The New Conscientious Test Objectors at International High School in NYC!

A couple of days ago a New York area code popped up on my cell phone. I didn’t recognize the number—but when a teacher on the other end of line said that she was organizing a testing boycott at her high school, I certainly recognized the situation. Emily Giles, a teacher at International High School …

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Arne Duncan has labeled my school—and every school in Washington State—a failure. Cue the revolt.

The ultimate absurdity of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has been visited upon my home state of Washington. One of the many outlandish propositions of  NCLB was that 100 percent of students at all schools in the United States would be fully proficient in reading and math, as registered by student test scores, …

Continue reading Arne Duncan has labeled my school—and every school in Washington State—a failure. Cue the revolt.

“An Act of Conscience”: Teachers at New York’s Earth School boycott Common Core Tests!

Last spring I was invited to the Earth School in the East Village of New York City to speak at a forum about the lessons of the MAP test boycott that I helped to organize in Seattle. Earth School 4th and 5th grade teacher Jia Lee, along with insurgent teacher union activists in MORE and …

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Old School/New School: Mail a letter or sign a petition to curb high-stakes testing

The Education Spring is blooming as people across the country are building resistance to the abuses of standardized, high-stakes testing.  There are two ways for you to get involved in this movement today: 1) Go New School Sign the petition to the Obama administration, "Direct the Department of Education & Congress to Remove Annual Standardized …

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These Seattle Teachers Boycotted Standardized Testing—and Sparked a Nationwide Movement

[This article was written for Education Uprising, the Spring 2014 issue of YES! Magazine.  To support many of the MAP test boycott leaders who are now running for office in their union, visit http://socialequalityeducators.org/ ] Parents, students, and teachers all over the country have joined the revolt to liberate our kids from a test-obsessed education system. …

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