I am excited to announce that a new national coalition has formed for the purpose of encouraging an uprising against standardized testing this spring. Dubbed the “Testing Resistance and Reform Spring,” some of the most prominent national grassroots organizations in defense of public education have joined together in this effort, including FairTest, Network for Public Education, Parents Across America, Save Our Schools, and United Opt Out.

After months of organizing, we now have a website that allows anyone to upload information about their action to challenge high stakes test and punish policy, enter their zip code and find people in their area who may be interested in organizing an event, download materials to aid in their efforts, and much more.

I encourage everyone who follows this blog to help organize or participate in some action against the testing-industrial-complex this spring.  Hold a movie showing, leaflet at your school, start a petition, refuse to teach to the test, opt your child out, boycott a test.  Invite others to join your action by posting it on our new website, and be part of perhaps the largest revolt against high-stakes standardized testing in U.S. history.

Check out the details about this new initiative:

Testing Resistance & Reform Spring: Less Testing, More Learning

The U.S. can do a much better job evaluating children, teachers and schools. That’s why protests against standardized testing misuse and overuse are exploding across the nation. Testing Resistance & Reform Spring (TRRS) seeks to ensure that assessment contributes to all students having access to a high-quality education. FairTest is a founding partner. Our alliance unites around three goals:

1) Stop high-stakes use of standardized tests;

2)  Reduce the number of standardized exams, saving time and money for real learning; and

3)  Replace multiple-choice tests with performance-based assessments and evidence of learning from    students’ ongoing classwork.

We support a range of public education and mobilizing tactics, including community meetings, boycotts, opt-out campaigns, rallies, petition drives and legislation. TRRS will help activists link up, communicate and learn from one another. This will build a stronger national movement to overhaul assessment policies.

Our new, action-oriented website — https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/testing-resistance-reform-spring-less-testing-more-learning OR http://tinyurl.com/TestingReformSpring  — will provide resources for the campaign’s success.  It includes downloadable fact sheets, how-to-do-it guides, and much more. A mapping tool will make it easy for parents, students, teachers and community organizers to post and find local actions anywhere in the United States. (For your event to be visible on the map and searchable by zip code, you must use this link/page.)

We invite activists to use our site and for groups to join TRRS as Partners; for more information, see https://actionnetwork.org/groups/testing-resistance-reform-spring/files/1215/download.

TRRS fact sheets and a list of partners is at our Mission statement; see https://actionnetwork.org/groups/testing-resistance-reform-spring.

Founding Partners: