The successful boycott of the MAP test in Seattle began one year ago today. 

I am forever in the debt of all of you who wrote letters, sent flowers, ordered us pizza,  signed our petition, called the superintendent with the demand, “Suspend the test not the teachers,” sent us pictures of your community with “Scrap the MAP” signs, and demonstrated your solidarity in numerous other ways.  Your support kept my colleagues’ job safe after being threatened with a ten day suspension without pay for refusing to administer the MAP test.  And as a result of the growing movement, the district announced at the end of the last school year that the MAP test would no longer be required at the high school level.

As we enter the winter testing season, I am proud to tell you, Garfield High School will not be administering the MAP test this year!

Please take a moment to read and share my essay that ran on Common Dreams today, celebrating the MAP test boycott and analyzing the national movement against high stakes standardized tests it helped to ignite.

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Published on Friday, January 10, 2014 by Common Dreams

One year ago today, my colleagues and I at Seattle’s Garfield High School set off on a bold journey: we called a press to announce our unanimous vote to refuse to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test.  That announcement led to what became known as the “MAP test boycott” and the boycott quickly spread to several other schools in Seattle, including to teachers at Orca K-8, Chief Sealth High School, Ballard High School, Center School, and Thornton Creek Elementary—while solidarity with the boycott spread around the nation and then around the world.

[Read the rest of the article at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/10-0%5D