One of the most hopeful signs at Occupy the DOE 2.0 in DC this weekend were the number of students from all over the U.S. who showed up. Students are beginning to stand up for their rights to a quality education and calling out the corporate criminals who continue to suck the life and soul out of public education while fattening their bottom lines and stockholder profits. That's what market driven education looks like, but that is not what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like.
Meanwhile, parents in New Jersey are opting their children out of the tests because they are also fed up.
A handful of New Jersey families will join an increasingly vocal national group boycotting state standardized tests this |spring, in the belief that they hinder true learning, fail to measure students’ skills, waste time and squander money.
This fledgling revolt comes at a time when education officials in New Jersey and elsewhere are relying more heavily on test scores to evaluate teachers, principals and schools, with the strong backing of President Obama and the vehement opposition of powerful teachers unions.
Jean McTavish, a Ridgewood mother and principal of an alternative high school in New York, said her 10-year-old son, Zak, used to stress out simply seeing the owl in the logo of the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge test, or NJ ASK. Zak and his 13-year-old brother, Ian, won’t be taking the tests this May.
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