Students in Colorado took action against pointless testing.
97% of the seniors at Cherry Creek High School stayed home to boycott the new state tests. Of 877 seniors, only 24 showed up.
The test results won’t be available until next fall, long after the seniors have graduated. The students know that the tests are meaningless.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great. Best news from Colorado in a lon, long time.
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Common Sense In Action. Right On, Seniors!
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Here’s a link to an article on seniors who didn’t take the test in Boulder Valley School District.
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-schools/ci_26930047/hundreds-boulder-valley-seniors-opt-out-statewide-tests
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“Reformers”, often people that think they know better than the “average citizen”, should look at the actions of these high school students and think to themselves, “Perhaps, I should listen and take seriously the opinions of these ‘average citizens’ that I purport to help.”
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I can’t see that happening because, as you pointed out, they think they know better than the average citizen. These kids and what they did will be dismissed by the deformers as anything but the principled action it was.
Luckily, the deformers are few. The rest of us will see it more clearly.
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The students who put together that CMASprotest video probably know more about the issue than most of those mandating the test.
And Bill Gates must be having chest pains right about now watching his grand scheme fall apart before his eyes- to say nothing of watching his billions drain down through a sink hole in the ground of his own creation.
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Good for them! There’s hope for the future. Hey, am I the only getting tired of hearing, “They risk losing accreditation,”or “They risk losing state or federal funds?” I say screw the State and screw the Feds, after all they’ve been screwing with us for years.
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“Snowballs don’t fear threats”
Snowballs don’t fear threats
Snowballs just get big
Rolling down the hill
And snapping threat like twig
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Since so much of the funding goes to the test makers and PD to pass the tests, it might be a net gain not to “buy” into the system.
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How much money did the school system lose, in worthless unused tests? The administrations, local state or federal, that demanded test results, certainly must have anticipated a boycott. They laud themselves for futuristic thinking.
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Linda: as has been shown over and over and over again, the business-minded “education reformers” are hopelessly impractical and wasteful.
What happened to all those claims about doing more with less?
Or have they reversed two words? While a real possibility, it would be rheeally bad for the rest of us if in plain English it actually means:
Doing less with more.
Perhaps it’s time for them to proclaim a new, if somewhat awkward, slogan: Waste and inefficiency is us!
😎
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Krazy TA,
Your comments are always informative. I sense a bit of the benign in this evening’s post.
Respectfully, teachers, students and taxpayers were intentionally exposed to the wasting disease that threatens the survival of our communities.
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When our children stand up for what is right we should stand with them!!!
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I think the district is only billed on the actual tests that were taken. I was told the district will not pay for tests that weren’t taken. Correct me if I am wrong.
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A technicality of accounting. Multinational corporations are not in the business of losing money.
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Hip, hip hooray!
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Go Fairview High seniors! You make me proud to live in Biukder!
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Fairview High Students.
Robert Kennedy intended the following praise for you, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression.”
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Goal reached: these students are ready to be productive members of society – they already know how to protest inanities.
And why is Colorado forcing seniors in high school to take a test whose results won’t be ready until they’ve already started college?
It looks like some state policy makers need to go back to school to become career ready. Obviously they must have failed the “common sense” test.
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Brace yourselves brave citizens, you have threatened powerful interests.
Stay strong,
“The opposite of courage is not cowardice: it is compliance.” – Hightower (I think)
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Yay, Colorado!
In solidarity,
Lisa Mitchell
Portland, Oregon
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