this country,” they wrote.
“Had you talked to me three years ago, I would’ve said there’s no way that opting out is something that can make things better. I would say we have to change minds and change laws. But at this point, it looks like they’re going to be over-testing our children until all our schools are closed,” Kravetz says. “You can’t operate like testing people is going to make them not be poor.”
As more Civil Rights groups take a stand against high stakes testing, it should become harder for our legislators to continue to ignore them. When Ibwas lobbying on Capitol Hill with the BATS this weekend, Lawmakers repeated this false narrative that all civil rights groups want standardized testing. And when we challenged them on it, they backed down immediately. They know that there is no civil rights consensus on the issue but they’re pretending like there is one. As activists, we must continue to spread the truth so that the voices of so many of our black and brown brothers and sisters are not silenced. I wrote about it on my blog here: https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/we-shall-overcome-our-lack-of-standardized-tests/.
I am LULAC member and strongly oppose high stake testing
In Missouri a lower court rules Smarter Balanced testing illegal/unconstitutional.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/legal-courts/2015/07/28/common-core-battle-in-show-me-state
To Stevenmsinger:
Thank you for the link. Your blog’s written is beautifully crystal clear.
It is heart-aching to acknowledge that all SOCIAL movements’ leadership makes or breaks its followers’ wishes because the leaders might be overwhelmed with their own power struggled gain within its organization.
There is nothing followers can reverse after democratic votes and embedded democratic regulation.
It is human perception that hurts human principle in life. It has always been the righteousness who bullies the rightfulness. It is ignorant to believe that we are born to inherit the democratic right. We should learn and be cultivated that historically, it takes a bloodshed to overcome the righteousness, as well as it is patient, toiled, sweat, and tear (frustration) to build skills and confidence to sustain the rightfulness.
I do not know when the righteousness will acknowledge that there is no general if there is no soldiers, as well as the success or failure in any battle = the well-being of any General depends on the EDUCATED and CONSCIENTIOUS soldiers.
In the same vein, the rightfulness will ONLY sustains their stance if its principle in life is honored like patience, skillful, and educated.
There would never be any SHORTCUT TO YIELD US glory and inner peace. Yes, we all must fight a GOOD, peaceful and intelligent FIGHT in order to sustain humanity = the DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS. Back2basic
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.