Friday, March 22, 2013

Ed Notes Online: Change the Stakes Open Letter to Walcott

Ed Notes Online: Change the Stakes Open Letter to Walcott:


Change the Stakes Open Letter to Walcott

Change the Stakes – an organization of parents and educators committed to replacing such tests with more meaningful forms of assessment – urges you to publicly pledge that scores from this year’s state English Language Arts (ELA) and math tests will not be used to penalize students, teachers or schools. The upcoming testing cycle represents an unprecedented grand experiment: the exams, and the standards on which they are based, are new and untested.  --- Letter to Walcott from CTS
----how excited I was to hear that NYC parents are mobilizing to take action against the testing-madness.... we don't want classrooms or schools to be "data-driven," we want them to be child-driven, learning-driven and data-informed. Good luck and let us know in Chicago how we can be supportive.....  
In cahoots, Bill (Ayers)
When people ask where is GEM at now I respond there are 2 branches: one is involved with MORE and the other has morphed into Change the Stakes, which is a true parent/educator/statistician (Fred Smith) grassroots partnership organization here in NYC, including elementary through college teachers and even principals. CTS works with other testing groups like Parent Voices and Time Out From Testing (TOFT), all of which were involved in organizing the great Pearson pineapple protest last May. Look for more action especially around the opt-out