Seattlegeachers will hold a press conference today to announce their plans to extend and expand their test boycott.
MEDIA ADVISORY
Seattle Teachers Respond to Spring MAP Test:
Boycott Grows Bigger
New Message: Don’t Renew MAP Contract
Press Conference Called for Monday, April 29th, at 4:30 pm at the Garfield Community Center
(Corner of 23rd and Cherry)
All boycotting schools—including new additions—will have a representative at the press conference to answer questions.
For questions contact Garfield teacher Jesse Hagopian
Hagopian.jesse@gmail.com / 206-962-1685
http://www.scrapthemap.wordpress.com/
Teachers are again refusing to subject their students this particularly pernicious test. The Spring “testing window” is now open and schools across the district are slated for a third time this year to take students out of classrooms to spend hours in front of computers taking a test that the Seattle School District itself has said “has problems” and is invalid (expected point gains on scores are smaller than the margin of error). “The test has not been improved since winter,” said Mallory Clarke, a Garfield reading teacher. “It wasn’t ethical to give the test then, and the test hasn’t gotten any more ethical since.”
The contract for the MAP test with the NWEA (the maker of the MAP test) expires this spring. The Seattle School District would have to buy the MAP test again this year if they wanted to administer the test next year. The teachers are calling for Superintendent Banda to decline to renew the MAP contract with NWEA. Garfield LA teacher Kit McCormick said, “It’s impossible to sit by and watch the District pay the huge price tag for this poorly constructed test, knowing how many crucial line items we had to give up to run our school. We can’t afford supplies for our classrooms or needed support programs for the students, so why are we spending money on this scandalous boondoggle?”
Not only are the same half dozen schools that boycotted previously still committed to this courageous stand, but more schools have joined the MAP test boycott and will be announcing their intention to refuse to administer the spring MAP test at the press conference. Garfield history teacher Jesse Hagopian said, “Our movement for quality assessment is becoming an ‘educators’ spring’ uprising. New elementary and high schools in Seattle are joining the movement here in Seattle. Hundreds of teachers from around the state just voted overwhelming to support the continuing MAP test boycott at the Washington Education Association’s end of April Representative Assembly. In Chicago hundreds of students walked out of school to protest their own high stakes test. In New York thousands of parents have opted their children out of a standardized test—and this is all just in the last week.”
The District responded to the winter boycott with a Task Force on Assessment. While teachers had hopes that this group would help fix the broken assessment system in Seattle Schools, it appears to be a relatively powerless group undemocratically run and undemocratically chosen with only 5 classroom teachers on a committee of 30. Many fear the group is designed to rubber stamp district decisions.
In response, teachers from around Seattle formed their own committee, the Teacher Work Group on Assessment. The Teacher Work Group on Assessment has been meeting to discuss research and send recommendations to the district Task Force. The final report of that group will be presented at the press conference. From the report, “Teachers recoil at the false notions that standardized tests are legitimate measures of student academic and thinking skill, that standardized tests take precedent over instructional time, that standardized tests effectively assess teacher quality—in short, that standardized testing based education is effective education. It is not, and we as teachers stand firm in our refusal to embrace anything that takes our focus away from effective teaching.”
On May 1st—May Day, international workers day—not only will support continue from the thousands of teachers and hundreds of education organizations nationally who have supported this boycott in the past, but teachers and organizations from other countries will participate in an International Day of Solidarity with the Seattle MAP Test Boycott. Details and names of international groups will be available at the press conference.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We will be giving the MAP soon even though the district won’t be renewing it for next year. The kids despise this test. And we just found out we will be doing a “Field Test” in English… never mind any tests or finals that are actually what we do (did?) in the last 10 weeks of school. I don’t even know how to tell my students about all this.
Are you and the students getting paid to do the “field test”? If not you should because otherwise you aren’t being paid for work that you will be doing.
If you agree with opting out of these ridiculous standardized tests, please help.
I am compiling statistics for my book TEACHING IN 2013. I AM A PUBLISHED AUTHOR OF 4 BOOKS, INCLUDING “THE QUIXOTIC TEACHER.” PLEASE HELP AND…PLEASE TAKE THIS POLL:
DO YOU AGREE WITH STANDARDIZED TESTING FOR CHILDREN?
https://apps.facebook.com/polldaddy-polls/?view=poll&id=7053790
Will you pay me for my time in taking this poll and will you pay me for any information taken without my permission?
My school is giving the MAP AND the MSP this very month, as per, district demand.
“It wasn’t ethical to give the test then, and the test hasn’t gotten any more ethical since.”
AND IT NEVER WILL BE as all standardized tests suffer the same errors in construction, giving and disseminating of the results that render the whole process invalid and therefore UNETHICAL. See Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 to learn why this is the case.
Dear Dr. Ravitch,
I am a newly-resigned, 15-year veteran in the Boston Public Schools.
I had to get out; I spent years obsessing over the internet trying to make sense of what was happening & why I was continuing to let it. All my research did was leave me feeling more confused, & thinking I could spend forever trying to make sense of nonsense.
On 4/1 I regisned.
On 4/5 I was testifying before the Joint Committee on Education in support of some MCAS bills. I hope my testimony was powerful.
On 5/7 I plan to do the same; this time it’ll be on charter schools.
I plan to testify at as many hearings as possible until it makes a difference.
I’ve reached out to the directors at Citizens for Public Schools (Massachusetts’s advocacy group) & am very much looking forward to working with them in any capacity that they need.
I’ve already grown impatient with how time-consuming the whole legislative process is; what’s happening within our schools is a CRISIS, & each passing day brings new evidence supporting that claim. There’s NO QUESTION high-stakes tests are BAD; teaching to the test is BAD; businessmen making decisions about non-business related matters, especially when children are involved, are BAD. & we hope someday legislation makes things GOOD again, but the legislative process isn’t exactly efficient, so in the meantime…what? We just continue along as expected, regardless of the damage?
I resigned from the BPS because I couldn’t justify doing what I was doing each day by complying with malevolent mandates and stupid sanctions while knowing the harm it would cause. This was NOT what I was put on this earth to be doing; this was HARMING children, including my OWN!
I could never explain to myself WHY I was continuing to do it; all I knew was that as long as i was in the BPS, I’d be doing it. Refusing to comply all by myself wouldn’t be effective, & I longed to sleep at night again, so I left. I am the single mother to a 6, 7, & 8 year old boy, & I left my only source of income behind when I did. THAT’S how bad things are.
Today my priority is doing whatever i can to help undo this corporate takeover and get the schools back on track. But again, the legislative process is a slow one, & the harm’s been already overwhelming & substantial enough. I believe drastic measures are in order, at this point. & I believe it has to come from within the schools…the teachers are the only real ones who have any say in what is going on in the classrooms, so why aren’t they uniting to do something about it? In MA, at least, it’s starting to already feel too late…
There is not a teacher in America who SUPPORTS this corporate reform. Individually, we all vehemently oppose it; our blood boils because of it; we know it’s toxic. Collectively, however, we DO support it. We support it each & every day, no matter how it contradicts our entire pedagogy. No matter how much it sucks to live life like that…going against the core of who we are, we obey the rules. WHY? WHY ARE WE CONTINUING TO BE EVER-SO-OBEDIENT?
I spent over 2 years desperately seeking that answer to that very question; only to become more & more unable to – & that’s why i resigned.
& one of the many intense emotions that came with making that decision was Anger. Anger towards the teachers for making this happen. Anger towards myself as a teacher for making it happen.
I believe if the teachers come together & have some conversation, change will happen. The faster we do that, & the more teachers we reach out to include, the faster the change will come.
Someone just needs to gather up all the teachers now. I would; I feel like I’ve been only thinking about doing so all month. I just don’t know how. So I decided to reach out here, thinking you could help.
I may live in fantasyland to some degree, & I’ve realized this past month how shamefully little I knew of the policy & procedure & logistics of “this” side of Ed Reform – the external side. & I don’t know realistically what the teachers could even do or how it’d work, but I feel like a conversation needs to happen. & I also think the best way to start the conversation would be to ask every teacher to answer the following question:
“Why do you continue to comply with malevolent mandates & stupid sanctions that you KNOW only serve to HARM your students, your schools, your VOCATIONS?”
& for those who, like me on 4/1, respond with, “I don’t know”, the follow-up question is, then,
“Why do you continue to do it, then?”
It was asking that of myself that made me realize, I can’t.
& the only way I knew how to stop was to walk away.
But what happens when each teacher refuses to comply anymore IN SOLIDARITY with one another?
The answer, it seems, is obvious.
So why haven’t we done that yet?
How bad does it really have to get before we do???
At the beginning of March, I came across this quote from Rethinking Schools,
“At the most basic level, national corporate school reform
agenda REQUIRES teacher’s compliance. Regardless of
individual motives, when a group of teachers COLLECTIVELY
& publicly says NO, that represents a fundamental challenge
to those pursuing that elite agenda.”
The logic behind that assertion is indisputable. That statement is obvious.
So what are we waiting for??
You’re amazing. I wish I had the courage to do the same. Unfortunately, that is exactly what they are counting on. They realize this is our livelihood and we will not act for fear of not having a job. I will look for courage like you. Let’s see if I can find it.
“Many fear the group is designed to rubber stamp district decisions.”
I am on the Seattle superintendent’s task force. No matter what the recommendations are and whether or not they are adopted, I can say that there is nothing about how the process is conducted that makes me feel I am being encouraged to rubber-stamp district decisions.
In respect, Linda please help me understand why the superintendent refuses to advocate for the 80 high minority and poverty students in your district that are at high risk of being denied their HS diploma? The only obstacle keeping them from their diploma is one state math exam. It is disturbing to me to hear how these students at risk are being portrayed as lazy and unwilling to give the effort to have passed the state math standard. This is a prime example of our most vulnerable students being victims of high stakes testing. Nobody in Olympia will accept responsibility that for those being denied their diploma, it is the state forcing these kids into dropout. We are defining students through an “Ideology” that has no evidence based research to support denying a student to move forward in life with their diploma. We are denying these students to find the career path of their choosing and become contributing members of our society. I’m trying to help a parent whose daughter has a 3.8 GPA, volunteers as a mentor for an elementary student, has earned college credit through running start, but she has struggled in math all of her life. This young lady has an incredible talent as a writer and has been accepted into a four year university. Her high school is denying her a diploma. This young lady is vomiting, has gone into a horrible depression, was rushed to the EMR with a 104 temperature…..which the Dr diagnosed as brought on by stress. I don’t think I am describing an unmotivated or disconnected student that would match what is being projected by the cowardly who won’t stand up for the rights of theses students. The university wants this young lady and they see the injustice of our state policy. But it doesn’t take her pain away from being crushed and devalued. No recognition for her accomplishments in other content areas. You have 80 students at risk, our state has 3,700 at risk. Please help me to understand your district’s position. If you say that we are lowering standards to help these kids out, the same kids would have graduated if they were in the class of 2012. The class of 2012 scored the highest SAT scores in the nation. If we aren’t rubber stamping policy, wouldn’t we be out in front protecting the rights of these students? Who has failed who?
This task force isn’t looking at the state tests, only the MAP, which is not used as an exit exam.
I’m not putting this on you, but I have to wonder why your valuable time is being used to look at the MAP which has no punitive consequences on the students that chose to refuse to take the exam. We have a much bigger problem with the 3,700 kids that are at horrible risk to being denied heir HS diploma. I am at awe that he is ignoring the 80 students in his district that their lives are close to being shattered and he wants to look t the MAP. I guess it gives him an excuse to stay away from the most critical problem we are facing. Very disturbing, a waste of your time and energy looking at a state test that means nothing compared to the lives that are going to be abandoned and denied their diploma. He is just going to sit and do nothing, content to see these kids forced into dropout, denied the opportunity to enroll in our community colleges, taken from our workforce and placing a huge tax bill on the backs of the taxpayers. Take care, Jim