The Movement Against Standardized Testing Has Turned Into a Nationwide Revolt
The majority of Americans now oppose standardized testing as coalition of teachers, parents, and students, gains momentum.
Katherine Brezler, a educator from New York with 10 years of experience, is now one of the nation’s leading voices against standardized testing. The uprising has been dubbed the “opt-out” movement, in which students either refuse to take the test, or parents send letters to the school district informing them that they’re making the decision on behalf of their child to not participate in high-stakes, standardized testing. Brezler believes determining school funding based on test scores further disenfranchises schools in high-poverty neighborhoods.
“Your ZIP code shouldn’t determine your access to quality public education, but it does,” Brezler said.
“Poverty is the number one reason for low test scores,” Brezler continued. “The actual causality for students not achieving statistically well is poverty.”
According to the 47th annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll released this week, 64% of Americans (and 67% of public school parents) believe that there is too much emphasis on standardized testing in schools. What’s more, 55% (and 63% of public school parents) now believe that test scores shouldn’t be used to evaluate teachers, perhaps in recognition of how that can distort how teachers’ priorities in the classroom.
Brezler said the entire method of funding public schools through standardized testing is flawed as it doesn’t account for poverty. Most school funding currently comes from municipal property taxes — in which wealthier, suburban neighborhoods naturally have better-funded schools — and through standardized testing.
Even in middle-class communities, parents have felt the sting of paying for previously included expenses like bus service and cleaning supplies out of pocket, and having to fundraise for extra reading teachers and other important personnel. That’s why, despite a long-standing attempt to convince the public that “money doesn’t matter” in education, when asked about the number one problem facing their local schools, Americans of all races and political identifications overwhelmingly answered “a lack of financial support” in the survey for the tenth year in a row.
“I’ve seen an hour of testing at the end of the year turn into 540 minutes of testing for a 9 year old person. I’ve seen students for special needs have seizures or other accidents while testing,” Brezler told U.S. Uncut. “This is something I never experienced as a young person, or early on in teaching. It’s something that’s quite new to me.”
The “opt-out” movement has now attracted roughly 200,000 students across New York who have refused to participate in standardized testing. In Pennsylvania, the opt-out rate tripled in 2015. The opt-out movement is also picking up traction in Arizona. 1,000 students in New Mexico walked out of classrooms in protest of standardized testing in March.
The federal government has used as a means of allotting public school funding since George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law. Standardized testing was also coupled with public school teacher evaluations after President Obama green-lighted the Race to the Top program. Brezler said these two programs, along with the implementation of Value-Added Measures (VAMs), force teachers to choose between educating children based on their strengths and weaknesses, and teaching in preparation for a year-end test.
“It was like an ever-moving bar,” Brezler said. “They changed the rules in the middle of the game.”
After the New York assembly passed a budget in which education funding was based on a coupling of student test scores with teacher evaluations, Brezler fought back by launching a crowdfunding campaign aimed at raising awareness across the state, raising $19,000 in just ten days. Brezler organized a robocall with education advocate and New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout, targeting parents with children in public schools, to educate parents about the opt-out movement:
“This is Zephyr Teachout. I’m calling to tell you that high stakes testing is hurting our kids and you have a constitutional right to refuse them without any negative consequences to your child or financial loss to the school.”
After the robocall campaign, the percentage of students who refused to take the test went from 5 percent in the previous year, to 20 percent in 2015. Teachout said she wanted to let parents know if they wanted their students to be tested, it was The Movement Against Standardized Testing Has Turned Into a Nationwide Revolt:
