Ed Notes Online: Sea Change: Opt-Out Catching Fire in Communities of Color?

Ed Notes Online: Sea Change: Opt-Out Catching Fire in Communities of Color?:

Sea Change: Opt-Out Catching Fire in Communities of Color?

Of the 60 plus people in the audience, at least 70 percent were people of color, with the majority being African American, and over half the group was under 40 years of age.

Mark Naison reports on The BK Nation Forum on Testing and the Opt Out Movement, held at Judson Memorial Church in lower Manhattan Wed. night.

 [It} represented a powerful challenge to education policy makers who claim testing is a civil rights measure and that the opt out movement is strictly a white middle class initative.

Although the panel was excellent, including people like Jamaal Bowman, Aixa Rodriguez, Jesse Turner and Shamma Dee, the audience's commentary and participation made the evening special.
.....Mark Naison, BK Nation Forum Defuses Stereotypes About Opt Out as a "White Movement"

If opt-out catches on in NYC by growing beyond the relatively small white middle class and into black communities panic will range throughout the nation.

I learned first hand about the potential when PTA President Shamma Dee contacted Change the Stakes for a speaker to come to her school of mostly students of color to speak to a PTA meeting about opt-out. I was drafted and was so impressed not only with Shamma, who since then has become a leading voice for opt out, but with the large turnout.

I reported on this issue - that high stakes tests have an even greater negative impact on the black community - 

High stakes testing impact on the black community - so-called civil rights test supporters - ignore at your peril

I believe the opt out movement will begin to catch on in middle class black communities just as it did in middle class white communities. I am not sure if it will then spread to the poorer communities this year where there is often less parent Ed Notes Online: Sea Change: Opt-Out Catching Fire in Communities of Color?: