Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Monty Neill: Building Effective Campaigns for Testing Reform - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Monty Neill: Building Effective Campaigns for Testing Reform - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:


Monty Neill: Building Effective Campaigns for Testing Reform

Guest post by Monty Neill.
Part three of a three part series. Read part one here and part two here.
It will take public education, incessant pressure, and massive public resistance to win reforms to our current damaging test policies. We need to define clear, widely supported goals. And we need to offer a compelling vision of effective alternatives to high-stakes testing.

In this post, I'll dig into some actions and tactics reformers can use. This is not a comprehensive list but some ideas to provoke more thinking about how to build winning campaigns.
Right now, resistance is growing but is far from mass. The most critical work to be done is to further educate, then organize and mobilize, parents, students, teachers and others in or close to schools.
School boards, parent and other groups can sponsor and publicize community forums to discuss testing and its consequences. Use these to network and organize, as well as inform. A school board hearing can be a great