An Appeal from Deborah Meier

An Important Message from the First Public School Teacher to Win a MacArthur 'Genius' Award and FairTest Board Member, Deborah Meier

November 9, 2005

Dear Friends,

I just wrote a big check to help keep FairTest and its important assessment reform work alive. Unless others make similar donations, vital programs will have to be cut back significantly in 2006. https://secure.entango.com/servlet/donate/MnrXjT8MQqk

At times like this, when the data is pouring in about how much we need other ways of talking about, defining and assessing education, the one and only organization devoted to the topic could collapse. FairTest is led by a few devoted and low-paid professionals who have been at this for years. In addition to myself, the Board is made up of a crew of incredible folks -- several other educators and civil rights advocates.

The test publishers have millions to spend, and the various well-funded foundations are all at the moment busy supporting the kind of reforms that rest on test scores as the only permitted definition of success. We are hoping for a few grants to be renewed or funded -- but the decisions may come too late! Literally.

Whatever your views might be on the value of standardized tests, the absence of a healthy and skeptical voice on the subject will be a terrible blow to us all out there in the field.

FairTest is IT, folks.

Please dig deep and make a rapid end-of-year contribution. It's tax-deductible; it will mean a lot. https://secure.entango.com/servlet/donate/MnrXjT8MQqk

Send a note to your friends as well--the more the merrier. Don't put this off.

Donate right now!

You can donate directly at https://secure.entango.com/servlet/donate/MnrXjT8MQqk;

or go to http://www/fairtest.org and click on the donate now button;

or send a check to FairTest, 342 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Thanks,

Deborah Meier
FairTest Board Member

- To see about FairTest's mission and its Board members and staff, go to http://www.fairtest.org/Who%20We%20Are.html

- To see Deborah Meier's article in the Summer 2005 FairTest Examiner, go to http://www.fairtest.org/examarts/Summer%2005/Support_FairTest.html

Monty Neill, Ed.D.
Co-Executive Director
FairTest
342 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-864-4810 fax 617-497-2224
monty@fairtest.org
http://www.fairtest.org