In January last year, we reported about teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle taking a stand and refusing to administer the MAP test. Now, a year later, another high school in Seattle is taking a stand against the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium assessments.
Yesterday afternoon the Nathan Hale Senate (functions as Building Leadership Team) voted nearly unanimously not to administer the SBAC tests to 11th graders this year.
1. Not required for graduation2. Colleges will not use them this year3. Since NCLB requires all students pass the tests by 2014, and since few if any schools will be able to do that, all schools will therefore be considered failing by that standard. There is thus no reason to participate in erroneous and misapplied self-labeling.4. It is neither valid nor reliable nor equitable assessment. We will use classroom based assessments to guide next instructional steps.5. Cut scores of the SBAC reflect poor assessment strategy and will produce invalid and unreliable outcomes.6. Student made this point: “Why waste time taking a test that is meaningless and that most of us will fail?”7. The SBAC will tie up computer lab time for weeks.8. The SBAC will take up time students need to work on classroom curriculum.
This resolution does not mean NHHS will refuse the 10th grade SBAC assessments, sorry to say.But the way the school went about the decision is a powerful model for other schools, and means that anything is still possible in that regard.
DPearson says
if H.R.5 passes in Congress – and a state approves RTTT or NCLB, now renamed Student Success Act, to accept program funds (our taxpayer dollars btw) then the state has WAIVED states and parents rights and authorities, in control of education to do anything contrary to provisions of the Act. States will simply be reminded of extortion they agreed to, when they approved their states’ budget containing any education funds https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5/text Section 6561 (way down at the bottom.