Before he became a member of Congress, Jamaal Bowman was principal of a middle school in the Bronx. He knows what kids need: more support, not more testing. He is now vice chair of the House Education Committee. In New York, before entering Congress, he was an active member of the opt-out of testing movement. He is now spearheading an effort to roll back the Biden administration’s refusal to grant waivers to states from the mandated federal testing.
He wrote a letter to Secretary Miguel Cardona and gathered signatures from other members of Congress. What is remarkable is how few members signed his letter.
Bowman said that requiring testing this year would add stress to kids who are already traumatized and divert school administrators’ resources and attention away from reopening safely.
“We absolutely should not be doing this now in the middle of a pandemic,” he said in an interview, adding that it would be “too much of a heavy lift” for states.
“We already know where the gaps are because we’ve been testing for 20 years,” Bowman said, adding that the federal government should engage with teachers and principals to determine where resources need to be targeted as a result of the pandemic.
The letter to Cardona, shared with POLITICO, was also signed by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.) as well as Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)...
The new testing guidance was unveiled by the Education Department on Feb. 22, before Cardona was confirmed by the Senate. The guidance was signed by Ian Rosenblum, former executive director of The Education Trust-New York, who is the acting assistant Education secretary for elementary and secondary education.
“Mr. Rosenblum, with all due respect, has never been a teacher or school administrator in his life, and it’s important that our parents and educators know that these decisions are being made by people who do not have the experience to make those decisions,” Bowman said. “That’s unacceptable in and of itself.”
The resumption of testing is supported by the chairs of the House and Senate education committees, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Senator Patty Murray of Washington State. They imagine that the standardized tests will somehow promote equity and measure “learning loss.” It will do neither.
“We must do everything in our power to make up for lost learning time and address achievement gaps that have been exacerbated by the pandemic — and that starts by understanding the scope of the problem,” Scott and Murray said in a joint statement last month.
They should listen to Jamaal Bowman, who knows what he is talking about.
And they should read this article, which explains why standardized testing does not close achievement gaps and does not promote equity and will not measure “learning loss.”
Please call or write your members of Congress to register your views about the resumption of standardized testing as we are still in the pandemic, following a year of disrupted schooling, in which educational opportunity was unevenly available. If you want to know how your kids are doing, ask their teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is why you should join the Justice Democrats friends!
Yes!
Yes!
Jamaal Bowman is the real deal.
In 2015, he spoke at a hearing about the Common Core and the particular abuses caused by statewide testing programs before and after NCLB. (Having strongly endorsed CC, Gov. Cuomo set up a task force then to make recommendations that would allow him to back off of its poor implementation.)
Bowman, a Bronx principal at the time, spoke truth to power. In Washington now, Representative Bowman is doing the same.
Last year, even Betsy DeVos suspended mandated testing during the pandemic. This jumbled school year the Biden administration can’t wait to get everyone back on the testing treadmill.
I urge readers of this blog to help re-vitalize the opt-out movement. The Feds have given us an opportunity and valid reasons to oppose massive testing in 2021.
If we can stop the engine that has dominated education to its great detriment (and done nothing to close gaps or address inequities), perhaps parents, teachers and administrators–and legislators will see that self-perpetuating annual testing is a defective tunnel-vision approach to education.
We will see that public schools can survive in the absence of two years of tests. And this will open the door to introducing better ways to assess students’ achievements and talents–ones that make use of teachers’ deeper knowledge of what each child can do.
You know you are backward when you are behind — and even moving in the opposite direction from — Betsy DeVos.
When Betsy is (albeit uncharacteristically) moving in the forward direction.
Diane This is the no-brainer of the century: You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand WHY testing children who have been in a pandemic-time is NOT a good idea.
If THAT doesn’t reveal to Biden and his staff just WHO the testing is actually for, nothing will. Certainly, it’s NOT for the students. CBK
Bless you, Representative Bowman! Real leadership for a change!
I think we all know why the Biden administration has committed to testing. His donations have come from those who make money from it. Does he know how much testing has hurt education? I doubt it. I bet he is surrounded by those whose perception of American education is restricted to echo chambers filled with the narrative of America’s failing schools. The amazing thing is that the narrative is allowed in the face of its obvious falsehood (pointed out here by so many).
I have friends who are under the impression that massive election fraud exists in the American body politic. So far, this also seems a false narrative. There seem to be a lot of false narratives out there now. Indeed, half the country seems to run on false narratives. The narrative of massive failure in the American Education system are another false narrative.
But this is not new. The House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC) lived large through the 30s into my own time, promulgating the myth that certain strains of thought were damaging to the American political health. Historians of earlier days gloried in the military prowess of Nathan Bedford Forrest (a true narrative, he was a military giant of notable stature) while ignoring the obvious problems associated with his white supremacist philosophy that led the country seamlessly from Slavery to Jim Crow and economic servitude. Most of the stories that are told are like these in that one part of the story is omitted, allowing for a sort of hero-worship.
I guess narrative is the important thing. Maybe everything.
I agree with you about the false narrative. But the best way to address that, in my opinion, is to have leaders like Bowman with loud and prominent bully pulpits explaining why the false narrative is false and telling them the true narrative, based on facts.
AOC did that brilliantly with the Green New Deal. I would watch her on news program and marvel at her sharp and concise points. She never simply replied by accusing her opponents of being tools of the fossil fuel industry. She did the exact opposite — she calmly and clearly explained why what they were saying is false and what the truth is and made a cogent argument for why people’s fears were based on falsehoods and what the Green New Deal would actually do which they would support.
When that is done with public education, I think political support will grow exponentially.
“one part of the story is omitted..” Over and over and over
One part of the story (the football) is omitted over and over.
https://images.app.goo.gl/pkv1p44dDTdQ5KwD7
I would like Bowman to sit down with Dr. Cardona and ask him about standardized testing. Ever since NCLB the prevailing notion is that standardized testing provides equity. I have not read one legitimate study that can demonstrate that standardized testing provides equity. I have read several articles to the contrary. Most of what we are told about testing comes from politicians and conservative think tanks. These are special interest groups, not educators or scholars. All testing does is rank and sort students. This process has nothing to do with equity. Taking over or closing schools does not provide equity. If anything it inflicts instability and disruption upon the most vulnerable, poor students. Anyone with time should read this well written anti-testing argument by a former school superintendent. He makes a very sound argument against standardized testing.https://www.educationnext.org/pandemic-offers-opportunity-reduce-standardized-testing/
I wrote to my GOP House Rep.
“Why didn’t you sign Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s letter to reverse Biden and U.S. Ed Secretary Cardona’s edict on student testing? The Dems refuse to grant test waivers despite Covid’s once in a lifetime impact on schools and learning.
Why does a Republican want money and student time wasted on Bill Gates’ data collection ? It’s puzzling for the GOP to support Gates’ initiatives because they are the source for more tech tyrant money for Democratic politicians.
Seize the opportunity. It’s not like the GOP has lots of other issue options they can use to get votes from the grassroots since protecting the rich (those who aren’t into identity politics) is the party’s reason for being.”
“I wrote to my GOP House Rep.”
Me, too., although my rep is a Democrat.
Did your rep initiate or sign on to a house resolution honoring Rush Limbaugh like mine did?
No way!
Ha ha ha.
We have the best!!!
Let’s hope she listens. Teachers have always been second class citizens when talking about professionalism. I s’pose that stems from the overwhelming number of teachers who are and have always been women in this country. Although people might claim they appreciate the people who teach their children, it is evident in their comments that few believe teachers are professionals. That makes them easy targets for business type honchos to ride to the rescue and fix us and the system. I hope any who are brave or stupid enough to try to make a career out of teaching, especially at the K-12 level (and, yes, there is even a hierarchy of importance within K-12), can demand change effectively. I was too mired in old beliefs about women and teaching to do too much more than squeak (and, of course, be ignored) when I wasn’t being totally naive in thinking anyone who had power cared what I thought.
Forty percent of Americans cite one of their demographic identifiers as conservative religious (Catholic and evangelical), a majority of whom are women. If the women of those churches, without whom, the churches couldn’t exist, don’t exercise enough clout to get their voluntary association to treat women equally, nor to stop the church leaders from working against them, ….
The churches stand as example of what women will tolerate.
Why so few signers? Where are all the justice democrats? AOC? Bernie?
I don’t particularly like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on many issues, but it’s interesting that she is standing up for this. Public education has friends across the board in the Democratic party, not just progressives.
But the lack of signatures makes me think that the complex issues surrounding public education are not understood by most Democrats – including many of the progressive ones who say they “support public schools”.
I hope Bowman will be a champion who is able to teach other Democrats – from progressives to conservatives – who support public schools to understand exactly what the issues are. Because I suspect that many of them – including progressives – think that if they just support more money for public schools, the problem is solved.
Few signatures-
evidence of the pervasiveness of the Bill Gates machine.
Ohio’s racist politicians are all in for this year’s testing. They’re joined by those giving lip service to the left who believe the propaganda of an economic libertarian masquerading as a liberal.
In reply to SDP:
One thing is constant; Our Schools are for Sale.
Who’s ever in DC — it’s the same tale.
Don’t mind one year of the Corona.
Business as usual – DeVos or Cardona.
DeVos or Cardona
Just have a Corona
Or maybe have two
Or case, if you’re blue
Another delightful occasion of word play courtesy of Poet.