[Xmca-l] Re: Opt-out movement

[Peter Farruggio]

Yes, it's still unsafe for teachers to boycott the tests in most places, although the local teachers union in Seattle coordinated such an action last year. But the opt out movement is led by parents, certainly with teachers supporting it in the background, and it has blossomed this testing season. Certain administrators have been using bullying tactics, including outright violations of parents' rights; but the resistance to incessant testing will continue to grow as parents organize and coordinate their actions nationwide. Education is and always has been political, and the politics have become harsher with the neoliberal push to privatize schools and everything else.

Teachers can and must play a role in defending democratic education, and that means helping to stop the testing madness. The best thing they can do at this point is to find ways to educate parents about what is at stake and how to exercise their parental rights. If that means conducting clandestine informational meetings in church basements, so be it.

See below



http://unitedoptout.com/

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=5528&section=Article

http://fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out


Pete Farruggio, PhD
Associate Professor, Bilingual Education
University of Texas Pan American



-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Thompson
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2015 11:04 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Opt-out movement

This is related to the other thread since one of my initial responses to the comments there was: As teachers, why not just stop paying attention to all the testing and do the stuff that we know really matters?

Here is one answer for why not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08ntklteK_c&annotation_id=54833ffb-0000-2b41-a517-001a11c17db2&feature=iv&src_vid=JM1ddULfdhU

It is a video about a school in Chicago where 75% of the students opted out of taking a standardized test and the fallout that followed.

Scary.

-greg

--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson