I have been invited to Washington, D.C. to testify before the Congressional Black Caucus of the United States Congress about how the high-stakes standardized testing craze is eroding public education, fueling the school-to-prison-pipeline, and being used to label schools as failures and close them down--particularly schools that serve African American students. In addition to my …
Continue reading Mr. Hagopian Goes To Washington–To testify to the U.S. Congress on testing!
As a new school year begins, let me be the first to wish you parents, students, and teachers a year full of intellectual curiosity, problem solving, empowerment, and struggle to make education about more than the ability to eliminate wrong answer choices and shade the box corresponding to the single best answer choice. As a …
Continue reading More Parents Opting Kids Out Of Standardized Tests
Garfield reading teacher Mallory Clarke, Garfield PTSA president Phil Sherburne, and myself are all featured in Seattle Magazine's August issue in their examination of the MAP test boycott victory. As Phil said, “When we identify the kids who are not performing, we need to figure out the optimum way to use our resources to help …
Continue reading Seattle Magazine: “How Garfield High Defeated the MAP Test”
Want to close the so-called "achievement gap"? This gap--better described as the opportunity gap--would quickly narrow if standards were added about analyzing the continuity of the American judicial system in excluding Black jurors and acquitting people who murder African Americans--from Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin and beyond. When you teach students about the major issues …
Continue reading Teach Trayvon: What’s not in the Common Core & how to close the education gap
Now that the school year is over, I have had some time to reflect on the meaning of the Seattle MAP test boycott victory. My essay about the lessons of our struggle for quality assessment was published in Good magazine: ------------------- Seattle's Garfield High School, home of the bulldogs, is used to winning. Our jazz …
I AM AN EDUCATOR 
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