Drill and Kill’ Testing Scrutinized at 2013 Education Nation Summit
By Cindy Long
The fourth annual Education Nation Summit is underway in New York, and one of the stars of the show is NEA member and high school teacher Jesse Hagopian. The theme for this year’s summit is “What it Takes” for the nation to ensure students are successfully prepared for college, career and beyond, and Hagopian emphatically argued that what it takes is an end to “drill and kill” testing.“The test and punish model hasn’t worked,” he said during the summit’s Teacher Town hall on Sunday, October 6. He reminded the audience that the most elite private schools have boycotted testing because they recognize it’s not effective and they want “real learning for kids.” Much of the testing continues in our public schools, he said, because of the huge profits test companies are making.
Jesse Hagopian teaches history and is the Black Student Union adviser at Garfield High School, the site of the boycott of the MAP standardized test known as “Scrap the Map.” He was invited by NBC News to speak about his experience with the boycott and his views on standardized tests at the Teacher Town Hall, which was broadcast from The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman building in midtown Manhattan.
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