Grassroots Movement Against High-Stakes Testing Grows
As high-stakes testing proliferates, the controversy surrounding the practice continues to grow. This past spring, a small but significant effort to organize those who oppose high-stakes tests took a giant leap forward when a national resolution protesting their use was put up online.
What started out as a local effort by a coalition of parents, educators, businesses, and civic leaders in New York who are calling for a review of the Regents exams and other state-initiated standardized tests has caught fire throughout the country.
The group, calling themselves Time Out From Testing, first posted the National Resolution on High -Stakes Testing last April. Since then more than 300 organizations and 8,000 individuals have endorsed the call to reduce testing mandates under No Child Left Behind, and to develop “a system based on multiple forms of assessment, which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools.”
National Support
Among organizations that support the resolution are the National Education Association, National Association for Bilingual Education, the NAACP-Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the National Opportunity To Learn Campaign. The National PTA encourages locals to sign on maintaining that the resolution is in line with PTA policy.
Prior to the resolution, the primary form of protest open to parents was opting out of high-stakes testing for their child. While effective on an individual level, this wider effort is expected to generate media attention along with further protests from other school districts, administrators, and board members beset by the costly and time-consuming testing mandates.
To add your voice to the movement sign the resolution at http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/.