Melissa (Mel) Katz is preparing to become an elementary school teacher at The College of New Jersey. She has her own blog, The Education Activist: From Student to Teacher, and this is how she describes herself: I have been involved in education seriously beginning in my senior year of high school and especially my freshman year in college. I am a student activist, always researching, speaking in Trenton and at local board meetings, and traveling the state of New Jersey to meet different people and attend different education related events. Education is my life, my passion, and I couldn’t imagine spending every day anywhere else but in a classroom.
Mel recently attended a school board meeting in her hometown of South Brunswick and listened to the superintendent defend PARCC testing. In this post, she takes apart his claims and refutes them. If PARCC is so great, she asks, why have the number of states participating in it dropped from 24 (plus D.C.) to half that number? The superintendent defends Pearson and insists that PARCC testing will not drive instruction. She responds with logic and clarity.
Is there something in the water in New Jersey that encourages smart young women who are preparing to be career teachers–like Mel Katz and Stephanie Rivera–to speak up fearlessly about their chosen profession?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wouldn’t drink any water in New Jersey! 🙂 I interviewed Mel last month for my own blog, and she is awesome. https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/an-interview-with-the-magnificent-melissa-katz-the-start-of-an-educational-revolution-delawarebats-badassteachersa-ed_in_de-rceaprez-kilroysdelaware-apl_jax-ecpaige-nannyfat-roof_o-netd/ We need some Mels over in Delaware! She is going to do great things!
Last year, the state of Utah passed a law allowing parents to opt their children out of the testing. The link to the law is here: http://le.utah.gov/~2014/bills/static/SB0122.html
Here is the relevant quote: “Upon the written request of a student’s parent or guardian, an LEA shall excuse the student from taking a test that is administered statewide or the National Assessment of Educational Progress.”
Melissa Katz, Stephanie Riviera, Melissa Tomlinson, Marie Corfield, Awo Okaikor Aryee-Price, Darcie Cimarusti, Mark Weber, Deborah Cornavaca, Bruce Baker, Bob Braun, Richard Aregood, Rosi Efthim, David Sciarra – NJ folks all in it to win it.
I am so proud of Melissa! I have the awesome privilege of working with her on these issues in our town. I am much older than her (30+ years — let’s leave it at that ! LOL) and she has the courage, guts and, our favorite word, GRIT than someone 3 times her age. Look out Diane – one day she may be sitting next to you!
Lisa,
Melissa can take my place when she is ready!
I love Melissa but no one can ever replace you! 😉 Happy New Year Dr. R. and may 2015 bring great things to us all!
Maybe the real question is: How much money did Pearson contribute to Gov. Christie, the guy that never went to public school or chose not to send his own children there?
So frustrating when I hear tests will not or do not drive instruction. Absurd! We don’t even pretend not to teach to the test anymore. It’s not a debate whether we do or do not. We all do because we have to if we want our students to do well on tests. It’s as simple as that. As long as we continue the testing madness, which is destroying education – harmful to students and driving teachers and
administrators crazy – teachers will teach to the test.
At a testing ethics “training” this fall, we were told it was unethical to NOT teach to the test.
“At a testing ethics “training””
There’s an oxymoron in there somewhere.
I was supposed to administer the ACT this spring (as all the teachers are expected to do) and I told them that unless I could read and review the test before giving it, it is against my ethics to administer a test without knowing exactly what is on it. They are finding someone else.
A reformer will tell you it’s midnight when it is plainly noon. Do you want 5 nickels or a quarter? They are reallllly good at doublespeak, rhetoric, and snappy phraseology. They have a bumper sticker for what ails today’s teachers and tomorrows graduates, so long as there is an ROI in it for themselves and their cronies.
Whats good for YOUR kids, is too good for theirs – that’s why their kids go to private schools,
“A reformer will tell you it’s midnight when it is plainly noon”
Well it is!!
(on the other side of the globe that is).
It is very encouraging that new teachers are “getting it,” and refuse to quietly fade into the throng. Kudos to all these teachers, both new and seasoned, who stand up for the education of children, and are in this profession because of commitment and not as a stepping stone.
Isn’t Pearson headquartered in NJ? Maybe proximity makes people irritable? I always thought NJ had a decent pub edu system ( I went to & graduated HS there). But Chris Christy & the corporatizers have had their way with the financial nest egg that is public edu funding. It’s not just in the water it’s in the birthplace of social justice & union organizing (or at least NY & NJ)!!!
Pearson has a huge complex at the intersection of Rte #17 and Lake Road in Upper Saddle River, NJ, near the NY and NJ border.