The Badass Teachers Association issued a strong statement registering their conscientious objection to high-stakes testing.
They write, in part,
“We know that we are in the middle of a war, fighting for our schools and our students. One of the tolls in this war is the implementation of high stakes testing. These tests are like weapons, based upon the knowledge that these tests do not accurately measure educational achievement, but are more truly a measurement of the economic characteristics of the student. Today, decisions are being made to divert funds from numerous programs and appropriate staffing levels as districts are rushing to meet technology requirements and implement test practice programs. This money could be better used to increase staffing levels to allow for better student to teacher ratios, implement new programs that increase cultural and global awareness, create services that support the needs of the whole child, and renovate existing school structures that are in desperate need of repair.
The amount of stress that our students are under has become overwhelming and our schools are becoming less able to help that. As educators it is our moral responsibility to become a shield for our children and protect them from the people that seek to manipulate their education to personally profit at their expense. We have the moral obligation to become conscientious objectors as we remember our responsibility to our students.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I challenge all the “badass” teachers to follow up and follow through with the next logical step and ACTUALLY REFUSE TO TAKE PART IN THESE EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICES.
How many will actually do that? My guess, NONE!
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I am doing it at my school. And I’m telling anyone who will listen why I am refusing to give these tests.
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That is what they want: an excuse to fire teachers who object to their policies. If you refuse to give the test in my state, that is insubordination and you can not only lose your job, but also your teaching license. Once you are gone, a voice against the testing madness has been effectively silenced. Some people feel they are ready and able to do that and I applaud their courage but we can’t expect all teachers to step out alone at their schools and assume all the risk. We need support from parents. When teachers have united with parents in a boycott of tests, it has worked (Garfield High in Seattle, Saucedo Elementary in Chicago) and teachers were not fired in the process. We need our associations to defend our right to boycott as well. We need a movement. There is strength in numbers. What are YOU doing to build and strengthen that movement? Or are you here to block it and tear it down?
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Duane, it’s the classic individual vs. flock dilemma where a hundred sheep can be terrorized by three wolves because no one wants to be the first to die, even if they know the flock will eventually overrun them.
You are wrong though, there are scores of first movers already who refused last year’s tests:
Over a dozen in Brooklyn:
http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/05/01/risking-disciplinary-action-international-teachers-refuse-to-administer-eval-linked-test/#.VIUkDfTF_yA
Three in Manhattan:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/04/teachers-refuse-to-administer-standardized-tests/
19 in Seattle:
http://www.alternet.org/activism/teacher-rebellion-refusal-administer-standardized-testing-spreads-washington
3 in Miami-Dade:
http://unitedoptout.com/2014/10/30/miami-dade-florida-teacher-refuses-to-administer-mdcps-writing-test/ http://unitedoptout.com/2014/10/06/broward-county-florida-teacher-i-refuse-to-administer-the-test/comment-page-1/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/11/kindergarten-teacher-there-is-a-good-possibility-i-will-be-fired-but/
One in Colorado:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/23/colorado-teacher-i-refuse-to-administer-the-parcc-common-core-test-to-my-students/
2 in Tulsa:
http://unitedoptout.com/2014/11/17/first-grade-teachers-at-skelly-elementary-tulsa-ok-we-refuse-to-administer-the-map-and-student-surveys/
“Dozens” – a whole staff in Chicago (with parent support):
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Little-Village-Teachers-Refuse-to-Administer-ISAT-247199871.html
I would not be surprised if these ranks grew significantly by testing time this year, in light of the Long Island lawsuit, the surging parent numbers and the critical mass of evidence building. It remains to be seen whether there will be coordination by a union, but AFT and others have said they will support the refuseniks. The BATs are also not asking members to do this as of yet, which I understand as a teacher in an unpredictable political landscape in NY.
But I am refusing testing this year on my kids as a parent, and as for my students, many already “refuse” the tests in a own way, filling bubbles in randomly because the test is too far above their functioning level and they have nothing but bad connotations with the testing.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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Someone obviously put some thought and a great deal of planning into the most effective way to implement “reform” so that it could not be easily derailed (far more thought than they put into the actual content)
The reformers have known from early on that the standardized tests were the key to implementing their program — and also the Achilles Heel.
Tying teacher evaluations (used for tenure and firing) to test results is not coincidental. It’s a steel-heeled boot for Achilles.
“Achille’s VAM Boot”
VAM’s a steel-heeled boot
To guard against an arrow
From teachers who won’t root
For testing straight and narrow
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The true Achilles Heel, the one chink in their armor, the one weakness that scares them the most, is the one aspect they cannot control: a parent’s love for their children and their innate determination to protect them from harm.
The parent opt out movement can (and will) bring this down.
The other factor they fear is litigation, which i am surprised is taking so long.
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Good points. I think of opposition and resistance as a three legged stool: parents taking care of their kids and opting out when possible; teachers and local unions resisting via acts of conscience and other direct political action; litigation by any party that has standing to bring a law suit . I do not include either the central NEA or AFT. They have demonstrated that they have been coopted and ‘tools’ of the ‘deformers’, Educators must organize locally, connect to and communicate with other locals and begin to demand necessary changes in state and in the national offices.
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This is just an incredible, powerful statement of conscience and action. Can you imagine the force and effect if this type of moral resistance spreads? Combine this action with parents opting out of standardized testing. You will have an unstoppable movement for large scale change. We need less talk and more direct action and resistance. As a retired educator the BATS action makes me feel proud to be an educator.
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When I write “less talk”, I really mean that the pedagogical arguments have been made, the battle lines drawn and further attempts to alter the positions of the ‘deformers’ is no more than whistling in the wind. For them, ideology and financial gain trumps pedagogy.
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this is an organization whose job is going to “bat” for the unions, though the grievance is valid, the real problem is the pedagogy which supports testing and its publishers, which the unions ignore.
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Conscientious objection implies a sanction, or price to be paid, by taking this stance. Will there be an act of civil disobedience by a virtual organization?
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To Joseph:
What does an act of civil disobedience means when legal system is bought by power of money?
Union is corrupted. DOE imposes changes without following proper procedure. There are money trail from business tycoons who intentionally divert PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND into their own private school systems.
Where is justice?
To Duane Swacker:
It is sad true words/challenge from you. I would rather to risk my life in the shark’s mouth by escape by a frail wooden boat NOT ONCE BUT TWICE to have my own freedom of live, work and play as I please.
Life is not worth to live and to be an educator if we succumb to the power of money. The truth is all of upper and middle management can take over any business which tycoons have. These upper and middle management people are parents and have children in school.
Everything happens for a reason. The weak moans and suffers whereas the smart and strong will systematically fight back to control their own fates. Hopefully, BadAss organization can set the best example of the smart and strong system of educators in order to be a compass to steer the ship of American Public education to the shore of freedom to learn, to teach and to create for humanity. Back2basic
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I agree with this approach and have called it education satyagraha (truth-force) after Gandhi. And, yes, I work in a district (Seattle) where we can put our principles into action. Here’s my article on the subject:
http://ludwig-richter.blogspot.com/2014/08/non-cooperation-with-corporate.html
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Best,
Maydena Dongmei Li ( Lee)
>
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Since I was the first major conscientious objector to high-stakes testing after we published the odious CASE tests in the January 1999 Substance, I’m glad to know that a large group of teachers and others are now going to begin to organize for justice for me and Substance. After all, we were sued for a million dollars, pilloried in the Chicago newspapers (the only news organization that got it accurately was the Wall Street Journal in its front page story on May 25, 2001), and I was fired from my teaching job (28 years) by the Chicago Board of Education and Paul G. Vallas.We should discuss how to begin this campaign, since the attack on us began 15 years ago.
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To George N. Schmidt:
I hope that you are well and live without fear. In any battle for being conscientious, we need to accept the loss of material, but we are proud to sustain the humanity in our heart and mind.
There is tremendously DIFFERENCE between live WITH and WITHOUT humanity. Whoever live without humanity, always LIVE IN FEAR, whereas whoever live with humanity, always live in loving and caring environment.
Please DO NOT misunderstand between compassion and gullible. I will never have compassion for IRRESPONSIBLE human beings who always create TROUBLE to all conscientious people. We, educators, unite to exchange ideas and to take affirmative action in sustaining the true goal in AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION that is free for all citizens young and old, poor and rich, able and disable. Back2basic
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Which books or exercises our children utilize while we do opt outs and boycotts depends on who is doing what at which age. “Captain Underpants…” is possible for certain ages, and less likely for others. (Sam once wrote to Dav Pilkey, who wrote back; very nice guy).
One of the problems that arose when the huge tussle began over my publication of the odious CASE tests in 1999 was over who would stand up and who wouldn’t. It turns out that a lot of people talk big and then disappear when the shooting starts, the chips are down or (_______________ fill in your all American cliche here). The thing I’ll never accept is how many re-create their narrative later, from the safety and security of their own realities.
We are against home schooling. It is a cop out.
It’s also a privilege that most working class and poor people can’t afford…
Sharon and I have opted out our two sons from the tests since Sam entered kindergarten (he’s now finishing eighth grade; Josh is in fourth grade). I’ll never forget the first day we had made it clear that Sam wouldn’t take that year’s BIG TEST (let’s remind ourselves that in Chicago, as in most other places, the BIG TEST changes every couple of years; the goal of the ruling class is to have something that ranks and sorts, so each time we catch up with the fraud on the last one, they simply bring on a new one).
So, Sam was in first or second grade, and we sent him to school as usual with books to read while he boycotted the test. At the time, he was in to “Calvin and Hobbes”; we offered one and he actually got two “Calvin and Hobbes” books out of us, given the big deal of it all.
So…
I was waiting for him to come home at day’s end. He came in the house, his father (who had already been blacklisted and purged by CPS, as in Paul Vallas, years earlier…) waiting but trying to act as if nothing had happened that day. So, like most kids, Sam dropped his back pack (even then they were loaded down; today it’s even worse…), left the usual trail between the door and the kitchen, grabbed whatever snack he was getting that day, and returned to the living room to saddle up for some computer simulation he was doing back then.
No comment other than a “Hi…” And I’m sitting there wondering how it had gone while pretending to read that day’s New York Times.
Finally I said, “Sam. How did it go?”
Again, the stall. “How did what go?” innocently he asked.
“The TEST. What HAPPENED?…”
“Oh. Dad, the best place in the world to be is the Main Office at the school. You hear and learn everything!” (details provided).
Because they school didn’t know what to do with their lone CO that day, they just had him take his “Calvin and Hobbes” and sit in the main office on the bench usually reserved for the BAD KIDS. But all the clerks and office people were “nice” and Sam didn’t get to read much of his “Calvin and Hobbes” because the day was much too interesting, and they also used him for the usual errands.
“I had a GREAT DAY,” he told me.
The only disappointing thing was that the rest of the parents, many of whom were our friends, just wouldn’t talk about test resistance. One of them, a high ranking CPS administrator (who never taught, by the way) was in a panic about getting “into trouble” if her kid was seen as a test “trouble maker.” Over the years, a few others joined Sam. But for every new test resister we added, we had to listen to a half dozen whinings from people who wanted to “explain” why they couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t do what we were doing.
In a way it was very sad, but not the first time in my experience in direct action in matters of conscience that such was the reality. Once a movement is “winning,” you learn — later — that everyone was really on your side all along. But, to take one example from a number I was personally involved with, that really wasn’t the case when the shit was hitting the fans. During the 1968 Democratic Convention protests, for example, I was on the streets every day and night I wasn’t in jail. There were times, including that famous “whole world is watching” afternoon and night, when I could just about count the people who were on “our side” of the police (later Army) lines in front of the Conrad Hilton.
Years later, from the safety of their own narratives (and “memes”) I kept hearing from people who talked about being there, when I knew they were lying and weren’t there then. Oh, some of them were in Chicago, safely watching what had happened to us downtown on TVs here and there. But they definitely were NOT with us when the reality was real.
And such I guess it always has been and always will be…
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I am a parent who will be opting my kids out of state tests when the oldest hits third grade next year. Our school has a history of 100% participation, so I need some advice about spreading my message to other parents. Thanks.
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Stand across the street from parent pick up line and hand out flyers. You can get a picket board and change the message weekly. Put Diane’s blog address on the flyers………….and watch the magic begin.
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simply simple and brilliant suggestions: begin at the the beginning.
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To Mamajj:
Here is some most update links you should read:
https://www.facebook.com/TNBATs @Lucianna_Sanson
https://www.facebook.com/mommabears4edu @MommaBears4edu
https://www.facebook.com/TNExcellence @TNExcellence
because
We must protect our freedom.
We must protect our children.
We must protect them at all costs.
for:
Our public schools are the last strongholds of our democracy.
Please put yourself in the children’s shoes. Would you want to subject to long hours testing somethings that you are not taught? How smart or stupid do you feel at the young age psychologically after failing many different tests in one year?
If you have time at home besides working full time and house chores, spend reading short classic stories, science fiction, all natural resources…and then ask your children to write or to narrate a sentence, or short paragraph to capture what they understand. (My child still vividly recalled all stories we have read together in his bed time when he was 4 to 8 about dinosaurs, ninjas in his choice of books…)
This will strengthen their writing and expressing skills. For math, repetition in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division from simple 1 or 2 quantity to maximum 3, 4, and 5 number for your children age at 4 to 8, as long as they can visualize and count from their fingers and toes.
Home school takes lots of discipline in promoting fun of learning. It is treasure to learn along with children. Have fun-filled time with your children. Back2basic
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I appreciate all your comments! I am also on the Principal’s advisory board so I am working from the inside too 🙂
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