A successful rebellion against Common Core

Jesse Hagopian, Socialist Worker - [Seattle's] Garfield High School became a leader in the movement for authentic assessment in 2013 when the staff voted unanimously to refuse to administer the Measures of Academic Progress) test, and were joined by the parents and students in a mass opt out campaign. After the tested subject teachers were threatened with a ten-day suspension without pay for refusing to administer the MAP, the superintendent finally gave in at the end of the school year and announced that the test would no longer be mandatory at the high school level.

Many took inspiration from the MAP test boycott, and during the ensuing months an "education spring" was born as students, parents, and teacher's refused high-stakes testing across the country. This ongoing education spring has now produced the largest uprising against high-stakes testing in U.S. history, highlighted by the 60,000 students who were opted out in New York State alone.

Many teachers at Garfield knew that as a faculty that helped ignite the struggle for authentic assessment, it was important to send a clear message against the new SBA testing that in many ways is worse that the MAP test. Then Seattle's Nathan Hale High School Senate--the governing body of the school comprised of educators, administrators, parents, and students--announced that the school was going to refuse to administer the SBA test.

This was a huge inspiration for our staff, but then the Superintendent of the Seattle Schools issued public statement that threatened to suspend teachers who gave notice that they would refuse to administer a standardized tests--and terminate the teaching licenses of any teacher who refused to administer a test without giving notice...

Then an amazing thing happened. Parents began organizing a mass opt out campaign... I am excited to announce that the parent opt out campaign at Garfield High School has resulted in 221 students already opting out of the eleventh grade SBA with two weeks to go before the test is supposed to be administered!

In fact, so many students have opted out of the Common Core tests that the decision whether to administer the test or not was taken away from Garfield educators; with so many opt outs, the majority [of] students in every class wouldn't be taking the exam and therefore it is against the testing rules to have them in the computer lab while the test is being administered.

What this means is that the teachers are no longer being asked to administer the exam and instead the school administration will have to pull the individual students out who will be taking the test and take them to the computer lab.

The fact that we have scored this resounding victory against Common Core testing, before the mass flunking of our students with an invalid test, is a wonderful thing. And it isn't only Garfield and Nathan Hale--hundreds of students have opted out of the SBA test at Ingraham High School, and Roosevelt High School.