Wednesday, Feb. 6th, 2013 is the National Day of Action to support Garfield High School and the other MAP test boycotters who are facing possible 10 Day Suspensions without pay for refusing to force students to take an unfair, counterproductive and bad standardized test.
Information about the Day of Action can be found here: http://scrapthemap.wordpress. com/2013/02/02/national-day- of-action-to-support-seattle- map-test-boycott/
Share the Facebook Day of Action page here by going here: https://www.facebook.com/ events/366568146775772/
Sign the Support the Seattle Teachers Petition here:
Call, email, and write to Seattle Public Schools Superintendent José L. Banda to let him know that you support the boycott:
Superintendent José L. Banda superintendent@seattleschools.org
Office of the Superintendent (206) 252-0180
MS: 32-150
P.O. Box 34165
Seattle, WA 98124-1165
Read more about this historic boycott in Garfield teacher Jesse Hagopian’s op-ed in the Seattle Times here: http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2020158085_jessehagopianopedxml.html
And various resolutions and letters of support can be found here: http://scrapthemap.wordpress.com/solidarity-statements-2/ and http://brianpjones.tumblr.com/post/41098555088/educatorssupportghs and http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/29/seattles_teacher_uprising_high_school_faculty
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dear Mr. Banda;
As a New Jersey public school teacher for over thirty years, I am writing in support of your teachers who are boycotting the MAP test. I hope you do not punish them for their strong stand in defense of our students and public education. I hope you would respect their expertise about education and review the validity of these tests. I assume you hired some of these people and thought they were going to do a good job and do what was needed to educate the students.
It is time for the administrators and school boards and educators to take back education from these billionaires and non-education expert/reformers who are in this to make money by privatizing, creating charters and virtual schools, and developing testing, curricula and textbooks for their profit.
I hope you do the right thing and support your staff!
Sincerely,
Mary Cairns
PROUD PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER
”Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common.
Celebrate it every day!”
Just curious where you got the information that the MAP test is “unfair, counterproductive, and bad.” We used the MAP tests in the district where I taught in Wisconsin, and they were very helpful. The Educational Research Lab, NWERL, that developed the test has also developed a huge data base that teachers can use to identify what information each student already knows and what are things for them to be working on. This is very helpful for teachers to target small group or individualized instruction. Ours was not a test-driven district. We chose to begin using the MAP in order to offer a better education to each student. We didn’t require students who already knew something (multiplying fractions, identifying author’s point of view) to sit though instruction about it. Instead, they moved ahead at their own pace.