Twitter Storm: Call for Congressional Hearings on Abuses of High-Stakes Testing

I recently had the honor of presenting at the Network for Public Education's first national conference in Austin, Texas, which brought together many of the people who inspire me most in the struggle to defend public education. During Diane Ravitch's keynote address, she made an appeal for lawmakers to thoroughly investigate the abuses of standardized …

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Chicago teachers at Saucedo Elementary vote unanimously to boycott the Illinois Standards Achievement Test: We scrapped the MAP! You can Ice the ISAT!

A beautiful thing happened today.  Teachers at Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy voted unanimously to refuse to administer the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). Since teachers at Garfield High School—and then several other schools in Seattle—voted to boycott the MAP test last year, there has been an explosion of activism against high-stakes, standardized tests. And yet …

Continue reading Chicago teachers at Saucedo Elementary vote unanimously to boycott the Illinois Standards Achievement Test: We scrapped the MAP! You can Ice the ISAT!

TESTING RESISTANCE & REFORM SPRING: A new national coalition coordinating the uprising against standardized testing!

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 …

Continue reading TESTING RESISTANCE & REFORM SPRING: A new national coalition coordinating the uprising against standardized testing!

On the one-year anniversary the historic MAP test boycott, teachers launch campaign in the upcoming Seattle Education Association (SEA) union election.

Today, I am excited to announce that I am entering the election to run for president of my union, the Seattle Education Association.  It is truly an honor to have been nominated to run for president on the Social Equality Educator's "Respect" slate of candidates--an unparalleled team of educators in Seattle, running for officer and …

Continue reading On the one-year anniversary the historic MAP test boycott, teachers launch campaign in the upcoming Seattle Education Association (SEA) union election.

Happy New Year of Struggle Against Corporate Education Reform: MAP test boycott tops lists of most important struggles of 2013!

2013 was the best year of my life. My younger son was born--on Martin Luther King Jr.'s, birthday, no less--only two days after my colleagues at Garfield High School announced that they were going to defy corporate education reformers by refusing to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test.  Seeing my older son receive …

Continue reading Happy New Year of Struggle Against Corporate Education Reform: MAP test boycott tops lists of most important struggles of 2013!