I just read a kid's book that I really enjoyed, titled The Report Card, by Andrew Clements. It's about Nora, a 5th grade girl who's a genius, but has been hiding it from her family and everyone else. Some of the book is quite unrealistic, but I loved the campaign she and her 'average' friend Stephen initiate at school to get all the kids to refuse to participate in testing. I think the book cops out at the end, but it raises some great issues.
The Facts
While I was trying to find the information I wanted for my previous post, I stumbled on a great article about teachers refusing to administer standardized tests.Yeay for British teachers!!
Teachers refuse to give standardized tests to kids
By Valerie Strauss
Maybe there is a lesson in this for American teachers.
Saying that they are sick and tired of forcing kids to take standardized tests, thousands of teachers in England are refusing to administer high-stakes standardized tests in reading writing, spelling and math this week.
British newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, are reporting that as many as half of the estimated 600,000 primary school students due to sit for tests will not take them because their teachers have decided to take a stand against them.
Read the rest on the Washington Post site. (Valerie Strauss writes regularly on issues I care about. I've added her column to my Google Reader.)
Posts
I wonder if individual parents won't join the boycott by refusing to send their kids to be tested. It's interesting that the teacher associations did not call for that to happen.
ReplyDelete