Discover the reasons why U.S. parents are refusing to have their children take high stakes tests that are used to fire teachers and close public schools. What isn’t mentioned is the fact that in China, the government helps schools and teachers that are not performing well. China does not call those schools failures and use that as an excuse to close its public schools and fire its teachers so corporations can move in to abuse and profit off our children.
Two researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University, surveyed parents who opted their children out of state tests and confirmed what leaders of the test refusal movement have long asserted. Parents don’t opt out because they are controlled by unions. They don’t opt out because, as Arne Duncan once said, they are fearful that their child is not as smart as they thought.
“Teachers College unveiled the findings of Who Opts Out and Why?—the first national, independent survey of the “opt-out” movement—which reveals that supporters oppose the use of test scores to evaluate teachers and believe that high-stakes tests force teachers to “teach to the test” rather than employ strategies that promote deeper learning. The new survey also reports concern among supporters about the growing role of corporations and privatization of schools.
“For activists, the concerns are about more than the tests,” said Oren Pizmony-Levy, TC Assistant Professor of International and…
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 
ciedie aech
August 14, 2016 at 10:26
Even when the top-down control of a test-score “meritocracy” produces the opposite effect of that it proposes (fairness in social status), it is very difficult to create this understanding for those looking to find a way out of the barrio. It’s a little like the concept behind our warped modern-day American Dream where becoming a billionaire feels not only possible but has become the very definition of “successful”….at the expense of so many kept completely out of the economic game.
Lloyd Lofthouse
August 14, 2016 at 13:58
I see the publicly funded, private sector, autocratic, often fraudulent and inferior corporate charter schools as a lottery where parents think their child will have a better chance without realizing that like a lottery most of them will end up losing.
The corporate charters, in effect, lie to the parents with deceptive ads and promises that their child will be college and career ready by going to their school when the opposite is often true. This is a false promise just like anyone who is told that if they buy a lottery ticket they will win and be rich.
To end this, parents who have been lied to should join together in a national class action court case and fight these charters for deceptive advertising in several states at the same time.
ciedie aech
August 14, 2016 at 16:40
Ah, what an idea that we might imagine one of those class-action lawsuit advertisements which repeat and repeat on TV soliciting plaintiffs for cases against corporations/companies like Johnson and Johnson or misc. Big Pharma turn into a nation-wide collective lawsuit against the MASSIVE, years-long abuses brought by NCLB and ESSA.
Lloyd Lofthouse
August 15, 2016 at 07:18
Teachers need their own Erin Brockovitch
http://www.brockovich.com/
And a lawyer like Sheri Lederman’s husband.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Long-Island-teacher-fights-back-against-N-Y-6441287.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/10/a-master-teacher-went-to-court-to-challenge-her-low-evaluation-what-her-win-means-for-her-profession/
ciedie aech
August 15, 2016 at 10:44
YES.
ciedie aech
August 15, 2016 at 10:55
A MOST important factor to analyze: this test-score school reform game concentrates our poorest students into tighter and tighter perimeters; students who NEED and depend upon the role modeling of middle-class kids now often never have contact with anyone but the poorest of the poor.