Our Kids Today: The Greatest Generation?
The members of the Providence Student Union are the most creative and best informed critics of high-stakes testing in the nation. They can run rings around the public officials in Rhode Island when they explain the damage done by high-stakes testing. They know that a large percentage of students will be denied a high school diploma because they could not pass a standardized test called NECAP.
I had the good fortune to meet some of the leaders of the PSU when I recently spoke at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. The students drove from Providence, some 45 minutes away. When I spoke, I was introduced by Claudierre McKay, who had distinguished himself as a participant in the student Town Hall on Education Nation. When young McKay introduced me, he presaged everything I was about to say. The students are the consumers of the mandates, why not listen to them?
What I love about the PSU, aside from its determination and style, is that it has mastered the art of political theater. PSU held a zombie march in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education last year to express its contempt for the NECAP as a requirement for graduation.
When officials didn't listen, the PSU found 60 accomplished professionals to take the test, composed of released items from the actual NECAP exam. Sixty percent of the