Just whose rights do these civil rights groups think they are protecting?
A dozen civil rights groups this week issued a statement contending that parents opting their children out of high-stakes standardized tests are harming at-risk students. That sparked a response from the Network for Public Education, saying that high-stakes standardized tests are hurting these young people, not the opt-out movement. You can read both statements here.
Here’s a different look at all of this, by Wayne Au, an associate professor in the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington Bothell, and an editor for the social justice teaching magazine Rethinking Schools. Most recently, with Joseph J. Ferarre, he co-edited the book, Mapping Corporate Education Reform: Power and Policy Networks in the Neoliberal State. His research interests include critical analyses of high-stakes testing, critical educational theory and practice, curriculum studies, and multicultural education.
By Wayne Au
On May 5, 2015, a group of civil rights organizations released a statement in opposition to the growing movement to opt out of the current wave of high-stakes, standardized testing. This testing lies at the very heart of current education reform efforts because it provides the fuel that the current education reform machine relies upon: data. Without the numerical data produced by the tests, there is no way to make simplistic comparisons, there is no justification for the corporate entry into public schools, there is no way to shape education along the logics of a competitive marketplace.
Because it challenges the validity of the tests and the data, the opt-out movement strikes at the heart of the reform movement. I feel this sharply here in my home city of Seattle as powerful men including U.S. Secretary ofEducation Arne Duncan, Washington state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn, and Seattle Schools Superintendent Larry Nylandthreaten local test resisters with punishments. Opting out scares those in power because it undermines the education policies being done to — not by — our communities, particularly communities of color. Indeed, many of us have taken great pains to highlight the racially disparate impact of corporate education reforms, especially high-stakes standardized testing, specifically on communities of color.
Which is why I was disappointed to see a statement from several mainstream civil rights organizations opposing the opt-out movement, supposedly on the grounds of civil rights and equality. Most of us would agree that there is rampant educational inequality in our public school system (as there is in the United States in general), but there is clearly disagreement on the root causes of that inequality and the ways to address it. Many of us education activists (and yes, this includes folks of color) challenge the fundamental assumption that high-stakes, standardized testing provides “…fair, unbiased, and accurate data…” as the civil rights organizations assert in their statement, and we challenge this assumption on historical grounds, empirical grounds,pedagogical grounds, political-ideological grounds, cultural grounds, andtechnical grounds, amongst others.
Therein lies the difference: The civil rights organizations who made their statement against opting out see high-stakes, standardized testing as a solution to educational inequality, while others, like myself, see ample evidence that high-stakes, standardized testing is exasperating educational Just whose rights do these civil rights groups think they are protecting? - The Washington Post: