Ken and others,
Last year, it seemed we, in Wisconsin, bucked the national trend. There was
a degree of oppossition to the new tests so the idea never made it past the
legislature. To my surprise when the budget was signed it included all
those high stake tests that previously had oppossition. The night before
the budget was signed into law a secret session occurred in which the tests
were approved without public scrutiny.
I remember initially when the tests failed to get legislature approval the
Governor made a comment about our schools going down hill and that we would
end up like California. The Governor decided that having state tests was
not a question of "if" but "how". He has the most liberal line iten veto in
the country so he can literally rewrite legislation line by line (and he
does). For example,if a piece of legislation stated that portfolios, class
work, grades, and high stakes tests would be used to determine if someone
graduated, he could cross out everything but high stakes tests and sign it
into law.
On the dawn of the 4th grade three week testing frenzy.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Goodman [mailto:kgoodman@u.arizona.edu]
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2000 4:58 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: two sides of education
Actually on the issue of the high stakes tests, its the kids and their
parents who leading the way with boycotts and demonstrations.
Nationally, Fair Test has been exerting a lot of effort- but with little
recent success.
Ken Goodman
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