Solidarity with Garfield. by Kipp Dawson
by Timothy D. Slekar
As parents working to end the horrifying excesses of standardized testing in our children’s schools, we express our strongest possible solidarity with the teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle. Your resistance is an inspiration and a tremendous validation of our work. As parents, we will defend any teacher’s right to protect students from these harmful tests.
For years, parents have watched as the testing machine has grown like a cancer. Misuse and overuse of standardized tests is strangling our children’s schools. We want our children’s education to inspire creativity, curiosity and independent thinking. That’s what their teachers want too. Instead, policy makers are doing all they can to reduce teachers to being test-administering drill sergeants. We salute the Garfield High teachers for modeling for their students what it is to think