Why Have Some Civil Rights Groups Flipped on Standardized Testing?
By Ken Derstine @ Defend Public Education!
In 1947, as a student at Morehouse College, an eighteen-year old Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an article for the student newspaper The Maroon Tiger. In the article, The Purpose of Education, he explained his vision of what education should be. He said education should not be about equipping students “with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses”. He continued, education must also be about more than training for a career, stating,
“Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
On October 28, 2014, eleven civil rights groups sent a letter to President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan urging them to drop the test based K-12 ‘accountability’ system. In it they state,
“While the need for accountability is almost universally agreed upon, there have been concerns raised about overly punitive accountability systems that do not take into account the resources, geography, student population, and needs of specific schools. In particular, the No Child Left Behind law has not accomplished its intended goals of substantially expanding educational equity or significantly improving educational outcomes. Racial achievement and opportunity gaps remain large, and many struggling school systems have made little progress under rules that emphasize testing without investing. We must shift towards accountability strategies that promote equity and strengthen, rather than weaken, schools in our communities, so that they can better serve students and accelerate student success.”
The letter goes on to list eight recommendations – none of which call for high stakes testing.
The organizations signing the letter were:
Advancement Project
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Opportunity to Learn (OTL) Campaign
National Urban League (NUL)
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF)
National Council on Educating Black Children (NCEBC)
National Indian Education Association (NIEA)
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
On May 5, 2015, twelve civil rights organizations, including some of those listed above issued a press release opposingSchools Matter: Why Have Some Civil Rights Groups Flipped on Standardized Testing?: