Opt Out Reminder: It’s Still a Powerful Act of Civil Disobedience.
Guest Post: Anne Burn Thomas, Ph.D. SUNY Cortland.
Why I’m opting out of the state assessments.
In the past few months, the idea of resisting as protest to a range of policies and ideas has populated headlines, Twitter streams, and even in-person conversations. One of the ways that I’m resisting destructive changes to a vital but much maligned institution is by “opting out” my children from the New York State ELA and Mathematics Assessments. I choose to resist the ranking and sorting of children through impersonal instruments that perpetuate an unfair and unequal system.
My decision is based on the best interests of all children in New York State, not just my own. By opting out, I am not protesting against the schools my children attend, the work that their teachers do to provide a rich and rigorous education, or even the impulse by the government to collect data on student performance. For me, this decision is not informed by concerns about my children’s performance or the impulse to protect them from the rigors of a developmentally inappropriate test; it goes beyond the personal to the political and to my understanding of the ways that acceptance of this assessment and accountability system are negatively impacting schools and teachers across New York.
As a professor in teacher education at SUNY Cortland, I study schools, teachers, and equity, and I know that teachers are the best source of information about children’s learning and growth over time. I’m protesting against the NYS assessments because the pressure to Opt Out Reminder: It's Still a Powerful Act of Civil Disobedience. | BustED Pencils:
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BustED Pencils Trending News: DeVos Dump.
