A New Resistance to Standardized Tests
A fresh national movement to oppose the standardized testing of young students is afoot. The Bartleby Project aims to invalidate state test results by getting parents and their children to simply opt out of testing; if enough did so, that would make schools' yearly progress ratings meaningless. (more)
A fresh national movement to oppose the standardized testing of young students is afoot. The Bartleby Project aims to invalidate state test results by getting parents and their children to simply opt out of testing; if enough did so, that would make schools’ yearly progress ratings meaningless.
The campaign takes its name from the eponymous hero of Herman Melville’s short tale of even-tempered protest against soul-crushing, bureaucratic drudgery, “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Upon being asked to help examine copies of a newly prepared legal document, Bartleby mildly informs his employer: “I would prefer not to.” –ARK
Your support is crucial…Education Week Teacher:
Which means empowering parents to make bold decisions, beginning with exercising their right to pull their kids out of destructive and unnecessary standardized testing. According to Dr. Yong Zhao, it would take a 6% opt-out rate to make state standardized test results invalid; when less than 95% of any student population takes a test, the data is incomplete and not useable, under NCLB. It also means the school’s AYP rating is threatened.
Think about that, for just a minute. Schools want all kids to take tests, because not taking the test could cause negative publicity for the district. [It] Doesn’t have anything to do with the only valid purpose for testing children–to tell us what kids know, to inform further instruction. It’s all about preserving a school’s public standing, in the shame/blame game created by a reviled federal law.
… There are now national movements to encourage and support parents who opt their children out of standardized testing:
“The Bartleby Project begins by inviting 60,000,000 American students, one by one, to peacefully refuse to take standardized tests or to participate in any preparation for these tests; it asks them to act because adults chained to institutions and corporations are unable to; because these tests pervert education, are disgracefully inaccurate, impose brutal stresses without reason, and actively encourage a class system which is poisoning the future of the nation.”
With an uncertain future and a new administration casting doubt on press freedoms, the danger is clear: The truth is at risk.
Now is the time to give. Your tax-deductible support allows us to dig deeper, delivering fearless investigative reporting and analysis that exposes what’s really happening — without compromise.
Stand with our courageous journalists. Donate today to protect a free press, uphold democracy and unearth untold stories.
We the people can’t survive with a little bit of evil anymore.
The Obama administration has relieved nearly 26 states of the program’s controversial requirement to make all students competent in reading and math by 2014. Ten more states are in line to receive the waivers.
Countering the efforts of educational reformers -- including President Obama and his Race to the Top crew -- to blame teachers for student failures, researchers are finding that the growing gap between the affluent and the poor is the real villain.The harm done by an economic system increasingly tilted toward the rich is much more than a pocketbook issue.
Skirting good ethics and the law of the land, White House Cabinet officials are touring the nation on behalf of President Obama's campaign fundraising machine, which has already taken in more cash than all the Republican presidential candidates combined and nearly three times as much as the president's richest competitor, Mitt Romney. (more)
The Obama administration on Monday gave states a break from the ailing No Child Left Behind law, allowing them to file waivers that grant flexibility in meeting science and math proficiency standards.
With all the evil people in the world, why are public schoolteachers being villainized? And how did they attract such powerful enemies?
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.